by Steven Brust
I suddenly had her attention. “Talk,” she said.
We turned a corner; with Loiosh and Rocza still in the cloak, I felt exposed, but I tried to stay alert. I only saw a few Easterners.
“The Jhereg,” I told her, “is working on a complicated scheme, along with the Orca and the—and another organization. To pull it off, they need to pressure the Empress. To pressure the Empress, they’re using the massacre in Tirma. If a legitimate investigation—”
“It won’t be a legitimate investigation,” she said. “They’ll just throw a black tarp over it and say it’s fine.”
“No, they’ll do a real investigation. Not because they care, but because the Empress is trying to get out of a jam, and that’s the only way to do it.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“The Jhereg needs to stop the investigation. To do that, they’re going to make it look like your group killed Assistant Investigator Caltho. Much outrage against you, probably a lot of arrests, and the investigation gets put on hold. That’s how they’re going to work it.”
She was quiet for ten or twelve paces, then she said, “Maybe.”
“I agree with the maybe. I think I’m right, but I could be wrong.”
“How will you find out?”
“With your permission, I’ll attend today’s meeting here, and try to identify the assassin.”
“What makes you think you can do that?”
“I can sometimes spot them,” I said.
“What is it you do?”
“Run from them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Jhereg wants me dead for personal reasons. So, most of my life is avoiding them. But that’s okay, I’ve been running for so long it feels like walking to me.”
She was quiet again for a bit, then she said, “What will you do if you identify the assassin?”
“Tell you who he is, so you can do whatever seems appropriate.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“I won’t be. I might not be able to spot him, but if I do spot him, I won’t be wrong.”
We turned a corner and she started leading us back toward the house. No one had yet tried to kill me. Eventually she said, “All right. I’ll trust you on that part. You may as well relax; they’ll be here soon.”
We made it back to the house and closed the door and I felt relieved. I found a chair from which I could be watching the door without appearing to, and I waited.
It was, indeed, only a few minutes later that they began to arrive. The first to arrive appeared to be a Teckla, and suspiciously like one straight out of someone’s imagination of what a peasant ought to look like: brown hair, roundish face, leathery-looking skin, sturdy. He greeted Brinea, who introduced me. He gave his name as Nicha, and sat down next to me and began a conversation about needing to watch for trickery at the meeting with the Empire. I grunted agreeing noises and kept watching the door.
Shortly after, a pair of Easterners came in: Katherine was tall for an Easterner, dark, and wore glasses; Liam had the round face of a Teckla, an odd hair color that wasn’t quite blond and wasn’t quite brown, and a nose that looked to have been broken at least once. They carried flyers in their hands. I didn’t ask to see one because I was afraid it was something I was supposed to know about. They were both reserved with me; maybe they thought they should be the only humans there.
In fact, except for the three of us, everyone else was a Teckla. I won’t give you all the names; there were twenty-three of them, not including me or Brinea. Eliminating the two Easterners, that meant twenty-one who might be assassins. Nine of them were women, and I almost dismissed them, but for one thing, there is the occasional woman working for the Jhereg (as I happen to know better than most), and for another, a Jhereg willing to disguise himself as a Teckla could just as easily disguise his sex, right?
So, there were twenty-one who might be my target; and none of them instantly jumped out at me. I had been thinking I might take a look at their calluses, if I could see them; but it seems I’d stumbled into the largest collection of non-laboring Teckla ever assembled in one place. Some were messengers, some were house-servants, some did menial jobs for merchants, but none looked like he actually did any work. It was terribly disillusioning; I wondered what it meant.
It seemed there were several there who didn’t know each other, so my being a stranger turned out not to be that bad. Brinea made introductions as people came in, and I watched a lot, spoke little, learned nothing.
“I wish I could see, Boss.”
“You think you can spot an assassin when I can’t?”
“Yes.”
“Ha.”
The chairs were arranged in most of a circle, three rows deep, only an arc in front of the doorway and into the kitchen area left free. One chair, on the other end of the arc, was unoccupied, as if by unspoken consent. Brinea sat in it and said, “Let’s get started.”
It started, and it went on for a long time. They spoke of pressuring the Empire, which struck me as an exercise in futility, but what do I know? They spoke about guarding the interests of “the people,” but weren’t exactly clear on what that involved. Mostly, it went on for a long time. I took out the clasp knife I’d just bought. No one reacted. Damn. I cleaned my nails with it, and no one seemed to notice. Nothing. Oh, well. I closed it and set down next to my chair.
Meanwhile, they droned on, talking about what Lord Caltho—they were careful to call him Lord Caltho—had to be told about and what standards he had to be held to, and about insisting that all details of the investigation be made public. Let me know how that works out for you, I thought but didn’t say.
I was caught between boredom and frustration. I kept wanting to flourish a dagger just to see who reacted; and it might even have worked. But the thing is, it might not have, and then I’d have lost my chance.
