Tomorrow, the Killing (34 page)

I didn’t say thank you. But then, I’d been badly raised.

The Old Man never seemed to be in a hurry – he could saunter out from a burning building. There was a long period during which neither of us spoke, during which any outside observer would think the two of us friends, or at least amiable associates. When he judged it had spooled out long enough he started again. ‘Strange, isn’t it, that Joachim would make a stink after so long in my pocket.’

‘Life is strange sometimes.’

It was the sort of petty banality that appealed to him. ‘Yes, indeed it is.’ He pushed the dish of candy at me. I pushed it back. ‘Out of character, one might even say.’

‘You think you know a man.’

‘And what in the world would have inspired the lesser Giroie to go on the offensive?’

‘Who knows why anyone does anything?’

He nodded sagely, as if I’d passed along some bit of profundity. ‘Indeed. As a particular, I’ve been racking my brain to discover what exactly determined your willingness to play the tattle.’

‘Didn’t have a choice in the matter.’

‘Our little Guiscard frightened you so, did he?’

‘Terrified.’

‘I’m sure.’ He took a sip of his tea and made a face, then added another lump of sugar. ‘So none of this had anything to do with the unfortunate demise of the youngest Montgomery?’

If I hadn’t already been sweating, I would have started. ‘Who?’

‘Have it your way.’

Another long pause. He raised his cup to his mouth, pinky finger elaborately extended, but his late summer eyes never left my own. ‘Do you know what the most important requirement of my position is?’

‘A dazzling smile?’

‘Facility with numbers.’ He set the cup down on the table. ‘People don’t like numbers – they like people, and they get confused when the first becomes the second. But I don’t get confused. For a while, I thought you were the sort who didn’t get confused either. But of course, that wasn’t true at all – you’re as bad with sums as anyone I’ve ever met.’ He lifted a thumb from out a fist. ‘There was Iomhair – no great loss, we might agree, but a tick mark just the same. The five Giroie boys guarding that wyrm shipment. Artur’s retaliation took the lives of four men – veterans, like yourself. They’re still pulling bodies out of the Hen and Harpy, so it’s too early for an exact count, but let’s say a dozen for ease.’ He’d been tallying them on his fingers, sharp flutters of movement, but this last addition overran his count and he tossed up his hands as if to acknowledge it. ‘That’s twenty-two souls, and we haven’t seen the end of it yet. Twenty-two men. Not sprung from the earth, I wouldn’t imagine, but bred in the regular way. Mothers and fathers. Siblings. Wives and children, perhaps. A strange sort of debt, don’t you think, which needs to be repaid two dozen times over?’

I scratched at the back of my neck. ‘That was a really long monologue.’

He snickered and folded his hands, clearing the ledger. ‘Doesn’t matter now, not really. The line has been crossed. Whatever his motivations, Pretories’ usefulness has ended. Of course, if this was all revenge for Rhaine Montgomery, I’m surprised you let a conspirator remain unpunished – knowing your, shall we say, rather savage sense of justice.’

It didn’t do to admit ignorance in front of the Old Man, but it slipped out before I could say anything. ‘What are you talking about? Pretories didn’t want Rhaine throwing mud on him, weakening his position before the big march. He arranged to have a man kill her.’

He looked at me strangely. ‘There’s a reason Joachim Pretories couldn’t achieve his position honestly. He’s too weak a reed to do what’s needed, not without long consultation. It was the same when we took care of Roland – you can’t imagine how long he dragged his feet before acquiescing in our designs. I’m not sure he’d have gone along with it at all, if I hadn’t had help persuading him.’

A pit was opening up beneath my chair, a dawning sense of horror at my own extraordinary foolishness.

Something of this must have shown in my face. ‘You never put it together, did you? The identity of our silent partner?’ I’d heard the Old Man laugh before, but always as part of his façade, as a tactic to lull the unwary into the delusion that he was human. But I’m not sure, before that moment, I’d ever heard an honest expression of levity cross his lips. A line of goose pimples ran up my arm.

‘You’re lying,’ but even as I said it I knew it was off – the Old Man didn’t lie. He never told the truth either, but he didn’t lie. You bluff with a weak hand, and the head of Black House held four aces and hid two extra up his sleeve.

