Red Queen's War: The Liar's Key Part 28

TWENTY-FOUR.

Despite my fears I settled into Umbertide life like a gambler taking his place at a card table. I hadn't come for the night life, to attend the b.a.l.l.s, to savour the local wines, nor for the opportunities to climb the local social ladder, not even to find a rich wife-I'd come to take the money. Of a certainty I would be interested in many of those other things, wife-hunting excepted, in due course, not that a banking town like Umbertide had much of a seedy underbelly to explore, but I can be surprisingly focused when it comes to gambling. My ability to spend twenty hours a day at a poker table for seven days straight is one of the reasons I was able to pile up so prodigious a debt to Maeres Allus at such a tender age.

A number of major trading floors punctuate the map of Umbertide, some defined by the Houses that control them, others by the nature of the trades conducted there. I started on the House Gold floor so I could receive instruction on the basics from Davario's white-faced and humourless underling Marco Onstantos Evenaline.

"Stakes in business ventures of modest size are sold in twenty-fourths, shares in larger enterprises, even the banks themselves, can be purchased in ten thousandths. Though even a ten thousandth of a concern like the Central Bank will be beyond the pocket of many private traders." The man had a voice that could bore goats to death.

"I understand. So, I'm ready to play. I've got stakes to sell in three of the finest merchantmen beneath sail on any ocean anywhere, and an eye to buy." I looked out across the traders: a mixed bunch, House Gold men in the majority but interspersed with independents from many distant sh.o.r.es. The House Gold traders wore black with gold trim and smoked constantly, pipe and cigarillo, in such quant.i.ty that a pall of acrid smoke floated above the traders' heads. Can't abide the smell myself. Tobacco remains one of the few dirty habits that holds no appeal for me. "I think I can wing it from here."

"Stakes are purchased using the calendula paddle to attract the seller's attention," Marco continued as if I hadn't so much as twitched my lips. "Both parties then retire to one of the transaction booths after contracting a House Gold witness to officiate the paperwork. The sale must then be registered at-"

"Really, I understand. I just want to get start-"

"Prince Jalan." A prim and reprimanding tone, the first colour to enter his voice in my hearing. "It will be several days before you're ready to make any purchase on this or any other floor. Davario Romano Evenaline has charged me with your education and I cannot in good faith allow you to trade in ignorance. Your licence will not be forthcoming until I say you are ready to purchase." He clamped his pale lips together and craned his neck until it made the most unhealthy creak. "For sales greater than one thousand florins in value a senior witness, indicated by the green flashes on the lapels of the trading coat-"

"What about the clockwork soldiers?" I cut across him. "Is there a 'concern' that specializes in those? Could I buy a piece of that?" I didn't want to make any such a purchase but the only time I'd seen a flicker in those blank banker eyes of his was when Davario was discussing his ghoulish pet project, dead flesh on metal bones.

"Ownership of the soldiers rests in the hands of many private individuals and business enterprises. There is no central regulation, though the state, in the name of Duke Umberto, hold the rights to the Mechanists' knowledge-"

"The rights to knowledge that n.o.body understands . . . I think I'll pa.s.s on that one. But tell me-how many ten thousandths of House Gold would I need to own before I got to have a say in what goes on in your laboratories? How much would I have to pay over to find out just how far the Dead King's hand reaches into the things that get built below Davario's office?"

If possible Marco's face grew even more stiff and more pale at my impertinence. "The utilization of cadaver material on our mechanical frames is perhaps . . . commercially sensitive in detail, but not a secret in general. We contract input from independent experts in the field. Again, their names are not cla.s.sified information."

"Give me one then," I said, grinning as broadly as I could, trying unsuccessfully to spark an echo on lips so narrow and bloodless that I doubted they even had the ability to smile.

"I can give you three, one of them newly arrived in town." He hesitated. "But all information has value in Umbertide and nothing of value is given away."

"So would a thousand florins purchase the names of your specialists?"

"Yes." Marco reached into his tunic and drew forth a sale bill, no expression on his face but the speed with which he moved was enough to know that even the heart of a juiceless creature such as him beat a little faster at the thought of a thousand in gold. He placed the bill on the table and reached for a quill so I could sign.

