Ambassador of progress, p.8
Ambassador of Progress, page 8
The Brodaini were scarcely seen at all. Even so Fiona had noticed a certain involuntary movement on the part of the citizens, a kind of furtive look back over the shoulder at the towers of the Brodaini keep, as if at any moment a column of grim soldiery might issue forth.
Otherwise things had been going well. There had been initial expenses: a permit to perform in public, money to the local militia captain to keep disturbances and pickpockets away from her table, more money to the Blue Gang to keep the Red Gangsters away, money to the Red Gang to keep the Blue Gang ditto... so far as she could tell the entire city ran by open bribery. Her fellow performers, however, assured her that things were much better than in the old days, before the rise of Necias, who kept even the Color Gangs honest. And more money had been swallowed up by her indulgence at the public baths, one bath before work and another following.
Her spectacles had created a sensation; hundreds had seen the dragon illusion, the Bower of Bliss illusion, the Amil-Deo illustration. She was paid well and no longer needed to perform for the gallery, but she wanted to: it kept her sharp, it kept her in touch with the city, and it forced her to go out among the crowds instead of huddling in her room, as she wished so often to do.
She knew that her stock would fall rapidly if she performed too many spectacular miracles for the vulgar — the oligarchs wanted something exclusive, for them alone — and so in the Square of the Lancers she chiefly confined herself to the small-work she loved, with the occasional flashy trick to preserve her reputation.
Her performances in the public squares were always well attended, even on days like today when she did nothing but sleight-of-hand. And soon there would be the spectacle at the Acragas palace, where she would reveal her biggest, most spectacular, and most revealing illusion of all.
Fiona found herself dealing more easily with the people, at least on an ordinary, day-to-day basis. The uncertainties that clawed at her were still present, along with the knowledge of her own alienness, but somehow, in the everyday rush, none of that mattered so much. Most people she met she met as Fiona, the Conjuror; discussions were about fees, performances, professional secrets; and when she faced an audience during a performance, it was they who were entering her world, not the other way around. It was only occasionally that the world of Demro intruded: there was that moment, following a performance at a merchant’s palace, that she was bundled into a closet by a drunken princeling, all sour breath, clumsy hands, and bad skin... and then it had been he who was given a surprise, left bent over, clutching his wounded gonads and bleeding snout while Fiona laughed and stalked away.
She gave an unconscious, wolfish smile at the memory, her hands busy with cards. It had been an unpleasant encounter, fortunately brief, and she hoped the young idiot had been taught a lesson — Fiona had learned hers, to be sure. She had enjoyed what she’d done, very thoroughly enjoyed it, and the knowledge of her own ferocity had not terrified her, as it had before. Not faced with deadly attack, she had responded in a non-murderous fashion; the knowledge that her inbuilt reflexes were capable of such discrimination was comforting.
Fiona’s cards flew apart, revealing the solitary ace, and her audience burst into laughter and applause.
She was passing the hat, collecting the white money from her audience, when once again the alarm-bells began to clang in her mind. Stunned for an instant, she performed the gesture to shut off the alarms and turned to Caucas the Model-Builder, who held the next table, and asked him to look after her gear. After his nod she gathered up her skirts and bolted, leaving the surprised audience in her wake, money still jingling in their palms.
She ran flat-out, holding the brim of her cap over her eyes so as to keep it from flying off, dodging among the surprised wayfarers. There was the usual human traffic jam on the Bridge of Panandas Polloiu, navigated with much cursing in three languages, and then a quick left and a half-block run to her hostel. She was in through the common room and up the steep stairs before any of the surprised customers could look up from their suds to call their greetings; she skimmed her cap back down the stairs and clawed back to raise the hood of her privy-coat and seal it around her face.
There was a man leaning on a corridor wall: fair close-cropped hair, lantern jaw, brown, soiled leather jerkin. He stepped out to block her way. “Are you Fiona the Conjuror?” he asked loudly. “My lord Cavallas Castas would very much like to arrange...”
