The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns (20 page)

“Cora,” Raesinia said, taking her hand. “Come with me.”

Cora’s face was a mask of panic as Raesinia dragged her through the balcony doors and into the suite. Sarton was still watching the crowd, but Ben was there, and Faro had brought up a canvas sack full of bottles. When he saw Raesinia, he picked up a glass flute full of sparkling white and waved it in her direction.

“Raes!” he said. “Come on! We’re celebrating!”

Raesinia took the flute from Faro and presented it to Cora.

“You deserve it,” Raesinia said. “After we win, I’m going to ask the deputies to make you Minister of Finance.”

I really will,
Raesinia thought, as the teenager sipped the bubbly wine.
God knows she couldn’t be worse than the last few men who’ve gotten the job.
Her father had many fine attributes, but paying attention to eagles and pennies was not one of them, and his Treasury heads tended to be chosen for their political connections rather than their competence. Then there was Grieg, one of Orlanko’s minions, who’d spent the last five years building the tax farm into his private empire.
A little girl would make for a nice change of pace.

“By the way,” Faro said, “I had to stash Danton in the front bedroom. We’ll have to figure out some way to get him out without anyone noticing.”

Raesinia rounded on him. “You brought him
here
?”

Faro shrugged. “His room at the Royal was mobbed after the speech. I couldn’t think where else to put him.” He caught Raesinia’s expression. “Relax. Nobody saw us come in.”

And how the hell would you know?
Faro had a high opinion of his own skill and daring, but Raesinia had her doubts.
He’s certainly no Sothe.

Ben patted her on the shoulder. “Relax, Raes. It’s just until the storm passes. Have a drink, would you?”

Raesinia sighed, but accepted a flute and sipped at the wine for form’s sake.

They still don’t take it seriously.
Cora had the excuse of youth, but the rest of them . . .
Why am I the only one who seems worried?

—

Some time later, they’d emptied half the bottles, and the crowd on the Exchange was finally dispersing under the stern eyes of dozens of Armsmen.

The Second Pennysworth had suspended payments just before noon, admitting to the world that it couldn’t make good on its promises. That was the turning point Raesinia had fretted over, the instant where the crowd might turn into a mob and exact violent retribution. Fortunately for all concerned, the gradual gentrification of the panic over the course of the morning meant that by the time the bank actually failed, a good proportion of those waiting in the queue were of the well-bred classes. There were shouting matches, a little shoving, and the occasional swooning or fit of hysterics, but it was no longer the type of crowd to start hurling bricks through windows. By then, too, the Armsmen were out in force, responding with unusual rapidity to the developing crisis. Raesinia had watched the lines of green form and thicken throughout the
morning, and sent up a silent thanks to whoever had organized the usually lackadaisical defenders of the peace.

Sarton and Maurisk had left shortly thereafter, the former to whatever he did in his free time—nobody seemed to know—and the latter to bash out a broadsheet about how the bankruptcy of the Second Pennysworth proved the essential bankruptcy of Borelgai-style finance. Back in the suite, Ben and Faro were playing some kind of game that involved dice and many, many glasses of wine. Cora was dozing on the sofa, curled up like a cat. Raesinia found herself wandering out of the living room and into the little anteroom, where doors led to the pair of bedrooms and the tiny private kitchen.

One of the bedroom doors was open a few inches, and a wan light shone from within. Raesinia went over and found Danton sitting on a neatly made bed, still wearing his hat and boots. He looked up, his face splitting into a broad, childlike grin.

“Hello, Princess!”

Raesinia slipped into the room and eased the door closed. “Hello, Danton. What are you doing in here?”

“Thinking,” Danton said.

“Thinking about what?”

He blinked at her, as though that question made no sense. After a moment, he nodded at a half-full glass flute on the nightstand. “Faro gave me some stuff to drink, but I didn’t like it.”

“No?”

“Too many bubbles. They went up my nose.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Is there any beer?”

God Almighty. A surge of guilt broke across Raesinia like a tidal wave.
Look at him. He doesn’t understand any of this. He didn’t choose this. We’re just using him, and we’re going to end up getting him killed before it’s all over.

