by Jo Zebedee
Damn the man, she thought. The local bureau would have been more convenient and just as secure.
The guard returned Finesz’s identification to her driver and indicated she could proceed. The ornate full-face helm of his ceremonial armour hid his expression.
The limousine jerked into motion, further irritating Finesz, and floated beneath the rising barrier. Within the chapterhouse’s crenellated walls was revealed a parkland of verdant lawns and geometric topiary. An artificial lake, a narrow rectangle in shape, paced the drive, the roiling column of a fountain punctuating the lake’s head. Beyond the plume of spray sat the chapterhouse itself, a low mansion of stone and wood, enclosed by a deep veranda. It was a ducal country-lodge for the tropics, as unsuitable for its current purpose as it was to Dardina’s temperate climate.
Nor could this opulent chapterhouse, with its wide-open grounds and guards-for-show, be described as “secure”. How the Order of the Star qualified as a Martial Order was a mystery to Finesz. The chapterhouses of the Order of the Emperor’s Shield and the Order of the Sword were fortresses and doubled as working garrisons. Even those of the Sutlers and the Order of the Imperial Seal were heavily defended.
Finesz retrieved her identification from the limousine driver, exited gracefully from the vehicle, and climbed the steps onto the chapterhouse’s veranda. A figure rose from a clutch of low sofas to her right: a solid man, as bulky as a publican, with a bullet-shaped head atop a barrel of a torso. Finesz smiled warmly: she knew him. “My lord,” she said.
Gyome mar Norioko, Baron Kaban, waved away the formal greeting with a vague gesture. “Sliva,” he said.
They were to be on first-name terms, then.
She settled onto one of the sofas and sank low in the cushions. “So, Gyome,” she began, “what in heavens drags you to Darrus from your palace on Shuto?”
“It’s not a ‘palace’, damn you,” growled the baron. He lowered himself ponderously into his seat. “As you know full well.”
Finesz merely raised an eyebrow. As a sworn lieutenant-without-portfolio in the Office of the Procurator Imperial, Norioko was both rich and powerful, even amongst the Imperial capital’s rich and powerful. He was one of only a handful who personally advised the Procurator Imperial himself. He even had Right of Audience with His Imperial Majesty Willim IX.
A teenage boy in a page’s outfit of tunic and tights approached. Norioko glanced up at him and frowned. “Ah,” he said. “The sommelier will tell you my preference.”
Finesz smiled. Perhaps there were advantages to meeting at the chapterhouse, after all.
“I am sincerely unhappy, Sliva,” Norioko said, with all the gravitas of a man contemplating his own doom. “It is, without a shadow of a doubt, a damn mess. We know no more than we did a full year and a half ago.”
Finesz crossed one trousered leg over the other, and carefully straightened a seam. “Merenilo’s commanding officer?”
One and a half years ago, an anonymous tip had recommended the Office of the Procurator Imperial investigate the finances of Heckis mar Kondit, Viscount Malis, an influential member of the Imperial Protocol Office and a powerful player at Imperial Court. After several weeks of patient analysis, the OPI had discovered that Kondit was channelling funds in significant amounts to selected officers of the Imperial Regiments. Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo of the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls was one such officer. He was also on Darrus.
The source of Malis’ money was a mystery.
“Regimental-Captain Advezer? He knew nothing.” Norioko put his meaty hands on his knees and leant forward. “The report will be made available to you, but be warned there’s nothing useful in it. Advezer was no more than a cut-out, and he has no idea who he received his orders from. This… conspiracy has been carefully organised.”
“Not that carefully,” pointed out Finesz. “We know it exists.”
Norioko leaned his substantial bulk back in his seat. The wood frame of the sofa creaked.
“True, true,” he muttered. “Someone told us just enough to whet our appetites.” He shook his head in mystification. “But who?” he asked. “And why?”
“The Bureau of Special Signals?”
“Bureaucrats.” He grimaced. “Proles.”
