Page 39

Chapter 39

It was barely morning by now, but the Treasury bank was already open and serving its many customers. Malo and I discovered that Gorthaus had kept only the one vault in her personal name—Signum Tufwa, the engraver there, sniffily told us that all imperial clients were restricted in this manner to avoid fraud—yet all we found within was some rather mundane jewelry, documents and sigils of transport, and letters from her family. No matter how Malo sniffed or squinted at any of it, none of it seemed of import.

Abandoning this, we returned to the leaning tower in Old Town and searched her quarters. Like those of most engravers, her room was spare, neat, and tidy: there was her pikis on the windowsill full of tinctures, her trunk of clothing in the corner, a poche hanging from the door containing a handful of talints, and a bottle of kir-mite eggs for the cleaning of clothes.

For a moment we just gazed about, taking in the space. Then my eye fell upon a handful of scratches in the stone floor, just before the corners of a small bookcase beside her bed.

I pointed to it. Malo cocked an eye and said, “It can’t be that easy.”

We pulled the bookcase away and found a loose stone in the base of the floor just behind it; then, below that, a small parchment package tied up with twine. Malo’s knife was out in a flash, and she plucked out the package and slit it open, sending dozens of small gold coins spilling upon the floor.

“Perhaps it is,” I said. “An amateurish choice, really.”

Malo sighed. “She was no hard thing,” she said. “Perhaps we should not be so surprised.”

I quickly counted up the coins. “This comes to…three hundred talints? She betrayed the Empire and risked the noose for the price of a fine horse, and no more?”

Malo picked up a coin and eyed it. “That, or your immunis was right—once she’d made one deal, they had enough to blackmail her into more service. Which makes sense. They often favor threats above gifts.”

“They? Criminals, you mean?”

“No.” She handed the coin back to me. “Kings, and those who rule with them. But perhaps there is little difference between the natures of such men and criminals.”

We continued our search but found nothing to indicate who Pyktis’s agent at the High Court might be, nor where Pyktis himself was now, nor where the six crates of reagents might be stored. Perhaps it was the fatigue, but my heart grew heavier the more we searched, still finding nothing.

Finally an Apoth militis came to us with a message that Prificto Kardas was now awake, and he, Thelenai, and Ana awaited us in the medikker’s ward. Malo and I trooped back downstairs, both of us yawning and desperately tired, and wound our way back through the muddy streets of Yarrowdale.

—

When we arrived at Kardas’s chambers we found that the prificto was, thankfully, no longer in the milky tides of a healing bath but was instead lying in his medikker’s cradle, chatting amiably with Ana, who sat beside him. Thelenai stood behind her own chair, apparently too anxious to sit. With her queenly bearing and long, red robes, she had in this place the look of a priestess of a flagellamer’s shrine, waiting to take confession before the penitent submitted to their pains.

Kardas looked up when we entered—his face still bore a few broken blood vessels, but other than that he seemed quite recovered— and, smiling, said, “Ah! Here are the brave signums! I suppose I owe you my life for rescuing me from the debacle in the High City, true?”

I looked to Ana, surprised by his good spirits. “He doesn’t know?”

“He does not,” said Ana. “I wished to wait for you.”

“Know?” said Kardas, puzzled. “Know…what?”

“Apparently anything,” muttered Malo as she sat along the edge of the wall.

“I take it from the melancholy timbre of your voices, children,” said Ana, “that you’ve found nothing?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “Nothing of use.”

“Hm. As expected.”

“What do you mean, found nothing?” said Kardas. “What are you talking about?”

Ana then gave him the full report of the night in the High City, including Gorthaus’s death, of which he’d heard no news. Kardas reacted so violently that I worried for his health: the man’s face went perilously white, and his entire body began to tremble. When Ana finally revealed Gorthaus’s full betrayal, I feared he might collapse again.

“By hell…” said Kardas weakly at the end of it. “Oh, by Sanctum, my signum did all that ?”

“If it’s any consolation, sir, she’d begun this evil service well before you were assigned here,” said Ana. “But yes, it is so. I grieve for her death—chiefly, I admit, because I wished to get more answers from her. And now, as Din here says, she left none behind.”

“This is horrifying news,” said Thelenai softly. “Another attack, another loss. How now can we stop Pyktis?”

