The Traitor Baru Cormorant (18 page)

Or had that been Cairdine Farrier?

“She can use her money to destroy you and everything you've tried to build,” she insisted, quiet, thin-lipped, speaking more from pride than hope of getting through. “The Federated Province of Aurdwynn will slip from Falcrest's grasp. Parliament will not have its fortress or its riches. You will be held responsible.”

She would lose her road forward.

Cattlson sat back, exasperation unconcealed now. “You're so sure there's a rebellion coming. You've snatched this whisper out of the air and made it your own temple and creed. But you have no sense of history. The dukes of Aurdwynn have been fighting each other for
centuries,
Cormorant. Nine years ago they tried to revolt, and they still remember our reply. We've given them an excuse to rebuild, ride their estates, hunt their forests, and sate their lusts. We are not so harsh on them—surely you've heard Duchess Nayauru bragging of her lovers? Hardly hygienic, but she still rules half the Midlands. We've given the people safe roads and the promise of inoculation. Even a blind man could
smell
the ways we've made their lives better. Why would they rebel?”

He thought she understood nothing but coin, that she'd neglected the rest. And perhaps he was right—surely, thinking rationally, she had to consider that he might be right. He was older, more experienced, selected for merit and ability, and from Falcrest as well, the seat of all knowledge—

No. She had learned from Tain Hu, of politics and of defiance. “The Jurispotence uses harsh tactics to suppress their faiths. We dictate their marriages and customs, we tax their lords and they pass those taxes on to their serfs. You said it yourself: they live hard lives. These are all reasons.”

The corners of Cattlson's lips told her that he took a certain pleasure in correcting her naiveté. It was not vindictive, exactly. Perhaps it was satisfaction, or relief that he did, after all, have things to teach this savant girl. “The Jurispotence does what is necessary to satisfy her more zealous overseers back in Falcrest. What if we suppress their faith? What does it matter? No one cares about the old books except the ilykari and their acid-stained congregations. The people want beer, medicine, meat, and games, and if we offer those we can ask a little Incrastic discipline in exchange.”

It would be better to withdraw now. Regroup and reconsider. But he had spoken
down
to her.

She pushed her map at him, her web of transaction and sedition. “Your Excellence, I—I
exhort
you to consider the position of the people with respect to—” She gave up on presenting it academically. “The people of Aurdwynn have been kept like cattle. Taught to love their duke and fear everything past the horizon. You told me yourself that the Masquerade does not fear the discontent of the people, it fears the discontent of their lords. When the rebellion comes, the people will follow the nobility.”

He waved her away. “Your disregard for the common people of Aurdwynn troubles me. This is a land built on the ruins of three different cultures, complex and divided. The dukes cannot unite their people—”

She was on her feet now, fists on the table, leaning halfway across. “The dukes don't rebel because they're all enormously in debt to the Fiat Bank, to
me
! They owe me their prosperity! They draw loan after loan just to keep up with each other. I could call that debt tomorrow and destroy them, but if Tain Hu uses her counterfeit liquidity to buy up their debt—if I try to call the debt, and Tain Hu bails them out—do you understand?”

Cattlson huffed. “You can buy
debt
?”

“You can buy anything! Tain Hu doesn't need to raise an army or hire a spearmaker! She can buy the other Duchies themselves, Nayauru and Ihuake and the whole Midlands with all their armsmen and all their cavalry, Radaszic with all his olive fields and grain that feeds us here.” She put her closed fist down on the coast, white glove on black ink. “Once she's bought up their debt, she'll hold the controlling stake in their wealth, not me—and instead of racing each other for paper loans to keep their commoners and landlords happy, she'll have them buying gold, grain, and spears. She'll subvert our own economic system to prepare Aurdwynn for revolt.”

He sighed. “But now you know that her money's counterfeit. So you won't let her buy anything.”

