A Conspiracy of Truths

by Alexandra Rowland

  And yet, Ylfing told me, Ivo pounced on that coin like it was made of gold. Didn’t even look at the bread. Even though the boy knew that it was worthless, even though I’d explained as much to him. Well, he should have known, but everyone was hoarding everything by that point, and the very scarcity of the coins had made them all the more precious, at the same time that it had made them all the more worthless.

  This is the behavior of delusional people. This is the behavior of people who have forgotten that something they made up can be just as easily unmade. This is the behavior of lunatics.

  As I said before, money is imaginary. Coins are just a story that some people came up with and told to one another, so they are within my purview and I feel like I can speak confidently about them.

  After that first proclamation from Taishineya Tarmos, Queen of Thieves, she began courting the guilds of the city, the third most powerful institutions after the offices of the Primes and the bank itself. I believe she offered the usual sort of deal sweeteners—lighter taxes for guild members, limits on the importation of foreign goods the guilds were in competition with, and so forth. Maybe another duchy or two.

  She started with the Stonecutters’ Guild, which bewildered everyone but me and Ylfing. Pick up the chisel again, you see.

  Because, as she knew, as I had told her, that was the thing she needed to do to ensure that she would remain in power. She picked up the entire Stonecutters’ Guild, the Leatherworkers’ Guild, the Shipbuilders’ Guild . . . Safeguarding all the possibilities, you see: anyone who used a chisel. Well, this turned out to be a wonderful move on her part, because there were a lot of stonecutters in Vsila, and when you’re staging a coup, it’s always a good idea to have the working class enthusiastically backing you up. But she was holding their money hostage, so they didn’t really have a choice but to support her—politically at least, if not outright.

  The Thieves had always been suspicious of Ylfing coming in and out of the bank so much, and at the beginning the Thieves had wanted Taishineya’s permission every time they brought him in or let him out. After a few rounds, and a few almighty rows wherein I made a nuisance of myself about Ylfing being my personal scout and collecting the information I needed to do my job, they relented. Oddly, Ivo was less of a concern for them; perhaps it was because he was Nuryeven, perhaps it was because they’d already lost the battle about Ylfing. They never let either of them discover how to get in or out. Every time, they were escorted through with bags over their heads. They had as little clue as I did.

  Secret tunnels sound more and more romantic, but I can’t be sure, and you know I would only ever tell you the truth with no decoration and nothing added for the sake of smoothing out the story. That will come later. That’s for other people, who weren’t there, who didn’t ride a few hundred horses down a mountainside, their hooves light enough to dance on top of the avalanches. For you, the truth. And the truth is, to this day neither of us knows how they did it.

  Ylfing visited two or three times a week, and I made sure he got a hot meal every time. Even then, when it was getting harder and harder to buy food, even for us in the bank.

  “How are things out there?” I said during one of his visits, before he’d even finished scarfing down the bland meal of fish and boiled potatoes that was all I’d been able to provide him.

  “Bad,” he said. He paused, looking down at his plate in strange silence. “Ivo got thrown out of his apartment. We’re living at Consanza’s house now. We all sleep in one room, because they’ve sold all the furniture and it conserves fuel. Only have to heat one room, you see. Drives Ivo crazy, drives Consanza and the others crazy. I don’t mind it—it’s just like home, everyone sleeping in one room in the winter.” He bit his lip. “I shouldn’t have eaten all this. I should have packed it up and taken it back with me.”

  “Of course you should eat it! Finish!”

  He shook his head and pushed the plate away.

  “You look like a sack of wet trash, if I’m being honest.” I’m always honest, as you know. His clothes were in tatters, his shoes had holes in them. Even the cloak I’d returned to him was gone, replaced by a worn felt one that only reached his mid-thigh. “You haven’t been eating much, have you?”

  “Look, Consanza and two of her spouses can go out and work, but work is thin as it is, so they don’t have money for the nurse, and all the schools are shut down besides, so Helena has to stay home and take care of four children—”

  “Ah. That’s why you wanted to take your food home.” I wasn’t even angry, but he must have thought I was. “You’ve been giving yours to them.”

  “Of course I was. I’ve been hungry before. Those kids haven’t.” He sat back and crossed his arms at me. I didn’t know how to tell him that it was fine. His eyes dropped to his plate, and I could see his stern look waver to longing for a moment, but then he looked away from the food. “There’s no more merchants in the harbors.”

  “I thought the winter sea was too rough for shipments.”

  He shrugged. “People take risks when they think there’s a chance they might profit. But now they know there isn’t. They had their holds full of goods, but almost no one had the money to buy things, so they all just went away again. To Cormerra, probably; that’s what everyone said.”

  I patted his hand. “It won’t be too much longer. We’ll be out of here by spring, if not sooner.”

  He laughed sharply, and I was a little taken aback. I’d never heard a sound like that come out of Ylfing before. “If we even survive until then,” he said.

  “Of course we will. Why wouldn’t we?”

  “People are starving. We’re starving.”

