Demon King (6 page)

“Forgive me,” I said, “for appearing a bit thick. But isn’t it Numantian law that no man’s property may be seized, whether land, slaves, or a painting, until he has been convicted?”

Amboina smiled, and there was more than a bit of gloating in his expression. “Such
is
the law, but the verdict is foreordained, as I said; Lord Birru was a close adviser of Chardin Sher. After Chardin Sher’s death, he withdrew to one of his estates and refused several requests by Prince Reufern to attend him here in Polycittara.”

“That makes a man foolish,” I said. “And perhaps suicidal. But it does not make him a traitor. Is there any hard evidence to convict him?”

“May I speak honestly?”

“I wish you would.”

“Lord Birru has — had — vast estates. These estates, Prince Reufern decided, would provide greater benefits for Numantia if they were in the proper hands.”

“The hands of Prince Reufern?”

“I believe he plans on acquiring some of them. Others will be given to certain loyal members of his court.”

“Such as yourself?”

Amboina colored slightly, but didn’t respond.

“Very well,” I said, and I heard harshness in my tone. “Thank you for the gift. But I must decline it. Would you please arrange to have it withdrawn from my quarters?”

“But I’ve already accepted it,” Marán said in surprise.

I began to blurt something, but stopped myself. “My apologies, Landgrave,” I said. “I don’t think my wife understood the circumstances. We cannot accept this.”

“Prince Reufern will not be pleased,” the landgrave said.

“Since I doubt this gift was his idea, but rather your own, I would suggest, in the interests of
your
health, you not mention this incident. You should know two things, Landgrave, and know them well.” I could feel anger building, and let it. I had been controlling myself for too long around these prancing fools. “Neither my wife nor myself are looters. Also, I was appointed to this post by the emperor himself. Does that not suggest perhaps this entire scene should be forgotten, at least by you?”

Amboina nodded jerkily, turned, made a sketchy bow to my wife, and hastened away. I went to a window and took six deep breaths.

“How dare you,”
Marán hissed from behind me.

That was all I could stand. I spun. “How dare I
what
, my lady?”

“How dare you embarrass me? First you deny the name of Agramónte, which was old when your family was cutting trees for sustenance in your jungles, then you shame me personally by telling a nobleman like the landgrave you think he’s some sort of grave robber!”

I could have responded sensibly, and explained that the landgrave had called upon me in my official position, then attempted to curry favor by calling me Agramónte. But I was tired, and I’d had enough of this nonsense.

“Countess Agramónte,” I said, in my coldest tone. “You are the one who’s overstepping her bounds. Let me remind you of something. You have no place or duties in Kallio. You are here as my wife. No more, no less.

“Therefore, when something like this occurs, you will have the decency to defer to the authority the emperor’s placed in me.

“I’ll add two more things, both personal.

“The first is how dare
you
decide something such as you did, which you aren’t stupid enough to think was done because Amboina thinks we’re the nicest people he’s ever met, but rather to draw us into the prince’s tidy little circle of bribed toadies?

“The second is that, yes, my family may have been cutting trees in the jungle and, probably, living in them sometimes. I admit I come from soldiery not much removed from a peasant farmer.

“But by the gods, Countess Agramónte, we are honest! Which appears to be more than can be said about some far older families, who perhaps achieved their prestige and riches as vultures!”

Marán’s eyes blazed. “You … bastard!” She half-ran from the room.

I started to go after her, then realized I’d said more than enough. But I was still too hot to apologize, if an apology was, indeed, called for. I stamped out and went to the battlements. I’m afraid I snarled at the sentries, no doubt making them wonder if I’d have them brought up on charges for some imagined offense.

It took me a long time to calm down. I now guess it was because I was secretly angry at many things, from the incompetent prince I had been ordered to support, to nest-featherers like Amboina, to being assigned these murky diplomatic duties when I longed for the simplicity of the barracks or, better, the harsh realities of the constant border fights in the Disputed Lands.

Eventually I calmed down. It was late. One thing that Marán and I had been proudest of was that our fights were not only few, but they were always settled at the time. We’d never let anger work at us.

