She Who Waits (Low Town 3) (13 page)

I punctuated his observation by lighting a match on the table, then puffed along in silence. He’d get to what he wanted at his own pace, there was no point trying to hurry him.

‘Why do you think you’re here today?’

‘An agent came into my bar and threatened to discontinue my existence if I didn’t.’

‘But why do you think I sent him?’

‘You’re in the mood to pick up an ochre of vine?’

‘You caught a man following you yesterday, a man sent by the Sons of
Ś
akra.’

‘Did I? I have trouble remembering back that far.’

‘He’s going to return in the next few days.’

‘You read palms too? Cause I’d love to find out if I’m ever gonna get married.’

‘He’s going to ask you to take a meeting with his superior.’

I shook my head, almost bemused. ‘By the Firstborn, did you call me in here to tell me to stay out of politics? You really think I’m stupid enough to get in the middle of whatever you’ve got going with the Sons of
Ś
akra?’

‘I think you’re incredibly stupid,’ he said flatly. ‘And if you interrupt me again, I’m going to have the boys downstairs come upstairs and cut off one of your ears.’

The Old Man did not make empty threats – it was part of his gag, like his smiling eyes and easy manner. I determined discretion to be valor’s better half, and went back to smoking my cigarette very, very quietly.

‘As I was saying – I didn’t call you down here to tell you to stay away from the Sons of
Ś
akra. Quite the opposite. Sometime in the next few days, their Brother Hume is going to approach you a second time. He’ll ask that you take a meeting with his boss. You’ll agree to do so. During that meeting his boss will ask that you take on an assignment.’

‘And?’

‘You’ll agree.’

‘To what?’

‘Whatever he asks you to do.’

I stamped out my cigarette, then started to roll another, slowly, trying to work out the Old Man’s deviousness – though I could have twisted up a year’s supply and not have run my way through all his angles. ‘What if they ask me to kill the King?’

‘They won’t ask you to kill the King.’

‘But what if they do ask me to kill the King?’

‘Whatever task they assign you, I’m sure you won’t be able to complete it without the sage counsel of your friends. I would imagine Agent Guiscard, in particular, would be a useful asset to you in these troubled times of confusion and despair.’

I lit my second smoke. The Old Man frowned unpleasantly. He was quite the prude, though that wasn’t much vice stacked against the fact that he was also an amoral lunatic. ‘I’m not so sure I’ll get a second bite at the apple. I somewhat … forcefully declined it the first time.’

‘You underestimate the persistence of Mr Hume and his ilk.’

‘What use could I possibly be to the Sons?’

‘I’m sure we’ll discover the answer to that, as the situation progresses.’

‘But whatever it is, I’ll have your backing?’

‘We wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you. Guiscard will offer what advice he can, and he’ll involve me as he sees fit. But I’m afraid you’ll need to be operating without Black House support for the time being. We couldn’t very well sell you as a credible aid to the Steps if you carried a squad of agents in your hip pocket.’

‘You trust Guiscard to do his job?’

‘Implicitly,’ he said, wounded on behalf of his subordinate. Though of course he trusted no one – hadn’t trusted me, even when he’d been willing to turn the shop over.

I puffed little ringlets of smoke in his direction. He twitched his nose but gave no other sign that he’d noticed. ‘So you’re asking me to get in tight with the Steps, then wait for the opportunity to fuck them?’

‘You’ve a vulgar way of putting things, as always. But in essence, yes.’

‘Then I suppose I’ve only one question.’

‘I wait patiently to hear it.’

‘Why would I do anything to help you?’

The Old Man leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. ‘I can think of several reasons. First, you’re not doing anything for me – you’re doing something for the Crown, the Empire, and the nation. The Sons are fanatics, a few steps from howling at the moon. They’re also well funded, highly organized and competently run. Sad though it is to say, they are popular amongst the rabble, and amongst the wealthy that are like rabble. If they aren’t stopped, the ramifications could be … quite unfortunate.’

I looked at him blankly for a moment. ‘Did you really just make an appeal to my sense of patriotism?’

‘Second,’ he continued without answering, ‘I’m not yet starved of resources. Your cooperation in this matter would be directly beneficial to you, in the most pecuniary fashion.’

