Wrath of Empire

Chapter 16

“Is spying always this boring?” Tenik asked.

Michel stood at a window in a stuffy tenement room in the industrial quarter of Lower Landfall. He gazed through a slit in the curtains, watching the entrance of a tenement across the street while he listened to the sound of the midafternoon traffic. Before the war, this whole district was choked with smoke and the sound of carts, people, and factories. Now it was almost quiet with the factories empty and the traffic sparse.

Michel turned away from the window just long enough to glance at the man sitting in the corner behind him. Devin-Tenik looked even more like a Palo once he had shed his turquoise uniform for a brown cotton suit and flatcap, and he lounged on the floor as if it were more comfortable there than in a chair. Michel answered the question, “Most of being a spy is waiting, watching, and listening. So yes, it’s always this boring.”

Tenik flipped a coin in the air and caught it. He slapped it on the back of his wrist but didn’t bother looking at the result before flipping it again. He’d been doing so for about four hours, and Michel wasn’t sure whether to strangle him or find something to take his own mind off the tedium.

“Are you supposed to follow me everywhere?” Michel asked.

Tenik smiled. “That’s the idea. Your Gold Rose opened the third floor of the Millinery. You have earned Yaret’s trust, and you are now part of his Household. But you’re still a foreigner. For your safety, I am to be your bodyguard, guide, and assistant.”

“Bodyguard, eh?” Michel muttered. Tenik didn’t appear to be a soldier, but he was lean and fit and walked with the confidence of someone who knew how to handle a fight. Michel suspected that his job was less “bodyguard” and more “guard.” Michel wondered how long it would take for him to become fully trusted. Years, perhaps. He didn’t have that much time. Until then, he could make use of an assistant and guide.

“What do you mean when you say ‘part of Yaret’s Household’?”

“Dynize society is based around Households,” Tenik explained. “A Household revolves around a Name.” He flipped his coin, caught it, and pointed a finger at Michel. “You are the newest member of Yaret’s Household.”

“Yaret is the Name of the Household?” Michel asked. He kept his attention on the road and the entrance to the tenement across the street, but he listened carefully. He suspected that much of his downtime the next few weeks would be spent learning about Dynize society. He needed to enter and climb it as quickly as possible.

“It is. Ah!” Tenik felt around in his jacket pockets for a moment, then withdrew a card and handed it to Michel. “This belongs to you. It marks you as a member of Yaret’s Household and entitled to the protection of Yaret’s Name. If we are ever separated and you are questioned by soldiers, you can show them this and they will escort you to Yaret’s home.”

Michel took the card and turned it over in his hand. It was on a heavy stock, coated in wax and decorated with a stylized golden trim. There were words in Dynize at the bottom and a red thumbprint in the center. He immediately wondered how hard it would be to counterfeit. If he’d gotten hold of one of these as a Blackhat, doing so would be his first concern.

“Handy,” he said.

“It is, but you should be careful.”

Michel glanced at Tenik sharply. “Of?”

“Remember Forgula? She belongs to a rival Household. Yaret’s protection is meant to be sacred, but in reality it is only as good as the power of his Name. Forgula attempted to snatch you out from under us, and it’s possible that she will do so again if she thinks it’s worth angering Yaret.”

“Her Household Name is stronger than Yaret’s?”

“Her Household is stronger than everyone’s.”

“And whose is that?”

“Sedial.” Tenik’s expression darkened. “Ka-Sedial is the emperor’s appointed ruler on this continent. Be wary of him. Be wary of the bone-eyes.”

“Why?”

“I …” Tenik hesitated, as if remembering that he was talking to someone he shouldn’t completely trust. “Just be wary of them. Prove yourself to Yaret and in return you’ll be taught all you need to know to be a useful member of his Household.”

Michel was surprised to receive such a warning from a Dynize. They seemed so organized and in-step that he had expected the division among them to be minimal. Household rivalries sounded like something he could use. He would have to learn more about them.

“Do people ever change Households?” he asked.

Tenik’s penetrating stare told Michel a great deal. After a moment, Tenik answered, “All the time. Marriages. Trades. Formal requests. Both Household Names must agree for it to be done formally.”

“And informally?”

Tenik’s expression softened and he resumed flipping his coin, as if carefree, but there was a glint in his eye. “Concern yourself with finding this Gold Rose you promised your new master.”

