Chapter
6
Taniel cut the last silver button off his jacket and handed it to Kin. The stooped Gurlish examined the button closely in the light of a candle before sliding it into his pocket, just like he had all the others, and set a ball of mala on the table next to Taniel’s hammock.
Despite the greed apparent on Kin’s face, he had a worried look in his eyes.
“Don’t go through it so fast. Savor. Taste. Enjoy,” Kin said.
Taniel pushed a large piece of mala into his pipe. It lit instantly off the embers of the old mala, and he breathed in deep.
“You smoke more in a day than any man does in twenty,” Kin said. He settled back on his haunches, watching Taniel smoke.
Taniel lifted his silver powder-mage button and rolled it between his fingers. “Must be the sorcery,” he said. “Ever had a powder mage in here before?”
Kin shook his head.
“Never known a powder mage who smoked mala myself,” Taniel said. “We all take the powder. Never need more to feel alive.”
“Why the mala?” Kin busied himself sweeping the center of the den.
Taniel took a deep breath. “Powder doesn’t make you forget.”
“Ah. Forget. Every man takes mala to forget.” Kin nodded knowingly.
Taniel stared at the ceiling of his niche, counting the hammock swings.
“Going to bed,” Kin said, setting his broom in one corner.
“Wait,” Taniel reached out with one hand, only to draw it back when he realized how pathetic he must look. “Give me enough to get through the night.”
“Night?” Kin shook his head. “It’s morning now. I work through the night. Most smokers come then.”
“Give me enough for that, then.”
Kin seemed to consider this, looking at the ball he just gave Taniel. From what he said, a ball like that should have lasted four or five days.
“Give me the powder keg, and I’ll give you as much you can smoke for three weeks.”
Taniel clenched the powder-keg pin in his fist. “No. What else?”
“I’ll give you my daughter for the whole three weeks, too.”
Taniel’s stomach turned at the thought of the Gurlish mala man pimping his daughter to his customers.
“No.”
“You like art?” Kin picked up the sketchbook and pencil Ka-poel had brought for Taniel.
“Put those down.”
Kin dropped the sketchbook with a sigh. “You no have value. No money.”
Taniel checked the pockets of his coat. Nothing. He ran his fingers over the silver embroidery.
“How much for my coat?”
Kin sniffed and touched the fabric. “Tiny bit.”
“Give me that.” Taniel set his mala pipe on the table and wriggled out of the coat, handing it over to Kin.
“You’ll die of cold, and I won’t pay for funeral.”
“It’s the middle of summer. Give me the damned mala.”
Kin handed him a disappointingly small ball of the sticky black mala before disappearing up the stairs with Taniel’s coat. Taniel heard the creak of feet on the floorboards above him, and Kin’s voice speaking in Gurlish.
He settled back into his hammock and took a long draw at his mala pipe.
It was said that mala would make a man forget for hours at a time. Taniel tried to think back on the hours he’d lost. How long had he been down here? Days? Weeks? It didn’t seem like a long time.
He took the pipe out of his mouth and examined it in the dim light of the den’s candles. “Damned stuff doesn’t work,” he said to himself. He could still see Kresimir stepping out of that cloud after descending from the sky. A god! A real, live god. Taniel wondered what his childhood priest would have done had he known Taniel would one day grow up to shoot the god of the Nine.
Time hadn’t stopped when the ensorcelled bullet went through Kresimir’s eye, so it seemed the world could live without its god. But how many people had died trying to keep Kresimir from returning to the world? Hundreds of Adran. Friends. Allies. Thousands of Kez – hundreds by Taniel’s own hand.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw a new face. Sometimes it was a man or a woman he’d killed. Sometimes it was Tamas, or Vlora. And sometimes it was Ka-poel. Maybe it was the mala, but, by the pit, it made his heart beat faster when he saw the savage girl’s face.
The steps creaked. Taniel looked up. Through the haze he could see Ka-poel come down the stairs. She crossed the room to his side, frowned at him.
