I needed a distraction.
I said, “There’s another thing that’s puzzling me.”
“There’s a lot that’s puzzling me.”
“Some of the smaller companies in Fyres’s little Empire—”
“Not so little, Padraic.”
“Yeah. Some of them hold land.”
“Sure.”
“And they’re selling the land.”
He nodded.
“And they’re going under.”
“Right.”
“So they’re not able to sell it.”
“I guess. What’s your point? If it’s the legalities of it—”
“No, no. We have more advocates than the Orb has facets. I’m trying to figure out what sort of business sense that makes, or what kind of other sense it makes that overrides business sense.”
“You think they have any choice?”
“Maybe.”
He shook his head. “If you’re going somewhere, I can’t see it. As far as I can tell, they’re bailing out as they go, and if that means they lose some property, they’ll let the property courts and the advocates worry about it later. I don’t think there’s any plan involved.”
This was all news to me. I said, “I’m not convinced.”
“You have a devious mind.”
“It goes with the job.”
“Do you have any evidence? Any reason to think so?”
“Just a feeling. That’s why I wanted to find out if you’d had any ideas about it.”
“No.”
“Okay,” I said.
We were heading back in the general direction from which we’d come. He said, “So, all right, what is it you wanted? You had me make contact with you for some reason, and so far all we’ve done is chat, along with a warning so general there’s no point in giving it, and a question you could have had a messenger ask. What are you after?”
Damn. I had certainly given him too much time to think. I said, “There’s someone who knows too much about what you’re doing, and I can’t find him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that something’s slipped, and I’m pretty sure it’s at the top, or near the top at any rate. I’m running into opposition, and I can’t pin it down.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t run into it yet. The only suspicious action I’ve seen so far has been you and your friend Margaret.”
Damn again. That wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted him thinking about.
“Look,” I said, “I’m going to have to trust you.”
“Trust all you want,” he said. “I haven’t shut you down, but I’m not under your orders.”
He was ahead of me again.
“And now I want a few answers.”
And gaining.
“Your friend Margaret claimed to have a certain hold on me.”
“The letters. Yes. They’re real.”
“I told her then they wouldn’t go very far, and this is as far as they go. Exactly who do you work for, and what is yourjob?”
“I know your job, friend Loftis; but if you want to put everything out in front, then let’s hear you say who you work for.” As I said that, I was desperately trying to remember the names of the different groups you’d mentioned, and figure out which one I could most reasonably claim to be part of.
“Heh. I am a lieutenant in the Imperial Army, Corps of the Phoenix Guards, Special Tasks Group.”
“And you know bloody well that wasn’t my question.”
“Are all Easterners psychically invisible, or just you? And is that why you were hired, or is it just a bonus?”
“It helps,” I said.
“Exactly what are you after?”
“I’ve told you that.”
“Yes, you have, haven’t you? You’ve told me just about everything my heart could desire, haven’t you?”
I shook my head. “Play all the games you want, Loftis, but I don’t have time to muck around, not if I’m going to do what I was sent here to do.”
“Shall we get something to eat?” he said.
Add another damn or two. He was pulling all of my tricks, and he was better at them than I was—which I suppose only made sense. I said, “I’ve been told that Undauntra always wanted her troops to fight hungry, whereas Sethra Lavode always wanted hers to fight with a full meal in them.”
“I’ve heard that, too,” he said. “But it isn’t true. About Sethra, that is.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m also told that when a Jhereg boss hires an assassin, the deal is usually made during a meal.”
“I can believe that.”
“And I happen to know that there is a curious custom in parts of the East of making a big ceremony out of the last meal someone eats before he’s executed. He’s given pretty much anything he wants, and it’s prepared and served quite carefully, and then they kill him. Isn’t that odd?”
“I suppose, but I think it’s rather nice, actually.”
I shook my head. “If I were about to be executed, I either wouldn’t be able to eat, or I’d lose the meal on the way to the Executioner’s Star, or the gallows, or the Pilgrim’s Block, or wherever they were to lead me.”
“I see your point,” he said. “But I think I’d like the meal, anyway.”
“Well, perhaps I would, too.”
“There’s got to be someplace around here.”
We stopped at the first place we came to, which meant nothing since he’d been leading the way. It was marked by a sign that was so faded I couldn’t make it out, and reached from the street by walking down three steps below a hostel. It had probably been on the street level a few hundred years earlier—it seemed old enough, at any rate.
“ What do you think, Loiosh ? “
“I don’t like it, boss. There’s no one hanging around outside, but he had plenty of time to set something up before we got here.”
“Good point.”
“If you want to make a break, I can keep him busy.”
“No. I’m going to run with it.”
“Boss—”
“Stay alert.”
The ceiling was low, the stone walls were damp, and the place was dark enough to be irritating—I suspected that, except for sinking, it hadn’t changed much in quite some time. There was a big table with two long benches, about half of which were occupied by tradesmen, and a few isolated tables scattered about the room. We sat at one of those. It was toward the back, and Loftis could watch the front door while I watched the curtained-off doorway that presumably led to a private room of some sort. I could have made an issue about this—in fact, I was almost tempted to since I didn’t have Loiosh with me—but I still had some faint hopes of convincing him that the story we’d given was true.
“What do you recommend?” I asked.
“I don’t know; I’ve never been here before.”
After too long, we realized that no one was going to bring us anything, so we went up to the bar and acquired a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, two bowls of fish stew, glasses, spoons, a wooden platter to carry them all on. I did the paying, he did the carrying. We brought the stuff back to the table, sat down, poured, and sampled.
“The stew is too salty,” suggested Loftis.
“The bread’s all right.”
“Better than the stew,” he agreed.
“Or the wine,” I added.
“I was thinking about bringing you in,” he said.
“Do you have better wine than this?”
“A little better. Not enough to get excited about. The trouble is, we can’t find your friend.”
“You just haven’t looked hard enough.”
“Oh?”
“I know some excellent Eastern wines.”
“Make a list of them for me. And while you’re filling it out, maybe you can write down an address where I can find dear Margaret.”