Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

“I made the surmise that he’s one of Groot’s people. By the looks of the situation at the Oolvaan Mutual Bank and our conversation with that guard, this whole deal was sprung on the victims by surprise, and only in the last day or so. If Groot was locked up without any advance notice, that would be a messy situation; somebody would have to be trying to untangle his affairs on the outside and reporting back to him, as well as trying to react and get him released. From this fellow’s face he’s been working long hours; probably even been up all night. He’s clearly under stress and not for a pleasant reason, either. He’s been rushing around, but hearing what we were talking about was enough to stop him in his tracks. When I mentioned how we might have to get Groot released, that decided him - that’s when he started to come over to us.”

“He could be an informer or an agent of the police,” Jill commented. “Or he could be one of those responsible for Groot’s imprisonment.”

“It doesn’t fit the rest of the facts,” I said. “In the abstract, yes, it could be, but if you put it together with everything else it doesn’t make sense. For that matter, you might think that as long as they were locking up Groot they could have swept up his staff, too, but even then there’d be somebody left walking the streets, and when you get right down to it that kind of major grab is probably more than a democratic city like Oolsmouth could get away with unless there’s an insurrection or some other crisis going on at the same time. Still. I’m willing to admit I may have made a bit of a leap, based on the available facts and my reading of the situation.”

“You mean you didn’t actually know all of that, you only guessed?” said Jill. “I thought deduction was a pure science with no chance involved; just follow the facts and interpret them as appropriate.”

“What kind of ivory-tower world do you think this is, anyway?” The clerk was looking over his shoulder at us from his position at the fishmonger’s, so I crossed over the yard and joined him. I paid his bill and picked up a small bucket of ale and an apple while I was at it, then led him to one of the stone benches arranged in rows next to the street. Jill reappeared with a roasted chicken. The clerk had also gotten an onion bread and a sliced tomato to go along with his cod and after a moment of fiddling he had the various ingredients stacked to his satisfaction. “So,” I said. “Tell us about it.”

The clerk chewed and swallowed. “I am Julio,” he said, “and as you know my master is Haalsen Groot, who now languishes in municipal captivity. You also know, I take it, about the Bank of the New Dawn, the Oolvaan Mutual Bank, and the freezing and confiscation of the Haalsen Traders assets?”

“Somewhat,” I said, “but presume we don’t know whatever is most interesting. I’d appreciate hearing anything new you have discovered beyond the obvious.”

“I don’t know you,” Julio repeated. “Thank you for the lunch, and I compliment you on your perspicacity, but these things don’t explain why I should tell you anything. I don’t know who you are, where you come from, or what your interest is in this. How do I know you’re not in league with those who seek to destroy us?”

“What point would there be in sending us around to try to be sneaky when your enemies have already gotten everything they’re after through a frontal assault?”

Julio shrugged. “Gods are involved.”

“Yes,” Jill said. “We know that.”

“Oh,” said Julio thoughtfully. “Oh. Yet when, ah, gods are, ah, ah -”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Speak freely. We won’t bite you. Sure, the rules of reason sometimes go out the door when you get mixed up with gods, but that’s all the more reason to share your burden with us.”

“I’m not certain I understand why that makes any sense,” said Julio. “May I have some of that?”

I passed him the bucket of ale, which I had really bought for that specific purpose in the first place. “It makes sense because you’d have access to expert advice and a vantage point that would otherwise be closed to you, and the possibility of a strong arm raised on your behalf. And in any case how much worse off could you be?”

He finished his swig and wiped his mustache. “There is that, I suppose. I just don’t know.”

Jill had apparently gotten bored with the conversation since it frankly appeared to be going nowhere, and at the moment she had her whole concentration on dismembering her chicken. I decided to go for it. I raised my eyebrow on the side away from Jill and said, “It’s not like I just walked off a riverboat and claimed to be an old friend of Groot’s, but you will admit that he might have friends who have not yet revealed themselves, eh?”

Julio narrowed one eye as if the squint would let him see better and pursed his lips, then glanced quickly at Jill. I frowned at him and gave a small shake of my head, no. He gazed off at the street traffic: then, apparently reaching his decision, he nodded slowly to himself. “Very well,” said Julio. “I will confide in you in the hope that - well, I will confide in you. Everything about this matter is quite irregular, you understand, unreasonable seizure without due process of state and so forth. We feel that there was absolutely no justification for arresting Meester Groot or confiscating his assets. We feel, and our legal adviser agrees, that this was done in outright contravention of the laws and practice of Oolsmouth, as well as of valid commercial sensibility. Our lawyer has been attempting to unearth the authority and pretext behind all this, unfortunately without notable success. With slightly more promising results, he and I both have been meeting with Council members in an attempt to convene a full Council session. As you know, Meester Groot is a member of Council himself.”

“What do these other Councillors have to say for themselves?”

“To a person, they’ve been quite surprised and distressed. A few of them have also been concerned for their own security. Even more so, they are troubled at signs the gods may be meddling directly in the affairs of Oolsmouth. They feel that would mean nothing but trouble.”

“That’s certainly a prudent way to look at it,” I said. Coming from me, for some reason that remark didn’t seem to reassure him. “Why hasn’t the Council put an immediate stop to these goings-on, then, especially if as you say it’s been accomplished against the law?”

“Politics,” said Julio. “Meester Groot is one of the stronger voices on the Council and his incarceration shifts certain groupings and the entire internal balance. Councillor Dooglas, who opposes him, is another pole of the Council, yet he has not made himself available over the past day to any but his closest intimates. And then there are the gods.”

True, it was the soul of wisdom to tread softly when the gods were mucking around in your vicinity: just look at me. “You have to admit these Councillors aren’t necessarily idiots,” I said. “There is a fine balance that is useful to maintain between directly confronting a scheme that the gods may be wrapped up in and finding some clever way of turning the tables. Still, your Councillors’ natural instinct to hide under the porch is clearly not what you’re looking to them for at the moment. Another thing that is sometimes helpful, sometimes disastrous, and always risky is recruiting another god to oppose the designs of those who are on the other side, if there aren’t more of them involved already.

“I see you shudder.” I went on. “I take it that’s not a course you prefer to pursue. There’s also a perfectly natural tendency for people to consider how they want to deal with those folks who are already tied in with the gods, whether they want to give such folks a clean pass or get closer to them, or even whether to go for an out-and-out alliance. Even the gods themselves build coalitions. Or so they say.”