“What?” he said.
She tugged on his shirt, then pinched her own long duster. Jacket. Damn. First thing she noticed.
He wrapped his hand around his ball of mala protectively.
Quicker than he could see, her hand darted forward and snatched the mala pipe from between his teeth.
“You little bitch,” he hissed. “Give it back.”
She danced away from his grasping hands to stand in the middle of the room, grinning.
“Ka-poel, bring me that pipe.”
She shook her head.
His breathing came harder. He blinked against a sudden cloud in his vision, unable to tell if it was the mala or his own fury. After a moment of struggle, he sat up in the hammock.
“Give it back to me now.” He swung his legs over the edge of the hammock, but when he tried to stand up, a wave of nausea struck him harder than it ever had when he opened his third eye to see into the Else. He sank back into the hammock, his heart hammering in his ears.
“Pit,” he whispered, clutching at his temples. “I’m all sorts of buggered.”
Ka-poel set the mala pipe on a stool on the other side of the room.
“Don’t put that there,” Taniel said, his own voice now weak. “Bring it to me.”
She just shook her head and shrugged out of her duster. Before he could protest, she crossed to him and swept it up over his hammock and up to his shoulders.
He pushed it away. “You’ll get cold,” he said.
She pointed at him.
“It’s summer, damn it. I’m fine.”
She drew the duster back up over his chest.
Again, he gave it back to her. “I’m not a child.”
Something seemed to light in her eyes at that. She pulled the duster off him and threw it to the ground.
“Pole, what the…” His next words were lost in his own strangled cry as she lifted one leg over the hammock and straddled him, sitting directly on his lap. His heart beat a little faster as she wiggled her ass to get comfortable. In the closeness of the niche, their faces were almost touching. “Pole…,” he said, suddenly breathless. The mala pipe, and even the little ball of mala in his hands, were suddenly forgotten.
Her tongue darted out and wet her lips. She seemed poised, watchful – like an animal.
Taniel almost didn’t hear the sound of the door to the house upstairs being thrown open. Feet thumped on the floorboards. A woman began shouting in Gurlish.
Ka-poel lowered her head. Taniel’s shoulders flexed, pushing him toward her.
“Captain Taniel Two-Shot!” The stairs rattled under a pair of determined boots. A woman in a dress suit, hat in hand, entered the room. “Captain!” she said. “Captain, I…”
She froze when she saw Taniel with Ka-poel in his lap. Taniel felt the color rise in his cheeks. A quick glance at Ka-poel. She gave him a small, knowing smile, but annoyance flashed in her eyes. She rolled off of him and swept her duster off the floor and over her shoulders in one quick movement.
The woman turned to one side, staring at the far wall. “Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were indisposed.”
“She’s not undressed,” Taniel retorted. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Who the pit are you?”
The woman gave a slight bow. “I am Fell Baker, undersecretary for the Holy Warriors of Labor.” Despite having found them in a compromising situation, she didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed.
“The union ? How the pit did you find me?” Taniel pulled himself to a sitting position in the hammock, though it made his stomach turn something fierce. He wondered how long it had been since he ate.
“I’m Ricard Tumblar’s aide, sir. He sent me to find you. He would very much like to meet with you.”
“Tumblar? Don’t know the name.” He settled back into the hammock and eyed Ka-poel. She’d sat on the stool on the far side of the mala den, tapping his pipe against her palm as she studied the undersecretary.
Fell raised an eyebrow. “He’s the head of the union , sir.”
“I don’t care.”
“He’s asked me to extend to you an invitation to lunch.”
“Go away.”
“He says there’s a great deal of money at stake.”
“I don’t care.”
Fell examined him for a few moments before turning and heading up the creaking stairs just as abruptly as she’d arrived. The hushed sound of voices came down through the floor. They were speaking in Gurlish. Taniel glanced at Ka-poel. She returned his stare for a moment, then winked.
What the pit?
A few moments later the undersecretary came back downstairs.