I went back to our apartments, to our bedroom door, and tapped. There was no answer. I tried the door. It was locked. I knocked more loudly. Again, no response came. I could feel anger build once more. But there was nothing sensible to do.

So I went to my office and worked until nearly dawn, then lay on the field cot I kept there. I had sense enough to put this night’s paperwork in a separate place, knowing I’d best review it when calm. I managed to doze for perhaps an hour, then bugles woke me up. I went out on a balcony and watched guard mount in the courtyard below. The measured, never-changing routine of the army calmed me, knowing the same ceremony was being done at every barracks and post in Numantia. There was something larger than myself, than my petty problems, something I’d dedicated my life to.

I decided I’d spend the day with the troops, and hang paperwork and diplomacy. But not in the unshaven, rather disheveled state I was in. I had a spare field uniform in my campaign roll that always sat beside the door of whatever quarters I occupied, and I went to get it. I’d use the troop baths and have one of the men shave me. I didn’t worry about what the soldiers knew or thought — what had happened between my wife and myself would have gone through the regiment the instant the sentries I’d snapped at were relieved.

As I passed the door to our bedroom, I tried it and shook my head at my foolishness. But to my surprise the handle turned. I opened the door and went in. Marán sat at a window, her back to me. She wore a black silk wrap.

“May I enter?” I said formally.

“Please do.”

I closed the door behind me and stood in silence, not sure what I should say or do.

“Damastes,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you as well.”

“We shouldn’t fight.”

“No.”

“Not over a stupid painting that probably’d get broken going back to Nicias.”

I didn’t answer for an instant. Marán knew that wasn’t at all why we’d snarled. I considered correcting her, but thought better.

“No. That’s not something to fight over,” I agreed. “I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry, too. I didn’t sleep at all.”

“I didn’t, either,” I said, lying but little.

She stood, and let the wrap fall.

“Damastes, would you make love to me? Maybe that’d make me feel better about … about things.”

Without waiting for an answer, she came to me, and slowly began undressing me. When I was naked, I picked her up in my arms, and carried her to the bed.

Her passion was far greater than mine. Even when I was in her, part of my mind wondered if I should have said something else, if I should have insisted we talk about the real cause of our fight. A thought came and went that there was this wall called the Agramóntes between us, and sometimes I felt it was growing larger and thicker year by year. But I put the thought aside as foolishness and let the lovemaking take me.

• • •

Two days later, Kutulu and his staff arrived. They were surrounded by the soldiery of the Tenth Hussars, hard-bitten brawn from the frontiers. It was curious, and amusing, to see how carefully they guarded their charges.

Kutulu was as I’d last seen him: a small man, whose hair was now no more than a fringe around his polished pate, even though he was younger than I. But he still had the penetrating eyes of a police warden who never forgets a criminal’s face, or anyone else he’s had business with. Other than that, he was completely unremarkable, and would never be noticed in a crowd, which I’d learned is a prime virtue of a secret agent.

He was the emperor’s spymaster now and wielded great power. Those who spoke ill of the emperor, his programs, or his intentions were visited by police agents and warned. Generally that sufficed, but a few were unwise enough to persist in their criticisms and were hauled into court, actually a secret tribunal. The charge would be “conduct inimical to the interests of the empire,” and sentences ranged from a few days to a few years in prison. There already were two prisons especially built for these offenders, both located in the heart of the Latane River’s delta, and there were dark rumors about what happened in them.

Kutulu had a staff nearly as large as the entire Nician police force, although no one knew how many agents there actually were, since they never wore uniforms or stood for the counting. Some were commoners, some were criminals, some nobility.

Kutulu was now known as “The Serpent Who Never Sleeps,” and while I thought calling the quiet little man with the wary eyes a serpent rather romantic, the hours he spent serving his emperor suggested that possibly he did, in fact, never go to bed. If he did, it must have been alone, for as far as I knew he had no private life whatsoever.

