“Cawti,” I said.
He nodded, and something slammed down in the pit of my stomach.
“South Adrilankha,” I said.
He nodded again.
“My fault, then.”
He nodded again.
“Uh ... care to explain?” said Telnan.
“No,” I said.
I made a few other remarks, these with more emotional than rational content.
“I suppose,” said Mario. Telnan looked puzzled.
I felt Loiosh’s presence in my mind, the way I sometimes do when a spell threatens to get out of control. I concentrated on my breathing, like during a fencing exercise.
In case we haven’t met before, I used to run a small area of Adrilankha. That is, when anything illegal happened there, I either got a piece of it, or made arrangements for someone to regret that I didn’t get a piece of it. I also, eventually, acquired some similar interests in the Easterners’ Ghetto, what was called South Adrilankha. At this time, I was happily married. To the left, my wife, Cawti, was unhappily married at the same time, mostly because she had some sort of moral objection to making money off Easterners the same way we made it off Dragaerans. Who knew?
Then she was in danger, and I heroically saved her and all like that. In the course of doing so, I made a few enemies and a quick escape. The last thing I did before leaving my career, my friends, my wife, and everything else, was to give Cawti all my interests in South Adrilankha as a kind of going-away present.
At the time, I thought it was funny, in a sick sort of way.
Now it was sounding sick, in a funny sort of way.
Mihi wanted to know if I was ready for—no, I wasn’t. He could return after our guest left, as our guest didn’t care to dine. Mihi understood and vanished into that place waiters and creditors go when they aren’t in front of you.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”
He nodded and smiled. Like the guy who lived downstairs, as I said before. Or else maybe the old man who pinches the pretty girl in the market, but she smiles back instead of smacking him. That guy.
“The Dagger started out by—”
“She isn’t called that anymore.”
He gave me an odd look, and said, “That’s what I call her.”
“Eh,” I said. “Okay.”
“She started out by trying to dismantle the Organization in South Adrilankha entirely.”
I nodded. “And, of course, it popped back up, only outside of her control.”
“Yes.”
“I could have told her that would happen.”
He tilted his head a little. “Some things are easy to see when you aren’t in the middle of them.”
“I suppose. What next?”
“She managed to get back some control of the area, and tried running it—” He frowned. “More gently, I suppose you’d say.”
I grunted. “That’s what I’d have tried first.”
“It didn’t work either. As I understand it, debts went uncollected, profit margins were too small—”
“I get the idea.”
He nodded. “So, well, various individuals started smelling opportunities. You know how that works.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t,” said Telnan brightly. We ignored him.
Mario said, “She tried to hang on to what she had, but, really, she didn’t have an organization; just herself and her reputation. That only goes so far.”
I nodded.
“Then she started getting help. A few button-men turned up dead, and—”
“Help from whom?”
“That’s the big question.”
I gave him a look.
“No,” he said. “I had no part in it.”
“Then who ...? Oh.”
He nodded. “Her old partner.”
“The Sword of the Jhereg.”
“Yes,” he said. “At least, that’s the rumor.”
“The Sword of the Jhereg, now Dragon Heir to the Throne.”
He nodded. “And not just her personally, but she included various friends and retainers.”
“Aliera?”
“No. Just some Dragonlords who felt obligated to help her, no matter what.”
“That could get ugly.”
“Yes,” he said.
“If word gets out that the Dragon Heir is involving herself in—”
“Exactly.”
I rubbed my chin. “They’ve just gotten over the last near-scandal with her. But I can see it. Norathar and Cawti—” it still gave me a twinge to say her name—“are friends. Norathar can’t just let it alone.”
“Precisely. And it’s upset Aliera more than a little.”
“She mentioned nothing about it to me.”
He frowned. “I don’t know the whole story, but it seems to me that when you last saw Aliera—”
“About two hours ago,” I said.
He nodded. “It seems she had other things on her mind.”
“Yeah, I suppose she did.”
“And then you left rather abruptly.”
“I suppose I did. Has anything been heard from Kiera the Thief in all this?”
His brows came together. “Why would it concern her?”
“No reason that I know of. Just wondering.”
He shook his head.
I leaned back in my chair. “So, Aliera would like me to see if I can help out.”
Mario nodded. “As long as you have returned to the area anyway.”
“Yeah, as long as I’m here.” I didn’t quite roll my eyes. I said, “I admit that, in some ways, I’m in a position to help. At any rate, I know the principles rather well.”
He nodded again.
“And I can’t argue that the whole situation isn’t my fault.” He nodded again, which was uncalled-for.
“But there’s the issue that, if I stay around this area for more than a few hours, my life isn’t worth a rusted copper.”
“That’s where we come to the new resources you are reputed to have.”
Telnan twitched a little when he said that. He had, it seemed, mostly been lost during the entire conversation, but he must have guessed something about what we spoke of there.
I ignored him and said to Mario, “Not enough to take on the whole Jhereg, thank you very much.”
“And an additional resource you may not know about.”
“Oh?”
“Me,” he said.
I stared off into space for a while. Then I said, “Sure you don’t want something to eat?”
“Positive.”
I nodded, and cleared my throat. “Uh ... shall I call you Mario?”
“It’s my name.”
“Okay. Look. I have some idea of how good you are, but—”
“But?”
“We’re talking about the whole Jhereg being after me.”
“Not the whole Jhereg. Just the Right Hand, as it were.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, then.”
“And it’s the Left Hand that is moving on South Adrilankha.”
I stared at him. “The Bitch Patrol?”
He chuckled, as if he’d never heard the term before. “If you like.”
“What do they want in South Adrilankha?”
“You’ll have to ask them that.”
I sat back, remembered my wine, and drank some. I don’t remember how it tasted.
Loiosh said, “Boss, this is all kinds of not good.”
“Thank you,” I said, “for the profound observation.”
I sat there and considered what I knew about the Left Hand of the Jhereg, which was not nearly as much as I should have known. The Right Hand, what I usually just called “the Jhereg,” or “the Organization,” was almost entirely male—Kiera, Cawti, and Norathar being exceptions—and it was involved in, well, all the stuff I knew: untaxed gambling, unlicensed prostitution, selling stolen goods, high-interest loans, and other fun things. I had known that the Left Hand, mostly women, existed; but I’d never been exactly clear on what they did. Well, that isn’t completely true; I mean, I know if you need to purchase some artifact of Elder Sorcery, they’re the ones to see. If you need a quick bit of sorcery to help you make someone dead or insure that he stays that way, you go to them. And if you need a piece of information that is only stored inside someone’s head, then a Jhereg sorceress is your best bet.