Steven Brust - Dzur

“Okay, never mind the others. That’s good enough.” I paid him and sent him on his way. I sat there for a while and thought about things. I had that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach—a good feeling, the feeling of, it’s happening . I hadn’t had that feeling in some time; I gave myself a moment to relish it.

It took a little bit of work to find Francis Donover, but not too much. As promised, he lived right at the market, above the shop of a cobbler who made a little extra renting out rooms because he wasn’t as good as Jakoub.

If Francis Donover had been a Dragaeran, he’d have been a Teckla. I mean, I was being Sandor, who is about as harmless in aspect as it is possible to be, but Francis was still terrified of him. He opened his door just the barest crack, and seemed ready to slam it again.

“My name is Sandor, and I mean you no harm. Might I trouble you for a few minutes’ conversation? It may be to your advantage.”

The “no” that was forming on his face changed abruptly at the last word. Did I say Teckla? Maybe Orca.

“What is it?” he said.

“May I come in? I assure you, I mean you no harm.”

He hesitated, looking at me carefully. Either he could see through my disguise that I wasn’t as harmless as I looked, or else he was scared of his own shadow.

Yeah, Teckla.

I showed him my almost-empty hands, as a demonstration of harmlessness. Almost empty, because there was a bright gold im­perial in one of them. He let me in.

His place was small and packed with more furniture—mismatched chairs and small tables—than wanted to fit into it easily. All those chairs, and he didn’t offer me one. “What is it,” he said, his eye on the hand that held the coin. I handed it to him.

“I’d like you to answer some questions for me. I have another one of these for you when you’re done.”

“What do you want to know?”

“You’ve shut down your stall. The whole market is shut down.”

“Yes, well, there have been problems.”

“Yes. I have a pretty good idea of what the problems are. There’s someone—no, you needn’t tell me who—who is trying to pry money out of all of you.”

He hesitated a long time, then said, “Maybe.”

“Do you want that imperial, or not?”

“Okay, yes. Someone—”

“Good. What I want to know is, who had the idea to shut down the whole market?”

He turned slightly pale. “Why do you—”

“No, no. You don’t get to ask questions. I can tell you that I have no plans to hurt whoever it is. I have no plans to hurt anyone. I’ve never hurt anyone. I just get paid to collect information. My principal—that means the fellow who is paying me–doesn’t plan to hurt whoever it is, either.”

“It isn’t that. It’s—”

“Oh. You mean, can we protect you from him?”

He nodded.

“He’ll never know you told me.”

He still looked hesitant.

“But,” I said, “if it’s someone who scares you, I’ll make it two imperials.” I gave him Sandor’s friendliest smile, which is even friendlier than my friendliest smile.

He hesitated again, then said, “It was one of, you know, of them.”

“A Dragaeran?”

He nodded.

“Male or female?”

“It was a man. A male.”

“How was he dressed?”

He frowned. “I didn’t really pay much attention.”

“Think. This is important. Try to remember the colors of his clothing.”

“I don’t know. Nondescript. Gray, I think.”

Go figure.

“And what did he say?”

“He said that he had heard about our problems and he wanted to help.”

“I see.”

“He said they couldn’t do anything if we all just shut down.”

“How could you afford that?”

“He gave us money to survive on.”

“I see. How much money?”

He looked worried again, but said, “Enough to get by.” I nodded.

“Have you seen him again, or just that once?”

“Twice. Once, about three days ago, when he suggested the idea, and then yesterday when he showed up with the money. He went around and saw everyone.”

“Three days ago was when he first suggested it?”

“Yes.”

“And when did you first hear from the guy who was muscling you?”

“Pardon?”

“Whoever wanted you to pay up, and threatened terrible things if you didn’t.”

“Oh. Uh, I guess that was a week ago.”

I nodded. “One last thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

Sir? When had Sandor become a “sir”? I suppose when he started flashing gold imperials. I said, “I’d like to speak to a couple of your colleagues.”

“My ...”

“Others who work that market.”

“Oh.”

“Just a couple of names, along with where I can find them.”

He gave them without hesitation. I wrote them down.

“Okay,” I said. “You’ve been very helpful.” I gave him three imperials because I like to leave people happy in case I need them again, and because I could afford it. There had been a time when I would have done all manner of things for those imperials I was now throwing around. There was a time when I had.

“With this,” I said as I opened the door, “you’re liable to turn a profit.”

He looked a bit embarrassed, as if I’d discovered a secret. Which I had, but not that one, and it was one I had expected to discover. I headed back out onto the street.

I was only a little worried, and that was because I always get nervous when I go to collect information and learn exactly what I expect to learn.

Yeah, he’d gone right down the line with what I’d been looking for. No surprise; I’d been pretty sure from when Vincent had first given me the information.

You see, Vincent was right.

When I was young, sometime before Loiosh, some people had run an operation like the one Vincent had described, and had tried to muscle in on various local merchants, “shredding the car­rion,” as the saying is. I knew about it even then because one of the merchants they’d gone after was my grandfather, who, while not exactly a merchant, made a good enough income to attract their attention.

Things got a little complicated, but they had eventually learned not to mess around with an old witch and a young punk. So, yeah, I was familiar with that sort of operation. My grandfather, in a futile effort to keep me from being involved, had told me that this sort of thing happened from time to time in South Adrilankha, when the greedy had no one to prey on but the desperate.

But Vincent was right; the Jhereg didn’t operate that way. Putting pressure for a few coins on a few merchants was small-time, and involved more risk of attention by the Empire than the payoff could ever be worth. Sure, once in a while some indepen­dent operator might do something like that, and the Jhereg would either absorb him or crush him, as the case may be. When I was running an area, I wouldn’t have put up with anything like that for more than about five minutes. No one else I’d heard of would have either; it’s just bad for business.

So, the fact that it was happening now was either a hell of a coincidence, or it meant something else entirely, and you can guess which way I’d bet.

I made two more calls, and spent another eight imperials, and didn’t learn anything new, but confirmed what Goodman Donover had told me, and got a name, description, and address for at least one of the Easterners who were putting the squeeze on the merchants in Ristall Market. His name was Josef; a good, Eastern name.

I had never put a shine on an Easterner; I hoped I wouldn’t have to this time. Chances are I wouldn’t. But I might have to mess him up a bit.

“Well, Loiosh. We now know everything we have to know in order to go out and get killed.”