Steven Brust - Iorich

“By all means, my l . . . ah, sir.”

“Thanks,” I pulled up a chair. “I’ll buy you an­oth­er of what­ev­er you have there, if you don’t mind. What does the yel­low arm­band sig­ni­fy?”

He had light brown hair peek­ing out from un­der a hat that was too tall and not wide enough to look any­thing but ab­surd. He glanced at the arm­band as if he didn’t re­al­ize it was there, then said, “Oh, I’m a mes­sage-​run­ner.”

“For whom?”

“For hire, sir. Did you wish a mes­sage sent some­where with­in the Palace? If it is out­side the Palace it­self, I have to charge more, be­cause I pass it on to—”

“No, no. I was just cu­ri­ous about what it meant.”

He nod­ded, held up his mug, and ges­tured in the di­rec­tion of a young Chreotha who seemed to be work­ing for the old­er wom­an who was still there, on­ly now much more awake.

“I’m Vlad,” I said. “Baronet of this, Im­pe­ri­al Count of that, but skip all that.” He wouldn’t, of course. He’d be in­ca­pable of skip­ping it.

“I’m Pon­cer,” he said.

“Well met.”

He gave Loiosh and Rocza a look, but then his drink ar­rived—it smelled like the sort of dark beer that makes me hate beer—and that dis­tract­ed him.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he asked af­ter a swal­low.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Sir?”

I smiled. “Do you need to be any­where for the next cou­ple of hours?”

“Well, I should look for work—”

“How much do you earn?”

“Three pen­nies with­in the Im­pe­ri­al Wing. If I have to—”

I gave him an im­pe­ri­al.

He stared at it, then at me, then back to it, then he took it and put in­to a pouch at his side.

I now had his at­ten­tion.

Iorich

5

The or­ders from the War­lord to Gen­er­al La­dy Fardra e’Baritt were not put in spe­cif­ic terms (see Ap­pendix 2), but did in­clude the phrase “min­imal dam­age to prop­er­ty and non-​com­bat­ants in the re­gion is a pri­or­ity sec­ond on­ly to sup­pres­sion of the dis­or­ders.” One ques­tion be­fore this com­mit­tee, then, is to con­sid­er what “min­imal” means in this con­text, and who is a non-​com­bat­ant, and who can rea­son­ably be as­sumed to be a non-​com­bat­ant by in­di­vid­ual sol­diers of var­ious ranks and re­spon­si­bil­ities in high-​risk ar­eas.

“You see peo­ple,” I told him.

“My lord?”

I’m not com­plete­ly sure how much the ti­tles and how much the im­pe­ri­al had to do with me be­com­ing “my lord.” I said, “I’m try­ing to learn my way around this place, and who’s who, so I don’t make a fool of my­self when I meet strangers.”

He nod­ded as if it were a great idea, and he was just the man for the job.

“Who do you want to know about first?” He had a se­ri­ous, busi­ness-​like ex­pres­sion. I avoid­ed laugh­ing in his face be­cause it would have been un­pro­duc­tive, not to men­tion rude.

“Who is close to Her Majesty?”

“Close?” he said, as if I’d men­tioned some­thing scan­dalous.

“Who does she lis­ten to?”

“Oh,” he said, and looked thought­ful again. “Well, first, there’s La­dy Mi­faant.”

“Who is she?”

“An Is­so­la. She doesn’t have, ah, an of­fice or any­thing. I mean, there’s no name for it. But she’s Her Majesty’s, um, I don’t know the word. The per­son the Em­press goes to when some­thing is both­er­ing her.”

“Con­fi­dant? Best friend?”

Some­thing about that both­ered him—like, I don’t know, maybe the Em­press isn’t sup­posed to have friends—but he fi­nal­ly gave a hes­itant nod.

“Who else?”

“Neru­lan, of course. Her physick­er.”

I nod­ded.

“And her, well—” He hes­itat­ed, and turned a lit­tle red.

