About two minutes later, a Jhereg I didn’t recognize came in, glanced at me without acknowledging my presence, let his eye flick over the rest of the room, and then nodded back toward the door. The Demon came through next, followed by another bodyguard, who closed the door. The Demon hadn’t changed much. I didn’t stand.
He sat down across from me and said, “All right. Talk.”
“Shall we get a drink first?”
“Talk.”
“You don’t want to be sociable?”
He looked at me.
“Damn,” I said. “And here I thought we were friends.”
“Talk,” he said, with a sort of “this is the last time I’m going to say it before I have people kill you and I don’t care what deal we’ve made or what the consequences might be you scum-sucking asshole” intonation to it. I’m good with intonations.
“A bunch of people want the number-one seat on the Council. I—”
“You applying for the job?”
I chuckled. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass. I’m thinking of going into dry goods.”
“Uh huh.”
“Terion’s got the backing of the Left Hand, for reasons we don’t need to go into. You—”
“You did it!” he burst out suddenly.
I raised an eyebrow and didn’t say anything. He grunted. “All right. Go on.”
“I can get you the game.”
“You can, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“That’s my business.”
“If you think that’s going to let you off the hook for what you did—”
“No, I don’t. Me getting off the hook isn’t part of the deal. But I do want thirty hours, just so I can finish this.”
“I don’t speak for the Jhereg.”
“Thirty hours from your people.”
“That would not be impossible. Let’s hear it, then.”
“South Adrilankha.”
“What about it?”
“I want it to be hands-off for the Jhereg. All of it.”
“For how long?”
“Let’s say ... until the end of the next Dragon Reign.”
“That could be quite a while.”
“Yes.”
“You are unlikely to still be alive by then.”
I chuckled. “That’s something of an understatement.”
“My point is, Lord Taltos, how do you expect to enforce it?”
“I trust you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Well, yeah, I guess I don’t.”
“So, then?”
“I have friends.”
He look at me and waited.
I said, “I imagine you’ve already heard about who had a shine put on her last night.”
He put a few things together in his mind and nodded slowly. “I see.”
“Yeah.”
“That would do it, I expect. You’re asking a lot, you know.”
“I know.”
“The Organization will grow there on its own, and it will be crying out for someone to run it. There will be a lot of work involved in keeping the Jhereg out of there.”
“That’s how I see it, too. But you know what you get for it.”
“Can you deliver?”
“I think so.”
“You think so.”
I nodded. “And, of course, if you don’t end up in the number-one spot, you don’t pay.”
“And your life isn’t part of the deal?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. What else?”
“As part of leaving South Adrilankha alone, you negotiate with the Left Hand. They’re the ones running it, and—”
“Your wife. That’s the meat of the whole thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. I was trying to figure out why you got involved in this in the first place. Now I know.”
“Uh huh.”
“You dived into this whole thing for her.”
“Yep.”
“Like a Dzur hero come to save the maiden.”
“You got it.”
“How does she feel about that?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Do we have a deal?”
“I gotta be honest. I don’t know if I can call off the Left Hand at this point. They aren’t under any authority but their own.”
“No, but if they get, uh, called off, as you put it, I think you can negotiate with them to stay out.”
He gave me a contemplative look. “I don’t know what you have in mind, of course. But that would depend on exactly how they get called off.”
“Yeah.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t give you an answer, can I?”
“I’m negotiating with them.”
“Negotiating.”
“Uh huh. If you want, you can show up for the negotiations.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll be meeting with them around seventh hour, give or take.”
“Where?”
“In South Adrilankha. There’s a district called Six Corners. Not far from there is a house, Number Eleven Stranger’s Road. We’ll be meeting there.”
“And I’m invited?”
“Yes. At least, that’s where we’re starting the negotiations.”
“And when will these negotiations be concluded?”
“Like I said before, I’ll need about thirty hours.”
“Then I can’t give you an answer before then.”
“Sure you can. A conditional answer.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re asking a lot, you know.”
“You’re getting a lot.”
“Yes, I am.”
“And, as I said, feel free to show up.”
“Yeah. I might do that.”
I gave him some time to think it over. A part of me regretted that I wasn’t still in the Organization, working for someone like him. He’d be a good guy to work for. And life would be so much simpler.
After a moment, he nodded. “Okay on the thirty hours. And, yeah, depending on how these negotiations go, I’ll agree that if you get me the position, I’ll keep us out of South Adrilankha until the end of the next Dragon Reign, or until I’m knocked on the head, whichever comes first.”
“That works,” I said.
“You know it won’t make any difference, right?”
“Hmmm?”
“I mean, if you’re thinking that you’ll be doing something to help those people—”
“I’m not. If anything, it’ll be worse for them, unless they find someone who knows how to run this sort of operation efficiently.”
He nodded. “She must be some kind of woman.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It’s too bad things worked out this way, Vlad. I’d have liked to have you working for me.”
I nodded.
“Good luck,” he said.
“Thanks.”
He got up and walked out, taking his bodyguard with him.
“Good going, Vlad,” said Kragar. “Now, can you pull it off?”
“I hope so,” I said. 16. Red Wine
There was a place I passed through when I visited the East a couple of years ago. It was sort of a meadow, extended downward from a bare, rocky slope, and ending in woods. It wasn’t very big; standing on the top of the slope you could see the woods clearly enough. But in that place, there were an odd collection of berry plants and flowers, and I happened to hit it at a time when they were all emitting their specialized scents. There were wild roses, brittleberries, whiteblossom, honeykeolsch, and clover.
I mention this, even though at the time my mind was on other things and I didn’t pay much attention, because, though it was of the type that is called “full” and “deep” and “strongly flavored,” there were hints of most of those in the wine Mihi brought to accompany the beef.
I set the glass down and opened my eyes.
Mihi winked at me and walked away as Telnan drank some wine and nodded. “Goes good with the food,” he said.
“Got lucky,” I said.
He flashed me a grin. Only one meal, and he was already figuring out my sense of humor.
“I’ll bet there’s a whole art to that, isn’t there? I mean, picking the right wine to go with a meal.”