Page 9

Chapter 9

Just before dawn I slipped out of the girl’s house to return to my own lodgings, exhausted and tottering. A fog was crawling out of the bay, so thick it was hard to see more than fifty span down the road, yet I’d engraved the path in my mind and knew the steps, even if I half-sleepwalked them now.

When I finally approached my lodgings, I heard a voice ring out of the fog: “What have you been up to?”

I stopped and spied Signum Tira Malo sitting on the stoop a few span down from my door. She smiled at me, her teeth dark from yet another lump of hina root.

“You’ve been waiting at my door?” I said, surprised.

“You said sunup,” she said, and gestured to the overcast skies. “The sun is almost up. I must say, I was confused to hear no heartbeats within your lodgings, nor the whisper of any breath. But to see you now, and…” She sniffed the air as I approached, and grinned. “…and to catch the scent of you, all is clear.”

I scowled at her. “Do you pry in the affairs of all who walk this street?”

“I do no prying! Would you have me stop up my ears and nose to keep your privacy? But do not feel shame, Kol. If anything, I am amazed.”

“What?”

“Why, you were so serious and frowned so much yesterday, I wondered if you had any blood in you at all. Yet obviously, you have that, and more—if it’s not all spent! How have you already managed to bed another? Have you even been here a full day ?”

I felt heat in my cheeks as I unlocked my door. “I am going to change my clothing, Signum,” I said firmly. “I will be back shortly.”

“You will also want to wash your undercarriage,” she said. “You do not need a warden’s nose to smell all that.” She sniffed again. “But do I find that scent familiar ? Was it someone I know?”

I shut the door with a snap.

—

Though it was hardly morning, a line was already forming at the Imperial Treasury bank, with dozens of merchants, tradesmen, workers, and no shortage of Apoths queuing up to deposit their earnings.

“Don’t know if you ever work with Treasury folk, Kol,” Malo said as we approached it. “But these officers…they are very different.”

“How might you mean?”

She considered it. “They are so fine and clean,” she said, “I am unsure if they have assholes.”

“Ah. Noted.”

I showed the line of people the heralds pinned to my cloak, and they parted for me to enter the bank with Malo following. The front area was a curious space, being composed of stalls with vine mesh walls that prevented the customers from physically touching the Treasury representative on the other side, while money and papers were passed back and forth through a narrow slit in the bottom. I saw that Malo was right, for the Treasury officers were indeed different: most were pale, soft of face, tastefully bejeweled, and dressed in the pale gray or white uniforms of the Imperial Treasury—all immaculate and unstained, of course, for Treasury officers rarely ventured out of their offices. I watched them preening and whispering behind the vine mesh, feeling like I observed a menagerie of dazzling, caged birds.

I began my inquiries, and they brought us the officer who had been on duty when Sujedo had visited: a young, slender Rathras signum named Tufwa, whose long hair poured down his back in a shining cascade.

“Oh!” he said after our introduction. “Special Division, is it? How impressive! The Treasury Special Division merely manages the most inflammatory of bankruptcies. You must feel a great deal prouder to go about putting the world to rights for the Emperor’s justice.”

“Thank you,” I muttered. “Now—Immunis Sujedo?”

“Yes, a terrible business…That was the tenth of the month of Hajnal.” His eyes fluttered as he summoned up the memory: a rather unsightly tic of all engravers, including myself. “Immunis Mineti Sujedo arrived in the late afternoon to store materials with us. Presented his credentials to the front princeps, who delivered him to me. I tested his blood authorities and confirmed his station. Then I took him to the Iyalet vault to access his safe, as he requested. We store all confidential materials there, for imperial business.”

“How did you confirm Sujedo’s blood authorities?” I asked.

“With a balmleaf pad,” said Tufwa simply.

I waited for an explanation. When none came, I said, “And what’s that?”

Tufwa frowned and said, “I take it you have not attended many Treasury banks?”

“People don’t often get murdered in banks. They’re usually rather difficult to escape from.”