“Hm­mm?”

“You know.”

“I don’t, ac­tu­al­ly. Un­less you mean she has a lover.”

He nod­ded once, watch­ing me care­ful­ly, as if for a clue as to what sort of ex­pres­sion he should have.

“Who is he? Or she?”

“He. He’s, um, he’s . . .” His voice trailed off and looked a lit­tle des­per­ate.

“An East­ern­er?” I said. In fact, I knew very well, but the less I ad­mit­ted to know­ing, the more he’d tell me.

He nod­ded.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’d heard ru­mors. What’s his name?”

“Las­zló,” he said. I nod­ded. Pon­cer dropped his voice and said, “He’s a witch.”

“Well,” I said. “In­ter­est­ing.”

And it was.

“He’s been alive for, well, longer than they’re sup­posed to live, any­way.” He looked at me, red­dened again, and be­came very in­ter­est­ed in his drink.

I gave him what I cal­cu­lat­ed to be a friend­ly, re­as­sur­ing chuck­le. “What does he look like?”

He frowned. “Like you,” he said. “His skin is your col­or, and he has hair grow­ing like you have, above his lip. More hair, though, and curli­er.”

“I take it he’s usu­al­ly sur­round­ed by courtiers?”

“They try,” he said.

“Yeah, they would.”

“He tries to stay away from them, though.”

“I don’t blame him. So, how do I man­age to talk to him?”

“Um,” he said. I think the ques­tion star­tled him. Gos­sip was one thing; ac­tu­al­ly us­ing the gos­sip seemed to make him un­com­fort­able. I wait­ed.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t think of any way.”

I wait­ed some more.

“It won’t help,” he said, “but there are ru­mors . . .”

“Yes?”

“There are ru­mors that he knows the En­chantress of Dzur Moun­tain.”

I didn’t have to pre­tend to look star­tled.

“Easy, Boss. ‘Ru­mors,’ re­mem­ber?”

“But still—”

“And if she knew him, why didn’t she ev­er men­tion it?”

“Oh, come on, Loiosh. She’s Sethra.”

“That’s good to know,” I told Pon­cer. “Who else sees the Em­press? Does she have a Prime Min­is­ter?”

“No,” he said. “Well, some say she does, but it’s se­cret.”

“She must have ad­vis­ers she con­sults reg­ular­ly.”

“The War­lord, for any­thing about the army. And the La­dy of the Chairs for any­thing to do with the Coun­cil of Princes. And then for fi­nances and stuff—”

“The War­lord.”

He nod­ded.

“I thought the War­lord was un­der ar­rest.”

“The new War­lord.”

“Who is the new War­lord?”

“Her High­ness No­rathar,” he said.

I stared at him. Af­ter a mo­ment, I said, “I thought she was Drag­on Heir.”

“She’s both.”

“In­ter­est­ing. And they see each oth­er of­ten?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is La­dy of the Chairs?”

“Lord Avis­sa.”

“House?”

“Is­so­la. The La­dy of the Chairs is al­ways an Is­so­la.”

“Oh. Of course.” I al­most touched the hilt of La­dy Tel­dra, but I didn’t want to make Pon­cer any more ner­vous than I had to.

We talked a lit­tle longer about in­con­se­quen­tial things, and I bought him an­oth­er beer, dodged a few po­lite ques­tions, and took my leave. I’m much bet­ter at get­ting in­for­ma­tion from Teck­la than I used to be, thanks to a ghost and a knife, in that or­der. Long sto­ry, nev­er mind.

No­rathar and Sethra. Yeah, I shouldn’t be sur­prised that two of the Em­press’s se­cret con­fi­dants were peo­ple I knew. Aliera her­self was a third, for that mat­ter. I had sur­round­ed my­self with those types by a com­plex pro­cess that had start­ed years ago when a mi­nor but­ton-​man start­ed skim­ming from me. And no, I’m not about to give you any more de­tails. Get over it.