The Traitor Baru Cormorant (12 page)

Among the green gardens and stone walks of the Governor's House campus the garrison drilled at dawn. Baru strode off the other way, annoyed by the braying of the sergeants. “Check my logic. Aurdwynn sells lumber, stone, minerals, and cattle to Falcrest.”

“Yes.”

“Only a few of the duchies profit
directly
from that trade, primarily those on the coast. Unuxekome is one—that's the Sea Groom, the pirate, who's quite rich, I think, because he owns the Welthony harbor and access to the river Inirein. Another one is Heingyl Stag Hunter, Governor Cattlson's friend, who doesn't care about money—”

“Heingyl's daughter handles his accounts. She likes to stay in debt to the Fiat Bank, as a kind of bond of trust.”

“Oh. Interesting. Maybe that's why she wanted my job. Who's her mother?”

“One of the sisters of the last Duchess Nayauru, I believe. Didn't survive the Fools' Rebellion.”

“Interesting. Maybe a motive for sedition. Useful to know if we need to set Xate Yawa on her.” They navigated a hedge maze beneath the north wall, Baru solving it inattentively. Bees made urgent bumbling sorties past them. “And the last major coastal duke is Radaszic, Duke of Wells, who seems to be something of a trifle—yes?”

“He's very happy,” Muire Lo said neutrally. “Beautiful lands. Lovely vineyards. Nice orchards. Fostered from childhood in Heingyl's house. Actually, I believe it saved his life—”

“A man of wretched fiscal policy.” Radaszic's books were a comedy of excess. The man seemed to operate on a drunkard's theory of loans: why not one more?

“It doesn't seem to trouble him.”

“Well, it should. Look—” They passed the bonfire pit where Cattlson liked to arrange outdoor affairs. Baru plucked a burnt stick, staining her gloves, and pushed through a dew-soaked line of bushes to the whitewashed outer wall. “The dukes compete against each other for strength. In peacetime, wealth is the only strength that matters—standing armies are just an expensive waste that turns no profit. And if only three of the duchies can actually get wealth
directly
off foreign trade, the others need indirect means.”

“Radaszic might say joy and satisfaction cannot be bought. Heingyl might say the same of honor—Your Excellence, should you be doing that?”

Baru drew a big ragged box on the wall in charcoal. “There. Aurdwynn.”

“A fine schematic, Your Excellence.”

“All the duchies need to be rich, or they'll be outpaced by their neighbors. So they come to us, to the Fiat Bank, and say
give me a loan
. We're happy to oblige, since we have a great many paper fiat notes, and it's cheap to print more. We ask a little collateral—what do we ask?”

Muire Lo smiled patiently. “Gold, gems, land, livestock…”

“Right. Except they know they'll only forfeit the collateral if they don't repay the loan, so really they get to keep their riches,
and
spend a bundle of fiat notes we've given them. It's free wealth!” She drew a little smiling face next to the map, although it came out shaped like a broken egg. “And if you
don't
reach out for a loan, your neighbor will outspend you. Radaszic will buy more drink, Unuxekome will buy more ships, and you'll be left in the cold with all your people grumbling about your miserliness. So everyone has to loan. Am I wrong yet?”

“I'm Heingyl in this example?” Muire Lo's face pinched. “Can't I be Unuxekome?”

“You want to be a pirate?”

“Well, I'd like to be able to smile, at least.”

“Radaszic, then?”

“I'd like to be able to do something other than smile, too.”

“Don't distract me.” Laughing broke her momentum. “I'm getting to the important part. As the duchies race to out-loan each other, the Fiat Bank comes to own more and more debt in their estates. In fact, we hold significant interest in nine of the thirteen duchies. Do you know who's escaped our net?”

“Unuxekome. Controls the Welthony harbor at the mouth of the Inirein and has a strong fleet. He can rely on trade revenue.”

“Good. And?”

Muire Lo frowned crossly at Baru's awkward box-map and charcoal sketch of a smiling duke. “Oathsfire, Duke of Mills. North of Unuxekome, very business-savvy, controls most of the river Inirein and thus profits off trade between the north and the coast. And Erebog Crone, in the far northwest—she's just too old and grouchy to care about loans, I think. And … is it Vultjag?”

