Sins of Empire

Chapter 43

Michel jogged up the steps to the Millinery courtyard, Gold Rose dangling from a chain around his neck, tapping gently against his chest. He shaded his face from the afternoon sun, realizing he’d left his hat on the desk of his new office. It was not, he decided, an auspicious start to his new command.

The word “command” felt foreign – so military and public, far from what he was used to – but after spending all night and most of the morning being briefed about his new responsibilities as a Gold Rose, he felt it was the most fitting word to use. Silver Roses were, technically, just one rank under a Gold Rose. But there were a lot of Silver Roses, and he’d always remained in the shadows, working alone, only taking advantage of his rank when he needed a couple of bodyguards or someone roughed up.

A few days ago the idea of bossing around a few dozen Iron and Bronze Roses had been a novel one, though ill-fitting. Now he was expected to take charge of more than six hundred Roses of all ranks and conduct a search for Benjamin Styke and a whole company of angry veterans.

“How hard will it be to find three hundred or so retired cavalry?” he asked himself.

“I don’t know,” he responded sarcastically. “How about you wander into the streets and ask around for the lancer unit that put the entire Kez army on edge?”

“That was ten years ago. They’re all washed up.”

“Tell that to the guards at the labor camp they set fire to last night.”

Michel rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t going to be alone in the search. Oh, definitely not. More than ten thousand Blackhats and twice that many in city police were currently combing the streets. He wondered how the pit this had been his first assignment, before remembering the wild look in Jes’s eye when he demanded Styke’s head. Every single Gold Rose – and everyone under them – had been told to look for Styke.

He wondered what his next assignment would be once Styke had been found and put down. His only real expertise was spycraft. Maybe Jes would allow him to organize the Blackhats’ spies and let him set up a real training program. He’d daydreamed a hundred times what kind of changes he’d make if he were in charge, and now that looked like a real possibility.

Put him in charge of information, and he could bring the whole organization to its knees.

Michel slapped himself sharply, letting the pain bring him back to his senses. He still hadn’t managed to put the real Michel back into his marble, and he could feel it slipping through. He needed to focus. He was a Gold Rose, and he needed to act and think exactly like one. He needed to blend in and do his job.

Except now he didn’t just have to work and wait. He had an active assignment from Taniel to find these so-called godstones.

“Sir,” a voice said. Michel glanced up to find Agent Warsim approaching from down the fortifications. Warsim had been present for about a third of Michel’s new briefing as he, too, had been promoted – to Michel’s second in command. He wore his new Silver Rose proudly around his neck and nodded respectfully. “Didn’t expect to find you up here, sir.”

“Just, uh…” Michel glanced down into the courtyard, where Blackhats rushed back and forth, prison wagons being loaded down and sent out and men coming in with reports. He couldn’t say he came up here to try to sort out the two different sides of his personality. “Watching the chaos for a moment.” He shaded his eyes with one hand and wondered if he was ever going to get a good night’s sleep again. He’d managed just two hours this morning after Dellina’s briefing ended.

“I’ve assembled your Roses as you asked,” Warsim said.

“I did? Oh, right. Very good. We’re supposed to be looking for this Styke, correct?”

Warsim shuffled his feet nervously, a confused expression on his face. “That’s right, sir.”

“Okay, where?”

“Um, everywhere, sir.”

“I meant us, specifically.”

Warsim seemed to process this latest question. “Everywhere, sir.”

Michel opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Hm.” Warsim was by no means an idiot, but he’d never struck Michel as particularly smart, either. His advancement to Silver Rose was a fluke – or rather, Michel had requested it personally. Michel needed someone he knew reasonably well, who wouldn’t ask questions, and took very little personal initiative. “Okay, where is everyone else searching? Let’s start with eliminating those areas.”

“I’m afraid that it’s not very organized,” Warsim said, producing a thick file from beneath his arm and flipping through it. “Controller Britt has his men searching all of Styke’s old haunts and known associates. Other than that…” He ended with a shrug.

“It’s a bloody free-for-all?”

“Yes, sir.”

Michel turned away and rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. The most feared organization on this side of the planet, and the Blackhats fell to pieces once Fidelis Jes went out of sorts. Controller Britt was the seniormost Gold Rose, with two thousand men under his command, so he had claimed the easy stuff. Everyone else was now scrambling, hoping to be the first ones to find Styke and, probably, get some kind of favor with Jes and Lindet.