“Sir, it appears you’re out of money.”
Taniel looked for his mala pipe. Oh. Ka-poel still had it. Right.
“Take that from her and give it to me, would you?” Taniel said to Fell.
Fell faced Ka-poel. The two women exchanged a glance that seemed full of meaning. Taniel didn’t like that at all.
The undersecretary clasped her hands together. “I will not, sir.” She crossed the room in two strides and grabbed Taniel by the chin, forcing his face toward her. Taniel grasped the woman’s wrist, but Fell was stronger than she looked. She examined his eyes.
“Let go of me, or I will bloody well kill you,” Taniel growled.
Fell took her hands away and stepped back. “How much have you smoked since you got here?”
“Don’t know,” Tamas grumbled. Ka-poel hadn’t so much as moved when the undersecretary had rushed him. Some help she was.
“Eight pounds of the stuff in four days. That’s what the owner told me.”
Taniel shrugged.
“That’s enough to kill a warhorse, sir.”
Taniel sniffed. “Didn’t seem to do much.”
A perplexed look crossed Fell’s face. She opened her mouth, shut it again, and then said, “Didn’t do much? I…” She grasped her hat and went back upstairs, only to return again after a few minutes.
“The owner,” Fell said, “insists he watched you smoke it himself. I examined your eyes. Not even a hint of mala poisoning. Pit, I’ve probably gotten mala poisoning just standing in the smoke and talking to you. You’re god-touched.”
Taniel surged to his feet. One moment he was in the hammock, and the next he had Fell by the lapels with both fists. His head spun, his vision warped, and his hands trembled with rage. “I am not god-touched,” Taniel said. “I’ve not… I’m…”
“Kindly unhand me, sir,” Fell said gently.
Taniel felt his hands drop to his sides. He took a step back and mumbled to himself.
“I’ll give you a moment to clean up,” Fell said. “We’ll get you a new jacket on the way to see Ricard.”
“I’m not going,” Taniel said weakly. He stumbled to the corner, grateful for a wall to lean against. It might be that he couldn’t go. He doubted he could walk more than twenty feet.
Fell sighed. “Mr. Tumblar offers the hospitality of his own mala den, sir. It is a much more comfortable location, and his den-keeper won’t take your jacket. If you refuse that invitation, we are instructed to bring you there by force.”
Taniel looked over to Ka-poel. She was cleaning her fingernails with what looked to be a sharpened knitting needle, almost as long as her forearm. She met his eyes briefly. Again that small, knowing smile. Again the annoyance in her eyes.
“Ricard’s den has significantly more privacy than this, sir,” Fell said, coughing once into her hand.
Taniel was not sure that whatever had just happened with Ka-poel was bound to repeat itself. “All right, Fell. But one thing.”
“Sir?”
“I don’t think I’ve eaten in two days. I could use some lunch.”
Two hours later, Taniel was in the Adopest docks. The docks traditionally ran Adran commerce, governing the transport of cargo from the Ad River and its tributaries in the north all the way down through Surkov’s Alley and across the Amber Expanse. With the war on, trade through Kez was at a standstill, and cargo that usually used the river was now sent over the mountains by mule and packhorse.
Despite the change in transportation, the docks were still the center of commerce in Adopest. Barges brought iron ore and raw lumber down the river to supply the Adran mills and gunsmiths, who turned out weapons and ammunition in the hundreds every day.
The docks stank of fish, sewage, and smoke, and Taniel was starting to miss the cool, sweet smell of mala in Kin’s den. His escort consisted of Fell Baker the undersecretary and a pair of wide-shouldered steelworkers. Taniel wondered if the steelworkers were there to carry him to the meeting with Ricard if he decided not to go.
Ka-poel trailed along behind the group. The steelworkers ignored her; Fell kept a wary eye on her at all times. She seemed to suspect that Ka-poel was more than just a mute savage, while Taniel had a hunch that Fell might be more than an undersecretary.
