“Usually the rebellions are confined to outer provinces,” Rue said. “They pop up, the reigning duke sends in the Home Guard, it’s over in a couple of months. This one is different.”
“This one is organized,” Finn said. “It’s got some firepower behind it.”
“Yeah, I figured that part out on my own,” Kiva said. “But I’m still not hearing what it has to do with us.”
“As I said, politically, nothing,” Rue continued. “But this particular rebellion has been expensive to fight. Tax revenues are dropping because of business disruption. That money’s got to come from somewhere.”
“From us?”
“From us,” Rue agreed.
“Not just us,” Finn amended. “He’s putting the squeeze on all guild interests here. Higher taxes and tariffs, for a start. The duke pushed them up to the imperial legal limit.”
“But that wasn’t enough,” Rue said. “So at that point, the duke started getting creative.”
“When the virus was reported on the grapefruit, the duke froze the banking accounts of the House of Lagos,” Finn said. “Theoretically they’re in escrow pending legal determination of damages to End in the spread of the virus to native crops.”
“How are we responsible for that?” Kiva asked.
“We might not be,” Rue said. “That’ll need to be decided in court. But if the duke can prove that the virus was introduced into the End ecosystem due to negligence on our part, he’s entitled by imperial law to compensation and penalties.”
“And in the meantime, to keep us from repatriating profits to Ikoyi and potentially out of the reach of the duke, our accounts are in escrow here,” Finn said.
“But they’re not really in escrow, are they?” Kiva said, and pointed out the small, thick, bulletproof window. “The duke is using them to fund the fight against these rebels.”
Rue smiled, thinly. Everyone on End, apparently, smiled that way. “As it happens, when the duke declared the current state of emergency, he nationalized the banks. The official line is that it’s to tamp down on financial panics and speculations. But the executives at the guild banks tell us he’s raiding accounts.”
Kiva snorted. “Well, that’s nice.”
“It’s not a bad plan, at least as it relates to the House of Lagos,” Finn admitted. “If he beats the rebellion, he has all the time it will take for the litigation to run to replace the funds he’s stolen. That will be years.”
“And if he loses then it won’t matter anyway, because he’ll probably be dead,” Rue said.
Kiva grunted at this and looked out the window. End’s capital city of Inverness rolled by, run-down, unhappy, a few sooty fires in the distance. “Will he?”
“Will he what?” Finn asked.
“Will he lose?”
Finn and Rue looked at each other. “It wouldn’t be the first time a Duke of End has been deposed,” Finn said.
“Fine, but what about this one?” Kiva asked. “Are we wasting our fucking time going to talk to this asshole?”
“It’s not looking great for the duke, no,” Rue said, after a minute. “We’ve heard rumors of desertions in the provinces, and of military commanders changing sides and taking their soldiers with them. We’ll probably know within the next week how things are going to shake out.”
Kiva pointed upward. “And what about those assholes? The imperials? The duke is a goddamned noble, after all. They would probably see it as bad optics to have him dragged out in the street and shot.”
“This is End, Lady Kiva,” Rue said. “As long as the Interdependency gets its percentage of trade, everything else is an internal matter.”
“Including the death of a duke?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a Duke of End has been deposed,” Finn repeated.
“We’re about to arrive at the palace,” the driver said. “It’ll take a few minutes to get through the security checkpoints. Ma’am, may I have your invitation to the palace?”
Kiva passed it forward and then turned her attention back to her underlings. “So basically what I do now is go in and beg this motherfucker to let me sell my haverfruit, and if he does, expect him to put any profit into this so-called escrow and never see it again.”
“Not for years, no,” Finn said. “Best-case scenario.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you see this coming?” Lagos asked Finn, and jabbed a finger toward the heavily fortified palace, visible through the front windshield. “We’re sitting here grabbing our own tits while this asshole is using our cash to play whack-a-mole with insurgents.”
“As it happens, I did see it coming,” Finn said. “Which is why the accounts that are escrowed were only about half as full as they were the minute the first reports of the virus started coming in.”
“Where’s the rest of the money? Did you bury it in the backyard?”
“In a manner of speaking. The House of Lagos has become, through a number of intermediaries, owners of quite a lot of property.”
Kiva motioned around. “Not here, I hope. This fucking town is on fire.”
“No. Mostly in the provinces of Tomnahurich and Claremont. Particularly Claremont. The local count there was keen on offloading a number of very nice properties. He wanted to achieve liquidity, fast.”
“Of course he did. Nobles don’t tend to be popular during revolutions.”
“No, they don’t, Lady Kiva.”
The car started moving forward again. “There are two other things you should know going into this meeting with the duke,” Rue said, to Kiva.
“Tell me.”
Rue handed over a sheet. “One, we did as you asked and followed up on that virus. There was absolutely no evidence of viral infection on those grapefruit grafts until after they made it to orchards here on End. Nothing in the stock or fruit in the warehouses, and nothing on the samples that were tested on the No, Sir before she left.”
Kiva took the sheet and looked at it. “So you think it’s sabotage.”
“Pretty sure of that, yes. Whether we can prove that to the satisfaction of a court is another matter. Which brings us to the other thing. The duke has an advisor from one of the guild houses. You’re not going to like which house it is.”
Kiva looked up. “Oh, don’t you even fucking say it.”
“It’s the House of Nohamapetan.”
*
The name of the ducal castle was Kinmylies. It was overly plush in a manner that suggested that the residents had confused excess for elegance. Kiva, who came from a line of immensely wealthy people who didn’t give a shit whether their wealth impressed you or not, immediately felt twitchy within its walls. This place needs a cleansing fucking fire, she thought, as she was led down one interminable hallway after another, on her way to the Duke of End’s office.
“One thing,” Finn said to Kiva as the page came to retrieve her. “The duke finds profanity a mark of a lesser intellect. Try to avoid it with him if you can.”
What an asshole, she thought, as she stepped into the duke’s office, as vomitiously ornate as any other part of the palace. The family legend had it that Kiva Lagos’s very first word as an infant was “fuck,” a legend that was entirely liable to be true, given the swearing propensity of the Countess Huma Lagos, Kiva’s mother and head of the House of Lagos. It would have been more surprising if it wasn’t, frankly. Kiva couldn’t remember ever not swearing, and of course as the daughter of Countess Lagos, even as the sixth child with no shot at the title, no one was ever going to tell her to stop.
And now this prick, who had a jabong up his ass about it.
The prick in question, the one with the rectally stored jabong, was standing at his office bar, a tumbler of some amber liquid in his hand, tall with a beard that could hide birds in it, laughing. Standing next to him, also with a tumbler, also laughing, and in his family’s pretentiously simple black, was none other than Ghreni Nohamapetan.
The page cleared his throat and the duke looked up. “The Lady Kiva Lagos,” the page said, and departed.