Even the Imperial Regiments had a low opinion of their intelligence agency, the Bureau of Special Signals. BOSS preferred to use proletarians as agents and spies, and few officers felt them honest or smart enough to be good at the job.
“The Order of the Imperial Seal? They are charged with safeguarding—”
“—Imperial rule, not the Imperial economy. Our charter is to investigate and prosecute felonies, and fiscal malfeasance is a felony.” Norioko smiled humourlessly. “It’s there in the Subjects’ Charter: ‘all subjects have the right to recompense in all matters of trade, ownership or employment’—”
“You’re being facetious, Gyome: I know the Charter as well as you. I merely wondered if the Order of the Imperial Seal, for reasons of their own, have chosen to involve us.”
Norioko grunted. “It would be out of character if it were.” He slapped a hand down on his knee with a fleshy thwack. “It’s irrelevant anyway. This conspiracy is within our remit. Our investigation continues. I’m not going to waste time arguing who is responsible for—”
He fell abruptly silent: the page had returned.
Finesz watched idly as the boy set a tray, upon which sat a bottle of wine and two glasses, on the table. With a series of deft movements, he uncorked the wine. He poured a small amount into one of the glasses, and proffered the glass to Norioko. The baron dutifully sampled the vintage, pursed his lips in concentration… and nodded his approval. The page filled the remaining glass, topped up Norioko’s, and silently withdrew.
“And what’s my role in all this?” asked Finesz.
“I want my best on it.”
Finesz affected surprise. “Gyome! I’m flattered. I never realised you thought so highly of me.” She reached for her wineglass.
“If discretion is the better part of valour, Sliva, then I count you amongst my most valorous. It is your… most endearing quality. If BOSS is involved, or the Order of the Imperial Seal for that matter, no word of what we discover should ever reach them.”
“No intimate dinners with dashing young regimental officers, then.”
“Only if you can prove they’re nothing but regimental officers.” Norioko smiled grimly. “But certainly no Navy officers: you know full well they all have to report in to the Fleet Office of Strategic and Tactical Assessment.”
“‘Obliged to’, Gyome; not ‘have to’.”
While BOSS used proles to actively gather information, the Imperial Navy’s FOSTA based its intelligence upon unsolicited reports from naval officers.
“Semantics,” Norioko said dismissively. “Find me one young bluecoat who doesn’t supplement his income by writing fiction for FOSTA, and I might believe you.”
Finesz’s smile widened. “And there I was, believing they did it from a sense of duty…”
The baron bent forward and refilled his empty glass. He directed a grim smile at Finesz. “The perils of an information-based economy, Sliva.”
Dardina was a city of two parts, bisected by the Nahri river. On one bank sat Dardina proper, once an agricultural and transportation hub. Across the waters spread Amwadina, a city more ancient. In Darrus’s distant past, it had been a necropolis, a silent city of tombs, where the semi-nomadic farmers of the Nahri flood-plain brought their dead to be interred with due ceremony. A carpet of bones underlay the foundations of each building in Amwadina; the chill touch of ancient spirits clung to every cornerstone, lintel and cornice. The city’s architecture mocked the crude mausoleums that had once occupied its site: built of dark stone from the hills to the north, sepulchral and lugubrious beneath their burden of history.
There were no churches in Amwadina, only chapels. And no government offices. Nobil
ity did not frequent Amwadina. Its residents were the proletariat—the students of the Technum, the workforces of Minadar and Darrus’s few industrial complexes, and the purveyors of vice to students and visiting starship crews.
The Office of the Procurator Imperial bureau for Darrus was, naturally, located in Dardina. Sandwiched between the High Court and the Assizes, its brief straddled both. The High Court meted out punishment for crimes committed by yeomanry and nobility, and the Assizes for crimes by the proletariat. Felonies, failures to observe the rights and obligations laid out in the Subjects’ Charter and the specific responsibility of the OPI, could be, and were, committed by members of all three social classes.