You’re just using all of them,
her conscience taunted her.
Danton is no different from Ben, or Faro, or Cora. They’re just tools to get what you want. If one or two of them get broken along the way, what’s the difference?

They all chose this, though. Maurisk, Sarton, Ben, even Faro. They have their own reasons for being here.

And Cora? She doesn’t have any idea what she’s getting into.

Raesinia swallowed hard. Danton was still smiling at her. It was hard to reconcile this childlike expression with the man he’d been—or appeared to be—standing on the column in Farus’ Triumph.
Does he know what he’s doing?

“Danton,” she said, “that was a good . . . story you told this afternoon.”

“Did you like it, Princess?” His joyful tone made her heart lurch sickeningly. “There were a lot of people listening.”

“There certainly were.” She hesitated. “Did you understand it? The story, I mean. Do you know what it means?”

Again the look of incomprehension, as though what she’d said was a contradiction in terms. “It’s a story, Princess.”

“But . . . the people listening. What did they think it meant?”

“People like stories. They like to shout, but it’s good shouting.”

Raesinia’s binding, the demon in the pit of her soul, gave an odd little twist, as though it were turning over in its sleep.
Probably getting rid of the last of the alcohol,
she thought regretfully. It would have been nice to let her consciousness dissolve in bubbly white wine for a while, like the rest of the cabal.
Or even to be able to put my head down and take a nap.

“I’ll see if Faro brought any beer,” she said.

“Thank you, Princess!”

She’d only opened the door a fraction when she heard the knocking. Someone was rapping at the outer door of the suite, only a few feet away.
But nobody is supposed to know we’re here.

Probably just the hotel staff.
She fought off incipient panic and smiled at Danton. “I’ll be right back. You just stay here and . . . think, all right?”

“All right!”

He settled himself on the bed, and Raesinia went back into the hall and shut the door behind her. Loud voices were coming from the sitting room, where Ben and Faro were still at their gaming. She didn’t think anyone else had heard the knocking.

The outer door had no convenient peephole, as a lower-class hotel might have. Raesinia frowned, then settled her weight against the door, bracing her legs against any attempt to force it open.

“Yes?” she said, barely loud enough to be audible. “Who is it?”

“Raesinia? Is that you?”

“Sothe?”
Her maidservant/bodyguard had been adamant about keeping herself hidden from the other members of the cabal. “What are you doing here?”

“Are you alone?”

“For the moment. Everyone’s out by the balcony.”

“Good. Open the door.”

Raesinia took her weight off the door and thumbed the latch, letting it open a few inches. She kept her boot wedged against the base so that a sudden push from the outside wouldn’t throw it wide open. Sothe was visible through the resulting crack, and Raesinia relaxed and opened the door the rest of the way.

“Good,” Sothe said. “Voices are easy to fake. Now help me with her.”

The open door revealed that Sothe was standing beside a young woman in the smart gray-and-black livery of the hotel. The woman’s head was resting on Sothe’s shoulder, and it was obvious that Sothe’s arm around her waist was the only thing keeping her up. At first Raesinia thought she was stumbling drunk, but as Sothe shuffled into the suite her limp, dangling limbs made it clear she was completely unconscious.

Raesinia stood aside and pressed the door closed behind them.

Sothe, surveying the suite, nodded toward the bedrooms. “Are those empty?”

“Danton’s in one of them.”

Sothe’s expression tightened into a frown.

“The other one should be.”

“Good. Get her legs.”

Raesinia grabbed the mystery woman about the ankles and lifted her feet off the floor. Together they manhandled her into the second bedroom, and Sothe maneuvered her onto the bed and let her fall. Her head thumped heavily onto the covers.

“Sothe,” Raesinia said, “who is this? And what’s wrong with her?”

Sothe glanced back out into the suite and shut the door behind them. “What’s wrong with her is that she’s dead.” She indicated a detail Raesinia had missed: the leather-wrapped hilt of a long-bladed stiletto, sticking out of the woman’s left side just below her armpit. “As for who she was, I can’t tell you precisely”—Sothe made another knife appear in her hand, as if by magic—“but she was definitely Concordat.”

