Instead, Gadriel enlisted a squadron of tailors. They descended on her with compliments and measuring tapes and imaginations vivid with her enviable body italicized in cloth. Armed with cropping blades, they threw themselves into piles of luxurious fabric, bolting out lavish styles that swelled ten wardrobes nearly overnight.
Caliph stood in awe as the castle adjusted like a calculating machine.
Several astute personages in uniform took frenzied notes on little pads of paper as they pried information out of Sena. What were her favorite authors? Colors? Musical tastes? And so on.
Did she like fur, leather, diamonds, gold or silver? Did she color her hair? Did she eat meat? Did she bathe in the morning or at night or both or several times a day?
Feminine articles materialized from inscrutable locations. Perfumes and mirrors danced in glittering array. Bouquets and extra toilet tissue unfolded in the water closet on the fourth floor. Huge men hauled additional furnishings out of every direction. Chiffoniers and towel racks and folding screens. Soaps and creams and porcelain fixtures with floral designs.
It happened at remarkable speed, like a theater crew changing props until Caliph felt certain the whole event must have somehow been anticipated, prepared for and orchestrated on cue.
He could tell that Sena was dumbfounded. She looked at him with a sudden vague comprehension of the myriad resources at his command.
For a moment the old question nagged him, bothersome but easily dismissed. Why she was with him was a riddle he probably didn’t want solved anyway. But then, pondering his own unarticulated feelings for her was only slightly less daunting.
Not so long ago, he had thought up all kinds of elaborate lachrymose metaphors to describe their relationship. But the truth was simple. She was his bag of qaam-dihet. And he was like any of the old men in ruinous plaster dens along the sea, fingers clenched protectively over the instruments of addiction, choosing to ignore the inevitable.
With Sena, he thought, it was as if someone had created her to bait him. As though his every impulse had been known to her builder. He comforted himself with the mean-spirited detail that even though his heart ached, even though he had stumbled through the Highlands of Tue in search of her, one fact remained.
She had come to him.
Regardless of motive, that single truth assuaged his ego.
Later in the afternoon, Caliph left her in Gadriel’s care and followed another of the castle stewards toward an unscheduled but urgent meeting with Mr. Vhortghast.
The spymaster had arrived from the field with intelligence and he met Caliph on the zeppelin deck of the castle’s vast east side. A gray lion, fully outfitted for war, menaced the platform, tethered to a sixteen-story mooring mast and anchored to the coupling in the middle of the deck.
Mr. Vhortghast waited at a metal railing, looking out at the gray snarled sky over Ironside while men in black uniforms scurried in the background. Caliph joined him.
A flock of birds took flight with a mournful chyrme, twisting in a helix like gnats over Temple Hill.
“Fifteenth of Dusk, P
sh. A zeppelin goes down in Nifol. Probably bandits. They miss a set of sensitive schematics. Blueprints. Manuals on solvitriol power etcetera. Pandragor technically owns them but recovery teams find them missing from the wreckage. Do you know anything about it?”
Startled by the question given almost without preamble, Caliph pawed nervously at his chin.
“By your tone I take it something’s happened?”
Vhortghast shrugged. “Not yet. I’ve got some men on it. We know emissaries from Pandragor showed up in Skellum, if you can believe that . . . at parliament. I don’t like the thought of the Pandragonians cutting deals with Shrdnae Witches.”
“Why are you asking if I know anything about it?”
“I don’t know,” said Vhortghast. His lips seemed afraid of the hideous gray teeth beneath them, peeling back and exposing them to view. His pasty, fictile expression was unreadable. “I’m sure you have other employees that give you information.”
Caliph didn’t. Not this kind of information. He wondered if he should.
Vhortghast clenched the railing with both hands and watched birds cavort through plumes of smoke.
“There’ve been some strange occurrences in the city. Unexplained . . . holomorphic . . . kinds of crimes. All the Shrdnae agents that we know about—that’s only two by the way—that we’ve been watching . . . have disappeared.”
“And you think it’s related to the blueprints?”
“No. My first guess would be that it has to do with the war. The Witchocracy is pulling agents out of harm’s way.”
“Out of harm’s way? Isn’t it their job to be in harm’s way?”
“Not these. The agents we were watching were what the Witchocracy calls half-sisters. Who knows? They might even have been decoys. We never even interrogated them.”
“Then I’m not following you. What does this have to do with the blueprints?”
“Maybe something. Maybe nothing. But a Pandragonian official, no name, you know how it goes, claims they traced the blueprints here.” Zane fixed Caliph with a piercing stare.
Caliph’s throat thickened.
“So I thought I’d ask,” the spymaster’s tone was the closest thing to friendly banter Caliph could imagine, “if you’d heard anything about it.”
“No,” said Caliph. Why am I lying? “But if I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
Vhortghast studied him another moment then looked away. “Fine.”
Caliph couldn’t tell whether Vhortghast’s “fine” meant that he knew. Maybe he understood that Caliph wanted the secret kept secret, reading between the lines, understanding that yes, Caliph knew all about the stolen blueprints but that Zane Vhortghast’s job was no longer to ask questions about them. Zane Vhortghast’s job was to ensure the information didn’t leak. Caliph hoped, against serious doubt, that this was the case.
“You’ve taken a mistress . . .” Vhortghast said it with something between cynicism and bored acknowledgement. “The same girl you were . . . involved with at Desdae?”
As if you didn’t already know, Caliph thought savagely. He did not respond, a course that had the desired effect, eliciting mild but nervous discomfort in Mr. Vhortghast.
The spymaster laced his fingers and amended his comment with, “She’s quite a catch.” He then turned to the zeppelin looming behind them. “I’m headed for Tentinil. Tour the field. That sort of thing. I’m sure General Yrisl will want to coach you on some plans.”
The spymaster’s tacit disdain for the Blue General showed like wood grain through shallow coats of diplomacy.
“I want you to stay in the city,” said Caliph suddenly. “Help me formulate some ideas regarding Ghoul Court.”
Vhortghast scowled. “What kind of ideas?”
“I want to assume control of that borough.”
The spymaster looked stunned.
“Your majesty, now is probably not the time to allocate resources—” He stopped. Caliph’s eyes had slashed out like claws. “But I’ll get some men on it.”
Caliph’s glare shifted from Zane Vhortghast to the seething Iscan skyline.
“This city will not tolerate a sovereign criminal element. I want to personally oversee Ghoul Court’s submission to law, inspections and regular patrol—just like every other borough. If we’re at war, we can’t afford a safe haven for spies at the very center of our city, wouldn’t you agree?”