Fell stopped in front of a dockside warehouse within spitting distance of the water. Taniel looked out from between the alleyways and across the Adsea. Even during the day he could see a glow on the horizon, and the conspicuous absence of South Pike Mountain. The view made him want to hide beneath a rock. The death throes of a god had leveled a mountain, and he’d gotten away with a month-long coma. He wasn’t certain why he wasn’t dead, but he suspected it had to do with Ka-poel.
He wondered if everyone else had been so lucky. Where was Bo? Where were the men and women of the Mountainwatch he’d befriended during the defense of Shouldercrown?
An image flashed through his mind of clutching Ka-poel to his chest as Kresimir’s palace collapsed around him. Fire and stone, the burning heat of lava as the mountain collapsed.
“Hard to believe it’s gone, isn’t it,” Fell said, nodding across the water as she opened the door to the warehouse and gestured for Taniel to go in.
Taniel gave one last glance to the east and jerked his head toward Fell. “You first.”
“Fine,” Fell said. She looked to the steelworkers, offering them cigars from a gunmetal case in her vest pocket. “Back to work for you, boys.” The two men tipped their hats to Fell, took a light for their cigars and then headed back into the street. “Come on,” Fell said. Once they were all in, she closed the door behind Ka-poel. “Welcome to Ricard’s new offices.”
Taniel had to keep himself from whistling. On the outside, the building looked like an old warehouse. The windows were shuttered, the brick long in need of refacing. The inside was another matter.
The floors were of black marble, and the walls were whitewashed behind crimson satin curtains. The building appeared to have but one main room, an echoing chamber two stories high and at least two hundred paces long, lit by a half-dozen crystal chandeliers. At the near end of the room there was a long bar, complete with uniformed barman and well-endowed woman in nothing more than a petticoat.
“Your coat, sir,” the woman said.
Taniel handed her his new dark-blue uniform jacket. He felt his gaze rest on her a little longer than was proper. Without looking at Ka-poel, he turned to examine the room. Artwork adorned the walls, sculptures were set at even intervals inside shallow recesses. This was the kind of wealth displayed by the highest echelons of nobility, even that of the king. Taniel thought that Tamas had stamped out this kind of wealth when he slaughtered the nobility. A thought occurred that perhaps Tamas had just changed the very rich and powerful for a new set of the same.
A man crossed the marble floor toward them. He wore a white smoking jacket, a cigar clenched between his teeth. He looked to be about forty years old, with a hairline receding well past the middle of his head. He wore a long beard in the Fatrastan style, and the grin on his face reached his ears and even touched his eyes.
“Taniel Two-Shot,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Ricard Tumblar. I’m a great admirer of yours.”
Taniel took his hand with hesitation.
“Mr. Tumblar.”
“Mister? Bah, call me Ricard. I’m at your service. And this must be your ever-present companion. The Dynize. My lady?” Ricard swept into a deep bow and took Ka-poel’s hand in his, bending to kiss it gently. Despite his forward nature, he eyed her as one might something pretty but far from tame, something that might bite at any moment.
Ka-poel didn’t seem to know how to react to this.
“I’d heard you were a handsome woman,” Ricard said, “but the stories didn’t do you justice.” He broke away from them and crossed to the bar. “Drink?”
“What do you have?” Taniel felt his mood brighten a little.
“Anything,” Ricard said.
Taniel doubted that. “Fatrastan ale, then.”
Ricard nodded to the barman. “Two, please. For the lady?”
Ka-poel flashed three fingers.
“Make that three,” Ricard said to the barman. A moment later, he handed Taniel a mug.
“Son of a bitch,” Taniel said after a sip. “You really do have Fatrastan ale.”
“I did say anything. Can we take a seat?”
He led them toward the far end of the room. Taniel blamed his mala-addled mind for not noticing earlier that they weren’t alone. A dozen men and half again as many women lounged on divans, drinking and smoking, talking quietly among themselves.
