Steven Brust - Iorich

I re­turned to the House of the Iorich and made my way to the ad­vo­cate’s of­fice. His door was open and there were no am­bigu­ous notes on it, so I clapped and went in.

He glanced up from the tome he was read­ing, his fin­ger guid­ing him, and said, “Lord Tal­tos.”

“High Coun­sel.”

He ges­tured to a chair. “What have you found out?”

“That was go­ing to be my ques­tion,” I said.

He grunt­ed and wait­ed.

I sighed. “I’m not sure how much to tell you.”

He shrugged. “Don’t tell me any­thing you want kept se­cret. I’m not about to with­hold in­for­ma­tion I’m com­pelled to dis­close.”

“I was afraid you’d say some­thing like that.”

“You can keep it hy­po­thet­ical, if you want.”

“Hy­po­thet­ical­ly, what would hap­pen if you were ques­tioned about this con­ver­sa­tion?”

“Hy­po­thet­ical­ly, I’d give eva­sive an­swers.”

“And then?”

“Hy­po­thet­ical­ly, ei­ther or both of us could find our­selves at the long end of a short slide.”

“Right. What if there were no hy­po­thet­ical sit­ua­tions?”

“Eh?”

“Nev­er mind. I don’t think telling you my cur­rent the­ory is a good idea.”

“I can’t ar­gue, but it makes my work hard­er.”

“I know. What have you learned?”

“They’re skip­ping sev­er­al steps.”

“Like what?”

“Seals on de­po­si­tions, ver­ifi­ca­tion of psiprint maps, char­ac­ter vet­ting of wit­ness­es—”

“So, that means they want to rush this through?”

“No, it isn’t that sim­ple.” He frowned. “I’ve been read­ing some his­to­ries of pros­ecu­tions with po­lit­ical mo­tives.”

“And?”

“They come in var­ious forms, but they usu­al­ly fall in­to two class­es: the ones they try to rush through, so it’s over be­fore there can be any out­cry, and those that make cer­tain all the for­mal­ities and niceties are ob­served, ah, scrupu­lous­ly, so it can stand up to any ex­am­in­ing among the no­bles who may ques­tion it.”

“And the pub­lic?”

“Hmm? Oh, you were jest­ing.”

“So, this is the for­mer?”

“Yes. And that’s what’s puz­zling me.”

“Go on.”

“There’s no point in rush­ing through it when ev­ery­thing is al­ready known, be­ing talked about in ev­ery the­ater, writ­ten about in stock sheets.”

“I see your point. So, why are they do­ing it?”

“Just what I was won­der­ing.”

“Any the­ories?”

He shook his head. “Could what you’re not telling me ac­count for it?”

“I don’t see how. But I don’t know enough to have an in­tel­li­gent opin­ion.”

“I do, but I don’t have the in­for­ma­tion you have.” He didn’t sound like he was mak­ing an ac­cu­sa­tion, just stat­ing facts.

“I don’t have in­for­ma­tion,” I told him. “Just the­ories.”

He grunt­ed. “Is there any­thing you can tell me?”

“I can ask you some­thing. What’s up with the new War­lord?”

“No­rathar? She’s al­so Drag­on Heir. Un­usu­al, though not un­heard-​of.”

“So I’m told. What does it mean?”

“You mean, aside from be­liev­ing her the best choice?”

“Was she? Why? Her ex­pe­ri­ence in the Jhereg?”

His eye­brows rose. “I heard some­thing about that. Is it true?”

I shrugged. “What makes her the best choice?”

He spread his hands. “I know noth­ing about what makes a good War­lord. I was just as­sum­ing the choice was based on mer­it.”

“Is that how things work in the Iorich?”

“Yes. Well, no. Not en­tire­ly.” He frowned. “It’s com­pli­cat­ed.”

“In­volv­ing pa­tron­age, fam­ily, wealth—”

“Let’s stay with the prob­lem, shall we? If you’re right, and there is some­thing odd about No­rathar’s ap­point­ment as War-​lord, then that’s some­thing we should look in­to.”

“We?”

“You.”

“How would I go about do­ing that?”

“I’d start with speak­ing to No­rathar.”

“I did. Didn’t get much.”

He grunt­ed. “Do you have oth­er sources?”

“I used to. I’ve been on the run for a while.”

“Can you—?”

“Maybe.” I’d al­ready asked Kra­gar. I could al­so ask Mor­rolan, but I found the idea dis­taste­ful; there was still the mat­ter of La­dy Tel­dra be­tween us. I re­al­ized Perisil wasn’t talk­ing. I cleared my throat. “There are av­enues I can pur­sue,” I said.

He nod­ded. “Pur­sue them.”

“I will. What will you be do­ing?”

“Study­ing le­gal his­to­ry, and try­ing to pick up on gos­sip.”

“Gos­sip?”

“We talk to each oth­er, you know.”

“You mean, the Im­pe­ri­al le­gal staff will tell you—”

“No, no. Noth­ing like that.” He shud­dered, as if the idea were ab­hor­rent at some deep lev­el. “No, but they’ll some­times make oblique re­marks to friends, and friends have friends, and I have friends who are friends of friends.”

“So, we’re talk­ing pre­cise in­for­ma­tion here.”

“No,” he said, ig­nor­ing my tone. “But pos­si­bly use­ful in­for­ma­tion.”

“All right.”

He frowned. “I’m not the en­emy.”

“I know that. If you were the en­emy I’d, ah, I’d not have come here.”

“I’m say­ing that if we’re go­ing to man­age an ac­quit­tal for Aliera, both of you are go­ing to have to trust me, at least a lit­tle.”

“But you just told me that I didn’t dare tell you any­thing I didn’t want the Em­pire know­ing about.”

He nod­ded. “That makes it hard, I know.”

“But you’re say­ing I should tell you any­way?”

He hes­itat­ed. “No. I wouldn’t care to take re­spon­si­bil­ity for that. When I said that if I were com­pelled, I’d re­veal any­thing you told me, I meant it.”

“Well then?”

He sighed and shook his head. “Just keep in mind what I said. This isn’t go­ing to be easy, and you’re both go­ing to have to trust me.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Where are you go­ing to start?”

“Back in the Palace. Drag­on Wing—my fa­vorite place. Lis­ten to gos­sip, see if I hear any­thing that will help.”

He nod­ded. “Best of luck.”

I stood up. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be here.”

As I turned away, he was al­ready study­ing his book again.

Iorich

9

In this ap­pendix, we will be ad­dress­ing some of the tan­gen­tial ru­mors that have been spread among var­ious sec­tions of the Court and the no­bil­ity re­lat­ing to the in­ci­dent. In par­tic­ular, we will look at the­ories of in­flu­ence by out­side par­ties on the events, and on the ef­fect of nar­cotics, psychedelics, de­pres­sants, stim­ulants, and hal­lu­cino­gens that may or may not have been in use by any of those in­volved.

The com­mit­tee wish­es to ob­serve that it ad­dress­es these is­sues un­der protest: it is our opin­ion that for the Em­pire or its rep­re­sen­ta­tives to re­spond to ru­mor and in­nu­en­do from un­re­li­able sources sets a prece­dent that can, in the long run, have no ef­fect but to give cre­dence to and en­cour­age such ru­mor and in­nu­en­do. That said, we now ex­am­ine the sub­stance. . . .

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, their sur­prise and tim­ing were per­fect; not even Loiosh could warn me. For­tu­nate­ly, they didn’t want to kill me. These facts were re­lat­ed: the Jhereg would not come af­ter you in the Im­pe­ri­al Palace, and cer­tain­ly not in the Drag­on Wing.