The Vondish Ambassador loe-10

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The old man turned and looked at Emmis. Emmis stood where he was and smiled politely. He had no idea who the old man was, but anyone addressed as “my lord” was not someone he wanted to antagonize.

  “Ask him to join us,” the old man said.

  The guardsman stepped forward, and Emmis came to meet him. “I heard,” he said.

  “I’ll have to ask you to give me your knife,” the guardsman said.

  Startled, Emmis drew his belt-knife and handed it over, hilt first. Whatever was happening here, the soldier was taking it seriously; ordinarily no one even thought of a belt-knife as a weapon. Disarmed, he approached the table cautiously, and took a chair under the watchful gaze of the guard and the old man. The innkeeper was too busy looking confused and miserable to pay any attention to Emmis; he just stared ahead blindly as the young man settled into his seat.

  “Hello,” Emmis said. “I’m Emmis of Shiphaven.”

  “My name is Ildirin,” the old man said. He did not offer a hand or make any other polite gestures, but his gaze remained focused on Emmis.

  Ildirin. The guardsman had addressed him as “my lord.” The age was about right. Emmis swallowed. “The overlord’s uncle?”

  “Yes.”

  That explained why the inn was being guarded. “I am honored.”

  “We have been discussing your contention that this man has allowed people to hire assassins in his inn.”

  “Oh.” Emmis threw the innkeeper a quick glance. “Well, I don’t know that the actual hiring took place here, but one of his guests did tell me her companion had hired assassins, and sure enough, I was attacked in my employer’s home as soon as I got back there.”

  “I can’t possibly be expected to know everything that people do here!” the innkeeper burst out.

  “So you said,” Lord Ildirin replied dryly. “And I have acknowledged the truth of your claim. Nonetheless, it would behoove you to tell me everything you have ever known, every whisper you have ever heard, about the four foreigners who slept under your roof.”

  “But I don’t know anything,” the innkeeper wailed. “They paid every day, in good coin, and then yesterday afternoon they all departed hurriedly. They settled their bill and took their things and they were gone!”

  “And you can’t tell me anything they said, anything they ate, anything they drank, anyone they met, anyone they declined to meet.”

  “No! I mind my own business and let my customers mind theirs!”

  Lord Ildirin nodded, and turned to Emmis. “And you? Can you tell me any more?”

  “A little,” Emmis admitted.

  “Then do.”

  Emmis blinked, then began describing how Gita had first brought him to meet Annis and the three Lumethans.

  Lord Ildirin stopped him.

  “Gita?” He glanced at the innkeeper.

  “My niece,” the innkeeper said.

  “She’s over there,” Emmis said, pointing.

  Lord Ildirin gestured to the guardsman. “Fetch her.” Then he turned to the innkeeper. “You may go, but do not leave the premises.”

  “Why would I leave? It’s my inn!”

  “’Why’ does not concern me. Just don’t.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The innkeeper slid from his chair and fled to the kitchen.

  A moment later Gita took the chair her uncle had vacated. “My lord,” she said, with a bob of her head. Then she turned to Emmis and said, “I have your bags.”

  Emmis blinked in surprise. “You do?”

  “Yes. When I saw you run out I asked Annis what was going on, and she said it wasn’t anything but she would be leaving, and I saw the bags and asked if those were hers — I thought she might have already packed — and she said no, they were yours, you’d left them, so I put them aside for you. They’re in the scullery, in the locker with the special china.”

  “Thank you!” Emmis felt a rush of relief. He had not been looking forward to replacing his lost belongings, and now he wouldn’t need to.

  Gita smiled warmly. “You’re welcome,” she said.

  Lord Ildirin cleared his throat. The others turned their attention to him.

  “If you would be so kind as to explain how you came to introduce this young man to the foreigners?..”

