“I’m going to walk outside and cross the street. Meet me in twenty minutes, all right?”
“All right. Yes. How much—?”
“Ten imperials, or maybe more if you can help me.”
“All right.”
I nodded and left the place, walking around for a little while and eventually circling back. Loiosh flew around to look for signs of someone setting something up, but I didn’t expect anything like that, and there wasn’t.
After twenty minutes, he left the inn and crossed the street, and I stepped up next to him. “Let’s walk together,” I said, handing him ten coins. I’d said that to someone earlier that day, too.
We strolled together through the dark and quiet streets. This part of the city was far from the docks, and very narrow, and looked nothing at all like anywhere in Adrilankha, which I rather liked. I said, “What have you heard about Fyres?”
“The Orca?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I mean, you know that he’s dead.”
“Yes. How did he die?”
“An accident on his yacht.”
“Are you certain?”
We walked a little further. He said, “I’ve heard rumors, whispers. You know.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t. Tell me.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend of the Guild.”
“Is there going—? That is, am I—?”
“In danger? No, as long we aren’t seen together, and probably not even if we are.”
“Probably not?”
“That’s why we aren’t talking inside, and why we’re staying to areas without much light. Now, you were saying?”
“There’s been talk that he was murdered.”
“By whom?”
“People.”
“What sort of people?”
“Just people.”
“Why do they think so?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you something: every time someone famous dies, however he dies, people say he was murdered.”
“You think that’s all it is?”
“Yeah. Am I wrong?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out. I’m asking you questions to find out. And I’m paying you. You have no reason to suspect—uh—foul play?”
“Not really, no.”
“All right. What about all these bank closings?”
“It’s the Empire.”
“The Empire closed the banks?”
“No, but they allowed it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they aren’t supposed to do that—let banks just close, anytime they want to; they’re supposed to protect people.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“Because the bankers paid them.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“How?”
He didn’t answer. I said, “How much did you lose?”
“Almost eight hundred imperials.”
“I see. Is that how you know?”
He didn’t answer. I sighed. I wasn’t getting a whole lot that I could use. I said, “What about the Jhereg?”
“What about them?”
“Are they involved?”
“With the banks? I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Oh, good. I was supposed to be tracking down rumors, and instead I was starting them. What I wanted to say was, “Can you tell me anything useful?” but that wasn’t likely to produce results. I said, “What can you tell me about the people being kicked off their land?”
“Just what everyone knows,” he said. “It’s happening a lot, and no one knows why.”
“What do you mean, no one knows why?”
He shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t make any sense, does it? You get a notice of eviction, and then you go see if you can buy the place, and the owners have gone out of business.”
“That’s been happening a lot?”
“Sure. All over the place. I’m one of the lucky ones: we’re still on Lord Sevaana’s land, and he’s still all right, as far as anyone knows. But I have friends and relatives who don’t know what’s going on, or what to do about it, or anything.”
I don’t know why I’d assumed the old woman’s case was unique, but apparently I was wrong. That was certainly interesting. Who could stand to gain by forcing people to leave their land so it could be sold and then not selling it? And why force them to move before offering them the chance to buy it themselves? And how could Fyres’s death have set all this off? And who wanted Loftis dead, and why? And—
No, wait a minute.
“Has anyone actually been made to move off his land yet?”
“Huh? Not this soon. No one could move that quickly, even if they made us.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” But still . . .
“Is there anything else?” said the minstrel.
“Huh? What? On, no. Here. Vanish.” I gave him another ten imperials. He vanished.
“What is it, boss?”
“The inkling of the germ of a thread that might lead to the beginning of an idea.”
“Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”
“I think I might have a piece of something, anyway. Let me think for a minute.”
He was polite enough not to make any of the obvious rejoinders, so I thought as I strolled. It isn’t all that easy to just think, keeping your mind concentrated on the subject, unless you’re talking to someone or writing things down, which is one reason I like to talk to Loiosh as I’m putting things together, but what I had right then wouldn’t fit itself into words because it wasn’t precise enough—it was just the vague, unformed notion that I’d, well, not exactly missed something, but that I’d been putting the wrong slant on things.
After a while I said, “The trouble is, Loiosh, that the way Kiera and I got involved in this was through whatever oddity is involved in this business of putting what’s-her-name’s land on the market and then making it hard to track down, followed by impossible to track down. Just because that’s where we started doesn’t make that an important piece of whatever it is that’s going on.”
“You knew that already, boss.”
“Sure. But knowing it is one thing; being aware of it as you work and taking it into account whenever you look at new information—”
“What are you saying?”
“Heh. That I’ve been looking at this thing skewed by what I knew about it. I have to look at it straight on. And I have a theory.”
“Oh, good. Only that was missing. All right, then, where to now?”