Finesz stood on the bridge over the Nahri, halfway between the proletarian precincts of Amwadina and the upper class city of Dardina. Through the decking beneath her feet, she could see the remains of the original stone bridge. They had erected a spidery one of bright shiny metal upon it some half a dozen centuries ago, and incorporated the old one into its design. It was, she felt, a singularly unsuccessful meld of ancient and modern. No, not ancient and modern—five hundred years old was hardly “modern”. But parts of the old bridge were ten times older than that.
She put a hand to the hilt of her sword and gazed across the placid water. To her right, the tenements of Amwadina tumbled down to the river’s edge. Dardina, to her left, showed more restraint, presenting a waterfront of refined apartments. A cool wind blew up the river, chilling Finesz’s throat. She pulled the collar of her greatcoat tight about her neck with her free hand.
Here she stood, sandwiched between high society and the proletarian masses, her brief straddling both.
Why, she wondered, was Norioko on Darrus?
One year ago, he had tasked her with following Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo of the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls. She had protested: leave Shuto and the Imperial Court? Travel halfway across the Empire to heavens knew where? It was not a mission suited to her talents; and that had been a puzzle in itself.
She turned away from the wind, and stared across the bridge at the traffic streaming past. An unmarked staff car sat bobbing on its chargers in a nearby lay-by. She had come to the bridge to think: wide-open spaces, fresh air, helped clear her thoughts.
It was not helping. She was bored, she realised sadly. Darrus possessed all the charm of a banquet after the last bottle had been emptied. She did not need to be on this world. Watching a regimental officer on his mysterious errand could have been done by the lowest prole trooper from the Provost branch. She smiled ruefully. Well, perhaps not. The Provost branch was not known for its subtlety. But this was certainly no job for an inspector.
Her driver opened his door and climbed out of the staff car. He turned to look her way. She sighed. An unmarked car, and the driver wore black OPI uniform. So much for operating discreetly. If nothing else, that told her she was on Darrus. Provincial worlds were proverbially unsophisticated…
“What is it?” she called.
The driver—his name, she remembered, was Malak Assaun—shook his head. Nothing.
Even the natives are charmless, Finesz reflected sourly.
She strode across to the car, suddenly taken by a moment of decisiveness. “Let’s go see our knight errant,” she told Assaun brusquely.
The driver nodded, and climbed back behind the wheel.
Finesz settled in the rear of the vehicle. She gazed absently out of the window as the car banked into a U-turn and joined the traffic heading into Dardina. She put her hand to the seat beside her, and felt beneath her palm the folder containing the interview transcript with Regimental-Captain Advezer. Norioko had been right: there was nothing useful in it.
It would be impolite to describe Regimental-Captain Iszvan demar Advezer, baronet, of the Imperial Housecarls as a fool, but tempting, very tempting. He had purchased his captaincy five years previously, and promptly used his uniform as a pass into Imperial Court.
There were thousands of Imperial Regiments scattered throughout the Empire, but only two served on the Imperial capital, Shuto: the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls and the Emperor’s Own Cuirassiers. Both were responsible for guarding the Imperial Palace. But not the Imperial Family. That was the task of the Order of the Emperor’s Shield and the Order of the Sword, the knights stalwart and the knights militant. And had been since the Imperial Guard attempted a coup during the Second Century.
From Malis to Advezer to Merenilo, mused Finesz.
One year ago, Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo, his orders cut by Regimental-Captain Advezer, was detached from duty and took ship to Darrus, his journey funded by… the Viscount Malis.
“Corruption in high places, Sliva,” Norioko had told her. “I won’t have them bleeding the Empire dry.”
She hadn’t believed him, and responded with a joke: “‘Them’? Who are ‘them’? The Grey Princes?”
The jest backfired: Norioko plainly believed the Grey Princes, a secret cabal of nobles who had allegedly controlled the Old Empire for centuries, had truly existed.
“Don’t mock me, Sliva,” the baron rumbled. “There are those who insist Edkar I was manipulated into thinking he’d destroyed the Grey Princes.”
