Daniel Abraham - The King's Blood

The notary went silent. Cithrin rose. She felt like she’d been punched, her body vibrating from the depth of the notary’s anger, but her head was clear and cold as meltwater. It was as if her body was the only thing frightened.

“I’ll leave you to your work, then,” Cithrin said. “If there’s anything I can do that would help the branch, please let me know.”

Pyk made an impatient click in the back of her throat.

“And, really,” Cithrin said, pointing to the pages laid out on the table, “don’t pay that list.”

Cithrin walked through the streets in the southern end of the city nearest the port. The puppeteers were out in force, sometimes as many as three working different corners when two of the larger ways crossed. Many were variations on old themes: retellings of PennyPenny the Jasuru with his bouts of comic rage and violence or stories of cleverness and crime with Timzinae Roaches—often with the three black-scaled marionettes tied to a single cross, their movements literally made one. Other times, the stories were of greater local interest. A story of a crippled widow forced to sell her babies only to have them each returned as too much trouble to keep could be just a comic tale with a few bawdy jokes and a trick baby puppet that grew monstrous teeth, but to the residents of the city it was also an elaborate in-joke about a famously corrupt governor. Cithrin stopped in an open square to stand and watch a pair of full-blooded Cinnae girls— paler and thinner even than her—singing an eerie song and swaying with marionettes in the shapes of bloodied men. She noticed the girls had filed their teeth to sharklike points. She wasn’t sure if it was more frightening or pretentious. It was certainly a large personal investment for an effect that limited the range of performances they could do.

Cithrin mulled over how much of the performer’s craft relied on excellence in a small range and how much on competence over a wide variety of performances. It was, of course, a single instance of a more general problem, and it could be applied to the bank as well. A certain range of contracts— insurance and loans and partnerships and letters of credit— required relatively little additional expertise. To widen the business into renting out guardsmen or guaranteeing merchandise in bank-owned warehouses required more resources and higher expenses, but it also brought in coin that wouldn’t have come in otherwise.

The Cinnae girls struck a series of high, gliding trills, matching each other in an uncomforting harmony. The one on Cithrin’s left swirled, her dark skirts rising with the motion to show blue-stained legs. Cithrin saw it and didn’t see it.

It wasn’t only her mutilated tusks that made Pyk like the sharp-toothed puppeteers. Pyk also wanted to limit what the bank did, restrict it to the few areas in which she was comfortable and then increase her profits by reducing cost. Excellence in a narrow circle. It was safe and it was small and it was absolutely against Cithrin’s instincts.

“Magistra,” Marcus said. She hadn’t noticed him walking up behind her.

“Captain,” she said. “How are the guards?”

“We lost a few,” he said. “That Yardem and I took the worst pay cuts pulled the punch a little. Still, I’m keeping either me or Yardem at the main house until people stop being quite so sour about it. I’d hate to be the captain whose guard stole the safebox.”

The Cinnae girls scowled, their voices growing a degree harsher at the interruption. Cithrin dug out a few weights of copper and dropped them in the open sack between the performers, then took Marcus’s arm and walked west, toward the seawall.

“I’m not going to win her over,” Cithrin said. “Not ever. It isn’t just that we dislike each other. We disagree .”

“That’s a problem.”

Cithrin felt her mind at work. From the time she’d been old enough to know anything, her world had been the bank. Coins and bills and rates of exchange, how to set prices and how to exploit prices that others had set poorly. It was what she’d had growing up instead of love.

“I have a proposal I’m looking at from a man who makes his fortune searching for lost things,” Cithrin said. “It isn’t the sort of thing Pyk would be comfortable with, do you think?”

Marcus looked sideways at her.

“It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing she would,” he said. “Do banks even do that?”

“Banks do whatever brings money to banks,” Cithrin said. “Still, it’s given me an idea, and I’d like you to look into it. If you can.”

“You know you can’t negotiate anything…”

“I don’t think that would be an issue. And really, nothing may come of this. But if it does, we might be able to bring Pyk enough money to restore the guards.”

“That’s an interesting thought,” Marcus said. “What kind of business are you looking to start?”

“Nothing outside the bank. It isn’t really even a new business.”

“It’s looking for lost things.”

“Yes.”

“Something we’ve lost.”

“Yes.”

The seawall was whitewashed stone, and looked out over the pale water of the bay. The dropoff where the deeper water began was a blue as profound as indigo. Near the docks, it was shallow enough to be almost the color of sand. A guideboat was leading a shallow-bottomed galley through the reefs and sandbars that protected the city’s seaward face. In the centuries of its life, Porte Oliva had fallen, but never to force.

Marcus leaned against the wall, looking out over the water. The angle of the sun showed the white hair mixed in among the brown. His eyes were narrowed against the light.

“And what is it we lost that you’re thinking to look for?”

“The cargo of the Stormcrow ,” she said. “We’re about to pay for it. The pirates have to come to ground somewhere. If we can find where, we might be able to recover some part of what we’ve lost. Even if it was a tenth of the manifest, it would be enough to put the guards back to full pay.”

Seagulls wheeled past the wall, wide wings riding the rising air where the breeze from the sea broke against the walls of the city. Seven young Timzinae men in the canvas of sailors walked past, laughing and talking too loud. One of them shouted something playful and obscene. Marcus turned to watch them pass.

“I can ask around, I suppose,” Marcus said. “No harm in that.”

“It would have to be done quickly.”

“I can talk quickly,” he said. “What are we trying to do with it? If we find the cargo and bring it back, what do you think we’ll have won?”

“We’re keeping money for the branch,” Cithrin said.

“Pyk’s not going to thank us for that.”

“We wouldn’t be doing it for her.”

“Ah,” Marcus said. “So it doesn’t help with the real problem.”

“Not directly. But if the branch does better because of what we do, it may be of use later. When Pyk’s moved on.”

“And when are you expecting that to be?”

Annoyance knotted itself between her shoulder blades and she crossed her arms. A seagull swooped past, its shadow darkening her face and then vanishing again.

“I have to do something ,” she said. “I can’t just sit here and watch her play the game so safely that we lose it.”

“Agreed. And I’m in favor of anything that gets my men paid, not to mention myself. Going behind Pyk’s back only makes it sweeter. But if it works, the branch does better, and she’s more likely to stay.”

“But if we cut down the bank in order to get rid of her, then we’ve cut down the bank.”

Cithrin put her palms to her temples. She and Pyk had the same problem at heart.

“If we could just trade roles,” she said. “I don’t care if I go to banquets and feasts. I just want control of the books.”