Raesinia was silent for a moment. Sothe immediately set to work, sawing through the waistband of the dead woman’s skirt and then slitting it in two down the length of her leg, peeling her clothes off like a University savant removing the skin from a new specimen.

“You’re
sure
she was—” Raesinia began.

Sothe sighed. She tore the skirt aside with a rip of fabric, revealing a leather strap around the corpse’s thigh, which held several thin blades in cunningly
designed sheathes. Sothe pulled one of these out and sent it humming across the room to bury itself in the wall with a
tick
a few inches from Raesinia’s ear.

“Throwing knives are not a common accessory for hotel maids, even in Oldtown,” Sothe said, “much less maids at the Grand. She was Concordat.”

“All right,” Raesinia said. The knife in the wall was still buzzing slightly. “Did you kill her?”

“Of course I killed her.”

“Can I ask why you’re stripping her naked?” Sothe had started slitting the woman’s blouse up toward her collar.

“Because I’m looking for something, and we don’t have a lot of time.” Sothe jerked the dead woman’s undershirt up like an impatient lover, pawed at her breasts, and grinned in triumph. “Got you. Some things never change.”

“Sothe . . .”

Sothe held up a hand, bending over the body. She came up with a long, thin, flat paper, curved where it had been pressed against the woman’s skin.

“Pockets are too risky,” Sothe said. “And you have to keep it on you. Some of the men used to keep it up their arseholes, but I always preferred sticking it on somewhere intimate with spirit gum.” She frowned down at the body. “I wonder who’s teaching them that trick now.”

“What is it?”

“Cipher. One-use, good for a couple of hundred words. The only other copy is with some clerk under the Cobweb.” Sothe unfolded the packet into a small square of onionskin paper, then folded it back up and tucked it away. “It’s how she was going to report in.”

“Ah. So you’re going to send in her reports?”

“Just one report. They burn the cipher after use. Keeps it secure.” Sothe shook her head. “I’ll try to salvage something out of this.”

“Salvage something? Have you seen the crowd outside?” Raesinia felt a little of her excitement returning. “Sothe, it
worked
. We brought down a bank.
That
will hit the Borels where it hurts—”

“I don’t mean the banks. You brought Danton
here
. Do you know how many people are following him right now, after the speech he gave? Now they know he came to a hotel room, and they’re going to ask who else was there. That’s all they’ll need.” Sothe shook her head bitterly. “How many times did I tell you to
keep away from him
? We can’t afford to let Orlanko tie the two of you together.”

“Faro brought him,” Raesinia said defensively. “He didn’t have anywhere
else to stash him. I should have realized they couldn’t go back to the Royal. We could have made other plans—”

“We can worry about fixing the blame later. Right now we have to get you out of here.”

Raesinia nodded, trying to focus. “Does Orlanko have anyone else watching the place?”

“There’s two men in grooms’ uniforms stuffed into a hayrick in the stables,” Sothe said grimly. “I think we’re clear for the moment, but that won’t last. You have to come with me.”

“What about the others?”

“Warn them if you like,” Sothe said. “Just don’t take too long about it. After that, they’re on their own. We need to split up anyway.”

“If the Concordat ties them to Danton—”

“If Orlanko figures out that
you
aren’t the wilting dove he’s been led to believe you are, he’ll clap you in irons until your father is dead and he’s got you safely married off, and this whole project is for nothing,” Sothe said. “Now come on. I’ve got to get you away before I can clean up here.”

“All right,” Raesinia muttered. She looked down at the body. “Don’t you think you should . . . cover her, or something?”

Sothe rolled her eyes and grabbed the trailing edge of the blanket, folding it back over the half-naked corpse. Raesinia hurried out to the living room, hoping fervently that Ben and Faro were still sober enough to walk.

MARCUS

M
arcus had a distinct sense that he’d been here before.

The trappings were different. He was in his office in the Ministry of Justice, instead of the vast, ruined throne room of the Prince of Khandar. The incomprehensibly formal Khandarai had been replaced by furious Vordanai, and the elaborate gilded wigs by floppy-brimmed hats with one side tied up, as current fashion apparently demanded. But the air of outraged privilege was the same, the sense that the world had been rocked out of its normal, comfortable course, and that someone was going to have to
do something about it.

