Endgame

  "No, you evil-minded woman, a medicine." Raj made a face at her, a non-subtlety lost on Kat, as she happened to be looking at the traffic and not at him. "I wish those damned lilies were good for something."

  "Oh, they are. They're stove-fuel. It happens you can find a place to dry the stuff, and press it down into little bricks." Kat shoved her pole against the bottom and maintained her place in the traffic with an ease Raj envied. "My family's thinking about offering a copperbit for every wet bale, and selling 'em back dry. There's some down in canalside dealing with hightowners, but nobody got a press down t' harbor.

  We got contacts on both sides. No reason why we couldn't sell 'em to landers. We even got enough roof space . . . but . . ."

  "But that's a dangerous move to make right now," Raj concluded for her, frowning a little with worry. "Could be tech. Clothes dried in the sun could be tech. Who knows?"

  "Right." She shoved again, sending them out of the main traffic and into one of the side canals. That brought them out of the sunlight and into a shadow that offered a little respite from the oppressive heat. "Lord and ancestors, any hint that a Family might be trying to curry favor with the Lower Classes, and m'sera Cardinal would have every last one of them in for a 'little talk.' "

  Raj shivered, only too well aware of what one of those "little talks" entailed; he thought of Mondragon, and wondered how Jones was faring. "This can't last much longer," he replied grimly. "Things are stirred up from canalside to the Rock. Something's got to give, one way or another."

  Kat didn't answer at first, she just tightened her mouth and shoved her pole with a little more force than was necessary. "You're right," she said at last. "Things can't go on as they have been. Something, somewheres, is going to start an Incident. I just hope when the smoke blows away there aren't too many people hurt. Meanwhile—"

  "Meanwhile we make our plans. I got two more books for the hidey." Some while ago, Raj had discovered that the chief Librarian at the College was one of those priests on "sabbatical." No one was keeping any kind of a watch on the Library, not even on the room holding rare and possibly dangerous books.

  There was a room of dubious books, books only selected students were permitted access to. Tech books, half of them, holding information about devices no denizen of Merovingen would even dream of constructing.

  But someone from the Chat, or Nev Hettek, or even the far Falken Islands? They had fewer bans on tech than Revenantist Merovingen.

  Possible. More than possible. Which meant that those books had value there, value many times their weight in gold.

  An advanced student like Raj or Justice Lee had every right to be in that room, for there were also books in there on medical tech which might one day be declared permissible (especially if the governor or a high-ranking priest had need of it.) There were also books whose elaborate pictures of anatomical detail made copying them difficult and the work of years for an artist-priest, for there was no way to get that kind of fine detail on a hand-engraved printing plate, and those volumes had equal interest for medical student or artist. So Raj, and now Justice, had taken to going to that room once every couple days and remaining for several hours, making their own hand-copies of those anatomical studies. But when they emerged, it was with one of the other books concealed in the bottom of their book-bags. There hadn't been anyone in the Library to notice them since Raj had begun the pilfering—and it didn't look as if there would be anybody for a while, at least.

  Raj had discovered something else in that enterprise; in the confusion following the Librarian's detention and subsequent disappearance, several other books had been misfiled in the limited-access room.

  There had always been rumors about another book-room, a room only the priests were allowed to enter, that contained banned and definitely heretical volumes. The fact that books existed which did not appear in the catalog of the restricted room or in the catalog of the larger, open collection, seemed to confirm that rumor.

  And, as Raj reasoned, if they didn't officially exist, they couldn't officially be missed. Their value would only be that much higher. So these were, of course, the very first books he had smuggled out.

  If he, Kat, or Justice had to make a run for it, there were a couple of skips waiting for them, already provisioned, in the Bolado family cut, and in their hideys, under cleverly concealed false back walls, were the books—portable wealth, better than gold, and less subject to being traced. Justice had already declared a direction: the Chat, where a decent artist could make a good living among the luxury-loving rich of the tropic. Raj's direction would depend on where trouble came from, when it came. Nev Hettek, and Granther, if there was a choice: the books contained enough information to buy his safety there from even the Sword. Or it was the Chat, like Justice, if Nev Hettek wasn't a choice. His books and his (various) skills should sustain him and Kat both for several years, and he could resume his studies—he sincerely hoped; but in Mondragon's teaching, he had other choices.