Ricard spoke as they approached the group. “Oh, I had a question for you, Taniel. How much black powder does the army use?”
Taniel rubbed his eyes. His head hurt, and he didn’t come here to meet Ricard’s cronies. “Quite a lot, I’d imagine. I’m not a quartermaster. Why do you ask?”
“Been getting more and more powder orders from the General Staff,” Ricard said, waving his hand like it was a trifle. “I just thought it strange. It almost seems as if their requisitions double every week. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.”
The talking died down when Taniel reached the group at the end of the room, and he felt suddenly uncomfortable.
“I thought this was going to be a private meeting,” Taniel said quietly, stopping Ricard with a hand to his arm.
Ricard didn’t even glance down at the hand Taniel laid on him. “Give me a moment to make introductions and we’ll get down to business.”
He went around the room, giving names that Taniel immediately forgot, and titles that Taniel took no great note of. These men and women were the heads of the various factions within the union s: bakers, steelworkers, millers, ironsmiths, blacksmiths, and goldsmiths.
True to his word, when the introductions were finished, Ricard led them toward a quiet corner of the vast room, where they were joined by just one other woman. She was one of the first Ricard had introduced, and Taniel couldn’t remember her name.
“Cigarette?” Ricard offered as they took their seats. A man in a jacket matching the barman’s brought them a silver tray lined with cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Taniel noticed a mala pipe among the recreation. His fingers twitched to take it, but he fought down the urge and waved away the servant.
“Your secretary said you wanted to meet with me,” Taniel said, realizing with a start that Fell had disappeared. “She didn’t say why. I’d like to know.”
“I have a proposition.”
Taniel looked at the woman again. She was older, with an air of disdain particular to the very wealthy. What was her name? And who did she represent? The bakers? No. Goldsmiths?
“I’m not interested,” Taniel said.
“I haven’t even told you what it is,” Ricard said.
“Look,” Taniel said. “I came because your undersecretary made it clear that she’d make me come even if I didn’t want to. I’ve been polite. I’ve come. Now I’d like to go.” He stood.
“Is this what you brought me here for, Ricard?” the woman said, looking down her nose at Taniel. “To see a mala-drunk soldier piss on your hospitality? I fear for this country, Ricard. We’ve handed it over to the uneducated soldiers. They don’t know anything but vice and killing.”
Taniel clenched his fists and felt his lip curl. “You don’t know me, madam. You don’t know who the pit I am or what I’ve seen. Don’t pretend to understand soldiers when you’ve never looked into another man’s eyes and seen that one of you would die.”
Ricard leaned back on his divan and relit his cigar with a matchstick. He had the air of a man at the boxing ring. Had he expected this?
The woman fairly bristled. “I know soldiers,” she said. “Sick, stupid brutes. You rape and steal, and you kill when you can’t do that. I’ve known many soldiers and I don’t have to kill a man to know you’re nothing more than a churlish brigand in a uniform.”
Ricard sighed. “Please, Cheris, not now.”
“Not now?” Cheris asked. “If not now, then when? I’ve had enough of Tamas’s iron grip on the city. I didn’t want you to bring this so-called war hero here.”
Taniel turned to go.
“Taniel,” Ricard said. “Give me just a few more moments.”
“Not with her here,” Taniel said. He headed toward the door, only to find his way blocked by Ka-poel. “I’m leaving, Pole.”
She returned his grimace with a cool-eyed shake of the head.
“Look at that!” Cheris said behind him. “The coward flees back to his mala den. He can’t face truth. And you want this man at your side, Ricard? He’s led around by a savage girl.”
Taniel whirled. He’d had enough. His rage piqued, he advanced toward Cheris, one hand held in the air.
“Strike me!” she said, leaning forward to offer a cheek. “It’ll show how much of a man you are.”
Taniel froze. Had he just been ready to hit her? “I killed a god,” he fumed. “I put a bullet through his eye and watched him die to save this country!”
“Lies,” Cheris said. “You lie to me to my face? You think I believe this tripe about Kresimir returning?”
