Steven Brust - Iorich

“Good,” I said.

I want­ed to ask if she missed me, on­ly I didn’t want to ask. I said, “Do you see much of No­rathar these days?”

“Yes,” she said. “She’s pret­ty much the boy’s oth­er par­ent.”

I nod­ded. “How’s that work­ing out?”

“Well. We haven’t got­ten to the po­lit­ical con­flicts yet.” She smiled a lit­tle. I tried to smile back, but I think it came out more of a gri­mace.

“This busi­ness with Aliera,” I said. “It must be hard on her.”

“I sup­pose.”

“I mean No­rathar.”

“Oh. Yes, it is.”

“How is it she was picked to be War­lord?”

“I don’t know; it isn’t some­thing I’m com­fort­able talk­ing about with her.”

“I guess.”

“And if it were, I don’t think she’d want me talk­ing about it with you.”

I nod­ded and drank some wine.

I said, “I trust ev­ery­thing is set­tled in South Adri­lankha.”

“I’m not in­volved, if that’s what you mean. Things are as they were, there. No bet­ter.”

“Are you still giv­ing read­ing lessons?”

“Twice a week, un­til late­ly.”

I nod­ded.

Var­ious ques­tions formed in my mind: “Do you miss me at all?” “Is it hard to raise him with­out me here?” “Does he ev­er ask about me, and if he does, what do you tell him?” I didn’t give them voice.

“Do you like the wine?” she asked.

“You know I do.”

“Just try­ing to make con­ver­sa­tion.”

“And avoid talk­ing.”

“Yes,” she said. “That too.”

I let out a breath. “Sor­ry. I didn’t in­tend to be dif­fi­cult. I just want­ed to see you. And the boy.”

She nod­ded. “And see if you could find out any­thing that might help your cur­rent project.”

I nod­ded. There was some­thing about how she said “project” that I could have ex­plored if I’d felt like it, but I didn’t.

She said, “If there was some­thing I could tell you that would help, I would.”

“I know.”

Cawti said, “What has hap­pened since you were here last?”

I laughed. “Could you an­swer that ques­tion?”

“Prob­ably not,” she said, gift­ing me with a small smile. “Any lovers?”

“One,” I said. “A Dra­gaer­an, odd­ly enough.”

“In­ter­est­ing. I’m sur­prised. How did that work out?”

“That’s hard to an­swer. I guess it still hasn’t, quite. You?”

“Lovers? A cou­ple, but not re­al­ly lovers as you and I un­der­stand the word.”

I nod­ded. “Al­so, I had a few things out with the De­mon God­dess.”

“Oh, re­al­ly? Set­tled to your sat­is­fac­tion?”

“No, but I learned yet more things to make me un­com­fort­able. On ac­count of I didn’t have enough un­com­fort­able in­for­ma­tion, I sup­pose.”

“I see. Do I want de­tails?”

That was a hard ques­tion. “No,” I fi­nal­ly said.

“I’ll trust your judg­ment.” She hes­itat­ed. “Can you beat them?”

“The Jhereg? No. Not in the long run. They’re go­ing to get me even­tu­al­ly. You know how it works, Cawti.”

“I do. I wasn’t sure you were will­ing to face it.”

“They’d have got­ten me al­ready if I weren’t.”

She hes­itat­ed again. “I sup­pose you’ve thought about the way to make sure they can’t use a Mor­gan­ti weapon on you.”

I nod­ded. “Sui­cide? Of course. I can’t do that. It isn’t in me.”

“So, what do you do in­stead?”

“You pack as much liv­ing as you can in be­tween de­lay­ing the in­evitable.”

“I guess that’s all you can do.”

“Un­less, of course, I can fix it.”

Her eyes flashed. “How?”

“I’m not sure, yet. I have some ideas.”

“Any­thing you can tell me about?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll be in­ter­est­ed, when you can.”

“Yeah, me too.”

At which point, Vlad No­rathar came burst­ing in the door, ob­vi­ous­ly about to say some­thing im­por­tant, then looked at me, stopped, and stood mo­tion­less. I don’t know what I ex­pect­ed; I know that a child changes from four years old to eight; but he had so lit­tle in com­mon with my mem­ory that it was startling. His face had thinned, his eyes weren’t so amaz­ing­ly large, though they were still bright. His hair, though not black, had be­come a much dark­er brown, and was long and curled just a lit­tle. And he’d be­come lanky where he had been chub­by.

I stood up. “Well met, Vlad No­rathar,” I told him.

Cawti said, “Shut the door, Vlad. Do you re­mem­ber your fa­ther? If not, do you re­mem­ber your man­ners? Ei­ther will do, for now.”

The boy shut his mouth, looked at me, then at Loiosh and Rocza, and said, “I re­mem­ber. Well met, sir. I’ve been study­ing the Art, as you sug­gest­ed.”

I re­mem­bered mak­ing no such sug­ges­tion, but I said, “I’m grat­ified to hear it.” I turned to Cawti. “Is he do­ing well?”

“Yes, very well, when he choos­es to ap­ply him­self.”

He came more ful­ly in­to the house. “I’m pleased they haven’t killed you yet.”

“Thank you, so am I, and you have a good a mem­ory.”

“You make an im­pres­sion,” said Cawti, with an ex­pres­sion that was a hard to de­ci­pher. Then she ad­dressed Vlad No­rathar and said, “You should get cleaned up.”

He nod­ded, and sketched me a bow, and went through to the oth­er room.

“He’s quite the boy,” I said.

She smiled. “Yes, he is.”

“He should meet his great-​grand­fa­ther.”

“I’m plan­ning a trip this sum­mer.”

“Good.”

“Any chance you can be there, meet us?”

“Maybe. If it seems safe.”

She nod­ded.

Vlad No­rathar came out again. He didn’t look any ti­di­er, but his moth­er gave a nod of ap­proval. He walked over and stood in front of me. “Sir,” he said. “May I touch the Jhereg?”

“Loiosh?”

“What, I have a choice?”

“This time.”

“Sure, all right.”

“Go ahead,” I said. Loiosh bent his neck down and suf­fered his head to be scratched.

“He’s so cold,” said the boy.

“In ev­ery way,” I agreed.

“Heh.”

He looked mo­men­tar­ily puz­zled, then he said, “I re­mem­ber you.”

“Good,” I said. “I’d hate for you to for­get.”

“I won’t,” he said, look­ing very se­ri­ous.

Cawti cleared her throat. “Vladimir, would you care to sup with us?”

“An­oth­er time, if I can,” I said. “There are things I need to do.” I stood up and solemn­ly bowed to my son. “Un­til I see you next, be well.”

“And you, sir.”

“It was good see­ing you again, Vladimir,” said Cawti.

“You too.”

“I miss you.”

I think I must have said some­thing there, and then I was walk­ing away from the house. I heard the door close. “Thud,” it said.

“No one. You’d think they’d have this place watched all the time.”

“Who? What?”

“The Jhereg, Boss. You know, the ones try­ing to kill you?”

“Oh, right. Them.”

“You okay, Boss?”

“Com­pared to what? Com­pared to how I’d be if there’d been as­sas­sins wait­ing out­side her house, I’m do­ing fine.”

“Boss, why wasn’t her house be­ing watched?”

“Eco­nomics. If they’re go­ing to watch here, there are at least ten oth­er places to watch. That’s more than thir­ty peo­ple they have to pay to stand around and not earn, on the chance that I’ll show up. They want me bad, but I don’t think they want me that bad.”