Steven Brust - Iorich

From time to time some­one would come in­to the room, wait for a while, be met by some­one, and leave. I guess I was there for a cou­ple of hours be­fore Perisil came in. He nod­ded to me, and said, “You could have wait­ed in my of­fice.”

I stood up, nod­ded, and fol­lowed him back down the stairs. We didn’t see any­one in the long hall­way. He walked in, took a seat be­hind his desk, and gave me a ques­tion­ing look. I de­cid­ed it was a safe bet that if there’d been an as­sas­sin stand­ing there hold­ing a knife, he’d have re­act­ed some­how, so I went in af­ter him and took a seat.

“Want to ex­plain?” he said.

“Ex­plain what?”

“Nev­er mind, then.”

“You saw Aliera?”

“Just got back. She’s very, ah, proud,” he said.

“If you aren’t stat­ing the ob­vi­ous, then I’m miss­ing the point.”

“I’m stat­ing the ob­vi­ous.”

“All right.”

“Most­ly.” He sat down be­hind the desk as if he’d just been through a bat­tle. It was a very fa­mil­iar mo­tion, al­though when I sat down like that, the bat­tle had usu­al­ly been more phys­ical.

“Want to tell me about it?” I said.

“I got her to agree to let me de­fend her.”

“Well done.”

“But she won’t co­op­er­ate in the en­deav­or.”

“That would be a prob­lem.”

“Yes.”

“So, what are you go­ing to do?”

“Think about it.”

“I’ve tried that with Aliera.”

“Not much luck?”

“She isn’t sub­ject to what pass­es for log­ical thought in most peo­ple.”

He nod­ded. “I’ll see what I can come up with. Have you learned any­thing?”

“The Em­press was hit with some sort of dis­as­ter that re­flects bad­ly on her.”

“With whom?”

“Know­ing the Em­press, prob­ably his­to­ry. She’s nev­er seemed to care much about pub­lic opin­ion.”

“Can you be more spe­cif­ic?”

“Not very. Not yet.”

“You think it might be Tir­ma?”

“Maybe. Hard to say, since this is the first I’ve ev­er heard of Tir­ma.”

“Oh. That’s right, you’ve been out of the city, haven’t you?”

“Yes. I on­ly heard about Aliera’s ar­rest by a fluke.”

“Tir­ma is a vil­lage in the far north­west. There was some un­rest there, and a re­quest for Im­pe­ri­al troops. No one knows what hap­pened, but some peas­ants were slaugh­tered.”

“In­no­cent ones?”

“Some say.”

“I’ll bet Kel­ly has a lot to say on the sub­ject.”

“Who?”

“Nev­er mind. How does ar­rest­ing Aliera help? A dis­trac­tion?”

“Maybe.”

He looked like he was think­ing, so I let him alone. Af­ter a minute or two he said, “The big­ger ques­tion is, how does Aliera think it helps?”

“Yeah,” I said. “As­sum­ing all our spec­ula­tions are right.”

“We have to find out for sure.”

“You’re telling me that’s my job.”

“I’m say­ing I ex­pect your help.”

I grunt­ed. “I guess that’s fair.”

He nod­ded.

I sup­pose I could have told him that the Jhereg al­ready knew I was back in town, and it wouldn’t be safe for me to go sniff­ing around places. But then what? I mean, it had to be done.

“Sure, Boss. But do you have to be the one to do it?”

“Seems like.”

“Why?”

“No one else is.”

“Right, Boss. Why?”

“Oh.”

“. . .and un­til then, I’m not go­ing to be able to—”

“Sor­ry, I was dis­tract­ed. Start over?”

He gave me an odd look. “I was say­ing that I need some­thing I can take to a Jus­ticer.”

“What do you mean, take to a Jus­ticer?”

“I mean send­ing a Pe­ti­tion of Re­lease, or make a case for Dis­hon­or­able Pros­ecu­tion.”

“Dis­hon­or­able Pros­ecu­tion? They have that?”

“It’s in the books.”

“How many times has it been brought?”

“Suc­cess­ful­ly?”

“At all.”

“Twen­ty-​sev­en.”

“Suc­cess­ful­ly?”

“Nev­er.”

“You’d bring that against the Em­press?”

“Against the Em­pire, but, in ef­fect, yes.”

“For­get it. Aliera will nev­er per­mit it.”

He nod­ded as if he’d come to the same con­clu­sion. “Prob­ably true, but I want to have it there any­way.”

“What­ev­er you think,” I said.

“What I think is that this is very odd.”

“Seems like it to me, too. The Em­press pros­ecut­ing a friend isn’t—”

“No, that’s not what’s odd; Em­per­ors do what they have to do, and be­ing a friend to an Em­per­or some­times means los­ing your head. It’s al­ways been like that.”

“All right, then. What’s odd?”

“The law they’re pros­ecut­ing her with. It isn’t in­tend­ed to be used against high no­bles whose House is near the top of the Cy­cle.”

“Ah, you’ll have to ex­plain that.”

“What’s to ex­plain?”

“Some laws ap­ply to high no­bles, and some not?”

“How else?”

“Um. I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“To pros­ecute a no­ble un­der the Code, you have to get a ma­jor­ity vote of the princes. The princes aren’t go­ing to vote against a no­ble when the House is pow­er­ful with­out a more com­pelling case than this is.”

“So this is a waste of time?”

“No, no—you mis­un­der­stand. That’s un­der the Code. This is an Im­pe­ri­al Edict, which means the Em­press and the High Jus­ticer make the de­ci­sion. That’s why they can get a con­vic­tion.”

“Well then, what’s—”

“But us­ing the Edicts against a no­ble, at a time when you couldn’t get a con­vic­tion, is go­ing to raise quite a stink among the princes. The High Jus­ticer has to know that, and so does the Em­press.”

“Would they let that in­ter­fere with jus­tice?”

“Are you be­ing fun­ny?”

“Yes.”

“Eh. I guess it was a lit­tle fun­ny at that. But, you know, there is mak­ing the law, and en­forc­ing the law, and in­ter­pret­ing the law, and they all mix up to­geth­er, and it’s peo­ple who do those things, and the peo­ple all mix up to­geth­er. You can’t sep­arate them.”

“It’d be in­ter­est­ing to try.”

He waved it aside. “The point is, this will cre­ate lots of bad feel­ings among those who mat­ter. And bad feel­ings are bad states­man­ship, and the Em­press isn’t known for bad states­man­ship.”

“Um. Okay, I think I get the idea. What’s your con­clu­sion?”

“My con­clu­sion is that I want to know what’s go­ing on. I’ll look at it from my end, you look at it from yours.”

“All right.”

“Do you know how you’re go­ing to start?”

“Of course not.”

He nod­ded like he’d have been sur­prised to get any oth­er an­swer. “Are you open to sug­ges­tions?”

“Sure.”

“Stay away from the Em­press.”

“That part is easy. I don’t have that much call to see her, you know. But that on­ly tells me what not to do.”

“I’m sure we can find more things for you not to do if we put our minds to it.”

“See, Boss? He does have a sense of hu­mor.”

“Such as it is.” Aloud, I said, “You need some­thing that will pro­vide a le­gal an­gle for Aliera.”

He nod­ded.

“Yeah, well, I know about as much about the law as you know about—that is, I don’t know much about the law.”

“You don’t need to. Find out why they’re pros­ecut­ing Aliera, and be able to prove it.”

“Prove it. What does that mean, ex­act­ly?”