It was harder to find Westman than it should have been, because there was no address in the city hall for a Westman company. They did exist, they just didn’t have an address registered. I thought that was odd, but the clerk didn’t; I guess he’d run into that sort of thing before. The owner was listed, though, and his name wasn’t Westman. It was something called Brugan Exchange. Did Brugan Exchange have an address? No. Was there an owner listed? Yeah. Northport Securities. What does Northport Securities do? I have no idea. You understand that the clerk didn’t kill himself being helpful—he just pointed to where I should look and left it up to me, and it took three imperials before he was willing to do that. So I dug through musty old papers; I’d been doing that a lot lately.
Northport Securities didn’t have an owner listed. Nothing. Just a blank space where the Articles of Embodiment asked for the owner’s name, and an illegible scrawl for a signature. But, wonder of wonders, it did have an address—it was listed as number 31 in the Fyres Building.
Ah. I see your eyes light up. We have found our connection with Fyres, you think. Sort of.
I found the Fyres Building without any trouble—the clerk told me where it was, after giving me a look that indicated I must be an idiot for needing to ask. It was at the edge of Shroud Hill, which means it was almost out of town, and it was high enough so that it had a nice view. A very nice view, from the top—it was six stories high, Kiera, and reeked of money from the polished marble of the base to the glass windows on the top floor. The thought of walking into the place made me nervous, if you can believe it—it was like the first time I went to Castle Black; not as strong, maybe, but the same feeling of being in someone’s seat of power.
Loiosh said, “What’s the problem, boss?” I couldn’t answer him, but the question was reassuring, in a way. There was a single wooden door in front, with no seal on it, but above the doorway “FYRES” was carved into the stonework, along with the symbol of the House of the Orca.
Once inside, there was nothing and no one to tell me where to go. There were individual rooms, all of them marked with real doors and all of which had informative signs like “Cutter and Cutter.” I walked around the entire floor, which was laid out in a square with an open stairway at the far end. I said, “Loiosh.”
“On my way, boss.”
I waited by the stairs. A few well-dressed citizens, Orca, Chreotha, and a Lyorn, came down or up the stairs and glanced at me briefly, decided that they didn’t know what to make of the shabbily dressed Easterner, and went on without saying anything. One woman, an Orca, asked if I needed anything. When I said I didn’t, she went on her way. Presently Loiosh returned.
“Well?”
“The offices are smaller on the next floor, and they keep getting smaller as you go up, all the way until the sixth, which I couldn’t get into.”
“Door?”
“Yeah. Locked.”
“Ah ha.”
“Number thirty-one is on the fifth floor.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
We went up five flights, and Loiosh led the way to a tacked-up number 31, which hung above a curtained doorway. Also above the doorway was a plain black-lettered sign that read, “Brownberry Insurance.” I entered without clapping.
There was a man at the desk, a very pale Lyorn, who was going over a ledger of some sort while checking it against the contents of a small box filled with cards. He looked up, and his eyes widened just a little. He said, “May I be of service to you?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Is your name Brownberry?”
“No, but I do business as Brownberry Insurance. May I help you?”
He volunteered no more information, but kept a polite smile of inquiry fixed in my direction. He kept glancing at Loiosh, then returning his gaze to me.
I said, “I was actually looking for Northport Securities.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, I can help you there, as well.”
“Excellent.”
The office was small, but there was another curtained doorway behind it—no doubt there was another room with another desk, perhaps with another Lyorn looking over another ledger.
“I understand,” I said carefully, “that Northport Securities owns Brugan Exchange.”
He frowned. “Brugan Exchange? I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it. What do they do?”
“They own Westman, Niece, and Nephew Land Holding Company.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”
The curtain moved and a woman poked her head out, then walked around to stand next to the desk. Definitely an Orca; and I’d put her at about seven hundred years. Not bad if you like Dragaerans. She wore blue pants and a simple white blouse with blue trim, and had short hair pulled back severely. “Westman Holding?” she said.
“Yes.”
The man said, “It’s one of yours, Leen?”
“Yes.” And to me, “How may I help you?”
“You hold the lease for a lady named, uh, Hujaanra, or something like that?”
“Yes. I was just out to see her about it. Are you her advocate?”
“Something like that.”
“Please come back here and sit down. I’m called Leen. And you?”
“Padraic,” I said. I followed her into a tiny office with just barely room for me, her, her desk, and a filing cabinet. Her desk was clean except for some writing gear and a couple large black books, probably ledgers. I sat on a wooden stool.
“What may I do for you?” she said. She was certainly the most polite Orca I’d ever encountered.
“I’d like to understand why my client has to leave her land.”
