Emperor's Edge Republic (26 page)

Amaranthe grimaced. The president and an entourage of men had been waiting when the tug and warship had come in at the old Fort Urgot docks. He must have been watching some of the trouble—that involving his daughter, for instance—from the roof of the hotel. With a spyglass, one ought to have a good view of the harbor. He had listened in stony-faced silence as the warship’s captain had relayed the events to him.

“If your... friend Sicarius comes along, won’t that obviate the need for a detachment of guards?” Tikaya smiled again.

“Now I
know
you’re up to something,” Starcrest said. “I could believe you wanted to spend time with Ms. Lokdon here, as she seems bright and resourceful, but you’ve shown no interest in getting to know our ex-assassin comrade here, am I right, Sicarius?”

Sicarius never gave Starcrest anything but respectful looks, maybe even looks of adulation—for those who knew how to read him well—but this time, he offered one of his why-are-you-involving-me-in-this eyebrow twitches. His, “Yes, My Lord,” was a tad flat.

Starcrest must have read it, too, for he lifted an apologetic hand.

“She simply hasn’t learned about his cuddly side yet,” Amaranthe said.

“I’ll wager not many have.”

“I have only your safety in mind, Rias,” Tikaya said. “I’ve done precious little since I’ve been here, except read and send letters home. Now that there’s something that I can help with, I won’t stand back and ignore it.”

“I appreciate your help, but can’t it be done with a contingent of armed and armored guards surrounding you?”

“No. In fact, such a contingent might scare off any practitioners, especially if they have been illegal refugees and hunted people here.”

Starcrest sighed. “Sicarius, can I trust you to keep Tikaya safe tonight, as well as Amaranthe?”

If Sicarius felt irked to be saddled with this extra burden, he did not show it. “I will bring them back to the hotel before going on my own hunt.”

“Very well.” Starcrest came around the table and hugged his wife, murmuring something in her ear.

Amaranthe met Sicarius’s eyes and nodded to the door. They ought to give these two a private moment. Something about that hug seemed to say they hadn’t gotten many private moments lately.

• • • • •

The crisp evening air felt good against Tikaya’s cheeks, even if it smelled of burning coal. Being out of the hotel without a guard felt good as well. She missed the days of simply being able to wander along a beach in her sandals, with nothing except the sound of the surf to keep her company. The capital claimed a million citizens, and she believed it. As she walked down a wide boulevard with Amaranthe, they had to weave around crowds lingering before eating houses, rushes of people disembarking from trolleys, and a pack of people in dark green robes with hoods pulled over their heads. She hadn’t seen Sicarius since they left the hotel, though Amaranthe assured her that he wasn’t far.

“Amaranthe, I have a question for you,” Tikaya said at the same time as Amaranthe turned toward her with a finger up and started to speak.

“Oh,” she said. “You go first.”

“No, you can go first. I...” Tikaya had been summoning the courage to confide in Amaranthe as to where she wanted to go. Getting out without a guard contingent had been a blessing, but she still had to explain the departure she wanted to make to these two.

“Mine’s silly,” Amaranthe admitted, scuffing a crack in the sidewalk with her boot. “Well, not silly, but not related to our mission or anything... that matters. At least not right now.”

This of course made Tikaya curious, but she wouldn’t push the woman to share. How interesting that Amaranthe, too, had been searching for the courage to say something.

Tikaya withdrew a folded paper from her wool dress. “Do you know how we can most easily get to this address? I looked at a map, but I confess I haven’t ridden on the trolleys yet, and the system doesn’t at first glance seem... scientific. Or logical. Or entirely safe, if the muggings mentioned in the paper are to be believed.”

“Right on all counts.” Amaranthe opened the paper and headed for a street lamp. “It grew up over time, with more routes being added as needed. As you wander around, you’ll see that we have some new boulevards like this one, suitable for steam vehicles and pedestrians, and then you’ll see that there are a lot of older streets that are narrow, crooked, and were basically designed for a couple of people to walk through at a time. The trolleys are too big to run through these old streets, so they take some creative routes to get from point one to point two. There’s a somewhat infamous one that detours four miles to take riders from one end of a bridge to the other, since the bridge is for pedestrians only, and the canal system offers further barriers.” Amaranthe passed the sheet of paper back. “This is up on Mokath Ridge. It’s a neighborhood full of expensive homes. New wealth and old.”

