Exiled: Keeper of the City

by Peter Morwood

  Reswen flushed hot, opened his mouth and closed it. “Yes,” Laas said, “when she looked at you, she would have felt the response somewhat. One feels, do you see, what will increase the response … what kinds of things.”

  “You find out what I like …,” Reswen quoted.

  “Yes. It’s not hard. Sometimes it’s as clear as if words had been spoken. Other times, more like pictures, or feelings.”

  “Wait, wait, I haven’t begun the interrogation yet,” Reswen said, only half in jest, as the sherbets arrived.

  They drank, and Reswen had the pleasure of watching Laas’s eyes go wide. Some bright creature had had the idea of making a sherbet, not from fruit and ice, but from wine with the spiritous portion cooked off. The resulting drink was like a frozen wine without any of the drawbacks. “Why, this is like ... I don’t know what it’s like,” Laas said after the first long drink, and then put her paw to her head. “It makes my head ache.”

  “Snow,” Reswen said. “It’s like snow. Take it slowly.”

  “I’ve never seen snow,” she said.

  “I have once,” Reswen said. “Some time ago, when I was just a recruit in the city cohorts ... all the police are recruited from them, you see ... some of us were sent North to aid a city we had an alliance with. There are whole mountains covered with it.” He shivered at the memory. “We marched in it, we slept in it ... sometimes we made houses out of it. We made balls out of it and hit each other with them.” Reswen sighed. “Some of us were buried in it. It falls off the mountains all at once, sometimes, when the weather warms too suddenly....”

  “A bad memory,” she said, watching him go grave. “I’m sorry—”

  “What for? It wasn’t your fault.”

  “You should not be sad,” she said. And then added hurriedly, “Not during a seduction, at any rate.”

  “Yes, right,” Reswen said, and waved for Ishoa again, wondering a little at that last response. “And we can’t have a seduction without food. May I order for us? Is there anything you don’t like?”

  “Being bored,” Laas said, and the smile she gave him was very wry.

  Reswen thought about that, too, and when Ishoa came over, he ordered several of the most unboring things he had ever eaten there. Ishoa went off rubbing his paws, as well he might, Reswen thought, considering how much he was going to make off this dinner. It was just as well the constabulary was paying. “Now,” he said. “The interrogation—”

  “Yes. Do you ever think of going back there, to those snow mountains?”

  Reswen shook his head. “No ... there’s too much to do here, and besides, that old alliance is broken....”

  “They do seem to come and go, don’t they?” Laas said. “How do you get the snow here, then?”

  “We still have some trade agreements. War may go on, but it doesn’t necessarily have to stop trade.... We buy the snow a few times a year; it comes down to us buried in hay, and we store it in cellars full of sawdust. You’d be surprised how long it keeps.” He paused then. “But this is my interrogation.”

  “All right,” Laas said, putting down her sherbet and leaning toward him again. “Ask me some questions.”

  “What have you been up to?”

  She raised her brow-whiskers at him. “What I hope to be up to with you, later. Shall I go into details?”

  Reswen cleared his throat. “Very funny, madam. Why have you been doing it?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll throw you in gaol.”

  “No, you won’t,” she said. “We’ve been over that.”

  “It would be a very nice prison,” said Reswen.

  “It is already,” Laas said. “Indeed, do you think I haven’t noticed?”

  He wondered briefly exactly how much she knew about the nature of that “prison” ... but it would have to wait. Reswen sighed. “Very well. You should tell me because I don’t trust your people, and if you should tell me why you’re doing what you’re doing, I might trust them more, and save us all a great deal of time.”

  She laughed gently at him. “I don’t care if you don’t trust them! Or me ... and it doesn’t matter whether you trust me or not, especially with that fishy-smelling thing around your neck.”

  “Goodness,” he said, “is it that obvious?”

  Laas shrugged. “I’ve smelt it before,” she said. “It’s fairly well known, back East, where there are more of us.”

  “And does it work?”

  “Of course it does,” she said.

