Degan laughed.
We were in Long Brick cordon now, with Little Docks and its warehouses ten blocks behind and receding. A trace of the sea still hung in the air, but it was quickly being overpowered by the earthier smells of the cordon: filthy cobbles, sweaty day laborers, busy women on their way to the public fountains, and yes, the aroma of freshly baked bread. Groups of children rushed around carts and ducked between legs, adding to the frenzy of the early-morning traffic. I figured at least a quarter of the children were on the dodge-lifting goods, cutting purses, or spying out marks for their older partners.
This was the edge of Nicco’s territory-my territory-and I marked my fellow Kin as I went. A Purse Cutter here, with her small sharp knife and deft hands; a Tail Drawer there, wearing a long cloak to better hide the swords he stole from other men’s belts; a Talker across the way, all fast words and plausible stories, setting up cons for the unwary; and a dozen other dodges as well. And everywhere, the Masters of the Black Art, begging bowls in hand, their faked maladies displayed for the Lighters as they walked by. A few Kin gave me discreet nods or a small signal of greeting. Most just got on with their business. I did the same.
Degan cleared his throat. “So…?” he said, indicating the slip of paper still in my hand.
“Beats the hell out of me.” I folded it up and stuck it in my ahrami pouch. “Could be a code. Could be a cipher. Hell, it could even be a scrap of paper for lighting a pipe.”
“A scrap of paper that just happens to mention an imperial relic?” said Degan. “Pretty convenient.”
“It says ‘imperial’ and it says ‘relic.’ It doesn’t say anything directly about an ‘imperial relic.’ ”
Degan stayed eloquently silent.
“Yeah,” I said, “I don’t believe in coincidences like that, either, but the thing that really doesn’t make sense-”
“You mean some of this makes sense?”
“The thing that really doesn’t make sense,” I continued pointedly, “is Athel. Why did he stand the knife so well?”
“Ah,” said Degan. “That.”
“Yes.”
Relic hunting was one of the riskier dodges out there. The empire frowned on people lightening its holy objects, let alone selling them, and they were none too gentle with those they caught in the act. It ranked somewhere below trying to actually kill the emperor, but above desecrating an imperial shrine, and the Kin who ply the trade know just what to expect if they get caught.
That was part of why I only dabbled in the trade; but Athel had made an art of it. He was famous for having hidden prayer scrolls in sausage casings, floating olive oil on top of sacred water in cooking jars, and wearing a vestment sash wrapped as a turban. But he’d also burned a four-hundred-year-old tract on imperial divinity rather than let the imperial relic trackers-the Brothers Penitent-find it on him. Athel hadn’t been the kind of man to fold in the face of adversity, or to risk himself needlessly. He had known how to cut his losses, which was why it hadn’t made sense for Athel to stand against Shatters for so long.
“Why would Athel keep silent?” I said out loud. “What was the point?”
“Money?” said Degan.
I shook my head. “The relic was worth a lot,” I said, “but Athel knew he was dustmans from the moment I caught him. Why keep quiet if you know you aren’t going to be around to enjoy the hawks?”
“Vindictive?” suggested Degan.
“How do you mean?”
“If he knew you were going to dust him, why tell you anything at all? He knew he was dead either way-maybe he just wanted to rub your nose in it one last time.”
“That wasn’t Athel’s style,” I said.
“People’s styles change under a knife, Drothe.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but Shatters did more than enough to break a simple stubborn streak. You don’t put up with that kind of pain just to be petty.”
“Petty men do.”
I thought back to the look in Athel’s eye at the end. “He was a far cry from petty,” I said.
Degan sighed. “All right-what about loyalty?”
“From one of the Kin?” I laughed out loud.
“I’ve known one or two to keep their word,” he said, eyeing me sidelong. “Some even make a habit of it.”
“Usually to their regret,” I said drily. I looked around again, spotting a few of my fellow Kin on the street. Would any of them stand the knife for one of their fellows, let alone a local boss? Would any of them be able to stand it like Athel had?
Once, maybe. When there had been a Dark King. When Isidore had stood at the head of all the Kin, controlling a criminal empire that spanned the underside of the true empire. The stories told how he had formed and shaped us, turning a morass of petty criminals and local bosses into a tightly run organization. Nothing was stolen that he didn’t get a cut of; no dodge pulled he couldn’t get the details on; no betrayal or cross he wouldn’t make someone pay for. Kin didn’t prey on Kin, Isidore had said, and, for a short time, until the empire-and the emperor-had taken notice, it had even been true.
Emperor Lucien, maniacally jealous of his power in those days, couldn’t abide the thought of anyone else claiming sway over a kingdom-even a dark one-within his empire. All power flowed from the imperial throne; to set up any lesser authority within the empire without his permission was a challenge to his supreme authority. And so the aging incarnation had created the White Sashes, to set his personal hunters apart from his gold-sashed house guards and the black-belted legions. They had poured through the streets of Ildrecca and beyond, those White Sashes, dragging the Imperial legions in their wake. Kin had filled the gallows like apples in autumn orchards. Those the Whites couldn’t find rope for, they left lying in the streets. Entire families were cut down because one member was part of Isidore’s empire within the empire. And Isidore was marched through the streets and butchered like a sheep over the course of a day and a night, kept alive by Imperial magic to make sure the message struck home.
And it had. Nearly two hundred years later, the Kin were still fractured. Where once we had a king, today small-time bosses, petty street gangs, and factional infighting were the norm. The closest anyone came to Isidore were the Gray Princes, and they were still a far cry away. Half-mythical crime lords who ran shadow kingdoms among the Kin, each Prince had people in dozens of different criminal organizations, reporting back and manipulating dodges to their agendas. No one knew how many jobs happened at their bidding, or what percentage of each take made it into their various coffers without anyone being the wiser; yet no one doubted they did. The Gray Princes ran no specific territories, had no bases of operation. But every Kin knew their names: Shadow, the Dance Mistress, Longreach, Solitude, the Piper’s Son, Crook Eye, and Blazon-legends to be avoided at all costs, if you were wise.
But for all their genius and reach, the Princes were still pale, squabbling shadows of Isidore, just as we were all small reflections of them in one way or another. There was no pride, no center to the Kin anymore. I couldn’t see a typical member of the Kin taking what Shatters had done to Athel and not breaking. There wouldn’t be a percentage in holding out, and nowadays that was what it came down to-except, it seemed, for Athel.
“All right,” I said, “even if I assume for a moment that Athel was keeping tight out of a sense of duty-which I don’t-it still comes down to who. Who would he be loyal to? He was a smuggler. He worked for himself. Who gets a smuggler to stand up to torture like that?”
“Ioclaudia?”
Back to the one name Athel had given us. I shook my head in frustration. “Maybe,” I said, “but who is she? She’s no Boman Prig, that’s for sure-otherwise one of us would have heard about her before this.”
“Who says she has to be a notorious member of the Kin? Maybe Athel was doing it for some other reason.”
“It’d have to be a pretty damn good reason to hold out against Shatters all night.”