“Why such an ill-tempered look this morning, Curabayn Bangkea? Does the rain jangle you? Did you sleep poorly?”
“Very poorly, your grace. My dreams prick me awake, and then I lie there wishing I could sleep again; and when I sleep, the dreams return, no more soothing than before.”
“You should go to a tavern,” Husathirn Mueri said, with an amiable grin, “and drink yourself a good draught, and have yourself a good coupling or two, or three, and then another round of wine. And riot the night away without trying to sleep at all. That gets rid of sour dreams, I find. When the dawn comes you’ll be a healthy man again. It’ll be a long time before your dreams give you the soul-ache again.”
“I thank your grace,” said Curabayn Bangkea without warmth. “I’ll put it under consideration.”
He picked up his helmet and resumed buffing and glossing it, wondering if Husathirn Mueri had any true idea of what was troubling him. Everyone knew how hot Husathirn Mueri himself was for Nialli Apuilana — you had only to look at him when she was around, and you could tell — but did he realize that practically every man of the city felt the same way? Would it make him angry, knowing that a mere captain of the guards was just as obsessed with her as he was? Probably so. I’d do well to hide this from him, Curabayn Bangkea told himself.
Husathirn Mueri said, “You weren’t at the temple for the Hour of Nakhaba this morning.”
“No, sir. I’m on duty.”
“Until when?”
“Midday, your grace.”
“And then?”
“To the Festival, I thought. To watch the games.”
Husathirn Mueri leaned close and smiled — an intimate, ingratiating sort of smile, a disturbing smile that signaled something unusual. In a soft voice he said, “I have a little work for you to do this afternoon.”
“But the games, sir!”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get to go to the games afterward. But I need you, first. To do a little job for me, all right? Something that’s vital to the security of the city. And you’re the only one I’d trust to do it.”
“Your grace?” Curabayn Bangkea said, mystified.
“The hjjk envoy,” Husathirn Mueri said, perching himself casually on a corner of the guard-captain’s desk. “Taniane knows now about his — activities. I mean his preaching, his corrupting of the children. She wants all that stopped as fast as possible.”
“Stopped how, sir? By putting him back under house arrest?”
“More effectively than that.”
“More effec—”
“You know what I’m saying.”
Curabayn Bangkea stared. “I’m not sure I do. Let’s be blunt, sir. Are you telling me to have him killed?”
Husathirn Mueri looked strangely serene. “The chieftain is deeply troubled by what’s going on. She’s ordered me to put an end to his subversion of the children. To stop it right away, and to stop it for good. That should be clear enough.”
“But to kill an ambassador—”
“There’s no real need to keep using that word, is there?”
“But that’s what you want. I’m right, aren’t I? Aren’t I?”
Husathirn Mueri said implacably, “The situation is critical. He’s creating an enormous disturbance in the city. This is our responsibility, Curabayn Bangkea, and by all the gods we’re going to deal with it responsibly.”
Curabayn Bangkea nodded. He was beginning to feel like a leaf being swept along on a swiftly flowing stream.
Husathirn Mueri said, “You’ll go to the games at the opening hour, and you’ll make sure you’re seen. Then you’ll leave, and you’ll make sure you aren’t seen. You’ll take care of the work that has to be done, and then you’ll go back to the games, where I’ll happen to run into you, and you’ll come sit in my box where everyone can see you and we’ll spend a little time together, just chatting, going over the highlights of the day’s contests. No one will suspect you were mixed up in anything unusual while the games were going on.”
He stared. “ I’lltake care of the work that has to be done, you say? You mean me, personally?”
“You and no one else. Taniane’s explicit order. What’s more, it’s essential that we mustn’t allow it to be traced back to her, or to me, for that matter. That would compromise the city leadership very seriously. Therefore you’ve got to do it, acting alone. Understand? And you have to forget it the moment it’s done.” Husathirn Mueri paused. “You’ll be suitably rewarded, of course.”
The only suitable reward, Curabayn Bangkea thought, would be the freedom to do as I please for a whole night with Nialli Apuilana. But they aren’t going to give me that.
He felt a burst of anger. What did they think he was, an animal, a barbarian? He was the captain of the guards, the upholder of the law. Why pick him for this filthy business? Couldn’t they have found some drifter in a tavern, who could be conveniently disposed of afterward?
I need you. You’re the only one I’d trust to do it.
Well, maybe so. That softened it, the fact of being needed, of being specially chosen. A secret mission at the chieftain’s specific request. Flattering, in a way. Unquestionably flattering. The only one I’d trust. A tavern drifter might bungle the job. Or might talk too much before getting it done. And this was official business, after all. Taniane’s order: put an end to the subversion of the children. A critical situation, yes. A threat to law and order, the spreading of all this hjjk-love.
His annoyance subsided a little.
In any case he saw that he had no choice but to go along with it, like it or not. He was in this too deep already. He knew too much. Now he had to play the game out. Serve your masters loyally, rise to the top. Turn your back on them when they need you, and it’ll be the finish for you.
“You aren’t going to let us down, are you?” Husathirn Mueri asked, as if he had been using second sight on him.
“Not at all, your grace.”
“What’s troubling you, then?”
“I’d like to know a little more about the payment that’s involved, if that’s all right.”
Smoothly Husathirn Mueri said, “This whole thing has come up so quickly that I haven’t had time to work out the details. I’ll be able to tell you that this afternoon, at the games. But one thing I promise you: it’ll be suitable. More than suitable.” The ingratiating smile again, soothing, conspiratoriaclass="underline" we’re all in this together, and one hand washes the other. “You’ll be well taken care of,” Husathirn Mueri said. “You know you can trust me on that score. Can I count on you?”
I’d sooner trust in a rat-wolf, Curabayn Bangkea thought. But there was no turning back.
“Of course you can,” he said.
Afterward, when Husathirn Mueri was gone, Curabayn Bangkea sat quietly for a time, letting the breath travel in and out of his body. He was past the first shock. His anger was gone, and he was beginning to see the benefits.
Not just the advantage that would accrue from carrying out a sensitive and secret mission for which he’d been specially selected, or the power that his part in the removal of Kundalimon would give him over Husathirn Mueri and even over Taniane. But also there was the killing itself, what it would accomplish. The clearing away of something infuriating, something unacceptable. If I can’t have her, he thought, at least he won’t either. It was pleasing to think about, the killing itself. To come up behind the man who had made himself Nialli Apuilana’s lover — to seize him, to pull him into a dark corridor, to snuff the life from him—
That might just be the purgation he needed, freeing him from this torrent of impossible thoughts that tormented him. The obsession that had possessed him for so long. For days, now, nothing but Nialli Apuilana on his mind. Hardly any sleep, no rest at all. Nialli Apuilana and Kundalimon, Kundalimon and Nialli Apuilana. Feverish fantasies. Imagining her in that little room with the hjjk emissary, picturing him enfolding her in some weird caress he’d learned in the Nest, some bizarre scrabbling hjjk-like maneuver, vile and revolting. Bringing ecstatic gasps from her as she lay in his arms.