Taniel would have let his hand fly right then if Ka-poel hadn’t slipped around him. She faced Cheris, eyes narrowed. Taniel suddenly felt fear. As much as he wanted to hurt this woman, he knew what Ka-poel was capable of.
“Pole,” he said.
“Out of my face, you savage whore,” Cheris said, getting to her feet.
Ka-poel’s fist connected with her nose hard enough to send Cheris tumbling over the back of the divan. Cheris screamed. Ricard shot to his feet. The group of union bosses still speaking quietly on the other side of the room fell silent, and stared, shocked, toward them.
Cheris climbed to her feet, pushing away Ricard’s attempt to help. Without a look back, she fled the room, blood streaming from her nose.
Ricard turned to Taniel, his expression caught somewhere between horror and amusement.
“I won’t apologize,” Taniel said. “Neither for me nor for Pole.” Ka-poel took a place at his side, arms crossed.
“She was my guest,” Ricard said. He paused, examined his cigar. “More ale,” he called to the barkeep. “But you are my guests as well. She’s going to make me pay for that later. I’d hoped she would be an ally in the coming months, but it appears that is not the case.”
Taniel looked to Ricard, then to the main door, where Cheris was demanding her coachman.
“I should go,” Taniel said.
“No, no. Ale!” Ricard shouted again, though Taniel could see the barkeep heading toward them. “You’re more important than she is.”
Taniel slowly lowered himself back into his seat. “I killed Kresimir,” he said. Part of him wanted to be proud of it, but saying it aloud made him feel ill.
“That’s what Tamas told me,” Ricard said.
“You don’t believe me.”
The barkeep arrived and changed Taniel’s mug for another one, though he’d only finished half. New mugs all around and the man disappeared. Ricard drank deeply of his before he began to speak.
“I’m a practical man,” Ricard said. “I know that sorcery exists, though I am not a Privileged or a Knacked or a Marked. Two months ago, if you’d told me that Kresimir would return, I would have wondered what asylum you’d escaped from.
“But I was there when the Barbers tried to kill Mihali. I saw your father – a man twice as pragmatic as I – go ghost white. He felt something from the chef and —”
“I’m sorry,” Taniel interrupted. “Mihali?”
Ricard tapped the ash from the end of his cigar. “Oh. You’re very much out of the loop, aren’t you? Mihali is Adom reborn. Kresimir’s brother, here in the flesh.”
Taniel felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Another god? Kresimir’s own brother?
“What I’m trying to get at,” Ricard went on, “is that your father believes that Mihali is Adom reborn. And if Adom has returned, why not Kresimir? So, yes. I believe you shot Kresimir. Is it possible to kill a god? I don’t know.”
He scowled into his mug. “As for the newspapers and the people, they are skeptical. Rumors fly. People are taking sides. Right now it all comes down to a matter of faith, and we have only your word and the word of a few Mountainwatchers that Kresimir returned and took a bullet in the eye.”
Taniel felt his strength leave him. To be thought a fraud after all he went through? It was the final blow. He pointed to the door. “How do they explain South Pike? The entire mountain collapsed.” He heard his voice rise with anger.
“You won’t change anyone’s mind by shouting,” Ricard said. “Believe me. I’m the head of the union . I’ve tried.”
“Then what can I do?”
“Convince them. Show them what kind of a man you are and then, only when they trust you, tell them the truth.”
“That seems… dishonest.”
Ricard spread his hands. “That’s up to your own moral judgment. But me, I think a man who sees it like that is a fool.”
Taniel clenched his fists. How could they not believe him? How could they not know what happened up there? Hadn’t Tamas told the newspapers? Did even Tamas not believe what had happened? Taniel didn’t know where Tamas was. Budwiel, according to the soldiers who had been watching him when he awoke. Was Tamas even still there?
“Do you know where Bo is?” Taniel asked.
“Bo?”
“Privileged Borbador. Is he still alive?”