  “Oh, well, we had this Ashthasan woman here, she said she was waiting for someone, and then the day before yesterday she asked about another foreigner who was staying here, a man with a plumed hat and red coat, whether I knew anything about him, and I said I’d seen him and his assistant. She seemed surprised he had an assistant, and asked if I could arrange for her to speak to him without the foreigner knowing about it...”

  Emmis sat and listened silently as Gita explained, and as Lord Ildirin backtracked and went over her entire story in relentless detail, asking her question after question.

  Then Lord Ildirin started on him, asking him to describe his conversations with Annis, then the encounter with the two would-be assassins, and then backing up to how he had first met Lar Samber’s son.

  The interrogation went on and on, and Emmis began to become nervous. He glanced at the angle of the sunlight outside, and finally said, “My lord, the ambassador wanted me back not long after noon, so that I could bring his papers to the Palace.”

  “I do not think you need concern yourself with that,” Ildirin replied. “After all, who is it you would be presenting those papers to?”

  “Ah — yes, of course. To you. But I don’t want him to worry about me; after all, there are assassins...”

  “Yes.” Ildirin looked up over his shoulder, then beckoned to the guardsman who still stood there.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “We’re done here for now. Send for the carriage, fetch the other two in, and tell the innkeeper that we will be taking his niece with us, to assist us further. She will be compensated for her time. And tell Zefna.”

  “Yes, my lord.” He hurried toward the door.

  Ildirin turned back to Emmis and Gita. “You two will come with me. One of the guards will accompany you, Gita, while you fetch Emmis’s belongings from the scullery.”

  “Where are we going?” Gita said.

  “The Palace?” Emmis asked.

  “No,” Ildirin said. “Through Street, in Allston, to talk to the ambassador.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emmis had never ridden in a carriage before. He had rarely even seen a carriage; he doubted there was a single person living in Shiphaven who owned one. He wondered where Lord Ildirin kept his; he had never noticed anything like a stable or carriage barn connected with the Palace.

  He had wound up facing backward as he rode, seated next to the guardsman, facing Lord Ildirin, with Gita diagonally across from him. The coachman and the other two guards were riding somewhere on the outside of the vehicle, where Emmis couldn’t see them.

  It was slightly disorienting, riding backward; he could not recall ever having done it before, as wagons usually didn’t have any reversed seats. And they didn’t have any seats upholstered in velvet like these, either, or lace curtains over glass windows. This was an adventure, riding in Lord Ildirin’s coach — though it meant he wouldn’t be making any stops on Bargain Street.

  Gita was staring out the window, wide-eyed, as the carriage rumbled up Commerce Street; Emmis thought she looked more terrified than excited. Lord Ildirin was quite composed, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes closed; he appeared to be resting.

  Emmis glanced sideways at the guardsman, but he looked bored, and not inclined to talk.

  Emmis wondered who Zefna was. He had been hustled out to the carriage and had not seen who else the guard spoke to. From Lord Ildirin’s phrasing it didn’t seem as if Zefna could be any of the guards, or the coachman, or the innkeeper; who else was there?

  He coughed, hoping the guard would take an interest.

  Instead, Lord Ildirin’s eyes opened. “Your pardon, Emmis,” he said. “I was contemplating what I’ve learned today.”

  “Of
course, my lord,” Emmis said hastily. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “But you’re bored and curious, and after the better part of a mile, the novelty of riding in a nobleman’s carriage has worn off. I entirely understand, young man. I could continue questioning you, if you like.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Emmis said hastily. Lord Ildirin’s interrogation had been exhausting.

  “Or perhaps there are questions you would like to ask me?”

  “Ah...”

  “I can always simply decline to answer, should you pry into inappropriate matters, and I think I would find it amusing to learn what you consider worth inquiring about. Ask away, sir.”

  “Ah... who is Zefna, my lord?”

  Lord Ildirin smiled. “A person in my employ,” he said. “Someone adept at listening without appearing to, watching without being seen, and gathering information without being noticed. He is residing in the Crooked Candle at present, alert for anything of interest.”

  “A...” Emmis had started to say, “A spy?” but caught himself in time. “An informant?”

