“Ludie?” he said. “Ludie’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Who was with her?”
“To the best of my knowledge, she was alone. In recent years her drug use had increased to reckless proportions. Opiates, mainly. On several occasions, I’m told, she fell asleep while riding and took a tumble. I suppose that’s what happened in this instance.”
Anger flooded him, replacing the cold that had begun to hollow out his bones. “I don’t give a damn what you suppose! Who stands to profit by her death? Has her will been read?”
“No, but I was a signatory to her last will a year or so ago,” said Breque. “She may have had it reworked since, but I’m not aware of it. There were a number of small bequests, and she expressed the desire that her holdings in the company be placed in a public trust that would benefit the citizens of Morningshade.”
That shocked Rosacher, being a breach of the agreement he had made with the Church in twenty-five years. “Who is to administer the trust?”
“A law firm. Lawrence, Behrens, Ecclestone and Associates. Are you familiar with them?”
Rosacher started to respond angrily, to say that this was the same firm who had handled his agreement with the Church, and to say further that the Church must have grown impatient; but caution threw up a flag. Had Ludie revealed the existence of the agreement to Breque? It was not inconceivable. If so, how did this play into Breque’s visit? The Church was a patient monster—they had less than ten years left to wait and it would have taken an extreme provocation for them to break the agreement. While it was possible that Ludie had wanted to thumb her nose at the agreement between Rosacher and the Church by making such a will, it was highly unlikely that the firm that had drafted the agreement would have written such a will. All this led him to suspect that Breque was dissembling in some fashion. He felt suddenly heavy of limb and heart, a physical reaction not only to the news of Ludie’s death, but to the realization that he was being pulled back into the drug business.
“The truth,” he said. “Why have you come here today? What do you want?”
“Ludie died without revealing the process by which the blood is refined.” Breque stretched out a leg and wiggled his foot, as if working out a kink. “We have enough mab on hand to satisfy our customers for two weeks or thereabouts. I need your assistance in making more.”
That Ludie had kept the process—or rather the lack thereof—secret surprised Rosacher and muddied the waters further; but it had no bearing on what he needed to do to ensure his survival. He pretended to mull over the question and finally said, “I’ll make more of the drug for you, but I have conditions.”
Breque nodded. “I assumed as much. Proceed.”
“Firstly, I want to see Ludie’s will. Secondly, I am to be left alone in the treatment room. Under no circumstances will you or any of your agents seek to spy on me. If you violate this article of our pact, I will walk away and leave you to deal with thousands of unhappy addicts.”
Breque started to speak, but Rosacher waved him to silence and continued: “Any attempt to extract information regarding the process by chicanery or force will set in motion certain mechanisms that will destroy the business. These mechanisms have been in place since the beginning of our relationship, and I have complete confidence in their efficacy. Do you understand?”
“Yes, of course,” said Breque. “But I hope…”
“Thirdly, I believe your expansionist policies imperil the business. Therefore I wish to be consulted on all matters of foreign policy, particularly those relating to your attempts at expansion, whether in Temalagua or elsewhere. Should you fail to convince me of the rightness of your course and, despite this, continue along it, I will cease assisting you in the production of mab.”
Incredulous, Breque said, “You’re asking for a veto over any decision I make?”
“As they relate to foreign policy, yes. I’m assuming that you intend to expand in more than one direction and that you will need money to prosecute these conflicts. A great deal of money. I would be a fool not to want a voice in these decisions. I have a right to safeguard my investment.”
“You leave me little choice,” said Breque after a moment.
“Oh, you have options, but only one of them is worth your attention: the option of persuading me that you are choosing a direction that promises success. I have nothing against pursuing an expansionist foreign policy; however, I demand that it be done judiciously.”
“You’ve made me wealthy…and powerful as well.” Breque smiled, as though attempting to lighten the impact of what he said next. “I’ve little to entertain myself apart from dabbling in regional politics. A prudent soul might suggest that by thwarting me you’re playing a dangerous game.”
