“You talk,” she said. “I’ll listen.”
“Okay.” I was beginning to think she didn’t like me. “My name is Vladimir Taltos. I used to work for the Jhereg, now I’m being hunted by the Jhereg.” I stopped to give her a chance to respond, if she cared to.
“Keep talking,” she said.
“There’s a boy, a Teckla boy. He has brain fever—”
“Stay on the subject.”
“If you want to know what’s happening, Ensign, don’t interrupt. He has brain fever. I’ve arranged for him to be cured. The woman who’s working on him is a victim of a very minor land swindle that you may or may not know about, but it’s what led me into this. I believe I need some wine.”
She got the attention of the host, who had a servant bring a bottle and two glasses. I poured some for myself, Timmer declined. I drank and my throat felt better. “The land swindle isn’t really important,” I said, “but it is, as I said, the piece of the whole thing that got me involved. And it isn’t even a swindle, really—I’m not certain it’s illegal. It’s just a means of putting some pressure on a few people and raising prices a little—inducing panic. In an atmosphere of general panic, where everyone is wondering how bad he’s going to be hit, everyone is susceptible to—”
“Go on, please.”
“You know how the land thing works?”
“Go on.”
“I don 7 think she likes you, boss.”
“What was your first clue, Loiosh?”
I collected my thoughts. Someday I hope to have them all. I said, “Let’s start with Fyres, then. I assume you’ve heard of him.”
“Don’t be sarcastic with me, Easterner.”
Her hand was casually near her dagger. I nodded. “Lord Fyres,” I said, “duke of—of whatever it is. Sixty million imperials’ worth of fraud, left to a not-grieving widow, a son who probably doesn’t even notice, a daughter who intends to continue the tradition, and another daughter who—but we’ll get to her. Fyres was worth about sixty million, as I said, and almost none of it was real, except for a bit that he’d put into legitimate shipbuilding and shipping companies, most of whom have now gone belly-up, as the Orca say.
“Now, Ensign, allow me to do some speculating. Most of what I have is based on fact, but some of it is guesswork based on the rest. Feel free to correct me if I say something you know is wrong.”
“Go ahead.”
“All right. Fyres was getting fatter and fatter, and more and more large banks were involved, and many of them—many of the biggest—were so heavily involved that, when he came to them and said he’d need another fifty dots—excuse me, fifty thousand imperials—or he’d go under, they had no choice but to give it to him, because if he defaulted on his loans, the banks would go under, too, or at least be pretty seriously crippled. This included the Bank of the Empire, the Orca Treasury, and the Dragon Treasury, as well as some very large banks and some extremely powerful Jhereg about whom I suspect you don’t care but you ought to.”
“Stony?”
“No, oddly enough. As far as I know, he wasn’t directly in debt to Fyres at all. But, yeah, he’s in this—mostly because he wasn’t in debt.”
“How is that?”
“Wait. I’ll get to it.”
She nodded. I tried to read her expression, to see how she was taking this, but she wasn’t giving me anything. So be it, then.
“Eventually Lord Shortisle realized what was going on. One of his accountants found out first, but agreed not to say anything about the bank he knew was in jeopardy. He did this, you understand, in fine old Orca tradition, in exchange for having his pocket lined.” I considered, then said, “Maybe several of them did this, but I only know about one. And that poor bastard had no idea what scale this was on, or he wouldn’t have tried it. For all I know, this was happening all through Shortisle’s department, but it doesn’t matter, because eventually Shortisle found out about it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, frankly. I suspect he has ways of knowing when his accountants are spending more money than they ought to; it was probably something like that.”
She shrugged. “All right. Go on, then.”
I nodded. “So Shortisle spoke to this mysterious accountant. I’m speculating now, I don’t know the accountant’s name, but I’m sure he was important in Shortisle’s organization because Vonnith always referred to him as a ‘big shot.’ At a guess, then, the conversation went something like this: Shortisle bitched him out, and informed him he was dismissed from the Ministry and was probably going to face criminal charges. The accountant said that if he was dismissed, the news would come out about why he was dismissed and the bank would fail. Shortisle asked why he should care about one bank. The accountant, who by now had at least a glimmer of what was going on, pointed out that, once that bank failed, others might, and maybe Shortisle should find how big the problem was before creating a scandal that would result in a general loss of confidence. Shortisle was forced to agree that this was a good idea.
“So our man from the Ministry of the Treasury starts looking into things, and finds Vonnith, or maybe someone like her, and discovers that every bank she owns or runs is in danger of collapse because everything she has—on paper—is tied into someone named Fyres. So he checks on Fyres to see who else is into him, and discovers that everyone and his partner is in the same position, and that it’s getting worse.” I paused. “The only reason I know about Vonnith is that she happens to own the bank that the old woman I’m trying to help saved at. There are probably scores of bankers in the same position she’s in, and she only gained importance because of me.”
“I don’t follow you,” she said.
“Never mind. You’ll see.”
“Continue, then.” Her hand was still resting near the dagger, but she seemed interested now.
I nodded and said, “So Shortisle pays Fyres a visit—”
“How much of this do you know?” she said. “Are you still speculating?”
