The Tainted Cup, page 23
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I am seneschal—but only of this canton. The Hazas own some of the most verdant, potent lands in all the Empire, in many cantons. Without the reagents grown on their properties, defense of the Empire would be impossible. We would have no grafts for stonewood, for slothiks, for cracklers. For healing grafts, for mending pastes, for any of it. Hell, a full twenty percent of all our fretvine grafts come from the Haza lands! So I will consent to this—but you must, and I mean must, step carefully.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“Particularly if you happen to actually find yourself in the presence of a member of the family! I think it quite unlikely—the Hazas remain very cloistered, especially here on the Outer Rim, where there is so much contagion—but if by chance you happen to meet one of them, I must insist you be polite, thoughtful, obedient, an—”
Then came a hard knock at the chamber door.
Vashta’s rage boiled over. “Damn it all!” she bellowed. “I said we were not to be disturbed! Who the hell is it?”
The door opened, and Strovi poked his head in. His boyish face looked anxious—but I could tell Vashta’s anger wasn’t the cause of it.
“Strovi?” shouted Vashta. “What in hell?”
“Th-there’s someone here to see you, ma’am,” he said.
“I told you, Captain, we were to be left alone!”
“I know, ma’am. But I knew you would wish to see this person, ma’am.”
“Then who is it? The damned emperor?”
“Ah, no. It is Fayazi Haza, ma’am.”
Vashta’s fury was wiped clean from her face. She gaped at Strovi, then at Ana, then stood.
There was an awful silence as she considered what to do.
“I see,” said Vashta. “Well. Let her in, then.”
He bowed and opened the door.
Then she walked in.
* * *
—
SHE LOOKED TO be about my age, and she was as tall as I was, with a long neck, enormous purple eyes, and thick, silvery, straight hair that fell in a shining sheet. Eyelids dashed with blue and purple, traceries of red paints about her ears. Lashes as thick as a stonetree’s trunk, her snow-white brow encircled by a gray ribbon threaded with pale green. Her pale skin was so unblemished and luminous it almost appeared to shine, cracks of ethereal white peeking through her robes, which covered nearly the whole of her being from the neck down—except her feet, which carefully shuffled forward on tall platform sandals.
She was without doubt the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Not the most beautiful woman, nor the most beautiful person, but the most beautiful thing. She seemed to emit a silver shimmer simply walking through the adjudication chambers, followed by her retinue of servants and bodyguards, all armed and watchful—but for a while, at least, I had eyes only for her.
Then I noticed something: the point of her nose, the shape of her face…She was Sazi. Just like Ana, the only other Sazi person I’d ever met in my life.
I looked to Ana to confirm my suspicion. I saw that not only was I right, but Ana herself showed no reaction at all to the young woman’s arrival. Her expression had turned strangely inward, so much so it was hard to tell if she was even awake.
The young gentrywoman came to stand before Vashta, followed by two servants: both Sublimes, judging by the heralds they wore upon their breast, though they carried no imperial insignias with them. Having never met a privately employed Sublime, I found this remarkable. Her six bodyguards clanked along behind her, almost as tall as cracklers, bound up in complex plate armor that was nothing like what they used in the Legion—custom stuff, then, not refurbished or reused. Everything about them seemed expensive.
Fayazi Haza looked up at Vashta and gave a little bow, the barest inclination of her head. Vashta returned it—but reluctantly, I noted. A commander, after all, never enjoys a challenge to their authority.
“Madam Fayazi Haza,” said Vashta stiffly. “I am honored to have you before us. What brings you to the city proper?”
Fayazi’s amethyst-colored eyes fluttered, her giant lashes beating like a butterfly’s wing. When she spoke her words were soft, breathy, and strangely childlike.
“I am here,” she said, “with a terrible report.”
I glanced at Ana and Miljin, wondering if Fayazi was here to make some accusation against us. Miljin looked bewildered—but Ana did not. Her face had been drained of all emotion, and now she sat there, inscrutable and totally opaque behind her blindfold.
“What report might that be, madam?” asked Vashta.
“I am here,” said Fayazi, in tones most tragic, “to report a murder.”
I sat forward. Miljin and Vashta looked astonished. Ana continued to sit perfectly still.
“A…a murder?” said Vashta. “Of who?”
“The victim,” said Fayazi, “is my father. Who fell some thirteen days ago now.”
I sat so far forward I nearly fell off the seat. I had only the vaguest of ideas as to who this woman and her father were—but thirteen days ago would be eight nights before the breach: the same night the ten Engineers had been poisoned.
Vashta stared. “K…Kaygi Haza? Kaygi Haza is dead?”
Fayazi’s giant eyelashes fluttered, her brow suddenly creased with a ghost of grief. “We did not know,” she said, “that it was murder at the time. He fell to some kind of contagion. But as we have…as we have labored to understand it, I have come to believe that it was a poisoning. That it was murder. And thus, I now seek your aid in trying to find the killer.”
Vashta helplessly looked at Ana and Miljin. Miljin’s bafflement had only grown—but then there was a tremor of a muscle in Ana’s cheek.