‘I assure you, I very much am not. At the time of Roland’s death, his father was a hair from being High Chancellor. Even I couldn’t kill the scion of such an esteemed house without fear of repercussions. Happily, the general appreciated the necessity of curbing his son’s misbehavior. He was my back channel to Pretories, him and that Vaalan who laps after him.’

Pieces began to slip into place, pieces I’d overlooked or ignored. The fight I’d overheard the night of Roland’s birthday party. The general’s palpable misery the second time I’d been to see him, as if he already knew that Rhaine was dead.

The Old Man began to laugh again, laugh until his blue eyes swelled with tears. ‘Oh my dear boy,’ he started between chortles. ‘My dear stupid, stupid child. You set all this in motion, and you never even knew? Rather than risk having anyone learn of his filicide, Montgomery sent his daughter to join his son.’ He set one palm against the table to steady himself and raised his other against his brow. ‘You aren’t the architect of this stratagem – you’re the mark.’

I
started hitting crowds at Broad Street, a good half-mile from the epicenter. I didn’t know what count Pretories had been hoping for when he’d put this shindig together, but whatever it had been he’d blown through it. There were contingents of veterans from throughout the Empire, from every corner of the Three Kingdoms: Tarasaighns from Kinterre in brightly colored outfits, piss drunk despite the hour; lines of Ashers with clipped black hair and clipped black eyes, eternally solemn, taking no part in the festivities; Islanders strolling in full naval regalia, red velvet coats and gilded thread, grinning in the heat. Groups had been piling into the city all week, setting up makeshift shelters at the march site. They milled about happily near their lean-tos, swapping lies about the war, buying food from passing vendors, catching up on regimental gossip.

Joachim’s logistical abilities hadn’t faded – it was a masterpiece of planning, executed with extraordinary precision. I’d say military precision, but having been in the service I know that to be an oxymoron. Everything so far was legal as sea salt. The Throne couldn’t refuse permission for a march by the men who had guaranteed its survival. What they could do, and indeed had done, was surround the protesters by a cordon of hard-looking men in dark brown uniforms, carrying thick-headed clubs of the same color. Not city boys either, the hoax were too smart to let themselves get pulled into this mess. Levies from the provinces if I had to guess, bumpkins culled from the fields and brought south. Fifteen years earlier they’d have been called out to fight the Dren. They were the nephews and sons of the men they would soon be attacking, though it would have been too much to ask of them to realize it.

It was a vast host, too thick a chunk of humanity to comfortably force down. I hadn’t seen its like since the war itself. Reminded me of the war in a lot of ways, looking at the faces of men soon to die and knowing nothing can be done to stop it. At least during the war everyone was aware of the possibility of imminent demise. But the atmosphere at the march was anything but tense, self-righteous certainty buttressed by the joyous folly of the crowd. They’d have thought me mad if I’d tried to tell them what I knew, or taken me for a provocateur and lynched me from the nearest pole. Nobody likes being told they’re walking in the wrong direction, even if the trail ends at a cliff.

I struggled my way through the tightening mass, conscious of the hour’s steady beat. Closer to the front progress choked to a standstill, and I started throwing elbows and getting them back in return. The storm rumbled from a few blocks over, but from where I stood the sun was bright as it had been the last week. Too bright, you had to squint against it. Sometimes that’s how close it is, the line between the two.

There was a barrier separating the organizers from the mob. I saw Adolphus on the other side of it, not for the first time grateful that he was closer to two men than one. I hopped over the obstruction, ignoring the dirty looks of the unwashed. The press of people loosened enough that I could make out the face standing at Adolphus’s side. They were smiling to each other and talking, but they cut that shit short at my approach.

For a moment the ties that bound me to the giant, ties that were strong enough to have induced me to risk my life in getting him to safety, strained. I looked at Wren, then back at his guardian savagely. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’

Dimly Adolphus must have realized he’d overstepped, or perhaps our last interaction was still wearing on him, because he didn’t answer.

‘Not enough risking your own fool life, you gotta drag the boy in as well?’

‘I can take care of myself,’ Wren piped in, doing his best approximation of an adult. ‘I’m man enough.’

I cuffed him against the side of the head, hard enough to set him to his knees. ‘No, you ain’t. Not nearly. Get home, now.’