  Reswen sat back, then; and didn’t care whether his relief showed or not.

  She was looking at him oddly. “Has it occurred to you,” she said, “that perhaps I would like not to—” And then she fell silent, for the first plates of food arrived: cold spiced yellowfruits in an innocent-looking golden sauce. She took a bite, then paused with the tongs in her hand, looked astonished, dropped the tongs, and took a long drink of sherbet. “My mouth!”

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Reswen said. “Bored yet?”

  The conversation went off onto the topic of why hot countries tended to have spicy foods, and by the time the next one arrived—minced bunorshan cooked on a steel plate, with steamed spiced grains and another hot sauce Reswen had decided on another line of attack. “Let’s try this—”

  “What I’m doing,” Laas said, while attacking the bunorshan with great pleasure, “is trying to get your high-and-mighty folk to tell me certain things that I have been ordered to find out. Isn’t that what you were thinking?”

  “It would be hard to think anything else.”

  “May I have some more sherbet? Oh, not yours, please, how can you eat this without something to drink at hand?”

  “Habit. One gets used to this stuff. Take mine; Ishoa will bring me another. Do you suppose you might consider leaving off what you’re doing with the ‘high-and-mighty’?”

  “For what reason?”

  “Well,” Reswen said, “I might pay you better.”

  Laas put the tongs down carefully on her plate and looked up at him, and there was such anger in those yellow eyes that Reswen had to restrain himself from pulling back as if he had been struck. “What makes you think I’m doing this for mere gold? You are utterly ignorant, and insulting as well.”

  “I’m sorry,” Reswen said hastily. “You may be right. But the interrogation hasn’t got far enough to tell what you were doing it for.”

  She eyed him, then the plate, and picked up her tongs again. “Do they pay you well?” she said. “As well as you think you deserve?”

  “No,” Reswen said.

  “Then why do you keep this job of yours? Long hours, being on call day and night to your ridiculous Arpekh—well, I have not known them as long as you have, perhaps they are Wiser than such short acquaintance would indicate—”

  “No,” Reswen said, rather resigned this time. It might be treasonous, but it was also obvious.

  “Then why do you keep this job?”

  “I like it.” He thought for a moment. “And it does something important for Niau, something I can do better than anyone else presently senior enough to be in the position.”

  “An honest interrogator,” Laas said, bowing a little to him where he sat. “So. Your reason is the same as mine, policemaster, That is why I do it.”

  Reswen was quiet for a moment, while Laas ate another couple of bites. “I have given my word,” Laas said finally, “to do something that I feel will make my part of the East safer in the great world, where there are many interests that do not have our interests at heart. Ah, don’t look askance at me. I know the thought: How can a mere courtesan possibly be knowledgeable about great matters of policy?” She looked at Reswen with scorn. “If she is not knowledgeable, how can she know what to listen for—and how can she direct her questions to matters of imp
ortance when she hears them? If your agents’ schooling doesn’t extend to such things, I must say I don’t think much of them.” She ate another bite. “In any case, my word is given, and I at least count it to be worth something. I will not stop doing what I’m doing until I’ve finished my job.”

  “Well. Will you tell me what these matters of importance are? What information you’re looking for?”

  “No,” Laas said. She put the tongs down again, having made a clean sweep of her plate, and sighed. “There,” she said. “Now you do not have to take me to this play, if you don’t want to, and tomorrow you can send for me and throw me in gaol, and create a great deal of trouble for yourself. Or not. In either case, you don’t need to trouble yourself with me any further.”

  Reswen turned his attentions to his plate for a little while, then put his own tongs down; his appetite was somewhat abated. “Tell me this, then,” he said. “Can you give me some assurance that the things you have been directed to discover will do no harm to Niau?”

  “Would you take me at my word, if I could?”

  He took a long moment to consider it. “Actually, yes,” he said. “You’ve been open with me so far. I doubt you’d bother to lie. In fact, I think you’d tell me the truth to spite me.”