“Pardon me,” Fiona said, bowing, trying to duck under his arm. He stepped back and blocked her again, the oaf.
“You don’t understand. I’m talking about a commission.” She tried to step over his leg, failed. “Look here,” the man said again.
Her skirts would have hampered a kick, but there was a nerve complex just under the nose and another beneath the ear: she hit them both with the edge of her hands, striking with all her strength; the man blinked and, suddenly nerveless, fell against the opposite wall, which let her dash past him and hurl herself bodily against her door.
Fiona didn’t weigh much, but she was moving fast and the little hasp broke with a small metallic squeal of surprise. She tumbled in, picking herself up just in time to see someone’s backside disappearing out of the window. Too late to kick it, alas, but after she rose from the floor she picked up her empty water jug and loosed it at the two grey men who had just slid down the rope to the street below. It missed, and by the time she had the chamberpot elevated and ready to let fly they were well out of range. She darted back to the corridor but the lookout was also gone, replaced instead by a staring bourgeois couple whose quiet afternoon was so unaccountably disturbed by a brawl in the corridor, and by the voice of the landlady, calling out her questions as she moved her vast, arthritic bulk up the stair.
“Thieves,” Fiona said briefly, undoing her hood and stripping it back off her head. The bourgeois couple looked at each other, communicating silently. She walked back into her room, aware only now of the hammering of her heart, the lungs gasping for air. She looked at the room: nothing missing, no damage. Someone had been at the lock of the chest again, but of course failed to open it. There was a small grapnel stuck in her windowsill, its cord dangling to the street. The man in the corridor had called out his warning and delayed her just long enough for the others to make their escape.
The landlady arrived, and things were made clearer. The three had arrived that morning, asked for a room on this same floor, paid in advance. That, the fact that only one room was entered, and the sophistication of their plans, made it plain that the thieves had been professionals, and had meant only to acquire the secrets of Fiona the Conjuror.
Fiona collapsed on her narrow bed and leaned back against the wall, trying to lower her heartbeat, restore her mind to a state of calm. She waved off the repeated apologies of the landlady and urged the good woman not to call the militia. The thieves were well away by now, to be sure. Just keep an eye out for them in the future.
Now that Fiona had time to think, she didn’t want them caught: that would mean execution or slavery in the mines. She didn’t want to be the cause of another’s death or misery — not again — particularly since these folk were obviously hired for the a job.
By whom? she wondered. Had those Brodaini-on-the-barge carried tales to their superiors? Were the servants of the Abessu-Denorru screening her before her appearance at the fête? That oligarch princeling, desiring revenge? Perhaps, she thought, some local conjuror was jealous and wanted to look at her tricks.
Even though it was unlikely, that was the story she’d use. “One of my professional rivals,” she said. “Trying to puzzle out my illusions. Happens all the time. I’m sorry about the door and the pitcher: I’ll replace both.”
The landlady pooh-poohed the offer of payment and went to call her husband to replace the door hasp. From the corridor she could hear the bourgeois couple shuffling back to their suite.
Who? she wondered.
And decided it didn’t matter. The point was that she was attracting attention.
And that meant she was doing her job.
CHAPTER 6
“May your vengeance be always appropriate, bro-demmin,” Cascan said. “A curious matter, if I may...?”
Tegestu looked at him sourly, a fetid taste in his mouth. He had just returned from the inter-kamlissi duel between the boys from Tosta and Dantu, and a pointless butchery it had been. The two had hacked at each other for what seemed hours — no art, no grace, no intelligence, just two terrified fools drunk with nerves and obstinacy. They were both in the infirmary, where they’d lie useless for weeks. Perhaps they’d each lose a limb or two: rhomphia produced hideous wounds. The distasteful sight had left a sourness in Tegestu’s heart: he hated a public demonstration of idiocy, and could only be thankful his own clan had not been involved.
“Aye, ban-demmin?” Tegestu said testily. Cascan, his mobile face cast carefully in a simulation of neutrality, simply bowed.
