He walked over to one of the chairs and sat, took another sip from his drink, then set his glass on the end table. “Sit,” he said with a gesture. “We’ve supped together, no need to be so stiffly formal. Although I would appreciate it if you sent your Cannith conscript out of the room.”
“His name is Four,” said Cimozjen.
“Ah.” Rophis picked up his glass and took another sip. “How quaint.”
“I remember you,” said Four.
“Do you? Well, I’ll have to take your word for it.” He looked back at Cimozjen and held up his empty hand in resigned apology. “They all look the same to me.” He took another sip. “But if you’ve gone and named it, that means you’re attached, and not likely to send it out.” He sucked on his teeth for a moment. Then he looked at Minrah and patted the back of the chair next to him. “Sit,” he said again.
“I’ll stand, thank you,” said Minrah. But she did walk closer and rest her arms on the back of the chair opposite Rophis.
Rophis set his glass back down. “I have been following your serial with quite some interest,” he said. “ ‘Bound by Iron,’ I believe you titled it? It’s quite good. You have talent, Minrah.”
“Thank you,” said Minrah. “It’s almost completed. But as a surety against anything ill befalling me before the morrow-I hope you’ll understand that I’ve lost much of my confidence in your sense of justice-I have the final installments in the hands of a reliable messenger, who will deliver them to the Korranberg Chronicle in the morning if I do not return.”
“Why, Minrah, whatever have I done to lose your trust?” said Rophis.
“Lied about your Karrn roots, for starters,” said Minrah. She took a deep draw from her snifter. “On the Silver Cygnet, you swore to be Aundairian in order to hide your heritage, and with it your ties to House Deneith. Or how about using Boniam to find out about us, and then having Pomindras ambush us? Kidnapping sweet old Cimmer and making him fight? Keeping Four in a cage for two years? And if that’s not enough, I’ll bet I can come up with a few others.”
Rophis held up his hands. “I must grant you those points as valid,” he said, “but if you had not boarded the wrong ship, I would have not had to resort to dissimulation. You were allowed to board because he was a warrior, and he looked as if he’d come to participate. Initially, I was excited to have such a grizzled, capable veteran aboard our ship. I quickly found out that that was not the case, but it was too late. You had paid your fare, and we of the Deneith are raised never, ever to break a covenant. We were wrong to have allowed you aboard. If I could have one mistake to undo, it would have been that one. I would have left you on the dock.”
“Don’t feign such charity,” said Minrah. “You only wish that because then your secrets would still be safe.”
“Indeed, that is true,” said Rophis, “and I wish them still to remain unrevealed, which is why I invited you here today.”
“What do you mean?” asked Minrah.
“As I said, I’ve been reading your work. It’s a story that needs a thrilling ending. Thus, while I could have you assassinated to protect my secrets, doing so would be wasteful of your talent, cruel to your readers, and ultimately would cause your publisher gnomes to start sniffing around your trail, which would make me most disconcerted. So rather than take that course, I have a mutually beneficial proposal.”
He reached inside his surcoat and pulled out a folded piece of parchment from a hidden pocket. He leaned forward and handed it to Minrah, who took it suspiciously.
“I have had some of my best minds working on this since the day you stopped in at the Blinking Hippo,” he said. “May I present to you an alternate ending for your story, one that suits your needs as a scribe, and my needs as a leader of this house.”
He leaned back and picked up his glass again. “You’ll find the salient points there. Naturally, we want you to rewrite it in your own particular style.”
Minrah opened the parchment and scanned it. She blinked several times. “This is good,” she said. She took another healthy sip from her glass.
“And I think the use of bitter Cyrans as the villains will evoke a better response from your readership.”
“Minrah,” said Cimozjen, “you’re not seriously considering this, are you?”
“Of course she is,” said Rophis wearily. “It’s a better ending than the truth, and instead of angering a dragonmarked house, she gains favor in one.” He turned to speak to Minrah again. “Such favor that we would be pleased to forward any suitable new stories for you to immortalize. Naturally, such assignments would be for pay-wages that we would remit in addition to your monthly stipend.”
“Monthly stipend?” asked Minrah.
“Seven galifars a month, if that suits your lifestyle. We want you to be able to focus on your art.”
Minrah sprayed her drink. “S-seven?” She giggled. “No more odd jobs …”
“Minrah!” said Cimozjen. “You cannot do this!”
“Can’t? I have to, Cimmer! This is seven gold a month! Do you have any idea how little I’ve lived on? This is a lot! And this is without doing anything! He said stories are extra! I could just … write! Anything I want!”
“You’ll be publishing a lie!”
“So?” asked Minrah, her hands held wide. “That’s what writers do. We make stuff up for a living to entertain the crowd. Do you think the commoners care if it’s true or not? Of course they don’t. Look at the theater. Do you think even a tenth of the plays are based on anything real? No!”
“Do you not see what he’s trying to do? He’s trying to corrupt you, poison your soul, purchase your freedom one month at a time. Each month you take their blood money is one more braid in the rope with which they bind you!”
“They can’t bind me,” said Minrah, “because they’re not making me do this.”
“You misunderstand, Minrah. You’re binding yourself for them!”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Minrah shouted. “They’re not making me do anything! I’m making them do this by the power of my pen! Mine!”
Cimozjen fought for words, but he saw that Minrah had been bought. He tried one last gambit. “What about Torval? Are you going to let him lie unavenged?”
“I was clear from the start, Cimmer, that you were in it for the revenge, and I was in it for the story. You yourself said I was only chasing ink, so don’t get all huffy now.” She folded the parchment and put it in her pouch. “At least I got what I was after. I got my story, and it’s a good one. But you … well, Torval is still dead, and by pursuing it, you made them kill the other prisoners they held, too. You’ve gotten nothing, Cimmer. You’ve gotten less than nothing. You even know who’s responsible now, but do you think you can stop a dragonmarked house? You and Four? Not a kobold’s chance. There’s no way you can stop it, Cimmer. At least I’m smart enough to profit from it.” She turned to Rophis. “If I can pick up my stipend the first day of each month at any Deneith enclave, you have yourself a deal.”
“Done,” said Rophis with a smile. “The charter is already prepared. It will be given you when you depart.” He swirled the liquid in his glass, and drained the last of it with a happy sigh.
“Now I know you, Minrah,” said Cimozjen. “I understand why you despise my oaths, and why you are proud of your ability to lie.”
“You don’t know me at all, Cimmer. You can’t see a thing through your eyes, because they look at the gods as goals, and they don’t see the real world at all. I see the world as it is.”