‘What was the purpose of Coronet?’
‘And here I was thinking I’d come to you for information. Course if you want to switch shoes, I’d be happy to take some of your money.’
‘Suit yourself.’ There was a squeal from the cat, pleasure at being stroked or fear of being crushed. Whatever it was, Touissant seemed not to notice it. ‘I might still have a friend or two at Black House.’
‘Amiable fellow like yourself, I’d think you’d have friends everywhere.’
He leaned the clean, bald globe of his head on one shoulder and batted his eyelashes. They’d been recently painted. ‘This … Coronet,’ he continued, ‘I wouldn’t suppose it to be widely known of, even amongst the ice?’
‘I wouldn’t think.’
‘Special Operations?’
‘Yup.’
He set the cat down on the table next to him. It skittered away immediately, evidence perhaps that its master’s attention was less than appreciated. Touissant was busy scratching at the fat pink of his double chin with the fat pink of his hand. After an unseemly interval he said, ‘It won’t be cheap.’
‘I’d hate to think I carried this bag of money here for nothing.’
His shoulders rose up around his ears when he laughed, flapping bags of flesh. ‘We wouldn’t want you to strain yourself carrying it all the way back.’
I handed Craddock the aforementioned bag. He looked inside and gave a low whistle. It was a shrill thing, split around the severed stalk of his tongue. Then he nodded at Touissant.
‘I can’t promise anything, of course. But I’ll contact you in a few days either way.’
I’ll eagerly anticipate it.’
No one bothered to walk me out, which I thought was quite rude, given how much money I’d left. Obviously I hadn’t expected Touissant to violate his long torpidity, but at the very least I’d have appreciated spending a few more precious moments graced by Craddock’s invaluable presence.
It wasn’t until I was out in the street that I realized I’d stepped in cat shit. A minor detail, though it indicated the general tenor of the day. Week, month, take your pick.
15
The arrangement I’d made with the Old Man was simple. I’d put a potted plant out by the front of the bar when I had something to say, and four hours later a man with a blue cap would wander in, buy a drink, and wander out. I’d follow him wherever he went. It meant I needed to buy a potted plant, but other than that I didn’t see a problem with it. I hit up a nursery on the way back from Touissant’s, placed a rather sad-looking fern in the appropriate position, and stood myself to a drink. Four hours is a long time to wait around, but between my innate idleness and a selection of light narcotics, I managed it.
In fact, it was closer to four and a half when Black House’s man came in for a quick shot of liquor. He seemed to know what he was doing, didn’t look at me and didn’t make any particular commotion. He was inside for all of about five minutes, but that wasn’t in and of itself peculiar – it was early in the evening, and a lot of workers slipped in for a stiff one after their shift was over. Twelve hours at the mills, doing their best to avoid losing a finger or a whole hand, every spare thought occupied with those few inches of strong liquor – it’s not an easy thing, working for a living. There was a reason I’d foresworn it.
Anyhow, Mr Blue Hat tossed his drink back and then headed out, and I followed him in a timely fashion. He lingered at the next intersection, but he didn’t make it look like he was lingering. I wondered if he was an agent or just a stringer Guiscard had on budget. Probably the latter – once you put on the gray, you start to think yourself a little too good for this kind of work. Regardless, he knew his business. I walked a block and a half behind him for a mile or so, and no man alive would have known what we were doing.
He stopped in front of a small store in Wyrmington’s Shingle, smoked a cigarette, then bailed back the way he’d come. That was as much signal as I needed. After waiting a minute or two to make sure he was gone, I slipped inside.
The store sold men’s suits. Not particularly nice suits, but not the worst quality I’d ever come across. Unremarkable, would have been my description, and indeed this could have been the theme of the whole enterprise. A man stood upright in the main aisle, stub-necked with thick eyeglasses. He was the physical prototype of the image that popped into your head when you heard the word ‘tailor’.
The place looked legitimate, and I figured it probably was. Once a month or so a man spent a few hours in the back office, took the occasional meeting, and was on no condition to be disturbed. In exchange, a gratuity was paid slightly in excess of the rest of the month’s earnings. Back in the day, I’d kept a couple of these, for conducting business where my contact couldn’t be seen entering Black House, or if I just didn’t want the Old Man to know the particulars of whatever scam I was running. He always found out of course, but this gave me a little bit of time.
‘Good day, sir.’ The proprietor’s voice was a rich baritone, thick as an oak-cask. ‘Is there a particular cut you were interested in seeing?’
‘What would you recommend?’
His eyes ran me over with professional diligence. ‘With your build and complexion, I’d suggest something bright, but not overly so. How do you feel about light blue?’
‘I had a suit like that, once,’ I said. ‘I didn’t like it.’
He nodded sagely. The customer was always right, though at this point I suppose he’d figured I probably wouldn’t be picking up any clothing. ‘Of course, sir, of course. Dark Brown has been very popular, as of late.’
‘Not my style either, I’m afraid.’ I made a vague show of inspecting the merchandise. ‘I don’t suppose you have something in the back I might look at.’
