Stealing the Elf-King's Roses

  In the central hall they had been conducted into the middle of the Miraha, under the great painted dome, and were nearly blinded by the shifting glitter of still more fairy gold and jewels on the lawmakers gathered there: either woven into their ceremonial garb—the Alfen shortcloak and trews or halfgown here augmented with dagged and slashed sleeves, and quilted or cross-gartered with even more fairy gold, in tissue—or worn as great chains of office, massive, many-linked. Lee had felt positively underdressed in her plain lanthanomancer’s black and the simple chain of her rank.

  But at least we get to sit down, she had thought. Chairs had been placed for the committee in the very center of the space. The eighty members of the Miraha did not sit, but stood. There was only one chair, off to one side, of plain black wood and very simply design, uncushioned, with a tall back on which was carved a more ornate version of the Miraha‘s sigil, the hexagon and the spear.

  Gelert, sitting down beside Lee, had looked around with amusement at the standing arrangements. Maybe this is intended to keep the speeches shorter, he said. But the hope proved vain. The speeches—when a given speaker deigned to speak in English—said a great deal about mutual respect, and the necessity for peoples to listen to one another, and much else. But looking at the faces of the speakers, and not even trying particularly hard to See, Lee thought she had never heard so much lying in her life. The atmosphere of resentment was overwhelming.

  Gelert’s nose nearly never stopped twitching. They hate our guts, he said. Someone up high, and I’m betting it’s the Elf-King, told them to have us here and like it. And they’ve managed the first part… but not the second.

  And we have to go to a party with these people later? Lee said. That sounds like all kinds of fun…

  Protocol, Lee.

  I’d rather work, she said. Here in the midst of all this privilege and power, the heart of Alfheim’s wealth and influence, and amid all these people who despite their young faces had the eyes of old and wicked politicians, every one—she could not stop seeing the face of Omren dil’Sorden, dead too young without even really knowing why.

  You’re doing your work, Gelert said. You’re getting up their noses, by being a human at the heart of their world. And tomorrow you’ll have your chance to get farther up their noses still… so just hang on.

  She didn’t answer; she knew he was right. Eventually it was all over, and first Per and then the rest of the committee greeted the Miraha‘s speaker, a solemn man with the dignity of some ancient Roman statue and the perfect face of a supermodel, high-cheekboned, dark-eyed, lean and graceful. Lee smiled at him and spoke to him courteously, and moved on a trifle more quickly than she might have in other circumstances…even at an Ellay City Council meeting. I’m beginning to lose it, she said to Gelert, as their group was led out once more, back to the residence tower, by the women in black with the torches. I’m starting to really dislike these people, and I can’t afford to do that.

  It’s your blood sugar, Gelert said. It’s been a long time since breakfast.

  I hope you’re right. Otherwise, I’m not going to do poor Omren dil’Sorden any good. Or anyone else…

  That evening they were feted as royally as they had not been on their arrival in Alfheim. That by itself was an issue that interested me, Gelert said as he got himself ready for the gathering. I was wondering when they were going to start treating us more like official guests of the government and less like a cut-rate package tour.

  Lee nodded idly. She was feeling much better—the cold collation and wine that the staff had brought up for them after the Miraha session had taken care of her hunger and her somewhat frayed temper—and now she was brushing down her dress for the reception. It was at least the third time on this trip that she’d had to brush it down, since even though she might be worlds away from them, somehow everything black Lee owned managed to pick up white fur from Gelert’s kids. Not sure how you mean, she said, picking off some of the more resistant fluff between her fingers.

  Think about it. One day they import us from JFK and dump us in a Hilton, and we don’t see anybody higher-ranking than a few accountants and the fragrant dil’Hemrev from Alfen External Affairs. Then something happens, somebody in the Miraha sends a shuttle for us, and now all the upper-ups are coming out of the woodwork to make nice on us. Has there been a ‘palace coup’ of some kind? Does ExAff have a new boss all of a sudden, one who’s more kindly disposed to us? Or, regardless of what dil’Hemrev told us, did the Elf-King perhaps get back from some trip, decide the high-profile UN committee isn’t getting high-profile enough treatment, and kick some of the civil servants’ butts upstairs, or down?