Then I heard her scoff and mutter, ever so softly: “This smug little bitch. Here we fucking go.”
CHAPTER 25
| | |
A SPEAR OF WHITE light stabbed down from the high windows, and she sat in a chair in the center of its cold spotlight. Her silver hair was gathered elegantly at her shoulders, her ivory fingers threaded in her lap. Knees and feet kept close together, the very picture of modesty and sorrow. Everything felt like a scene from some great painting: the pale fair maid, grieving at her father’s tomb.
“I would have come earlier, of course,” said Fayazi. Again, the fluttering of her enormous eyelashes. “But I had no concept that my father’s manner of death was malicious. It was not until just today, when a commander of the Apoths mentioned to me that several Engineers had perished from a similar affliction—and that it was indeed malicious, a murderous act—that I chose to reach out for aid.”
I glanced about. The edges of the chamber were cast in shadow, yet the armor of the guards along the walls glinted like the eyes of cats watching a campfire from the darkness. Fayazi’s two Sublimes sat on either side of her. The first, an engraver, was a man, short and pale and rather soft of features, with a coral-painted face and a high collar. Eyes alert and resentful, like a top student worried others might surpass his marks. The other, an axiom, was a woman, tall and rail-thin, with little dark eyes like needles, and a large, smooth brow that gave her face a skeletal suggestion. She moved not at all as Fayazi spoke, but her unblinking gaze shifted about the room, and frequently rested on Ana and me.
“Please describe the manner of his death,” said Ana sharply.
Fayazi’s amethyst stare floated over to her. There was a twitch at the edge of her tiny mouth—a smirk. Perhaps a sneer.
“I am familiar with the commander-prificto,” Fayazi said. “But you, I am afraid, I do not ken.”
“This is Immunis Ana Dolabra of the Iudex,” said Vashta. “She is commanding the investigation of some recent murders here in Talagray.”
“Mm,” said Fayazi softly. “This name I know…But I cannot place it yet. No matter.”
A cold, mirthless smile crossed Ana’s face, then vanished.
“My father…” A tragic pucker to Fayazi’s lips. “My father perished from a plantlike growth. It was most strange. It poured out from his body, penetrating him through the breast. We treated it like contagion and locked down the whole of our halls in containment immediately to try to study it. We are often hermetic here in the Outer Rim, you see—the fear of contagion is greatest near the lands where the leviathans fall. Yet we could find nothing, and no one within our halls suffered any more afflictions. It was most mysterious.”
“And you did not report this to the Apoths?” said Ana.
“If we had,” said Fayazi, “then that would have surely broken our containment—correct? The breath of the words that carry a message might also carry death.”
“Then how did you become aware that your father’s death might have been malicious?” asked Ana.
“We lifted containment after seven days, for we had experienced no other incidents,” said Fayazi, “though we continued trying to discover the nature of my father’s death, of course. Just early this morn we received news from…” She turned to her engraver. The man’s eyes quivered, and he leaned over to whisper in her ear. “From Commander Hovanes,” she continued, “that there had been other outbreaks like this—ones kept secret from the citizens of the Empire. Yet we had no idea.” Though her voice was still breathy and childlike, her last words carried a sharp edge to them.
Vashta narrowed her eyes. “We do as we must, to prevent panic,” she said. “For if there’s a panic, madam, we will not survive the wet season.”
Fayazi nodded, her sheet of silver hair tilting back and forth. “Much may be excused,” she conceded, “when we all live under such threats.”
Yet I noted this was not precisely an agreement.
“You lifted this containment a week after your father’s death,” said Ana, “but that would have been nearly a week ago now. So…you still did not notify the Apoths of this contagion during all this time?”
“No,” said Fayazi. “For just after we lifted our containment, the breach occurred. We prepared to evacuate immediately, rather than venture into the city to notify the Iyalets. It was a moment of tremendous confusion and emergency. We simply watched the skies of the east for the flares. I feared for the life of myself and my staff.”
Vashta looked somewhat satisfied by this, but Ana was chewing her lip, head bowed.
“Your father’s death,” Ana said, “however, would have occurred seven days after the death of Commander Blas, in Daretana.”
The axiom’s skeletal gaze was now fixed on Ana. I began to wonder if the woman was even capable of blinking.
Fayazi appeared puzzled. “Commander Blas? Why is that of importance?”
“Are you not aware,” Ana asked, “that Commander Blas died in the same way as your father?”
“I was told that Commander Blas fell to contagion,” said Fayazi, shocked. “This was as it was reported to me. The manner of contagion was not mentioned.”
“You were not informed by your own housekeeper, Madam Gennadios,” Ana said, “that the groundskeeper at the property had collaborated with an assassin to kill the commander?”
Fayazi’s face was the picture of vapid astonishment. “This information would have been referred to my father,” she said, “but not to me. I do not even know who this Gennadios is.”
“And no one in your household, and none of your clan administrators, informed you that your father and Blas died in the exact same fashion?”
“We were in containment,” she said. “And I was deep in grief. I did not have the knowledge or the resources to respond, perhaps, as I should have.”
I glanced down. Ana’s knuckles were white, her fingernails digging into her palms.
