in that league. You are.'
It was probably futile, but Demansk decided to try a ferocious scowl. 'Dammit, I gave what amounts to a hostage to Tomsien! My eldest son. You know as well as I do that he'll make sure Barrett lives within his reach.'
For the first time in hours, Jeschonyk lifted himself up out of the languid, half-reclining position of a true nobleman. He sat up straight and stared at Demansk. Then, sighed heavily and looked away.
'The gods help us, you are motivated by nothing more than principle.' His old shoulders seem to shiver a little. 'Most dangerous thing in the world, that. Bloodiest, for sure.'
Jeschonyk's eyes came back to him. 'A 'hostage'? And so what? Tomsien's incapable of understanding the thing, because his own daughters are nothing more to him than bargaining counters. But you-'
It was Demansk's turn to look away. Corrupt those old eyes might be, but they were still wise.
'You refused to pay ransom for her, now didn't you?'
Demansk rose abruptly from his couch. 'I don't see any point to this.'
Jeschonyk made a little rueful gesture. 'You're probably right. Just do me a favor, when the time comes?'
Demansk stared down at him. Jeschonyk chuckled again. It was a very harsh sounding chuckle. 'Remember that I am not incorruptible, when it comes down to it. So there's really no need for knifework. A little stipend will do the trick.'
He glanced at the ceiling. 'Well… not that little. I do have appearances to keep up. And I'm sure you wouldn't deprive an old man of the chance to find his own preferred way of dying. At my age-tired heart, all that-a healthy young girl is likely to work better than a sword anyway. Especially several at once.'
Demansk studied the ceiling. The frescoes really were phenomenally well painted. And phenomenally detailed.
'Done,' he said softly. Turned, and left.
Chapter 5
When Demansk left Jeschonyk's villa, it was still before sundown. The villa was on the northern outskirts of the capital city of Vanbert. Demansk realized that he still had time to make another visit before he left the next day on his journey back to his own estates. Which meant that an issue he'd postponed in his mind had to be settled.
After passing through the gate of the villa, he hesitated. The soldier holding his velipad-one of Demansk's personal household troops, not a regular-began bringing the mount up to him. Then, hesitated himself, when he realized the Justiciar was irresolute about something.
Some part of Demansk's brain was mildly amused at the way the soldier's jaw seemed to sag a little. Demansk was famous among his troops for his decisiveness. As well as notorious for it. Seasoned veterans appreciated the trait, on campaign and especially in a battle; generally detested it, at all other times.
He could see the Knecht villa from here, he realized. Given that it was the largest and most splendid villa in the Confederation, perched atop the most prestigious hill in the city, that was not entirely surprising.
'Just do it,' he said to himself firmly. 'Druzla's shade will never forgive me if I don't.'
He took the reins from the soldier, who was the sergeant of the Justiciar's little escort, and nodded toward the distant villa. 'We're headed there.'
'Ah, yes, sir. Ah-' The soldier, as was true of all the men in his squad, was not very familiar with the capital. In fact, to the best of Demansk's knowledge, this was his first visit to Vanbert. Like all provincials, he was feeling overwhelmed by the place. With a population of a million residents, the city was six times larger than any other in the world.
'Don't worry, Sergeant, I know the way.' Demansk smiled. 'Just pretend you're riding ahead of me.'
'Ah, thank you, sir.' The sergeant scurried to his velipad. By the time he'd mounted, Demansk had already started trotting off.
It had been years since Demansk had visited the Knecht villa, and in times past he'd always approached it from another direction-the southeast, where he and Druzla had maintained a large villa of their own in the capital. After his wife died, Demansk had maintained the place-having a prestigious villa in the capital was a necessity for prominent noblemen of the Confederacy-but had henceforth spent little time in the capital.
Druzla had loved Vanbert, with its endless rounds of salon discussions, artistic pursuits and dramatic diversions. So Demansk and his wife had visited the city often, and their villa had become in fact as well as in theory their second home. Demansk had been quite willing to indulge his wife's tastes, even if he didn't particularly share them.
As he moved toward it, down one of the spacious boulevards which graced the richest parts of the city, Demansk studied his destination. The Knecht villa was magnificent, not simply grandiose, and the setting sun illuminated it beautifully. Toman Knecht had employed the finest architects to design it, the best craftsmen to build it-and had then spent a large fortune to fill it with what was, without question, the finest and largest collection of art in the world.
Given the size of his fortune, after all, Toman Knecht could afford to do so. He was thought at the time to be the richest man in the world-even after he built and accoutered the villa-and probably was. Nor, since Toman's death five years earlier, was there any sign that his family's wealth had declined. His widow, Arsule, shared all of Toman's extravagant tastes, true; but she also shared-even exceeded-his uncanny ability to amass and retain the wealth which made it possible. And she employed a financial adviser who was immensely capable, as Demansk well knew. His name was Prit Sallivar, and he was Demansk's own financier as well.
Demansk sighed. That was part of the knot he was trying to untangle-or cut in half, to be precise.
Prit Sallivar, along with many others, occupied a gray area in Confederate society. Vanbert's expansion had, over the past two centuries, produced a rather large class of wealthy men risen from the gentry-risen far above the gentry, measured simply in terms of money. But they were not part of the aristocracy, a fact which was driven home to them whenever, as the expression went, they 'acted above their class.' Some of them could, given time and the expenditure of half their fortune, leverage their way into the nobility. Albrecht's own grandfather had done so; effectively buying his grandsons-if not himself or his own sons-a seat in the Council by marrying a widow whose splendid title had been turned into a hollow shell by her former husband's profligacy.
Yes, some did. And, as was the way of things, typically became the most ferocious defenders of aristocratic privilege thereafter. But most did not. There simply weren't enough eligible marriage prospects; and, while the Council's Registrar could usually be bribed, he did not come cheaply. 'Buy a Registration' was another popular slang expression in the Confederacy, used whenever someone referred to a financial enterprise that was either beyond one's wildest fancy or, if it wasn't, would be flat-out ruinous.
Prit Sallivar himself had never bothered with the business. Though he resented the constant little humiliations visited upon him, he had never seen the logic of wasting his wealth in order to obtain a title. He simply kept his social contacts in the aristocracy-outside of business, where any number of noblemen were willing to allow him entry through the back door of their villas-to that relatively small layer of the nobility which had a relaxed attitude about 'one's station in life.'
Demansk himself was one such. But another-and by far the most prominent-was Arsule Knecht. In this, if not in their shared enthusiasm for art, she and her former husband were diametrically opposite. Toman had employed the best financiers in the Confederacy, Prit Sallivar among them, and had then treated them much like he treated his servants. After his death, Arsule had swung open the front door of their mansion, and invited them in.
Demansk had never attended the salons and soirees and art exhibitions for which Arsule Knecht had become famous-'notorious' was a better word, at least among the aristocracy. His own wife Druzla had been one of Arsule's best friends, and would undoubtedly have enjoyed them. But Druzla had died two years before Toman, and Demansk had turned down all the subsequent invitations. Politely, but firmly. He didn't much enjoy such things himself and since his own prestige in Vanbert society rested on the 'traditional virtues,' he saw no point in eroding that position simply out of sentimentality.
'Traditional virtues,' he muttered under his breath. 'I'm the toughest pig farmer in the land, and I can steal