Michel slowly turned back to the curtain. “Right.”

A few minutes later he heard Tenik get up and cross the room, coming to stand just behind Michel and craning his neck to look outside. Michel stepped to one side, allowing him the view.

Tenik asked, “How does starting here help you find the person responsible for the bombings?”

“I thought you worked for the minister of scrolls,” Michel responded, pulling away to get a good look at Tenik’s face.

“I do. What of it?”

“And you don’t know anything about being a spy?”

Tenik let out a soft laugh. “You think Yaret is some kind of spy?”

“That …” Michel hesitated, thinking of his conversation with Emerald. “That’s what I was led to believe. Well, not a spy himself. But a spymaster.”

“I don’t know that word.”

Tenik knew far more Adran and Palo than Michel had expected, and their conversations took place in both those languages as well as Dynize. Michel tried to think of a Palo word for “spymaster,” but settled on “one who commands those who watch your enemies.”

“Ah, I see,” Tenik said. “Yes, I suppose that works. The minister of scrolls traditionally oversees government information – history, census data, that sort of thing – but Yaret wanted to be involved in the invasion. He worked to expand his position so that Sedial didn’t have complete control of the war.”

Census data could be useful, if it included the names of Dynize citizens here in Fatrasta. “The emperor doesn’t have a designated spymaster?”

“I believe he does,” Tenik recalled, “but they only oversee threats against the emperor’s person. Government spies were purged after the end of the civil war, and we needed something new when we turned our eyes outward.”

Michel considered the information. He had a thousand questions about the things he was just told, but he couldn’t risk being too curious. He needed to pick his questions carefully. For now, it was enough to know that Yaret was more akin to a record keeper than a spymaster. Shrewd, perhaps, but not seasoned. “So what are you? A census taker?”

“No, no,” Tenik said, “I am one of Yaret’s cupbearers.”

The term sounded archaic, and it was not the first time Michel had heard a Dynize use it. He seemed to remember that it was an honorarium in the court of Kressian kings. “I’m not familiar with the term. What is your role?”

“I have no role – and I have every role,” Tenik said, spreading his arms. “A cupbearer is a trusted member of the Household who takes on whatever the Name needs doing. I have been many things. For now, I am your bodyguard and assistant.”

“It’s an honored position?”

“Very.”

“Looking after me seems … beneath you.”

“Not at all. You were a high-ranking member of the Blackhats. Your place within the Household has yet to be determined, but you are not a slave.” He paused. “No, what is the word for the lowliest member?” He said something in Dynize, then “commoner? Is that the word?”

“I think I get your meaning,” Michel said.

“Good. By the way, you never answered my question.”

“Which one?”

“How does this help us catch the culprit behind the bombings?”

Michel pulled himself away from his myriad of questions and nodded to the tenement across the street. “I’m waiting for someone.”

“Who?”

“A woman named Hendres. We worked together for a brief time after the war started.”

“How will she be useful?”

“Because she knows that I turned. I’m willing to bet that with me gone, she will have spent the last couple of days tracking down the highest-ranking Blackhat in the city. With any luck, it’s a Gold Rose who, if not personally responsible for the bombings, will probably have a good idea who is.”

“You were friends with this Hendres woman?”

Michel decided not to mention their time as lovers. “Partners. We were trying to figure out how to save the families of Blackhats from your purges.”

“And why did you stop being partners?”

“Because I decided that joining you was more efficient.” Michel didn’t much like this line of questioning, and hoped that it came across in his voice.

Tenik didn’t seem to notice. “How do you know she’ll come here?”

“I don’t,” Michel said. A glance at Tenik’s face revealed the other’s skepticism, and he continued. “Hendres isn’t a spy. She was an enforcer, then a bureaucrat. Everything she knows about sneaking around she learned from me in the last month.”

“And?”

“And we worked from the same list of safe houses. The safe house across the street is one of the few we never discussed using as a backup. Hendres is smart enough to have ditched our backup safe houses and will only use those she thinks I’m less likely to search. If she doesn’t show up at this one tonight, we’ll check one of the others tomorrow.”

Michel gave the explanation offhand, and it didn’t occur to him until he’d finished speaking what, exactly, he’d just revealed. He risked a quick glance at Tenik, whose eyes were still focused on the street. He was just beginning to think Tenik hadn’t noticed the slip, when Tenik asked, “How does Hendres know that you’re working for us?” The question was posed in a quiet, thoughtful tone.