“If this is inconvenient, bro-demmin... “ he began, but Tegestu cut him off with a shake of the head.
“Speak, Cascan,” he said, and then added, “if it’s important.” The spy’s plots-within-plots were not, at the moment, to his taste.
“Perhaps it’s not,” Cascan admitted. “It involves that conjuror woman I told you about, Fiona — the outlander?”
“I recall the report,” Tegestu said. “What of her?”
“Obedient to your will, I had three of my men endeavor to search her room while she was out. There was also a young woman watching her performance in the Square of the Lancers, ready to alert our people if she showed sign of packing up her equipment and returning to her room.’’
Through Cascan’s careful mask Tegestu detected a trace of apology, and decided to cut straight to the source. “It went wrong?” he asked.
“My sorrows, bro-demmin, it did,” Cascan said, bowing again.
“Will we have to get our people out of prison?” Tegestu asked. Going to Necias on a matter like this was a humiliation he did not desire.
“Nay,” Cascan said, seeming a bit startled at the idea, and at Tegestu’s sharpness. “Our people all got away. But how the thing went wrong is what is curious.”
Tegestu tried to control his impatience. Cascan was trying to intrigue him, but what he most wanted now was to get out of his armor and take a warm bath to wash the smell of butchery off him. Those boys had been a disgrace. Even now, at his age, he could have carved either one of them like a slab of beef.
“Accompany me to the Blue Scroll Chamber,” he said finally, bowing to the necessity. “I hope you have time for tea.”
“I am honored, bro-demmin,” Cascan said. They walked across the courtyard, Cascan staying a pace behind as was proper, narrating as he went. “The woman had a pair of trunks and a satchel. The satchel was mostly empty, but apparently she’d carried food in it, as there was some bread there, and dried meat wrapped in a kind of nose paper. One of the trunks contained nothing but clothing and a box of modest jewelry — no weapons, no false bottoms, nothing suspicious.
“But the other trunk, bro-demmin, that was the curious thing — to begin with, it had some kind of outlander lock that our folk hadn’t encountered before. Couldn’t cope with it.”
“Has their training been neglected, ban-demmin?” Tegestu asked. He let Cascan chew on the question while he received the salutes of the cathruni at the postern and walked with long, impatient strides to the Blue Scroll Chamber. It was a small room, built as a library, its shelves lined both with scrolls and bound volumes. At one end, beneath a shrine to the household gods, rested the Blue Scroll, an epic of verse concerning an ancient war, a thousand years before, in which the Pranoth clan had been involved. This particular copy was eight hundred years old, was dedicated to the Pranoth ancestors, and was of sufficient demmin in and of itself to be considered a major religious relic. Tegestu bowed deeply to the scroll, then rang for servants and sat on a stool, his ankles crossed in front of him. Cascan bowed respectfully to the Blue Scroll — not being a Pranoth, the relic did not have as great status with him — and sat down, facing Tegestu, on a stool.
“May your demmin increase,” he said. “The lock was one never before encountered, based on unknown principles; training was not a factor. No doubt our people could have conquered the lock in time, but the point is that they were not given time.”
“Go on,” Tegestu said. A Classanu appeared in the doorway, bowing; Tegestu ordered tea.
“The woman, Fiona, seemed somehow to be alerted,” Cascan said. “Even though she was at quite some distance, in the Square of the Lancers, occupied with her performance. Our person there reports that she suddenly looked startled, put her business in the hands of one of the other hucksters, and then ran for her hostel as fast as she could. Our person could not pursue without causing attraction herself, and so remained in place.
“Once back at the hostel, Fiona met our lookout in the corridor, who attempted to delay her. She struck him, stunning him momentarily, then ran for the door and broke into her room. Fortunately the lookout delayed her long enough for our people to make their escape through the window. There appears to have been no pursuit.”
Tegestu frowned. “This woman. Describe her.”
