16

To assert that final responsibility for actions taken by Imperial Representatives rests with the Empress is to state a truism without substance. In this case in particular the discoveries of this committee show that the problem is, above all, that Imperial policies are carried out by human beings, who are necessarily flawed. While incidents such as this are regrettable, the facts do not support blanket condemnations of Imperial policies with regard to rebellion, much less the Empire itself. Rather, incidents such as this must be accepted as in some measure unavoidable.

However, there are, in the opinion of this committee, certain steps which can be taken to minimize the frequency and severity of such events, which steps are listed in Appendix 27.

 

The big question was whether I had enough time to set everything up: I only had a couple of hours left until the meeting, and if this was going to work, I had to arrive early to try to convince them to let me attend, and to watch everyone arrive in hopes of spotting the dzur among the norska.

The same sergeant was working in the Dragon Wing. He did not look pleased to see me.

“Same thing,” I said. “If you would be so kind as to inform the Lord Morrolan that I wish to see him, and add that it is urgent.”

He scowled but agreed.

“And,” I said. “If I might trouble you for an additional ser -vice, please have someone find the Warlord and tell her the following: Vlad has a way out. I’ll be waiting in that same room I was in before, if that is acceptable.”

Then I wandered for a bit until I found an errand-runner, parted with a few coins, and arranged for a message to be delivered, fast, to a certain innkeeper in a certain hostelry not far from Malak Circle, near where I used to work.

Then I found the room where I’d waited before, and waited again, drumming my fingers on the arm of the chair and hoping everyone would arrive in time.

Norathar was the first to arrive. She entered without clapping and said, “What is it?” without even sitting down.

“I’ll tell you when the others are here,” I said.

“What others?”

“Just friends.”

She sat down facing me, looking like she wanted to read my plan on my face. If it were that easy to do, I’d have no trouble identifying the assassin.

A few minutes later, there was a clap, and Morrolan entered. He looked at me, looked at Norathar, and said, “Well?”

“We’re still waiting,” I said.

“For?”

“The others,” I said, just to be contrary and because turning Morrolan’s bait is always fun.

He rolled his eyes and sat next to Norathar. Daymar was there within about a minute. He looked around the room curiously, as if he hadn’t realized the Dragon Wing had places to sit. The others, it seemed, didn’t know quite what to make of him. Well, neither did I, for that matter.

A few minutes later, there was a soft but firm clap, and Kiera entered; she was the one I’d been most worried about reaching, so I relaxed a bit. “Just one more,” I said.

“Who is that?” asked Kragar.

I stared at him. He smiled sweetly and said, “Ah, glorious vengeance,” and smirked. I felt better seeing that the others, including Kiera, were also startled. I did not give Kragar the satisfaction of asking when he’d arrived. I just said, “We’re all here now.”

“Good,” said Norathar. “Get on with it.”

I outlined the situation as I understood it, except that I made it sound gloomier than it was so it would be more dramatic when I announced that I had a way out. It would have worked better if they didn’t know me so well. Kiera smiled a little, Morrolan stared off into space, and Norathar said, “Get on with it” again.

So I did, making it as clear as possible, and only glossing over the part where I had some doubts I could pull it off. I should have known better. “Vlad,” said Kiera. “How are you going to identify the assassin?”

“I have some ideas on that,” I said.

Norathar said, “He’s going to brandish a knife and see who reacts as if he knows what he’s doing.” That hurt, because I had been considering that.

“There are problems with that,” I said.

“Yes. Like, if no one reacts right. Or if more than one do.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Now, Kiera—”

“Hmmm?”

I glanced at Norathar. “Uh, no rudeness intended, Norathar, but in your official capacity, you don’t want to hear this. I’ll whisper.”

She rolled her eyes, and I stood up, leaned over to Kiera, and whispered.

She listened, then said, “Sounds easy enough.”

Yeah, I’m sure it was, for any thief good enough to steal the mustache off an Easterner’s face. But I just nodded to her and sat down again.

