Steven Brust - Iorich

“I trust that went as re­quest­ed?”

“Yes,” I said. “My thanks.”

She shrugged. “Or­ders are or­ders. I don’t need to un­der­stand them.”

That was my in­vi­ta­tion to ex­plain what this was all about; I de­clined.

We rat­tled off. I couldn’t see where we were, but Loiosh kept me in­formed. Not speak­ing with my “cap­tors” be­came un­com­fort­able, so I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. That last­ed un­til the first jolt cracked the back of my head against the hard wood of the coach. Af­ter that I stared straight ahead, and just wait­ed.

I didn’t need Loiosh to tell me when we ar­rived at In­no­cent’s Gate, as we call it in the Jhereg—the sud­den dip in­to the low­er floors where they bring pris­on­ers. We stopped, and there were a few words ex­changed in low tones, and then we start­ed for­ward again—some­thing I’d nev­er done.

“Go­ing through a tun­nel, Boss. Okay, now we’re in a kind of court­yard. They sure have a lot of those coach­es for pris­on­ers. Sta­bles, too.”

“Yeah, I can smell them.”

“Out of the tun­nel, and, okay, you’re head­ing away from the Palace.”

“In the right di­rec­tion, as agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then.”

Or maybe not. I had mixed feel­ings about the whole thing.

The two guards­men in the car­riage with me seemed a lot more com­fort­able not talk­ing than I was. We clanked through the streets; it’s al­ways strange to ride in one of those, be­cause you know ev­ery­one is star­ing at you, but you al­so know they can’t see in­side the coach.

Even­tu­al­ly we reached our des­ti­na­tion. One of them tapped the ceil­ing—two, then one. The re­ply came back, three slow taps. The coach bounced more, there was a clank­ing, and the door opened, let­ting light in and me out. My legs were stiff.

I looked around and felt a mo­ment of pan­ic; I didn’t rec­og­nize the place. It was a lit­tle cot­tage in a neigh­bor­hood full of two-​sto­ry room­ing hous­es. I no­ticed a small ni­ball rac­quet, in front of it, on the nar­row walk­way be­tween the street and the front door.

The car­riage pulled away. Loiosh’s feet tight­ened briefly on my shoul­der.

I took three steps for­ward, start­ed to clap, and no­ticed a rope hang­ing from the eaves. I pulled it and heard the faint clack­ety-​clunk from with­in. I was feel­ing some­thing sim­ilar, but nev­er mind. The door opened.

“I’ve been ex­pect­ing you, Vladimir,” said Cawti. “Please come in.”

Iorich

7

Q: State your name, your House, and your city of res­idence.

A: Bryn, of Lock­head, Your Wor­ship.

Q: House?

A: I’m not cer­tain, Your Wor­ship.

Q: Not . . . You may ad­dress me as my lord. How is it you don’t know your House?

A: I was born in­to the House of the Teck­la, my lord, but I en­list­ed in the army, and—

Q: You are still of the Teck­la, son.

A: Thank you, my lord. Teck­la.

Q: How did you come to en­list?

A: For the hon­or of the Em­pire, my lord, and to serve Her Majesty.

Q: That’s very good, son. Why else?

A: My lord?

Q: Who con­vinced you to join the army?

A: The re­cruiter, my lord. He of­fered three im­pe­ri­als to any­one who’d en­list.

Q: That’s a lot of gold, isn’t it, son?

A: I’d nev­er seen, that is, yes my lord.

Q: What would you do for that much gold?

A: My lord? I don’t un­der­stand.

Q: You’ve ex­plained that this is a lot of gold to you.

A: Oh, yes!

Q: It would seem that for mon­ey like that, you would have been will­ing to do things you oth­er­wise wouldn’t.

A: All I had to do was fol­low—

Q: Nev­er­the­less, Bryn, isn’t it true that there are things you would have been will­ing to do for three im­pe­ri­als that might have seemed wrong be­fore you took such pay­ment?

A: I guess.

Q: Can you de­scribe what hap­pened on the first Mar­ket­day of Ly­orn of this year?

A: Yes, my lord. Dep­pi said we’d got­ten or­ders to—

Q: Just an­swer the ques­tion, son. De­scribe what hap­pened.

A: We were go­ing through a sort of ham­let about a mile west of Seer­point, when—

Q: What do you mean when you say “a sort of ham­let”?

A: About four or five cot­tages and a post sta­ble, my lord.

Q: Was it four or five cot­tages, Bryn?

A: (Hes­ita­tion) Five, I think.

Q: Very well. Ob­serve that it is im­por­tant we be ex­act in all de­tails. The Em­pire in­sists on no less.

A: Yes, my lord.

Q: Con­tin­ue, then. Did this ham­let have a name?

A: Tir­ma, my lord. It was called Tir­ma.

Q: Very well. And what hap­pened there?

A: The Stuffies were—

Q: Stuffies?

A: Your par­don, my lord. The, ah, the en­emy.

Q: Go on.

A: They were hid­den be­hind a stone wall on one side, and a row of jack­lenut bush­es on the oth­er.

Q: And what hap­pened?

A: It was a ’stoun, my lord. There must have been—

Q: Par­don me, son. A “ ’stoun”?

A: Um, a sur­prise? An am­bus­cade?

Q: I see. Go on.

A: They killed Jaf. He was on point, and at least three of them jumped him. They cut him to pieces, you know? Just hacked away, even af­ter he was dead. We couldn’t get to him.

Q: That must have made you an­gry.

A: Yes, my lord.

Q: Very an­gry.

A: Yes, my lord.

Q: So, what hap­pened then?

Her eyes were just the same, though maybe they looked a lit­tle big­ger than I re­mem­bered them. I stood look­ing at her.

“Nice place,” I man­aged.

A quick smile. “You haven’t even seen it yet.”

“From the out­side.”

She stood aside and I walked in.

“It’s nice in here. I like the hearth be­ing near the kitchen, so you can use it for cook­ing.”

“Not much of a kitchen, re­al­ly.”

“You have wa­ter.”

“When the pump works. When it doesn’t, there’s a well in back.”

“You share a room with, with the boy?”

“Yes. One oth­er room.”

“I re­mem­ber that chair.”

“Sit in it. I’ll get you some­thing.”

I didn’t re­al­ly want to sit in it, but I did. It seemed to re­mem­ber me. Rocza flew over and land­ed on Cawti’s shoul­der, rubbed against her cheek. I felt the most bizarre flash of jeal­ousy I can re­call, then chuck­led at my­self. Here and there, on coun­ters and man­tel­pieces, were things I re­mem­bered: the small white vase, the lant, the win­neasaurus book­ends. Oth­er things I didn’t rec­og­nize: a jar of a such a pure vi­olet col­or that it was al­most painful, a frame drum with at­tached beat­er, the books be­tween the book­ends.

She found a bot­tle and opened it. She was much bet­ter with the tongs and feath­er than she had been be­fore; I’d al­ways opened the bot­tles.

She poured a cou­ple of glass­es and brought them back, sat down op­po­site me. By turn­ing my head, I could see out­side, where there was a lit­tle gar­den; I couldn’t tell what was grow­ing, but I guessed a mix of bright-​bloom­ing flow­ers and veg­eta­bles.

I raised my glass to her. “You’ve be­come very do­mes­tic.”

She nod­ded. “Ne­ces­si­ty.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it.”

Rocza re­mained on her shoul­der, nuz­zling and get­ting reac­quaint­ed.

I said, “Where is Vlad No­rathar?”

“Out play­ing; I ex­pect him back soon.”

I nod­ded. “He has friends?”

“A few. And the lit­tle girl, De­vera, comes by from time to time.”