It was the first inkling Michel had that there was a pecking order even among the Gold Roses, and it did not please him. “Maybe I won’t be getting to do as I like after all,” he muttered to himself.

“What’s that, sir?” Warsim asked.

“Nothing.” Michel resisted the urge to give himself another slap. Focus. You can be a Gold Rose and accomplish your real goal. If you can’t, you’ll have done all this work for nothing. Michel turned his attention back to the chaos, trying to come up with some kind of plan. “You’ve got a military background, don’t you?” he asked Warsim.

“I do, sir. Major in the infantry right after the war.”

“You understand drilling, lines, grids, patterns. Correct?”

Warsim shifted. “I suppose so, sir?”

“Fantastic. Because I bloody well don’t. Take our men down to the docks. Lots of places to hide down there. Search every ship at moor. I want reports on my desk every hour.”

“Yes, sir!” Warsim turned to go, but Michel stopped him with a word.

“Oh, and Warsim?”

“Yes, sir?”

“How many men do you think we have left in the Millinery?” He watched as the last of the prison wagons left the courtyard, a lone Iron Rose crossing the cobbles in its wake.

“Practically no one, sir. Everyone’s out looking for Styke.”

“Right. Get going.”

Michel chewed on the inside of his cheek as he watched Warsim sprint down the stairs and then through the Millinery gate and down the street.

Michel could go down and oversee the search himself. It’s what all the other Gold Roses were doing. He could get some rest and try to digest everything that Dellina had briefed him on last night, including state secrets that he was sure Taniel would love to get his hands on – half of which he’d already forgotten.

He could bide his time, waiting for this Styke thing to blow over and securing his new place among the Gold Roses, becoming indispensable and trusted until he could just walk in and ask for any secrets he could possibly want to know.

The Millinery was all but empty. The chaos might be enough to conceal anything he got up to between now and whenever Warsim started to bring him reports.

And what the pit, Michel felt the need to do something really dangerous.

The Millinery archives had two sections. One was almost like a private library for the Blackhats. It contained criminal records, city ordinances, duplicates of police reports, and a hundred other useful types of information that anyone from Bronze Rose on up had access to at all times. It occupied three floors of the west wing of the Millinery and had a half dozen attendants, but Michel had often gone an entire day there without meeting another soul.

The second section of the archives was on the fourth floor of the west wing. It was accessible by a single stairway in one corner of the lower archives, which itself was blocked by a thick iron gate.

Michel entered the archives on the first floor and made his way up, careful to avoid the two attendants and three Blackhats he passed. By the time he’d reached the third floor his hands shook, and he wondered what he had gotten himself into.

“You’re a spy, Michel,” he muttered to himself. “Pull it together.”

“I can be nervous if I want to.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re trembling like the first time you ever nicked a purse. You can do this.”

“Can I? If I get caught it won’t be for nicking a purse. I’ll be tortured and killed.”

“No you won’t, you fool. You’re a Gold Rose now. You’re supposed to be here.”

Dellina’s briefing the night before had included a brief overview of the upper archives. Extremely brief. The upper archives were for necessary use only, and someone would give him the tour once this whole Styke mess was over.

“What if someone asks why you’re here? What will you say then?”

“You’ll come up with something. You always do.”

“That’s a terrible plan.”

“Says you.”

“You should wait,” he whispered.

“Coward,” he muttered back at himself, and headed toward the locked stairwell in the corner. He passed row after row of high shelves, stacked two rows deep with crates and paper boxes – all the secrets of Landfall. He reached the iron gate, checked over one shoulder, and knelt down in front of it to examine the lock.

It was not a basic keyhole. There was a slight, rounded indentation with seven wavy lines, each appearing to catch a separate mechanism. The lock itself was thick enough that blasting powder might not even be able to break it, and the mechanisms were protected behind polished steel.

He checked the hinges and the iron gate, noting that it didn’t budge even in the slightest. “If I were a betting man, I’d say this is warded.”

“You don’t want anything to do with sorcery,” he said back to himself.

“Right.” He knelt down, turning his attention back to the lock before frowning. Those seven wavy lines looked awfully familiar. He touched them gently with one finger, frowning, until it dawned on him. Like the inverse of a Rose.

He drew the Gold Rose out of his shirt and looked at it closely, noting that there was a small raised portion in the center that his Silver Rose didn’t have. Holding it in two fingers, rose out, he pressed the medallion into the lock and turned.

