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.
“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.