  Never again was he going to face trouble unprepared. He just hoped, in a desperate sort of way, that Mondragon himself would make it. He was doing his best to get every scrap of information about the movements in the College to Jones, who was trying to get Mondragon free before Karl Fon could send south or the Cardinal finesse him back to the Justiciary—and if anyone would know how best to use the information he had provided, it would be the former Sword agent—if he were free and safe himself.

  At the moment, Raj's own best hope of safety lay in pretending he noticed none of this, that he was blind and blithe and taking the unexpected recess from classes to ready himself for the moment studies resumed, and perhaps steal a march on his fellow students. He already had a reputation as a bookworm: apparently spending all these free hours in study would only reinforce that impression.

  "D' you have to go straight back?" Kat asked unexpectedly. "I mean, well, —got anything planned today?"

  "M'sera Andromeda is expecting me for dinner with the Family," he replied. "I didn't tell Justus where I was going, just that I wouldn't be back till after supper. I kind of thought about taking a walk around town this afternoon, see what I could see."

  "Do that as well by boat, couldn't you?" Kat asked plainly.

  "I didn't want to ask you," he said, blushing.

  "Well, you didn't ask, I offered." She smiled, a smile that dazzled his eyes and made his heart pound. "So, can a m'sera buy you lunch, m'ser?"

  They glided into a patch of sunlight, and he smiled back at her, despite the blushes that made his ears and the back of his neck hot. "Only if that m'sera is you," he said gallantly, and she laughed and sent them back into the shadows with a shove of her pole.

  * * *

  They could have had lunch anywhere; from the private dining room of Bolado to the big room of Hilda's tavern. As luck would have it, they chose to picnic instead, getting fishrolls and beer enough for three from a canalside vendor and taking them off to Gal-landry and the runner's office there. They surprised Ned Gallandry (who now treated Raj with a respect Raj found quite uncomfortable) with the unexpected largess of free lunch. They bribed Ned with it to let them sit on one of the uppermost walkways, and to grant permission for Kat's boat to be tied up below. So there they perched, in a bit of shade, high enough to catch what little breeze there was, close enough to the main arteries of traffic on Port and West Canals to see and hear the goings-on of the water and the walkways.

  That was pure good luck; Saint Murfy smiling on Raj and bestowing his fickle blessing. Ned Gallandry, who was often among the first to hear any news, knew where they were—

  And they themselves were in a position to see the beginning of the hue and cry, as suddenly blacklegs and Kamat blueshirts appeared from everywhere, walking swiftly, or even running along the walkways. Canalers with no particular business to conduct all seemed to be heading in one direction—the same as the provenance of the private and public police.

  "Lord and Ancestors—" Kat said, staring at the canal below.
"Where in the hell are they all off to?"

  Raj felt a sudden apprehension as he took in the direction, the blueshirts and the blacklegs, and made a wild surmise. "God—" he breathed, "God, trouble at Kamat."

  "Raj!" the shout from the stairway made them both jump and turn, to see a grim-faced Ned Gallandry, hair limp with sweat and humidity, eyes angry, waving at them from halfway up the stair. "Raj!" he shouted again. "You'd better get yourself back to Kamat. They need you there. Somebody's swiped the baby."

  "Boat's fastest," Kat said as he scrambled to his feet and lurched toward the stairway. He didn't turn himself to answer; just nodded and clattered down beside Ned Gallandry.

  "Who?" he panted, a lump of fear in his throat. "Who took her?"

  Ned shook his head. "Don't know, nobody knows. Some says it's sharrh, some Sword of God, some blame the Janes, it's every rumor you can think of goin' through town like a fire. No ransom note, no clues, no nothin'." Ned's expression told Raj that he thought it was a political kidnapping—which meant every known faction and cause was going to be in for some hard questioning. Again. "Need a boat?"