Kragar said, “You never mentioned what I’m supposed to do.”

“Keep the Jhereg off-balance while we do the other stuff. We don’t want them interfering until Aliera is out, with papers with a big Imperial seal on them saying the matter is over.”

“Oh,” he said. “Any idea how?”

“Yes. Find the Imperial Representative, and keep her occupied.”

“Just how am I going to do that, when I can be interrupted at any time?”

“Kragar, meet Daymar.”

“We’ve met,” said Kragar. Daymar, it seemed, missed the inflection in Kragar’s voice, and just nodded.

“What’s my part?” asked Daymar.

“Dress up as a Jhereg, go with Kragar, and make sure the Jhereg representative can’t get any psychic messages. And doesn’t know it.”

“Dress up like a Jhereg?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

He paused. Then, “All right.”

“Good.”

“What about sending?”

“She’s welcome to talk to anyone she wants. I just don’t want any Jhereg telling her to go see the Empress right now.” I stopped and looked at Kragar. “Just to be clear, if they figure out what you’ve done, and I don’t see how to prevent that, you might become a target.”

Kragar yawned. I shrugged. Then I winced.

“Still in pain?” said Kiera.

“Some.”

“Is it going to—”

“I hope not. Morrolan, it’s clear enough?”

He nodded. “I go to the advocate’s office. What’s his name?”

“Perisil.”

“Right. I wait there for, uh, three more hours and a bit, then, if I haven’t heard from you, I take him in to see the Empress. Sounds easy.”

“I hope so. Warlord?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry, Highness.”

She stared at me. I really, really should learn not to bait Dragonlords. It’s a bad habit, and one of these days it could get me into trouble. But it’s so much fun. I cleared my throat and said, “You know where to be, and when?”

“Yes. I’m to make sure no one tries to prevent Morrolan and the advocate from reaching Her Majesty.”

I nodded.

“That’s it, then,” I said. I checked the time. I could make it if I hurried.

“Good luck, Vlad,” said Morrolan. Kiera just smiled her smile. Daymar was lost in thought. Norathar shrugged. They all got up, one at a time, and filed out. When I was alone, I pulled the dagger from my boot and studied it and tested it. It was a stiletto, my favorite weapon for making someone become dead. My favorite target, when possible, is the left eye, because it is back there that Dragaerans keep the part of their brains that permits psychic activity. Not that I’m necessarily trying to cut off psychic activity, but if you take it out, they go into shock instantly. That takes a weapon with reasonable length, and a good point. This one had that, though the edge wasn’t anything to brag about.

But I had no time to sharpen it just now. I replaced it in my boot, tested the draw, didn’t like it, and ended up arranging a quick rig against my stomach on the left side, hidden by my cloak. I tested it, and it worked, and it didn’t hurt much more than a whole lot. Fair enough.

I set out for the Stone Bridge, cutting around the Palace district, Loiosh and Rocza keeping an eye on the foot traffic to make sure no one was interested in my movements.

I was a bit distracted: For one thing, it hurt to move. For another, the trickiest part of the whole matter was just coming up. I thought about asking Cawti to help, but I had the impression a recommendation from her might not go over well with these people. I thought up several possible stories and rejected them.

I still hadn’t made up my mind when I got near the cottage.

“Check.”

“On it, Boss.” And, “Different guy, same spot.”

“All right.”

I stood behind an oak that would have taken three of me to wrap my arms around, and I rubbed a bit of stuff onto my skin, glued on the beard, and set the wig in place.

“What do we do?”

“Your choice: cloak, or outside.”

“Neither?”

“Loiosh.”

“Cloak, I guess.”

“Get in, then.”

They did. I approached the cottage and remembered to pound on the door with my fist, instead of clapping. That hurt, too.