“She laundered it into her books. Xate Yawa will back the transaction. Xate Yawa will refuse to prosecute on any of this. I can't stop Vultjag without your help. She'll be
me,
you understand? She'll be the new Fiat Bank!” She hammered on the map. “She'll make herself rich, she'll offer them wealth and freedom, and they'll all rebel. They'll have us bottled up in Treatymont within the year. Any relief from Falcrest will either need to come overland—and you
know
they'll drop the bridges at the river Inirein—or risk the winter storms at sea. We won't last that long!”

Cattlson looked as if he had just discovered a terrible problem right in his lap. For a moment she thought she might have convinced him of the danger. But no: it was just his realization that she would make his life complex and miserable. He'd liked her better when she was just a girl with a purse and no ear for riding innuendo.

She found herself expecting to hear:
“Is it true that you spent the last fortnight out in Vultjag?”

“Perhaps you're right,” he said. He had a good smile, open and happy; he looked like a man who preferred to smile, whenever his life allowed him. “Why don't you assemble a case, and you can present it at the next meeting of the Governing Factors, where we can all evaluate your warnings fairly.”

Where Xate Yawa, alerted by Tain Hu, would be waiting to make a mockery of her, destroying her authority before she'd ever properly exercised it.

She left the map on the table when she departed. On her way out she passed Cattlson's secretary, carefully watering a glass of wine.

“He'll be in a foul mood,” she warned him. He raised the glass in thanks.

*   *   *

W
HAT
to do now?

There was a preposterous amount of work to be done, an appalling amount. Even with the Fiat Bank's records—which she would have to review in great detail, trusting no other eye—she still needed to request copies of the master book from every individual duchy, then cross-reference and hunt down every discrepancy. And every day she spent on that work left the daily business of the Imperial Accountant piling up: preparations for tax season, rates and structures to modify, request after request after request from merchants and duchies and the Fiat Bank to review one policy of Olonori's, or another of Tanifel's. Would she continue to demand this milling fee or forbid that river tariff?

Not with a staff of a hundred and a sleepless year could she bring this under control. And her meeting with Cattlson had left her too angry to work. After a while she gave up, set her gnawed pen down, and rang Muire Lo in.

“Your Excellence?” He peered around the door.

“Do you duel?”

“Not with you, Your Excellence!”

The incident with the woodsman's book had made him brave. It might not be wise to like it. She liked it anyway. “I've had enough of this. Get the wine and sit. There are questions I should've asked you by now.”

He poured with deft efficiency, hesitated, sat. “You'll want to know if I have a family, I expect. Whether there's anyone I need to find.”

She tucked her legs beneath her and took the offered glass. “Astute.”

“I've made a few inquiries. A visit or two. But by and large, I've found the results…” He drank, a short draw and incurious swallow. “If my family misses anyone, it's the boy they lost to Falcrest. Not the man they got back.”

“They don't recognize you.”

“That's the intent of Masquerade education, isn't it?” He shrugged, eyes averted. “To remake.”

“Did Cairdine Farrier train you personally?”

He considered her over the rim of his wineglass. “I met him on Taranoke. When he attached me to your service, he was satisfied I'd been thoroughly prepared.”

“Good.” She approved of both his training and his canny deflection. “The moment we've found an effective staff, I'm going to ask you to gather some information for me. You're wasted on this—” She gestured to the ceiling and her chambers. “Housework.”

“It has its charms.”

“So there's nothing to you but your service.” She chuckled, just to take the edge off her words. “Nothing I can dangle as a prize. You want only what I want.”

“What
do
you want?”

“I want to understand where power comes from,” she said, without any hesitation. “And how it can best be used.”

It wasn't what she'd said when drunk with Aminata. But being drunk did not, she thought, really make her more honest.

“I went out on the streets while you were in Vultjag. Walked the Arwybon Way and talked to the fishmongers and dockworkers. Everyone's whispering sedition.” A clinical cast to his voice and Baru thought:
he was trained for this, to listen, to report.
“They whisper that their husbands and wives are going to be taken away. That Duchess Vultjag's going to murder Duke Heingyl in a duel and kidnap Heingyl Ri, so she won't have to marry Oathsfire herself. That Xate Yawa will put her on trial and have her lobotomized.” He took another sip, his eyes cast over her shoulder, through the bay window. That watchful cold went out of his voice. “I was here during the Fools' Rebellion, when sister killed brother for collaboration and fathers disowned daughters for fratricide. I don't want to see Aurdwynn return to that. So”—he smiled self-consciously—“if you can learn anything about power—perhaps put a finger on the scales for me.”