"No," I said, holding out my hand. Marco studied it quizzically.

"Prince Jalan, why are you hold-"

"So you can give me my licence, Marco. You must consider me ready to make purchases since you just offered to sell to me."

I heard his jaw grind and click as he pulled the doc.u.ment from his tight black overcoat and handed it to me.

"Don't feel bad, Marco, old boy, I was born for places like this. Got an instinct for them, don't you know. This time next month I'll own the building." I slapped him on the shoulder, mostly because I thought it would annoy him, and walked off rubbing my hand. Despite appearances the man was built like a rock.

That night in my room at Madam Joelli's I dreamed of Hennan, running scared across a dark and stony field. It seemed I chased him, getting closer and closer until I could hear the ragged panting of his breath and see the flash of his bare feet in the moonlight, dark with blood. I chased him, hard on his heels but always out of reach-until I wasn't and I reached forward. The hands I caught him with were hooks, black metal hooks, cutting into his shoulders. He screamed and I woke, sweating in the black night of my room, finding his scream my own.

I spent several days watching the ebb and flow of things across House Gold's trading floor and made a few trades, small bets against the price of olives and salt. Salt is traded on huge scales, a seasoning for the rich but an essential preservative to everyone else, and despite Umbertide having a salt mine in the hills that could be seen from its walls, the city still imported significant amounts of the stuff from Afrique. Once I had the feel for the mechanics of the business, I moved on.

I graduated to the Maritime Trading House, a large sandstone edifice fashioned rather like a domed amphitheatre and situated on the edge of an extravagantly green park near the middle of the city's financial quarter. I call it a quarter but it's closer to two-thirds.

Each day from first light to midnight crowds of the wealthiest men in the Broken Empire gather within the airy confines of the Maritime House and shout themselves hoa.r.s.e while runners, normally young men with quick minds and quicker feet who hope one day to be doing their own shouting, carry trades back and forth. It's not so very different from betting on fights back at the Blood Holes in Vermillion, except the fights are just the differences of opinions about the value of cargoes being brought into various ports by ships which the vast majority of the traders will never see or care to see. Ships with the most distant destinations and which have gone unsighted the longest time attract the largest odds. Perhaps that ship will never be heard of again; perhaps it will turn up in three weeks laden with nuggets of raw gold, or barrels of some spice so exotic we don't have a name for it, just an appet.i.te. Ships about which some information is available-maybe a sighting a month back by another captain, or some word that it was fully laden with amber and resin when inventoried off the Indus coast in the spring-those ships are safer bets, with lower odds. And you don't even need to wait until your ship comes in to take your profit or endure your loss-any bet can be sold on, perhaps at considerable gain or perhaps for far less than it was purchased, depending on what new information has come to light in the interim, and how trustworthy said information is.

For my first two weeks I bounced along, breaking even by the second. Despite my natural flair for gambling, good head for figures and excellent people skills, even swinging the sizeable financial stick that my great uncle's ships represented, I couldn't quite beat out a profit. Some might say that working the markets is a science, a trade that takes years to learn as you build your networks and develop understanding of the various trading domains. To my mind though it boiled down to wagering, albeit at the largest casino in the Broken Empire, and what I really needed was a system. Also more sleep. Between the long hours and the recurring dreams of Hennan meeting one grim end after another, I was wearing myself thin.

Week three found me nearly two thousand florins to the good and back at House Gold depositing my collection of certificates of sale. I still had to wait in line, intolerable on two counts, firstly no prince should have to stare at the sweaty back of another man's neck and wait his turn-unless of course that man is a king, and secondly I sincerely doubted any of those ahead of me would be bringing quite such wealth to the counter, and surely any sensible bank should give priority to the rich.

I'd made most of the money on an arrangement to buy harbour s.p.a.ce in a Goghan port. By the complex magic of my system I wouldn't actually have to do the buying until much later on. Never, if I timed my exit from the city properly. A cough to my rear startled me from my contemplations.

"Prince Jalan, how are you enjoying your time in Umbertide?" The mathmagician I'd met on my first visit joined the queue behind me. He wore a striking robe of interlocking shapes, alternately black and white, a pattern that both fascinated the eye and told you the man's home lay very far from here.

