16
I spent the first half hour of the next morning in bed, tracing the cracks in the ceiling. One upside to the drought was that it made the spiderweb fracturing of my home solely an aesthetic concern. When the weather broke I’d need to find someone to fix it, or spend the rainy season getting dripped on.
I put that out of my head and pulled on my shirt, then my pants, then my boots. Then I sat back down and removed them again, replacing them with the sweat-stained fabric I’d worn during my last meeting with Edwin Montgomery.
The plants in the general’s garden had gone from wilted to dead since I’d last been there, victims of the unrelenting heat. After forty-five minutes in the sun I thought I might join them, lie down next to the withered rose bush and stop breathing. I had to bang at the door for a long time before a servant opened it, squarely built and about my age, but with a mane stained white as an octogenarian’s.
‘I’m here to see the general,’ I said.
He closed the door without speaking, then opened it a few minutes later and waved me in.
Botha was waiting for me outside the general’s study. His clothes were neatly pressed, and he seemed unaffected by the weather. I found myself disliking him more than was appropriate.
‘I didn’t imagine we’d be seeing you again, sir,’ he said.
‘Ain’t it wonderful, at our age, that the world still finds ways to surprise us?’
‘It is indeed. Unfortunately, the Master is even older, and I’m afraid not up for a similar shock.’
‘I’ll make sure not to set off any fireworks.’
He didn’t find that amusing, but then I got the sense Botha was infrequently overcome with merriment. ‘The general don’t need to be worked up by a two-bit hustler.’
‘When’d you get a look at my price sheet?’
Botha cracked a knuckle. It echoed like a shot through the stale air of the room. ‘I’m not letting you in there.’
‘It’s called the chain of command, and it means you don’t get to make that decision.’
‘As far as you need be concerned, my word comes from the Firstborn himself.’
‘I’m an atheist.’
Long fingers contracted into fists. His shoulders rolled forward. ‘It’s never too late to see the light.’
I wasn’t sure how it would play out – I hadn’t anticipated a tussle before my morning meeting, and Botha was not, best as I could tell, composed of pulled taffy. On the other hand, I was getting in to see his boss one way or the other, and I know a lot of others, and mostly they involve bladed weaponry.
A voice from inside called us off. A weak voice, a voice that wasn’t about to do any singing. Still, I could hear it well enough, and so could Botha. He let his arms slip back to his sides, but his eyes never left mine, even when he opened the door for me to slide through.
Edwin Montgomery had not struck me, the last time I’d seen him, as about to leap up from his desk and dance a quadrille – but neither had he seemed a man rapping weakly on the door of She Who Waits Behind All Things. Two days had pushed him distinctly in that direction, however. He was colored like a newborn larva, and wore a dirty robe open halfway down his sunken chest. What hair he’d last possessed seemed to have abandoned him in his hour of need. His breathing had ceased to be an unconscious reflex, each intake of air requiring the full measure of his strength.
I had squared Botha’s attitude as general belligerence, but now I was starting to wonder if I’d mistaken it for the loyalty of a faithful servant. The general did not, indeed, appear to be in any condition for an interview. Looking at him I wanted to cut short our conversation and call for a doctor, though even our enlightened age has yet to develop a remedy for the passing of time. Nor was it lost on me that the news I was about to provide was unlikely to act as a tonic. But he needed to hear it – more importantly, I needed to tell it, clear myself of responsibility to the Montgomery family.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, feebly. ‘You’ll have to excuse Botha. He can get a bit . . . overprotective.’
‘I’m sure he’s got your interests at heart.’
‘He always did,’ Montgomery said heavily, as if there was something more in it.
I took an unoffered seat. ‘I appreciate you agreeing to see me again, General.’
His skull tilted down an eighth or so of an inch, then returned to its original position. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘I found Rhaine.’
‘Yes,’ he repeated.
‘She’s in Low Town, like you expected. In an inn called the Queen’s Palace.’
‘Is she?’
‘I tried talking to her.’
‘Yes.’
‘But she wasn’t interested in what I had to say.’
‘No.’
‘Honestly, sir, I’m not sure where to go from here. I can’t force her to return.’
Two sentences seemed to stretch the limits of his focus. He’d aimed his gaze vaguely through the window at his dying gardens, though the dust and the morning glare obscured the view. ‘I’m sure you did your best,’ he said finally.
‘Sir, perhaps now is the time to cash in a favor or two. Get in touch with someone from the Throne, Black House if you have to. I know you said you didn’t want to draw yourself any attention, but Rhaine is in over her head. Alive and noisy is better than the alternative.’
A thread of spit trailed down from his upper lip. After a long moment he brushed it away and spoke. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘If I was you, sir, I’d do it as soon as I could.’ Trying to balance urgency with an appreciation for the fragility of the man’s health.
‘Yes,’ he said, but he had gone back to looking out the window. ‘Immediately.’
It was all I could do. It was what I did, at least, offering a farewell that he didn’t answer and standing to leave.
‘Wait,’ he called me back, briefly returning to cognizance. ‘A man . . . a man pays his debts.’ Hands shaking violently, he managed to pull a purse from a drawer and dropped it on the desk. The string was loose, and I could see the yellow inside.
I answered quickly, before avarice could kick in. ‘You don’t owe me anything, General – I just wish I could do something else for you.’
Two days earlier he would have argued with me to take it. Now he just nodded vaguely and went back to staring out the window.
Botha was waiting by the front door, not quite smirking. ‘Did you have a productive meeting, sir?’
‘Aces, Botha. Aces.’
‘I suppose this will be the last we’ll be seeing you.’
I was seized with a sudden desire to squeeze my fingers around his throat, break his face into a pulp, go at him full-bore and see who ended up standing. ‘I suppose you’ve supposed a lot of things that didn’t turn out true, haven’t you, Botha? A man like you, he’s probably better off waiting for people to explain things to him, rather than go round supposing shit he don’t know nothing about.’
For whatever reason this didn’t seem to touch him – the inclination that had nearly brought us to blows a few minutes earlier had disappeared entirely. He smiled and dipped his head, the closest to servile I’d yet seen him manage, then opened the door out into the dead garden. I tried to catch the general’s eyes through the window of his study, but the glare of the sun was too bright, and I had to turn away.
17
Back at the Earl I ditched the suit for my regular attire and slipped a long dirk into my belt. The unmade bed seemed more inviting than usual, but I forced myself to settle for a hard snarl of breath. The vapor was sweet and
