Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor (26 page)

Kantor's demand cut across the fire in his veins, and chilled it.

He shook his head and backed up out of the way, against the wall. With the instigators gone, the bouncers were managing to quell the remaining belligerents without any help from him. He slipped his knuckle guards off his hand and back into his pouch.

Part of him regretted that the fight was over. Most of him sighed with relief. When the last of those still trying to fight had been tossed into the street, he gave the bouncers a hand with sending the unconscious after them. The three
he'd
done for were among them, but he saw no point in saying anything about what might have happened. After all, there was no proof.

He accepted a somewhat better tankard of beer as his reward for helping out, and stayed only long enough to drink it before returning to Kantor. His glee was gone; his guilt had started, and besides, nothing more was going to happen tonight. If anyone was thinking of hiring Aarak, they wouldn't do it tonight. The men he'd downed might have friends watching, who would take it amiss if someone “rewarded” Aarak with a job.

The moon was down by the time Alberich got to his hiding place, and he had to feel carefully for the keyhole to let himself inside. He discovered bruises he hadn't felt when he changed back into his gray leathers.

:Maybe you didn't, but I did,:
Kantor sniffed as he mounted.

:They'll heal,:
he replied, sending Kantor back up the street toward the Palace. He felt as he always did after a fight; weary and with emotions dulled except for a fierce and bitter satisfaction. The weariness was welcome; he'd sleep well tonight for a change.

:There was someone watching you from the corner,:
Kantor went on, giving him a flash of something that the Companion had noted through Alberich's eyes.
:I think you'll be offered a job next time you go there.:

The bitterness eased a little; Alberich recognized that vague glimpse. It was someone he'd been watching for some time now, a legitimate businessman who somehow seemed to have more goods in his warehouse than he'd actually
purchased. . . .
Now—now he might find out just where those goods came from.

“Good,” he said aloud.
:That is why we come there, isn't it?:

:Not entirely,:
Kantor retorted.
:At least,
you
don't.:

Alberich started to reply, and thought better of it. Kantor was infinitely better at warring with words than he was. He let his silence speak for him, letting Kantor come to his own conclusions.

Eventually, the ears flattened, and out of the silence came—

:And you are also right,:
Alberich acknowledged.
:I
do
seek out fighting more often than necessary. I
could
go about the same business without getting involved in altercations at all. But it is what I need, right here, right now.:

Kantor sighed, but his head nodded.
:So be it. If you need it, then we will continue to seek it, and I will say no more about it, except to ask you to take care.:

Alberich closed his eyes for a moment.
:Perhaps, someday, we will no longer need to go hunting trouble for trouble's own sake.:

It was all he could offer. But Kantor seemed to find it enough.

D
ETHOR had invited Talamir to his quarters tonight, in a way that had been less “invitation” and more “demand.” Talamir was fairly certain that he wanted to discuss the current situation with his Second. Alberich, the probable subject of those discussions (now officially a full Herald, though he kept stubbornly to those peculiar gray leathers of his) was gone when Talamir arrived.

Dethor interpreted his curious look correctly; not a surprise, considering how well he and Talamir knew each other.

There was a small fire in the fireplace, although the weather was not yet so cool in the evenings that a fire was necessary. But the Weaponsmaster seemed to crave both the extra warmth and the emotional comfort of a fire more and more often of late.

Come to that, they all craved extra comfort. The Wars seemed both too far away, and too near. A feeling of dreadful tension underlaid everything, no matter how trivial, a frantic feeling as if whatever was being done
had
to be done, or enjoyed, or dealt with
now,
for there was no telling what the next day, or even the next candlemark, might bring. Small comforts took on enormous importance, yet one indulged in them in a spirit of guilt, quite as if throwing on another log was somehow going to deprive the Guard on the Border of heat and light.

Dethor had lit only two lanterns, one behind each of the two hearthside chairs; the fire provided the rest of the light in the room tonight.

The Weaponsmaster's Second was nowhere to be seen. “He's out. In town,” Dethor said, as Talamir looked inquiringly at the third seat that Alberich usually used. “He won't be back for a while. I believe he's got something on the boil tonight.”

“He's doing good work down there,” Talamir observed as dispassionately as he could, and settled himself into the padded chair opposite Dethor's. It was difficult to be dispassionate about Dethor's bland statement. Every time Alberich had “something on the boil,” there was usually a great deal of violence involved before it was over. Alberich was directly involved in that violence at least half of the time; if Talamir hadn't been aware of just how much he despised unnecessary force, he'd have suspected that the man was seeking out opportunities to thrash someone.

But—perhaps he is, and he's simply making sure that the opportunity calls for necessary violence.
That wouldn't be too difficult in the neighborhoods Alberich had to prowl.

“I wondered how much you'd kept track of,” Dethor said. “What with everything else you've got going on.”

“All of it, I think,” Talamir admitted. “And he's as good as you ever were in the covert work, and better, far better, than I. We are, perhaps, too much the gentlemen. He fits in down there better than we ever could, no matter how much we deluded ourselves about our acting abilities.”

The words hung heavily in the air, and Talamir glanced out the window of the sitting room. It was moon-dark, and a Companion ghosted into and out of sight among the trees out there, a glimmer of white in the darkness.

“There's too many bloody bastards taking advantage of the situation to make trouble. Or money. Or both,” Dethor muttered. “You cut one down, and two more spring up to replace him. It wasn't like that when I was doing the dirty work. It was never that vile down by Exile's Gate.”