  Lee thought about that for a moment. It seemed as possible as anything else. Then, “Fragrant?” Lee said.

  Gelert blinked at her, then grinned. Irony. Probably I should have said ‘redolent,’ as in ‘she stinks.’

  Not literally, Lee said. At least not that I noticed…

  It’s not just her perfume, Gelert said. That woman’s up to something.

  There we’re in agreement. I just wish I knew what. This protection thing… I can’t tell whether she’s for or against the idea of someone sneaking up on us some night and putting a knife in me. But she seems eager not to have LAPD blame the Alfen for it.

  Well, we’ll find out, Gelert said. Especially since an acreage like this is going to be difficult to secure at night. And our magic balcony door there… is it any better at keeping people out than it is at keeping us in?

  Another happy thought, Lee said. Thank you so much.

  Gelert looked at Lee with some amusement as she slipped the dress on over her head. “You missed some fur on the back…”

  Lee groaned and slipped it off again. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

  “You’ve got hours yet to get it clean,” Gelert said. Then, naturally, came the knock on the door. “Oops, I tell a lie.”

  “They keep doing that!” Lee muttered. “Are all their clocks running fast? I haven’t finished my makeup yet!”

  She dashed into her own bathroom. Though I don’t know why I bother, she thought, dealing with her makeup at the highest speed consonant with keeping it in the right places on her face. The way all of them look, I could go in and have everything about me redone but my sensibilities, and it still wouldn’t matter in the slightest; by comparison, I’d still look like an unmade bed. She sighed. Still, you have to let people see that you’re trying…

  Five minutes or so later Lee was in order, and she and Gelert met their escort at the door again. When they got downstairs to the entrance of the residence tower, this time there were no women with torches, but just Isif dil’Hemrev again, much more formally dressed than they’d seen her so far, in a long deep-cut gown of a truly striking blue that exactly caught both the color of her eyes and of the sapphires wound into her hair.

  Chatting casually with Per and the others, dil’Hemrev led them about a five minutes’ walk from the residence tower to a smaller building that stood in the shadow of the Miraha‘s great hall. “The Laurin’s banqueting hall,” dil’Hemrev said, and stood aside to let the committee members walk in past her through great bronze doors laid open.

  They came into a space far more humane and intimate than the Miraha‘s hall, though this one wasn’t precisely small either. It was a long room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling some thirty meters high, all painted with the clouds of a sky at sunset. Tall windows ran down either side of the room, letting in the afternoon light, and a single great table ran right down the room’s length, big enough to seat at least a hundred for a formal banquet. It was set as a buffet, though, and positively groaned with food and drink. At the sight of it, Gelert’s stomach made an alarming noise.

  Lee couldn’t help but smile slightly. “I thought you just ate,” she said.

  “My stomach is having second thoughts,” Gelert said. “Look at that salmon!”

  There were already perhaps fifty Alfen in the room, but for the moment they were all hanging
back as if waiting for something. Lee found out what when, from behind them, someone came whose approach made the small crowd part to right and left. Through the space they made came a small Alfen woman, silver-haired, slight-boned and delicate—something of a surprise at first glance, for Lee had gotten used to Alfen being on the tall side.

  Whatever quiet small talk had been going on among the Alfen until now ceased completely. “Our guests,” the woman said, “I welcome you to Alfheim, and to Aien Mhariseth, the Laurin’s city. My name is Dierrich dil’Estenv. I am the mrinLauvrin, the Laurin’s chief deputy; some people might call me the Elf-King’s grand vizier.”

