by Steven Brust
He smiled; I think the question pleased him. “If you are here as a personal friend of Her Majesty, then five. If you are here as Count Szurke, then seven. If as Baronet Taltos, then ten.”
“Thank you,” I said.
If I had the choice between trying to figure out an Issola and trying to figure out an Iorich, I think I’d take a nap.
Harnwood led me through a different route, shorter, and to a cozier room; I had the strong feeling this was a part of her living quarters, which meant I was being honored, or else that I was irritating her, or both. She was waiting. Harnwood bowed deeply to Her Majesty, less deeply to me. I bowed to Her Majesty, she nodded to me. It’s just like a dance.
She didn’t offer me a chair. I said, “Majesty, thank you for seeing me. I hadn’t realized you knew the Necromancer.”
She frowned. “How did you—” then looked down at her golden outfit. “You’ve seen Sethra recently.”
“Your Majesty’s powers of deduction are—”
“Leave it. What is this new information?”
“There is going to be an effort made to stop the investigation into the events in Tirma.”
She frowned. “What sort of attempt, and how do you know?”
I nodded. “Please accept my compliments, Majesty. Those are good questions. I recognize good questions, because I can come up with them myself.”
Her brows came together. “Are you bargaining with me, Taltos?”
“No, Majesty. I’ll answer yours in any case. I’m hoping Your Majesty’s gratitude will—”
“I get it. I’ll think about it.”
Being Empress means being able to interrupt anyone, at any time. Lady Teldra wouldn’t have approved, but I have to admit it was the first thing about the job I’d ever found attractive.
I said, “An attempt will be made on the life of Justicer Desaniek. I know by deduction, from hints I’ve gotten, and because I know how the Jhereg operates.”
She stared. “The Jhereg? They wouldn’t—”
“It will look like an attempt by a group of Easterners and Teckla; one of those outfits of political malcontents. It will be very convincing.”
She sat back and her eyes half closed. The Orb slowed down over her head, and turned purple. I’d never seen it slow down before. I wondered what it meant. After about a minute, she looked up at me. “What are your questions, Taltos?”
“Just one: Why would they do it?”
“Eh?”
“I know about their attempt to get you to pass decrees outlawing certain chemicals—”
“How do you know that?”
I answered the question she wanted answered, not what she’d asked. I said, “From the Jhereg side, Majesty, not from anyone to whom you entrusted the knowledge.”
“Very well.”
“As I said, I know about that. And I understand that Your Majesty—”
“Forget the formal speech, Taltos. I’m too tired and too irritated.”
The Orb had, indeed, turned icy blue. I bowed slightly and said, “I understand you’re trying to break out of the trap by bringing the truth out about the events in Tirma, and I admire that. But I don’t understand the other side of it. That is, how it is that if you cooperate with the Jhereg, make the decrees they want and all that—how does that take the pressure off you?”
She was quiet for a long time; the Orb gradually changing from blue to a non-descript green. “My first duty,” she said slowly, “is to keep the Empire running. If I fail in that, nothing else matters. To run the Empire, I need the cooperation of all of those I can’t coerce, and to coerce those who won’t cooperate. To do that, I need the confidence of the nobles and the princes. If I lose the confidence of the nobles, of the princes, I cannot run the Empire.”
“Sounds pretty simple. Can the Jhereg really cause the nobles and princes to lose confidence in you?”
“A week ago I thought they could. Now—” She shrugged. “Now I guess we’ll put it to the test.”
I bowed to her, backed up seven steps, and left.
13
Caltho—I understand Henish has refused to testify officially. I don’t think that will be a problem, but if we’re going to do this, we need to know what he knows. Can you speak with him informally and find out just what happened? Let him know we aren’t out to stick a knife in him, we just need to know, from his point of view, what the sequence was. In particular, try to ascertain:
1. Did the troops have reason to believe the peasants in that shack were working with the enemy?
2. Did the peasants do anything that looked like it may have been an attack, or preparation for an attack?
3. Were they questioned, and, if so, how did they respond?
4. Did the troops see any weapons or anything that looked like it could be used as a weapon?
5. Did they violate orders, and, if so, at what point did they deviate from orders or expected procedures?
Let him know that if we can get straight answers to these questions, even unofficially, I’m pretty sure we can put this thing away, whatever the answers are.
—Desaniek (not authenticated)
How do you stop an assassin?
Sounds like it’s about to be a joke, doesn’t it? But no, I was really asking myself that.
You’d think, what with me having been one for a big chunk of my life, I’d have some pretty good ideas on how to go about stopping one, but it doesn’t work that way. When I thought up a way that would have stopped me, I thought up a way to counter it.
The point is, most assassins I know work pretty much the same way: get the pattern of your target’s movements, select a spot, pick a time, make an escape plan, choose a method, then, well, you do it. If you want to stop the assassin, and you don’t know who it is, you need to do pretty much the same thing and be there first. Good luck with that.