“You
do
want what I want.”

“A secretary must consider such things. My mother was a loyalist during the Fools' Rebellion; so was my father, although his loyalist was the other kind. They both called themselves
loyalist,
you see. What I mean is—” He frowned at his wineglass. “What I mean is that I became very talented at considering the wants of others.”

She drank, sifting the dark dry wine between her teeth. “Tomorrow,” she said, “I'm going to go to the Fiat Bank, and I'm going to stop Tain Hu from starting a rebellion.”

“Just so?”

Baru grinned at him. “You doubt me? Cairdine Farrier's precious savant?”

“It's just that—” He set his glass down and grappled, briefly, with some gesture he couldn't quite complete, a caution, a care. “In matters of rebellion, I always expect a price.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes.” She was warm with the wine, with the shape of the plan she'd begun to form, and could not keep the merriment from her voice, the joy of reaching out into the world and altering it. “There will be a price.”

 

10

T
HE
plaza and the Fiat Bank swarmed with soldiers.

Baru dismounted, purse and papers rattling under her left arm, heart in her throat. “You!” She pointed to the first garrison officer she saw. “What's all this?”

“Honor guard, my la—Your Excellence.” He bowed at the waist. “The Jurispotence is visiting the bank.”

“Well, so's the Imperial Accountant. Spread the word.” She gave him a moment to step away before she allowed herself to panic. Xate Yawa here now? Coincidence or countermove? Impossible to know. No matter, though, no matter, no matter. She just had to walk in and pass the orders that would defeat Tain Hu. How could Xate Yawa prevent that?

She went in through the ranks of blue and wave-tip gray, her head high, wondering if the soldiers would respect her more or less if she'd worn her sword. “The Imperial Accountant!” an officer bawled, announcing her, betraying her. The doors of the Fiat Bank opened for her and she passed through into the hall of clerks and stag heads. Then left, along the wall, toward Principal Factor Bel Latheman's office—

Where Xate Yawa waited, sipping from a tin mug. And the Principal Factor, who looked up crossly and began to say, “My secretary will—” But his eyes fixed on her purse, her face, and recognizing Baru he sat back in his chair with ill-concealed despair, his hands checking his high collar.

“Your
Excellence
!” Xate Yawa cried. “Please forgive me if I don't rise. It's such an unexpected pleasure to find you here.”

“Likewise, Your Excellence. Perhaps more unexpected, in my case, as this is a bank rather than a court.” Baru took her hand and kissed it. Her eyes, those jungle crow eyes—impossible to avoid. How practiced she must be at staring into guilt.

There had been time enough for Tain Hu to alert her that Baru was on to them.

“I've been running down these degenerate ykari cultists. Bel Latheman has been invaluable.” Xate Yawa smiled at the Principal Factor, who ducked his head in respectful reply, eyes twitching between the two of them. “They need property to set up their temples, after all, and every piece of property has its owner. The guilty and the negligent alike must be held to account.”

Baru favored Bel Latheman with a smile. Cosmopolitan, Falcresti, and—by the curl of his lip, the sweat on his brow—clearly unhappy with his position. Perhaps she should've had a dinner with him before raiding his bank with marines. “I'm glad my Factor could be of assistance. Please, never hesitate to come to me directly.”

Her Factor. He must be remembering: the last two Imperial Accountants he'd served under hadn't survived.

“Of course I'll come to you! But your secretary told me you'd gone to Vultjag.” And Xate Yawa winked outrageously, as if Vultjag were a brothel or an assignation, rather than the heart of her own conspiracy. “I'm sure you have business with the Factor. Will it need privacy? I can wait for these records out on the floor.”