“I’m going to walk outside and cross the street. Meet me in twenty minutes, all right?”
“All right. Yes. How much—?”
“Ten imperials, or maybe more if you can help me.”
“All right.”
I nodded and left the place, walking around for a little while and eventually circling back. Loiosh flew around to look for signs of someone setting something up, but I didn’t expect anything like that, and there wasn’t.
After twenty minutes, he left the inn and crossed the street, and I stepped up next to him. “Let’s walk together,” I said, handing him ten coins. I’d said that to someone earlier that day, too.
We strolled together through the dark and quiet streets. This part of the city was far from the docks, and very narrow, and looked nothing at all like anywhere in Adrilankha, which I rather liked. I said, “What have you heard about Fyres?”
“The Orca?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I mean, you know that he’s dead.”
“Yes. How did he die?”
“An accident on his yacht.”
“Are you certain?”
We walked a little further. He said, “I’ve heard rumors, whispers. You know.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t. Tell me.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend of the Guild.”
“Is there going—? That is, am I—?”
“In danger? No, as long we aren’t seen together, and probably not even if we are.”
“Probably not?”
“That’s why we aren’t talking inside, and why we’re staying to areas without much light. Now, you were saying?”
“There’s been talk that he was murdered.”
“By whom?”
“People.”
“What sort of people?”
“Just people.”
“Why do they think so?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you something: every time someone famous dies, however he dies, people say he was murdered.”
“You think that’s all it is?”
“Yeah. Am I wrong?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out. I’m asking you questions to find out. And I’m paying you. You have no reason to suspect—uh—foul play?”
“Not really, no.”
“All right. What about all these bank closings?”
“It’s the Empire.”
“The Empire closed the banks?”
“No, but they allowed it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they aren’t supposed to do that—let banks just close, anytime they want to; they’re supposed to protect people.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“Because the bankers paid them.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“How?”
He didn’t answer. I said, “How much did you lose?”
“Almost eight hundred imperials.”
“I see. Is that how you know?”
He didn’t answer. I sighed. I wasn’t getting a whole lot that I could use. I said, “What about the Jhereg?”
“What about them?”
“Are they involved?”
“With the banks? I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Oh, good. I was supposed to be tracking down rumors, and instead I was starting them. What I wanted to say was, “Can you tell me anything useful?” but that wasn’t likely to produce results. I said, “What can you tell me about the people being kicked off their land?”
“Just what everyone knows,” he said. “It’s happening a lot, and no one knows why.”
“What do you mean, no one knows why?”
He shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t make any sense, does it? You get a notice of eviction, and then you go see if you can buy the place, and the owners have gone out of business.”
“That’s been happening a lot?”
“Sure. All over the place. I’m one of the lucky ones: we’re still on Lord Sevaana’s land, and he’s still all right, as far as anyone knows. But I have friends and relatives who don’t know what’s going on, or what to do about it, or anything.”
I don’t know why I’d assumed the old woman’s case was unique, but apparently I was wrong. That was certainly interesting. Who could stand to gain by forcing people to leave their land so it could be sold and then not selling it? And why force them to move before offering them the chance to buy it themselves? And how could Fyres’s death have set all this off? And who wanted Loftis dead, and why? And—
No, wait a minute.
“Has anyone actually been made to move off his land yet?”
“Huh? Not this soon. No one could move that quickly, even if they made us.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” But still ...
“Is there anything else?” said the minstrel.
“Huh? What? On, no. Here. Vanish.” I gave him another ten imperials. He vanished.
“What is it, boss?”
“The inkling of the germ of a thread that might lead to the beginning of an idea.”
“Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”
“I think I might have a piece of something, anyway. Let me think for a minute.”
He was polite enough not to make any of the obvious rejoinders, so I thought as I strolled. It isn’t all that easy to just think, keeping your mind concentrated on the subject, unless you’re talking to someone or writing things down, which is one reason I like to talk to Loiosh as I’m putting things together, but what I had right then wouldn’t fit itself into words because it wasn’t precise enough—it was just the vague, unformed notion that I’d, well, not exactly missed something, but that I’d been putting the wrong slant on things.
After a while I said, “The trouble is, Loiosh, that the way Kiera and I got involved in this was through whatever oddity is involved in this business of putting what’s-her-name’s land on the market and then making it hard to track down, followed by impossible to track down. Just because that’s where we started doesn’t make that an important piece of whatever it is that’s going on.”
“You knew that already, boss.”
“Sure. But knowing it is one thing; being aware of it as you work and taking it into account whenever you look at new information—”
“ What are you saying ? “
“Heh. That I’ve been looking at this thing skewed by what I knew about it. I have to look at it straight on. And I have a theory.”
“Oh, good. Only that was missing. All right, then, where to now?”
“I don’t know.” And, in my mind, Loiosh spoke the words as I did. “You’re funny, Loiosh,” I told him. “Do you have any great ideas?”
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”
I looked around, but didn’t see anything.
“No,” he said. “This city. This area. It isn’t good, boss. They’re still looking for you, and when you’re in a city like this, you’re too easy to find. I don’t like it.”
Neither did I, come to that. “Soon,” I told him. “As soon as we get this settled.”
“You can’t do Savn any good with a Morganti knife between your shoulder blades.”
“True.”
“If I’d known we were going to be here this long, and that we’d be going around stirring up—”
“Okay, okay. I get the point.” I’d thought about it, of course. Loiosh was right: a city, even one as small as Northport, was not a good place for me to hide when the whole Organization was looking for me. And, if what I’d just figured out was true, then I’d pretty much done what I’d agreed to do—the old woman would be able to stay on her land, and everything was fine.
“ Where would we go instead? “
“The East.”
“We’ve been there, remember?”
“It’s big, there are lots of places. And no one would find us.”
“Good point.” There really wasn’t any reason to stay here, if I could be certain that what I’d just figured out was true, and I could probably find that out.
Except that someone had cut Loftis down right in front of me, and there were neighborhoods full of people who had to leave because they no longer had any work, and I didn’t understand why any of it was happening.