Or else—hmmm—maybe find the assassin while he’s setting it up? Yeah, that had some possibilities.
“Well, Loiosh? Got any better ideas?”
“Your job is to find better ideas, mine is to cut holes in the ones you have, and you’ve already done that pretty well.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I wandered around the Imperial Wing until I found a refreshingly snobbish Teckla who, for a bit of silver, was willing to guide us to the office of the Imperial Justicer. Loiosh and Rocza hid inside my cloak, which I should mention isn’t terribly comfortable for any of us at the best of times, and with the added weight on my shoulders (literally) now was flat no fun at all.
I was just as glad to have a guide—I’d never have been able to find it on my own. I made a point of noting the twists, turns, and stairways, and when we got there (“Down this hall, the double doors with the iorich below the Imperial Phoenix there, you see, and the gold knobs? That one.”) I didn’t think I’d ever be able to find it again.
I dismissed the Teckla and walked into the office, which was damn near as big as the throne room, and much more tastefully appointed, gold knobs notwithstanding. A pleasant-looking gentleman with eyebrows that looked like he trimmed them sat behind a large highly polished desk and inquired as to my business, showing no signs of discomfort at being polite to me. I said, “I beg your pardon, m’lord, I’m in the wrong place.” I bowed low and humbly, as befit an Easterner, and walked out.
There was no one outside the office, so I took a good, slow look around. I was at the end of a long, wide hallway; with no other doors to the place, the insides probably wrapped around, with a bunch of internal offices, and also probably went quite a ways back beyond what I saw. There had been no windows in the room I was in.
Being at the end of the hallway like that was bad, because there was no place to hide, but good because it meant there was no other way out—unless there was a direct exit. I should have had Kiera steal the plans for the Palace, if there were any, and if I could have found a Vallista to interpret them for me. Wide hallways mean important people in the Palace, and maybe other places too. I’ll mak
e no comment on gold doorknobs; you decide.
It was marginal whether this would be a good place to find Desaniek; someone important is liable to have another entrance or two, but not likely to use it most of the time; this is because they usually want to be seen coming and going, and to check on those who work for them. Not always, but chances were good she’d be coming out this way.
At the other extreme of the hall—that is, past the stairway—were three rooms and a small, short passage ending in a door. I went and clapped at it—which hurt all through my chest and neck—and no one answered; tried the door and it was locked. I didn’t feel like being caught picking a lock in the Imperial Palace, so I didn’t.
I hate it when there’s no good place to hide; especially when I’m standing around somewhere I obviously don’t belong. Here is where an invisibility spell would have been useful, if I’d been able to cast one without removing my protections, and if casting it wouldn’t have set off every alarm in the Palace.
Yeah, well.
The ceiling provided no good place for Loiosh to hide, either.
“I beg to differ.”
“The hanging lamp? You think you can use that?”
“I’d be concealed from one direction, and in shadows from the other.”
“You know what would happen if you were spotted? A jhereg in the Palace? Someone would scream, and they’d run and get everybody and—”
“Maybe they’d just shoo me out the nearest window.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. And you won’t be able to follow her without being spotted. And whenever you leave, it’ll be problematical.”
“Rocza will do it. All she has to do is let me know when she leaves, and which direction she goes. And she can stay here until we can fetch her.”
“How do we—?”
“Oh, come on, Boss. There’s no one around. She can just fly up there.”
“You sure about this?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.”
I walked over to the place where the hall came together, opened my cloak, and she flapped up to the lamp. I studied her. I could see her, but I had to be looking. I felt a little better about the whole thing.
“What does she think about all of this?”
“She thinks it’s hot up there.”
A couple of young-looking Iorich walked by, evidently on the way to see Desaniek, or maybe some other business in that office involving subtleties of jurisprudence. I bowed respectfully. They both glanced at me and kept walking; one might have nodded slightly.
At the bottom of the stairs things became complicated: There were passages in three directions, and I could make out further branchings on two of them; also the stairs kept going down. I checked the nearest doors: one of them was a privy, which I took the opportunity to use, because if you’re going to be following someone for maybe hours, that’s a problem you don’t need. Another was locked, and one was open and empty—it would probably be someone’s office when the need arose for legal advice on comparative flower arrangement. I stepped in, shut the door, and let Loiosh out from my cloak; a great relief to us both.
“Oh, do we get to wait now, Boss? You know that’s my favorite part.”
We waited.
Loiosh kept up a stream of suggestions about how to decorate the empty room, while I tried to think up creative things to say if someone happened to come walking in. Every once in a while, he’d reassure me that Rocza was still undiscovered, and that Desaniek hadn’t been by.
We waited a long time.
Either she had a lot to do in the office and was disgustingly dedicated, or she had another way out. After four hours, with my stomach rumbling, I’d about decided it was the latter. After five hours, I was pretty well sure of it. It had almost been six hours when Loiosh said, “There she is! Coming toward us, Boss,” and we were off.
