Steven Brust - Iorich

Kiera hes­itat­ed, then said, “Do you want me to back you up?”

“Not your skill,” I said. “And it won’t be nec­es­sary. This should be pret­ty easy.”

“As you say.” She didn’t sound con­vinced.

She fol­lowed me out of the room, and walked down the stairs with me. I went slow­ly. She said, “I’ll be wait­ing in the court­yard to hear how it went.”

I nod­ded but didn’t say any­thing; most of my con­cen­tra­tion was in­volved in not moan­ing with each step. Rocza took off from my shoul­der and flew in slow cir­cles over­head; Loiosh re­mained on my oth­er shoul­der and was look­ing around con­stant­ly.

In the wide boule­vard in front of the Im­pe­ri­al Wing near the park, there is al­ways a line of coach­es; on one side those with mark­ings on the door, on the oth­er those that are for hire, all of which get spe­cial ex­emp­tions from the or­di­nance for­bid­ding hors­es near the Palace. I think there are so many ex­emp­tions they might as well not both­er with the or­di­nance, but maybe I’m wrong.

I spent some time study­ing the coach­es for hire, try­ing to de­cide which looked like the most com­fort­able, then picked one and made my painful way to it. The coach­man was a young wom­an, a Teck­la of course, with the cheery smile and easy ob­se­quious­ness of the hap­py peas­ant in a mu­si­cal satire on Fal­low Street. I climbed in and gave her the ad­dress. She looked at Loiosh, then Rocza as she joined me in the coach, but mere­ly bowed and climbed up to her sta­tion. Then she clucked and the horse start­ed plod­ding along, a lot like I’d been walk­ing.

“Boss, I don’t care what Kiera says, you’re in no shape—”

“I’m not go­ing to be en­gaged in any acts of vi­olence, Loiosh, so you can re­lax.”

“You’re not?”

“No, the plan changed.”

“When?”

“Yes­ter­day, when I was talk­ing to Mor­rolan.”

I set­tled back for the ride. It was a good coach—the jounc­ing didn’t make me scream.

I stepped out and paid the coach­man, who bowed as if I were Dra­gaer­an and a no­ble­man. She prob­ably thought it would in­crease her tip, and I guess it did at that.

I was now in a part of the City called the Bridges, prob­ably be­cause the main roads from three of the bridges all led to this area and crossed each oth­er at a place called Nine Mar­kets, which was in fact on­ly about a hun­dred yards from where I stood. Tym­brii’s shop was nes­tled in among the sim­ple three-​and four-​room hous­es of trades­men, with a few larg­er room­ing hous­es and an open-​air shrine to Kel­chor.

“Okay, you two get back in my cloak.”

“Do we have to?”

“I don’t need to walk in there with two in­stant iden­ti­fi­ca­tions on me.”

“You think they won’t know you just be­cause we aren’t with you?”

“Some­thing like that.”

“You’re dream­ing.”

“In, both of you.”

I felt him start to ar­gue, but he cut it off. The two of them ducked in­to my cloak as the coach pulled away.

The door it­self held a sign that sug­gest­ed I feel free to en­ter, so I did. It smelled a bit dusty, and there were oily smells mixed in. It was a sin­gle room, well lit, with bolts of cloth and those bunch­es of yarn that peo­ple who use yarn call skeins. There was an el­der­ly gen­tle­man sit­ting in a straight-​backed chair, look­ing as if he had been do­ing ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing un­til the door opened. Once I en­tered, he rose, took me in, and did the fa­cial dance I’d come to ex­pect from mer­chants who don’t know quite how to place me, fol­lowed by the po­lite bow of those who de­cide coins bring more hap­pi­ness than snub­bing one’s in­fe­ri­ors. That’s the dif­fer­ence, you know, be­tween a mer­chant and an aris­to­crat: The true aris­to­crat will al­ways pre­fer to snub his in­fe­ri­or.

“May I help you, my lord?”

“I hope so. I’m look­ing to see the mis­tress of the house.”

He frowned. “I beg your par­don?”

Clink. Clink. Clink.

“I’ll see if she’s avail­able.”

He van­ished through a door­way in back, and I looked around at bright­ly col­ored cloth. Ex­ot­ic. That’s what Cawti had called these col­ors: ex­ot­ic. I guess they were at that. Bright blues and sear­ing yel­lows and some as dark or­ange as the ocean-​sea.

I wait­ed.

He came out of the door again, bowed stiffly again, and said, “She will see you now. The door­way at the end of the hall.”

He stood aside, and I went past him through the open door. I felt un­com­fort­able as I did, like he was go­ing to bash my head in when I went through. He didn’t, though.

There was a short hall­way with a closed door to the side, and an­oth­er door in front of me. This one was open, so I en­tered.

She was of mid­dle years for a Dra­gaer­an, say a thou­sand or so, and dressed in the gray and black of the Jhereg. She was sit­ting be­hind a desk look­ing busi­ness-​like, and she rose as I en­tered. Noth­ing in her ex­pres­sion in­di­cat­ed she might know me, al­though that was hard­ly proof.

“May I be of ser­vice?” she said, with bare­ly con­cealed dis­taste. Now, she was an aris­to­crat.

“I seek knowl­edge, O wise one.”

She frowned. “Are you mock­ing me?”

“Yes, but on­ly in a friend­ly way.”

She sat down again, look­ing at me through nar­rowed eyes. “I’m not your friend. Do you have busi­ness for me, or don’t you?”

“I do. I’m af­ter in­for­ma­tion, there may be some spells to pre­vent eaves­drop­ping.”

She nod­ded. “Go on. What are the specifics?”

That set off all sorts of alarms in my head. Was she ex­pect­ing me to ask her to com­mit a crime, just like that? I mean, maybe the Left Hand did that sort of thing, but, if so, how did they stay in busi­ness?

I looked her in the eye. “I beg your par­don?”

“Be­fore I can ac­cept, I have to know who you want to lis­ten in on. I’ll need to get a dis­pen­sa­tion from the Jus­ticers.”

“Nat­ural­ly, I wouldn’t want you to do any­thing il­le­gal.”

“Nat­ural­ly.”

“So of course, you have to go through the court pro­ceed­ings.”

“Yes.”

“I as­sume there are spe­cial fees for the ad­vo­cate?”

“That is cor­rect.”

“How much.”

“One hun­dred.”

“That’s a lot,” I said.

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll give you a draft on Har­brough.”

She nod­ded. She’d cer­tain­ly know Har­brough: he didn’t use names, which made him very pop­ular among the Jhereg—both sides, pre­sum­ably—and was the rea­son I still had mon­ey avail­able.

She passed over pen and ink and blot­ter, and I wrote out a stan­dard dis­pen­sa­tion then passed it to her. She stud­ied it care­ful­ly, I imag­ine send­ing the im­age to some­one who’d make sure the funds were there to cov­er it.

“All right,” she said. She moved the draft to a place be­tween us and put the inkwell on it; there seemed to be some­thing al­most rit­ual­is­tic about the act, al­though maybe my talk with Kiera had me imag­in­ing things. Then she bowed her head. “What’s the job?” All busi­ness; just like the Jhereg.

“What if I said Sethra Lavode?”

She snort­ed. “I’d give you your draft back and point you to the Nalarfi Home.”

“Just mak­ing sure you didn’t be­long there.”

“Yes, there are things I won’t do. Quit wast­ing my time. What’s the job?”

“There is a house at num­ber eleven Enoch Way in South Adri­lankha—”