“Small. An inch or two over five feet. Deep brown skin. Black, curly hair. Black eyes. Built rather sturdily, but not fat. Perhaps twenty-five years of age.”
“And your lookout?”
“One of our best people for this kind of work,” Cascan said, stroking his chin. “He’s too tall, really, to be entirely inconspicuous, but he’s a talented actor and mime. Twenty years of age, broad-shouldered, adept at imitating the Arrandalu.”
“In his physical prime, in other words,” Tegestu said. “Yet this small woman disabled him.”
“A surprise attack, I believe, and — your pardon — stunned, not disabled. One does not expect violence in these situations — in fact the woman’s behavior was entirely unexpected. No doubt Fiona would have had the worst of it had the fight gone on, but our person was under orders to avoid entanglements and left as discreetly as he could. The surprise, I think, was not in her combative skill — no doubt a woman traveling alone in this land of tears must have one trick or another to avoid unpleasantness — but rather the fact she was alerted at all.”
They fell silent as the Classanu appeared with a small table and tea-things; she poured the fragrant tea into the clear glasses, then bowed and withdrew.
“There was no one who could have seen our people entering, and run to give her the word?” Tegestu asked, breaking the silence.
Cascan frowned. “Our people say not,” he said. “And our person in the Square reports no interruption — no one approached her, no one spoke, there were no shouts of alarm. She looked startled for a moment, then ran.”
“Witchcraft?” Tegestu asked. “She is a magician, after all.”
Cascan sipped his tea. “A possibility,” he said, matter-of-fact. “We have our own witches, of course; we can show Fiona to them and ask what they perceive. But most likely they will want some belonging of Fiona’s in order to read her aetheric emanations and that will mean another visit to her chambers.”
“No,” Tegestu said flatly. “Too dangerous.” He fell silent for a moment, then spoke. “We have our own Classani conjurors, as well. Can they view her performance with an eye toward how they’re done?”
“No doubt. Perhaps we can invite her to perform here, in our quarters, and give our witches and conjurors as much time as they need.”
“Do it.”
“Aye, bro-demmin. But there is another, more vital problem. Fiona,” Cascan said, “is scheduled to perform before the Abessu-Denorru tomorrow night, at the fête. What if she is an assassin sent by Tastis? How can we prevent an incident?”
Tegestu tasted his tea, letting the silence broaden as he mulled on the problem. “We must certainly send a message to the Abessu-Denorru’s people,” he said. “Fiona should be searched before being admitted to his presence. And some of your own people, dressed and accoutered as Classani, must accompany our own party, and position themselves so as to intercept any assassination attempt on the Abessu-Denorru. The Abessu-Denorru is a brave man,” Tegestu reflected, “who does not fully comprehend the danger he is in.”
Cascan’s eyes reflected approval: probably he would have recommended these steps himself. “Aye, bro-demmin,” he said.
“Your best, mind,” Tegestu said. “We don’t want any half-trained witlings blundering in the Abessu-Denorru’s presence.”
“Of course not, bro-demmin.”
Tegestu was about to add another admonition, but then realized it was prompted only by his own impatience and petulance, that he was still upset over the blundering duel that afternoon, and by his spies’ blundering as well, if blundering it was. He changed the subject. “Any reports from Neda-Calacas?”
“Nay, bro-demmin. No change reported.”
“Very well.” He rose, Cascan standing with him. “You will excuse me, ban-demmin. I have a busy schedule.”
“May your arm never weaken.”
“May your eyes never fail you, whelkran i cambrani.” He and Cascan bowed to one another, then to the Blue Scroll. Tegestu began the walk to his chambers.
Fiona, he thought. What kind of name is that? There was so much out of place concerning her, and it fretted him. Why couldn’t Cascan get to the bottom of it? He snorted. Strange locks, indeed. Incompetence was far more likely.
Well, the best spies were being deployed toward Neda-Calacas. No doubt they would best serve there.
He put the conjuror from his mind. Cascan had never failed him on this kind of assignment before, and if Cascan failed — well, then there were always the witches.