“Yes. This is almost all speculation. But it holds up with what’s happened. Bear with me and I’ll try to draw all the connections.”
“All right. Go on, then.”
“He pays Fyres a visit to find out what can be done. Fyres is intractable. He tries to bribe Shortisle, he tries to dazzle him, he tries to sell him. He doesn’t get away with it, because, by now, Shortisle knows Fyres’s history, and he also knows, or is starting to know, how big this is. So he threatens to have Fyres brought down. Now, this is a bluff, Ensign. Shortisle can’t bring Fyres down, because it would bring down too many others and create chaos in the finances of the Empire, and it’s Shortisle’s job to prevent exactly that. What Shortisle wants is for Fyres to work with him in trying to ease out of this with as little damage as possible, and the threat is just to get Fyres’s attention so they can start negotiating. But the threat backfires—”
“Still speculation? It almost sounds as if you were listening to them.”
“Just bear with me. I may have a lot of the details wrong, but I know that Shortisle paid Fyres a visit. Chances are the conversation didn’t go like that, but the results are the same as if it had, so I’m trying to show you how it might have ended up the way it did. And, by the way, with what I know about Shortisle and Fyres, I might not be all that wrong.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
I nodded. “Fyres gets scared by the idea of losing everything, because he’s done that twice before. If he, Fyres, is going to help Shortisle, he wants guarantees that he’s going to come out of this rich and powerful. Shortisle makes a counteroffer, saying Fyres will come out of this a free man, instead of spending the rest of his life in the Imperial prisons. That’s not good enough for our man Fyres—he’s on top now, and he sees no reason why he shouldn’t stay there. So he does something stupid: he threatens Shortisle. He tells him that he has contacts in the Jhereg—which he does—and that he, Shortisle, had better leave him alone.
“But Shortisle
has a friend in the Jhereg, too; a fellow named Stony. Remember him? I promised we’d come back to him. Now, our dear friend Stony is extremely powerful in the Jhereg, and, just as important, he’s not directly in debt to Fyres, and, most important of all, he’s always, always, always willing to help out the Empire, because the Jhereg can’t function without help from the Empire.”
Timmer opened her mouth then, but I said, “No. I know what I’m talking about here. When I was a Jhereg, I regularly bribed the Phoenix Guards to overlook small illegalities. Nothing big, and nothing violent, you understand, but the little stuff that keeps the Jhereg earning, and keeps the Phoenix Guards in pocket change. It didn’t occur to me that the same thing was happening on a much larger scale all the way to the top until I messed with the official Jhereg contact to the Empire and I saw the heat that came down on me for it—that’s the main reason I’m on the run right now.”
She didn’t like it, but she said, “All right. Go on, then.”
“So one week later—”
“A week? What is this, a hard date, or more guessing?”
“A hard date. One week after Shortisle and Fyres have dinner together, Fyres goes out on his private boat to have a nice, relaxing sail with some business associates—how many of those aboard the boat were Jhereg, by the way?”
“Three,” she said.
“Okay. So he goes out sailing, and, late at night, he slips on the deck and—”
“Yes. I know that part.”
“Right. Okay, so Fyres is dead. Shortisle goes into action right away. Or, in fact, he’s probably ready to go into action before it even happens. He talks to Indus, explains the problem, and says they have to minimize the damage or everything falls apart, and there’s major chaos, and, just incidentally, Shortisle loses his job, because the Empress is a reborn Phoenix and doesn’t take people’s heads for incompetence.
“So someone—probably Indus—tells Domm, who works for her, that he has to just go through the motions of investigating Fyres’s death and conclude that it was an accident. Domm comes in, and, a week later, announces that everything is fine. The Empress hears about this, and the Warlord, and probably Khaavren, and they all immediately smell something funny, because there’s no way you could conclude something like that in a week. So, what do they do when there’s something fishy from one of the special Imperial groups? They send in the Tasks Group—yours, isn’t it?” I stopped and looked at her. “That’s what I’m betting my life on, you know. And I’m betting on it based on that one look you gave Domm. I don’t think you’re from Surveillance.”
She nodded once, quickly.
“Okay,” I said. I relaxed. “Good.”
“Keep talking,” she said.
I nodded. “So Khaavren tells Loftis to get a group together and find out what’s going on. Shortisle, who always knows what’s going on with the Empire, finds out about this and, instead of panicking, does something s,mart—he tells Indus about it.”
“Do you know that? I mean, couldn’t it have been Indus who found out about it in the first place, and she told Shortisle and it went from there?”
“Actually, yes,” I said. “I was just enjoying putting the story together my way. But it could well have happened the other way, and probably did, because the Minister of the Houses bears even more than the Minister of the Treasury.”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said. “Go on with your story.”
“Okay. However it worked, Indus knows about the problem, and she knows how much trouble there will be, for her, too, now, if word gets out about what’s going on. I’m pretty sure that the Warlord or the Empress or both were involved in sending your group in, because if it was just Khaavren, Shortisle would probably have had him killed.”
Timmer looked shocked at that, and opened her mouth, but then she closed it again and nodded for me to continue.