"I . . ." The fellow's name escaped me but I covered it up pretty well. "Well, thank you. Profitable shall we say, and that's always enjoyable."

"Yusuf Malendra," he said, offering me the black smile of his caste and inclining his head. "So you're changing your skin I see." He ran an amused eye down the length of my attire.

I frowned at that. Kara had said something similar. I'd adopted some of the local fashion and spent fifty florins on fine silk shirts, brocaded pantaloons, high calfskin boots, and a good felt hat complete with ostrich feather.

"Style never goes out of fashion, Yusuf." I offered him a rich man's smile. A handsome fellow like me can carry off most looks, and although a prince is always in fashion it never hurts to put on the right display.

"You're a rich man now?"

"Richer," I said, not sure I liked the implication that I'd arrived as a beggar.

"Perhaps you'll be buying yourself some protection now that you're rich . . . er? A wealthy man cannot be too careful, and a man that makes his money so fast must be running risks. We have a saying in my homeland. Taking risks is risky." He shrugged apologetically. "It doesn't translate well."

"Perhaps I should." The idea had occurred to me. I missed having over six and a half foot of Norse killing machine beside me. I had only to b.u.mp into the wrong person in the street and I could find myself at the sharp end of an argument that no amount of money in the bank could save me from. And besides, annoyingly, Yusuf had the right of it: my system wasn't exactly the sort that would please the authorities if it came to light, and some muscle at my side might buy me time to get away if things ever came to a crunch.

"You'll find no more capable defender than a clockwork soldier." Yusuf made a question of it, c.o.c.king his head. "With such a one at your side you'd be a proper Florentine and no mistake."

Six steps ahead an overly tall merchant from the Utter East concluded his transaction and we all shuffled closer to the counter.

"I've considered it," I said. Actually I hadn't. Something about the things rubbed me the wrong way and, despite the fact that a soldier would properly signify my status to the other traders on the floor and the unwashed beyond it, I had no intention of having one of the things follow me about. "I would be concerned over loyalty, though. How could I trust such a . . . mechanism?"

"How does one trust any man? Especially when his loyalty is purchased?" The mathmagician drew his robes about him as if cold, though Umbertide sizzled beyond House Gold's walls and the relative coolness within would be considered hot by any sane man. "The Mechanists' automata are 'reset' when sold. A machine, of which two working examples are known to exist, is used to form an impression of the new owner and creates a thin copper rod, no longer than my finger, in which striations may be seen, presumably encoding the new owner's particulars in some manner. This rod is inserted through a small hole in the soldier's head casing and the transfer of ownership is complete."

"Fascinating." Or at least marginally less dull than watching the back of the neck of the Nuban in front of me, a fat fellow smelling of unfamiliar spices. "Still, I'd prefer a man of flesh and blood as my bodyguard."

"A sword-son, Prince Jalan. Buy the contract of a sword-son. You'll find no finer protector. At least not one that bleeds."

I made a note to invest in the services of a sword-son. Given that my profits all depended upon a "system" for delaying the payment of taxes and transaction charges via a complex network of traders and sub-traders, all of whom existed only on the forms necessary for their part in my scheme, it seemed likely that I would soon need to turn my paper money into gold and leave the city un.o.bserved. If my timing proved to be off then I might very well need someone to bleed for me-because I was d.a.m.ned sure I didn't want to do the bleeding myself.

TWENTY-FIVE.

Summer rests upon Umbertide's rooftops, sizzling on the terracotta, dazzling across whitewashed walls where lizards cling, motionless, waiting as all of the city waits, for the sun to fall.

For three nights the same dream haunted me, making those that had recurred during the three weeks before seem mild in comparison. By day I felt a modic.u.m of distress about Hennan-I'd liked the boy and hadn't wished any harm to him, but I hadn't signed on as his guardian or adopted him into the Kendeth family. The child had run off, as many children do, and it was hardly my duty to hunt him down amid the vastness of the Broken Empire.

Apparently my conscience disagreed-though only past midnight. Three mornings in a row I woke exhausted and harrowed by endless visions of Hennan in torment. Most often I saw him captured, many hands seizing him and dragging him screaming into the dark. I saw him curled about his misery on a filthy floor, ragged, little more than bones wrapped tight in a pale skin, the fire gone from his hair, eyes dull and seeing nothing.

