Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

He was a professional, after all.

He counted to ten seconds, then followed the Iron Roses inside suite 214, looking around. Tampo was in the office on the left, sitting behind the desk with Agent Warsim behind him. Tampo’s jacket was pulled halfway down, trapping his arms so he couldn’t move. Tampo would be feeling more than a little terror right now, and Michel was willing to let that last another couple of moments.

He did a quick circuit of the opposite room, using a knife to pry open one of the many crates that were stacked haphazardly around. He blinked down at the contents, frowning, before that big grin he’d been trying to suppress finally broke through his defenses. “Bring me that lantern.”

One of the Iron Roses brought him the lantern from Tampo’s desk. Michel held it over the crate, light spilling across the contents, to reveal stacks of Sins of Empire . With so many crates in this room and the next, there were probably thousands of copies here. There was now no doubt this was the man who’d arranged the printing of the pamphlet.

And Michel had him at gunpoint in the other room.

He suppressed the urge to dance over to Tampo’s desk and instead walked, measuring his steps. He set down the lantern and leaned forward, gazing into Tampo’s eyes. The lawyer was frozen in terror, his mouth working but nothing coming out. The trousers of his fine suit were soaked with urine. Sedition against the Lady Chancellor wasn’t so clever now, was it? Michel found himself unsure of where to start. Was he supposed to question him? Take him straight to the Millinery?

“Looks like we’re both in for a long night,” Michel said, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Tell me, is your real name Tampo? Because I couldn’t find it in any of the public records, and I had people searching all afternoon.”

The lawyer’s mouth continued to work. Michel frowned. He’d expected someone timid – revolutionaries often were once you took the piss out of them – but he hadn’t expected someone so frozen by their own terror that they couldn’t speak. He must realize how close to the end of his life he had come. Michel didn’t particularly relish what was going to happen to Tampo. He didn’t like torture, though it certainly had its uses, but he was exceedingly pleased to be the one to bring Tampo down. It was going to earn him his Gold Rose.

He leaned forward, smacking Tampo on the cheek gently. “Have anything to say?”

Tampo’s jaw trembled, and he whispered something between his chattering teeth. Michel leaned forward to better hear it. “Speak up.”

“I don’t know who you think I am,” the man said. “But I’m the janitor.”

All the joy Michel had been floating on disappeared. This couldn’t have been a mistake. Janitors didn’t wear five-thousand-krana suits. They didn’t carry canes. “Excuse me?”

“The lawyer who works here said he’d give me a hundred krana to come in tonight wearing his clothes.”

Michel licked his lips. He snatched up the man’s right hand, examining his fingers closely. They weren’t the fingers of a lawyer. They were rough, burned, and blistered from years of manual labor, paint on his knuckles and dirt under his nails.

This was not Tampo.

“Son of a bitch!” Michel kicked over one of the crates, pointing at one of the Iron Roses. “Go get me the secretary. Now!”

“The Lady Vlora Flint,” Devin-Tallis announced loudly, as if he were a herald at a king’s ball. He gave a half bow and withdrew, leaving Vlora at the top step, looking out over the array of faces that turned to look at her.

The normal conversation stopped, and the quiet buzz of whispered gossip replaced it. She could make out any of them if she focused, thanks to her powder trance, but she decided she’d rather not know what they had to say. Some faces seemed welcoming, others openly hostile, while even more were perplexed. Vlora resisted the urge to check the cuffs of her uniform and polish the crossed muskets of her brass Riflejack pin.

“Ah!” a voice boomed from nearby. “Lady Flint, my friend.” Vallencian moved through the crowd like a bull through a herd of sheep, coming over and taking her by the arm and leading her down into the mingling guests, and to her relief the regular conversation immediately resumed. “I am so glad you took me up on the invitation,” Vallencian said. “I know you military types. Don’t like a place without a clear exit. But I tell you, it’s worth it!”

“Thank you for arranging an invitation for me,” Vlora said, ignoring the irony as she checked for exits and reached out with her senses to spot the guards. She passed familiar faces, though none with names she could remember, and caught more than one Palo staring at her. “I’m wondering,” she confessed, “if this was such a good idea.”

“It’s fine,” Vallencian declared. “Lady Flint has no need of an honor guard. You are an honor guard.”

“I’m not sure what that means, but I’m beginning to think the biography you read of me may have greatly exaggerated my accomplishments,” Vlora said. “I’m just a soldier.” Which seemed an understatement right now. She had never liked this sort of crowd. Politicians always rubbed her the wrong way – one of the reasons she’d left Adro despite being a decorated general – and places like this were breeding grounds for the worst kind of petty politics. This had been a very bad idea indeed. “What is this place?”

“The Yellow Hall. Built by the quarry foreman back when the quarries here provided all the wealth in Landfall.”

“It looks old.”

“A hundred and fifteen years, I think. It’s held up remarkably well for being buried underneath a dozen tenements. The yellow limestone is no facade – solid blocks.” He led them near one of the walls and slapped it with one hand as if to demonstrate.

A whole villa, buried down here in the center of the Depths, long forgotten by the rest of Landfall. Surely the Blackhats must know about this place? “I thought there would be more Palo.”

Vallencian led her through the press, past a table where he nabbed a glass of iced coffee and pushed it into her hands, and then toward the far corner. “Yes, yes. Usually more Palo, but it’s a public celebration – as public as the Palo get – so they’ve invited everyone who does business down here.” He pointed to a young woman in a sheer dress. “That is Lady Enna, she owns the biggest quarry in Greenfire Depths along with the Palo next to her, Meln-Dun. That old man with the glasses, that is Rider Hofflast. Owns ten thousand acres of sugarcane on an island off the coast, employs mostly Palo. There is a man who sells the lumber, a woman who trades furs. Everyone here does business with the Palo.”

She wondered how so many Kressians could be down here, doing open business, while the Blackhats feared stepping foot in the Depths. It seemed preposterous and she wanted to ask Vallencian but it was a question she didn’t want overheard. “I thought Lindet owned most of the businesses in Landfall.”

Vallencian snorted. “She likes to think she does and,” he said with a shrug, “she has a piece of every company in Fatrasta. It’s the cost of doing business. Don’t get me wrong, I respect Lindet. She’s a smart, driven woman, even if she’s as savage as a high-mountain bear. But she’s overextended, and just one woman.”

“You respect her?” Vlora echoed, looking around to see who might have overheard. This seemed poor company for such an utterance.

“Of course,” Vallencian responded. “I never said I liked her. But she’s a powerful, driven woman. There is a lot to admire.”