The door opened, and a middle-aged woman, Easterner, opened the door. I couldn’t guess from looking which part of the East she drew her ancestry; she had a large mouth, and wide-set eyes that were almost perfectly round, like a cat’s. The look in the eyes, at the moment, was suspicious. “Yes?” she said.

“I’m called Savn,” I said, pulling the name more or less out of the air. “I’d like a few minutes of conversation with you before the gathering here, if you don’t mind.”

“How do you know about the gathering here?”

“That’s the voice, Boss. The one doing most of the talking.”

“All right.”

“I’m hearing double, Boss. Can I—?”

“All right.”

There came the psychic equivalent of a relieved sigh.

I said, “Many people know about the gathering here, and the one later with Lord Caltho.”

“Everyone knows about that one.”

“Yes, including some people you would probably rather didn’t.”

“The Empire?”

“Worse.”

She studied me for a moment, then said, “Come in.”

It was bigger than it had seemed from outside: one big room, with a stove in one corner, and a loft overhead that I’m sure contained the sleeping quarters. There were a lot of plain wooden chairs set out—at least twenty of them. I suspected the chairs accounted for most of the expense of the place.

She pointed me to one. I sat; she remained standing. Heh. Okay, so that’s how it was going to be.

“Boss, should you be talking out loud? Here? If I could listen—”

“Um. Damn. Good point.”

“Mind if we take a walk?” I said. She looked even more suspicious. I said, “The Empire may be hearing everything we say here, and, worse, someone else might be, too.”

She frowned, hesitated, then nodded abruptly. I stood up, we walked out the door and down the street. When we were a good distance away, I started talking, but she interrupted before I had a word out.

“Who are you?” she said.

“I gave you my name. What’s yours?”

“Brinea. Now who are you?”

“I’m what you’d call an independent factor. I’m not with the Empire—” she looked like she didn’t believe that “—or with anyone else. I have a friend who’s caught in the middle of it, which means I’m temporarily on your side.”

“My side is—”

“Spare me,” I said. “I have information you’ll want to know, and no interest whatever in politics, whether Imperial or anti-Imperial.”

She pressed her lips together and said, “What information is that?”

“Is today’s meeting, here, to plan for the meeting with Caltho?”

“That’s a question, not information.”

“All right. If it is, there is liable to be a disguised Jhereg assassin here, who is planning to kill Caltho and blame it on you.”

I suddenly had her attention. “Talk,” she said.

We turned a corner; with Loiosh and Rocza still in the cloak, I felt exposed, but I tried to stay alert. I only saw a few Easterners.

“The Jhereg,” I told her, “is working on a complicated scheme, along with the Orca and the—and another organization. To pull it off, they need to pressure the Empress. To pressure the Empress, they’re using the massacre in Tirma. If a legitimate investigation—”

“It won’t be a legitimate investigation,” she said. “They’ll just throw a black tarp over it and say it’s fine.”

“No, they’ll do a real investigation. Not because they care, but because the Empress is trying to get out of a jam, and that’s the only way to do it.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“The Jhereg needs to stop the investigation. To do that, they’re going to make it look like your group killed Assistant Investigator Caltho. Much outrage against you, probably a lot of arrests, and the investigation gets put on hold. That’s how they’re going to work it.”

She was quiet for ten or twelve paces, then she said, “Maybe.”

“I agree with the maybe. I think I’m right, but I could be wrong.”

“How will you find out?”

“With your permission, I’ll attend today’s meeting here, and try to identify the assassin.”

“What makes you think you can do that?”

“I can sometimes spot them,” I said.

“What is it you do?”

“Run from them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Jhereg wants me dead for personal reasons. So, most of my life is avoiding them. But that’s okay, I’ve been running for so long it feels like walking to me.”

She was quiet again for a bit, then she said, “What will you do if you identify the assassin?”

“Tell you who he is, so you can do whatever seems appropriate.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I won’t be. I might not be able to spot him, but if I do spot him, I won’t be wrong.”