He inclined his head. ‘Of course, sir – straight on through. I’m sure you won’t have trouble finding what you came for.’ I followed his directions out of the main room and down a short, narrow hallway, ending at a door that I rapped on quickly before entering.
The first time I’d met Guiscard we’d nearly come to blows. More accurately, he’d nearly hit me – petty criminals did not, as a rule, strike agents of the Crown, not unless they wanted to find themselves losing the hand they’d raised.
He’d grown since then, or at the very least aged. Some men run to fat as they get older, others go in the opposite direction, burning through whatever limited allotment of excess flesh youth had provided them. Guiscard was the latter. I hadn’t seen him in three years, and since then he’d lost a solid stone off a frame that was far from oversized to begin with. His coiffure had undergone a similar wasting process – initially he’d kept his white-gold hair in an exaggerated pompadour, better suited to wooing whores than chasing down suspects. The last time I’d seen him he’d shorn it away to stubble. Now I was pretty sure he’d just gone bald. He still had the classic Rouender nose, at least. That it had never been broken was evidence he hadn’t put in his years at the bottom ranks of Black House. No honest agent made it six months without having someone reshape the tender portions of his face.
I disliked admitting it, because it ran against my ingrained sense that people rarely change and never improve – but I didn’t have the hate for Guiscard that I’d once had. Back in the day he’d been as bad as anyone else that had ever married sudden power with self-righteous certainty. Now he was confused, tired and lacking in direction. He’d come a long way.
‘You know when I was an agent,’ I began, inspecting the less than prepossessing interior, ‘we had a whole building for this.’
‘It’s still there.’
‘Then why aren’t we in it?’
‘Given your recent activities, I thought perhaps it would be better if you weren’t openly seen meeting with a member of the ice.’
‘Don’t refer to yourself that way – it makes you sound like an asshole.’ I thought over what he said. That was an answer. A good one, even – but somehow I sensed it wasn’t the actual one.
‘What do you have to tell me?’
‘Straight to business, eh? No casual pleasantries, no easy banter? It’s been years, Agent. We’ve got so much to catch up on.’
‘How’s the Earl?’
‘None of your fucking business,’ I said, dropping into the chair that wasn’t occupied.
In place of a laugh, Guiscard had an abrupt staccato snort, like he was ejecting a pea from his nostrils. ‘So what do you have to tell me?’
‘What did the Old Man tell you I’d have?’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not how this works. You’re my stoolie, so you tell me stories. If I was your stoolie, the opposite would be true.’
‘You’ve got an impressive grasp of spycraft.’
‘You seemed to need a refresher.’
‘Just trying to make sure I don’t waste your time. No point in running over old news.’
‘You’re just trying to pump me for information. It won’t work.’
It always had in the past. ‘About eight hours ago I was called in to a meeting with the Sons of Śakra.’
‘Represented by …’
‘Director of Security, Cerial Egmont.’
Guiscard whistled. ‘I guess they think you’re more important than we do.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Egmont’s supposed to be at the top of their seamy underbelly. Something of a prodigy when it comes to the skull-and-dagger business. How did he strike you?’
‘He didn’t seem a complete idiot. Then again, it was a short meeting.’
‘What did he want?’
‘You hear anything about this new drug that’s been making its way around, called red fever?’
‘No.’
‘No, why would you – nothing that happens south of the Palace is worth being aware of. But Egmont appears a bit more globally minded. He’s concerned about the similarities between the red fever and this secret project we scrapped a while back – Coronet, it was called.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘No? Nothing? Not a peep?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘That’s what you said.’
‘You going to provide any specifics?’
‘You want to know about Coronet, you can ask the chief about it. It was his baby.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Guiscard said. ‘So what did you tell Egmont?’
‘I told him what the Old Man told me to tell him. That I’d take a look and see what I could find.’
‘Interesting,’ Guiscard said, though to judge by his expression I might as well have been reading a grocery list.
‘So …’ I began, ‘did we scrap it?’
‘I told you. I don’t know anything about this … red fever. Nor about Coronet.’
‘Does the Old Man?’
‘The Old Man knows a lot of things I don’t.’
‘Would you lie to me?’
‘Of course I would.’
‘Are you now?’
‘No.’
He seemed to be telling the truth. Then again, he made a living out of dishonesty. ‘Fair enough,’ I said.
‘Anything else to report?’
‘There is something else, in fact. I came into Egmont’s office just in time to see one of ours walk out.’
Guiscard scrunched up his face in confusion – not altogether easy, given how little fat there was to play with. ‘Who?’
‘Alistair Harribuld.’
‘No way; he’s been feeding out of our hand since before I joined up. In fact – weren’t you the one responsible for hooking him?’
‘Which would suggest I’m unlikely to be mistaken on his identity, wouldn’t it?’
‘What was he doing there?’
‘He didn’t have his motive painted on his shirt, but it’s hard to see what reason a Black House informant would have for meeting with the Director of Security for the Sons of Śakra. Apart from the obvious one, of course.’
‘I’ll look into it.’
‘I would.’
Guiscard reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out his tobacco pouch.