“I want his goddamned head—you hear me?” shouted a middle-aged count with a florid face, who had apparently fortified himself for this meeting with several bottles of wine. “Damned
merchant
”—he pronounced the word as though it were something vile—“thinks he can put something over on his betters! Well, I’m not going to stand for it!” He was waving a paper, too fast for Marcus to read, but from the gilt edging he assumed it was a Second Pennysworth certificate. “If the king was well he wouldn’t stand for this nonsense!”

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the nobles, about a dozen or so of whom were packed into the office. They had a certain sameness about them, partly because they were all dressed almost identically, and partly because they were all cousins or second cousins twice removed or something similar. The fat, drunk one had nominated himself the spokesman, by virtue of being willing to say out loud what all the rest were thinking.

“My lord,” Marcus said, “as I’ve said before, we are investigating the matter, and I assure you that—”

“Investigating? Investigating! Damn you, I want to see a hanging by sundown!”

“If I may, Harry?”

A young man with a good deal more composure touched the fat count on the shoulder. He subsided a little and shuffled out of the way, allowing the young man to step in front of Marcus’ desk. He was a handsome fellow, with a neatly trimmed beard and immaculate dark hair. The fashion that made the others look faintly ridiculous actually gave him the intended air of nonchalant daring.

“I don’t believe we’ve met, Captain,” he said. “I am Count Alan d’Illphin Vertue.”

“Captain Marcus d’Ivoire,” Marcus said, a little warily. He was staying behind his desk for the distance it provided, and the opportunity to duck behind it if they started throwing things. “Forgive me for not offering you a seat, my lord, but—”

Vertue waved a hand graciously. “And I likewise apologize for the demeanor of some of my companions. Obviously, yesterday’s events have left tempers a bit high.”

“Perfectly understandable, my lord,” Marcus said. “I hope you understand that the Armsmen are doing all they can in the matter.”

“Of course.” Vertue smiled coldly. “Under ordinary circumstances, Captain, I would positively insist that the normal affairs of commerce be permitted to take their course. This is Vordan, not Imperial Murnsk, and we cannot expect royal intervention every time the vicissitudes of the market produce a minor catastrophe.” The tiniest flick of his eyes at the fat drunk, who was now muttering quietly to a couple of the others. “However.”

“However?”

“What we have in this case does not fall within the ordinary bounds of commercial activity, Captain. This man, this Danton, has engaged in a deliberate conspiracy to undermine the soundness of an otherwise reputable financial institution. He has produced a panic through tricks and inflammatory rhetoric. The markets are unsettled, and rightly so, for who knows what his motives are and where he will strike next? If the Armsmen were to take the matter in hand, it would be greatly reassuring to everyone.”

“By ‘take the matter in hand,’ my lord, may I assume that you want me to arrest Danton?”

“It seems the most expedient method,” Vertue said. “At the very least he should be detained until his true motivations are determined.”

Marcus gave a “my hands are tied” shrug. “Unfortunately, my lord, we must operate according to the law, which dictates that it must be the other way around. If we believe Danton to be guilty of a crime, then of course we will arrest him, but until then . . .”

Vertue smiled, but it was a thin smile, stretched like rubber pulled to the breaking point.
I wonder how much he’s on the hook for,
Marcus thought.

“Surely,” the count said, “under the circumstances, extraordinary measures are called for? Especially given the uncertainty of the political situation.”

Meaning that nobody knows when the king is going to drop dead.
Marcus put on a bland smile of his own. “Extraordinary measures are not my prerogative, my lord. I suggest you speak to the Minister of Justice and the rest of the Cabinet. If my lord the minister issues me instructions to proceed, I will certainly carry them out as swiftly as I am able.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken by the muttering in the back ranks. Vertue eyed Marcus, as though assessing whether there were any other levers he could apply. Finally, he gave a curt nod. “As you say, Captain. I will do as you suggest.”

“I wish you every success, my lord.”

