The Sixth Discipline

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  ***

  Hans Leong looked up as Francesca walked into his office with Ran-Del beside her and Merced trailing in their wake. Francesca was struck again by how opulent Hans’ office was; the thick carpet wasn’t unusual, but the elaborate gilt frames on the pictures on the wall, and the ornate statuary scattered around the room, definitely drew the eye. One nude in the window niche, in particular, always struck her as out of place in an office. It depicted a naked woman with her hands bound behind her. Francesca looked away in distaste every time she noticed it.

  “Really, Francesca,” Hans drawled, his voice betraying his annoyance as he got to his feet to wave them toward chairs. His own guard looked alert as he stood up. “I’m not my charming—if perpetually wired—brother,” Hans went on. “You have a guard with you.” He nodded at Merced. “There’s no need for your husband to watch you so jealously.”

  Francesca kept her voice bland as she and Ran-Del sat down, with Merced taking a position behind her. “Ran-Del often advises me on business, Hans, if for no other reason than he’s a very good judge of character.”

  Hans didn’t seem to catch the veiled insult. If anything, he looked dubious. “I see.”

  “Now what is this about?” Francesca asked. It couldn’t be too secret if Hans trusted the guard in Leong livery to stand in hearing distance behind his desk.

  Hans leaned back in his chair and launched into an explanation. Leong-Norwalk currently bought ore from Hayden mines, contracted with a third party to refine it, and then used the metals in their manufacturing. Elena had asked Hans to explore the possibility of going into the refining business, which would save the contracting costs. Hans had discovered that in order to be cost effective, Leong-Norwalk would have to refine a lot more ore than they currently bought from Hayden and either sell the metal or make more metal goods.

  “Could you increase capacity?” Hans asked. “Say double or even triple the rate we get now.”

  Francesca thought it over. The mines at Hayden showed no signs of being played out any time soon. Her family had tapped only a small part of the mountain range that ran through their land. Still, there were obstacles. “I don’t think so.”

  Hans’ eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

  Francesca shook her head. “It’s not the ore that’s the problem, it’s the labor. We employ about a hundred and twenty miners. To increase production to the level you’re talking about, I’d have to hire a lot more. It’s not easy to find workers willing to move all the way out to Hayden.”

  Hans shrugged. “Transfer some of your employees here in Shangri-La to Hayden.”

  Francesca gritted her teeth. “They’re employees, not serfs. I can’t force them to go—I’m not even sure it would be a good idea.”

  He sat up and leaned across the desk. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you don’t know anything about refining,” Francesca said. She didn’t let herself glance at Ran-Del. He must be either stone faced or frowning by now. “If I were to hire another hundred miners and then your refinery went bust, I’d be stuck with a lot of employees with no work.”

  He snorted. “Then you let them go.”

  Francesca lifted her chin. “We don’t fire people at Hayden unless they’ve done something wrong.”

  Hans lifted his eyes to the ceiling as if to implore divine intervention, then lowered them to glare at her. “That attitude will hardly help you fulfill your obligation to our cartel.”

  “My obligation,” Francesca said, keeping her temper in check with an effort, “is spelled out clearly in the contract I signed. It says nothing about doubling or tripling production of any commodity.”

  Hans stood up. “This meeting is over.”

  Francesca jumped to her feet, but Ran-Del was quicker. He had his hand on his belt but there was no dirk there as she had insisted he leave it in the skimmer.

  “Fine with me, Hans,” Francesca said. “If you have anything constructive to communicate, you can do it over the com.”

  She left with no more than a hasty goodbye over her shoulder.

  Ran-Del never said a word until they were out in the courtyard. He looked around as if to be sure Merced couldn’t hear him, and then spoke in a low voice. “Hans Leong is not a good person.”

  Francesca snorted. “Tell me something I don’t already know.” Feeling suddenly vulnerable, she shot a hasty glance around the area. A middle-aged man in a loose tan smock and a broad-brimmed hat caught her attention. He stood some distance away, in the middle of an elaborate rose garden. Two armed guards nearby watched while the man in the smock stuck a shovel into the ground and stepped on it vigorously. “Good lord, it’s Harry.”

  “Harry?” Ran-Del said, following her gaze. “Harry who?”

  “Harry Leong,” Francesca said. She waved but Harry didn’t notice her. “I’m glad to see he’s still alive. I haven’t seen him in several seasons.”

  “But who is he?” Ran-Del asked.

  “He’s Hans and Freddie’s father. Elena keeps him locked up here.” Francesca became aware that the Leong guards had noticed her staring at Harry.

  “We should get going, Baroness,” Merced said.

  “All right,” Francesca said, starting for the skimmer.

  The three other Hayden guards waiting on the skimmer looked relieved when they arrived. Merced pounded on the partition to signal the driver. “Okay, Kitty, get us out of here.”