On the first morning I hired an investigator to hunt for the boy. I had the money for it, money by the bucket-load.

On the second morning I paid a priest to say prayers and light candles for Hennan, though I was far from sure whether a few candles would induce G.o.d to watch out for a heathen.

On the third morning I decided that having a conscience was definitely over-rated and resolved to see a doctor in order to obtain some form of medication for my ailment. Worrying about other people, especially some peasant boy from the wilds, wasn't me at all.

Umbertide is a city of narrow alleys, whose cobbles are lit but briefly when at the zenith of each day the sun dips its fingers deep into each crevice and cranny. Along these shadowed ways men come and go about their business-their business being other people's business. These messengers bound on errands, bearing credit notes, invoices, transactions recorded and notarized, bring with them droplets of information, rumour, scandal and intrigue, and draw together to form a river, flowing from one archive to the next, filling and emptying vaults. You would think the blood of Umbertide gold but it runs ink-black: information holds more value and is easier to carry.

And today one among those many men was bound upon my business, carrying, I hoped, some small fact valuable to me.

The restaurant door opened and after some negotiations amid a huddle of waiters the maitre d' led a tall thin man, still wrapped in the blackness of his street-cloak, to my table.

"Sit." I waved a hand at the chair opposite. He smelled of sweat and spice. "Try the quails' eggs, they're wonderfully . . . expensive." I'd been pushing an exquisite meal around three highly decorated Ling plates for some while now. Caviar from Steppes sturgeons, tiny anchovies in plum sauce, artistically spattered across the porcelain, mushrooms stuffed with garlic and chives, thin strips of cured ham . . . none of it appealed, though it would require a full piece of crown gold to pay the bill.

The man took his seat and turned a face, as long and angular as his body toward me, ignoring the eggs.

"I found him. Debtors' cells for Central, over on Piatzo."

"Excellent." Irritation wrestled relief. d.a.m.ned if I knew why I'd wasted good money on an investigator-I could have guessed he'd end up behind bars somewhere. But a debtors' prison? "You're sure it's him?"

"We don't get many northerners in Umbertide-well, not pale-as-milk, G.o.dless heathen northerners anyway, and not like him." He pushed a small roll of parchment across the table. "The address and his case number. Let me know if I can be of further service." And with that he stood, a waiter swooping to escort him from the premises.

I uncoiled the parchment and stared at the number as if it might unravel the path that led a penniless child to a debtors' cell, or perhaps even answer the more vexing question-why I had wasted both time and money hunting him down? At least it had turned out to be surprisingly quick and easy to find him. The next thing to do was to set him up safe and secure somewhere he wouldn't run away from. Then perhaps I could recover from my inconvenient and thankfully rare attack of conscience.

The year I spent at the Mathema had armed me with the expectation that numbers held secrets, but had failed to give me the tools to reveal them. I'd been a poor student and the minor mathmagicians tasked with my training soon despaired of me. The only corner of numbers that I had any purchase on were odds-born from my love of gambling. Probability theory, the Libans called it, and managed to suck most of the joy out of that too.

"98-3-8-3-6-6-81632."

Just numbers. The Central Bank? I'd thought to find Hennan dead in a ditch or chained to a bench in some workshed . . . but not a guest of the Firenze Central Bank.

I stayed a while longer, watching the diners devour a small fortune, unable to tell how many of them were truly enjoying the over-salted delectables arranged in spa.r.s.e displays across their platters.

I turned to signal for another gla.s.s of Ancrath red. There's a noise that coins make when they move across each other, not quite a c.h.i.n.king, not quite a rustle. Gold coins make a softer sound than copper or silver. In Florence they mint florins, heavier than the ducat or the crown gold of Red March, and in Umbertide they also mint the double florin, stamped not with the head of any king, not with Adam, third of his name and last of the emperors, nor yet with any symbol of Empire-just the cipher of the Central Bank. That soft c.h.i.n.k of gold on gold, double florins sliding over double florins, accompanied my motion when signing for more wine, and, though it made no more than a whisper beneath the currents of conversation, several pairs of eyes turned my way. Gold always speaks loudly and nowhere are ears more tuned to its voice than in Umbertide.