  Ah—he and I had been using “we” to mean two different things. His we meant Consanza and her family and Ivo. His we was much wider than mine—mine was just him and me.

  “It’s not going to be as bad as all that,” I said.

  He sniffled a little and wiped his nose—that was more comfortable. That was familiar. Ylfing crying was much less shocking than that steely, moody, stony thing he’d been doing a moment before. “I heard someone talking about some trouble out on the western marches.”

  I was suddenly all attention. The western marches, he said. The feet of the Tegey mountain range, in other words. “Trouble. What kind of trouble?”

  He bit his lip, uncertain. “No one’s really sure. There hasn’t been much travel into the city. Just people leaving. And with the storms lately, all the snow . . . Anyway, I didn’t hear much, just something about fighting. Raiders, maybe, that’s what Ivo thinks. Consanza says they wouldn’t come until spring.”

  I let out all my breath, long and slow. It felt like a sign. It felt like it. “All right. All right. I need you to go find out.”

  “I’ve been asking around already. I tried to find out if anyone knew anything, and they don’t. Just impressions and allusions.”

  “No, I mean I need you to ride out west and see what’s going on. And take a message for me.” Things had, of course, changed since the last news you’d had from me, and I had clarified my plans by then.

  “By myself?” he cried.

  “You can ride,” I said. “I’ll give you money. You can go buy proper clothing and food—and there’s garrisons and outposts on the road, and villages. You’ll be all right.”

  “Oh gods,” he said, and looked completely wretched. “What about Consanza and the kids? What about Ivo?”

  “You won’t be gone that long, boy!” I huffed. “Two or three weeks, that’s all. You’ll be fine.” There wasn’t anything else to do about it! And even if I got killed sometime in those three weeks, at least he would have gotten out of the city, and he would have been somewhere safer, somewhere closer to the border, where he could just keep running. And of course . . . Well, if he found you, then he’d be safer still.

  Look, he’s a very stupid boy, and I wasn’t sure that he’d be able to do it without tripping over his own feet and falling down into a ditch and b
reaking his neck, or running off and marrying some smelly tinker he met on the road—you know what he’s like.

  “Consanza’s family relies on me,” he insisted miserably.

  “I’ll think of something, all right? I will. Give me a few days—I’ll get you money, enough to give to them, enough that they’ll be able to buy some food.”

  “There isn’t any food to buy.”

  “There’s a harbor full of fish,” I said, which was true—it’s what most everyone in Vsila was eating, if they were eating anything.

  He looked, if anything, even more wretched. “I’ll go,” he said. “But I thought you said you’d never been to Nuryevet before.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Then who is the message for?”

  I smiled then. I couldn’t help it. “Surely you remember the time we spent with my oathsworn-family on the steppes.”

  He froze. “Syrenen’s family?” Of course he’d landmark his memories with which cute boy they featured. “You want me to go all the way there? And back?”

  “No. I think they’re the ones causing trouble on the western marches. I just want you to go see if it’s them, and if so, say hello. And tell them a few things for me.”

  “You only think it’s them? Ivo said the raids don’t happen until spring. He said that’s when the tax caravans come.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know it’s them.”

  “How?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well,” I said. “Because I already sent them a message inviting them to come.”

  He boggled at me. “You sent—how?”

  “Ivo helped. And,” I added quickly, seeing his surprise, “so did you! You taught Ivo the song, and he taught one of his friends and sent them off.”

  “That was weeks ago.”

  “So it was.”

  “But . . . but why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It was just something between Ivo and me,” I said, trying to be soothing. I didn’t want to send him away into the snow and wilderness with hurt feelings, after all.

  “No,” he said, “it was between you and Ivo and Ivo’s friend. Probably all of Ivo’s friends, right? The ones who don’t like me because I told you about them. What did you call them? Revolutionaries?”

  I honestly hadn’t expected him to be so upset about it, but there it was. The color was high in his cheeks, and his expression was tight and closed off. “I’m sorry,” I said carefully. “If that’s what you want to hear, then I’m sorry. I did what I had to do, and I didn’t want to worry you. It’s just a little thing. Ivo asked me for help.”

  “When?” he cried.

  “It doesn’t matter!”

  “I’ve been right there next to him every time he was near you. I don’t remember him ever saying anything about wanting help. What kind of help? When was it?”

  “It was the time that the two of you visited me. He brought the slate, remember? And I sent you out for monk’s-puffs. So you weren’t right there next to him every time.” I was losing my temper then, getting frustrated. “And after he thought about things, he came back on his own.”

  “So neither of you told me.”

  “I guess not. I said I was sorry.” He was going to start crying in a moment if I didn’t divert him quickly. “Listen,” I said, pitching my voice low and a little pleading. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  After a long pause: “Yes.”

  “There are things about being a Chant that you’re not ready for, and there’s no point in being upset about that. You’ve still got seven years left of apprenticeship at a minimum, by my guess—do you think you’ve learned everything? Do you think,” I said, invoking Hrefni mores, language that would make sense to him, “that you’re perfect at the Chant skills?”

  “No,” he said immediately. “Of course not.”

