Steven Brust - Teckla

I shook my head. "Cawti is."

He sighed. "Vlad, Vlad, Vlad. It is silliness. If a revolution comes along, of course you support it. But to go out of your way like this is to put your head on the block."

"When has revolution come along?"

"Eh? In two twenty-one."

"Oh. Yes. Of course."

"Yes. We fought then, because it was what we did, but some can't forget that and think we should be always fighting."

I said, "What do you know about these people?"

"Oh, I hear things. Their leader, this Kelly, he is a fighter they say."

"A fighter? A brawler?"

"No, no. I mean he never quits, that is what I hear. And they are getting bigger, you know. I remember I heard of them a few years ago when they had a parade of twenty people, and now they have thousands."

"Why do people go there?"

"Oh, there are always those who aren't happy. And there has been violence here; beatings and robbing of people, and they say the Phoenix Guards of the Empire don't stop it. And some landlords raise their rent because some of their houses burn down, and people are unhappy about that, too."

"But none of that has anything to do with Cawti. We don't even live around here."

He shook his head and tsked . "It is silliness," he repeated.

I said, "What can I do?"

He shrugged. "Your grandmother did things I didn't like, Vladimir. There is nothing to be done. Perhaps she will lose interest." He frowned. "No, that is unlikely. Cawti does not lose interest when she becomes interested. But there, it is her life, not yours."

"But Noish-pa, that's just it. It's her life. Someone killed this Franz, and now Cawti is doing just what he was doing. If she wants to run around with these people and stir up trouble, or whatever they're doing, that's fine, but if she were killed, I couldn't stand it. But I can't stop her, or she'll leave me."

He frowned again and nodded. "Have you tried things?"

"Yes. I tried talking to Kelly, but that didn't do anything."

"Do you know who it was who killed this Franz fellow?"

"Yeah, I know who."

"And why?"

I paused. "No, I don't really know that."

"Then you must find out. Perhaps you will find that there is nothing to worry about, after all. If there is, perhaps you will find a way to solve it without risk to your wife."

Your wife he said. Not Cawti this time, it was your wife. That was how he thought. Family. Everything was family, and we were all the family he had. It suddenly occurred to me that he was probably disappointed in me; I don't think he approved of assassins, but I was family so that was that.

"What do you think of my work, Noish-pa?"

He shook his head. "It is terrible, what you do. It is not good for a man to live by killing. It hurts you."

"Okay." I was sorry I had asked. I said, "Thank you, Noish-pa. I have to go now."

"It was good to see you again, Vladimir."

I hugged him, collected Loiosh, and walked out of his shop. The way back to my side of town was long, and I still didn't feel like teleporting.

When Cawti came home that evening, I was soaking my feet.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"My feet hurt."

She gave me a half-smile. "Somehow this doesn't surprise me. I mean, why do your feet hurt?"

"I've been walking a lot the last few days."

She sat down across from me and stretched out. She was wearing high-waisted gray slacks with a wide black belt, a gray jerkin and a black vest. She'd hung up her half-cloak. "Anywhere in particular?"

"The Easterners' section, mostly."

She turned her head to the side a bit, which was one of my favorite things to see her do. It made her eyes seem huge in that beautiful, thin face with her perfectly sculpted cheekbones. "Doing what?"

"I went in to see Kelly."

Her eyes widened. "Why?"

"I explained that he should make sure you weren't doing anything that might put you in danger. I implied that I'd kill him if he did."

The look of curiosity changed to disbelief, then anger. "Did you really," she said.

"Yeah."

"You don't seem nervous about telling me about it."

"Thank you."

"And what did Kelly say?"

"He said that, as a human being, I rated somewhere between worthless scum and wretched garbage."

She looked startled. Not upset, startled. "He said that?"

"Not in so many words. Quite."

"Hmmm," she said.

"I'm glad to see that this outrage against your husband fills you with such a righteous indignation."

"Hmmm, "she said.

"Trying to decide if he was right?"

"Oh, no," she said. "I know he's right. I was wondering how he could tell."

"Cawti—" I said, and stopped because my voice broke.

She came over, sat beside me, and put her hand on my leg. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean that and I shouldn't have joked about it. I know he's wrong. But you shouldn't have done what you did."

"I know," I said, almost whispering.

We were silent for a time. She said, "What are you going to do now?"

"I think," I said, "that I'm going to wait until my feet feel better. Then I'm going to go out and kill someone."

She stared at me. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. No. I'm not sure. Half, I guess."

"This is hard for you. I'm sorry."

I nodded.

She said, "It's going to get harder."

"Yeah."

"I wish I could help you."

"You have. You'd do more if you could."

She nodded. After that there wasn't any more to say, so she just sat next to me for a while. Presently, we went into the bedroom and slept.

I was in the office early the next morning, with Loiosh and Rocza, I let them out my window so Loiosh could continue showing Rocza around. He had gradually been teaching her the ins and outs of the city. He enjoyed it, too. I wondered what that would do to a marriage—one having to train the other. With those two it could become strained, too—Loiosh did the teaching, but the jhereg female is dominant.

" Hey, Loiosh— "

" None of your Verra-be-damned business, boss ."

That was hardly fair; he'd been butting into my marriage. Besides, I had a right to know if I was going to be subjected to more cheap North Hill theater than what I was generating. But I didn't push it.

By the time they returned, a couple of hours later, I knew what I was going to do. I got an address from Kragar, along with a dirty look for not telling him why I wanted it. Loiosh and Rocza attached themselves to my shoulders and I went down the stairs and out of the office.

Lower Kieron Road, near Malak Circle, is the widest street in this part of town and is filled with inns set back from it and markets jutting out into it and hotels, some with small businesses inside of them. I owned all the small businesses. Lower Kieron took me south and west. It got gradually narrower, and more and more tenements appeared. Most of them had once been green but were now painted dirty, I abandoned Lower Kieron to follow a narrow little street called Ulor.

Ulor widened after a bit, and about there I turned onto Copper Street, which was different from the Copper Lane near my place, or the Copper Street to the east or the Copper Street even further east or the others that I don't remember. After a few paces, I turned left into a fairly nice looking inn with long tables of polished wood and long benches. I found the host and said, "Do you have a private room?"

He allowed as to how he did, although his look implied it wasn't normally polluted by the presence of Easterners. I said, "My name is Vlad. Tell Bajinok that I'm here."

He nodded and called for a serving man to carry the message. I spotted where the back room must be and entered it. It was empty. I was pleased that it had a real door. I closed it and sat, back to the door (Loiosh was watching), on one of the benches at a table that was a shorter version of the ones in the main room. I wondered how many people Bajinok would bring along. If it was more than one, this probably wouldn't work. But then, he might not bring anyone. I decided I had pretty good odds.