The Red Wolf Conspiracy (11 page)

One shock chased another: she was still breathing, she felt no pain, she appeared unharmed. Strangest of all, the face of her attacker belonged to a friend.

“Hercól! You monster!”

“You are quick,” said the man, “and stronger than I recall. But carelessness trumps both speed and muscle. It is one thing to scurry through a park at night, another to do so with your mind in a fog.”

“I was so anxious to get home.”

The man's eyebrows rose. “If you dare make excuses to
me.”

“No excuses. I'm sorry, Hercól, I failed. May I get up now?”

The man lifted a hilt without a blade from her chest, then rose and helped her to her feet. He was a slender, elfin-eyed man in middle years, with unruly hair and somewhat threadbare clothes. Now that he was no longer attacking her he assumed a cordial air, folding his hands behind his back and smiling fondly. Thasha looked at her chest: bits of a glittering something clung to her blouse.

“Sugar knife,” said Hercól. “A very popular candy. Boys across the city play with those foul things, more's the pity.”

“I never thought my first fight would be with you.”

“Be glad it was.”

Hercól Stanapeth was her old dance instructor, from the days before the Lorg. But Thasha had learned (from certain military cousins) that he also taught fighting—that he was, in fact, from Tholjassa, where princes the world over sent for bodyguards. The cousins whispered of great deeds at arms, long ago, but Hercól would not speak of his past. He also refused to give her fighting lessons, until she began paying bullies in the street for black eyes and bloody noses. She did not fool him with this tactic, but she did convince him of her desire to learn. His price: strictest secrecy, even from her father. If there was no law against training girls to hit and kick and use knives, it was merely because such an outrage had not occurred to anyone.

“Let us be off,” he said. “Even I do not linger here after dark.”

They set off along the Ool. Bats skimmed low over the water, feasting on flies. In the south the countless stars that made up the Milk Tree were starting to wink above the hills.

“My letters reached you?” Thasha asked.

Hercól nodded. “I commend your decision, Thasha. The Lorg is an abomination. And of course I am happy to see you myself. What's that you're carrying?”

Thasha handed him the leather pouch, now slightly muddied. “It's just an old
Merchant's Polylex
. The Mother Prohibitor just gave it to me. She told me a strange story from it as well, about a girl called Erithusmé and her Nilstone.”

“She spoke to you of the Nilstone!” said Hercól sharply. “I dare say you won't find mention of that in the
Polylex.”

“The Mother Prohibitor said I would,” said Thasha. “But don't worry, I know the book can't be trusted. And this one's the thirteenth edition, so it's completely out of date.”

Hercól's hand froze. “You mean of course the fourteenth edition. Or the twelfth?”

Thasha shook her head. “The thirteenth. I saw the title page, before the Mother Prohibitor tore it out. Why she did that I can't imagine—she said it was one of the most valuable books in the school.”

“The
most valuable, I should think. And the most dangerous. Put it away.” He handed it back to her.

They walked on, Hercól frowning slightly. At last he spoke again.

“You're right, of course. A normal
Polylex
is a hotchpotch: the work of brilliant explorers and charlatans, geniuses and frauds, all bound together in a single volume. The newest version, for instance, declares quite seriously that Tholjassans cannot be harmed by Tholja stingrays. Trust me, we can.

“But the thirteenth
Polylex
is an entirely different matter. Each book is written by the Ocean Explorers' Guild, which is an ancient club of sailors and businessmen here in Etherhorde. His Supremacy the Emperor is their honorary president, and approves each new
Polylex
before it is sold. No one took the book seriously until a century ago, when the thirteenth
Polylex
was written. Its editor was a man named Pazel Doldur. He was the brightest historian of his time—and the first in his family ever to go to school. They were poor folk: his father and elder brother joined the army because no one starved in uniform. Both were killed in mountain campaigns. Afterward his heartbroken mother sent Doldur to the university, on ‘gold the Emperor pays to widows and mothers,’ she claimed. As I say, he was brilliant, and studied hard. But his mother soon grew ill and died. It was only decades later, when he was starting work on the
Polylex
, that Doldur learned she had given her body to lords and princes in the Emperor's court, night after night, in exchange for his school money. Her disease came from one of those men.”