Michel licked his lips. “It’s complicated.”

“I think I could follow an explanation.”

Michel grew even more cognizant of the fact that Tenik had been sent to keep an eye on him. Everything he shared with Tenik would be revealed to Yaret, and might affect Michel’s standing. Carelessly giving away information, he decided, would be a stupid way to end his short stint with the Dynize.

“Hendres accused me of being a spy for the Dynize,” Michel said. “She tried to kill me.”

“You became a traitor because you were falsely accused of being a traitor?”

Michel didn’t like the word “traitor.” It ignored the complexities of what being a spy actually meant. “Yes,” he said.

“And why did she think you were a traitor?”

“Because one of our safe houses was raided by Dynize soldiers while I was away. She barely escaped, and only the two of us knew about the safe house.” It was close enough to the truth for Michel. He added a twist of anger to his words – also real – and clicked his tongue. “Speaking of which, do you see that woman with the brown hair down at the end of the street?”

“I do.”

“That’s her.”

Michel took a deep breath to calm himself as he watched Hendres mill about the intersection at the end of the street, checking subtly for a possible ambush. Her body language was tense and she checked the street, rooftops, and tenement doorway several times before finally coming down the street and heading inside. It seemed she was still spooked from coming back to the Dynize stakeout last week.

“She didn’t see us,” Tenik observed.

“She didn’t check the windows at all,” Michel said. “She really needs to learn to do that.”

“What next?”

“You don’t have to whisper,” Michel responded. “Even if she was still in the street, she wouldn’t hear us.”

Tenik cleared his throat and his cheeks flushed. “So what next?” he asked in a normal voice.

“Now we wait.”

Tenik rolled his eyes and returned to the corner of the room, slumping down on the floor. The familiar flicking sound of him flipping a coin soon began. Michel waited, nearly stepping back from the window when he saw a curtain flutter in Hendres’s safe-house room.

“Now we know where she’s staying,” Michel said over his shoulder. “We can come back tomorrow morning and wait until she goes out, and then …” He paused as Hendres suddenly appeared in the tenement doorway. “Shit, never mind. Come with me, now!”

Michel left the room at a run, heading down the hallway without waiting to see if Tenik had followed him. He went up two floors, then climbed out the window of an abandoned apartment and around the ledge, then hiked himself up onto the roof. He crossed it in a few moments and crouched down, searching the traffic below.

It wasn’t long until he spotted Hendres heading north. He heard a clatter behind him, and Tenik joined him a moment later with a string of words in Dynize that were definitely curses.

“Come on,” Michel told him, heading to the other side of the roof and quickly climbing down the chimney sweep’s ladder. He caught up to Hendres a few blocks later, falling into step a hundred paces back and pulling his hat down over his face. He indicated that Tenik do the same.

“The trick to following someone,” Michel explained in a low voice, “is to stay far enough away that they won’t suspect you’re on their tail – but close enough that you won’t lose them when they inevitably turn corners or go into buildings.”

“What happens when they go into buildings?”

“Depends. If you’re trying to catch them, you make sure it’s not a trap, then set your own. It helps to have some thugs with you.”

“And if you’re not trying to catch them?”

“Then you wait until they come out again.”

Tenik groaned.

“Hold up,” Michel said, turning to face a shop window as Hendres stopped at an intersection and checked behind her. He watched her out of the corner of his eye while pretending to study a hat, then turned to follow her again once she’d kept going. “I dyed my hair after I last saw her,” Michel explained. “It won’t hold up to a close examination, but it’s enough to fool her at a distance.”

“Is she that stupid?”

“People are that stupid,” Michel responded. “You’d be surprised at what even a cautious person will overlook.”

They soon left the industrial quarter, and passed the old dockside market and the ruins of the eastern face of the plateau. Out in the harbor, Fort Nied sat pitted and forlorn, mostly ignored by the occupying force. Hendres crossed the river and rounded the plateau to head into the northern suburbs.

She stopped at two different buildings, both times briefly, before continuing her journey. One of the stops was at the bar of a known Blackhat contact, and the second was unfamiliar to Michel. He tried to put himself in her shoes, working through her route, trying to figure out what she was doing.