  “I would,” Laas said, and was silent a moment herself, seeming to consider. “Truly,” she said, “the things I’ve been told to find out strike me as fairly useless. I can’t imagine how they would hurt your city, or any other. But I won’t tell you what they are. At least—”

  Reswen waited.

  “No,” she said. “My word is my word. Well? Will you walk me back to the gilded prison?”

  “One more thing,” Reswen said. “What about Deshahl?”

  Laas astonished him by bursting out in laughter. Around them Reswen saw various heads turn and smile in approval at the lovely she-mrem and the handsome young mrem, her lover perhaps, being so merry together. He flushed hot, then recovered somewhat as she whispered, “Surely you know she’s my cover. She’s a courtesan, yes, and one of the best in the East, I believe. But she hasn’t a brain in her head. It’s just that her ... talent ... is so overwhelming, and she turns every head that looks at her ... she attracts much more attention than I do. She’s a distraction. “

  “She is that,” Reswen said, and was mildly relieved, because if this was true, it saved him the trouble of throwing Deshahl into one of the damp quiet rooms under the constabulary to try to get out of her the information that Laas was withholding. Of course, I could always toss her in there— But the thought was awful, and not just because of the political ramifications—

  For about the tenth time, he wondered whether the charm against her “attractiveness” was working.

  “Well?” Laas said. “Prison? Gilded or otherwise?” Reswen looked at her. “I think we’ll take in that play, if it’ s all the same to you.”

  She gazed at him, smiling, through lowered eyelids. “A spy who doesn’t talk to you today,” she said, “may talk to you tomorrow, if treated kindly ... is that it?”

  “Yes,” Reswen aid.

  She reached out and patted his paw gently. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “But you’re an honorable creature, and I’ll remember you kindly when I’m gone. By the way ... did you like the knife?”

  He looked at her, astonished again. “That came from you?”

  She smiled. “I have a little spending money.”

  “A Iittle—! But Laas, how did you know? I never spoke of it to anyone—” He paused. “Then again—if you were able to feel what I—”

  Laas chuckled. “I may be a bit of a magician, but I can’t work miracles. When we were walking into the marketplace, that little cutlers’ shop was on the way. We stopped to look, and the shopkeeper boasted to us that the knife had been admired by none less than Reswen-vassheh himself. Afterward—” She shrugged. “You didn’t have to do what you did in the marketplace; I wasn’t ‘working’ on you. I don’t know—” And Laas looked away.

  Embarrassment? Reswen thought. Or something else?...

  It didn’t matter. “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re more than welcome.” She sat up straight. “Now, do we have to go right away, or is there something else you’re going to bum my mouth out with?”

  “There is, actually.”

  “Cruelty,” Laas said, and laughed again. “Subtle punishments for not telling you everything you want to know. Give me another sherbet, you torturer.”

  They burnt their mouths out happily in company a while more, while Laas talked about life in her city in the East, which was on a mountainside some ways from the desert, and Reswen told her about the glories of Niau, all harmless banter. When the gong at one of the nearby temples struck the hour, they got up together, and waved good-bye to Ishoa—Reswen would get the bill in the morning, and probably have to do some fancy talking to the mrem who handled the constabulary’s accounts. It seemed a natural thing to walk arm in arm, tails curling lazily together, friendly enemies if not lovers. Though it was true, the speculation had occurred to Reswen, What if she feels she needs to keep up appearances for her masters, whoever they are? I might still get lucky....

  But when they walked out of the gateway, out of the light of the lamps and the sound of the running water, there was a runner from the constabulary, waiting patiently.

  “I thought I told everyone not to be able to find me,” Reswen said, resigned, and took the paper that the runner held out to him.

  “Sorry, sir,” said the runner, gazing longingly at Laas. Reswen made a face and opened the paper.

  It said, Shalav dead. Draper’s cord. K.

  Damn, Reswen thought, and “Damn!” Reswen said, and turned to Laas, “Another night, lady,” he said, and bowed over her paw.

  She stared at him and nodded. “When you have time.”