He’d brought more than seventy-five men and women with him. Some looked like wardens, but most like average citizens or ruffians and whores. Many wore cloaks, hoods pulled up in spite of the heat, not wishing their faces to become familiar. Some were mounted, more rode in wagons. Most, city-bred, looked relieved to be in the safety of a city, behind stone walls, and no longer exposed to the unknown terrors of the open country.

I’d had quarters prepared for Kutulu and his force in my wing, across from the barracks the Lancers occupied.

“Good,” he said. “There’ll be few Kallians pass your sentries, so my agents can maintain their anonymity. But I’ll also need chambers close to the dungeons that no one will be permitted to enter except my people. Other rooms will be necessary for my records, rooms that will always be guarded, where my reports can be filed.

“Finally, are there any secret ways in and out of this castle?”

I knew of none, and if I’d found any I’d certainly have had them bricked up.

“A pity,” he said and sighed. “It would be nice to have some sort of rat hole my terriers — and the rats we collect, both of their own free will and by our pressures — to enter and leave from at any hour without notice being taken.”

He asked if I had a Square of Silence. Seer Sinait had cast such a spell in my office as soon as we arrived, to make sure no sorcerer could eavesdrop on my conferences.

“Good,” Kutulu said. “Let us go there, then. I have certain questions I need to ask.”

We went up the wide stairs toward the floor my offices were on. Halfway, he put a hand on my arm.

“Oh,” he said, rather shyly. “I sometimes forget my graces. It is nice to see you, my friend.”

I looked at him with a bit of astonishment. He’d told me, equally soberly, after I’d saved his life in an encounter with a demon guardian of the Tovieti, that I was his friend, but he had never used the word again. I became as embarrassed as he was, since I wasn’t sure just what the word meant to the small man. I muttered thanks and tried to make light of things, telling him once he saw what a mess Kallio was in he’d probably change his opinion.

“No,” he said. “I meant what I said. I know I am around one of the two people I trust absolutely.” The other was the man he’d taken for his god — the emperor.

“I am glad to be away from the capital,” he continued. “I’m afraid I like Nicias but little these days.”

“Why?”

“The emperor is like honey,” he said, “and there are too many flies buzzing around, trying to suck in as much as they can, and dirtying everything they touch. Sometimes I’m afraid the emperor pays far too much mind to these people, and not enough to those who supported him when it was a risk.”

I managed to cover my surprise — I’d never thought Kutulu would have the slightest criticism of the Emperor Tenedos, even one as mild as he’d voiced.

“I’m sure the emperor knows them for what they are,” I said. “Don’t forget that, like you, he’s got to use some fairly questionable tools to do what he must.”

Kutulu looked at me for a long time, then nodded jerkily. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “Of course. You
must
be right. I should never have doubted.” He attempted a smile, which his face found unfamiliar. “As I said, you
are
a friend. Come, let us dispose of our business.”

In my office I set two chairs at the table the Square of Silence had been cast around and told him he could talk freely.

“Some of what I’m going to say comes from the emperor,” he began. “But I’ll have other questions as well.”

“To which I must respond correctly, or face possible prosecution.”

“What?” Kutulu was completely puzzled.

“Sorry. I was trying a small joke. You asked that question as if you were investigating me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I concentrate too much on the task at hand.”

“Never mind.” Joking with Kutulu was like pissing into the wind — nothing much would get accomplished and the splatter was a bit embarrassing. Nevertheless, for some unknown reason, I sort of liked the little man, as much as it’s ever possible to like someone whose passion and life’s work is finding out yours, and everyone else’s, business.

“I’ll start with my own question. Are the Tovieti active in Kallio? I’ve seen nothing of them in your reports.”

I gaped. The Tovieti had been a terror cult first organized in Kait, one of the Disputed Lands. They had been established by an unknown, probably dead sorcerer and given the crystal demon Thak to worship and obey. They spread across Numantia, murdering as they went. Their goal was to bring all society to an end, so their own rule could triumph. Their believers would be given not only the lives of the nobility and rich, but their gold, land, and women as well. But Tenedos had slain Thak, and Kutulu and I and the army had wiped out the Tovieti with drum patrols and the noose more than nine years ago.