Iorich (11 page)

“You see people,” I told him.

“My lord?”

I’m not completely sure how much the titles and how much the imperial had to do with me becoming “my lord.” I said, “I’m trying to learn my way around this place, and who’s who, so I don’t make a fool of myself when I meet strangers.”

He nodded as if it were a great idea, and he was just the man for the job.

“Who do you want to know about first?” He had a serious, business-like expression. I avoided laughing in his face because it would have been unproductive, not to mention rude.

“Who is close to Her Majesty?”

“Close?” he said, as if I’d mentioned something scandalous.

“Who does she listen to?”

“Oh,” he said, and looked thoughtful again. “Well, first, there’s Lady Mifaant.”

“Who is she?”

“An Issola. She doesn’t have, ah, an office or anything. I mean, there’s no name for it. But she’s Her Majesty’s, um, I don’t know the word. The person the Empress goes to when something is bothering her.”

“Confidant? Best friend?”

Something about that bothered him—like, I don’t know, maybe the Empress isn’t supposed to have friends—but he finally gave a hesitant nod.

“Who else?”

“Nerulan, of course. Her physicker.”

I nodded.

“And her, well—” He hesitated, and turned a little red.

“Hmmm?”

“You know.”

“I don’t, actually. Unless you mean she has a lover.”

He nodded once, watching me carefully, as if for a clue as to what sort of expression he should have.

“Who is he? Or she?”

“He. He’s, um, he’s . . .” His voice trailed off and looked a little desperate.

“An Easterner?” I said. In fact, I knew very well, but the less I admitted to knowing, the more he’d tell me.

He nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’d heard rumors. What’s his name?”

“Laszló,” he said. I nodded. Poncer dropped his voice and said, “He’s a witch.”

“Well,” I said. “Interesting.”

And it was.

“He’s been alive for, well, longer than they’re supposed to live, anyway.” He looked at me, reddened again, and became very interested in his drink.

I gave him what I calculated to be a friendly, reassuring chuckle. “What does he look like?”

He frowned. “Like you,” he said. “His skin is your color, and he has hair growing like you have, above his lip. More hair, though, and curlier.”

“I take it he’s usually surrounded by courtiers?”

“They try,” he said.

“Yeah, they would.”

“He tries to stay away from them, though.”

“I don’t blame him. So, how do I manage to talk to him?”

“Um,” he said. I think the question startled him. Gossip was one thing; actually using the gossip seemed to make him uncomfortable. I waited.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t think of any way.”

I waited some more.

“It won’t help,” he said, “but there are rumors . . .”

“Yes?”

“There are rumors that he knows the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain.”

I didn’t have to pretend to look startled.

“Easy, Boss. ‘Rumors,’ remember?”

“But still—”

“And if she knew him, why didn’t she ever mention it?”

“Oh, come on, Loiosh. She’s Sethra.”

“That’s good to know,” I told Poncer. “Who else sees the Empress? Does she have a Prime Minister?”

“No,” he said. “Well, some say she does, but it’s secret.”

“She must have advisers she consults regularly.”

“The Warlord, for anything about the army. And the Lady of the Chairs for anything to do with the Council of Princes. And then for finances and stuff—”

“The Warlord.”

He nodded.

“I thought the Warlord was under arrest.”

“The new Warlord.”

“Who is the new Warlord?”

“Her Highness Norathar,” he said.

I stared at him. After a moment, I said, “I thought she was Dragon Heir.”

“She’s both.”

“Interesting. And they see each other often?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is Lady of the Chairs?”

“Lord Avissa.”

“House?”

“Issola. The Lady of the Chairs is always an Issola.”

“Oh. Of course.” I almost touched the hilt of Lady Teldra, but I didn’t want to make Poncer any more nervous than I had to.

We talked a little longer about inconsequential things,
and I bought him another beer, dodged a few polite questions, and took my leave. I’m much better at getting information from Teckla than I used to be, thanks to a ghost and a knife, in that order. Long story, never mind.

Norathar and Sethra. Yeah, I shouldn’t be surprised that two of the Empress’s secret confidants were people I knew. Aliera herself was a third, for that matter. I had surrounded myself with those types by a complex process that had started years ago when a minor button-man started skimming from me. And no, I’m not about to give you any more details. Get over it.

I thought about walking to the Dragon Wing and seeing if I could have a long chat with Norathar e’Lanya, the Warlord and Dragon Heir. Once, she’d been a Jhereg assassin. She’d worked with the Easterner who became my wife.

My son would be about eight now. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been four. A lot goes on in those four years. By now—

No.

I stood still in a hallway deep in the heart of the Palace that controlled the mighty Empire of Dragaerans, letting humanity (to use the term loosely) flow around me, and tried to convince myself to attend to business. Seeing Cawti and my son would make me miserable and put them in danger. So, naturally, it was exactly what I wanted to do.

Cawti had named him Vlad Norathar.

I suddenly had the feeling that if I met with Norathar—I mean, the Warlord—I’d smack her on the side of the head. Probably best not to talk to her just now.

“Boss?”

“Mmmm?”

“We should visit Sethra.”

“I know.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Partly that. Partly, I don’t want the whole Jhereg knowing I went there. Castle Black is one thing, but Dzur Mountain—”

“You think you’d be in danger in Dzur Mountain?”

“No, not danger. I just don’t feel comfortable having the Jhereg know I’m there; at least right away.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe there’s a way. . . okay, let’s do it.”