Most of the people at their lunch were moderns, driven like all of Umbertide by the ebb and flow of fashions that changed with bewildering speed. Where fashion pertained to garments the only constants in Umbertide style were that it would be uncomfortable, expensive, and not resemble clothing.

I looked down at the number again. I should let him stew while I finished my meal. Under ideal circ.u.mstances I should let the ungrateful urchin spend another month on stale water and sc.r.a.ps. I munched a quail's egg, gazing out over the small sea of multi-tiered hats angled over plates. Apparently it was the fashion not to remove them to dine-at least for this week. I didn't have a month though. The time had come to leave town and delaying even a day could prove risky.

With a sigh I pushed myself away from the table, placed a cut florin beside the main plate, and left. The gold secreted all about my person c.h.i.n.ked quietly to itself and the excess, stowed in the case in my hand, did its best to pull my arm off.

The moderns watched me leave, eyes drawn by some instinct to the departure of so much capital.

Ta-Nam waited for me outside the Fatted Goose, at ease in the shade but not dozing. I could have hired six guards for the price I paid the sword-son but I judged him more deadly, and certainly more loyal to his coin, loyalty being the credo of the caste. They bred and raised men like Ta-Nam to this one purpose on some h.e.l.lish isle off the coast of Afrique, far, far to the south. I had taken the mathmagician's advice and secured the services of a sword-son as soon as I deposited my first thousand. The price of his contract left considerably less of it to guard, but even so I felt that Yusuf's advice had been sound-a prince should have the best and his protection should make a statement about the worth of what's being protected. In any event one of the beauties of Umbertide is the way that the magics of the market enable one coin to become many, floating on a network of credit, promises, and fiddly little calculations called "financial instruments." Perhaps for the first time in my life I was in credit and could afford the best.

"Walk with me," I said. "We're going to prison."

Ta-Nam made no reply, only followed. It took a lot to get an answer out of the man. Whatever their training entailed it took as much out of the sword-sons as it added, leaving them too bound to their task to waste time or thought on social niceties or smalltalk. I could afford to replace Ta-Nam with the city's ultimate accessory by now-should I want to. I'd made a middle-sized fortune staking ships of the line, merchant vessels under Grandmother's flag, against complex future options on cargo. With the wealth I'd acc.u.mulated I could afford most things. As poor a conversationalist as the man was, though, one of the region's famous clockwork soldiers would hardly improve things on that front. And besides, though there might be no guard more competent, the Mechanists' toys made me nervous. Just having one near me made my skin crawl. The constant whirring of all those cogs and wheels beneath their armour, grinding at every move, so many little teeth geared to each other, everything in motion . . . it unsettled me, and the copper gleam of their eyes promised nothing good.

Ta-Nam walked behind me as a guard that's for protection rather than show always will, keeping his charge in sight at all times. Every now and then I'd glance back to check he was still there, my silent shadow. I'd yet to see him in action but he certainly looked the part, and the prowess of the sword-sons had been a thing of legend for centuries. Muscled for strength but not past the point where a price is paid in quickness, impa.s.sive, solid, watching the world without judgment. Darker even than a Nuban, his head shaved and gleaming.

"I don't even know why we're going," I told Ta-Nam over my shoulder. "It's not like I owe him anything. And he left me! I mean, of all the ingrat.i.tude . . ."

We made slow but steady progress. I'd come to learn the layout of the city in the weeks I'd spent here-despite most of my hours pa.s.sing in the gloom of the exchange, bilking traders, playing the percentages, and lying from the hip.

Umbertide's narrow streets and grand sun-baked plazas hold a mix of people hardly less unusual than its most upmarket restaurants. The ubiquitous black-cloaked messengers thread cosmopolitan crowds. The lure of the city's wealth draws visitors from every quarter of the known world, most of them rich already. There are perhaps no other places on the map where you might find a Ling merchant from the Utter East at table sipping java with a Liban mathmagician and with them a Nuban factor draped in gold chain. I've even seen a man from the Great Lands across the Atlantis Ocean striding the streets of Umbertide, a lighter brown than the tribes of northern Afrique and with blue eyes, his robe feathered and set with malachite beads in mosaiced profusion. What ship bore him across the wideness of that ocean I never did find out.