  There were some chuckles about that. “The Laurin is not presently in residence,” dil’Estenv said, “being abroad on business; but I’m glad to do service for him in his place. I welcome you all to our hearth; may your own service to your own peoples prosper!”

  The committee applauded her politely enough, and Per then made, apparently extemporaneously, a very gracious thank-you speech that confirmed to Lee why he’d been sent along on this mission—not just as a former law inducement officer and a present-day politician, but one of those who makes the work of diplomacy look easy even at uncomfortable times. At the end of it, dil’Estenv took Per’s hand, much to his surprise, and bowed over it; then led him up to the nearest table, poured them both a glass of white wine out of a glass ewer that stood there, and pledged him. They both drank.

  This seemed to be a signal for the Alfen equivalent of the catering staff to start making their rounds, and the Alfen who had been invited, members of the Miraha and of other government agencies, began to mingle. Shortly Lee found herself standing with a cup of wine in one hand and the third or fourth of several choice finger-food dainties in the other, talking art history to a red-haired Alfen “senator” who had commented in passing on the carved design of the cup.

  Lee was rather astonished at how different the tone of the proceedings was from the session in the Miraha. It’s almost as if someone told them to cut it out… And she was even more astonished when, as she and the senator, Lasme, had just gotten into some of the juicier details about recent discoveries in Earth pre-Columbian art, she saw someone come up beside her, turned to see who it was, and saw dil’Estenv there.

  “Don’t stop for me!” the mrinLauvrin said, amused; and Lasme laughed and went on about the differences between Aztec and Huichtilopochtlin terracotta for some minutes more, before realizing that his glass was empty and going to get a refill.

  “I had no idea you were interested in art history, madam,” Lee said.

  “Art, perhaps less,” dil’Estenv said. “History… rather more.” She looked at Lee with an expression that had some regret in it. “We’ve been dealing with the fruits of that for some days, now, in ways that none of us might have expected even a few months ago. Our history with humans, with others…” That regret gathered to itself just an edge of a smile. “But maybe it’s been delayed too long.”

  “To do something about that history now,” Lee said, “especially about the histories of the Alfen who’ve been murdered in the past few years, too many of them… that’s what matters now, madam.”

  “Dierrich, please,” dil’Estenv said. “No one uses titles or housenames over wine. In that house over there”—she gestured with her head toward the Miraha— “—things may be different.”

  “They certainly felt that way today,” Gelert said.

  Dil’Estenv shook her head slightly. “Alfen can be very conservative,” she said softly, “and for those of us who’re a little less so—like my master—that place can be a difficult one to work. But one has to take it at its own value, and work through channels, slowly. When you live as long as my people do, there’s no use getting the lawmakers angry; they stay that way for such a very long time…”

  Her look was wry. Lee couldn’t help but smile. “As for your specific investigation,” dil’Estenv said, “my master has expressly required that you be given whatever you ask for in terms of data regarding outworld homicides. All of that would normally be held by the Bureau of External Affairs, which, as you might imagine, is most eager to keep the information right where it is. But they must obey the Laurin no less than I… so if they give you any trouble, let me know.”

  “And has there been trouble, madam—” Gelert said, and then, noting her expression, jocularly warning. “Dierrich?”

  Dierrich allowed herself only the slightest smile. “When has an intelligence organization ever wholeheartedly cooperated with orders to give up its hard-won data?” she said. “Oh, there’ve been some small ructions, disagreements over protocol and precedence…but nothing that should now interfere with your work. If there is any further interference, contact my office. Our interest is in having your work here go smoothly and with speed.”

  They talked for a little while more before Dierrich moved on, making her rounds of the committee. Lee found herself impressed by the woman. She was no less beautiful than any of the rest of the Alfen, but in her case that beauty was tempered by something else—a sense of mind, of thoughtfulness, and of power contained; and small as she was, the way she bore herself made her seem taller than those around her. Lee was reminded strongly of what she had almost Seen in the Elf-King, that night in the restaurant, and found herself suddenly able to understand why this woman would have risen to the post of his second-in-command. There was a kinship of their styles of power; a weapon, but one kept in reserve.

