Steven Brust - Orca

When I returned in the morning, the table near the stove was filled with the papers I’d discovered, all neatly sorted into four stacks, and, if I remembered the quantity correctly, reduced by about three-quarters. Vlad had the bleary-eyed look of someone who had just woken up, and Savn was still asleep by the hearth, Loiosh, Rocza, and Buddy curled up with him. Buddy thumped his tail once, gave a dog yawn, gave a whiny sigh, and put his head down on his paws. There were pieces of charcoal on the floor, more testimony to Vlad’s state; the water was boiling, and I could see the klava tin next to it, and Vlad was staring at them like he’d forgotten what they were for.

I said, “What did you learn?”

He said, “Huh?”

“Make the klava.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“The water goes into the inverted cone sitting on the—”

“I know how to make Verra-be-damned klava.”

“Right.”

He completed the operation, not spilling any water, which impressed me, then he scowled at the floor and went looking for a broom. I said, “I take it it will be a while before I get my answers.”

“Huh? Yeah. Just let me drink a cup of this poison.”

“Poison? I thought you liked klava.”

“She’s out of honey,” he said, practically snarling.

“Back in a minute,” I said.

By the time the klava was done, I was back with a crock of honey, and Vlad said, “You must be sure to permit me to be cut into pieces for you sometime.”

“Been reading Paarfi again?”

“I don’t know how to read. In an hour, maybe I’ll know how to read.”

He put honey into the mugs, pressed the klava, and poured a little bit more than two mugs’ worth into two mugs. He cursed. I said, “I’ll clean it up.”

“I’ll also be immolated for you whenever you wish.”

“Noted,” I said.

Half an hour later he was himself again, more or less. I said, “Okay, what did you learn?”

“I learned,” he said slowly, “that either it takes a trained expert to learn things from pieces of scrap paper, or it takes an amateur a long, long time to look for a greenstalk in the grass.”

“In other words, you learned nothing?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say nothing.”

He was smiling. He’d gotten something. I nodded and waited. He said, “Most of it was numbers. There were a lot of numbers. I didn’t pay much attention to them, until I realized they probably meant money; then they caused me a certain distress. But that still wasn’t helpful. I haven’t thrown them away, because you never know, but I did set them aside.”

I kept waiting.

“A few of those scraps of paper had names, sometimes with cryptic notes. Those I paid more attention to. I sorted them into three groups. One pile has mostly numbers but maybe a name, or a word that might be a code word, or something like that. Another has messages—things like, ‘Lunch, Firstday, Swallowtail, Lady Preft,’ or ‘Modify collateral policy on mortgage holdings—meeting three o’clock.’ The third pile—”

He stood up, walked over to the table, and picked up a few pieces of paper. “The third pile contains the results of going through the other two—these are scraps I came up with after looking at and rejecting a lot more. There isn’t much, but there may be something.”

He brought them over and handed them to me. “Okay, Kiera,” he said. “Let’s see if you’re as devious as I am. Take them one at a time, in order, and try to put it together.”

“Okay,” I said. “I like games.”

There were four slips of paper—two of them obviously torn off from larger sheets, the other two on very plain paper. The one on top, one of the torn fragments, was written in a very elegant, precise hand, an easy one to read. It read, SDforBT, 5&10, 8:00, Skyday, Cklshl.

I said, “Well, 5D, if we were talking about money, is probably five dots: five thousand imperials. But that’s a Jhereg term—I wouldn’t have expected a banker to use it.”

“Yep. That’s exactly what caught my eye. Keep going.”

I shrugged. “Skyday is easy, and so is 8:00. But I don’t know what BT means, 5&10, or what cee kay ell ess aech ell spells.”

He said, “Start with the last. There’s a small inn, not far from the bank, that’s marked by a sign of a seashell, and it’s called the Cockleshell. Our hostess told me about it.

She says it isn’t the sort of place one might normally find a banker.”

“Hmmm. This is getting interesting. A payoff of some sort?”

Vlad nodded. “Look at the time again.”

I did so. “Right,” I said. “Whether it’s eight in the morning or eight at night, it isn’t at a time when banks are open.”

“Exactly. Now, what do you make of the 5&10?”

“Five—and ten-imperial notes, or pieces?”

He nodded. “That’s my guess. Coins, probably. Clumsy to carry, but safer to negotiate.”

“Then it is a payoff. And BT is the person being paid off—out of bank funds. Any idea who that is?”

“Try the next note.”

It was just like the first—same hand, same amount, different day and time, only no place was mentioned, and the “5&10” was missing. It had been crumbled up, like someone had thrown it at a wastepaper basket and missed. I said, “Well? They did it at the bank?”

“Maybe. Or maybe we’ve found an early one and a late one, and there was no need to name the place or the denominations because by now she knew it. And another thing: look at the blotting on both of them.”

“It’s sloppy.”

“Right. They were just notes by—I presume—Lady Vonnith to herself. If they were ever turned into official copies, those were filed, processed, and taken—or, more likely, destroyed. But she scribbled these while doing calculations or talking to someone, and then apparently tossed them at the wastepaper basket and missed.”

“Yes,” I said. “And this one is fairly recent—like, perhaps, the day they closed down.”

“Right.”

I nodded. “I recognize the hand, by the way.”

“You recognize it?”

“Only in the sense that I remember where these came from, and there was a lot of paper there, most of it, like this, crumbled up into balls and lying on the floor, and a bunch of them that, just guessing, had fallen behind a desk or a filing cabinet and weren’t worth retrieving. And it was, indeed, the biggest office in the place, so I’d guess you’re right about whose notes these are.”

He nodded. “Okay. After I’d gotten that far, I went through all the notes again, looking for any reference at all to BT.”

“I take it you found something?”

“Yep. Read the next one.”

“Different hand,” I said. “Probably a man. Was it found in the same place?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was written to her, not by her. Hmmm. Not as legible, but I think I can make it out. ‘There are questions about dispersals to BT—I think we should tighten it up before it mirrors. Should we use the disc, fund?’ And I can’t read the signature at all—I imagine it’s the scrawl someone uses informally.”

“Yes, I suspect you’re right. So what do you make of that one?”

“That’s a curious little phrase, ‘before it mirrors.’ “

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Why not say, ‘before it reflects?’ And what would that mean, anyway? Do you have a guess?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. Let’s hear yours, though.”

“ ‘Before it mirrors.’ Hmmm.”

“Give up?”

“Not yet; you’re enjoying this too much.” I pondered for a while and came up with nothing. “All right, I give up. What did you see that I didn’t?”

Vlad smiled with one side of his face. “The next note.”

“Heh. Okay.” I looked at the fourth and last of the notes Vlad had found. This was the longest, and, as far as I could tell, the most innocuous. It said, Lady—Lord Sustorr was in again—he now wants to secure his loan with his share of Northport Coal. I told him he had to talk to you, but it seems reasonable. I’m going to start running numbers on it. Some big shot from the Ministry of the Treasury was in today looking for you. He didn’t leave his name, but says he’ll be back tomorrow—it may be an Imperial Audit, but I don’t think we have anything to worry about. I spoke with Nurtria about the complaint we received, and he promises to be more polite in the future. Lady Aise was in about the Club meeting. She left the flyer that’s attached to this note. Firrna is still sick; we may have to replace him if this goes on—remind me to talk to you about it. It was signed with the same illegible scrawl as the last one. I read it three times, then looked up at Vlad.