“Gyome, it was over one thousand years ago! If the Grey Princes—if there ever was such a group!—had still been conspiring all these centuries, we’d surely know of it by now.” She gave a low laugh. “You’ll be claiming it was the Princess in the Tower next.”
“Uhm? You mean the Princess in the Mask.”
“That’s not the version I remember studying at school.”
Not a fond memory: she had thought the book dry and dull, for all that it was considered a literary classic; and hated being forced to read it. Its story, an ancient legend predating the Old Empire, was captivating enough: a mysterious damsel imprisoned in a castle, her crime unknown; a dashing hero who rescues her…
Of course, they lived happily ever after.
“I was thinking of the opera.” Norioko grimaced. “Be careful not to scoff too loudly. There are more things in the history of this Empire of ours than are dreamt of in your myths and legends.”
Finesz had responded with a disbelieving smile.
But, why not the Grey Princes? There was as much evidence of their existence as there was a conspiracy of corruption in high places. All the OPI had was a profligate noble. Malis might well have been spending more money than he could conceivably have possessed, given his declared assets. But no one declared all their assets. Admittedly, the discrepancy was suspiciously, frighteningly, large…
They had watched Malis hand out funds to Housecarl officers, and worried that the regiment’s ability to safeguard the Imperial Palace was compromised. And then a surprising degree of busyness heralded Merenilo’s departure, and Norioko sent Finesz in pursuit.
Why was Norioko on Darrus?
What did he know that he had not told her?
Finesz had been in Dardina for four weeks. And though she’d kept careful watch on Merenilo during that time, he had done nothing to arouse suspicion. It seemed plain he was waiting.
The staff car entered the narrow thoroughfares of the Old Town. Assaun steered a deft course along a street lined with bistros boasting billowing awnings in black and dun, and small, select shops with ornately-framed windows and artfully-arranged displays. The street twisted and turned, and opened out into a compact square: four tan walls dotted with balconied windows and textured with friezes. Finesz’s vehicle pulled off the main route, and came to a halt, floating idly a foot above the ground. She slid out and stood looking over the staff car’s roof. Centred in the wall before her was a double-door of stout and solid wood. Through that entrance, she knew, lay a courtyard of high walls, the weathered and dry basin of a fountain occupying its centre. A small coffee-shop and a smaller-still restaurant occupied two sides of the square courtyard. A wide staircase climbed to the mezzanine floors of hotel suites. It was not
one of the cheaper hotels in Dardina, but it had the advantage of privacy.
Which was probably why Regimental-Lieutenant Kyrel demar Merenilo had chosen it.
“You’ve spoken to Rafeer?” Finesz asked Assaun.
“Ma’am.”
“Our knight errant is still resident?”
“Ma’am.”
Finesz nodded in satisfaction. Rafeer, a good man, had the regimental-lieutenant under surveillance.
“Has his room been searched?” asked Finesz.
“Ma’am.”
“And we found…?” she prompted.
Assaun shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but did not turn from the steering-wheel. “Nothing, ma’am,” he said at length.
Finesz sighed. “Nothing suspicious, or nothing at all?”
“Nothing… suspicious.” A momentary pause. “Ma’am.”
Frowning in thought, Finesz beat out an idle drum-roll on the roof of the staff car with the fingers of one hand. The time for waiting and watching was over. In four weeks, she had learnt nothing of Merenilo’s purpose on this world. It was possible he had completed his assigned task during the weeks of travel from Shuto, but she doubted it: he had taken passage to Darrus… which implied his business was on Darrus.
She could, of course, continue with the surveillance. If the regimental-lieutenant was indeed waiting for someone, that person had to arrive some time.
But now Norioko was on Darrus.
Something had changed on Shuto… but that change had yet to propagate itself out here in Makarta Province. Unless Finesz herself acted as catalyst. But what to do?
Pull in Merenilo, interrogate him at the Office of the Procurator Imperial bureau?
Scare him? Ransack his hotel room? Reveal that he was being watched, but not by whom?
Cut him off from his finances?
