'Hanse... consider the limits to my power. I am not a man named Kadakithis; I am governor. I cannot do anything about it. I cannot.'
Hanse looked up to meet those cerulean eyes. 'Prince, if someone broke in here to kill you right now, I'd probably defend you. But I would not try to sneak into Jubal's keep for half your fortune and all your women.'
'Alone against Jubal? Lord, neither would I!' Kadakithis came to him then, and laid hands on a thief's shoulders. His eyes were intense and large. 'My only request of you, Hanse, is... I just wish you'd agree to try to learn where Tempus is. That's all. Your way, Hanse, and for a lot less reward than half my fortune and the women I brought here.'
Hanse backed from under those hands, from those staring eyes so full of sincerity. He paced to the bed, and the hooded robe of a blind beggar.
'I wish to leave by the fourth window down. Prince. That way I can let myself on to the roof of your smokehouse. If you were to call in your sentinels for review, I'd be out of here by the time they reached your presence.'
Kadakithis nodded.'And?'
'And I -I don't want any reward but don't dare ever tell anyone I said that, or remind me! You'll hear from me -' he whirled and skewered the other very young man with a gaze like an accusation - 'friend.'1
Kadakithis was wise enough to nod without smile or comment. Besides, he looked more as if he wanted to cry, or reach out.
'I understand your reason, Hanse. But, are you sure you can manage to break out of here ... the palaceT
Hanse turned away to roll his eyes. 'With your help. Prince, I may be able to do it. I'd hate to have to try to break in. though!'
3
It might have taken a trained investigator from Ranke a week, or a lifetime. It might have taken a Hell Hound a month or two lifetimes (a Tempus lifetime?), or a couple of days with the aid of shining ugly instruments of suasion. It took a thief of Sanctuary less than a full day to collect the information. Had he had letters, he'd have made a list.
Since he was unlettered, he must reckon and account in his head, once he had talked with this one and that one and some others. Only one realized that he was actively seeking information, and that was because Hanse let her know. Now he made his list, in his head, while he sprawled on his own bed and stared at nothing in particular.
Tempus did not get on with the other Hell Hounds.
Tempus waged private war on Jubal. It was his own decision. (Not a good one; Jubal's business profited Thieves' World and Empire as well.)
Jubal was a merchant who dealt in human merchandise. He provided some few to that scrawny Kurd fellow of whom even hardened Sanctuarites spoke susurrantly and with glances cast uncomfortably this way and that.
In the barracks, Tempus had had serious trouble with Razkuli and that snarly growly Zaibar. (Quag had mentioned that to a certain woman under the most intimate of circumstances. A bad but common time for the imparting of confidences.)
Stulwig Northbom had spent a shining coin bearing the Emperor's likeness. Such coinage was not all that common here, although it was welcome. People of the governor's staff occasionally spent such coins. Likely then someone had bought something off Stulwig; someone from the palace. Stulwig dealt in potions and drugs and worse.
Harmocohl Dripnose had most recently seen two men conveying a sizeable burden to the lovely gardened home of Kurd. Harmocohl's impression was that the two were hood-cloaked Hell Hounds.
Hell Hounds were elite Imperial guardsmen and did not deal with such as Stulwig or Kurd. Indeed, at least one of them hated Kurd. Hardly likely that Hell Hounds would deliver a human package to him. Unless there was someone they hated more than the dark experimenter.
Tempus was missing.
The word was out that Jubal heroically sold no more human merchandise to Kurd the vivisectionist... a man with a Rankan accent.
Why would such as Jubal cut off such a source of revenue? For moral reasons, because Kurd did evil things to people? Hardly. Because Jubal had made a deal with other enemies of Tempus? Zaibar and Razkuli, perhaps? Because Tempus was now in the mysterious experimenter's foul and reeking hands, perhaps?
In an ugly dark stenchy room Hanse learned more of Kurd and his business. Kurd claimed to be dedicated to the god Science. Medicine. That required experimentation. But Kurd was not content to experiment with the wounded and victims of accidents. The pallid fellow created his own. And, Hanse thought with rather more than distaste, Kurd could occupy himself for a life time with one whose wounds - Hanse suspected and thought he knew - healed with inhuman speed and completeness. Make that superhuman, or preternatural. Tempus call-me -Thales was a man of war who had participated in many battles. Yet there were no scars on the man. Not one.
Tempus/Thales.
'You, I own, can call me anytime,' he had told Hanse, and 'my friend', he had called Hanse, and 'Just tell me not to call you friend', he had dared Hanse. And Hanse had not been able to tell him that, thus revealing and silently replying that he was close on to desperate for friends, a friend; for someone to care about him. For someone to care about.
Hanse sprawled supine on his bed in an upstairs room in the heart of the Maze, and he pondered what he had learned. He rose to pace and chew his full lower lip and ponder, with his soul and heart and longing all naked in his eyes so that it was good no one was there to see, for Hanse wanted others to see only what he deliberately projected.
All I need do is report all this to KUt-to Kadakithis, he thought. The Prince Governor who had begun his term here by announcing that there would be law and order and safety for citizens and had hanged, among others, one Cudget Swearoath, mentor (and father image?) to Hanse. The P-G did not like Tempus (and father image?) to Hanse.
It was all Hanse need do. Just report what he had learned and now suspected. Then it was up to Kadakithis. He had the power and the resources. The men and the swords. The savankh.
Surely that was as far as Hanse's responsibility extended, to Kadakithis and to Tempus. If he had any responsibility to that krff-snorting bully.
And... suppose H.R.H. Kadakithis, P-G, did nothing? Or if his Hell Hounds, the charming Razkuli and Zaibar, received their orders but only pretended to act? Did not Rankans protect their own? Did not soldiers obey authority? Was there not honour among those thieving over-Lords?
If not, then Hanse's world would be a-teeter. Despite his pretences there had to be trust and some sort of order, didn't there, and trustworthiness? Hanse frowned and looked about almost wildly. An animal in a cage it feared but could not escape, yet also feared what lay beyond the bars. Even the spawn of shadows did not want to live in a world that was askew and a teeter. If it existed, if the world was truly a thing of Chance and Chaos, he preferred not to know. Fighting it, he had learned to trust Tempus. He had been/orce(/to trust Kadakithis, because he was down a well up at Eaglenest. Later, disbelieving and resisting, he had learned that he could trust the Rankan. That disturbed his haven of cynicism and was hard to admit. But was not cynicism merely a mask on an idealist seeking more, seeking perfection, seeking disproof of his cynical assumptions?
Far better just to report what I know and leave it at that and go on about my business. That would be enough. Tempus already owed him a debt, anyhow, and had promised him a service.