MYTH-Interpretations: The Worlds of Robert Asprin (19 page)

"No," Pietor said, shaking his head. "I won't do it."

"But he's our own brother! Think of our reputation! You can't just—"

".
.
.
Because if I do, he'll just sneak out again some other time!"

They locked gazes in stony silence. Anna's dark eyes still held the wildness of her sudden anger, but her lack of argument told Pietor louder than words that this was one of his rare victories.

"Think about it, Anna," he urged her, "if brother Nikki has taken it into his mind to go outside on his own and we stop him, he'll simply try excursions like this again and again until he succeeds. This time we were warned because he confided in a servant. Next time, he might not be so open."

His sister turned and dropped heavily into a chair.

"So what do
you
propose?" Anna said sullenly. "If we let Nikki try his little venture, the Hannons will eat him alive."

"Maybe not," Pietor muttered, then added hastily, "still, it's a risk we can't take."

Secretly, he was rejoicing. This was the first time since their father's death that Anna had asked his opinion rather than immediately chiding him for being too foolish to follow her recommended path. He suddenly realized with no small surprise that preserving that small spark of respect in Anna meant as much to him as saving his brother, and for the first time Pietor Gregori actually started to
feel
like the head of the household.

"What we've got to do," he said in that heady moment, "is convince him that traveling alone is dangerous for him, and the best way to do that is to let him go on and try his little venture."

"But you said
.
.
."

"Oh, he won't
really
be alone. He'll just think he is. Hurry along now and pass the word to the rest of the family. We have a lot of planning to do before little Nikki makes his escape! What time's his appointment?"

*
*
*

Demitri Gregori was in a foul mood, or, to be accurate, fouler mood than normal, which these days took some doing.

Ensconced at a sheltered table in the small open air café across from the Gregori apartments, he watched the kitchen delivery entrance via the walkways that led up from the water-stairs—Pietor's instructions—while vainly trying to offset the aftereffects of yesterday's drinking with a fresh onslaught of wine.

Pietor was obviously going daft from the weight of his new responsibilities. His little scheme to trick their little brother was far too elaborate to be practical. If nothing else, Demitri was aware of the peculiar dangers of being overly subtle in one's planning.

At which thought a sudden wave of guilt broke over Demitri Gregori, and he hurriedly fought it off by tossing down what was left in his goblet and refilling it, as he forced all thoughts of his father's death from his mind.

On the surface, Pietor's hastily improvised plan seemed simple enough: let Nikki wander a few isles along the walkways toward the College and his appointment, apparently unescorted but actually covered by available Gregoris and Gregori retainers from hiding, then scare him back to the House with the appearance of several hired "Hannons" in his path.

Simple in concept, perhaps, but execution was another thing entirely.

It wasn't until the Family had hastily tried to figure how to position people along the anticipated route that dear Pietor had begun to count just how many routes and shortcuts there were in the three tiers between the Gregori apartments and the College. In the end, by whatever calculations, it had proved impossible to cover them all, so Pietor had had to settle for trying to establish a "floating" circle of spotters around feckless Nikki that would advance before him and cover his back as he moved.

Of course, this also meant trying to devise a system of signals to let the others in the guard party know which way dear fool Nikki was heading, which of course increased the chances of Nikki spotting his shadows and thereby negating the point of the whole exercise. There was also a shortage of good hiding and lurking places along the most likely route, that lay along Archangel, forcing them to "cover both ends of the tunnel" in some stretches and ignore some stairways and passages as unlikely. All in all, Pietor's crackpot idea of trying to shadow the fool was proving more difficult than anticipated, and it was altogether so cumbersome as to introduce the possibility of the escorts tripping over each other in their own maneuverings.

Then again, there were the Hannons they had hired
.
.
.
or rather the bully boys they were paying to play the role of Hannons. Could they be trusted? What if they took advantage of the situation to collect the Hannon-offered bounty on a Gregori themselves?

