Steven Brust - Iorich

She’s very good with hard looks. I hadn’t no­ticed Vlad No­rathar re­act­ing to her voice, but he must have, be­cause Cawti reached out and stroked his head.

“Un­der­stood,” I said. “I won’t press you on that.”

“And if you’re go­ing to find them, you’ll do it with­out my—”

“I don’t plan to do that,” I said.

“All right.”

I didn’t, ei­ther. What­ev­er their chances were of killing some­one, their chances of ac­tu­al­ly af­fect­ing things were nil. But some­thing or some­one else might. Maybe. I need­ed to think.

“You look like you need to think,” she said.

I nod­ded.

She was qui­et. So was the boy, ex­cept that his eyes were very loud. I stood up and paced; he watched me. Af­ter a lit­tle bit, I said, “It isn’t the group that wants to kill Im­pe­ri­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that both­ers me. It’s the group press­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“Ac­tu­al­ly,” said Cawti, “that’s some­thing we’re press­ing for, too. But we want an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by us, by the peo­ple; they want the Em­pire to in­ves­ti­gate it­self.”

I di­gest­ed that. “Do you think you’ll get any­where with your, ah, in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

“I don’t think ask­ing the Em­pire to in­ves­ti­gate it­self is go­ing to get any­thing. Do you?”

“That,” I said, “is just what I’m try­ing to fig­ure out.”

She snort­ed. “Even if they could con­vince—”

“They don’t have to. It’s al­ready hap­pen­ing.”

She stopped. “Is it in­deed?”

“So I’m told.”

“I hadn’t heard about it.”

“It’s pret­ty new. Al­so, prob­ably, pret­ty se­cret.”

“A se­cret in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” she said. “Well, I think we can all have a lot of con­fi­dence in that.”

“I think the Em­press wants to know what hap­pened, and why.”

“I’d like to know my­self,” said Cawti.

“But there are oth­ers who don’t.”

She arched an eye­brow.

“The Jhereg,” I said.

“The Jhereg? Why would they care?”

“It might in­ter­fere with the schemes they’re try­ing to hatch.”

“What ex­act­ly are these fa­mous schemes?”

“That,” I said, “is ex­act­ly what I can’t talk about.”

She nod­ded.

“It’s bet­ter to talk about what’s both­er­ing you,” said Vlad No­rathar.

My first in­cli­na­tion was to ar­gue with him, which is fun­ny when you think about it. But I had the feel­ing Cawti wouldn’t have ap­pre­ci­at­ed that, so I just said, “You’re right, but some­times you have to not talk about things be­cause you don’t want to get some­one else in trou­ble.”

That seemed to make sense to him. He nod­ded.

“You have friends, you know,” said Cawti.

I nod­ded. “Hard to for­get; it’s the on­ly rea­son I’m still around to ir­ri­tate the Jhereg. Have you heard any­thing from the Left Hand?”

She shook her head. “They’re keep­ing the agree—why?” she asked, sud­den­ly look­ing alert.

“This might in­volve them, too.”

She sighed. “You cer­tain­ly do make a lot of en­emies for a lov­able guy.”

“It’s my bur­den.”

A smile came and went on her an­gu­lar face, framed in straight black hair, her eyes dark and deep. It was hard to be­lieve one face could con­vey such a range of—

“Boss, if you can’t fo­cus on the prob­lem, I’m go­ing to in­voke my ex­ec­utive au­thor­ity to get us out of this town.”

“When did you get ex­ec­utive au­thor­ity?”

“You should give me ex­ec­utive au­thor­ity.”

I stud­ied the ceil­ing over Cawti’s head. “How would I find these peo­ple?”

“They meet at the home of the lead­er, a print­er by trade. Her name is Brinea. She lives on Enoch Way, near Wood­cut­ter’s Mar­ket. A lit­tle cot­tage paint­ed an ug­ly green, with a pair of ev­er­greens in front.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you ac­tu­al­ly need to see them?”

“I’m not sure. There’s too much I’m not sure of right now.”

She nod­ded. “This is li­able to get bloody, Vlad.”

“Yeah, I had that same thought.”

“As long as you know.”

I shrugged. “I’ve done bloody be­fore.”

“How re­cent­ly?”

“I’ve been try­ing to use my head more and my knives less.”

“That’s what wor­ries me.”

“What, try­ing to shake my con­fi­dence?”

She shook her head. “Try­ing to re­as­sure my­self that you aren’t get­ting in­to some­thing you can’t han­dle.”

“I’m glad you care.”

“You know I care.”

“Yeah. I just like be­ing re­mind­ed from time to time.”

She looked at Vlad No­rathar. I fol­lowed her gaze; he was look­ing at me cu­ri­ous­ly.

“Okay,” I said. “I see your point.” I got up and opened the door. Loiosh and Rocza flew out. A cou­ple of min­utes lat­er, Loiosh let me know the area was safe.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said. “Vlad No­rathar, it is al­ways a plea­sure, sir.” I bowed.

He stood, care­ful­ly set his wine cup down, and did a cred­ible im­ita­tion of my bow, his leg back and his hand sweep­ing the floor. Then he straight­ened up and grinned.

Cawti smiled proud­ly at him, then walked me to the door.

“Un­til next time, Vlad,” she said, and the door closed soft­ly be­hind me.

I had nowhere in par­tic­ular to be, and rea­son to be­lieve I didn’t have a tail, and I felt like walk­ing; so I made my way to Wood­cut­ter’s Mar­ket in South Adri­lankha. Enoch Way wasn’t marked, but one of those East­ern wom­en who looks like ev­ery­one’s grand­moth­er grunt­ed and point­ed, then looked at me as if won­der­ing why I didn’t know some­thing so ob­vi­ous. I of­fered her a coin, which she re­fused with a snort.

Loiosh and Rocza flew above me, in cir­cles, watch­ing as I strolled down the street like any good cit­izen; ex­cept of course that not many East­ern­ers open­ly wore steel at their sides, and the cut of my clothes was bet­ter than most.

It was easy to find the cot­tage; it was just as Cawti had de­scribed it. I stood across the street, lean­ing against a dead tree in the front of a row of cheap hous­ing, and stud­ied the ug­ly green. I prob­ably should have been able to de­duce things about the per­son who lived there just by look­ing at it, but I couldn’t. I mean, yeah, the yard was neat; so what? Did she keep it that way, or did a hus­band, or had they hired some­one to do it? The paint was pret­ty new, but, same thing.

I watched the place a lit­tle longer, but no one came in or out. I thought about break­ing in. Maybe. Couldn’t think what I’d be li­able to learn, and to have some­one find me would be em­bar­rass­ing. But if there was some­thing to find—

“Boss, hide.”

I ducked be­hind the oak tree. “What?”

“You’ve been found. Dra­gaer­an, Jhereg col­ors, big but moves well. He’s got those eyes.”

I knew what he meant by that; there’s some­thing around the eyes of some­one who’s done “work.” I guess maybe I have that look, too. Or did. I don’t know.

“Find me a clean way out?”

“Look­ing.”

I re­mained still and wait­ed, my fin­gers tap­ping on La­dy Tel­dra’s hilt. I’d been in much scari­er sit­ua­tions than just one lone Jhereg. If this was more com­pli­cat­ed than that, well, I’d have to trust Loiosh to let me know in time; mean­while I was ready, but not ner­vous.

“Boss, uh, some­thing odd.”

“That isn’t use­ful.”