He peered up at me, then over at Adolphus, who seemed strangely apathetic, paralyzed by my arrival. After a moment he dragged himself off the ground, then slipped out from the crowd, shaken and pale.

I felt great about myself. Adolphus still refused to look straight at me, his one eye fluttering off at the margins. ‘We’d best follow his example. Right now.’

He ejected a thimble of spit from his square jaw. ‘I’m not talking about this with you again. I made my decision. It’s settled.’ A drop of rain splattered against his pockmarked nose.

‘Today ends badly.’

‘Never pegged you for a prophet.’

‘I got the inside line.’

‘From whom?’

‘The head of Black House.’

Adolphus shot a quick look around, concerned that my intemperate announcement might have made its way to the men surrounding us. ‘Keep your voice down.’

‘There’s no time for subtlety – the Old Man’s gonna make his move, and make it soon, and when he does blood’s gonna water the dust.’

He had enough respect for me not to call it a bluff, which I appreciated. But still it took him a while to process it, time we didn’t have, my heart beating near through my chest. Adolphus wasn’t stupid, but he was slow – sudden shifts of direction were not his strong suit. Finally he reached a decision. ‘Even if that’s the case – especially if that’s the case – I’m not going anywhere. These are my people. I’ll stand with them.’

‘Wren’s your people. Adeline’s your people.’ I set my palm against his chest and shoved him, playing the frantic, though it wasn’t hard to fake it. His bulk barely wavered, but at least it got his attention. ‘I’m your fucking people.’

He didn’t have anything to say to that, but then he didn’t have to. Stalemate would kill us both – I needed to shock him into movement.

‘Pretories is a Black House plant,’ I said, loud enough to make sure our neighbors heard it.

A thunderclap echoed in the distance, and not the distant distance either. Adolphus took a quick look around, checking the audience for signs of threat, then hissed under his breath. ‘Don’t be tossing that kind of shit around.’

‘He’s been working for the Throne since he let Roland Montgomery get killed.’

‘That’s bullshit. You got no cause to talk like that.’ But his voice fluttered.

‘Pretories bit the Old Man’s gold and didn’t taste the lead.’

‘How do you know this?’ Adolphus asked, though I bet he could have made a solid guess.

‘Because I was the one behind it – it was my way into Special Ops. I thought Roland was crazy, or maybe I didn’t – it doesn’t matter now. I did it, and Joachim was in on it, and he hasn’t gotten any better in the last twelve years. This . . .’ I waved my hand at the mob that was beginning to show signs of movement. ‘It’s a pageant, a way for the veterans to loose some fury off aimlessly. Except it isn’t – the Old Man thinks Pretories has got too big and plans to put him down, and when he does things are going to get bad, real bad, bad for everyone here, understand? It’s too late for these people, but it’s not too late for us.’

His mouth hung open, condemnation or confusion, I never did find out. There was an explosion from somewhere in the back, and an uninterrupted half hour of screaming began.

I’d been expecting its arrival. The Old Man hadn’t bothered to divulge specifics of his set-up, but the easiest way to do anything is backwards. Who was to say there wasn’t an extreme contingent of the Association discontent with Joachim’s policy of non-violence? Who was to say they hadn’t brought in explosives, set them off at the outskirts as an exercise in nihilistic radicalism? No one, not after today.

The crowd was as unprepared as a virgin, and in the immediate aftermath reacted with stunned confusion – but stampede was in the air as certain as the storm. The guards semi-circled ahead of us, however, were not surprised, not at all – if one had a grim turn of mind, one might even imagine they’d known about it beforehand. They didn’t march forward so much as surge, a coiled spring unwound, wading into the front ranks and swinging their big, knobbed clubs.

Pretories had filled the first rank with war heroes, men like Adolphus, thinking their status would be certain proof against violence. He’d reckoned without the Old Man’s savagery – a curious error given their history. Two men holding a banner aloft found themselves the first casualties, their message inked over with blood. An amputee stumbled backward over his crutches trying to escape, a line of medals pinned across his chest. Having lost a leg for his country, he had perhaps thought he’d earned the right not to be beaten to death by men in its employ. It never pays to underestimate ingratitude.