“I don’t know.” And, in my mind, Loiosh spoke the words as I did. “You’re funny, Loiosh,” I told him. “Do you have any great ideas?”
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”
I looked around, but didn’t see anything.
“No,” he said. “This city. This area. It isn’t good, boss. They’re still looking for you, and when you’re in a city like this, you’re too easy to find. I don’t like it.”
Neither did I, come to that. “Soon,” I told him. “As soon as we get this settled.”
“You can’t do Savn any good with a Morganti knife between your shoulder blades.”
“True.”
“If I’d known we were going to be here this long, and that we’d be going around stirring up—”
“Okay, okay. I get the point.” I’d thought about it, of course. Loiosh was right: a city, even one as small as Northport, was not a good place for me to hide when the whole Organization was looking for me. And, if what I’d just figured out was true, then I’d pretty much done what I’d agreed to do—the old woman would be able to stay on her land, and everything was fine.
“Where would we go instead?”
“The East.”
“We’ve been there, remember?”
“It’s big, there are lots of places. And no one would find us.”
br />
“Good point.” There really wasn’t any reason to stay here, if I could be certain that what I’d just figured out was true, and I could probably find that out.
Except that someone had cut Loftis down right in front of me, and there were neighborhoods full of people who had to leave because they no longer had any work, and I didn’t understand why any of it was happening.
I said, “The old woman is doing so well with Savn, it would be a shame to take him away so soon.”
“Boss—”
“Let’s just take a few more days, all right?”
“You’re the boss.”
I wondered what you were finding out, Kiera; what would we learn about Fyres from the Jhereg? And, come to that, how heavily were the Jhereg involved? And if he’d gotten the Jhereg into it, why did he need the banks?
Did he need the banks at all?
There was only one banker we knew for certain was involved with Fyres, and that was Vonnith, and we knew she was bribing Imperial officials, which almost made her a Jhereg, too. Did I know of any legitimate banks that had made loans to Fyres? Did I even have any reason to suspect there were any?
How could I find out? Walking around pretending to be someone else has its uses, and we’d gotten some information that way, but there’s a time for just being who you are. Had we reached it yet? Who was I, anyway?
Hmmm.
“Could work, boss.”
“It’s worth a shot.”
“And even if it doesn’t work, I’ll enjoy it.”
“Yeah, you probably will.”
“And you won’t?”
It wasn’t easy finding a tailor’s shop that was open at this hour—in fact, there were none. But after disturbing the tailor, it was easy enough to get what I wanted just by setting an appropriately large number of coins in front of him. My reserves of cash had been getting a bit low lately, and I wasn’t excited about going to any of the places I’d need to in order to retrieve more of my wealth—for one thing, I’d have to remove the gold Phoenix Stone in order to teleport—but I could do it if I had to.
However, I was able to put in the order and he promised that he’d have what I needed early in the morning. That done, I wandered for a while, thinking over the plan and refining it in conversation with Loiosh.
I discovered that my feet were taking me back toward the cottage, and I decided to let them have their way, now that I had a plan for tomorrow. I walked, and I thought, and Loiosh flew above me, or sometimes sat on my shoulder, but kept watching so that I had the freedom to let ideas roll around in my head and turn into conclusions. I thought about stopping and performing a quick spell to make my feet hurt less, but I’d have to remove one of the Phoenix Stones or the other, and Loiosh gave me the benefit of his opinion on the wisdom of that, so by the time I reached the cottage I’d come to the conclusion that I was very tired of walking. I explained this to Buddy when he came out to greet me. He wagged his tail and sneezed in sympathy. Good dog.
Savn was sitting next to the hearth this time, not facing it. The old woman was next to him, talking to him softly. As I came in I waited to see if he would acknowledge my presence, but it was as if I didn’t exist, as if nothing existed, even the old woman who was talking to him.
I walked over. “Hello, Savn,” I said.
He didn’t look at me, but he said, “Do you have a knife?”
I said, “Do you know my name?”
“You have a knife, don’t you?”
“You know who I am, don’t you Savn?”
“I . . . I lost Paener’s knife, you know. I let it—”
“It’s all right, Savn. No one is angry about that. Do you know who I am?”
“It was a good knife. It was very sharp.”
“Let’s talk about something else, Savn.”
“I used it to cut—to cut things.”
The old woman said, “Savn, your sister is all right.”
He didn’t seem to hear her any more than he’d heard me, but his hands started opening and closing. We sat there, but he didn’t say anything else.
I looked at the old woman, who shrugged and stood up. She pulled me over to a corner and spoke in a low voice, saying, “I’m beginning to understand what’s going on with him.”
“His sister?”
She nodded. “She’s the key. He thinks he killed her, or something. I’m not sure. He isn’t really rational, you know. He doesn’t know when he’s dreaming and when he’s really experiencing things.”
“I could bring him back and show her to him.”