“We still have options,” said Ana. “Before we explore some of the most radical choices, I wish to ask something of you, Prificto. I am convinced there is an agent at the court who was aiding Pyktis in all his evil—either one we know, or one still unseen. Is there anyone or any strangeness you can recall in all your exchanges with the Yarrow court that might suggest who this traitor is?”

Kardas shook his head, his long mustaches swishing about. “No, no. I cannot think of any such thing. My emitias abilities read much, but in such heightened, difficult circumstances, where many are filled with anger and distrust, it is a hard thing to spy any one moment worthy of suspicion.”

“And there is no person who spent an unusual amount of time with Gorthaus?”

“Not that I saw. Pavitar was ever present, for he distrusted all we did, and forced his way in to all our meetings. Darhi, of course, managed most of those same meetings for us. The king and his people and the prince were often about. But none of them stand out to me as a conspirator who could be aiding this creature.”

“Mm,” said Ana softly. “And you cannot conceive of how Pyktis was able to move about the court unseen, unnoticed, and kill not only Gorthaus but also the king, and nearly yourself?”

“That horrifies me most of all, for I cannot imagine how it was done.”

“I see,” said Ana. She bowed her head. “So we’ve nothing, for the moment. Nothing save a dead girl, who has left not a trace of a trail to her killer.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then Ana sat up and brightly said, “Well! What about your negotiations with the Yarrow court, Prificto?”

“What of them?” said Kardas.

“Well, I worry they might be influencing Pyktis’s actions. Is it possible he knows of them?”

“I can’t imagine there is much to know. We have been stalled for weeks now. Though we continue to advocate for the adoption of Yarrow, and the fulfillment of our ancient contracts, there is little progress to spy upon. I thought this situation was known to you, Dolabra.”

“Hm!” said Ana. She smiled politely. “But I must admit, sir…I no longer think what you say is true.”

Kardas narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that while you and the court have been all too content to tell everyone you’ve done nothing here,” said Ana, “in secret, I believe there has been another set of negotiations going on. One even Signum Gorthaus did not know of.”

Kardas’s features remained fixed in an expression of charismatic confusion, yet he stayed silent.

“What do you mean, Dolabra?” asked Thelenai softly.

“I propose, ma’am, that the Treasury knows much more than they let on,” said Ana. “For example—you knew about this project to extract the titan’s marrow, didn’t you, sir?”

Kardas said nothing.

“I think you also knew that Thelenai’s people had succeeded in this feat,” continued Ana. “And if that was so, well…obviously, the Empire doesn’t really need to be in Yarrow at all anymore, do we? With the marrow secured, we could develop many methods of creating all the titan’s blood we need, deep in the safety of the inner rings. No more Shroud, no more canals, no more barges.” She scratched her chin. “So…you weren’t negotiating the final imperial adoption of the realm of Yarrow, were you? You were secretly negotiating our withdrawal from this place.”

There was a stunned silence.

“Wh-what?” said Malo. She gazed at Kardas in outrage. “You were what ?”

“Is this so, Prificto?” demanded Thelenai.

Kardas glanced around the room at us, then sighed so deeply he seemed to deflate. “Yes. Fine! Yes, I confess, it is so.”

“You pursued this without informing we Apoths?” Thelenai asked.

“Again, yes,” said Kardas heavily.

“But you’d…you’d truly leave?” asked Malo. “The Empire would just leave us here? Why?”

“Oh, for a very simple reason!” said Kardas bitterly. “It is because the folk of Yarrow do not want us here! They do not want to be part of the Empire. And if that is so, then there is no cause for us to stay!”

For a moment we all reeled in shock; save, of course, for Ana, who patiently waited for us to catch up.

“We’re giving up, sir?” I said, astounded, for never had I heard of such an imperial retreat. “We’re abandoning the adoption of this realm?”

“We are, Signum Kol,” said Kardas. “There are many throughout the Empire who assumed we’d simply take the realm, if negotiations stalled. But that is…well, it’s simply not what we do anymore!”

“Why not?” demanded Malo. “Does the Empire no longer behave as an empire?”

“No!” said Kardas. “We don’t! We can’t ! Because while the Empire is prosperous, it is also brittle. We hold back the leviathans, yet our populations decline. And our dwindling people are satisfied and stationary. They do not want to seize other lands, for there is hardly a need for such a thing! It is not like we’d derive much wealth or security from the mere act of conquering! Our people know this and are unwilling to devote money and lives to dabble in such vanities. Even if we didn’t have the marrow, we were always going to delay the adoption!”