Ricard spread his hands. “I can’t help you.”
“You’re not much good, Tumblar, are you?” Taniel wanted to punch something. He leapt to his feet and stalked back and forth the length of the room. No friends. No family. What could he do now? “Who was that woman?” he asked.
“Cheris? The head of the bankers’ union .”
“I thought you were the head of the union .”
“The Noble Warriors of Labor has many subdivisions. I speak for the group as a whole, but each trade has their own union boss.”
“You said I was more important than her.”
Ricard nodded. “I did.”
“How so?”
“How much do you know about politics in Adro?” Ricard countered with his own question.
“The power used to be with the king. Now?” Taniel shrugged. “No idea.”
“No one knows where the power is now,” Ricard said. “The people assume it’s with Tamas. Tamas thinks it’s with his council when in fact the council is all but fractured. Lady Winceslav is in seclusion after her scandal with a traitorous brigadier, the Arch Diocel has been arrested, and Prime Lektor is in the east, studying the remains of South Pike for some sign of the god Kresimir.”
“So who is running Adro?”
Ricard chuckled. “That leaves myself, the Proprietor, and Ondraus the Reeve. Not exactly a noble group. The truth is, Adro is doing fine for now. Tamas and his men keep the peace. But that will only last so long. We need to continue with our plans. Since the beginning of all this, the council decided that as soon as Manhouch was out of the way, we’d set up a democracy: a system of government that was voted upon by the people. The country would be divided into principalities, each with its own elected governor, and those men would meet in Adro and vote upon policy for the country.”
“Much like a ministry without the king at the head.”
“Indeed,” Ricard said. “Of course there must be someone to stand as the king.”
Taniel narrowed his eyes. “I can’t imagine Tamas taking that well.”
“We won’t call him a king, of course. And he would have little real power. He would serve as a figurehead. A single man the country can look to for leadership and guidance, even if the policy is determined by the governors – we are going to call him the First Minister of the People.”
“I remember Tamas striking down an idea just like this that the royalists presented him with.”
“Tamas approved this,” Ricard said. “Believe me. None of us on the council has any interest in crossing him, especially not in such a public way. The key is that, like the governors, this new First Minister of the People will be replaced every three years. We’ve set the mechanism in place. It just needs to be carried out.”
Taniel could easily tell where this was going. “And you intend to put yourself forward as a candidate.”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
Ricard sucked hard on his cigar and let the smoke curl out through his nostrils. It reminded Taniel of the smoke of his mala pipe. He could feel the lure of that blissful smoke pulling at him.
“The First Minister of the People will have little power of his own, but he’ll have the eyes of all the Nine directed at him. His name will go down in the history books forever.” Ricard sighed. “I don’t have any children. I’ve been left by” – he stopped to count – “six wives, and deserved it every time. All I have left is my name. And I want it taught to every Adran schoolchild for the rest of time.”
Taniel drained the last of his ale. The dregs of the hops at the bottom of the glass were bitter. It reminded him of Fatrasta, of hunting down Kez Privileged in the wilds. “Where do I fit into all of this? I’m just a soldier who killed a god that no one believes even returned.”
“You?” Ricard threw his head back and laughed. Taniel didn’t see what was so funny.
“I’m sorry,” Ricard said as he wiped his eyes. “You’re Taniel Two-Shot! You’re the hero of two continents. A soldier who’s killed more Privileged than any man in the history of the Nine. The way the newspapers tell it, you held Shouldercrown Fortress against half a million Kez all by yourself.”
“Wasn’t just me,” Taniel muttered, thinking of the men and women he’d watched die on that mountain.
“But the common people think so. They adore you. They love you more than they love Tamas, and he’s been the darling of Adro since he single-handedly saved the Gurlish Campaign decades ago.”
“So what do you want from me? A sponsorship?”
“Pit, no,” Ricard said, passing his empty ale mug to the barkeep. “I want you to be my Second Minister. You’ll be one of the most famous men in the world.”