Tufwa looked me over like I was now a great deal less impressive. Then he went to his desk and brought back an unsightly specimen: it appeared to be a small clay tray filled with moist earth, yet growing over the earth was a strange, fleshy pad of gray-white fungus. “You simply place your hand to the pad…Go on. It won’t hurt you.”

I did so. The flesh was cold and moist. As I took my hand away, the pad turned a dark, mottled color before slowly turning back to gray-white.

“This response indicates you do not bear the correct blood authorities,” said Tufwa. “If you had been a Treasury officer of deserving rank, it would have changed to a corresponding color.”

“More secure than a reagents key,” explained Malo, “for people lose keys but usually don’t lose their blood.”

“Exactly,” sniffed Tufwa.

“And it performed correctly for Sujedo?” I asked him.

“Of course. I remember, after all.”

I sniffed at my vial, anchoring this fact in my mind. “What was Sujedo’s business in the Iyalet vault, then?”

“After his death, the wardens requested I pull his box. It contained his orders concerning the king of Yarrow. Tax projections, mostly. Nothing terribly surprising, but nothing we might want circulating. He had good reason to store it.”

“It was stored in a regular safe?”

“No, not at all,” said Tufwa. “We used one of the Treasury officer boxes. I shall show you.”

He led us down a narrow stone passageway ending in a tall stonewood door reinforced with iron, with another balmleaf pad on the edge. Tufwa placed his hand upon the patch and kept it there for a good while; then we heard a click within the door, and it opened.

“This is the Iyalet vault,” he said, entering and gesturing about, “expressly for imperial use.”

We followed him in and were confronted with stacks upon stacks of wooden safes with complex locks, yet all of them bore the same patches of strange, fleshy balmleaf.

Tufwa gestured to one stack of safes in the corner, which were each adorned with the symbol of the Treasury: the coin set in the hexagon. “That is where Sujedo stored his materials,” he said. “Third box from the bottom. Such boxes are made to open solely for senior Treasury officers.”

I stooped to study it. “And he had no issue opening this one?”

“None. I pulled the box and placed it on the table here for him to open. He put his hand to the lock, and the box opened for him, and I left him alone to make his deposit. It was all quite simple enough.”

I turned, studying the cabinets and safes around me. There had to be dozens, all of varying sizes. I half wondered what it would be like to pop one open, grab the talints from within, and dump them on treacly Madam Poskit to pay off my father’s loans once and for all. A stupid thought, yet it gave me an idea.

“Sujedo was alone in here?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Tufwa. “I left him here to make his deposit, as is procedure.”

“How long was he inside?”

Again, a fluttering to his eyes. “Less than five minutes, I should say.”

“Did he touch or alter or open anything else?” I asked.

“We have not searched for that,” said Tufwa warily. “Opening the boxes of the other Iyalets is forbidden unless there is an emergency.”

“If you were to search, how might you do so?”

He pointed to the corner, where a very complex-looking set of scales were set upon a tall table. “These scales are to the highest Apoth code, meaning they can measure a single grain of salt. We would weigh each box, and if the weight of any has changed, we would summon the owner. If they do not come within the designated time, only then are we authorized to open it ourselves.”

“And you, being an engraver, remember the weight.”

“I do. But that, as I said, is only for emergencies.” He sniffed. “And I do not believe one has been declared yet.”

“The guard who accompanied him reported that Sujedo carried a bag with him, one about this large.” I showed him, mimicking Klaida’s movements exactly. “It sounded as if it were too large a bag for simple documents. Yet when Sujedo left, the bag was empty. So…what might he have deposited?”

“I cannot say,” said Tufwa slowly. “I do recall the bag, and recall its size…but I am not sure I’d say it held something beyond documents. This is the Treasury, after all. We manage quite a lot of documents.”

I frowned, thinking and trying to ignore Tufwa’s impatient fluffing of his hair. “Please tell me of Sujedo’s appearance,” I said at last. “Height, weight—all of it.”

