“My dear Lady Kiva,” said the Duke of End, coming away from the bar. “Welcome. Welcome.”
“Your Grace,” Kiva said, and gave a bare nod. As the daughter of a house head and ranking representative of the house on the planet, Lagos could have simply addressed him as “Duke” and gotten away with it. But she was here to kiss ass, so might as well get to the puckering early.
“Allow me to introduce my advisor, Lord Ghreni, of the House of Nohamapetan.”
“We’ve met,” Ghreni said, to the duke.
“Have you now?”
“We went to school together,” Ghreni said.
“What a small world,” remarked the duke.
“Isn’t it just,” Kiva replied.
“Yes, well. Sit down, Lady Kiva,” the duke said, motioning to the left-hand chair in front of his desk. Lagos took it, an overstuffed monstrosity she nearly disappeared into, with Ghreni taking the chair on the right. The duke sat down in his own fucking parody of a chair, behind a desk a poor family could make a house out of. “I do regret that the circumstances of our meeting could not be better.”
“I understand, sir. It is challenging when you have insurgents almost knocking on your door.”
“What? No,” the duke said, and Kiva saw Ghreni twitch out the very smallest of smiles. “No, not that. I meant the difficulty with this virus your house brought to us.”
“Truly,” Kiva said. “Are you sure that we brought it, sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean our investigators here did not find it in any of the samples in our warehouse, or on the No, Sir. It only showed up in the orchards.”
“This is news to us,” Ghreni said.
“Is it?” Kiva replied, looking at him directly. “Well, if it is, my representatives have made a report.” She looked over to the duke. “They’ve filed it with your secretary’s office, along with the notice of an appeal for the lifting of our trade ban.”
“I don’t think lifting that ban would be wise,” Ghreni said. “With all due respect to your representatives and their investigators, Kiva, until that study can be thoroughly examined, the duke, for the safety of the citizens of End, has to assume that any other product you carry is likewise infected.”
“I’m afraid your friend is correct about that,” the duke said, to Kiva. “You’ve heard about how the virus crossed over to our banu. Wiped out the crop in entire areas. We can’t risk another event like that. The banu failure is one of the reasons we have this rebellion in the first place.”
“I understand your concern, sir, and that is why the House of Lagos is willing to assist you.”
The duke squinted at Kiva. “How do you mean?”
“I understand you have placed our accounts in escrow, pending resolution of a court case regarding the virus.”
Kiva watched the duke’s eyes flicker, briefly, over to Ghreni’s before coming back to her own. “So I have. It was the prudent course of action.”
“Allow me to formally offer those sums to you as a loan from the House of Lagos to assist you in resisting this rebellion. We would be happy to offer you excellent terms.”
“That’s … generous of you,” the duke said.
“It’s business,” Kiva replied. “It does the House of Lagos no good to have you out of power, sir. And this allows you access to funds that you would not otherwise have at your disposal. Why should that money sit and do you no good? Put it to use.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Ghreni said.
“Actually it is that simple,” Kiva retorted. “We can write it into the loan that if the House of Lagos is found liable, the loan represents the damages and that any remainder plus interest on the loan constitutes penalties.”
“It’s not a matter of legalities, it’s the matter of perception,” Ghreni said.
“The perception of the duke robustly defending his people looks bad? Worse than the perception of a duke being overthrown because he’s too daintily concerned about looking bad?”
Ghreni turned to the duke. “Sir, it looks like a bribe.”
“A bribe for what?” Kiva exclaimed.
“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Ghreni said.
“Lady Kiva, in exchange for this generosity by the House of Lagos, what would you expect?” asked the duke.
“Again, and with respect, sir, it’s not generosity. If the suit fails, the House of Lagos would expect to get our loan back. That’s business.”
“But you want something else, too, don’t you?” Ghreni asked.
“Of course I do. I want to be able to sell my god—” Kiva caught herself at the last moment. “—blessed haverfruit, sir. And when I do, the money we make on the sale and licensing will not go with the Yes, Sir when we leave. It’ll stay here, with you, as part of the loan.”
“Along with any additional viruses your crop might be carrying,” Ghreni said.
Kiva looked over to the duke. “Sir, there are inspectors at Imperial Station. They do random sampling of our cargo anyway. I’m happy to have them do an in-depth inspection of the haverfruit to assure it’s clean and poses no threat to the End biome.”
The Duke of End at least appeared to think about it, but then he stared over at Ghreni, who sat impassively, and shook his head. “Lady Kiva, you have been kind, both with your offer and your concern. But I don’t believe that such measures will be necessary. I believe this rebellion will be contained presently. As such your offer will be unneeded. As for your haverfruit, until we have time to thoroughly examine your report, I need to err on the side of caution. I’m afraid I’m unable to lift your trade ban until the conclusion of the trial. I know you understand.”
“You bet your ass I do,” Kiva said, and stood.
“Excuse me?” the duke said, standing. Ghreni stood as well.
“Thank you for your time, sir. Will you call me a page so I can find my way out of this goddamned maze?”
“Allow me to walk the Lady Kiva out, sir,” Ghreni said, to the duke, smoothly.
“Yes, of course.” The duke nodded his good-bye to both of them and headed back over to his bar.
“You motherfucker,” Kiva said, to Ghreni, as soon as they exited his office.
“It’s nice to see you too,” Ghreni said.
“You better hope I don’t find you or the House of Nohamapetan is behind this fucking virus. Because if I do, I will come all the way back to End to feast on your fucking heart.”
“You’re always welcome to visit me, of course.”
“So, are you?”
“Behind the virus?”
“Yes.”
“Obviously I am not, but even if I were, I don’t think you’re foolish enough to believe I would tell you.”
“You could save me a trip.”
“Now, why would I want to do that?”
“You haven’t changed, Ghreni.”
“And you shouldn’t feel too bad, Kiva.” Ghreni motioned back toward the duke’s office. “You almost had him with that offer of a loan. That was smart, by the way. As a guild house any loan you make to a noble in the defense of the imperial system is backed by the empire itself. A fine way to cover your ass.”
“Until you screwed me.”
“I’d think you’d be used to that by now.”
Kiva snorted at this. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that, Ghreni. ‘We went to school together,’ my ass.”
“It was much more politic than how you would have put it. ‘I fucked his brains out whenever he went to visit his sister in her dormitory at university.’”
“I wouldn’t have said it like that,” Kiva said. “I was told not to swear. How is your asshole sister, anyway?”
“Not happy. She was going to be crown princess of the empire, but then Rennered Wu lost his head in a racing accident.”
“A real tragedy for her.”
“She thinks so. It was bad for Rennered as well, of course. I understand the emperox’s bastard daughter is now the heir. So my brother will take a run at her, I imagine.”
“There’s the Nohamapetan family I remember. Full of romantics.”
“You didn’t complain, once.”
Kiva stopped and looked at Ghreni, who also stopped. “Well, once I was a fucking idiot. Now I’m not.”
“That would be a first for a Lagos, then,” Ghreni said.
“What scam do you have running on this dipshit duke?”