Things just kept getting worse and worse.
Vlora stood up, straightening her jacket. “I’ll take that under advisement. Thank you for being … polite.”
“Of course,” Burt said, raising his cigar. “But lest you think I’m too polite: I have people I trust who know what you are. If a bullet happens to find my brain, they’ll make sure that whatever you’re running from is able to find you. Understand?”
Vlora smiled at him tightly. This man was not an idiot. Unfortunately. “Good afternoon,” she told him.
CHAPTER 25
Michel followed Tenik into the capitol building at about noon. It was a weekend and the halls were mostly empty, with just a few couriers and soldiers present. Other than when he handed himself over to Yaret at the beginning of this mess, it was the first time Michel had been back in the building since the occupation, and he allowed himself to take in the small details that had changed along with the government: Red-on-black Dynize flags flew from banisters and high windows, while much of the upholstery on hallway benches had been changed to match. Everything that had the old regime symbols and colors had been either replaced or defaced.
As a spy, Michel was used to being an outsider in enemy territory, but it still felt very strange not to see the familiar sunflower yellow of the Fatrastan flags or the rose symbol of the Blackhats. He knew that they were just cosmetic changes, but they troubled him more than he’d expected.
He did not allow his unease to show on his face as he followed Tenik down the long main hall. “Who will I meet at this war game?” he asked.
Tenik flipped his coin without breaking stride, catching it every time. “It’s hard to say. Most of us haven’t been able to attend a game since we left home. This one was put together by the Tchellasi Household—Tchellasi is the minister of finance.”
“I’m guessing since we’re in the capitol building that it’s not exactly open to the public.”
“You guess right. It’ll be mostly government bureaucrats, senior Household members who make some excuse to get away from their duties for a few hours. I’ll stake my ration card on Forgula attending—one of the players is her cousin.”
They stopped once as a Privileged and his retinue passed by. Michel mimicked Tenik’s bowed head before they continued their trip down the hall. “Will there be any of those?” Michel asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Privileged? I doubt it. I’ll be surprised if we even see any of the minor Names. It’ll be mostly cupbearers, Captains of the Guard, stewards, and doormen.”
“The people who really run the empire, you mean?” This could be a very good experience for Michel. He needed to keep his eyes and ears open—but not lose focus on the current issue with Forgula.
Tenik gave him a sly smile. “We would never presume.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t. What role do the Privileged play in Households, by the way?”
“They don’t belong to Households,” Tenik said. “Technically, all Privileged are property of the emperor.”
“I saw a Privileged with Ka-Sedial yesterday.”
Tenik wrinkled his nose. “Sedial is different. He speaks with the emperor’s voice on this expedition, so the Privileged report to him. I didn’t see this Privileged, but I’m surprised Sedial openly has one as an escort. Emperor’s voice or not, he has so far been careful not to flaunt his power on this expedition lest he encourage several of the lesser Households to ally against him.” Tenik shook his head. “I’ll look into the matter.”
They rounded a corner and continued on for another hundred paces, where they reached a double set of ornate doors. Tenik pushed one open without knocking, revealing a room that belied the quiet of the rest of the building.
What had once been the foreign dignitary room had been, at first glance, converted into a boxing arena. It was already well suited to observation, with high banks of windows and tiered seating where bureaucrats could observe important meetings. More chairs and another set of tiered seating had been added all around the room, and the enormous table where Lindet had met with Ka-Sedial had been removed.
The arena-like feel was what reminded Michel of boxing. The room was filled with people, stinking from so many bodies, filled with the noise of their cheers, jeers, and the placing of wagers. Tenik shouldered his way through the crowd, pulling Michel along behind him until they reached the object of everyone’s attention.
In the center of the room, where the enormous meeting table had once stood, was an octagon over twenty feet across and filled with smaller octagonal tiles of various colors. Carved ivory and jade figurines stood on some of those tiles. It was, to Michel’s eyes, the likeness of a general’s war map, and it didn’t take him long to realize that the two people standing beside the octagon were the “generals” in this war game.
The players moved around the map freely, using long sticks to carefully adjust the positions of the figurines in a seemingly preordained order. A third person, like the referee in a boxing match, occasionally would reach out with a long pincer stick to remove one of the pieces.
Michel was immediately taken with the game. Tenik had explained the basics the night before, and he’d thought the concept sounded slow and boring. But this moved quickly, each player taking their turn in a matter of seconds while the crowd’s noise grew from silence, to whispers, to a roar—all depending on the actions of the players.
He tore his eyes away from the game as Tenik tugged on his sleeve. They moved back through the crowd to the edge of the room, climbing up into an open spot on the tiered seating where they could get a decent look at the room.
Michel took one look around and immediately realized how out of place he looked. His blond-dyed hair and his part-Kressian, part-Palo features made him stand out in a room full of redheads. Even his suit—brown cotton trousers and jacket—seemed drab and strange among all the teal and ivory worn by the Dynize.
More than a few were watching him as he did a slower examination of the room. Some whispered to each other curiously, while others were obviously annoyed at his presence.
“Tell me,” Michel said out of the corner of his mouth, “do foreigners often attend these games?”
“Not that I can recall.”
Michel cursed himself for not thinking about how out of place he would be—and Tenik for not warning him. He needed to stay in the shadows while he looked for Taniel’s informant, not damn well stand on a stage.
He forced himself to ignore the glares and the whispers. “Names,” he told Tenik. “I need to know who these people are.”
“There’s a lot of people here.”
“I’m going to have to learn them eventually.”
“Where do you want me to start?” Tenik asked.
Michel’s wandering gaze finally found his target. Forgula stood about twenty yards away, down at the other end of the tiered seating with her neck craned to see over the heads of people in front of her. To his surprise, he recognized the woman just behind her.
“I thought you said there wouldn’t be a Privileged here,” Michel said.
“Eh?” Tenik looked around. “Where do you see a Privileged?”
“Behind Forgula. That’s the woman I mentioned earlier.”
Tenik searched for a moment. “Ah. Saen-Ichtracia. I should have known.”
“About what?”
“A Privileged with Sedial? She’s his granddaughter.”
Michel made a mental note that this was not someone he wanted to cross paths with. “She’s pretty.”
Tenik laughed softly. “They call her ‘the people eater.’”
“Do I want to know why?”
“She’s survived seventeen separate assassination attempts. The first was when she was seven. She strangled the assassin with the string from one of her nursery toys.”
Michel let out a soft whistle. “Because of her grandfather?”