It took a while—it took a very very long while—but at last Brinea said, “I think that covers everything. I propose we go there in a body. If we leave now, we’ll be a few minutes early, and we can talk to anyone walking by and explain what we’re doing, then go in together. Does anyone object?”
No one did, so we all stood up. I watched as closely as I could to see if anyone seemed unusually athletic or, well, slinky when standing, if that makes any sense. And I half thought I noticed someone, too. I studied him as I stood: a guy with long, loopy arms wearing loose clothing; and his hair was shaggy enough to have maybe concealed a noble’s point. Maybe. The trick was to keep an eye on him, but not be so distracted that I missed someone else. It was hard, but not impossible. You have to trust your peripheral vision.
I contrived to be the last one out the door except for Brinea and a fellow I took to be her husband. No one else seemed interested in who was the last one out the door. But I guess if you’d been watching me, I wouldn’t have seemed interested either.
We all trooped out toward the street to head toward the South Adrilankha Speaker’s Hall, which is what someone had once built instead of the Speaker’s House villages have. It wasn’t far away, but at least one of us wasn’t going to make it. They waited for Brinea to take the lead, and, as she shut the door, I said, “I don’t have my pocketknife.”
“You set it by your chair,” said a short, elderly Teckla who was about four paces from me.
We assassins notice things like that.
I nodded and opened my cloak as I covered the distance. Loiosh and Rocza flew out very quickly and several people cried out, but by that time I had the stiletto in my hand. I got him up under the chin. I hit him hard, too—I remember feeling the hilt connect with his chin bone, though I mostly remember how much my ribs hurt when I struck. I left the knife there, and started to step back, about to curl myself up into a ball of pain and try to breathe when—
“Down!”
I hit the ground and rolled and felt something go “whoosh” over my head. Someone was reacting awfully fast for a Teckla, and my muscles cried out to stop it and
Sheesh. Was the whole room full of assassins? What was he doing bringing backup along? I never did that. What sort of crappy assassin wants witnesses and needs protection? I’d have given him a piece of my mind if I hadn’t left eight inches of steel in his.
I hoped one of them was the guy I’d picked out; that would make me feel better. There was a lot of screaming going on as I continued my roll; some of the screaming was from my rib. My hand found the hilt of Lady Teldra, and I drew her and came to my feet, knowing somehow I needed to duck to my left, and someone yelled “Morganti,” which was useless, because once I drew that blade, everyone within a mile who had any psychic sensitivity at all must have been aware of it.
She had taken the form of a rapier, which was awfully nice, since that’s what I’m used to fighting with. She fit into my hand like my palm, hilt smooth, and it was like she was weightless. I knew—somehow—that it was safe to take a step backward, and I did, taking my first good look around.
There were several horrified faces, backing away. Brinea, to her credit, was seeing to her people and trying to pull them away and speaking rapidly. Three of what appeared to be Teckla were facing me: each with a fighting knife, one with two of them. They were crouched, alert, and they were staring at Lady Teldra. I didn’t blame them.
We stood there, watching each other for half a heartbeat, when a couple of things happened. First, I realized I didn’t hurt anymore. I almost looked at Lady Teldra myself. You’d think someone would have told me she could do things like that.
The second thing that happened was someone called out, “You will put up your weapons in the name of the Empire.”
I froze.
“What the—?”
“Two of them, Boss; they’ve pulled gold cloaks out of somewhere and are tossing off wigs and such.”
“Great. Half the gathering were assassins, the other half were Phoenix Guards. Perfect.”
For a moment, no one moved, then I heard another voice, this one I recognized. “Vlad, put it away.”
I looked over. “Norathar? Where did you come from?”
“Behind that tree over there.”
I wanted to say that hadn’t been the plan, but she probably wouldn’t have appreciated it. I sheathed Lady Teldra with a flourish.
“Now,” she said, “if you gentlemen will put yours up as well, let us all go to the Palace and talk this over. The wagon will be here shortly.”
There was a pause, but I had no doubts about what would happen. These were Jhereg; they knew that, whatever else, you do not fight with the Phoenix Guards. You can’t win. After a breath or two, there was a collective sigh and cutlery vanished all over the place. Norathar said, “Who is the leader here?”
I glanced at the corpse and said, “Uh, I’m afraid—”
“No, not him.”
“I am,” said Brinea, in an impressively steady voice. She looked at me but didn’t say anything. Yeah, I know: I’d told her I was going to just identify him. I’d been lying. I do that sometimes.
I studied the Jhereg who were still alive, standing there like idiots the same way I was. One of them looked familiar. I looked at him more closely, realized where I knew him from, and shook my head. He avoided looking at me. I’m guessing he was disgusted with himself because my disguise had fooled him. I tried to feel smug about that but it wasn’t in me. I hate it when my plan goes blooey, even if the results come out okay.
Oh, and to complete my humiliation, the fellow I’d noticed earlier, and thought might be an assassin, was one of the Phoenix Guards.
Sheesh.
Norathar said, “I’d like everyone’s name as witnesses. After that, you are free to go on about your business. I think the excitement is over, and Lord Caltho will be arriving shortly.”