We turned a corner and she started leading us back toward the house. No one had yet tried to kill me. Eventually she said, “All right. I’ll trust you on that part. You may as well relax; they’ll be here soon.”

We made it back to the house and closed the door and I felt relieved. I found a chair from which I could be watching the door without appearing to, and I waited.

It was, indeed, only a few minutes later that they began to arrive. The first to arrive appeared to be a Teckla, and suspiciously like one straight out of someone’s imagination of what a peasant ought to look like: brown hair, roundish face, leathery-looking skin, sturdy. He greeted Brinea, who introduced me. He gave his name as Nicha, and sat down next to me and began a conversation about needing to watch for trickery at the meeting with the Empire. I grunted agreeing noises and kept watching the door.

Shortly after, a pair of Easterners came in: Katherine was tall for an Easterner, dark, and wore glasses; Liam had the round face of a Teckla, an odd hair color that wasn’t quite blond and wasn’t quite brown, and a nose that looked to have been broken at least once. They carried flyers in their hands. I didn’t ask to see one because I was afraid it was something I was supposed to know about. They were both reserved with me; maybe they thought they should be the only humans there.

In fact, except for the three of us, everyone else was a Teckla. I won’t give you all the names; there were twenty-three of them, not including me or Brinea. Eliminating the two Easterners, that meant twenty-one who might be assassins. Nine of them were women, and I almost dismissed them, but for one thing, there is the occasional woman working for the Jhereg (as I happen to know better than most), and for another, a Jhereg willing to disguise himself as a Teckla could just as easily disguise his sex, right?

So, there were twenty-one who might be my target; and none of them instantly jumped out at me. I had been thinking I might take a look at their calluses, if I could see them; but it seems I’d stumbled into the largest collection of non-laboring Teckla ever assembled in one place. Some were messengers, some were house-servants, some did menial jobs for merchants, but none looked like he actually did any work. It was terribly disillusioning; I wondered what it meant.

It seemed there were several there who didn’t know each other, so my being a stranger turned out not to be that bad. Brinea made introductions as people came in, and I watched a lot, spoke little, learned nothing.

“I wish I could see, Boss.”

“You think you can spot an assassin when I can’t?”

“Yes.”

“Ha.”

The chairs were arranged in most of a circle, three rows deep, only an arc in front of the doorway and into the kitchen area left free. One chair, on the other end of the arc, was unoccupied, as if by unspoken consent. Brinea sat in it and said, “Let’s get started.”

It started, and it went on for a long time. They spoke of pressuring the Empire, which struck me as an exercise in futility, but what do I know? They spoke about guarding the interests of “the people,” but weren’t exactly clear on what that involved. Mostly, it went on for a long time. I took out the clasp knife I’d just bought. No one reacted. Damn. I cleaned my nails with it, and no one seemed to notice. Nothing. Oh, well. I closed it and set down next to my chair.

Meanwhile, they droned on, talking about what Lord Caltho—they were careful to call him Lord Caltho—had to be told about and what standards he had to be held to, and about insisting that all details of the investigation be made public. Let me know how that works out for you, I thought but didn’t say.

I was caught between boredom and frustration. I kept wanting to flourish a dagger just to see who reacted; and it might even have worked. But the thing is, it might not have, and then I’d have lost my chance.

It took a while—it took a very very long while—but at last Brinea said, “I think that covers everything. I propose we go there in a body. If we leave now, we’ll be a few minutes early, and we can talk to anyone walking by and explain what we’re doing, then go in together. Does anyone object?”

No one did, so we all stood up. I watched as closely as I could to see if anyone seemed unusually athletic or, well, slinky when standing, if that makes any sense. And I half thought I noticed someone, too. I studied him as I stood: a guy with long, loopy arms wearing loose clothing; and his hair was shaggy enough to have maybe concealed a noble’s point. Maybe. The trick was to keep an eye on him, but not be so distracted that I missed someone else. It was hard, but not impossible. You have to trust your peripheral vision.

