The Traitor Baru Cormorant (22 page)

She worked in silent, taut fury.

She'd had enough. Enough of compliance. Enough of quietly playing her role. As far as Parliament was concerned, collapsing the fiat currency had marked her ineptitude not just on her permanent record but on her very heredity. Her dream of Falcrest, of telescopes and academies, of the Metademe or the Faculties or even Parliament itself, was dead. There might be recriminations against other Taranoki in the Imperial Service. They might even have punished Pinion and Solit.

She would not save Taranoke by excelling as the Imperial Accountant. She would never be a technocrat or a scholar or a member of Parliament.

But another way had opened.

The power of the Imperial bureaucracy lay in its ability to quantify and understand the world, so that those quantities could be turned into the wise expenditure of money and armies, the optimal extraction of tax and treaty.

Baru wanted to know how to quantify what the people of Aurdwynn thought about her.

She combed the census riders, the simple poll questions the Governor—and sometimes the Imperial Accountant—could attach as a way to pretend to care about public opinion. Frowning in frustration, she read:
census riders shall be reviewed and approved by authorized factors of the Governor.

There was no way to get the information she wanted out of the next census without alerting Cattlson.

She made a show of frustration in her exit. Later tonight, someone in the Jurispotence's employ would read the report:
Baru Cormorant displeased, as usual
.

At the Governor's House, climbing through the many murmuring rooms of her tower, she hit on the solution to her census problem. “Muire Lo!” she called, sweeping past his deck. “My office!”

They'd had three years to fall into a routine with each other, a routine that had to fit all the things he had been to her—nursemaid, guide, tailor, functionary, notebook, ineffective watcher—and all the things that she had done to him: his ongoing solitude, his cramped little quarters in the base of the tower, the ill-hidden discomfort that they both felt at his reports to a distant man in a distant city, the sharp dislike he had taken to the “unforgivably rude” Principal Factor Bel Latheman.

“Your Excellence?” He closed her office door, for privacy, and made a theater out of pouring wine, chiming glass against glass. “Another bank run?”

She went to him. “I want to add a little annex to this season's common tax form,” she murmured in his ear. “It should tell the commoner that ten notes of their tax will be allocated among their local duke, Governor Cattlson, Jurispotence Xate, and myself, for use in our own personal projects. It's up to them to decide how to split the ten.”

“What possible reason could I give?” Muire Lo looked at her in bewilderment.

“They'll invent their own reasons, I'm sure. What's important is that Cattlson has to approve the census rider—but he
never
reads the tax form.” She clapped him on the shoulder. “See to it.”

“And shall I make arrangements for these ten-note distributions?”

“Oh, no.” She went to the stairway door up to her quarters, pleased with herself. “No need for that. I just want their answers.”

She would make a map of Aurdwynn's loyalties. A map of the new road forward.

*   *   *

B
ARU
sat at the window with her knees tucked under her chin and considered the city.

If she did this thing, this would be the last moment of real peace she'd have for a long time—perhaps for the rest of her life, and no telling how long that would be. She'd been comfortable here, for all her failures, for all the currency she'd debased and merchants she'd ruined, all the letters from Duke Lyxaxu she'd left unanswered. She had a room in a high tower with a hot bath and a clever secretary. She could rise every day and set her eyes to the parchment, testing all her wit and learning against the unending disaster of Aurdwynn's financial collapse.

Had she been happy, all this time? Had the endless meetings of the Governing Factors, the men explaining her own job and policies to her in slow simple words, been a fair price for a taste of power? Had all the harborside nights, disguised in the dress of another woman with another homeland, another accent, another taste, been a delightful game, a proper challenge?

Beneath her window, a squad of garrison soldiers made a sweep of the streets, masked and gloved, checking the beggars and petitioners for signs of plague. Xate Yawa maintained a sanitarium on the eastern edge of the city, outside the walls, where Masquerade doctors of the Morrow Ministry studied the effects of ailments foreign and domestic on Aurdwynn's races. Some marked it as the finest experimental clinic on the Ashen Sea. Those with natural resistance would be bred widely—in this respect, men were preferred, as they could conceive more offspring in less time. Especially virulent carriers would, it was whispered, be whisked away on special ships to Oriati Mbo, where they could be released into the enemy's cities in the event of war.