‘I’ll let you in on a little secret – people love drugs. Really, it’s not that much work getting rid of them. Which is to say, I got money.’

‘You never did take to the carrot, did you?’ Said in a way that almost made me feel bad about it. ‘Here’s the stick. If you don’t do what I’m asking, I’ll be forced to take – how shall I put this without sounding melodramatic – rather vigorous steps against you and yours.’

‘Yeah, yeah, burn down the bar, massacre my people, lay their corpses at my feet. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this song. It’s starting to lose its novelty. And dead I’m no help to you.’

The Old Man fell silent, though it was clear from the simple fact that he hadn’t yet gotten what he wanted that our conversation still had a way to go. He turned and stared out the tiny window at the alley below, though it was too dark to see anything. At least, it was too dark for me to see anything. Who the hell knew what the Old Man was capable of?

‘There is, of course, a final reason,’ he said, after the silence had started to drag.

‘That’s good, cause the first few weren’t doing much for me.’

‘Albertine Arden is back in Rigus. She’s working for the Sons.’

‘I’m in.’

The Old Man nodded happily. ‘I thought you might be.’

A
listair Reginald Harribuld the Third did not like me.

Didn’t like the set of my jaw, the tan of my skin or the color of my eyes. Didn’t like that these last stared back at him unwavering, without the dip customary to men of his stature. Hadn’t liked it when I’d knocked at the entrance of his Kor’s Heights estate, three solid raps on the main door. Didn’t like my ice blue uniform, didn’t like that my wearing it meant I couldn’t be sent away by the butler.

No, Alistair Reginald Harribuld the Third did not like me – which was all to the good, because I fucking hated him.

‘I’m afraid what you’re asking is absolutely impossible,’ he said in his slow, patrician drawl, as if the concept of haste to him was as foreign as the earth is the sea.

‘Squaring a circle is impossible,’ I answered smiling. I smiled a lot in those days, an affectation I’d stolen from the Old Man. It was easy to smile with the full weight of the Crown at your back. ‘What I’m asking is well within your capacity.’

‘My capacity, certainly. But contrary to my disposition.’ We were sitting in his drawing room, one of several public spaces within his mansion – the one he kept for entertaining riff-raff, baronets and foreign princelings. On the walls were a series of paintings depicting the Duke in various elaborate situations. The Duke on a battlefield, the Duke at hunt, the Duke overlooking his lands, the Duke on the shitter. I made up that last one. The furniture was fantastically uncomfortable, the antique chair I sat in could have been ensconced in a torture chamber. But they were old and fabulously expensive, and for a man like Harribuld, that was all that really mattered.

‘Motivation is the issue?’

‘In a sense.’ Harribuld was nearing forty and doing everything he could to convince the world otherwise. His shoulders were still broad, and he was admirably fit for a man who did nothing for a living – but the buttons on his shirt were taut from holding in his gut, and his hair was too dark to be anything but a dye job, midnight blue-black. The fashion at court that year had tended towards the intricate, and he was well in keeping with it. His mustache drooped down almost to his shoulders, and his goatee had been waxed to a rapier point. I didn’t care to guess how long it took him to dress every day, but certainly it would have been impossible without the best efforts of the small army of stewards, butlers and pages that kept supplied his every conceivable need.

‘My understanding was that relations between you and Lord Aekensheer were less than cordial.’

‘It’s not a question of how I feel about him,’ Harribuld said. He had this way of enunciating his words like he thought Rigun was your second language. ‘It’s a simple matter of honor – there are certain things a gentleman simply does not do, and informing on a fellow gentleman is one of them.’ He took a delicate pinch of snuff out of a silver box on the table and brought it to his nose. A good deal of it was caught by the wire-mesh barrier of his facial hair, but I thought it impolite to point that out. ‘I wouldn’t imagine you’d understand.’

‘Loyalty towards your peers is admirable,’ I said. ‘But trumped by fealty to the Crown. I tell you in strictest confidence, the avenues we’ve been investigating would shock, I say shock, the conscience of even the most jaded villain.’ This was not true, as I remember. Lord Aekensheer was involved in some vaguely shady financial dealings, and we were going to use those to swing him in the direction we wanted on an entirely different issue. It was pretty standard stuff, really.