  "Got Kat's, thankee, Ned!"

  Ned squeezed over to let them pass on the narrow stair and didn't say anything more; what else was there to say? They pelted down the wooden steps from the high walkway to the canalside to reach Kat's boat tied up below, and Raj jumped into it with none of his usual hesitation. Kat was a breath behind him; she snatched up her pole from the rack as he cast off, and handed him the spare pole as he turned back to her.

  He took it; she normally didn't ask him to pole with her, but they needed the extra speed, and the Ancestors knew he needed something to work off his racing nerves. He dug in with more energy than finesse; Kat's skill sufficed to keep them trim and headed, and brought them up to the Kamat water-stair much sooner than he expected.

  There was a Kamat guard on the stair, who knew Raj on sight. He waved them into a vacant tie-up with a stare for Kat that took in the high quality of her otherwise plain clothing; Kat tied up where he told her, and both of them scrambled out of the boat and up the stair like a couple of scalded skits, taking back corridors and stairs to get to the big Meeting Room at the heart of the House.

  The room was a chaotic muddle, Kamat blueshirts everywhere, and official blacklegs shouting angry questions at sobbing servants that got few answers. Richard Kamat stood beside the great table in the center of the maelstrom, issuing orders to those nearest them. Raj waited to be noticed, for he saw Richard's eyes rake the crowd every so often, looking for someone. That someone likely wasn't him, but Richard did spot him then, and beckoned him through.

  He elbowed his way through police to Richard's side, and when the blueshirts vying with blacklegs for control of the questioning seemed disinclined to move even for that, the head of Kamat reached out and hauled Raj through them by the collar of his shirt.

  "The baby's gone!"

  "I heard, m'ser, I—"

  "Sometime between your visit and half an hour ago," Richard said, through the shouting and sobbing around them. "You don't remember seeing anyone hanging around the outside when you left, do you?"

  "Not at the water-stairs," Raj said promptly. "I'll ask Kat if she noticed any boats she didn't know while she was waiting."

  "Find Jones. Tell her put the word out in the Trade.

  You think you can contact a few of those kids to stick their noses in around town? But not to do anything— we don't know what we're dealing with here. . . ."

  Read: The Cardinal. Raj nodded emphatically. "No problem."

  "Whoever took her didn't leave a note, and hasn't tried to contact us," Richard was saying. "Unfortunately, that doesn't rule out politics. Check back in every hour; be careful; don't go anywhere without telling someone. You're her father; you're young and— well, they might contact you first. Or worse. You're not playing with rules, boy, or pity—you understand? We don't know whose move this is."

  "Yes, m'ser," Raj said numbly. They took her right after I left; they had to. While she was still sleeping, while the bindroot was keeping her quiet. Kat and I weren't out that long. "I'll be smart, m'ser."

  Richard dismissed him with a nod, and Raj wriggled his way back through the mob of Samurai and blacklegs to Kat's side. He tried not to think of the baby, alone and in unfriendly, unsympathetic hands; waking up in strange surroundings, frightened—

  "Let's go up to your room," Kat hissed. "Here, I mean. Maybe there's something we can do, but we aren't going to come up with it in this nest of skits."

  Raj shook his head, and waved at the milling crowd. "They've got everybody in the Samurai and the blacklegs," he said, suddenly aware that the blacklegs were among the agencies that might be behind a kidnapping; and gulped down one more fear in the midst of all the rest. "We don't know who has her, or why, or even how they got her. What can we do but get in the way, I mean?"

  "I think there's something," Kat persisted. "Let's go talk about it. Besides, this way if anyone's looking for you, they'll know where to find you. If somebody shows up with a ransom note, Richard can have 'em followed."

  Raj gave in, and led the way into the back halls of Kamat, but Kat said, there, catching his sleeve: "I want to see where it happened. Where was the baby? How d' you get from there to outside?"