“That’s not surprising then. Do we... have time to detour up there?”

“Well, Ms. Sarevic’s Custom Works is in a sketchier neighborhood, but her shop hours—the ones we’re interested in—don’t start until a couple of hours before midnight, so we can go to your destination first. Assuming you want us to come? Or were you hoping to explore on your own? Though, even if you were, I doubt Sicarius would let you wander off unaccompanied after he told the president he would watch you.”

“If he watches from a distance, I don’t mind.” Tikaya decided she wouldn’t mind Amaranthe’s company, either. She had been an enforcer at one point; she might know a few tricks for talking a haughty warrior-caste woman into opening her doors and allowing a search of her home. “And, ah, if
you
don’t mind coming along, it could be helpful.”

“You mentioned intelligence. Are we doing something interesting?” Amaranthe sounded like she hoped so.

“Visiting someone who sent a tainted gift for the president’s inauguration.”

Amaranthe’s nose crinkled. “A tainted gift? Something more inimical than stale tarts?”

“I should say so.” Tikaya noticed someone watching them from a vendor’s booth and pulled Amaranthe into an alcove. With the nights still bringing frost, she didn’t feel out of place wearing a cloak with a hood, but she imagined her blonde hair still made her noticeable. In addition, there were her spectacles and her height, though here, in vertically endowed Turgonia, the height alone wouldn’t have been a giveaway. “It’s an old artifact that a practitioner tinkered with. We believe it’s keyed to Rias and has been giving him headaches and perhaps interfering with his mental faculties. I’ve locked it in a metal box down in Mahliki’s new laboratory, and I thought I noticed the new furrows between Rias’s brow were less deep today.”

“A practitioner? A Maker?” Amaranthe asked. “Does that mean if we find the person, Sicarius and I might have the answer to our power supply problem?”

Tikaya stared at the younger woman. This didn’t sound like a particularly bright assumption, and she felt a touch miffed that Amaranthe had ignored the rest of the revelation.

“A Maker who wishes Rias ill,” Tikaya explained slowly. “Perhaps all of us.”

Now Amaranthe stared at Tikaya as if
she
were slow. “I convince people who wish me ill to aid in my cause all the time.”

“With... your assassin’s help?” Dear Akahe, had Tikaya made a mistake in coming out with these two?

“Well, he looms and glares, and that can help sway people, but I prefer less violent methods.” Amaranthe smiled. “I like a challenge.”

“Hm.” If Amaranthe truly was good at swaying people, maybe Tikaya could send
her
in to chat with Starcrest’s first wife. She didn’t find the idea of the task appealing herself. “It is possible we may find out who Made the device by visiting this address. If—”

A shadow appeared in the alcove with them, startling Tikaya. It had seemed to come up from out of the ground or to have dropped down from some roof.

“It is unwise to remain in the open,” Sicarius said without preamble. “Three separate persons are following you. More may have observed your departure from the hotel.”

“Following
me
?” Tikaya asked.

“I’m not the president’s wife,” Amaranthe said.

“No, but I shouldn’t think that makes me terribly fascinating.”

“They may simply be following because they believe information on your whereabouts may be important to someone somewhere.” Amaranthe met Sicarius’s eyes—his sudden appearance at her elbow hadn’t startled
her
at all. “Were they youths? Or more pernicious stalkers?”

“Adults. Armed. One in a green robe, one wearing civilian clothing but who moves like a soldier, and one I haven’t gotten a good look at yet.” Sicarius watched the street as the conversation continued, his gaze occasionally flitting toward the rooftops and the sewer grates.

The soldier wasn’t that surprising. Someone had probably been instructed to keep an eye on her and make sure she remained safe. The robed person... “I just saw some of those people in robes. They represent a new religion that’s forming, don’t they? Why would they care about me?”

Amaranthe looked at Sicarius, but he only shook his head once. “I’ve seen a couple of those robes since we arrived,” she said, “but we don’t know anything about them yet. It’s not an organization that was around—at least obviously so—before we left the city. I’d be more concerned about someone following us who’s talented enough that Sicarius wasn’t able to get a good look.”