‘I’d do anything for the Crown,’ Harribuld said, affronted, though of course he’d never done anything for anyone. Had he served in the war, I wondered? Probably he had spent his tour attached to some elderly general with four stars on his lapel, never came close enough to the front to smell the shit and blood. Probably had himself a chest of medals somewhere, commemorating his noble service. I made a mental note to look it up in his file when I got back to Black House. We had files on everyone – getting to sift through the dirty laundry of strangers was one of the perks of being an agent. There were a lot of perks, truth to tell.

‘Then it won’t be any trouble for you to answer a few questions.’

‘But then you see, there’s the Crown,’ he continued on as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘And then there’s the Crown.’ It was clear which end I sat on.

‘A neat distinction – we make a similar one, at Black House. There are loyal subjects, and there are disloyal subjects. Amongst the latter would include anyone unwilling to participate in an ongoing investigation.’

Arrogance gives the upper crust a dash which can occasionally be mistaken for courage, though of course it stems from a different root entirely. It’s not a disregard for danger, rather the belief that their position keeps them immune from harm. He twisted his mustache till I thought it might detach from his face, then snapped his hands to his sides and stood up. ‘I’ve heard all about the policies of your superior. You can go back and tell him that there are still men in the Empire unaccustomed to cringing like dogs before their lessers. You can tell him that my father’s father led the King’s armies into battle, and I’ll be damned before I bend knee to some trumped up tradesman.’

I let his words hang in the firmament for longer than necessary. I always enjoyed watching them right at the crest, so certain of themselves, so unprepared for what was about to come. ‘Is there anything else you’d like relayed?’

He didn’t bother to answer that.

‘Here’s what’s going to happen, Harribuld. I’m going to walk up out of here, because the stench of unearned wealth is getting too much for me to stomach. I’m going to roll, light and enjoy a cigarette. Then I’m going to go back to Black House and find whatever it is you don’t want found.’ His mustache quivered, prelude to an objection but I continued without pause. ‘There’s no point in arguing – everyone’s got something, you bluebloods more than most. Gambling losses, taxes, girls, boys – it doesn’t matter. It’s there, and I’ll get it. Then I’ll come back over here and bend you over it until you break right in two. We’ll cart you off to a cell in the tower, and a dozen men in jackboots will trail mud onto your carpets and get their fingerprints on your heirlooms. Your house will get sold at auction, your prized possessions find their way to sidewalk antique dealers.’ I laughed loud enough to scandalize the butler. ‘You fucking nobles, you crack me up. You traded power for wealth and comfort, and while you were sodomizing the help and perfuming yourself, fresher men, men like me, we came and picked up what you cast aside. And now, right now, this very second, you’re looking at me and realizing it. Because your name, and your line, and that fake mole affixed to your cheek, they don’t mean shit. I’m the new breed, Harribuld, get a strong whiff. What I don’t own now I’ll own soon. Acclimatize yourself and your retirement can be comfortable. Fuck with me and I’ll snap you like a toothpick.’

I stood up. ‘But first, there’s that cigarette.’ He was near spitting in fury at this point, shaking with it, but that would pass in a moment. The aristocracy had their spine bred out of them long ago. ‘If I was you, and I thank the Firstborn I’m not – I’d spend a moment considering how seriously you take class loyalty. Your father’s father led the King’s armies into battle – what do you want your son to do?’

It had been pissing rain all day, and even in Kor’s Heights they hadn’t gotten around to laying down cobblestone. Back then there weren’t two paved miles of track in the whole city, just a few streets by the Palace maybe. My boots were thick with mud after a few steps, and the rain beat against my coat, but even so it was a distinct improvement over the atmosphere inside.

I took up a spot across the street from the Duke’s main gate. I wanted his butler to have to tramp through the grime when he came to get me. It took a while to light my cigarette, what with the weather, but when I managed it, it tasted fucking incredible. I was savoring the thing, about halfway through it, when one of our official carriages rolled up next to me. The door swung open, and a man in ice gray slipped out.

Maggins was not prone to overreaction – he wasn’t particularly bright, and he had something of a temper, but I accepted both because he stayed calm when others didn’t. It was what had earned him a position as something of my second-in-command, and it was why I was very concerned that he seemed distinctly out of sorts. ‘Chief needs to speak with you.’