Steven Brust - Orca

I said, “There are no witnesses who can implicate Domm, you know.”

“Except Vonnith.”

“Yes. Except Vonnith and Reega. Will you be going after Vonnith?”

“Maybe. I don’t know if I can touch her. I’ll have to check with—” She got a look of distaste on her features. “With Shortisle and Indus.”

“Reega?”

“Not a chance. She gets away with it.”

“I thought so. Well, that’s fine. I don’t care. Everyone involved in killing Fyres deserves an Imperial Title, as far as I’m concerned. But I do care about Vonnith.”

“As I say, I don’t know if I can—”

I held up my hand. “You can put pressure on her, and a little pressure is all it should take.”

“For what?”

“To get her to cough up the deed to a small piece of property on the north side of town. A very small piece, a couple of acres, with a hideously ugly blue cottage on it. There’s an old woman living there. I can’t pronounce her name, but here it is.” I passed it to her and enjoyed watching her lips move as she tried to figure out how to say it.

Then she said, “That’s all you want?”

“What do you want, Ensign?”

She glared at me. “I want ...” She stopped glaring, but continued staring, if you know what I mean.

“What do you want?” I repeated. “What would please you right now?”

“I ...”

“Yes?” I said.

“Are you—?”

I looked away and waited.

Presently she said, “You used to be in the Jhereg?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And what, exactly, did you do?”

I turned back to her. “You know what I did.”

She nodded slowly. “The deed to the land for the old woman—that’s what you’re getting out of this?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“What about Fyres’s personal notes?”

I extracted them from inside my cloak and put them on the table. She looked at them, riffled through them, nodded, and put them in her pouch.

She said, “Are you, uh, going to be somewhere for a while?”

I remembered the area and said, “This is as good a place as any, I think.”

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose it is.”

She looked at me for a long time, and then she picked up her dagger and sheathed it. She reached for the wine, poured herself a glass, held it up to me, and drank. She held out her hand to Loiosh. He hesitated a moment, then hopped over to her wrist. She studied him for a moment, looking closely into his eyes and showing no sign of fear at all.

“I’ve never been this close to one of these before. It looks very intelligent.”

“More intelligent than me sometimes,” I said. “That’s just banter, Loiosh. Forget I said it.”

“No chance, boss. You’re stuck with that forever.”

She held her hand out and Loiosh hopped back over to my shoulder. She took out a handkerchief and wiped her wrist, then folded the handkerchief and put it away.

Then she looked at me and nodded.

“You got it, Easterner,” she said.

And then, Kiera, I waited. And, as I waited, I was just a bit nervous.

I mean, you speak Jhereg—You know what we were talking about, or, rather, not talking about; and of course I knew, but I wasn’t sure if Timmer knew. I thought she did, I hoped she did, but I didn’t know, and so I sat there and waited and was nervous, in spite of Loiosh’s comments designed to irritate me into relaxing.

No, don’t ask me to explain that.

By this time I had blended into the background of the public house, and no one was really looking at me, so at least I didn’t have that to worry about. In fact, Kiera, while I was nervous about Timmer, I wasn’t really worried about anything; it seemed that the time for worrying was well past; besides, I had plans to make, and the time to worry is when you don’t have anything else to do. I’m not sure who said that; I think it was you.

An hour later she came back and sat down. She looked at me. There was no expression on her face.

I said, “Well?”

She said, “I’ve asked the local magistrate for a seizure card. Just temporary, of course; until the investigation is over.”

“For me?”

“Yes, for you. Of course,” she added, “I don’t know your real name, so I had to mark it ‘name unknown,’ but I know that you have information about Fyres’s death, and that’s what we’re investigating.”

“I understand. When will it go into effect?”

“In about fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes,” I repeated. “All right.”

“Until that time,” she said carefully, “I cannot legally stop you from leaving the city, or even this public house; but I would ask, from one loyal citizen to another, that you consider your duty to the Empire and remain here, as a gesture of cooperation.”

“Here?”

“Yes. The card will be served here.”

“Will you be remaining here as well, to serve the card?”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible; I have to act on the information that you’ve given me. But, ah, someone will be by to serve it as soon as it’s ready.”

“About twenty minutes, then.”

“Or less.” She stared off at nothing. “Someone will be arriving with it, directly from the magistrate.”

“And where is the magistrate?”

“A quarter of a mile away. To the east.”

I nodded. “All right,” I said.

I started to drink some more wine, then thought better of it. Wine sometimes affects me very quickly. “I’m afraid,” I said slowly, “that I’m going to have to decline. I’ll be running from the seizure, so you will have to send someone after me to serve it.”

“I thought you might,” she said. “Unfortunately, I cannot, at this time, detain you.”

“I’m already being hunted,” I pointed out.

“Not by the Empire.”

“No,” I said. “That’s true. Not by the Empire.”

“With some crimes, the Empire looks for the fugitive harder than with other crimes. And there are even some crimes, some very serious crimes, that never get properly handled, and where descriptions are lost or mixed up.”

“I understand,” I said.

She rose to her feet. “Too bad I can’t stay to serve the card,” she said. “But duty calls.”

“In a very clear voice,” I said.

“I’ll see you again,” she said.

“Why, yes. If I’m arrested—”

“Detained.”

“Detained. Right. If I’m detained, then, no doubt, I’ll be at City Hall tomorrow, being interrogated.”

“And if you’re not?”

“Who knows?” I said. “You know, I rather like this place. It’s especially nice at this time of the evening.”

“Yes,” she said. She opened her mouth as if she had something else to say, but closed it again, leaving whatever it was unsaid. Then she stood and left without any ceremony whatsoever.

I waited a decent interval—say, about a minute—then I settled the score, got up, and went outside. It was a lovely, crisp day, with the winter not yet arrived. The street was almost empty of people. I looked around carefully, as did Loiosh, and we consulted.

There were about a hundred places to choose from in an area like this, but I settled on a doorway right next to the public house—it was deep, and quiet, and didn’t look like it got much use. I slumped against it and sent Rocza into the air.

I stood there for perhaps twenty minutes. A few people walked by but none of them noticed me. One elderly Teckla walked past me to go into the building whose doorway I was occupying, but even he didn’t appear to notice me as I stepped out of his way. You taught me how to do that, Kiera; you said it’s more attitude than anything else. Maybe you’re right.