I contrived to be the last one out the door except for Brinea and a fellow I took to be her husband. No one else seemed interested in who was the last one out the door. But I guess if you’d been watching me, I wouldn’t have seemed interested either.

We all trooped out toward the street to head toward the South Adrilankha Speaker’s Hall, which is what someone had once built instead of the Speaker’s House villages have. It wasn’t far away, but at least one of us wasn’t going to make it. They waited for Brinea to take the lead, and, as she shut the door, I said, “I don’t have my pocketknife.”

“You set it by your chair,” said a short, elderly Teckla who was about four paces from me.

We assassins notice things like that.

I nodded and opened my cloak as I covered the distance. Loiosh and Rocza flew out very quickly and several people cried out, but by that time I had the stiletto in my hand. I got him up under the chin. I hit him hard, too—I remember feeling the hilt connect with his chin bone, though I mostly remember how much my ribs hurt when I struck. I left the knife there, and started to step back, about to curl myself up into a ball of pain and try to breathe when—

“Down!”

I hit the ground and rolled and felt something go “whoosh” over my head. Someone was reacting awfully fast for a Teckla, and my muscles cried out to stop it and

“He has backup, Boss! Three of them!”

Sheesh. Was the whole room full of assassins? What was he doing bringing backup along? I never did that. What sort of crappy assassin wants witnesses and needs protection? I’d have given him a piece of my mind if I hadn’t left eight inches of steel in his.

I hoped one of them was the guy I’d picked out; that would make me feel better. There was a lot of screaming going on as I continued my roll; some of the screaming was from my rib. My hand found the hilt of Lady Teldra, and I drew her and came to my feet, knowing somehow I needed to duck to my left, and someone yelled “Morganti,” which was useless, because once I drew that blade, everyone within a mile who had any psychic sensitivity at all must have been aware of it.

She had taken the form of a rapier, which was awfully nice, since that’s what I’m used to fighting with. She fit into my hand like my palm, hilt smooth, and it was like she was weightless. I knew—somehow—that it was safe to take a step backward, and I did, taking my first good look around.

There were several horrified faces, backing away. Brinea, to her credit, was seeing to her people and trying to pull them away and speaking rapidly. Three of what appeared to be Teckla were facing me: each with a fighting knife, one with two of them. They were crouched, alert, and they were staring at Lady Teldra. I didn’t blame them.

We stood there, watching each other for half a heartbeat, when a couple of things happened. First, I realized I didn’t hurt anymore. I almost looked at Lady Teldra myself. You’d think someone would have told me she could do things like that.

The second thing that happened was someone called out, “You will put up your weapons in the name of the Empire.”

I froze.

“What the—?”

“Two of them, Boss; they’ve pulled gold cloaks out of somewhere and are tossing off wigs and such.”

“Great. Half the gathering were assassins, the other half were Phoenix Guards. Perfect.”

For a moment, no one moved, then I heard another voice, this one I recognized. “Vlad, put it away.”

I looked over. “Norathar? Where did you come from?”

“Behind that tree over there.”

I wanted to say that hadn’t been the plan, but she probably wouldn’t have appreciated it. I sheathed Lady Teldra with a flourish.

“Now,” she said, “if you gentlemen will put yours up as well, let us all go to the Palace and talk this over. The wagon will be here shortly.”

There was a pause, but I had no doubts about what would happen. These were Jhereg; they knew that, whatever else, you do not fight with the Phoenix Guards. You can’t win. After a breath or two, there was a collective sigh and cutlery vanished all over the place. Norathar said, “Who is the leader here?”

I glanced at the corpse and said, “Uh, I’m afraid—”

“No, not him.”

“I am,” said Brinea, in an impressively steady voice. She looked at me but didn’t say anything. Yeah, I know: I’d told her I was going to just identify him. I’d been lying. I do that sometimes.