‘I thought you quit?’
He didn’t look up from his rolling. ‘We can’t all live your life of monk-like self-denial.’
That was worth a chuckle, I thought. After a moment he lit his cigarette, and smoke crowded the interior of the room, like a growing silence. If you didn’t know better, you might even have thought that we liked each other. I did know better, however.
‘You’ve moved up in the world, since last I’ve seen you.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve risen in the ranks, if that’s the same thing.’
‘Is it?’
He shrugged again. It was a habit he’d come to late in life – his earlier iteration was never uncertain about anything, and if he had been, certainly wouldn’t have shown it. ‘The Old Man won’t be around forever. Somebody’s got to keep all the pieces moving.’
‘Do they?’
‘I know your feelings on the subject – let the edifice crumble, right?’
Those weren’t exactly my feelings, actually, but if that was the part he wanted me to play, I figured I might as well go along. ‘Sometimes the rot goes too deep to paper over. You have to tear it down, and start from scratch.’
‘And the people living inside?’
‘A few nights in the rain never hurt anyone.’
‘It’s much prettier as a metaphor than in reality. The world is imperfect, I’m not unaware of that fact. Someone still needs to run it. Better us than a pack of brown-robed fanatics.’ But the way he said it he didn’t seem altogether sure, and he kept rambling on, trying to prove the point to one of us. ‘It all sounds very nice, railing against corruption, calling for a more equitable society. What does it amount to really? Perpetual antagonism against the Dren, a sin-tax on everything they don’t like. The instituting of their narrow moral viewpoint on a nation far vaster and more diverse than they can conceive. And if they ever did acquire power, what would they discover? Purity is no virtue in a King – compromise is the essence of rulership.’
‘How noble of you to spare them such a burden.’
‘You’d see no improvement in your lot, should the Sons succeed in their aims. They don’t take so … nuanced a view on recreational narcotics as do we at Black House. Amongst their other aims is to re-institute the death penalty for drug dealers.’
‘There isn’t a country in the world that enforces all its own laws. Whoever ends up ruling in the Old City, I don’t anticipate their suddenly concerning themselves with what we do in Low Town.’
‘Is that the feeling? One monarch is the same as another? Seems awfully short-sighted.’
‘I sell poison – it’s a short-sighted way to make a living.’
‘If the Steps come to power, it won’t be business as usual. I’m under no illusions that we currently live in paradise, but I assure you, things would get much worse.’
‘They generally do,’ I admitted. ‘All the same, I’ll take your prediction with a grain of salt. You are not, after all, a disinterested party, but the heir apparent himself. I wouldn’t expect you to throw away your patrimony.’
He didn’t answer that for a while. ‘You did,’ he said.
I reached over and started on a cigarette from the supplies Guiscard had left on the table. I rolled it slowly, and thought about the past. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t righteousness that brought me down, was foolishness. When I was in your spot I did whatever was required of me.’
Guiscard reached over and lit my smoke. ‘That’s all they ask of us,’ he said.
16
There were five people in the room, but only two of us mattered.
The Old Man of course, looking like he always did, blue-eyed and smiling. He didn’t wear the traditional agent garb, never did. A well-cut suit, modest and old-fashioned, served him better. And of course he never carried a weapon. Even the suggestion of physical violence was beneath him.
&nbs
p; With Crowley, however, it was a virtual guarantee. He was short and squat as a cask of ale, with overlong arms and a head like a bullet from a sling. His eyes were black pinpricks set above a nose red from drink and bent from injury. His hair was shorn close to his skull, and his ice-blue uniform unkempt. Crowley wasn’t much for vanity – he made up for it by doubling down on the other available vices.
Despite the way he looked, talked and acted, Crowley wasn’t altogether worthless. He was a solid enough field man, and he had a blunt sort of cleverness that gave him a clear eye on the closest path between two points. That said, he wasn’t there because he had much in the way of advice to offer or assistance to give. It was his little bonus – Crowley didn’t care for money, and he didn’t really understand what power was. He just liked to sit next to the Old Man, get his head patted, feel important.
Bohemond was the High Chancellor’s chief aide. His presence in the room was a courtesy, and if no one went out of the way to express this to him, neither was his opinion given any particular weight. The High Chancellor back in those days was an old-blooded Rouender on whom the Old Man had enough dirt to cover six-square feet. The current High Chancellor is the same in all of these particulars. Although I don’t know him personally, I’d be close to certain he has a fellow like Bohemond running about for him. A man whose job is to notice little and commit to less, who has the words ‘plausible deniability’ etched on the innermost chamber of his heart.
Raynald was the Old Man’s second brain. He spoke five languages and could break code without a pen or paper. In a certain sense he was the smartest person I’d ever met, a veritable encyclopedia of trivia – but he was toothless, he didn’t understand why people did the things they did and had never learned how to force them to do the things he wanted. In short, he was not the sort to steer the ship, though he was plenty useful in reading charts. He went and disappeared not so long after my own removal. I guess the Old Man decided to clean house.
She Who Waits (Low Town 3) Page 13