There was a series of clicks, then the sound of steel striking steel. The gate swung open at his touch.

“That,” he whispered, “was too stupidly easy.”

He left the gate slightly ajar and took the stairs to the fourth floor. As he entered the room he realized just how flawed his plan was.

The upper archives was as large as any of the floors beneath it. The long room had vaulted ceilings, and high windows cast lines of afternoon light through the swirling dust. Dozens of rows of files went on for at least a hundred feet, leaving him thousands of boxes, books, and files to look through. It would take months to search all of it.

All for a reference to these godstones Taniel needed found.

He searched the closest shelves for some kind of index, hoping that whoever kept the upper archives in order followed the same protocols as the attendants who took care of the lower archives.

Nothing.

He walked down the rows, tapping his fingers on boxes, hoping to find something that looked promising. He took out boxes at random, removing cloth-bound notebooks and single, apparently unrelated pieces of paper, leafing through them gently. One vellum manuscript appeared to be brand-new, while another note card crumbled to dust the moment his fingers touched it.

He sneezed, scattering the remains across two aisles.

“That’s probably not good,” he said under his breath, quickly heading to the next row of files. He was at once curious and terrified, listening to the steady thump of his own heart as he remained acutely aware of the open gate at the bottom of the stairs, and the unknown consequences if he was caught up here.

“Remember,” he said to himself, “if someone finds you, pretend to belong here. People rarely question someone who looks like they know what they’re doing.”

He’d tested the theory on dozens of occasions, but somehow this place was far more taboo than any other he’d attempted to bluff his way through. The fact he didn’t actually know if he was allowed to be here made his nerves all the worse.

He finally found an index at the far end of the hall. It took fifteen minutes to figure out how it was ordered, and another five to find what he was looking for, each of those minutes ticking by loudly on his pocket watch, precipitating dozens of nervous glances toward the stairs.

A long search provided him with a single volume labeled Godstone. He opened it eagerly, leafing through the pages for several seconds before his heart fell.

The whole thing was written in Old Deliv. He could recognize it, but not read a lick.

He flipped to the front page, wondering if he should try to steal the book and hand it over to Taniel, who could probably find a translator, or take the time to copy a couple of pages.

“Hello?” A voice drifted through the stacks, echoing off the vaulted ceilings. “Is someone up here?”

Michel took several deep breaths to calm himself. He knew where this was now. He could come back. Carefully, he went to close the book and put it back but his eye was caught by something written in pencil on the first page.

It was a number, not in Deliv numerals, but in Kressian. It looked like a street address. Beside it were the words, scribbled quickly, I found it.

He memorized the address, slid the book back in its place, and straightened his jacket.

“Hello?” The voice had an edge to it now. “You’re supposed to check in when you come to the upper archives. I’m going to have to report this to the grand master.”

Michel’s initial thought to step out and flash his Gold Rose was immediately cast aside. He went to the end of his row and glanced around the corner, catching sight of an old woman wearing a deep frown, clicking along the marble floor with her cane.

Michel timed her steps before heading down a few aisles and making his way to the other end of the archives. He dashed for the stairs, hearing a voice call out behind him, “You there! Stop!”

He was down the stairs a moment later, then down two more flights and out of the archives, managing to avoid all of the archivists and patrons on his way out. Within minutes he was back in his office, heart thumping in his chest. He immediately found a pencil and paper and jotted down the address before he could forget, then sat down and stared at it for several minutes.

Could this be the location of the godstones? A warehouse, perhaps? Something for sorcerous items?

There was a knock on his door, causing him to jump so high he knocked the chair over, spilling him backward onto the floor. He recovered, rubbing the side of his head, and opened the door a crack.

To his relief, it was Warsim.

“Sir,” Warsim said, “I’ve got the first report.”

“Find anything?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Then why are you handing me a folder?”

“It’s the report, sir.”

“I thought you said we didn’t find anything.”

“We didn’t.”

Michel snatched the folder from Warsim, flipping it open to find a single paper with the words “Nothing to report” next to a time and date. Michel rolled his eyes. “By Adom, I hate bureaucracy. How about you tell me when we have found something.” He shut the door in Warsim’s face and righted his chair, collapsing into it. Several minutes passed before he was able to gather himself. He pulled the address out of his pocket and looked it over, muttering it under his breath.

Nothing to do but go find out what it meant.