“The person is discreet,” Sicarius said.

“Is it possible to elude these followers?” Tikaya asked.

“Likely.”

“We’re heading to Mokath Ridge,” Amaranthe told Sicarius. “Professor? Care to follow me? I know routes that probably won’t be observed.”

“Lead on, Amaranthe.”

Perhaps Tikaya should have inquired about those “routes that probably won’t be observed” before agreeing to follow the woman. Amaranthe led her through urine-drenched alleys, boarded-up buildings, old underground streets, and finally a sewage pumping station that made the alleys seem like honeymoon destinations.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to explain my new stench to Rias,” Tikaya murmured as they came up through a manhole in a park.

“I suggest spending some time in the hotel’s baths before heading up to the bedroom,” Amaranthe said, veering for a street.

Tikaya had lost all sense of direction. They might be in the next satrapy for all she knew. Though probably not. She could still smell that alien vegetation, the scent wafting up from the lake and mingling with the pervasive coal odor.

Amaranthe paused in the shadows of a hedge to wait for a pair of private steam carriages to roll past. Their presence, along with the lack of trash or graffiti along the streets, made Tikaya assume they had reached the upscale neighborhood they sought.

“We’re close?” she asked.

“Two blocks,” Amaranthe said.

Tikaya didn’t see Sicarius, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t nearby.

After the carriages disappeared around corners, Amaranthe jogged across the street, heading for an intersection. Before they reached it, she turned up a narrow alley with trash bins posted at wide intervals—the house lots were big up here. Nothing compared to what Tikaya’s family enjoyed on her plantation, but these people certainly weren’t crammed in on top of each other, a rare finding in a city so populous.

Before they had gone far, Amaranthe paused. “I didn’t ask. I just assumed this was a clandestine operation. Did you
want
to knock on the front door?”

Did
she? Good question. Tikaya removed her spectacles to wipe sewer grime from one of the lenses. “Mind if we see if anyone is home first?”

“Presumably
not
by knocking?” It was hard to tell in the dark alley, but Amaranthe might have grinned.

“If she’s home, there would be lamps lit. It’s not that late.”

“Yes, and we can check for those lamps from the alley behind the house.” Amaranthe waved her arm. “This way.”

Tikaya wondered if they had lost those who had been following them. She also wondered if it was odd that she would have preferred assassins to journalists, hoping for a story.
President’s Wife Spies on President’s Wife
. Not a title she wanted to see in the
Gazette
in the morning. Granted, the
Gazette
had printed more tasteful articles than the other newspapers that had featured her, usually focusing on politics rather than gossip.

“I think this is it.” Amaranthe stopped before a brick wall dressed in ivy and a wrought iron gate, its bars shaped as branches and leaves. Beyond it, a park-like yard stretched, flagstone paths winding between manicured bushes and trees, with fountains and statues dotting the grounds. Some of them had glass baubles—or maybe those were gems—that gleamed, reflecting the moonlight. Granite benches rested beside the path for those who grew weary during the long walk to take out the trash.

“That’s the
back
yard?” Tikaya whispered. “What’s the
front
look like?”

“I don’t know. This is your contact. I don’t even know why we’re here exactly.” Amaranthe’s tone suggested she wouldn’t have minded the details.

Tikaya tried the gate, but found it locked. “I guess we have to climb over the wall.” A wall that was over her head, even at six feet. Perhaps she should have been doing some exercise over the winter, something more vigorous than turning pages.

Amaranthe reached between the bars, and something clinked softly. She pulled the gate open. “I imagine the house doors will be more challenging, but there’s no need to test our athleticism right away.”

Tikaya decided not to mention that simply walking down a path in the dark was a test for her athleticism. No need to have the young woman think her some doddering old professor. She did gesture for Amaranthe to lead. Younger eyes might prove more apt at picking routes through the darkness.

The house loomed ahead, a blocky shadow rising out of the garden setting. None of the shuttered windows had lights burning behind them, at least not on this side of the three-story dwelling. It had left and right wings as well as a large central section. Numerous chimneys rose from the rooftop, making Tikaya wonder how many people lived there. Her family’s entire plantation house could have fit in one of the wings.