  Francesca took a seat in the back as the skimmer lifted. “Could you all give us some privacy, please.”

  “Sure thing, Baroness.” Merced opened the partition and stepped through it, hanging on to a stanchion as the vehicle started forward. “Geldorf, you and the others move into the front seat.”

  Francesca waited until they were out of the Leong gate to speak in a low voice to Ran-Del. “Well? What did you think?”

  Ran-Del turned his head from the view of the streets to look at her with solemn eyes. “I don’t know anything about the deal, but Hans Leong is an arrogant, heartless, greedy man who’d crush you like a bug if he could.”

  “I don’t need your psy sense to know that,” Francesca said. “If I called him a son of a bitch, it’d be true on two levels.”

  Ran-Del shook his head. “But I can’t really help you this time. He never actually lied, but then he wasn’t making promises, so I don’t know if that tells you anything.”

  Francesca thought back. “He was making threats more than promises.”

  Ran-Del nodded agreement, but changed the subject. “Why does Baroness Leong keep that man locked up?”

  “Harry?” Francesca thought back to what her father had told her, and Freddie, too, when she had asked. “Until about twenty seasons ago, Harry was Baron Leong. After Elena persuaded him she would make a better leader, he abdicated in her favor. But because he was his father’s heir, he can still revoke the abdication any time. Elena doesn’t plan on giving him a chance.”

  Ran-Del frowned. “So he can’t opt out of the House, like your cousin’s husband?”

  He was paying attention to what she said about Great Houses. That was a good sign. “Both abdication and opting out require one to appear in person at the Hall of Records.” She remembered their errand and sighed. “I guess this was a wasted morning.”

  Ran-Del craned his neck to look out the window at the sun still almost overhead. “I can still work half a day, at the least.”

  Francesca suffered a pang of something approaching guilt for taking him away from his own work with nothing gained. “Can we drop you at the warehouse?”

  Ran-Del pointed to an arched bridge up ahead that marked the Jordan’s path and the tall spire of the Omalley complex behind it. “You can let me off here. I know where I am, and I can easily walk the rest of the way.”

  Suspicion suddenly blossomed in Francesca’s mind. “Are you trying to get your exercise for today, or are you ashamed to let your friends see your wife?”

  He gave her a reassuring smile. “A little of the former,
but never the latter.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” His smile faded. “Are you going to ask her to stop, or do I have to do it?”

  The compartment door was still open so Francesca didn’t bother with the com. “Can you set us down here, please, Kitty?” she called out to the pilot. “Citizen Jahanpur wants to get out.”

  The pilot pulled the skimmer over to a pedestrian walkway and set it down gently.

  Ran-Del bent over and gave Francesca a swift kiss. “See you tonight,” he called, jumping from the skimmer before the ramp could be lowered.

  Francesca watched him walk away. Was she being paranoid? It would be better to know for sure than to wonder. Of course, the guards and the skimmer pilot would know she was suspicious, but trying to keep secrets from the staff was useless anyway. As the security staff reverted to their former seats and Merced closed the compartment door, Francesca pressed the com switch. No point in shouting her concerns. “I’m ready to head back now, Kitty. But do you think you could go really slowly? I’d like to have a look at something on the way home.”

  “Sure thing, Baroness,” Kitty’s voice said. “What do you want to see?”

  “It’s a warehouse,” Francesca said. “My husband is headed there now. Let’s just stay well back but follow him, shall we? I’m curious to see what the place looks like.”

  She watched through the window as Ran-Del turned and headed over the arched bridge that spanned the Jordan, then turned north. Kitty took the skimmer up, headed north but didn’t cross the river.

  Ran-Del broke into a slow jog trot and kept going for some distance, following the river. Kitty kept the skimmer well back, and Ran-Del never once looked behind him.

  When Ran-Del came to an open space, he stopped and looked first at the sky, then at his com, as if he were checking the time. He turned toward the river, headed for a small building perched on the riverbank. It was too small to be a warehouse.

  “Let’s get just a little closer, please, Kitty,” Francesca said. “I’d like to get a look at the name of that place.”

  “You’ve got it, Baroness,” Kitty’s voice echoed on the speaker as the skimmer zipped across the river—an illegal maneuver but not uncommon—and hovered near the building’s entrance.

  Francesca read the sign. Benjie’s. A bar, not a warehouse. She needed to find out just what was going on inside Benjie’s. She pressed the com switch again. “Thanks, Kitty. That’s fine. Take us home, quickest route.”

  What she needed, Francesca thought, as the skimmer returned to the western bank, was someone Ran-Del wouldn’t recognize. The security staff was out, probably the household staff, too. She nodded to herself. She would have to hire outside help.