  “You could call him that. An observer. The common term would be a spy.”

  So much for tact, Emmis thought. “And he’s staying at the Crooked Candle in case the foreigners come back?”

  “Or in case anyone else comes looking for them, yes.”

  Emmis nodded. “I’m surprised to see you taking such an interest in all this, my lord.”

  “Oh?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought a single attack would attract the attention of someone as highly placed as yourself.”

  “Ah, but this is more than a single attack. It is a political matter, and one that may be of great interest to my nephew and the other triumvirs.”

  Emmis blinked. “Why?” he asked. “It’s just another squabble among the Small Kingdoms.”

  “No, it is not,” Lord Ildirin said, raising his hands and touching the tips of his index fingers together to form a point. “In two regards, it is not. Firstly, it involves the Empire of Vond, which is a new thing in the land we call the Small Kingdoms. For more than two hundred years, the number of nations there increased — at the end of the Great War there were perhaps eighty of the so-called kingdoms, though in fact several did not actually have kings, and five years ago, when my brother died and my nephew became overlord of this city, there were two hundred and four. Two hundred and four, Emmis, in an area perhaps a third the size of the Hegemony. That’s a totally absurd number. There was no point in trying to maintain diplomatic relations with all of them, or to regulate trade with them all — there were just too many to keep straight, and their alliances and feuds and rivalries shifted so quickly that there was no possibility of maintaining any coherent policies toward most of them. We dealt with them as necessary, particularly those on our own border, or with operating ports, but for most the best we could do was to simply ignore them. We had treaties and agreements with Morria and Lamum and the like, but Azdara or Thuth might as well have not existed at all. If we did try to develop a policy, borders would shift, civil wars erupt, and we might well find ourselves facing two or three kingdoms where there had been one before. It was hopelessly unmanageable. We had despaired of it.”

  He leaned forward, and stared Emmis straight in the eye, as he said, “And then Vond the Warlock came along, and conquered Semma and Ophkar and Ksinallion, and the next thing we knew seventeen of the Small Kingdoms were combined into the Empire of Vond, and we had gone from two hundred and four to one hundred and eighty-eight. For the first time in recorded history, the number of governments in the Small Kingdoms, in Old Ethshar, had decreased. For the first time.”

  “Oh,” Emmis said.

  Ildirin sat upright again. “We want to encourage this trend. Oh, we don’t necessarily want all of Old Ethshar reunited; that might pose a challenge of an entirely different sort. But reducing the number from hundreds to dozens — that we would welcome. So we are very interested indeed in seeing what’s to become of the Empire of Vond, on that count alone — and that’s without even mentioning that it is ruled by an Ethsharite, and that the official language of the new government is Ethsharitic. We have hopes of dealing with Lord Sterren and his Imperial Council on a rational basis, untroubled by ancient feuds, byzantine family ties, absurd border disputes, irrational traditions, and the general barbarity of the region.” He turned up an empty palm. “We may, of course, be wildly over-optimistic about this — but we certainly don’t want to see the first Vondish ambassador to our city assassinated before we have even met him.”

  The carriage jerked and bumped just then as they rounded a corner; Emmis glanced out the window and saw that they had turned onto West Warehouse Street. It would never have occurred to him to take this route, but the coachman presumably knew what he was doing. Perhaps the horses didn’t like the slope up to High Street.

  Then he turned back to Lord Ildirin. “You said there were two things?”