“Uh, how, Boss?”

“How what? How do we get there? I have a clever and devious plan.”

“Oh, great.”

I worked my way around to the Athyra Wing and, eventually, out into the world. It was bright out there, making me think of the East where there’s no overcast to protect you from the Furnace. I blinked and waited for my eyes to adjust.

The Athyra Wing is usually pretty quiet and today was no exception; that meant that just in case there were any assassins who’d been following me waiting for an opportunity, I’d see them—pardon me, Loiosh would see them in plenty of time. I set out on the Street of the Athyra, turning to pass the obsidian monolith (oh, yes, we’re so impressive) of the House of the Athyra on my right, continuing just a few score of yards beyond it to Mawg Way. “Mawg,” I was once told, means “merchant” in some disused language that goes back to before there were any such things as merchants. That makes you wonder, you know? I mean, “mawg.” An ugly word. Where did they get “merchant” out of that? Maybe there are people who study things like that. If so, they’re probably Athyra.

A few doors down, on the left side, was a windowless cottage built of round stones. It had a thick door bound in iron
strips; the door was standing open. Above the doorway was a particularly detailed sign in which an Athyra was flying over a map of the Empire.

“Boss, you aren’t serious.”

“Why not?”

“Ever heard of the Left Hand of the Jhereg, Boss? You know, the sorceresses?”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Boss, the Left Hand doesn’t like you. And even if they did, the Jhereg could hire one of them to watch places like this. As soon as you teleport, a sorcerer can. . . what are you laughing about?”

“Just watch me, Loiosh.”

I went in. The entry room was just big enough, and held a door opposite. A young lady of the House of the Athyra sat in a wooden chair facing the door, looking serious and mystical and very business-like: she may as well have had “apprentice” stenciled on her forehead.

She looked me over, decided on just how noble I was (I was an Easterner, but I dared to wear a sword openly), and inclined her head slightly. “Yes, sir?”

“How much is a teleport?”

“One imperial, to a known location.”

“How much to have the sorcerer come to me?”

“My lord? Oh, you mean to teleport from somewhere else? Two imperials, if it’s within the city.”

“And how much to have it done surreptitiously, and untraceably? And add in a short-term spell to make me sorcerously invisible.”

“How short-term?”

“A minute. Half a minute.”

“Ten.”

“That’s fine. My name is Vladimir Taltos, I’ll be going to Dzur Mountain, and I wish to have a sorcerer meet me in the Temple of Verra on Waterhill in South Adrilankha.”

Her nose wrinkled and she hesitated, looking for an excuse to say no. Eventually she said, “I’ll have to ask.”

“I’ll wait here,” I said.

She gave me a suspicious look before going through the door. It isn’t like there was anything in the room to steal. She returned a moment later, asked for my name again. This time she wrote it on a small slab of some sort, and nodded. “She will meet you.”

“Want the money now?”

“If you please.”

I put two five-imperial coins into her hand and sketched a bow. I opened the door, standing far enough to the side not to be open to anything unpleasant that might shoot through it, but not so far as to make it obvious what I was doing. Loiosh flew out; I’d have loved to see the look on the apprentice’s face, but my back was to her. Loiosh said it was safe, so I stepped out onto the street.

Crowded streets make it harder to set something up reliably, but easier to get the drop on your target, and easier to get away safely afterward. Empty streets, of course, have the opposite problems. I compromised and took a mix of both, making my way to the Chain Bridge and so across to South Adrilankha.

“So, Loiosh, you get it?”

“I know what you’re thinking—the Jhereg won’t go after you in a temple.”

“Right.”

“But you still have to get
to
the temple.”

“I have complete confidence in you.”

One thing that cannot be done psychically is mutter, but Loiosh took a pretty good run at it.

There are scores of shrines to Verra in the city, and several temples to her in South Adrilankha. The one I’d chosen was a low stonework affair, set back from the road, with a flagstone walk flanked by scrawny trees. Moreover, it was in a neighborhood with a lot of space between the houses. Put it all together, and there were no good places for assassins to hide. Even Loiosh grudgingly agreed, after a few minutes flying around, that I could go ahead and venture up to the doors—after that, he made no guarantees.

Opening the door was scary. I didn’t care how stupid I looked; I listened, stood to the side, and was moving when I flung it open.

No one was there. Yeah, I looked stupid. I might have gotten some funny glances from people passing on the street, but I didn’t wait around to see, I just stepped inside.

It was a single room, with a black altar opposite the door, about ten paces from me. I knew from memory that there were small holes cut into the altar for candles, though I couldn’t see them from here. Beyond that, the place was utterly bare. The priest here believed that one should bring nothing to the Goddess but the desire to serve, or something like that. I don’t remember exactly how he’d put it; it was years ago. Services here were held two or three times a week, I forget the times and dates, and on the obvious feast days.

I positioned myself behind the altar and waited for the sorcerer—or an assassin, if I’d misjudged the Jhereg. Sorry, don’t mean to be mysterious. There are rules to how we operate: you
don’t kill someone in front of his family, you don’t mess with him in his home, you don’t touch him in a temple or at a shrine.

The thing is, all of these rules have, at one time or another, been violated; one reason I was in trouble with the Jhereg was for violating one of them. I’d had a bad day that day. The point is, I was calculating on them following the rules, at least this time, and for a while. If I was wrong, things were liable to get exciting.