“That's right. Duchess Vultjag is too proud to take loans, so she's very poor. Aside from these duchies we've named, everyone else is deep in debt to us, and spiraling deeper. Now. How do we use this to detect rebellion?”

“I think you'd like it better if I pretended not to understand, so you could tell me.”

“Very good. You're a fine secretary. Wait—let me be sure I have this right.” Baru looked at her boxy map of Aurdwynn, drew a little roof on it, and then divided it into three floors. “It's like a fancy house, isn't it? The attic is cold and distant, but full of useful things. Erebog lives up there with Lyxaxu, bickering over clay and stone; Vultjag and Oathsfire, too, and Oathsfire has the stairs down. Then the Midlands, which are like the study and the sleeping rooms, because they're full of people and useful things—Nayauru Dam-builder controls Autr and Sahaule, giving her water and salt and excellent craftsmen, and Ihuake controls Pinjagata, giving her the finest herds and the best soldiers.”

Muire Lo was chuckling at something. “What?”

“Oh, the bedroom simile. I thought you were mocking Duchess Nayauru.”

“Why?”

“Well, it's just—she keeps to old traditions. A healthy dynasty comes from healthy fathers, and such. Thus Autr and Sahaule both…”

Ah. So Nayauru would have children who might say with pride things like
daughter of a huntress, and a blacksmith, and a shield-bearer …
But no: they would never say that, not under Masquerade rule. “Unless Nayauru's lovers are taxable, let's leave them to Xate Yawa. Where was I?”

“Aurdwynn is like a house. You were forcing the metaphor into the lower floor.”

“Right. The lower floor has the rooms for going in and out, and the kitchens and storerooms, where they keep the grain and olives and such. And the armory: that's Treatymont, because Horn Harbor's where we keep our fleet.”

“What kind of house has an armory? Did
your
house?”

“Hush. It's a good metaphor.” Three floors to the house—one warm with olives and sea trade, one made of alliances and herds and reservoirs, one given over to forests and mines and wolves. “You're going to rebel. You're going to take over the house. What do you need?”

“I assume the Imperial Accountant believes the answer is ‘money.'”

“Yes. Any rebellion not built on pure faith or rabid hate needs funding.” She tapped the charcoal map with her burnt stylus. “And that's what will betray them to me. The rebels will be the ones trying to climb out of our trap.”

“I don't necessarily disagree, but—”

“A very stupid rebel might take out an enormous loan and then go to war, assuming they'll never need to pay us back. But only an idiot tries to fight with enemy currency. People only believe in fiat notes because they know they can trade the paper for something valuable. Get on the other side of the war from the Fiat Bank, and confidence in your loaned paper collapses. That's our hook, right? The dukes bite on the loans, turn all their wealth into our paper, and we reel them in. So—how do you get the hook out?”

Muire Lo pursed his lips. “I'm still Heingyl? Heingyl wouldn't want to. Cattlson is his sworn liege. It's honorable to swallow Cattlson's hooks.”

“No. You're Vultjag, say.” Tain Hu with her dangerous eyes, her coiled mountain-cat motions.

“But she doesn't hold any debt. We don't have a hook in her.”

“She's desperately poor. She needs to be rich to fund her revolt. How does she turn our paper into a rebel's wealth?”

“Buy hard goods, I suppose. Gems, gold, lumber, cattle, stone, ore, textiles…”

“Correct. The rebels will seek to convert their debt into stable wealth. The blood of rebellion. But!”

But the rebels would be up against the Masquerade, champions of economic war. What a
splendid
arrangement—what an incredible trap! The Fiat Bank loved to buy gold, silver, and gems at a loss. It sat on them, pleading: oh, we hold them as backing for the fiat note, so you can be sure your paper money has value. Help us help you! Why not pay your taxes in gold and silver? We'll give you a discount. Ah, now, are you
stockpiling
hard goods? I'm afraid we must assess a steep tax. Why not just liquidate those goods into fiat notes, and dodge the fee?

Baru saw the engine at work, drinking up Aurdwynn's wealth of gold and silver and gems, sending it to Falcrest, and replacing it with Falcrest-backed paper. She saw it and wanted to cry out in glee at the beauty of it. Not least because of the power it gave her, the power to pluck the rebels out of their camouflage, to offer them up as gift and proof of her own abilities.