No.
Not
likely. The whole plan was far too complicated and too hastily conceived for comfort, but Pietor had insisted and the Family had gone along with him, if for no other reason than to encourage slack-handed Pietor to take an active hand in running the household: among themselves, they had admitted a fear that if they had refused to aid Pietor in this, his first effort at involvement, he might retreat back into the lethargy he had been showing to date—a laissez-faire Demitri privately reckoned more dangerous to House Gregori than Nikki's fecklessness.

Better to get him moving by cooperating today, then, the consensus in the House was, and once Pietor had a bit of momentum and confidence behind him, they could try to guide their Househead's steps into wiser courses of action.

That was, of course, providing House Gregori survived the day.

Demitri grimaced wryly at the thought. He had disagreed with Pietor's plan from the start, and still remained skeptical even after younger House members had teamed up to vote him down. He felt that Anna had been right in the first place, and Pietor should have simply confronted Nikki and acquainted him with the facts of life. As head of the household, Pietor should have met the challenge of the established procedures squarely and dominated their younger brother with the sheer force of his personality and his anger. That was certainly what their father would have done.
.
.
.

Demitri groped for the wine again, only to find the pitcher empty.

Damn! Why couldn't he keep his thoughts away from his father? He had made a conscious choice between the old man and his pregnant Hannon lover before arranging for the elder Gregori's assassination. Was his current guilt a matter of second thoughts, or was it merely anger that Teryl Hannon's death—and, unknown to either House, Demitri's own unborn child's—had made his father's demise both unnecessary and pointless?

If the latter were true
.
.
.

A furtive movement at the delivery entrance caught his eye.

Nikki.

Demitri had to smile to himself as he leaned back into the shadows and averted his face. If he had not been forewarned and watching, he probably wouldn't have recognized his little brother in that getup. The youngest Gregori was decked out in the garb of a common laborer several sizes too large for him, creating the illusion of underfed poverty in scrounged clothes. With the added touches of a few artfully placed streaks of soot on his face and a slouch cap pulled low over his eyes, Nikki bore little resemblance to the dapper young artist who was prone to spending such considerable time in front of a mirror polishing his appearance and manner.

Demitri waited a few more moments to insure he would not be spotted, then rose casually to follow his brother. Fumbling for a few coins to leave as a tip, he glanced down the walkway
.
.
.
and froze. Nikki was nowhere in sight!

In a flash Demitri was up and well along the walkway, casting about in all directions for a glimpse of the disguised artist, but it was as if the walkways had dropped him abruptly elsewhere, into the nether tiers of the city. There were a few people strolling along the boards, but none bore the slightest resemblance to Nikki!

Demitri waffled for a few more precious moments between trying to find his little brother himself and alerting the waiting net of the watchers. Finally, he swallowed his pride and sprinted off to find Pietor—who would curse him for a careless drunk perhaps, not without justification—but Nikki might now be wandering Lord knew what tier of the walkways and bridges without anyone protecting him, and that took priority over any personal affront Pietor might deal him.

As he ran, Demitri prayed that one of the other watchers had spotted his little brother's course somewhere across the bridges and taken up guard duty. If not, if Nikki cam to harm
.
.
.

He forced the thought from his mind and plunged on.

"I don't like it. I should've thought it out more before takin' this job. No sir! I don't like this one bit."

Gordo nodded at his companion's growled complaint. He had been experiencing similar reservations himself.

"I know what ye mean," he said. "I was just thinking the same thing. It sounded easy enough at first, but what if one of the
real
Hannons comes along and finds us wearing their House colors? It's not going to endear us to them any, I tell ye that much."

He found himself nervously fingering the bits of gold and orange ribbon pinned to his sleeve, the traditional mark of the Hannon household and their retainers. They had been given these badges by the Gregoris when they were hired for what had seemed like a harmless masquerade. The more Gordo thought about it, however, the less comfortable he was with the arrangement.

"Ye got a point there, Gordo," the original speaker grunted, "but that weren't what I was thinkin'."

"Oh?"