The alley broadened into what might almost be called a street, bracketed on each side by plaster-clad tenements reaching five and six storeys, all faded and shuttered, cracked and discoloured, though inside the luxury would shame many a mansion and the cost of such an abode would beggar most provincial lords. Ahead a fountain tinkled at the crossing of two streets, though I couldn't see it yet, just hear its music and sense the coolness.

"Prince Jalan." The flow of the crowd thinned around me.

"Corpus Armand." Formally I should name him to the House Iron but he'd already trampled protocol by not listing my family and domains. I glanced back at Ta-Nam-when a modern discards protocol you know it means trouble. A modern breaches etiquette the way an Ancrath murders your family, i.e. it's not unheard of but you know it means they're p.i.s.sed off.

Corpus drew himself up to his full unimpressive height and stalked into my path. Behind him his soldier whirred into position, looming above its master. They made a curious pair, the modern clad in his close-fitting blacks, wholly unsuited to the heat, his skin a dead white where it showed, not a Norse pale, but an albino colouration achieved with bleaches and, if the rumours were true, no small amount of witchcraft. Behind him the soldier held almost trollish proportions, taller than any man, lean, long-limbed, glimpses of mechanism where the armour plates met, steel talons flexing as cables wound about their wheels or vanished down past the wrist-guard.

"Your note for the Goghan deal is void, prince. The Waylan and Butarni both refused it."

"Ah," I said. Being refused by any bank was bad enough. Having your credit voided by two of the oldest in Florence effectively ruled a man out of all the best games of finance that Umbertide had to offer. "Well, this is a grievous oversight! How dare mere banks impugn the name of Kendeth? They might as well call the Red Queen a wh.o.r.e!"

Ta-Nam moved to my side. Umbertide regulations prohibited the carrying of weapons larger than knives in the old town, but with the razored pieces of chrome steel at his hips the sword-son const.i.tuted ma.s.s murder on legs. Unfortunately the automaton behind Corpus was reputedly immune to stabbing.

Corpus narrowed his dark little eyes at me. "Nations stand or fall on finance, Prince Jalan. A fact I'm sure your grandmother is well aware of. And finance stands on trust-a trust cemented by the honouring of debts and of contracts." He held out the promissory notes in question, fine crisp doc.u.ments on the thickest parchment, scroll-worked around the edges and signed by my good self along with three witnesses of certified standing. "Restore my trust, Prince Jalan." Somehow the white-faced little creep managed to slide an impressive level of threat around all his formality.

"This is all nonsense, Corpus, my dear fellow. My credit should be good." I meant it too. I'd taken great care when hollowing out my finances to leave a skeleton of a.s.sets sufficient to keep the edifice standing for at least a day or two after my departure. All I had to do was transform my overly heavy heap of gold into some still more portable form of wealth-one that didn't depend on bank vaults, trust, or any of that foolishness-and I'd be off on the fastest horse stolen money could buy. In fact, if not for my investigator finding me at luncheon, I would already be at the doors of a certain diamond merchant purchasing the largest gems in his collection. "My credit is as good as any-"

"Suspended over issues of taxation." Corpus offered a thin smile. "The Central will have its pound of flesh."

"Ah." Another long pause filled with furious excuse-creation. Bank taxes on each transaction make it very difficult to sc.r.a.pe a legitimate profit in Umbertide's markets. I discovered early on that the real key to success was to not pay them. This of course required an ever more elaborate scheme of deferred payments, scheduled payments, conditional payments, lies, and d.a.m.n lies. I'd calculated it would be the end of the week before those particular large and potentially lethal chickens came home to roost. "Look, Corpus, old fellow, of the House Iron and all that." I took a step forward and would have flung an arm across his shoulders but for the fact he took a step back and his soldier looked ready to grab any arm that touched the man and fling it over the rooftops, with or without its owner still attached. "We'll deal with this the old way. Meet me at Yoolani's Java House first bell tomorrow and I'll have your payment ready for you in gold." I patted my ribs to make the coins bound under my tunic c.h.i.n.k for him. "I'm heir to the throne of Red March, after all, and my word is my bond." I set my smile on the offer and let the honesty beam out.