Steven Brust - Iorich

I tried to imag­ine that scene, but I couldn’t do it. I was glad I hadn’t been there to see it.

“Had you ex­pect­ed some­thing like this to hap­pen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Aliera was ar­rest­ed to dis­tract at­ten­tion from some­thing the Em­press doesn’t want peo­ple think­ing about. Had you ex­pect­ed—”

“That’s your the­ory,” she said, as if re­fut­ing it.

“Uh, yeah. That’s my the­ory. Had you been ex­pect­ing Zeri­ka—”

“Her Majesty.”

“—Her Majesty to do some­thing like this?”

“I don’t con­cede your premise,” she said.

“Um. Okay.” I looked around the room. Maybe one of the walls had se­cret writ­ing that would tell me how to pull the in­for­ma­tion I need­ed from No­rathar. Nope, guess not. “I’d have thought the War­lord would have a big­ger of­fice.”

“This isn’t the of­fice, it’s more of a pri­vate re­treat. The of­fice is through there.” She in­di­cat­ed the door to her left.

“Is this a tem­po­rary po­si­tion for you?”

An eye­brow went up. “Well, it cer­tain­ly won’t last longer than the next Drag­on Reign.”

“I meant more tem­po­rary than that.”

“I don’t know.”

“How did it hap­pen in the first place?”

“How did what hap­pen?”

“The in­ci­dent that start­ed it all. You’re the War­lord now, you must have ac­cess to—”

“I can’t dis­cuss that.”

“I don’t mean the de­tails.”

“Then what? Get­ting philo­soph­ical on me?”

“Sar­casm aside, yes.”

“Are you se­ri­ous?”

“Yes.”

“How does it hap­pen? I’m told you served in the army, in wartime, in the line.”

“Briefly.”

“In com­bat.”

“Briefly.”

“And you need to ask how some­thing like that hap­pens?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

She shook her head. “Pay no mind. If that’s all, Lord Szurke, I’m rather busy.”

I won­dered if “Lord Szurke” were in­tend­ed as a cut, and if so what the in­sult was sup­posed to be. “I’ll try to be brief,” I said.

She did the lip thing again. “Very well.”

“If I can’t ask about the Em­press, I’ll ask about you.”

“Hm­mm?”

“What are you hop­ing will hap­pen?”

“I have no hope.” Nor much in­flec­tion in her voice, ei­ther.

“Things were eas­ier in the Jhereg, weren’t they?”

She looked up at me, eyes nar­rowed; then she shrugged. “Dif­fer­ent, any­way.”

“Gen­er­al­ly, the on­ly ones who get it are those who de­serve it.”

“And not all of them,” she said.

“Fair point.”

“What else?”

I hes­itat­ed. “Does it seem odd to you that this law is be­ing used against some­one in Aliera’s po­si­tion?”

She shrugged. “There’s been talk about that at Court. I don’t pay much at­ten­tion.”

“So you can’t ex­plain it?”

“If I have any guess­es, I don’t care to share them with you.”

“No­rathar, are we en­emies all of a sud­den?”

“I serve the Em­pire. That means I serve the Em­press.”

“You didn’t an­swer my ques­tion.”

Her fin­gers rolled on the table­top. “No,” she said. “We aren’t en­emies.”

“Good, then—”

“We’re op­po­nents.”

“Um,” I ex­plained. “I’m try­ing to get Aliera out of this mess. Aren’t you her friend?”

“If you can find a way to do that with­out un­ac­cept­able con­se­quences, I’ll be glad to work with you.”

“That’s ex­act­ly what I’m hop­ing you’ll help me find.”

“I know.”

“No­rathar, you aren’t giv­ing me a lot of help here.”

“Is there a rea­son why I should?”

“I don’t know. Old times’ sake? I mean, my son is named af­ter you.”

She looked down and drew a cir­cle with her fin­ger on the ta­ble. I did the same thing, back when I had a desk; it was a lit­tle strange see­ing her do it. She said, “Cawti would like to see you.”

Af­ter a bit, I man­aged, “Are you sure?”

“No,” she said. “But she said so.”

“When?”

“Yes­ter­day.”

“She knows I’m in town?”

“Ev­ident­ly.”

Af­ter a bit she said, “Will you see her?”

“Yes,” I said. “If I can do so with­out get­ting her killed.”

“I think she can look af­ter her­self, don’t you?”

“You think so? Against the Jhereg? If they de­cide to take af­ter her to get at me? Not to men­tion the Bitch Pa­trol, who de­vel­oped a sud­den in­ter­est in her ac­tiv­ities a few years ago, and who don’t like me much.”

“They guar­an­teed to leave her alone. And they’ve done so.”

I nod­ded. “So far.”

She scowled. “If they don’t—”

“What will you do? Bring the House of the Drag­on against them? Or the Em­pire?”

“I’ll bring me against them.”

I nod­ded. “And the Jhereg quakes in fear.”

“You, least of all, should mock me.”

I clenched my teeth and nod­ded again. “I’ll go see her,” I said.

That marked the end of the in­ter­view. I gave her a bow that I tried to make de­void of irony and start­ed to leave the way I came, on­ly she stopped me.

“Use the oth­er door. You can get in­to the Palace that way; the way you’re go­ing leads out­side.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Nice to know you haven’t for­got­ten some things.”

“There are things you don’t for­get,” said Her High­ness.

I went out the way she in­di­cat­ed, got lost in the Drag­on Wing, got lost in the Palace, and even­tu­al­ly made my way on­to the streets of the City, where I hailed the fourth closed foot­cab to come by, and gave di­rec­tions to the Punc­tured Jug in the Sum­mer­gate sec­tion of Adri­lankha. Loiosh and Rocza flew above the cab, watch­ing and com­plain­ing.

This was a place I’d been to a few times. I’d heard a few dif­fer­ent sto­ries about who ac­tu­al­ly owned it. It was var­ious­ly put as (1) be­long­ing to ev­ery­one on the Coun­cil, op­er­at­ing through shells; (2) be­long­ing to a guy with no ties to the Or­ga­ni­za­tion, but lots of pull at Court; or (3) owned joint­ly by the Coun­cil, so there’d al­ways be a safe meet­ing place. Whichev­er; it was one of a dozen or so places in the City where you could eat with­out wor­ry­ing about un­pleas­ant­ness, no mat­ter who was af­ter you.

Of course, walk­ing out the door af­ter­ward was your prob­lem.

There’s an L-​shaped bar run­ning the length of the wall to the right and con­tin­uing to the far wall. The rest of the room is filled with chairs and a score of ta­bles al­most big enough for two peo­ple, all of which have four chairs in front of them; you usu­al­ly end up hold­ing your plate on your lap and keep­ing just your drink on the ta­ble. A row of small win­dows high on the wall lets in a to­ken amount of light. The rest is pro­vid­ed by two mas­sive can­de­labra be­hind the bar, and I imag­ine those who work there ac­quire a good num­ber of head-​bumps as well as a few odd burns un­til they get to know the place.

It was the mid­dle of the day and not very crowd­ed; about a third of the ta­bles were oc­cu­pied, most­ly with the Chreotha and Jhe­gaala trades­men that you’d think com­prised most of the pop­ula­tion of the City if your eyes pass over the in­nu­mer­able Teck­la. A hood­ed wom­an in dark cloth­ing, with noth­ing to in­di­cate her House, sat alone at a ta­ble near the door. I sat down op­po­site her; Rocza turned around on my shoul­der to watch the door.