I said, “Now, Indus, as we know, is very persuasive; she’s an Issola, after all. She finds Loftis, whom she knows somehow or other—”
“They worked together when our group was called in to find a security leak in Division Six during the Elde Island war.”
“Okay,” I said. I still wanted to wince every time someone mentioned the Elde Island war, but that wasn’t important now. “She persuades him to help behind Khaavren’s back, because they both know Khaavren wouldn’t go for anything like this, and they both know that, however much they dislike it, it’s the only way to keep the financial roof of the Empire from collapsing and to save both of their metaphorical heads.
“So you and Loftis show up in Northport, just the two of you, with three others in reserve. Is that right?”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter. Loftis told me there were six of you and three in reserve, and I think he was telling me a half-truth by including Domm and his people, just to test me.”
“Yes,” she said. “It was he and I, with some others on call if we needed them.”
“Okay,” I said. “Anyway, Domm is already here with Daythiefnest and three others, and they’ve bungled things up nicely. You and Loftis know the score, and Domm knows what’s going on, but no one else does. You and Loftis have probably done a lot of things you didn’t enjoy, but this has to be one of the worst—when Loftis and I were pumping each other for information, I got that out of him and I think he meant it. Your job was to cover up a murder, and, at the same time, cover up for the fact that the guy whose job it was to do the cover-up—Domm—had bungled it horribly by being impatient. That meant tracing every little indication that people thought the investigation wasn’t real, while, at the same time, keeping up the appearances of making the investigation, and still coming up with enough to convince, among others, the Empress, the Warlord, and your own chief that, no, really, Fyres’s death was an accident. Have I got that right?”
“Go on,” she said.
I wetted my throat again. “Just about this time, Loftis learns that Fyres’s home has been burglarized and his private notes taken. I’m sure he had words about that. Why didn’t Domm take those notes in the first place? And why wasn’t the house better protected against burglary? Answer: because Domm didn’t care. Maybe—I’m speculating again—maybe it was then that Loftis realized he only had one way to go: he had to throw Domm to the dzur. That is, he was going to have to make it look like Domm was just plain incompetent—which he is—and then do the investigation himself and come up, with a greater appearance of honesty, with the same results Domm got.
“The trouble was, Domm, whatever else he is, isn’t stupid. He figured that out, too.”
Timmer’s eyes got wide.
“You mean Domm—”
“Wait for it, Ensign. I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Domm.”
Her eyes narrowed then, but she said, “All right.” Then she said, “About Fyres’s death—”
“Yes?”
“How was it arranged?”
“It was a Jhereg assassination.”
“I know that. But how?”
“Huh? You should know that. Making it look like an accident—”
“No, not that. I mean, how could a Jhereg assassin get close to Fyres on his private boat, especially when he knew—when he must have known—that he was messing with dangerous matters and dangerous people?”
“Ah,” I said. “I’m glad you asked. Stony set it up, and he had Shortisle’s cooperation. Between the two of them, they were able to get inside help. Again, I’m guessing, but it does all fit.”
“Inside help?”
“Yep. Someone Fyres trusted, or, at any rate, was willing to let onto the boat, along with a friend. Who was on the boat, Ensign? That’s something you know but I don’t. I think I can guess, though.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “Guess.”
“I’d say that at least one of his daughters was there, and had a date with her. In particular, I think it has to be Reega, judging by the way she reacted when I suggested to her that the investigation wasn’t entirely
honest.”
I waited.
“Yes,” she said, after a moment. “Reega. We know she brought a date, and the guy she was with ... yes, he could have been a Jhereg. We can still find him—”
“Three pennies that you can’t.”
She shrugged. “All right, then: why would she go along with that?”
“Remember the land swindle I mentioned?”
“Yes.”
“That was the price. Shortisle put her in touch with Von-nith and some others, or maybe they all knew each other, anyway; they probably did. They cooked it up among themselves, with Shortisle’s help, in exchange for Papa’s life. That way, however things went, they each knew they’d still have enough wealth for what they wanted: Vonnith to keep her lovely house and Reega to be able to live alone and do nothing, which seems to be her goal. Of course, it could have been the wife, the son, or the other daughter; as far as I can tell they all had reasons.”
“Nice family.”
“Yeah.”
“All right. Go on.”
I nodded. “Then my friend and I enter the arena. First, there’s the burglary.”
“Yes. Loftis was, uh, not happy about that.”
“Right. Okay, but Loftis finds himself having to work with the Jhereg, right? So he tells Stony about it, and then my friend—”
“Who?”
I shook my head. “You don’t get that.”
She started to object, then shrugged. “All right.”
“My friend starts asking Stony questions, which information he passes on to Loftis, and then I show up, and Loftis passes that information to Stony, and then I go leading you and Domm all around the countryside, and, at about the point my feet are getting ready to fall off, we wind up at the Riversend, and Loftis gets hold of you or Domm, probably you—”
“Me.”
“With orders to question me.”
“No, with orders to bring you in.”
“But—”
“Domm wanted to question you first. I objected, but he outranked me.” Her face twitched and contorted just a bit as she said that.
“I see.” I nodded. “He was nervous about what Loftis intended, and wanted to know where I fit in, and if I could be used.”