Talamir shrugged; they both knew that was true enough. Haven had been stripped of all but a skeleton staff of the Guard; constables and even private bodyguards had gone to join the army. The opportunities for the criminal and unscrupulous were legion. Alberich and a trusted handful of constables and the Palace and City Guard were accomplishing more than even the Council guessed. None of it had anything to do with being a Herald, of course—other than an occasional use of the Truth Spell and his communication with Kantor, Alberich never did anything that could not have been done by an ordinary constable.

Providing, of course, that an ordinary constable had his knack for subterfuge and covert work. Which, of course, none of them did. There was only one Alberich.

He couldn't rid the place of crime forever, but every time he removed a criminal from the streets, it look a while for someone else to fill the void left behind, a breathing space for the constables still at work on the street.

Alberich had a real flare for working clandestinely, something he'd probably never explored back in Karse. Talamir wondered how Alberich felt about this new skill; it didn't seem to match the persona of a simple military man.

As if Alberich would ever be a simple
anything.

“It was never that vile because there were never that many opportunities,” Talamir pointed out. “And what are we to do? Demand some sort of certification of virtue from everyone who passes the gates? Haul them away and question them under Truth Spell as to their motives? I think not. The best we can do is what Alberich's doing, and thank the gods we have him.”

The fire flared, revealing Dethor's troubled expression.

“You know the man's in a real mental state,” Dethor said, leveling a long and accusatory look at his old friend. Talamir shifted uncomfortably, but his conscience forced him to meet Dethor's eyes. “I have the feeling that he's overworking, just so he can sleep at night. I have the feeling that he's
looking
for trouble just so he can work out his frustration on a legitimate object. The problem is, when you start looking for trouble, it starts looking for
you.
”

Talamir sighed, deliberately looking down at the plate of fruit on the table between their chairs. Slowly and methodically, he picked up an apple and began to peel it. “I know,” he admitted. “I wish there was something that I could do about it. But even if we hadn't promised we would never ask him to do anything against Karse—”

“—the Council won't allow him out of Haven.” Dethor snorted, and Talamir looked up from his apple with reluctance. The creases and wrinkles of Dethor's face turned his frown into something demonic, and the firelight only amplified the effect. “Dammit, Talamir. Can't you do anything about this? I
know
he wants to do something about the Wars, and I see his face every time he watches another batch of youngsters going south. It's tearing him up!”

“What? Vouch for him? I have, a hundred times and more,” Talamir replied, nettled that Dethor would even
think
he'd been doing less than he could for Alberich. “Then there's the little matter of what he calls his honor.”

“Which he's damned touchy about,” Dethor growled.

“Exactly so,” Talamir agreed. “So what are we going to do? Truth here—I'd give both legs for a dozen Alberichs, all willing to go spying back there among his own people. Damned insular Karsites! Strangers stand out among 'em like a chirra in a herd of sheep. Accents, mannerisms, what they know without even
knowing
that they know it—” He threw up his hands in frustration. “—you just can't
teach
those sorts of things!”

“Tell me something I don't know,” Dethor said, throwing an apple core into the fire in a gesture of exasperation. “Just how many agents have we lost?”

“Too many.” Talamir was just glad that none of them had been Heralds.
He
had argued—successfully—that the Heralds were too few to risk inside the borders of Karse. But the fact was, from the beginning he had doubted the ability of any of them to pass as Karsite, and when the Sunpriests got their hands on Heralds, the results were traumatic for
every
Herald. It wasn't just the Death Bell tolling that sent everyone into a spate of mourning, it was that everyone
knew
what happened to Heralds that got caught in Karse. There was a sick fear behind the mourning, and the same kind of frustration and anger that sent Alberich out looking for a fight.

The Lord Marshal had been perfectly willing to send in his own people, however, and when he did, exactly what Talamir feared, happened. Karse devoured agents as a child devours sweets. They seemed to last about a moon before they were discovered; certainly not much longer. What happened to them after that, Talamir was all too aware; he preferred not to dwell on it, for at least all the men had been volunteers and knew precisely what awaited them if captured. Certainly, no more than a handful had returned.

Horrible. And there didn't seem to be a great deal they could do to change that. No matter
how
much information they gathered on Karse, no matter who they spoke to or how many old books they read, they were
not
able to fool real Karsites for long.

If at all.

“What we need,” Dethor said glumly, “is what we can't get. Real Karsites. Someone who's got all the little nuances, habits, all the things you just can't study. Someone who
fits.
Someone who can't give himself away, because what's second-nature to him is all based on real Karsite memories. But the few folk who've come over are all too frightened to go back, and I can't say as I blame 'em.” The scent of burning apple, sweet and bitter at the same time, added a strange nuance to his words.

Alberich
wouldn't be too frightened to go, if he could; Alberich had everything they needed in an agent. If only they could use him—

And—the other stumbling block—if only his sense of honor would allow him to be so used.

It was so intensely frustrating. Sometimes Talamir just wanted to howl with the frustration.

If it was bad for him, it must be worse for Alberich. He was facing enormous pressure from those who didn't know about the covert work and saw only that he spent little time in the company of the other Heralds and less
doing
anything that might help the war effort. There was even more social pressure from those who had no idea that the Council had effectively shackled Alberich to Haven. There was a feeling from some that he had somehow betrayed the land that had taken him in, the brotherhood into which he had been admitted.

But what could they do to change that? Nothing. Everything he was doing, other than his position as Dethor's Second, was covert, and had to remain so.

Especially the work with the Lord Marshal's agents—though for all the candlemarks he spent with them, there was little enough to show in the way of success.

But then, the agents were only men—clever men, facile men, but just ordinary men. They couldn't
be
him for a day, or a week, or somehow pluck the deep memories that made him
Karsite
out of his head and plant them so solidly in their own minds that they
became
Karsite themselves.