"I was more worried about us bein' set up."

"Set up?" Victor, the third man in their group said, joining the discussion. "How d'ye figure that?"

"Well, it occurs to me that if I was the Gregoris and I planned to do some mischief, it wouldn't hurt none to have a couple Hannons around to pin the rap on
.
.
.
and here we are, standin' around when and where they done told us, wearin' ribbons to mark us as Hannons."

Gordo felt a quick lance of fear shoot through him, but he tried to laugh it off.

"Come now, Curt. You don't really believe they'd do
that
to us, do ye?"

"Well I, for one, don't," Victor stated emphatically. "I've worked for the Gregoris afore, and they've always dealt me fair."

"That was
old
Gregori," Curt shot back. "How about Pietor, this new head of the House? Either of ye dealt whatsoever with
him
? I haven't. What's more, I'm wonderin' how smart it is to be wearin' Hannon colors out on the walks on nothin' more than his say-so that it's all right. Not that I'm sayin' he'd
be
up to no good, mind you. Just that we should look sharp if we want to be sure to come outta this in one piece, is all."

They had been stationed at the foot of the last bridge on the direct route between the Gregori apartment and Kass Isle, a point young Nikki would be certain to pass on his self-engineered adventure. Though warned to keep their faces toward Kass so that he would only see their Hannon colors, the three men found themselves glancing around nervously as they continued their debate. What had seemed like easy money now looked increasingly hazardous, and their feeling of vulnerability was growing by the moment.

"It's a possibility," Gordo conceded. "Still, we can't walk off a job because a' some
possible
danger. We should've thought of all this 'fore we went and took their money. All we can do now is
.
.
."

"Hullo there!"

Three heads snapped around and fixed on the figure approaching them.

A figure wearing Hannon colors.

"
Now
what do we do?—Lord, if he recognizes us—"

"That's Lonnie Hannon. Don't worry, he's blind as a bat. So far he only sees our ribbons."

"He'll see well enough to tell we ain't Hannons if he joins us."

"Let him," Curt growled softly, slipping his belt dagger from his sheath.

"Lord, what are ye doing?"

"Can't ye see? This is our chance to be away and free from here. Ain't nobody expects us to hang around after we was jumped by one o' the Hannons, can they? And he ain't tellin' nothin' t' anybody."

Without waiting for a reply from the others, he turned and waved a welcome to the oncoming Hannon
.
.
.
hiding his dagger behind his leg as he did.

Helwein Hannon was surprised to find himself regretting, in such bewildering times as this, not having attend the funeral of old Gregori. It was true that old enemies could be as dear as old friends
.
.
.
especially when they were known quantities that were reliably consistent.

Of course, his presence would have been interpreted as gloating, though the Hannons had had no part in that notable's demise
.
.
.
a fact no one in Merovingen was inclined to believe, especially the Gregoris. With a sigh, Helwein returned his attention to the subject at hand.

"How many are there, again?"

Zahn, who had been haranguing the other family members assembled, broke off his oration to frown at his Househead.

"But Uncle,
.
.
.
I already told you
.
.
."

"So tell me again!" Helwein snapped, then softened his tone. "Have patience with an old man. My ears aren't as good as they were
.
.
.
or my mind as quick."

This, of course, fooled no one, as Helwein held his position by the strength and speed of his judgment and could wield a sword with an agility that denied his years—but it did cause Zahn to swallow his impatience and repeat some of the highlights of his report.

"At least a dozen, maybe two," Zahn said. "It's hard to tell for sure, since they're scattered singly or in small groups on the walkways and bridges around the Pile and Kass and Borg. More important is
.
.
."

".
.
.
But so far, they're mostly around their old holding?" Helwein interrupted. "They're not near
our
House?"

"Yes
.
.
.
but I think it's important that they aren't wearing House Gregori colors, any of them. If anything, they seem to be trying to avoid being seen, staying mostly in shops and in shadowed walks and cut-throughs on the middle tier. To me, that means they're up to something."