“But,” Muire Lo ventured, “you're well aware that money isn't the
only
factor in rebellion, and that the nobility is far less rational and calculating than you might think? You should read Heingyl Ri's monograph on the future of the Midlands Alliance—she predicts civil war simply because Nayauru has gotten heirs off Dukes Autr and Sahaule. It's a serious threat to the future of Ihuake's bloodline—”

“Heingyl Ri thinks that matters because Heingyl Ri was raised noble. She's too caught up in feudal pageantry to reduce the problem to its basic economic factors.” Baru held up a hand to turn his protest. “When they try to turn their debt into wealth for their rebellion, I'm going to see them do it. They'll be buying hard goods, and that will leave a pattern in the ledgers. So.” She snapped the charcoal stylus, dusted her gloves briskly, and wheeled back toward the accountant's tower. “The answers are in our books. In the numbers. We just have to hunt.”

*   *   *

S
HE
sat down to work hopeful that she would have a map of the rebellion, its seditious dukes and secret-swallowing Jurispotences, by the end of the day.

(And found a full notebook page, written in Aphalone, tucked in among the books. Ffare Tanifel's this time, handwriting feverish.
They are coming at me from an unexpected direction. Calling me licentious, unhygienic—as if Cattlson did not indulge his own appetites, pluck generously from his own favorite fruit! If they take me into the Cold Cellar for this “physical” I will not get out. She says she cannot protect me
—Baru shuddered in horror and sympathy, and folded it away.)

Her hopes failed her.

By sundown she'd found nothing at all suspicious. The Fiat Bank tracked the income, expenditures, assets, and liabilities of every duchy in Aurdwynn. None of them leapt out as a prelude to rebellion. To all appearances, the dukes were scrupulously honest—reckless debtors, aggressive spenders, frankly a little stupid about money, but honest.

So what had Su Olonori been killed for? There
had
to be something. He must have come too close. And before him there'd been Tanifel, executed for corruption—so whatever the trick, whatever sleight of hand the rebels depended on to find their money, it must be visible to the Imperial Accountant. It might even require her complicity.

She barely noticed her own headache until Muire Lo knocked and the sound boxed her ears. “Come,” she groaned.

“Lieutenant Aminata, Your Excellence, with the final tally from the bank vaults.”

Baru knuckled her temples, feeling the oil in her unwashed hair. She'd been chewing on coffee beans and fought the urge to lick her teeth clean. “Send her in.”

“Your Excellence.” Aminata came down to the office to salute and set herself at attention. Baru cleared her throat and wished she could look so damn upright. She must have stopped and dusted her uniform, or had a spare brought off the ship. She looked immaculate. The years had kept her taller than Baru, and her duties had kept her graceful and strong, as forthright and ready as a good javelin. There were many reasons Baru had avoided her on
Lapetiare
.

“Don't sit. I've been sitting all day.” Baru circled the desk. “Did you find any discrepancies?”

“No. The material in the vaults matches the Principal Factor's records precisely in both number and kind. We found no evidence of graft or misuse. Even the quality of the metal is superb.” Aminata offered the palimpsest. “Our tallies, for your review.”

Baru accepted the records wearily. “Thank you for the loan of your marines, Lieutenant.”

“Of course. I'm happy to report that discipline held.”

“Good, good.” Baru felt the unaccountable need to lean on the other woman, her perfect bearing and spotless uniform and apparently inexhaustible patience. But she couldn't, because Aminata was a terrible confusion, a knot of hurt—her relentless swordsmanship, her furious reprimand (did she think Baru had been after—but she'd given no
hint
—), her formality and distance: all this spoke to anger. But then the offer of her own blade and her appearance with the marines, all seemingly in good faith …

“It's past sundown, Your Excellence,” Aminata said. “You've worked too long. I wondered if…”

Baru probably did not manage to keep her surprise off her face.

“If you'll forgive my impropriety,” Aminata said, “I haven't taken my shore leave yet, and—I thought we could reminisce about Taranoke before
Lapetiare
sails.”
And we never see each other again
.

“I can pour some wine,” Baru offered, her stomach clenched.