Briana agreed, and about then a couple of coaches pulled up. The three Jhereg were put into one, still with their weapons and unbound; I got the other. Loiosh and Rocza remained outside, overhead, providing a winged escort.
Norathar climbed in with me, and we started off. I said, “Is there any law against impersonating a Phoenix Guard?”
“Why?”
“One of those Jhereg—the one with the floppy hat—was one of the ones who beat me up.”
“Oh. He can be fined for that, and maybe dunked.”
“All right.” I sighed. “Got through it, anyway.”
“I suppose. But, Vlad, that was pretty sloppy. Now what? You’ve been seen killing someone. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have slipped so far so fast.”
That was unfair. For one thing, it wasn’t fast by my standards; it had been years. For another—
“I’ll point out that I was in disguise, and if you’d done what I said—”
“You’d either be dead, or have three Morganti killings to account for. I don’t know how we’ll keep you away from the Star as it is, but with that—”
“It shouldn’t be a problem. He was a Jhereg assassin.”
Norathar nodded. “Yes, so he was. He turned out to be not only armed, but carrying a seal of the House with him.”
I nodded.
“The only thing is,” said Norathar, “that assassins don’t carry the House seal when they’re working. I happen to know.”
“This one did.”
“You say that like you knew.”
“I had a pretty good idea he would be.”
“How?”
“Because I trust Kiera.”
“She planted—?” She cut herself off before asking the question. Dragon Heir, acting Warlord, and ex-assassin; had to be tough to be her.
I leaned my head against the hard wall of the coach.
She said, “He had three toughs with him for backup.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I hadn’t expected that.”
“I had.”
I opened my eyes. “Why?”
“Because they were going to assassinate a public figure in a crowded room. You’re used to—that is, you were used to a different sort of thing.”
“I did jobs in public.”
“Different sort of thing than taking out a guy in the middle of a restaurant. With a public figure like that, if you’re going to get out of it alive and unidentified, you need people to create enough confusion to get away.”
Great. Now I was getting lessons in assassination from the Warlord of the Empire. “You could have told me,” I said.
She shrugged. “How did you identify him?”
I explained about the knife.
“How do you know the guy you got was the one going to do the work, not one of the backups?”
“Why do I care?”
She inhaled deeply, then let her breath out slowly and nodded.
“Give me a moment,” she said. “I’ll find out what happened with the rest.”
A bit later she said, “Morrolan brought the advocate in to see the Empress, presented the petition. The Empress is now meeting with the Justicer and Imperial Advocate. Morrolan is confident the charges will be dismissed.”
I nodded. “And the investigation?”
“Aliera did nothing wrong as Warlord; she has nothing to fear from an investigation.”
“All right.”
“As opposed to you.”
“Me? I killed an assassin.”
“You also publicly brandished a Morganti weapon. Which I ought to take from you, only I know better.” She looked disgusted.
“Oh, right; carrying a Morganti weapon is illegal, isn’t it?”
“Very much illegal.”
“In spite of Aliera, Morrolan, Sethra—”
“Yes, in spite of that.”
“Just like use of Elder Sorcery is illegal, but no one cares unless—say, I just thought of something. The law against carrying a Morganti weapon, do you happen to know if it is a Codified Tradition, a Statute, or an Edict?”
She frowned. “I believe it’s an Edict. Why?”
“I have a good advocat
e,” I said.
17
1. There were regrettable and even reprehensible actions taken by Imperial soldiers in the village of Tirma on Lyorn 2, 252.
2. Responsibility for these actions must end with the individuals directly involved (see Appendix 23 for names and suggested charges).
3. Any attempt to lay responsibility for this incident on higher levels of the Imperial military order will be inconsistent with justice, and in addition may have long-term negative consequences for the Imperial army, and cannot therefore be recommended (see Part One, point 1).
I signed and sealed the oaths saying that as an Imperial Count I promised not to go anywhere until my case had been dealt with, then was permitted to leave the Iorich Wing. My destination was conveniently close, and by now familiar.
I ran into Daymar on the way to Perisil’s office. I was going to ask him where Kragar was, but I bethought myself to take a look around and there he was. I studied Daymar in his black and gray, and thought about telling him he made a good Jhereg, but he didn’t so I didn’t.
I said, “How did it go?”
“Went well,” said Kragar. “I gave her a good runaround about rumors of new laws, and how could I profit from them, and she gave me a good runaround not answering me. I don’t think she suspected anything.”
“She will when someone asks her why she was out of touch right when they needed her to get to the Empress.”
“They might.” He didn’t seem concerned.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’m like you, Vlad; it just tickles me to have Aliera owe me one.”
That was a motivation I could understand.
We reached the office. The door was open, and Morrolan and Perisil were there. I introduced Perisil to Daymar and to Kragar, whom he hadn’t noticed come in.
Perisil said, “I’ve just gotten word from the Justicer. They’re releasing Aliera.”
“Good.”
“And they’ll be investigating the events in Tirma.”