“How perfectly ghastly!”

Hercól nodded. “Doldur lost his mind with guilt. But he devised a brilliant revenge. It took many years, but he transformed the
Polylex
into an honest book: honest enough to shame all the wicked men alive, his Emperor included. It told of slave profits and deathsmoke peddlers. It revealed the existence of the Prison Isle of Licherog—imagine, there was a time when no one knew of the place! It told how merchants buy children from the Flikkermen to work in factories and mines. It named the massacres, the burned villages and other crimes of war that kings had worked so hard to make their subjects forget.

“All this he hid, in bits and pieces, within the usual five thousand pages of flotsam. And the Emperor never noticed. Perhaps he never read a word. In any case, he quickly gave Doldur his blessing. The thirteenth
Polylex
was copied and sold.

“The scandal tore this Empire apart: others
did
read carefully, you see. Within a year, Doldur had been executed, and nearly every copy of his book tracked down and burned. Merely to speak of a thirteenth edition was dangerous. To be caught with one was punished by death.”

“Death!” cried Thasha. “Hercól, why on earth would the Mother Prohibitor give such a book to
me
?”

“A fine question. Twenty years have passed since I last heard of someone caught with that book. An old witch, I believe. On Pulduraj.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was tied to a dead mule and thrown into the sea.”

Thasha stared at the innocent-looking pouch. “I
knew
they didn't like me,” she said.

They crossed the footbridge over the old millers' canal. Hercól touched his closed fist to his forehead, as she had seen him do at the center of other bridges: a Tholjassan custom, he had told her, but what it signified he would not say.

After a few minutes the words burst out of her: “What should I do with this blary thing?”

Hercól shrugged. “Burn it. Or read it, learn from it, live with the danger of possessing it. Or take it to the authorities and condemn the Mother Prohibitor to death.”

“You're a big help.”

“Moral choice is not my sphere of instruction.”

Thasha's face lit up suddenly. “Hercól! When can our fighting lessons start again?”

Hercól did not return her smile. “Not soon, I'm afraid. Much is happening in this city, and for good or ill I have become a part of it. The fact is I must leave you in a few minutes, and before that I have something to say. Something it were best you told your father, and soon.”

He led her away from the river and into a dark stand of firs. Stopping by a large tree, he crouched low and motioned for her to do the same.

“Your family is being watched, Thasha,” he whispered. “The admiral, the Lady, Nama and the other servants—now you as well. Somehow they knew you were leaving the Lorg tonight. If one good thing came of your rash plunge into this park, it is that you lost your watcher. You very nearly lost me.”

“Watching us? Why?” Thasha was astounded. “Is this about what the ward-sister mentioned? An ambassadorship?”

Hercól shook his head. “Don't ask me to speculate. And the fewer people you speak to about your father's business, the better. Come now, if you tarry longer they will know you met someone in the park.”

They rose and walked on, fir needles crunching underfoot. Ahead, the glow of fengas lamps pierced the trees.

“Hercól,” said Thasha, “do you have
any
idea who they are?”

Hercól's voice was uncertain. “There was one, a man I thought I knew, but that is hardly possible—” He shook his head, as if dispelling a bad dream. They had reached the edge of the firs. “Tell your father,” he said. “And Thasha: tell him when he's alone, will you? Quite alone?”

Without Syrarys, she supposed he meant. Thasha promised she would.

Hercól smiled. “I nearly forgot—Ramachni sends his compliments.”

“Ramachni!” Thasha gripped his arm. “Ramachni's back? How is he? Where has he
been?”

“Ask him yourself. He is waiting in your chamber.”

Thasha was overjoyed. “Oh, Hercól! This is a good sign, isn't it?”

Again her teacher hesitated. “Ramachni is a friend like no other,” he said, “but I would not call his visits a good sign. Let us say rather that he comes at need. Still, he was in a jolly mood tonight. He even wished to come out into the city, but I forbade it. His greeting could not have been as … inconspicuous as my own.”

“Inconspicuous!” Thasha laughed. “You tried to kill me!”

Hercól's smile faded at the word
kill
. “Walk straight home,” he said. “Or run, if you wish. But don't look back at me. I shall visit when I can.”