She nodded curtly. “Mm-hm. And what is the current state of your father’s body?”
“He was cremated, as is our custom,” Fayazi said. “His ashes wait in our hall to be returned to our ancestral home, in the first ring. I intend to accompany its return for the funerary rites within a week.”
“You burned him. Immediately.”
“Of course,” she said, blinking sorrowfully. “That is my prerogative as his issue.”
Ana’s fists were trembling now. “You are now aware, I take it, that several Engineers have perished to this same contagion?”
“I believe,” said Fayazi sadly, “that Commander Hovanes suggested such…”
“Are you aware that we have evidence suggesting these Engineers were poisoned at your estate? Likely on the same night as your father? Presumably, now, poisoned at the same time?”
“We…we had a social event on that evening,” said Fayazi, shocked. “Many people attended. But I have heard nothing indicating our guests suffered any sign of contagion. And I had no idea that there had been any other poisonings.” She gestured at Vashta. “This was, apparently, kept secret to preserve order.”
“Would those guests have included a Signum Misik Jilki?” asked Ana. “Or a Signum Ginklas Loveh?”
Again, the engraver whispered in Fayazi’s ear.
“We are unfamiliar with these names,” Fayazi said.
Ana listed the rest of the dead Engineers. Fayazi’s engraver shook his head to each one—including Jolgalgan’s.
“Then perhaps you can tell me, madam,” said Ana, “why several of those Engineers possessed reagents keys to your gates?”
Fayazi was appalled. “I’ve no idea! I…I would assume they were stolen. Have you investigated these Engineers? Is it possible it was they who snuck in during the night, and killed my father?”
A long silence stretched on, Ana’s blindfolded face fixed in an expression of grim frustration, while Fayazi insipidly stared back.
“So,” said Ana. “Just to summarize, here—your position is that you were utterly ignorant of Commander Blas’s death at one of your properties, so when your father also died of this horrifying contagion, you had no idea that this was the second murder of this sort. You then burned his body and put the whole of your estate into containment, and due to this and the chaos of the breach, you abstained from notifying any imperial officials of your father’s suspicious death—until now. Nor do you know anything about the Engineers who were likely poisoned at your estate on that very same night, or how they happened to come into possession of reagents keys allowing them access to your properties. Is that the sum of it?”
The two Sublimes stared at Ana coldly. Fayazi’s face worked as she tried to process all this. “I…believe that is all correct.”
“I see!” said Ana, nodding. “I just have one more question.”
“Of course.”
“What color was the clay?”
Fayazi blinked, confused. “Clay? What clay?”
“The clay you must have stuck in your eyes and ears,” said Ana, grinning, “to remain so amazingly fucking ignorant of everything about you.”
Fayazi’s eyes widened very slightly, but otherwise she did not react.
Vashta jumped to her feet. “Immunis!” she bellowed.
“Yes, ma’am?” said Ana politely.
“In there!” snapped Vashta. She pointed at the door to the arbiter’s chambers. “Now!”
“Of course, ma’am.”
She gripped my arm, and we stood.
* * *
—
ONCE THE DOOR was shut, Vashta let Ana have it. Her lungs were in fine form, and she seemed to have both an enthusiasm and talent for bellowing. I had no doubt that one reason she was being so loud was that she wanted Fayazi to hear the dressing-down that Ana was getting.
Finally, she began to finish: “Was I not clear, Immunis, that all of Talagray depends upon those people?” she said. “That we need them about as much as they need us?”
“You were,” said Ana. “But she is lying, ma’am. Obviously so. Blatantly so. Preposterously so! And when someone lies to the Iudex, they get looked at.”
Vashta fumed for a moment, thinking about this. “Do you believe, Immunis, that Fayazi Haza killed her father, and Blas, and those Engineers?”
“I…think that unlikely, ma’am,” admitted Ana.
“And you still think this Jolgalgan is the more likely perpetrator?”
“At the moment, yes, ma’am.”
“But to prove any of this, we would need to gain access to the Haza estate to see if Jolgalgan has been present, and in hopes that there is something there that could indicate her current whereabouts. Yes?”
Ana said nothing.
“I do not know why Fayazi is lying,” said Vashta. “I do not know her business whatsoever. But I do know that there is someone out there who has killed many Engineers and imperiled all of Talagray, and they could do more damage yet. Finding them is the priority. Not digging up any of your grudges with old enemies!”
Still Ana said nothing.
“You both stay here,” said Vashta, “while I try to salvage the situation out there, and engineer a way for you to continue your investigation!”
“Understood, ma’am,” said Ana.
With one last glare, Vashta turned, flung open the door, charged through, and slammed it behind her.
* * *
—
“WELL, DIN,” SAID Ana with a sigh, “I must admit, this…is not going well.”
“Agreed, ma’am,” I said.
“No doubt you would have counseled me to keep my mouth shut.”
“Very true, ma’am.”
“But I couldn’t bear it. I simply could not bear the absurd amount of bullshit being poured at our feet.”
My eyes fluttered as I recalled Fayazi’s story. “Her explanation seems…at least somewhat plausible, yes?”