Vertue turned, and after some effort was able to corral the rest of them out of the office. There was a distant shout from the fat man—“His head, damn you! His head!”—that was cut off when the door closed behind them. Marcus blew out a long breath and counted to three. There was a knock at the door before he got there.

“Eisen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come in.”

Staff Eisen entered, a thick wad of papers tied with string under his good arm. He shifted awkwardly, unable to salute, and Marcus waved him forward with a slight smile.

“Did you hear most of that?” he said.

“Couldn’t help it, sir.” Eisen deposited the papers on the desk, straightened up, and offered a belated salute. “Apologies for eavesdropping.”

“The way they were carrying on, I imagine half the building heard. What did you think?”

“I was impressed, sir. Where did you learn to talk to nobility like that?”

“It was on the syllabus at the War College,” Marcus said. “I think I’m a bit rusty. I feel like I’ve been washing my mouth out with soap.”

“Won’t Vertue go straight to the minister?”

“Let him. He won’t get in to see him today, that’s for certain.” He tapped a sheet of paper on his desk. “Count Vhalnich is meeting with the Cabinet, and requests my presence. I doubt he’ll be up to receiving guests. I’ll make sure he knows Vertue is coming.”

Eisen nodded. “He won’t be angry with you for putting them off?”

“I doubt it,” Marcus said. Janus was capable of many things, but Marcus didn’t think he’d hang one of his subordinates out to dry. Not unless he had a very good reason, anyway. “By the way, I haven’t heard of this Count Vertue, but I feel as though I should have. Or at least he
acted
as though I should have. Any idea why?”

“No reason you would have, sir. They’re not a military family.”

“Important, though?”

“Very rich, which is more or less the same thing. Their lands are in the Transpale, on the northern coast. About as far as you can go in Vordan before you get to Borel. Young Vertue’s half Borel on his mother’s side, and he’s married to one of them, too.”

“And I imagine they have banking interests.”

“So I’ve heard, sir.”

“That figures,” Marcus said. He turned his attention to the files. “What have you got for me?”

“Service records and incident reports, sir. For the men who were on the scene the night of the fire, and . . . uh . . . the vice captain.”

Eisen squirmed, obviously uncomfortable. Like most of the Armsmen, he had a deep respect for Giforte, and going behind his back like this obviously made him uncomfortable. Having looked through a few years of records already, Marcus was beginning to see why. Giforte’s attention to detail and sympathy for the men under his command were apparent in his reports, and his steadying hand had guided the Armsmen through the chaos of court politics and short-term captains.
Hell, I would have been glad to have him in the Colonials.

It wasn’t the man’s character he was looking into, though. He needed
something
—either something to tell him why the vice captain had put off the investigation, or else something he could use as leverage to make Giforte tell him. The latter prospect made Marcus deeply uncomfortable, but not as much as the alternative. Sometimes he thought he could feel Adam Ionkovo staring at him through three stone floors, waiting for Marcus to take his bargain.

“Sir?” Eisen said.

“Hmm?” Marcus had untied the string and idly flipped through the first of the files.

“I’m certain if you just
asked
the vice captain—”

Marcus shook his head. “Not yet.”

“What if he notices the activity in the archives?”

“If he asks you directly, you don’t have to lie,” Marcus said. “Otherwise, you’re just doing private work on my direct orders. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Yes, sir,” Eisen said, unhappily. Marcus sympathized with him—confusion in the chain of command was every soldier’s nightmare.
But I have to know. And since Janus doesn’t seem inclined to help me—
the colonel hadn’t found the time to come and speak to Ionkovo himself, or even send Marcus any instructions—
I’ll use whatever I’ve got at hand.

He picked up the stack of files and unlocked the cabinet under the old oak desk, where the rest of the material he’d gathered was collected. Once the new acquisitions were secure with the rest, he dusted off his hands and stood up.

“I’ll go through these later. Right now I’ve got to attend to His Excellency and see what urgent task he has in store for me. Keep an eye out for anything else that might be relevant.”

“Yes, sir.” Eisen hesitated. “Good luck, sir.”