  “Yes.” Ildirin nodded. “The other one is much simpler. The attack took place here, in Ethshar of the Spices. We don’t allow that. That’s been one way we handled all the two hundred-some Small Kingdoms, by imposing a very firm set of rules. One of those rules is that the Hegemony is neutral, that they shall not bring any of their thousands of petty squabbles here. We don’t care whether the Imryllirionese think the Korosans are all demons in human guise, or the Korosans think Imryllirion is the Northern Empire reborn — here, in Ethshar, they will all treat each other as human beings, equal in rights and virtues, or we will either expel or hang them all, Korosan and Imryllirionese alike. They don’t need to like one another, but by all the gods they will respect one another while they are within our walls, and they will obey our laws, or they will pay for it. If this Ashthasan, or these Lumethans, had hired an assassin in Hend or Ghelua or wherever he took ship to kill the Vondish ambassador, we would not be pleased, but we would do nothing. If they had hired a demonologist to sink his ship somewhere in the Gulf of the East, we would make no real protest. But once he set his foot on our docks, he was under our protection, and they either knew that, or should have known it. And for them to attack you, as well — an Ethsharite, in his home city — well, that privilege we reserve to our native-born scoundrels, and forbid to these imported troublemakers.”

  “All right,” Emmis said. “So you’re serious about finding out what happened and punishing those responsible.”

  “Yes.”

  “But then why are we here? Why are you, personally, my lord, questioning people in Shiphaven and Allston? Why not hire magicians to tell you where you can find the Lumethans and the people who attacked me? I know the magistrates call in magicians sometimes — why didn’t you?”

  Ildirin smiled, and ran the fingers of his left hand through his long white beard. “Once again, there are two reasons,” he said. “I did not choose to involve any magicians because this is a political matter, and I do not care to attract the attention of the Wizards’ Guild or the Council of Warlocks to it. I do not want either of them, nor any of the other magicians’ guilds, meddling in this. The possibility that the Wizards’ Guild will decide that the existence of the Empire of Vond violates the prohibition on magicians in government, due to the way it was created, and that the Empire must therefore be destroyed and its seventeen provinces restored to their former independence, is not as unlikely as I would like. I do not want the Council of Warlocks to decide that they are Vond’s rightful heirs and therefore should rule the Empire, under the terms of their own rules on Called warlocks. Most particularly, I don’t want both of these to happen simultaneously, as the resulting conflict between the two orders of magic might well destroy the World. Magicians do talk to one another, and so I prefer not to involve any magicians in this investigation.” He grimaced. “At least, not yet. I may resort to magic, should the matter prove intractable by other means.”

  “That’s one reason,” Emmis acknowledged. “What’s the other?”

  The old man’s s
mile returned.

  “I was bored,” he said. “I thought that investigating this would be entertaining.”

  “You like asking all these questions?” Gita asked, startling the men. Neither of them had noticed that she was listening, but she had indeed turned her attention from the window to her host.

  Ildirin turned to her. “Why, yes, my dear, I do.”

  She shook her head in amazement. “I don’t like answering them!”

  “Well, answering them is rather different,” Ildirin replied.

  “I don’t know anything about warlocks or treaties or the Small Kingdoms.”

  “But you know what happened in your uncle’s inn,” Ildirin pointed out. “I already know about warlocks and treaties and the Small Kingdoms, so I don’t need anyone to tell me any of that, but I do not know what’s happened in the Crooked Candle these last few days, so I want you to tell me.”

  “I’ve told you, though!”

  “Indeed, you have been very cooperative, but I suspect there are details that could be of use to me that you have not yet revealed, details that you know but do not realize could be of use. You may not even know you know them. So I ask questions, in hopes of stumbling upon these things that seem to you to be the most utterly mundane, boring, trivial, and irrelevant facts, but which might reveal to me entire vistas of possibility I had not considered — or that may instead close off doors that I had thought were open, and save my men hours of wasted effort in their pursuit of these criminals.”

  Gita stared at the old man, baffled, then threw Emmis a quick look.

  Emmis turned up an empty palm. Ildirin’s manner of speaking was a little hard to follow sometimes, but this last speech had been clear enough, and Emmis could not see how to make it much plainer.

  “He thinks you might not realize some little detail is important,” Emmis said, when Gita appeared unsatisfied with the gesture. “Something that will tell him where the guards can find the assassins. Some name they mentioned, some little thing they were carrying, something.”

  “I don’t know anything like that!” Gita insisted.