You are part of this.
Tain Hu's voice, three years past, still close enough to make her shiver.

Hadn't she wanted to be able to change things, at the beginning? Hadn't she looked at the red-sailed ship in Iriad harbor and begged mother Pinion to explain?

But she'd had so long to learn since then—how could she forget all those lessons in Incrastic philosophy and directional history? She'd been made to understand that the Imperial Republic was a new and better mode of civilization, dictated by rational rules, rules that recognized the different and specialized abilities of the sexes and races, rules that could sniff out unhygienic behavior in the halls of power and the cribs and bedrooms of distant lands, before that behavior could crawl into the hereditary line and derange the blood. The libraries of the Imperial Republic brimmed with enough knowledge to make the hundred thousand stars of Taranoke's sky seem like a child's scrawl, a dim wonder from a less masterful world. The Justices and Incrastic scholars had named more varieties and consequences of sin than the children of Taranoke could ever have imagined.

How could she forget that? How could she weigh cousin Lao and Father Salm more heavily than the fate of nations?

Surely that would be irrational. Surely it would be better to walk the narrow, safe path. To remain an Imperial Accountant, rather than daring everything on this incredible gambit.

Her thoughts ran in cannibal circles. She rang for Muire Lo.

“Your Excellence?”

“If I want to change something,” she said, “but I don't know what, exactly, or how—what is the logical way to proceed?”

“Emperor Unane Atu Maia,
The Dictates
. In the absence of direction, claim and expand the freedom to act as you will.”

“Good,” she said, reassured somehow that they were in accordance, that he would understand:
get more power, so that you can remake the world
. “As I thought. I need you to make me an unusual appointment.”

She would go through with it, bind herself to this gambit, swallow this secret of secrets. This would be the first step down the new road.

She would give up her place in the Accountant's Tower, and take an awful chance.

Muire Lo had given her the connection three years ago, when they'd expected revolt at any moment.
Tain Hu's late aunt was married to Xate Yawa's brother, Xate Olake, the Phantom Duke of Lachta
.

The man who'd killed Su Olonori.

“I need to speak to the Phantom Duke. To Xate Olake,” she said. “Wherever he is, find him and bring him to me.”

Muire Lo looked at her in silence for a little while, bowed, and left.

 

12

“I
'VE
had enough of this,” Bel Latheman said.

Baru held up a hand to ward off the waiter. “Pardon me?”

They had met to be seen together, as they did monthly, in places Baru chose so it seemed she was making an effort at discretion. Lately it had been fashionable for members of the provincial authorities and the Trade Factor to eat in open longhouses, served by rare pureblood Belthycs, stolen out of the forests, who smiled and minced and offered trimmed venison marinated in citrus and barded with beef fat, or albacore, or sea bream grilled on redwood charcoal. With Aurdwynn's native wealth so terribly battered, luxury establishments had learned to cater to the foreigner.

Baru and the Principal Factor had gone to one of these longhouses, finely dressed, to eat in curt silence and vanish together in a carriage for a pretended liaison. She'd grown to enjoy the display of tailored gowns and underdone jewelry, the sly comparisons and jealous asides of dining technocrats. Bel Latheman had been meticulous in his makeup and dress, always leading the local fashion. In this as in his work, he was diligent and competent.

Somehow three years of mock assignations had lulled her into the assumption that he'd accepted this as part of his job.

“I said, I've had enough of this. I will not play my part any longer.” He cut his venison into small squares as he spoke, his eyes on his plate, knuckles white on his knife. “I'm quite certain, Your Excellence, that I need not describe the damage done to my reputation, both as a financier and a marriageable man, by our—our—”

“Arrangement,” Baru suggested, pressing the irritation out of her tone. Oh, it was unjust to think this, but why now? Why would this man make a scene
now,
with so much about to happen—but that was unjust. He'd been a perfectly pliant and useful instrument, both at the bank and at the dinner table. “And of course, of course, you needn't describe the damage.”