  “Of course not,” I agreed. “No one would expect you to be. If we were cabinetmakers, you’d trust me to know whether you were ready to learn about working with ironwood or mahogany, wouldn’t you? So you must trust me on this, too. You’ll get better with practice, and next time you might be skilled enough to learn the tricky, difficult thing.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Quite all right, my lad. Just a bit of a miscommunication. Are we all forgiven?”

  “Yes. Yes.” He shook himself to clear out the fog of emotion. “Let me know where I should go and what I should say, and I will.”

  He’ll be a good Chant one day if he can learn to keep asking questions—notice that he was so distracted with his own reactions that he entirely forgot to ask what exactly Ivo had wanted or why in the world you, of all people, were coming to help with it.

  And yet I thank any gods that were watching over me the day that the hands of Fate assigned Ylfing, of all people, to be my apprentice. He’s a Hrefni, you know, he has snow in his blood. He understands winter travel as well as anyone can. Even more than you, maybe. No offense, of course, but the steppes just don’t get as much snow as Nuryevet and Hrefnesholt. He knew how to survive out there, and if he’d had any other upbringing, I wouldn’t have sent him. You have to be born into it, I think.

  I gave him another cloak, which I bullied off one of the guards, and I made him promise not to sell it. He tried to argue—he could have gotten food for Consanza’s kids with it. We bickered about it for a while, and I agreed he could let them use it as a blanket the next couple of days, but I told him not to be stupid. Cross-country travel in the middle of winter? Without a cloak? He’s a very foolish boy, as I’ve told you before.

  I hugged that stupid boy again and I sent him off with another cloak, my own one, and I tried to pretend I wasn’t colder for not having it with me.

  I needed information. I needed money.

  The thing about camping out in a bank for a couple of months is that it twists your hallucination about coins just as much as suddenly not having access to coins. Gold was worthless in here. They must have broken into the vaults and safe-boxes within five heartbeats of stepping foot across the threshold, I swear to all the gods.

  There were gold coins everywhere. The Thieves used them as game pieces or as small-wager stakes, the way you and I would use pebbles. Taishineya Tarmos walked around dripping with diamonds and jewels because she’d been looting the safe-boxes too—all the Thieves had bits of dazzling jewelry on them: signet rings, gold bracelets, diamond earrings. . . . They were as ubiquitous amongst the Fifty Thieves as shoes and smallclothes. They couldn’t spend them on anything, except when someone snuck out to buy supplies, and Taishineya Tarmos had strictly forbidden them to take any of the jewelry or large-denomination coins out of the bank, for fear that someone would be able to trace the supply purchases back to them and strike a blow to their comfort and security during the siege.

  So. We were swimming in wealth that was essentially worthless in here, and I had at my disposal a set of tools. The Thieves had cabin fever? I started making friends with them, told them what I knew of what had been happening outside. That didn’t work too well, since they had a route out and they all got to sneak off every now and then.

  I don’t know how Taishineya Tarmos kept them on such a tight leash. The promise of more money than they could ever dream of, I suppose. Estates, titles, riches beyond their wildest imaginations . . . And a certain essential laziness amongst the Thieves, I suppose. They were fed, they were sheltered, they were filling their pockets with gold . . . it was almost like a holiday in the countryside for them, I suppose.

  If the purpose had been just to pick up enough to fund Ylfing on a pell-mell ride across the country in the middle of winter, I could have done that in an afternoon. But the boy was going to give most of whatever I gave him to Consanza and her family, because he had morals or a conscience or something like that.

  So it took me an afternoon and an evening instead. I played a few card games with the Thieves. I’ve never been any good at cheating at cards, but it didn’t matter—I’m telling the truth! Would I lie to y
ou? It didn’t matter in the end, because after I’d made a meager showing at cards, I asked them where they’d gotten all the coins, and they were only too happy to trot me down into the treasury room, which I had not found before. The door looked like that of a broom closet and led into a long, twisty, cobwebby hall. At the end of it was a thick door, which had been dismantled and now leaned against the wall several feet away. I saw that a few of its several locks had been smashed, but a few others had been rotted into rusted rubble. Beyond was the vault.

  I paused at the threshold, my heart beating very fast. Something like this happened almost every time I came up to a doorway I had to pass through, though it helped if the doors were wide open and had something set against them so that they couldn’t slam closed and trap me. It helped too if someone was leading (dragging) me through; that just seemed the natural order of things. I couldn’t stand to shut doors behind me, and opening them took minutes of preparation and left me sick and weak in the joints. So for a moment I just stood on the threshold there and peered into the vault.

  “Aha,” says I. It was a small room, with shelves on every wall, stuffed with cloth bags. “And you just walk in when you’ve rolled all your game pieces under the couch, and you get another bag?”

  “Pretty much,” said the Thief who’d brought me down—we’ll call her Nine-Fingers.

  So, a bag of coins, which clinked terribly. I took one. “I’m just going to borrow this,” I says, and Nine-Fingers shrugged like she couldn’t give less of a fuck what I did with these stupid bags of useless metal they had lying around.