“The Left Hand does.” She started to speak but I cut her off. “I don’t know a lot about the Left Hand, but I know how they operate, and it’s just like that. Not to mention the Orca.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see that. What do you suggest I do?”
“The obvious thing is to arrest the rebels.”
“And you know as well as I do why I can’t.”
“The Empress wouldn’t approve?”
“And for good reason: that sort of thing just stirs them up and makes the rest think they must be right. Your peasant is a peaceful, happy sort, normally, Vlad, and having a few malcontents around gives him someone to feel wiser than. Knock ten of those on the head, and now you have a thousand in their place. We don’t need that.”
I wasn’t entirely sure about the whole peaceful happy peasant thing, but I had to agree with the rest. “Cancel the meeting?”
“The same problem, only not quite as bad.”
“Yeah. Well, break up this deal with the Orca and the Left Hand? Leave them no reason to go to the trouble? They’re practical sorts, you know.”
“How do you propose doing that?”
“I don’t know. Ask nicely?”
“Can you be serious for two words?”
“Not without great effort.”
“Vlad—”
“Okay, I know how to do it. Maybe. I have to make some assumptions, and after learning just now that the target isn’t Desaniek, but—what’s his name?”
“Caltho.”
“Right. After learning that, I’m not so sure about my ability to make assumptions, but I’m going for it anyway.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Identify the assassin, and kill him.”
She drummed her fingers on her desk. Then, “All right,” she said. “Can I help?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been threatened by the Left Hand. Or, rather, Cawti has.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re going ahead with it?”
“You know her. Wouldn’t you?”
She nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll watch her.”
“She’ll need sorcerous protection above all.”
“I’m not an idiot, Vlad.”
“Sorry. It’s just—”
“I know. Anything else?”
I shook my head, stood, and took my leave.
“Boss, I will never, ever understand flightless people.”
All I had to do was find the assassin. Should be no problem. Just look for the shifty eyes. Heh.
If you’re going up against someone, it’s always best to assume he’s not as good as you, and a little better than you. You need to figure you’re better, because otherwise you start second-guessing yourself, and hesitating, and doing all sorts of other things that don’t help at all. And better, because if you underestimate some skill he has, it could be very embarrassing. It’s tricky doing both at once.
Put it this way: Could I disguise myself well enough that I couldn’t tell I was an assassin?
Easy.
So, how would I get myself to reveal me, in a crowded room? How crowded? I had no idea. It wasn’t that big a cottage; you couldn’t get more than twenty or thirty people in there.
I ate, and I thought, and I didn’t come up with anything better than suddenly pulling a knife and seeing if anyone reacted like he knew what he was doing. I didn’t much like it. Then it crossed my mind that perhaps it would be a sorcerous attack, and I liked it even less.
Well, all right. The assassin would be there, or not; the assassin would be a sorcerer, or not. When you’re playing Shereba, and you realize that the only way you can win is if your opposing knave is still in the deck, then you play as if it’s still in the deck. Therefore, the assassin would be there, and would not be a sorceress.
“Glad that’s settled.”
“Shut up.”
I did some more thinking, and came up with nothing else, and eventually I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I hurt a little less, but I still had no interest in even moving slowly; the idea of moving fast just wasn’t any fun at all.
“Boss, if you spot the assassin, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to say, ‘Pointy point, you’re the donkey.’ ”
“I probably don’t want to know, do I?”
“I’m just worried about the possibility he never played that as a kid. You don’t think about assassins ever being kids, you know?”
“Yeah, that’s just what was on my mind.”
I stood up, slowly and painfully. “What if I was beaten just for this? I mean, what if the whole point was to make it impossible for me to take out the assassin if I needed to?”
“Yeah, Boss. What if?”
I didn’t have an answer, so I slowly got dressed and ready, and then, Loiosh and Rocza scouting for me, I went down the stairs and out. I picked up some warm, crusty bread and smoky, crumbly goat cheese from a vendor outside the inn. I love warm bread more than a lot of things you’d think would be higher on the list, you know?
After I’d eaten, I made my way to the West Palace Market, which is a good place to go for the best ingredients, if you can make yourself get up that early in the morning. I wasn’t there for ingredients today, though. In the far southwestern corner of the market, behind a stall that sells the best truffles in White-crest is a ratty-looking permanent store that sells pre-rolled copper tubing, and nails, hammers, springs, and various tools for using the above. It’s run by a Tsalmoth named Liska who looks as old as Sethra is and scurries about at a furious pace, her back permanently bent and her eyes looking up from beneath hair so stringy she seems to have lost her noble’s point. She keeps her cash in a box beneath the stool she uses on the rare occasions when she sits to dicker with a customer, while the customer stands on the other side of a wooden plank set on two barrels; the plank is a light wood, well-polished, and carved with depictions of a tsalmoth in various odd poses.
“What do you want?” she said when I walked in.
“A knife,” I told her.
She scurried onto her stool. She knew me, but admitting it would, I guess, give me a bargaining advantage over her. Something like that. “What sort of knife?” she barked out.
“Nothing fancy; just something to whittle with.”
She gave me a look that indicated enough suspicion to prove she knew who I was. I looked all innocent and shit. She showed me a selection, and I ended up picking out a small clasp knife. I tested the edge because it would have looked funny not to, and made sure it opened and closed easily, gave her an imperial and told her to keep it, and headed back out.
“Okay, Boss. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with that.”
“It’s pretty small; I’ll most likely just lose it.”
I still had a couple of hours before the meeting was supposed to start. Not far from the West Palace Market is a hostel called the Inkstand for a reason that was explained to me once but I can’t remember; I think it was something historical. There’s an actor named Ginaasa who lives there from time to time, and with whom I’ve done business before. Since it was early in the morning, I expected to wake him up, and I expected him to be sober. I was right on both counts, but he took it in good grace when I clinked some coins. I left there a bit later with a cloth bag containing a blond wig and a neatly trimmed matching beard, a bit of glue, and a jar of stuff to lighten my complexion a bit.
That done, I still had the hard part: if it worked, what then? How was I going to manipulate events to get what I wanted, just in case that was a possibility?