She nodded as if she’d been expecting the question. “Instructions from the parent company,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you exactly why. We think the offer we made is quite reasonable—”
“That isn’t the issue,” I said.
She seemed a bit surprised. Perhaps she wasn’t used to being interrupted by an Easterner, perhaps she wasn’t used to being interrupted by an advocate, perhaps she wasn’t used to people who weren’t interested in money. “What exactly is the issue?” she said in the tone of someone trying to remain polite in the face of provocation.
“She doesn’t want to leave her land.”
“I’m afraid she must. The parent company—”
“Then can I speak to someone in the parent company?”
She studied me for a moment, then said, “I don’t see why not.” She scratched out a name and address on a small piece of paper, blew on it until the ink dried, and gave it to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You are most welcome, Sir Padraic.”
I nodded to the man in the office, who was too absorbed in his ledger to notice, then stopped past the door, looked at the card, and laughed. It said, “Lady Cepra, Cepra Holding Company, room 20.” No building, which, of course, meant it was this very building. I shook my head and went down the stairs, sending Loiosh ahead of me.
He was back in about a minute. “Third floor,” he said.
“Good.”
So I headed down to the third floor.
Do you get the idea, Kiera? Good. Then there’s no need to go into the rest of the day, it was more of the same. I never met any resistance, and everyone was very polite, and eventually I got my answer—sort of.
It was well after dark when I returned to the cottage. Buddy greeted me with a tail wag that got his whole back half moving. It was nice to be missed.
“As long as you aren’t fussy about the source.”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
I walked in the door and saw Savn was asleep on his pile of blankets. The old woman was sitting in front of the fire, drinking tea. She didn’t turn around when I came in. Loiosh flew over and greeted Rocza, who was curled up next to Savn.
I said, “What did you learn about the boy?”
“I don’t know enough yet. I can tell you that there’s more wrong with him than a
bump on the head, but the bump on the head triggered it. I’ll know more soon, I hope.”
“What about curing him?”
“I have to find out what’s wrong first.”
“All right.”
“What about you?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
She turned and glared at me. “What did you find out?”
I sat down at what passed for a kitchen table. “You,” I said, “are a tiny, tiny cog in the great big machine.”
“What does that mean?”
“A man named Fyres died.”
“So I heard. What of it?”
“He owned a whole lot of companies. When he died, it turned out that most of them had no assets to speak of, except for office furnishings and that sort of thing.”
“I heard something of that, too.”
“Your land is owned by a company that’s in surrender of debts, and has to sell it before the court orders it sold. What we have to do is buy the place ourselves. You said you have money—”
“Well, I don’t,” she snapped.
“Excuse me?”
“I thought I did, but I was wrong.”
“I don’t understand.”
She turned back to the fire and didn’t speak for several minutes. Then she said, “All of my money was in a bank. Two days ago, while you were out, a messenger showed up with information that—”
“Oh,” I said. “The bank was another one? Fyres owned it?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s all gone.”
“I might be lucky enough to get two orbs for each imperial.”
“Oh,” I said again.
I sat thinking for a long time. At last I said, “All right, that makes it harder, but not much. I have money.”
She looked at me once more, her lined face all but expressionless. I said, “Somewhere there’s someone who owns this land, and somewhere there’s someone who is responsible for that bank—”
“Fyres,” she said. “And he’s dead.”
“No. Someone is taking charge of these things. Someone is handling the estate. And, more important, there’s some very wealthy son of a bitch who just needs the right sort of pressure put on him in order to make the right piece of paper say the right thing. It shouldn’t disrupt anything—there are advantages to being a small cog in a big machine.”
“How are you going to find this mythical rich man?”
“I don’t know exactly. But the first step is to start tracing the lines of power from the top.”
“I don’t think that information is public,” she said.
“Neither do I.” I closed my eyes, thinking of several days’ worth of my least favorite sort of work: digging into plans, tracing guard routes, finagling trivial information out of people without letting them know I was doing it, and all that just so we could perhaps get a start on how to address the problem. I shook my head in self-pity.
“Well?” said the old woman when she’d waited long enough and decided I wasn’t going to say any more. “What are you going to do? Steal Fyres’s private papers?”
“Do I look like a thief?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She sniffed.
“Unfortunately,” I added, “I’m not.”
“Well, then?”
“I do, however, know one.”
Interlude
“I SUPPOSE, IF ONE must lose a finger—”
“Yes. And it had healed cleanly.”
“It hurts to think about it. I wonder what fell on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“He didn’t seem inclined to talk about it. You know how he gets when there’s something he doesn’t want to talk about.”