  He blinked, got a breath, realized how she'd been pulling him out of that milling confusion and started reasoning past the shock, himself, about Morgan and the room, about doors and hallways and stairs. He took her arm, himself, and said, "Come on. I'll show you."

  The corridors felt like dark ovens. Once again, they took back stairs. When they got to the heart of Kamat, and the corridors that housed the rooms and suites of the Family, Raj paused to let a bevy of maids pass. One door opened and shut ahead of them, and when they reached Marina's suite, they could hear Marina weeping hysterically as they passed her door, the crying penetrating even the thick wood of the doorway, a babble of feminine voices trying to soothe her. Raj hesitated there, keenly aware of Kat's presence, of obligations to Marina—and of Marina's all-too-active imagination, and all the possible gruesome fancies Marina might have made herself by now—but there was no helping here. He walked Kat past that door toward the nursery.

  "Where's that go?" Kat pointed at a shut door, behind which echoes sounded. "And that one."

  "This one—this one's down to the water-stairs. I was there. The way we've come—that's the water-stairs again. Longer."

  "And the other?"

  "Servants' quarters. Couldn't anybody get through there without someone seeing." Kat met his eyes. "Anybody?" Foolish question.

  Kat asked. "Where does it let out directly?" "Upstairs to the walkways. But that's through the front hall." "Downstairs?" "Kitchens."

  "There wasn't a soul out there on the water then that I didn't know on sight," she said, "But that's about right, isn't it? A stranger wouldn't have come in by water, and if it isn't a stranger—"

  Raj watched the comings and goings of anguished servants, thinking how, in the quiet, frantic preparations of Kamat to desert Merovingen, someone might have betrayed Kamat intentions. Or changed loyalties. But he could not tell that possibility to Kat. Not even to Kat. He owed Richard that much loyalty. "She's gonna wake up in a strange place with her stomach hurting, and she's gonna start right in screaming. We could set Denny's friends to listening—there's the pipes. We can get word out."

  "There's ways to quiet a baby," Kat said glumly, and that made him think of some a Cardinal's man might use.

  But he kept looking at that door, and thinking on a woman in the hall, and Morgan saying: . . . M'sera says to let them come up. They're a nuisance, but that's all...

  "If I was some kind of agent, the last thing I'd pick to kidnap would be a colicky baby," Kat persisted. "You can't reason with it, and you can't shut it up without hurting it, and people get real worked up about babies. Bad karma. So what if this isn't a kidnapping like Richard thinks it is?"

  "Not Megarys, damnsu
re." He thought it over some more. "You know, Kat, you keep saying 'when in doubt, try the simplest solution first.' It doesn't always work—but everybody else is trying the hard stuff already. Nobody else has tried the simple answer—"

  "Which is?" she prompted.

  She isn't precisely 'kitchen help.' She's a legacy, do you know what that means?

  "Who would want a baby—except a mother?"

  "Like somebody who'd lost a baby?" She pursed her lips and sat up a little straighter. "And you've got a little china-doll right here, 'bout as pretty as any-body'd ever want. All right, that makes sense. But who?"

  "Somebody from outside would have gotten noticed," Raj said firmly, and grabbed Kat by the hand, hauling her for the door and the stairs. "Which means it's got to be someone from Kamat Isle. Sera Morgan said that 'bout everybody's been hanging around the baby's room."

  "Everybody is a lot of people."

  "Somebody in Kamat. That would account for why nobody saw the baby taken. Sera Morgan told me there've been people she called 'legacies' up there, too, poking their noses in—"

  "Adami legacies?" Kat demanded, as they headed downstairs. "Lord!"

  "You know anything?" Raj asked.

  "What a midtowner knows." They were going down in a clatter of steps, down and down the turns. Family servants were gathered at the landing. One said, "M'ser Raj," and the others whispered as they passed, speculation run rife, God, him with Kat, in the house, and m'sera Marina upstairs crying her eyes out—

  Raj got the downstairs door open, out on the water-stairs. The cut was crowded now with boats. A blackleg moved to detain them, but the Kamat blueshirt on duty there intercepted him while they got into the boat and untied.