“Actually, I didn’t, but I’ll buy you one, if you’d like.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
It crossed my mind that if I kept buying drinks for people at this rate, I wasn’t going to be good for much by the end of the day. But if you’re going to be dealing with Ricard, and people Ricard knows, you had best be ready for serious drinking. If I dared remove the amulet, I could do a sobering spell. If I dared remove the amulet, a lot of problems wouldn’t even exist. I mentally shrugged; I was all right at the moment.
We found a place, sat down in a back corner, and I bought him a brandy and water. I had a mug of bad pilsner, so I could nurse it. “Thanks,” he said.
I nodded. He was short and stocky, with big shoulders that made his arms hang out, and had the same look in his eyes as those Orca punks who used to beat me up just because they could. I instinctively didn’t like him. To the left, there must be something decent about him, or he wouldn’t be Ric’s friend. But then again, maybe Ric was hoping he’d get killed.
“My name is Sandor. Ric gave me your name, because I need some help with a project, and I have some money to throw around to get it done.”
“Oh? How much money?”
“A fair bit.”
“What’s—”
“Maybe we should talk about what I want you to do, and then, if you think you like the idea, we’ll try to work out the money.”
He shrugged. “All right.”
“I know you know who the Jhereg are. Have you ever heard of the Left Hand of the Jhereg?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Who are they?”
“They’re sort of like the Jhereg, but they use magic, and are involved in different sorts of things.”
“Like what?”
“That’s what I want you to find out.”
“Huh?
“I need someone—actually, a few people—to find out what they’re up to.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never—”
“I hadn’t thought you had. I’ll tell you what to do.”
“What sort of, I mean—”
“I need you to ask around, without making a big deal out of it. But, you know, talk to friends, pick up gossip, that sort of thing.”
“Uh, how exactly? I mean, who do I talk to? Who would know?”
“I’ll point a few people out to you, people called runners. Once you—”
“Runners?”
“People who run errands for them, and deliver things to them. Once you know who they are, you sort of hang around them, see if they feel like talking to you. Or you find people they are talking to, and talk to them. Pick up whatever you can.”
“Yeah, okay. I know what you mean.”
“Do you think you can do that, without letting anyone know you’re trying to get information?”
“I think so. What happens if I get caught?”
“You don’t get paid.”
“I mean, will they do anything to me?”
“No, I wouldn’t think so. They aren’t like the Jhereg, they aren’t inclined to hurt people. Also, there is the matter of getting the information to me.”
“Hmm?”
“Well, I can’t have you and several others just coming to me in the open, one after another. It will attract attention.”
“Oh. What do we do then?”
“Do you know your symbols?”
“Sure.”
“Then what you do is write out anything you need to report, and you leave it outside of your bedroom window, pinned in place with, I don’t know—”
“A stickpin?”
“That would work.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll arrange to have it picked up.”
“Oh, so I get the glamorous work again?”
“Shut up, Loiosh.”
Ernest nodded.
“I think that’s it, then. Interested?”
His mouth worked. “How much?” he said at last.
There are advantages to having a lot of money. He agreed. Over the next couple of days, I had that same conversation eleven more times. None of them said no. After that, it was a matter of pointing out the runners to them, emphasizing the importance of not letting it be apparent what they were doing, and setting them to work.
By the time I had finished instructing the last of them, information was only starting to trickle in from the first of them. It would be a while before I had enough to be useful, and, by that time, I needed to have a more solid background. I did something I’d never had to before: my own research. I crossed over to the City, and, still in disguise, I made my way into the Imperial library.
I worked my way down to the history section, settled in, and started studying. 10. Salad
A young man I didn’t know came by and removed the plates with the remains of the fish, then returned a moment later and gave us each a slightly smaller plate. Then Mihi returned with a large wooden bowl, and a pair of wooden spoons.
Valabar’s has several salads. Today’s was a combination of the round and the tall, broad-leaf kinds of lettuce, along with flatnuts, blanched tomato wedges, soul of palm, pimentos, scallions, and artichoke heart marinated in sweet vinegar, which functioned as a dressing. A grated nithlan cheese—sharp and musky—was shredded over it, and the whole thing was topped with candied rose petals.
Mihi dished it up with his usual matter-of-fact fluid elegance, and my mouth was watering.
“What are those?” asked Te1nan.
“Candied rose petals.”
“Candied rose petals?”
“Yep.”
“Is that a term for something, or are they actually rose petals?”
“They’re actually rose petals. Candied.”
“Very lightly candied,” said Mihi. “They aren’t too sweet.”
“Uh ...”
“Just eat it,” I said. “Trust me.”
“All right.”
He took a forkful, a dubious expression on his face. I blissfully dived into my own.
After a while, I said, “Well?”
“Hmmm?”
“How is it?”
He swallowed. “It’s wonderful.”
I wished I had someone like Kragar to kick the information around with; he was always an excellent sounding board. In some ways, that’s what I missed the most. I could always talk to Loiosh, of course, but Loiosh’s job involved keeping my emotions balanced, not working over information and helping me look for patterns. Something about the way the reptilian brain works, I suppose.
But I didn’t want to bring Kragar in on this, which not only left me on my own as the information trickled in, but left me spending hours at the Imperial library learning things I could have had him get for me. It did give me a bit more of an appreciation for the sort of legwork I always used to assign him. If I ever spoke with him again, I’d have to mention that.
No, I wouldn’t.
But I did learn things.
The Imperial library is not, in fact, organized so you can, say, go to the far corner of the third subbasement and find a book called Here Is What the Left Hand of the Jhereg Is Up To. It isn’t even organized so you can find the history of the Left Hand of the Jhereg. In fact, I’m told that in comparison with various university libraries, it isn’t even organized. And, to make matters worse, the librarians tend not to be excessively helpful to Easterners; I got looks that ranged from the mildly puzzled to the downright unfriendly.
But, eventually, after wandering aimlessly for a while, I found myself among piles of unsorted manuscripts where I ran across a very tall and, for a Dragaeran, portly fellow with wispy hair and heavily lidded eyes who didn’t seem to notice my race. He seemed to be involved in making notes on these manuscripts and moving them from one pile to another.