When I told him I was trying to track down the history of the Left Hand of the Jhereg, he got a sort of feral gleam in his eye and nodded to me.
“This way,” he said, and led me off.
His name, it turned out, was Deleen, or something like that. He was a Tsalmoth, and I think loved his work. He never asked why I was interested, never appeared to notice that I was an Easterner and never even gave me lectures on how he did his work—something that’s pretty much endemic to specialists forced to work with amateurs. I got the impression that sifting through disorganized documents and obscure books in order to pull scraps of information out of them was what he lived for.
I didn’t especially care for it, myself.
I noticed him performing spells from time to time and asked about them. He grunted and said something about finding recurring patterns of symbols within documents. I had never known sorcery could do things like that.
We spent about eleven hours a day at it for three days, most of it with him digging through documents and making notes, me standing there, occasionally holding things for him, or taking notes to colleagues of his which resulted in them handing me a manuscript or document of some sort, which I would deliver to Deleen. Every day I would offer to buy him lunch, and every day he would decline and shuffle off to eat on his own. We’d meet an hour later and resume. He spent his time about evenly between historical records and contemporary reports—most of these latter being in the form of quasi-legal gossip sheets. I observed at one point that I was surprised the Imperial library collected such things. He muttered something incomprehensible and I didn’t bring it up again.
It was not the most exciting time I’ve ever had. Loiosh didn’t like it much either—we weren’t used to being apart, and he complained of boredom a great deal. I knew exactly how he felt.
In the evenings, I would speak with my “investigators,” if I can call them that, and try to figure out if they’d learned anything.
Those are three days I would not care to live through again. On account of I’m such a nice guy and all, I’m going to give you what they call a precis instead of making you live through them with me. I accept gold and silver tokens of gratitude.
First of all, it turned out that Kiera was right—there was no history whatsoever of the Left Hand interfering with anything the Jhereg did. They were, or, rather, had been, entirely their own organization, with the only overlap being that they sometimes used the same contacts within the Imperial Palace. Next, I learned (or rather, Deleen deduced) that while the Empire monitored the activities of the Left Hand as best they could, they had never had much luck in actually prosecuting them for anything, except for the occasional individual who was caught with an illegal artifact in her possession. And third, it seemed that the Left Hand was even more loosely organized than the Right; they almost never exercised any control over their members.
Deleen kept digging away.
He’d occasionally ask me a question, like, “Ever heard of someone called Daifan?”
“No.”
He’d grunt, nod, and go back to work.
Then he’d ask about some incident in the history of the Jhereg, like the Shay Market Slaughter, and I’d tell him what I knew. He’d grunt and go back to work.
On the second day he said, “Who was Curithne?”
“Was?” I said.
He nodded. “He’s dead. Who was he?”
“When did he die?”
“About a year and a half ago.”
“Murdered?”
“No. At least, not as far as anyone knows. Who was he?”
“According to rumor, the number-one man in the Jhereg.”
“Do you believe the rumors?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
“He died, eh?”
But Deleen was already back running his fingers through sheafs of something called the Adrilankha Town Crier.
Curithne had died while I was gone. Interesting. Who was sitting at the head of the table now? The Demon? Poletra? Curithne dying would set off—
“Can you ask Dotti for the Candletown Flame for the last year?”
“On my way,” I said.
By the time—early the next day—that he informed me that there appeared to be some sort of power struggle going on in the upper echelons of the Jhereg, I had just about come to the same conclusion myself.
“It looks,” he said, “like no one has yet taken the place of Lord Curithne, within the Right Hand of the Jhereg.”
“Have there been bodies turning up at an unusual rate?”
“No. One sorceress from what you call the Left Hand was killed with a Morganti weapon not long ago. That’s been the only murder associated with the Jhereg lately.”
I kept my face expressionless and said, “Then there’s no war going on.”
“That would seem to be the case. There are certain actions that the Empire takes when Jhereg start killing each other, and—”
“Actions?”
“Certain departments within the Phoenix Guard are increased in size. Others are moved to the area where there is trouble.”
“I see.”
“Yes, and the Empire hasn’t done those things.”
“So, all right. A bunch of the bosses of the Jhereg are trying to get into position to run the thing. Have you found names, yet?”
“I’m looking for that, but it’s difficult. Even the small local sheets don’t like to give the names of high-level Jhereg.”
“Go figure.”
“But there is one who is known as Poletra.”
“Uh huh.”
“Another named Daifan, usually called ‘the Demon’.”
“Oh.”
“Hmmm?”
“I thought his name was ... never mind.”
He started to say something, then stopped, then said, “There are at least two others, maybe three. I’m still trying to find out who they are.”
“But no bodies turning up.”
“So far.”
“All right,” I said. “But what does that have to do with the Left Hand?”
“Nothing that I can tell.”
“Oh.”
“Although—”
“Yes?”
“Have you heard of someone named Terion?”
“Sure.”
“Would he be one of the contenders?”
“Probably.”
Deleen shuffled a few copies of some gossip rag, and said, “There’s a story that he has a mistress who is in the Left Hand.”
“You get a name of the mistress?”
“Triesco.”
“Ah ha.”
“Hmmm?”
“That means something; I just have to figure out what.”
“Oh. All right. What can you tell me about her?”
I won’t add that I felt like an idiot for not starting with her, the one name I had. Deleen did a bit of checking around and got me what little there was; then I headed back out onto the streets, and made my careful way back to South Adrilankha, Loiosh and Rocza watching over me.
“Hey, Boss. How was the library today?”
“Boring, but I may be getting closer to knowing a part of what some people think might be an aspect of a bit of what is going on.”
“So everything is solved, then. Good. What about the Irregulars?”
“The which?”
“The Jhereg Irregulars.”
“Loiosh, I’m not sure what—”
“It’s easier than calling them Those Friends of Ric Who Are Wandering Around Trying to Find Things Out for You.”
“Oh. Them. I’ll be meeting with a few of them tonight.”
“Good. That might get you closer to knowing a part of—”
“Don’t start, Loiosh.”
I did meet with several of them. We’d arrange to get together in some local inn, sit in a back corner, and talk for a while; then I’d move on to a different place and meet with another. It kept me busy, and I discovered to my annoyance that I was now thinking of them as the Irregulars. I was also starting to get a pretty good feel for the scope of the Left Hand’s involvement in the area.