Tufwa did so, eyes fluttering. Sujedo had been a thin man, he told me, and small, with thick, curling black hair, and rather pale eyes that weren’t quite one color or another—gray eyes, perhaps. His skin had been gray, like that of all Sublimes and peoples who had undergone significant suffusions; he had been right-handed and had exhibited few scars, though little of his skin had been exposed to Tufwa’s gaze, of course.

“How tall was he?” I asked. “Can you show me exactly?” I grimaced, recalling Ana’s orders. “I mean—can you show me how tall he was compared to me?”

“I mean…I can? If it is necessary.” He stuck his arm out, eyes fluttering, and touched about halfway down my shoulder. “That tall.”

I nodded, feeling slightly humiliated. None of this was a surprise, really: the porter had said Sujedo had been short.

Tufwa watched me irritably, as if wondering what other idiotic questions I had for him. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No,” I said, bowing. “Thank you, Signum.”

—

Malo and I trudged back through New Town together, dodging the pack animals and the streams of Apoths flooding out to begin their day.

“So what the hell was that?” asked Malo as she stepped around a heaping mound of feces.

“Mule droppings, from the look of it.”

“How amusing. I meant your questions back there. Why was I awake so early for that? What did that teach us?”

“I’ve no idea. My immunis asked me to ask, so I asked. I will now give her the answers. Then we shall move on, to more questions, and hopefully more answers.”

Malo shook her head. “I thought the Iudex moved in ways more interesting. Is it always like this? For if so, I shall not look forward to Yarrow becoming a full canton and getting its own courts.”

“Take comfort. If we make a horrid mess of this, you may get neither.”

We rounded the corner to my lodgings, the gulls wheeling and laughing overhead. I knocked at Ana’s door, heard her voice within singing, “Come!” and we entered.

Ana’s rooms, as always, had turned into an utter mess overnight, with books lying open everywhere and papers covering nearly every surface. Ana sat in the middle of the floor, blindfolded, her Pithian lyre in her lap. She turned her head toward us. “Ah! Din. Good morning. And…unless the sound of feet has confused me, there is another with you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “This is Signum Tira Malo.”

Malo bowed and muttered a quiet “Good morning, ma’am.”

“Ah, very pleasant to meet you!” said Ana brightly. “I’ve two questions I wished to ask you, Malo. Is that all right?”

“Ahh. Certainly?”

“Excellent. The first—would you be true Yarrow, Malo? Born and raised?”

Malo looked quite uncomfortable at that. “Well. Yes?” she said. “As much as one could be, ma’am.”

“Then could you possibly point Din in the direction of a place to procure another Pithian lyre?” asked Ana. She laid a hand on the instrument in her lap. “I’ve one here, but the Yarrow court is rather renowned for their duets, as you no doubt know. I believe I have a method of attaching two together so that I can attempt a duet on my own, but I would naturally need to have a second to do so.”

Malo stared at her, boggled. “I…Yes, certainly, ma’am.”

“Yes,” said Ana, grinning. “Now for the second question…You’re a true warden? Augmented and all?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve always wondered—is it true that wardens can tell a lie by the way a person’s heart beats? Or detect if they are in love, or at least significantly aroused? I should think that’d make parties very interesting to attend, yes?”

There was a beat of painful silence.

“Uhh,” said Malo. “Sometimes?”

“We have just come back from the bank, ma’am,” I said quickly.

“Oh? Very good! Before you say more of it, Din, I have one question that has weighed most on my mind.” She set aside her lyre. “Tell me—was Sujedo ever alone in the Treasury vault at any point of his visit?”

Malo and I exchanged a worried glance.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “He was.”

“I see, I see…Intriguing! Very good work, both of you.” She stood and blindly walked over to me, hand extended. I met it with my forearm, and she grasped it tight. “You can tell me the rest on the way. Let us all go to Old Town, to speak to the Treasury prificto, and review where at least one of these many crimes took place.”

“Many crimes, ma’am?” said Malo, surprised.

“Oh, yes,” said Ana. “I believe many deeds were done on that day, the tenth of Hajnal.” We walked down the porch to the New Town lane. “The disappearance of our man in white was but one of them. We shall see!”