She shook her head. “Not yet. He’d just think it was a dream.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Just what we’ve been doing. We keep talking to him, even though he only wants to talk about knives and cutting, and we try to get him to talk about other things.”
“Will that work?”
She shrugged. “If I’m right about what’s going on in his head, then it should help, eventually. But I don’t know what you mean by work. There’s no way to know how much he’ll recover, or what he’ll be like. But we might be able to get him to the point where he responds to us, and then maybe we can teach him to look after himself.”
“That would be good,” I said.
“How about my problem?”
“You mean, about the cottage?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure. I think I’ve figured out some of it. If my theories are right, you don’t have anything to worry about. But you ought to worry about the possibility that my theories are wrong.”
“All right,” she said. “What if you’re wrong?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
12
I WAS UP EARLY, and, after almost enough klava, I stopped by the tailor’s to retrieve the items that I’d ordered. The tailor had, evidently, been thinking, which can be unhealthy, but it had only frightened him, which is a natural survival reaction. I reassured him with words and coins, got the items, and left him reasonably content. Then I went by a weaponsmith and picked up a few things. Then I found an inn that was serving breakfast, stepped into the privy, and, amid odors that I will not bother describing, I spent some time getting dressed and set—it took me a while to remember how to conceal knives about my person without them showing, which surprised me a little. I covered everything, including the cloak, with my regular, nondescript brown cloak, which was far too hot for inside the privy, but would be only slightly too warm for the walk out to Vonnith’s place.
I left the tavern a bit more bulky than I went in and made my plodding way out of Northport toward the home of our dear friend, Side-Captain Vonnith, and what is a side-captain, anyway?
There’s no need to tell you about the trip out there—you did it yourself. And my compliments, Kiera, on the accuracy of the report, which gave me an excellent idea of what to expect, and when to expect it. About half a mile away, then, I took off the extra cloak, and appeared before some nameless birds and small animals as me, the old me, Vlad Taltos, Jhereg, assassin, and friend to old ladies. I continued after stashing the brown cloak in a thicket at the side of the road, and Loiosh grudgingly agreed to wait outside after making a few remarks about who got to have all the fun. I guess his idea of fun is different than mine.
Or maybe not.
Vonnith’s guards got to me as I was walking up to the front door. Two of them, flanking me as neat as you please. They made no hostile moves, so I kept walking. They said, “My lord, may we be of some service to you?”
“If you wish,” I said. “You may tell the Side-Captain that a friend is here to see her.”
“A friend, my lord?”
“That’s right. Don’t I look friendly?” I smiled at them, but they didn’t answer. We reached the door. I said, “If you wish, you may tell her that I represent the Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”
“The—?”
“Adrilankha Eleemosynary Society.”
“Uh, wait just a moment,” he said
. He was quiet for a time, I assume making psychic contact with someone, then he looked over at his companion and nodded once. The companion hadn’t opened his mouth the entire time, but he was standing the right distance away from me, so I assume he knew his business. In any case, they both inclined their heads to me slightly and went back to their stations. I shrugged, gave a last adjustment to my brand-new clothing, and pulled the clapper.
Hub appeared, looking just as you’d described him, and gave me a greeting that made me miss Teldra. Have you met Teldra? Never mind. He showed me in and brought me to the same room she met you in, and there was Vonnith, just where she was supposed to be.
She stood up and gave me a slight bow—I don’t think she knew how polite she was supposed to be to me—and started to speak. I sat down and said, “Give me the names of all the banks Fyres was involved in. I don’t need yours, we know about those. Which other ones?”
She frowned. “Why do you need to know that? And who are you, anyway?”
“I’m not going to tell you my real name; you should know that. And I don’t have the energy to invent a good one. You know who I work for—”
“You’re a Jhereg!”
“Yes. And an Easterner. What’s your point? We need to know what other banks Fyres was involved with, and we need to know before they go under.”
“But how can you not know? How can—?” She seemed very puzzled, but I had no interest in letting her work things out; I’d made that mistake yesterday.
“Maybe we do know,” I said, and let her put it together herself—wrong, of course. It’s disgustingly easy to let people lie to themselves, and they do it so much better than you can. But as she was coming to the conclusion that this was all a test, and deciding how she ought to react to that, she wasn’t considering the possibility that I wasn’t involved with anyone except an old hedge-wizard and a notorious thief.
She said, “I don’t know them all. I know the big ones, of course.”
“Size isn’t important; I mean the ones with heavy enough investments that they’re at risk, or at any rate they’ve been seriously hurt.”
“Oh,” she said, and somehow that made things all right—perhaps she decided that she wasn’t really being tested, we just didn’t know who was heavily committed to Fyres. Or maybe she came up with some other explanation, I don’t know. But I got what I was after. She said, “Well, the Bank of the Empire, of course.”