  Lee looked after her when she finally moved off to go talk to Mellie Hopkins and a couple of the others. “A very nice lady,” Gelert said. Unusually so for an Alfen.

  That’s not what I’m thinking about at the moment, Lee said. That woman’s the local equivalent of the Young Emperor of the Xainese, or the UN SecGen. I wonder where her security is?

  Where it doesn’t show, most likely. Even our own people know how to be discreet at events like this.

  Lee nodded. I suppose, she said. It’s just that our blue-eyed dil’Hemrev and her ‘concerns’ about my safety are still on my mind. Just because ExAff seems to have had its wrist slapped doesn’t relieve me entirely. And when we get up into the ‘rose garden’ tomorrow, or whenever… that concerns me a little, too.

  Well, we’ll be together, Gelert said. For the garden, anyway. For the data, you don’t need me; you can savage ExAff yourself, after what Madam Dierrich there says. And, he said, grinning, as he turned away toward the buffet table, you can find out whether she’s really to be trusted…

  *10*

  The next morning, after breakfast, the committee met informally for an hour or so to coordinate details about who they would be meeting for the next couple of days, and to discuss their findings so far. The scheduling part of the meeting went well enough, but as for the rest of it, Lee thought to herself as she and the others prepared to leave that she had never heard so much doubletalk and obfuscation in one place in her life. Everyone on the committee was certain that they were being even more closely watched and listened to than they had been in Ys, and everyone was intent on giving absolutely nothing away to the listeners. As she got up, Lee hoped it was as frustrating for them as it was for her.

  Gelert was shouldering into his doggie pack as Lee glanced over at him. “So you finally get to do the Homicide end of things,” he said. “I envy you, but I’m still stuck with the numbers team…”

  Don’t envy me too quickly, Lee said. It remains to be seen if ExAff is going to be as cooperative as dil’Estenv thinks they are.

  Gelert grinned. Should be interesting.

  “Don’t worry,” Lee said. “I’ll be recording everything for analysis; you’ll have plenty of time to look it all over later.”

  “Right. See you for lunch?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you have the commcode of the offices they’ve assigned us over at the Exchequer; call me there if you need a break.”

  “Right.”

  ExAff’s buildings turned out to be unusually bea
utiful ones, built more or less in the shadow of the Laurins’ House, at the edge of the city closest to the bottom of the rising ground that led up to the cliffs. That whole area had been turned into a sort of vast, naturalized rockery, planted with rhododendron, hardy alpines, and other trees and plants native to the area. The effect produced was of a natural landscape that had laid itself out in an unusually ordered manner, masses and colors balanced, but not so balanced or arranged that an observer immediately assumed the hand of man rather than nature. Against this varied tapestry, the ExAff buildings reared up, a set of six smaller towers connected by a low wall, containing a formal garden surrounding a central plaza, and in the middle of the plaza, one sharp short tower, almost pyramidal, like the point of a spear thrusting up out of the green grass.

  In one of the smaller towers, Lee was not surprised at all to be met by Isif dil’Hemrev, back in uniform again and sporting an attitude that, even for an Alfen, Lee could only characterize as chastened. Dil’Hemrev greeted her most cordially, led Lee to a large airy office with a view down onto the central plaza, furnished with a commwall three times the size of Lee’s own and a state-of-the-art WilNo data retrieval and storage system. “Obedient to the mrinLauvrin’s desires,” dil’Hemrev said— and was that the slightest hint of gritted teeth? Lee wondered, “we’ve given you our entire ‘untoward mortality’ database. If you have any questions about how the data’s been sorted, or you have any desire to look at physical evidence supporting the individual cases, you have only to ask for me or for my assistant, Weilin; you can comm her, or her office is that third one down the corridor. She’ll be holding herself ready for you all today should you need her.”