“Yes. A lot like you.”
“Meaning?”
“There’s a lot you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?”
“I suppose. Not deliberately—at least not yet. Later, there may be things I’d sooner not discuss. But if I told you everything I remember as I remember it, we’d still be here—”
“I understand. Hmmm.”
“What is it?”
“I was just thinking how pleased he’d be if he knew we were spending a whole afternoon just talking about him.”
“I shan’t tell him.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Should I go on?”
“Let’s order some more tea first.”
“Very well.”
3
I LOOKED AT HIM after he’d finished speaking, struck by several things but not sure what to say or to ask. For one thing, I’d forgotten that when Vlad starts telling a story, you had best get yourself a tall glass of something and settle in for the duration. I thought this over, and all that he’d told me, and finally said, “Who did the boy kill?”
“A fellow named Loraan.”
I controlled my reaction, stared at Vlad, and waited. He said, “I take it you know who he was?”
“Yes. I follow your career, you know. I’d thought he was pretty permanently dead.”
Vlad shrugged. “Take it up with Morrolan. Or rather with Blackwand.”
I nodded. “The boy saved your life?”
“The simple answer is yes. The more complicated answer would take a week.”
“But you owe him.”
“Yes.”
“I see. What happened while you were waiting for me?”
“I learned everything about Fyres that was public knowledge, and a little that wasn’t.”
“What did you learn?”
“Not much. He liked being talked about, he liked owning things, he didn’t like anyone knowing what he was up to. The accountants are going to be hard at work to figure out exactly what he owed and what he was worth—I imagine his heirs are pretty nervous.”
“It’ll be harder without those papers.”
“Yeah. But I’ll probably return them when I’m done. I’m in more of a hurry than they are.”
“What else has happened?”
“Who do you mean?”
“With the boy.”
“Oh. Nothing. She’s still trying to figure it out. I guess it isn’t easy to know what’s going on in someone’s head.”
That, of course, was the understatement of Vlad’s life.
“What’s she done?”
“Stared into his eyes a lot.”
“Notice any sorcery?”
“No.”
I thought for a minute, then, “Take me to the cottage,” I said. “I want to see it, and I want to meet this woman, and we can go over the information there as well as anywhere else.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
We struck out for the cottage, walking. I like walking; I don’t do enough of it. It was about four miles, deep in the woods, and the cottage really was painted bright blue so that it showed against the greens of the woods to a truly horrifying effect.
As we approached, a reddish dog ran out the door and stood in front of us, wagging its tail and letting its tongue hang out. It sniffed me, backed away with its head cocked, barked twice, and sniffed me again. After consulting with its canine sensibilities, it decided I was provisionally all right and asked us if we wanted to play. When we took too long to decide, it ran back toward the house. The door opened again, and a matron came out.
Vlad said, “This is my friend, Kiera. I’m not going to try to pronounce your name.”
She looked at me, then nodded. “Hwdf’rjaanci,” she said.
“Hwdf’rjaanci,” I repeated.
“Kiera,” she said. “You look like a Jhereg.”
I could feel Vlad not looking at me and not grinning. I shrugged.
She said, “Call me Mother; everyone around here does.”
“All right, Mother.”
She asked Vlad, “Did you learn anything?”
“Not yet.” He held up the parcel I’d given him. “We’re just
going to look things over now.”
“Come in, then.”
We did, the dog following behind. The inside was even worse than Vlad had described it. I didn’t comment. Savn was sitting on a stool with his back to the fire, staring straight ahead. It was creepy. It was sad. “Battle shock,” I murmured under my breath.
“What?” said the old woman.
I shook my head. Savn wasn’t a bad-looking young man, for a Teckla—thin, maybe a bit wan, but good bones. Hwdf’rjaanci was sitting next to him, stroking the back of his neck while watching his face.
Hwdf’rjaanci said, “Will you be staying here?”
“I have a place in town.”
“All right.”
Vlad went over to the table, took out the papers, and began studying them. I knelt down in front of the boy and looked into his eyes; saw my own reflection and nothing else. His pupils were a bit large, but the room was dark, and they were the same size. A bit of spell-casting tempted me, but I stayed away from it. Thinking along those lines, I realized that there wasn’t much of an air of sorcery in the room; a few simple spells to keep the dust and insects away, and the dog had a ward against vermin, but that was about it.
I felt the woman watching. I kept looking into the boy’s eyes, though I couldn’t say what I was looking for. The woman said, “So you’re a thief, are you?”
“That’s what they say.”
“I was robbed twice. The first time was years ago. During the Interregnum. You look too young to remember the Interregnum.”
“Thank you.”