—

Janus had an office at the Ministry of Justice, of course, but it was primarily for ceremonial purposes. He worked out of the cottage on the palace grounds where he’d established his household, and he’d already turned the dining room table into an impromptu writing desk. Stacks of notepaper were arranged across it in crosshatched piles, which Janus flipped through repeatedly in between every word he put to paper. A silver tray by his left hand gradually filled up with wax-sealed outgoing correspondence, and a servant periodically came and substituted an empty tray for the full one.

Guards in Janus’ red-on-blue livery surrounded the building, standing at attention beside the doorway and prowling the exterior in squads of four. There were more of them about than Marcus remembered. He recognized Lieutenant Uhlan, who favored him with a crisp salute as he passed through the doorway.

“Sir?” Marcus said.

Janus stopped writing and laid down his quill, carefully, on an ink-stained steel tray provided for that purpose. He stretched his right hand, fingers spread, and Marcus could hear pops from his knuckles. Only then did he look up. To Marcus’ surprise, he seemed somewhat the worse for wear. Even in the desert
temple, Janus had never shown signs of strain, but now there was a hint of red around the edges of his huge gray eyes, and his chin and upper lip needed shaving.

“What is it, Captain?”

“You asked for me, sir. The Cabinet meeting.”

“Ah.” Janus squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Yes, of course.”

He smiled, but the usual sparkle was absent from his eyes.

Marcus coughed. “Forgive me for saying so, sir, but you look . . . tired.”

“I suppose I am,” Janus said. “I’m not sure when I slept last.”

“Two nights ago,” said Lieutenant Uhlan, unexpectedly. “And then only for three hours.”

Marcus looked up and met the lieutenant’s level gaze. A certain understanding passed between them, the shared feeling of men tasked with keeping a superior from absentmindedly killing himself. Marcus suppressed a smile.

“Two nights,” Janus mused. “Well, I will rest once the Cabinet meeting is finished with. In the meantime, I have a great deal of work to do.”

“May I ask a question, sir?” Marcus said.

“Certainly, Captain, though I reserve the right not to answer.”

“Isn’t the Last Duke going to read all your letters?”

“Another monograph I must write, if I ever find the time. ‘On the Methods of Enciphered Communication,’ perhaps?” Janus watched Marcus’ incomprehension and smiled again. “Never mind. Suffice it to say, there are ways of baffling our friends in the Ministry of Information. The duke’s influence is all-pervasive and his clerks are diligent, but his methods are somewhat unsophisticated. I suspect that power has made him complacent.” He glanced at the table and sighed. “Unfortunately, these techniques require a considerable effort on my part.”

That wasn’t much of an answer, but Marcus nodded anyway. Janus got up, stretching, and retrieved his coat. It looked as rumpled as he did.

Once they were outside, with the guards at a discreet distance, Marcus leaned close and spoke quietly. “I wanted to ask you, sir, about the prisoner.”

“Which—ah. Yes. The prisoner.”

“I wondered if you might care to talk to him.”

Janus let out a long breath. “Eventually, Captain. Matters are moving more quickly than I anticipated, thanks to this Danton. We are walking a very narrow bridge, and I cannot afford a misstep now. We will have time to pry out the secrets of the Black Priests when things are more . . . settled.”

Jen’s voice, mocking Marcus from the back of his mind.
Are you certain?
He
wanted to protest but swallowed the urge. “Yes, sir. Speaking of Danton, I should fill you in on what happened this morning.”

He told the colonel about Vertue as they entered the palace through a side door and walked down its apparently endless hallways, whose decor alternated between glass-and-mirror confections and baroque wood-and-gilt monstrosities. The faces of dead kings were everywhere, chiefly in the form of Farus IV, crowned in glory, looking on in beneficent approval at the mighty deeds of his son Farus V. Later monarchs had added their own touches, though, and in addition to the heads of state a veritable swarm of second sons, daughters, wives, and more distant relatives stared down at Marcus from every wall. There was even a picture of the Khandarai Court, though it bore only the faintest relation to reality. As far as Marcus could remember, the Vermillion Throne had not been attended by rearing stallions and roaring lions, much less dragons and hippogriffs.