“Perhaps I do, though. Perhaps it is unclear to you that once one—mingles—with a very young and very foreign woman, one has established an entirely new and irrevocable reputation.” Latheman set his knife down with decisive force so that his plate rang like an annunciation bell. Everyone in earshot pretended not to pay rapt attention. “There are certain proprieties that you seem unfamiliar with—understandably, given your upbringing. One of them is the impropriety of coercing a subordinate into a personal affair. And another, many might assert, is the impropriety of granting Imperial authority to an untested youth when other suitable candidates are available!”

Her temper flared—how long had she expected to hear that from him? And yet it still struck home. With great difficulty she bit back her first retort, a Falcresti quip about the unsuitability of a man, concrete-minded and tactile, for matters of abstract figures and books. Better to take the opportunity: that speech would be a wonderful excuse to stop seeing each other. “Bel,” she whispered. “I will happily provide you with a graceful exit. You've done enough for me.”

He leaned in to hiss in return, his mock-mask eyeshadow meticulous and fascinating in its precision, his speckled-egg fingernails trimmed minutely. “There is no graceful exit from this embarrassment. I expect reparations, or I will—” He swallowed and pressed on. “I will alert Governor Cattlson to the rider you have introduced to the new tax form, this matter of
dividing ten notes,
with all its seditious implications.”

She counted five breaths. “What do you want?” Somehow she could hear the accent of her own Aphalone, as if drawn out by her anger.

“A lifetime pension, given that my career in Imperial service will likely never advance.” His lips thinned with determination. “And a marriage permit from the Office of the Jurispotence, for a courtship I intend to pursue.”

Could this be a honeypot, one of Xate Yawa's tricks? “No,” she said. “I won't have corruption on my hands. I'll sack you and give you generous severance. You can go to Xate Yawa yourself.”

He restrained a shout and it came out as a tremulous whisper. “You
will not dictate terms to me
! You've ruined me! Xate Yawa will never permit my marriage to Heingyl Ri without your pressure—”

Heingyl Ri. Interesting. Someone else found those sharp eyes charming, too. “The rider is an empirical trial, a harmless piece of research. I've nothing to fear if you bring it to Cattlson.” She shrugged with calculated calm, as much for herself as for the eyes on them. “And I've no idea why you expect to succeed in courting the daughter of Duke Heingyl. Marrying into aristocracy is a regressive game for a good citizen of the Imperial Republic.”

“She deserves your post. You ruin the fiat note, you overlook Duchess Nayauru's licentious games—what have you done to stop her? Do you even see the danger? The Lady Heingyl is not so blind.”

“Listen to you.” A careless sip of wine, calculated to infuriate. How like him to fixate on Duchess Nayauru and her lovers as some kind of grand menace. “Tangled up in fever dreams of kingdom and inheritance. Where did you go wrong?”

Latheman sat with great propriety and composed himself for a moment. She had underestimated him, she realized, and realized it again as he spoke. “You will help me, Baru. Or I will go to Xate Yawa and sign a sworn statement that in three years of courtship you have never shown so much as a
glance
of interest in me or any other man. And that—that truth she will hold over you forever.”

She could not help her reaction. It was the wrong threat for him to make, a real and revolting one, and it drew her to her feet, drew one glove halfway off her left hand before she stopped and made herself think. Murmurs rose around them as Bel Latheman stared in appalled shock at her aborted gesture.

“You wouldn't,” he said. “You've no one to stand for you except that spineless secretary.”

“Latheman,” she said, “I don't
need
anyone to stand for me.”

“I would refuse,” he said, chin raised. “The duel is a contest for peers.”

Her mind raced, testing possibilities and consequences. She could manufacture such an outrage, such a ruinous storm of whisper and counterwhisper, such an incredible spectacle—love, jealousy, corruption, impropriety, scandals of race and age and hygienic behavior. Everyone in Aurdwynn would hear of it.