“What's happening, Hercól?”

“That question troubles my sleep, dear one. And I have no answer. Yet.”

He found her hand in the darkness and squeezed it. Then he turned and vanished among the trees.

The old sentry at her garden gate bowed with the same flourish as two years ago. Thasha would have hugged him if she hadn't known what embarrassment the man would suffer. Instead she hugged Jorl and Suzyt, the blue mastiffs who waddled down the marble stairs to greet her, whimpering with impatience at their arthritic hips. They were her oldest friends, and slobbered magnificently to remind her of it. Laughing despite herself, she finally broke away from them and faced the house again.

In the doorway above her stood the Lady Syrarys. She was beautiful, in the lush Ulluprid Isles way of beauty: dark, smoldering eyes, full lips that seemed on the point of sharing some delicious secret, a cascade of straight black hair. She was half the admiral's age, or younger.

“There, darling,” she said, as those gorgeous lips formed a smile. “Out of school for one hour and you're muddier than the dogs themselves. I won't kiss you until you've washed. Come in!”

“Is he really going to be an ambassador?” said Thasha, who hadn't moved.

“My dear, he already is. He took the oath Thursday at His Supremacy's feet. You should have seen him, Thasha. Handsome as a king himself.”

“Why didn't he
tell
me? Ambassador to where?”

“To Simja—have you heard of it? Wedged between our Empire and the enemy's, imagine. They say Mzithrinis walk the streets in war-paint! We didn't tell you because the Emperor demanded strict secrecy.”

“I wouldn't have told anyone!”

“But you said yourself the Sisters read your mail. Come in, come in! Nama will be calling us to table.”

Thasha climbed the stairs and followed her into the big shadowy house, angry already. It was true that she'd complained of her letters arriving open and disordered. Syrarys had laughed and called her a worry-wart. But now she believed: now that those worries suited her purposes.

Thasha had no doubt what the consort's purposes amounted to. Syrarys meant to leave her behind, and wanted her to have as little time as possible to change her father's mind.
And if I hadn't been dropping out? Would they have left without saying goodbye?

Never. She could never believe that of her father.

Watching Syrarys, she asked casually, “How soon do we sail?”

If the consort felt the least surprise, she hid it perfectly. “The
Chathrand
should be here within a week, and sail just a few days later.”

Thasha stopped dead. “The
Chathrand!
They're sending him to Simja on the
Chathrand?”

“Didn't the Sisters tell you? Yes, they're finally treating your father with the respect he's earned. Quite the expedition, it's going to be. An honor guard's been assembled for your father. And Lady Lapadolma is sending her niece along to represent the Trading Family. You remember Pacu, of course?”

Thasha winced. Pacu Lapadolma was her former schoolmate. She had escaped the Lorg ten months ago by marrying a colonel in the Strike Cavalry two decades her senior. A fortnight later she was a widow: the colonel's stallion, maddened by wasps, kicked him in the chest; he died without a sound, apparently.

“Hasn't she remarried yet?” asked Thasha.

“Oh no,” Syrarys answered, laughing. “There was talk of an engagement, a Duke Somebody of Sorhn, but then came proposals from the Earl of Ballytween and the owner of the Mangel Beerworks and the animal-trader Latzlo, who was so mad for Pacu that he sent her a bouquet of five hundred white roses and fifty weeping snow-larks, all trained to cry her name. Pacu didn't care for any of them—said they all looked alike.”

“Of course they did.”

“The suitors, dear, not the birds. Luckily her great-aunt stepped in. By the time Pacu gets back even Latzlo may have forgotten her.”

“I'm going with you,” said Thasha.

Syrarys laughed again, touching her arm. “You are the
sweetest
girl.”

Knowing very well that she was not, Thasha repeated: “I'm going.”

“Poor Jorl and Suzyt. They'll have no one, then.”

“Use any trick you like,” said Thasha evenly, “but this time I'm going to win.”

“Win? Trick? Oh, Thasha darling, we've no cause to start down that road. Come, I'll kiss you despite your dirt. My little
Thashula.”

It was her babytalk-name, from long ago when they were close. Thasha considered it a low tactic. Nonetheless they pecked each other's cheeks.