“Ah,” Olem said. “I get seasick.”
“That’s it?”
“Bodyguards to the rich need to be able to sail with them. I’m useless on a boat.”
“So you’ll watch my back as long as I don’t go sailing?”
“Pretty much, sir.”
Tamas watched the man for another few moments. Among the troops, Olem was well known and well liked – he could shoot, box, ride, and play cards and billiards. He was an everyman as far as soldiers were concerned.
“You’ve one mark on your record,” Tamas said. “You once punched a na-baron in the face. Broke his jaw. Tell me about that.”
Olem grimaced. “Officially, sir, I was pushing him out of the way of a runaway carriage. Saved his life. Half my company saw it.”
“With your fist?”
“Aye.”
“And unofficially?”
“The man was a git. He shot my dog because it startled his horse.”
“And if I ever have cause to shoot your dog?”
“I’ll punch you in the face.”
“Fair enough. You have the job.”
“Oh, good.” Olem looked relieved. He removed his hands from behind his back and immediately stuck the cigarette in his mouth and pulled hard. Smoke blew out his nose. “It would have gone out soon.”
“Ah. I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
“Of course not, sir. Someone’s here.”
Tamas caught sight of movement just inside. “It’s time.” He stepped toward the balcony door and paused. The hounds rose from their sleep and crowded around Tamas’s legs. He gave Olem a look.
“Sir?”
“You’re also supposed to get the door for me.”
“Right. Sorry, sir. This might take me a while to get used to.”
“Me too,” Tamas said.
Olem held the door for Tamas. The hounds hurried in ahead of him, noses to the floor. The room was near-silent despite the growing volume of voices in the Garden. Running on days without sleep, Tamas found the silence soothing.
He was in a grand office, if a room so big could be called that. Most houses could fit inside. It had been the king’s, a quiet place for him to study or review decisions by the House of Nobles. Like everything else that required a hair of a brain or a single krana’s care for how the country was run, the room had remained vacant for the entirety of Manhouch’s reign – though Tamas had it on good authority that Manhouch lent it to his favorite mistress last year, before his advisers found out.
Ricard Tumblar stood over a table of refreshments, picking through a stack of sugar cakes for the best ones. He was a handsome man despite his receding hairline, with short brown hair and full features, and lines in the corners of his mouth from smiling too much. He wore a costly suit made out of some animal hair from eastern Gurla, and his beard was worn long in Fatrastan style. A hat and cane of equally eclectic and expensive taste rested by the door.
Ricard controlled Adopest’s only workers’ union and of all of Tamas’s council of coconspirators he was the only one that could provide pleasant company for longer than a few minutes. Hrusch and Pitlaugh sniffed at him till he gave them each a sugar cake. The dogs took their prizes and retreated to the window divan.
Tamas sighed. He hated it when people fed them. They wouldn’t shit right for a week.
“Help yourself,” Tamas said.
Ricard grinned at him. “Thank you, I will.” He popped a sugar cake in his mouth and spoke around a mouthful. “You did it, old boy. I couldn’t believe it, but you did it.”
“Not quite,” Tamas said. “The executions must be carried out, the city brought to order; there will be riots and royalists, and I still have the Kez to deal with.”
“And a country to run,” Ricard added.
“Lucky for me, I’ll leave that to the council.”
Ricard rolled his eyes. “Lucky you indeed. I dread working with the rest of them. We need your balancing hand to keep us from each other’s throats.”
“I agree,” Ondraus said.
The reeve entered the room at a slow walk, cane in one hand, a thick ledger under the other arm. He crossed the room and tossed the ledger down on the king’s desk, then dropped down in the chair behind it. Tamas stifled a protest.
Ondraus opened the book. Tamas would have sworn dust rose from the thing. He stepped closer. It was an ancient tome, with gold-thread lettering stitched onto the front – a word in Old Deliv. Something about money, Tamas guessed. The pages themselves seemed almost black. Closer inspection revealed tiny writing – letters and numbers boxed off, written so densely as to require a looking glass to see the actual figures.
“The king’s treasury is empty,” Ondraus announced. He produced a looking glass from his pocket and set it on the page, peering through it as he perused a few numbers at random.
Ricard inhaled sharply, choking on a sugar cake.
Tamas stared at the reeve. “How?”
“I haven’t seen this thing since the Iron King died,” Ondraus said, gesturing at the tome. “It records every transaction made in the name of the crown for the last hundred years, to the krana. It’s been in the hands of Manhouch’s personal accountants since he took the throne. They kept solid records; that’s the best I can say for them. According to this, there’s not a krana in the king’s treasury.”
Tamas made a fist to stop his hands from shaking. How would he pay his soldiers? How would he feed the poor and bankroll the police forces? Tamas needed hundreds of millions – he’d hoped for at least tens.
“Taxes,” Ondraus said, closing the ledger with a thump. “We’ll have to raise taxes first thing.”
“No,” Tamas said. “You know that’s not an option. If we replace Manhouch with even higher taxes, stricter control, then it’ll be our heads in a basket within a year.”
“Why should we raise the taxes?” Arch-Diocel Charlemund swept into the room, long, purple robes of office trailing behind him. He was a tall man, strong and athletic, who’d not lost the power of his youth in middle age like most men. He had a square face and evenly set brown eyes, his cheeks clean-shaven. He was swathed in fine furs and silk, with a round, gilded hat upon his head. There were rings on his fingers with enough gold and precious stones to buy a dozen mansions. But that wasn’t uncommon for an arch-diocel of the Kresim Church.
“I see you brought the whole wardrobe,” Ricard said.
Tamas inclined his head. “Charlemund,” he said.
The arch-diocel sniffed. “I’m a man of the Rope,” he said. “I have a title you may use, though it weighs upon me to inflict it.”
“Your Eminence!” Ricard mimed removing a hat from his head and bowed low to the ground.
“I wouldn’t expect a man like you to understand,” the arch-diocel said to Ricard. “I’d call you out, but you’re too much of a coward to duel.”
“I have men to do that for me,” Ricard said. There was the slightest fear in his eye. The arch-diocel had been the finest swordsman in all the Nine before his appointment to the Rope and he was still known to call men out on occasion and – priest or not – gut them mercilessly.
“Property,” Tamas said to the reeve. “We own half of Adro now, what with every nobleman and his heir about to find himself tasting the guillotine’s edge. Ondraus, I expect you’ll take great delight in this: dissolve the property. Slowly, but fast enough to fund all the projects we’ve discussed. Sell it outside the country if need be, but get us some damned money.”
“There were plans for that property,” the arch-diocel said.
“Yes, and–”
“What is being done with the property?”
Tamas sighed. Lady Winceslav entered the room in a gown that could easily compete with the arch-diocel’s robes for whose used the greater amount of cloth and jewels in the tailoring. She was a woman of about fifty years with high cheekbones and a slim waist, diamonds in her earrings. She owned the Wings of Adom, the most prestigious mercenary force in the world, and was a native Adran. Her forces had been quietly pulled out of foreign postings and recalled to Adro over the last few months in preparation for the coup, and Tamas knew he’d need them desperately in the time to come.