Loiosh ducked into my cloak again, and I stepped out of the hall and walked over to the stairway.
“What’s Rocza doing?”
“Waiting.”
“Good. Tell her to stay with it.”
I turned so that when she walked past me I was going the other way; I made a slight bow. My peripheral vision told me only that she was of average height, with a rather light complexion for an Iorich and a firm stride. Once she was well past me, I turned around and followed. This not only permitted me to watch for anyone else who might be following her, but also showed me how to get out of the Palace.
We pretty quickly reached a place where there were lots of people, which wasn’t good for me. It’s too easy to follow someone in a crowd, which means it’s hard to spot someone else doing so. I didn’t lose her, of course; I can manage to stay with someone even without Loiosh, thank you very much. But it did get simpler once we left the Palace itself, and I could take a moment when I was unobserved to let him out.
The easy part was following Desaniek. The hard part was spotting someone else following Desaniek. The scary part was leaving the confines of the Palace area and wondering if I had someone following me with unfriendly intentions. The painful part was walking quickly enough to keep up with her.
She didn’t go far, as it happened—just outside the Palace district to a place I’d eaten at once before. The food was okay, but the wine list was amazing. Among the things I hadn’t practiced lately was following around someone who was eating better than I was.
To the left, however, I could leave Loiosh there in case she was a fast eater, and go retrieve Rocza.
“Which means you walking through a lot of bad areas without me spotting for you.”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Think how much you could you do in twenty minutes.”
“Did you see anyone on the way here?”
“No, but—”
“Hang tight. I’ll be back soon.”
And I was, too, believe it or not. It took longer than it should have, because I got lost trying to find the office and had to ask directions three times, but find it I did, and Rocza was there, and I had no trouble getting back out. It’s very strange how it can be hard to find your way to a place, but easy to find your way back.
“Okay, we’re about there. Is it safe?”
“You’re safe from everyone but Rocza, who’s hungry, overheated, and bad-tempered.”
“I trust you to protect me.”
“I charge for those services.”
I found a safe place to wait while Desaniek finished eating. Loiosh and Rocza scanned the area for anyone watching either her or me.
“How will you tell which it is, Boss?”
“Just spot him, then we’ll worry about it.”
“In other words, you have no clue.”
“Something like that.”
But we didn’t spot anyone. If there was anyone following her, he could be at the table next to her, eating, and staring off in the opposite direction; I’d done that before.
So I waited some more. Feh.
It might be interesting to give you the rest of what happened that night in great detail if it had turned out to have been interesting, but in fact I never spotted anyone. I was with her for about three more painful hours, as she visited a private club where, I guess, high-powered Iorich like to relax; then eventually she went home. In the end, it was a big nothing.
I went back to the inn, got a little sleep and an early start, and waited outside her home. Loiosh spotted a Jhereg, but it was before we got there, and he was obviously looking for me, based on how carefully he avoided watching the inn. Crap. We lost him on the way to Desaniek’s home.
She went straight to the office; I had the jhereg in my cloak and all three of us waited. She didn’t eat any morning meal at all, and must have had lunch sent in. What she did in there for eighteen hours I don’t know, but there she was, and no one else seemed interested. That night she ate in the same place, but went straight home afterward. She took the same route both times.
Back in my room at the inn, I got a note from Kiera that she had in
formation for me; I wrote back asking her to hold it for a day or two, since I had no time to do anything except follow Desaniek around.
Is it all right if I stop talking about how much it hurt just to walk? You can’t be enjoying hearing about it, and I don’t enjoy remembering it. Let’s just say that, of all the times I’ve followed people around, this was the least pleasant.
You can repeat the pattern for the day after, except she went to a different place after she’d finished, and ate with an Iorich who was probably her lover—at least, they seemed to be on good terms, and he went home with her. They took a different route, more scenic. I had the impression they always went this way.
The next day, no lover, no Jhereg interested in her, and back to the first route, past one of my favorite bakers, which made it especially trying.
When the same thing happened the next day, I started to get disgusted, not to mention worried.
“What have I missed, Loiosh? They’re going to take this Iorich out and make it look like those Easterners are behind it. To do that, they have to know her movements exactly. Why aren’t they there?”
“Maybe they are, and you can’t see them.”
“Invisible? I suppose. But someone would have noticed an invisible guy walking by. I’d think—”
“That’s not what I mean. She isn’t a Jhereg, Boss. She probably doesn’t have any protection spells on.”
“What’s your point?”
“Maybe they’re using sorcery to trace her?”
I used several of my favorite oaths, running them together. I wish I could remember exactly how I put it, because it was very poetic.
“Boss?”
“That’s cheating.”
“Uh, Boss—”
“I know, I know. I’m just pissed because I didn’t think of it.”