“How so?” asked Ana, suddenly interested.

Kardas shrugged feebly. “Extend the deadline for a decade. Maybe two. Dump another trove of gold on the High City. Buy time, quite literally. It would be a fraction of the cost of sending the Legion here and trying to hold it! Yet better still would be to simply walk away—which we could do, if we had the marrow. For then we’d no longer need the Shroud, or Yarrowdale itself, or any of these delicate things that cost so much to defend.”

“And the naukari ?” asked Malo, her voice deadly soft. “What of them? Would you leave them to their fates, after promising to end such an evil practice?”

The prificto shifted uncomfortably. “If I could banish all the evils of the world, child, know I would do it. But it is not our purpose to wade into the affairs of other cultures and scold them into decency.”

Malo bowed her head until her red cloak hid her face.

“Who was the primary negotiator for the court of Yarrow?” asked Ana.

“Satrap Darhi, of course,” sighed Kardas. “He has been managing these secret talks this entire time. He does not know we plan to leave, however! He thinks we merely wish to delay the adoption and pay a fortune for the privilege of doing so. Darhi kept this a secret from the rest of the Yarrow court, for many nobles don’t want the contract extended at all! Yet I was also to insert a clause stating that if we ceased our payments, we would be forced to begin withdrawals immediately. Darhi believed this was a punitive arrangement—yet for us, it was always a goal. We stop paying, and then we go.”

“Only if the marrow is secured, however,” said Thelenai, her voice quiet and cold.

“True,” said Kardas.

She shut her eyes and shouted, “But…but by hell, Kardas… By hell! ”

It was a rare emotional outburst from the commander-prificto, so much so that all eyes turned to her.

“You thought you worked toward protecting the Empire, perhaps,” Thelenai cried, “but so focused were you that you’ve weakened it even more ! Your damned signum is the one who helped Pyktis get those reagents and put the marrow in such danger! And now it is in no way secure, and we grow desperate!”

She stood there, hands pressed to her sides, eyes shut and her face trembling.

“What might you mean by that?” asked Ana. “How desperate?”

Thelenai grabbed a small stool and sat, legs quaking. “I have my own ill news to share,” she said hoarsely. “For we mean to move the marrow, to get it out of this dangerous place. And damned soon at that.”

—

“ Move the marrow?” asked Ana, aghast. “Move it how? You don’t mean up the canals? Not with Pyktis still lurking about?”

Thelenai laughed, a deep, melancholy sound. “No! Yarrowdale is not safe, and we will not wait and let it grow even less so. Instead, we have been laboring to secure the marrow for another voyage, one that is far more treacherous—not upriver, but east, across the ocean to the mouth of the Great River Asigis, and thence into the inner rings. We shall skip the canals altogether and float the marrow to safety that way.”

“Is such an ocean voyage even possible, ma’am?” I asked.

A bleak smile. “We hope it is so. The marrow is far smaller than a leviathan’s carcass, and easier to transport. It is safer than staying at the Shroud, which Pyktis could attack at any moment, and far safer than the canals! But it will take all the wit and art of my people to move it, and countless valuable resources. And even then, it is no certain thing.” She shook her head. “How I lament now all the Treasury’s maneuverings! I can hardly think of a blacker time in all my career.”

Kardas looked away, ashamed.

“But let us recall, ma’am,” said Ana, quietly yet curtly, “that it wasn’t the Treasury who created Pyktis, who is the source of all this peril.”

Thelenai closed her eyes. “So I remember. None of us are free of guilt here.”

“Yes,” said Ana. She cast her head back, her sightless face turned to the ceiling. “But we must consider what to do now.”

“We move the marrow,” said Thelenai. “With all due haste. That is all we can do, surely.”

“Perhaps. But I would like to see if you and I could retreat to a private place, ma’am, to discuss something else. An even more unpleasant matter on this most unpleasant of nights. Though the murders of the High City are but hours old, many paths there now seem closed to us. So…we must resort to the radical options I mentioned, and hope to win wisdom there.”

Thelenai nodded. “I see. We should withdraw to my offices, then. For though I am no augur, I feel I know what you are about to ask of me, Dolabra. Come.”

I stood to guide Ana but glanced at Malo, confused, as Ana had not mentioned any such revelation; yet Malo’s face was still hidden behind her cloak, and it remained so throughout our winding journey through the Apoth works.