  “Escort the lady Laas back to Haven,” he said to the runner, and was off down the street, swearing all the way.

  THEY FOUND her in a gutter, not far from Lloahairi Embassy: lying in the street, sprawled, the upper half of her body facing the sky, moonlight dancing through the leaves of the trees on her face. Her tongue was swollen, her eyes bulged, and they were completely brown-red except for the bloated pupils, blood vessels had broken in them with the pressure, and blood had leached into the iris, blotting out the calm green that Reswen remembered so well. The cord was found around her neck, embedded so deeply in the swollen throat that the strangler probably had simply not been able to pull it out. It was the same sort of cord as the previous strangling, but a different color this time.

  Reswen went over the scene with his people. Krruth, as most senior on duty, had been called there first, and Thailh had come hotfoot after him, away from his wife and children and dinner: heaven only knew what they thought of it all. Reswen and Thailh and Krruth were there until well after moonset, while the shocked people who lived on the street peered out between drawn curtains at the torchlight and speculated. Their speculations, Reswen suspected, were no more informed than those of the frustrated police. Thailh had been investigating drapers since Reswen last spoke to him, but had not yet found anything of help.

  Also not of much help were the Lloahairi Embassy officials. The worst of them was the new ambassador, Maikej. He turned up in the street making a nuisance of himself almost instantly: a small grey mrem without any markings or other distinguishments, and a colorless way about him, except when he railed. He did that very well, and Reswen found himself entertaining suspicions that that was what had gotten the creature this job. If that was the case, it did not bode well for the Lloahairi’s opinion of the Niauhu.

  “This is a scandal, an outrage, and I demand action!” Maikej shouted.

  Reswen looked wearily around the area, which was crawling with policemrem, literally crawling, for Krruth and Thailh had them face down on the ground, hunting any
slightest piece of evidence, any scrap of cloth or fur or other stuff, any mark on the exposed earth beside the street which might give them some hint as to where the murderer had been or how he had come at Shalav. “Ambassador,” he said, “look around you, if you would. If this does not look like action to you, perhaps you would describe to me something that does.”

  “You know what I mean, vassheh;” Maikej said. “I want the creature who did this found and executed! Publicly, so that the scum of this godsforsaken city can see what happens to those who defy the immunity of diplomats and the rule of law! If there is law here! Such a thing would never be allowed to happen in Lloahai, and we don’t intend to let it go unpunished! And I want to know from the Arpekh why you allow common, criminals, murderers and worse, to walk your streets when important people are about!”

  “Ambassador—”

  “And more,” said the little mrem, panting. (Reswen had a passing thought that if he was lucky, the new ambassador might expire of apoplexy, or some draper’s cord. Ah, shameful ...) “I want to know what your policemrem are doing wasting their time hanging about my country’s embassy, asking impertinent questions which are none of their business, when they should be out supposedly protecting your none-too-innocent citizens and—”

  “Ambassador Maikej,” Reswen said as quietly as possible, “those officers whom you complain of are part of the force detailed to you to see that this kind of thing does not happen—”

  “They’re doing a fine job of it, aren’t they? If you—”

  “If you,” Reswen said, much more loudly, “had not already complained to the Arpekh and the constabulary about the ‘overstaffing’ of the embassy compound area with police, and the ‘shadowing’ of your staff by my staff, and thereby caused a significant reduction in the number of policemrem assigned to you and your suite, this perhaps would not have happened, because the honorable former ambassador would have had an appropriate escort with her when she left the embassy, so don’t use that tone with me, you—”

  Reswen caught himself just short of saying something that might have proved actionable in chancery. It did not stop the ambassador’s outrage. Maikej waved his claws in Reswen’s face. “Be still! You’re nothing but a gate-guard with delusions of importance, my man, and I’ll see you broken if I hear another word from you! I want to know who killed the honorable Shalav, and I want to know the first thing in the morning, and I want to see the miscreant’s head off and its liver and lights nailed to the city wall before I have my lunch! Now be about your business!”