“If you’re a fool, then you are correct—I am. But I don’t believe you’re a fool.” Rosacher paused to allow a response. Breque blew out air through his lips, making a perturbed noise.
“One last thing,” Rosacher said. “I imagine you must have operatives in places such as Alta Miron and Mospiel, men and women capable of clandestine investigations.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll need two of them for a period of…let’s say three months. That should do the job. Preferably a man and a woman. I have no desire to conscript your best people, but I would welcome competence.”
“How do you intend to use them?”
“You’re an intelligent man, Jean-Daniel. Surely you can hazard a guess?”
“I’d say you’re planning to look into Ludie’s death. But why not use your own operatives?”
“I have no operatives, merely eyes and ears on the street. Your people are bound to be more efficient than anyone in my employ.”
Following an exchange of patently fraudulent pleasantries, Breque left Rosacher to contemplate the view, but his contemplative mood was broken. He felt agitated, ill at ease. No matter how hard he tried he was unable to enfold himself in the landscape, to sink into it and become part of a harmonious whole. None of the particulars of his life seemed properly aligned. As he sat and stewed over a variety of trivial issues, he recognized that although it appeared that Breque had been neutralized, the councilman would continue to be a significant problem because he had fallen in love with power and Rosacher knew from experience that nothing, not even the threat of destruction, would discourage him from seeking more.
12
Until his meeting with Breque, Rosacher’s days had been relatively undemanding. He would spend a few hours handling logistical issues at the House and, once he was assured that things were running smoothly, he would pass the remainder of his time in reflection upon his newfound faith, an imperfect thing that he examined in various lights, trying alternately to shore it up and pick it apart. On occasion he was summoned back to the House to deal with some crisis, but these instances grew more infrequent as the men and women he had trained to be his aides grew more competent. Following the meeting, however, he was forced to spend hours each day in the treatment room, located beneath the amphitheater, there pretending to work some magic with the blood to make it suitable for human consumption. Since no one was permitted to oversee this process, he initially whiled away the hours by daydreaming and playing mental games; but he wearied of these pastimes and took to writing down his thoughts. Sitting in a wooden chair beside a ceramic-lined tub of Griaule’s blood (which, against logic, gave no sign of congealing), staring at the black cryptograms that materialized upon its golden surface, then faded and vanished, it was hardly surprising that his thoughts were of Griaule—insights into the dragon’s intent, meditations on man’s place in relation to Griaule and other like topics. Soon he began to organize these thoughts into essay form and, after several months of pruning and polishing, he read one of the essays, an examination of Griaule’s influence upon the history of Teocinte entitled “On Our Dragon Nature,” delivering it by means of a speaking tube that carried his raspy whisper throughout the amphitheater. The reaction was overwhelming, outstripping his expectations—the gift shop was besieged with requests for printed copies of the essay and also with inquiries as to when the next “sermon” would be read. It seemed that a tremendous audience had been waiting for just such a preachment to give shape and substance to their inarticulate feelings, and so Rosacher was encouraged to construct a second essay. As he searched about for an appropriate topic, he cast his mind back to the beginning of his involvement with the dragon, to his study of the blood and the peculiar lapses in time (as if, he imagined, he had been skipped across the river of time like a flat stone across an actual river) that had marked the dragon’s efforts to thwart that study. Viewed in retrospect, it was an unwieldy tactic. It would have been much easier for the dragon to arrange his death—he’d had ample weapons at his disposal. Yet instead of letting flakes or enemies or some other element of the natural world do his bidding, Griaule had imperiled Rosacher time and again only to save him for some mysterious purpose, perhaps the very purpose he was now serving, the deification of the dragon. It was as if through his interaction with humanity, Griaule had adopted a human means of problem-solving, a haphazard empiricism, trying this ploy, discarding another, rummaging through innumerable potentials until he had winnowed them down to a single promising thread, one that embodied an immortal perspective on mortal circumstance…and thus was Rosacher led to write the essay entitled, “Is The God I Worship The God I Cause To Be?”, which elicited a more enthusiastic response than had his first attempt at theological discourse.