“How do we know when we’ve followed her to the right place?” Tenik asked quietly while they waited for her outside yet a third stop.

“We don’t,” Michel responded. “It might be obvious, or we might have to stake out all of these places.”

“We’re trying to find this other Gold Rose?”

“Exactly. If we’re lucky, she’ll have already made contact with him since my departure and she’ll lead us right to him.”

“If we’re unlucky?”

“If we’re unlucky, she’s spotted us and is leading us into a trap.” With those words, Michel double-checked his pocket to make sure his knuckle-dusters were still there. They were. He didn’t want to be caught unawares again like he had with Forgula.

He stopped at an intersection to wait for a column of Dynize soldiers to walk by, tipping his hat to them. Tenik gave him a questioning look.

“Force of habit,” Michel said. “You’re less likely to notice someone with good manners. Not great manners, mind you. Just good ones.” The column passed by and he swore under his breath.

“I don’t see her,” Tenik said.

“Me neither. Pit. Head down, keep walking. Watch to your right out of the corner of your eye. I’ll watch the left.”

They continued straight down the street past a row of shops, half of which were boarded up. This was a residential area, lower middle class, and had maintained much of its population after the evacuation. No one paid them any mind, and after they’d gone two blocks Michel whispered to Tenik to turn around.

They did a second sweep, coming up with nothing.

“She’s got to be in one of these buildings,” Michel said. “But the longer we linger, the more chance she’ll look out a window and notice us standing around. Over here.” Michel headed into a nearby bakery, following his nose into the front of the shop where hot loaves had just come out of the oven. “Don’t stand out,” he said quietly. “Buy something.”

Tenik went up to the counter while Michel turned to watch out the front window.

“We don’t take those,” a voice said loudly.

Michel turned to find Tenik offering the baker a Dynize rations card. Tenik opened his mouth, but Michel stepped in to intercede, handing over a couple of Fatrastan coins. He thanked the baker and pulled Tenik back outside, where he tore the loaf in half.

Tenik scowled back at the door. “These are valid,” he said, shaking the rations card under Michel’s nose. “The government has ordered that all businesses accept them.”

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Michel said, bemused by Tenik’s indignation. “You look like a Palo and dress like a Palo. They’re going to treat you like one. Which means they won’t let you pay with a currency that might not be any good in a few months.”

“He thinks Dynize will lose the war?” Tenik looked like he was ready to march back inside. Michel took him by the arm and led him away.

“Hedging his bets, probably. Like I said, don’t worry about …” Michel trailed off as he spotted someone over Tenik’s shoulder. “Don’t turn around,” he said in a low voice, lifting his half a loaf of bread up to his face but keeping his eyes fixed down the street. “Loosen up,” he told Tenik. “Your shoulders are hunched and your body tense. That’s going to be obvious to anyone who knows what to look for. Now, I see Hendres just over your left shoulder. She just came out of that alleyway next to the cobbler’s. We’re going to stay here until she moves again. If I say turn, I want you to casually look at that playbill plastered on the wall to your left. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Michel watched for several moments as Hendres spoke with someone just around the corner. He silently urged them to step out into the street so he could see the other party, but Hendres was suddenly on the move again. “Turn!” he hissed at Tenik.

They waited as Hendres walked past them. Michel forced himself to breathe evenly, watching out of the corner of his eye until she rounded a corner. He glanced over Tenik’s shoulder once and then took one step after Hendres before freezing in place.

“Should we follow her?” Tenik asked.

Michel didn’t answer. Slowly, casually, he swept his gaze back across that alley Hendres had been standing in a moment ago. A man had emerged to chat with one of the shopkeeps, smoking a cigarette carelessly.

“She’s getting away!”

“Forget about her,” Michel said. “We got lucky. Damned lucky.”

“How?”

Michel took Tenik by the arm and led him down a nearby alley without answering the question.

“Where are we going?” Tenik asked.

“To find a lookout spot. The man who Hendres just met with is named Marhoush. He’s a Silver Rose, and he’s the right-hand man of Val je Tura. Not only is je Tura Lindet’s personal enforcer, but he also spent most of the Fatrastan revolution killing Kez soldiers and civilians with explosives. I’m willing to bet je Tura is the one bombing your soldiers, and Marhoush will lead us right to him.”