I studied the Jhereg who were still alive, standing there like idiots the same way I was. One of them looked familiar. I looked at him more closely, realized where I knew him from, and shook my head. He avoided looking at me. I’m guessing he was disgusted with himself because my disguise had fooled him. I tried to feel smug about that but it wasn’t in me. I hate it when my plan goes blooey, even if the results come out okay.

Oh, and to complete my humiliation, the fellow I’d noticed earlier, and thought might be an assassin, was one of the Phoenix Guards.

Sheesh.

Norathar said, “I’d like everyone’s name as witnesses. After that, you are free to go on about your business. I think the excitement is over, and Lord Caltho will be arriving shortly.”

Briana agreed, and about then a couple of coaches pulled up. The three Jhereg were put into one, still with their weapons and unbound; I got the other. Loiosh and Rocza remained outside, overhead, providing a winged escort.

Norathar climbed in with me, and we started off. I said, “Is there any law against impersonating a Phoenix Guard?”

“Why?”

“One of those Jhereg—the one with the floppy hat—was one of the ones who beat me up.”

“Oh. He can be fined for that, and maybe dunked.”

“All right.” I sighed. “Got through it, anyway.”

“I suppose. But, Vlad, that was pretty sloppy. Now what? You’ve been seen killing someone. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have slipped so far so fast.”

That was unfair. For one thing, it wasn’t fast by my standards; it had been years. For another—

“I’ll point out that I was in disguise, and if you’d done what I said—”

“You’d either be dead, or have three Morganti killings to account for. I don’t know how we’ll keep you away from the Star as it is, but with that—”

“It shouldn’t be a problem. He was a Jhereg assassin.”

Norathar nodded. “Yes, so he was. He turned out to be not only armed, but carrying a seal of the House with him.”

I nodded.

“The only thing is,” said Norathar, “that assassins don’t carry the House seal when they’re working. I happen to know.”

“This one did.”

“You say that like you knew.”

“I had a pretty good idea he would be.”

“How?”

“Because I trust Kiera.”

“She planted—?” She cut herself off before asking the question. Dragon Heir, acting Warlord, and ex-assassin; had to be tough to be her.

I leaned my head against the hard wall of the coach.

She said, “He had three toughs with him for backup.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I hadn’t expected that.”

“I had.”

I opened my eyes. “Why?”

“Because they were going to assassinate a public figure in a crowded room. You’re used to—that is, you were used to a different sort of thing.”

“I did jobs in public.”

“Different sort of thing than taking out a guy in the middle of a restaurant. With a public figure like that, if you’re going to get out of it alive and unidentified, you need people to create enough confusion to get away.”

Great. Now I was getting lessons in assassination from the Warlord of the Empire. “You could have told me,” I said.

She shrugged. “How did you identify him?”

I explained about the knife.

“How do you know the guy you got was the one going to do the work, not one of the backups?”

“Why do I care?”

She inhaled deeply, then let her breath out slowly and nodded.

“Give me a moment,” she said. “I’ll find out what happened with the rest.”

A bit later she said, “Morrolan brought the advocate in to see the Empress, presented the petition. The Empress is now meeting with the Justicer and Imperial Advocate. Morrolan is confident the charges will be dismissed.”

I nodded. “And the investigation?”

“Aliera did nothing wrong as Warlord; she has nothing to fear from an investigation.”

“All right.”

“As opposed to you.”

“Me? I killed an assassin.”

“You also publicly brandished a Morganti weapon. Which I ought to take from you, only I know better.” She looked disgusted.

“Oh, right; carrying a Morganti weapon is illegal, isn’t it?”

“Very much illegal.”

“In spite of Aliera, Morrolan, Sethra—”

“Yes, in spite of that.”

“Just like use of Elder Sorcery is illegal, but no one cares unless—say, I just thought of something. The law against carrying a Morganti weapon, do you happen to know if it is a Codified Tradition, a Statute, or an Edict?”

She frowned. “I believe it’s an Edict. Why?”

“I have a good advocate,” I said.