The waitress came back to our table. On her shoulder was a tray. On the tray was enough food to feed a family of eight. ‘Where’d your friends go?’ she asked.
‘Weren’t never here,’ I said.
She dropped her burden onto the table, rattling the plates and sending coffee spilling. ‘Well, who the hell is gonna pay for all this?’
‘He is,’ I said, pulling an argent out of my pocket. ‘He just doesn’t know it yet.’
30
The man at the front desk of Black House was not inclined towards letting me wander the halls unaccompanied.
A day had passed since my meeting with Adisu, a day spent avoiding the sun and Adeline, holed up in my room burning through a half-ochre worth of dreamvine. In the city outside the seeds of my plot were beginning to sprout, soon to flower into chaos and violence. They’d require cultivation, but at that exact moment all they needed was a little bit of time. I went to bed early, and woke up the same, heading out to visit Guiscard before breakfast. I’d thought a lot about what I was going to say to him, but I’ll admit I hadn’t foreseen the possibility that said dialogue would never take place.
Back when I’d worked in Black House the desk was occupied by an agent. I suppose there had been some sort of a change in policy, because their new doorman was nothing but that, a functionary with gray eyes and a soul to match. I didn’t blame him not letting me in. Keeping out the riff-raff was chief amongst his duties, and I certainly looked the part. I did, however, blame him for being snide, narrow of mind, and less capable of independent thought than a marching ant. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, not sounding like it. ‘But without an appointment there’s really nothing I can do.’
‘Just send someone up to tell him I’m here.’
‘There’s no one here but me – and if I go upstairs to give him a message, there would be no one left to watch the desk.’
‘I’ll stay here and watch it.’
‘I don’t . . .’ The introduction of an alternative confused him. ‘I don’t think that would work.’
‘Perhaps we could rig up some sort of machine which would pass the note along to him. Something with rigs and pulleys.’
‘I’m not very mechanically inclined,’ he admitted.
‘How about carrier pigeons? Do you have any of those?’
He shrugged helplessly. He’d been well trained for his position. Mostly, organizations do not reward solving problems – they reward not fucking up, and the easiest way not to fuck up is to do nothing. But true inertia is a difficult state to reach, and after a few moments of silence an idea seemed to come to him. It was a rare thing, no doubt. It took him a while to recognize it, and longer still to give it voice. ‘Maybe if you told me what business you have with Agent Guiscard?’
How to answer that one? That Agent Guiscard had forced me to act a double agent, setting up the downfall of a rebellious entity conceivably bent on the destruction of the Crown? Or that the above was false, that I was in fact engineering a conflict between Black House and the Association, and Agent Guiscard the unwitting instrument of my revenge? ‘I’m afraid he wouldn’t want me to divulge the specifics.’
I heard the door open behind me and I tensed up slightly. There were still people walking the halls who remembered when I’d done the same, and I imagined they’d be quick to greet my return with violence.
Turned out I didn’t need to worry. ‘Agent Guiscard,’ the doorman said.
‘Hello, Brunsford.’
Guiscard pulled up next to me. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, but before I could answer he shook his head. ‘Nevermind – best discuss it in my office.’
‘One moment,’ I said, turning back to Brunsford. ‘If you knew he was out, then why did we have to go through all of this?’
Brunsford shrugged, having difficulty seeing the connection. ‘You didn’t ask.’
In a sense, I envied him. Few people are so well suited to their duties. I thanked him, then followed Guiscard upstairs.
He took a seat, and I joined him. ‘How much do you like me?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Am I just some ten-copper trollop whom you pick up and use at your convenience? Or is what we have between us real?’
‘This is a rather tedious introduction to whatever you’re here for.’
‘Let me summate.’ I leaned back in my chair and propped my legs up onto his desk. ‘I need you to crush a bug for me.’
He narrowed his eyes, stiffened one arm and pushed my boots back to the ground. ‘What kind of bug?’
‘Islander, early twenties, savagely insane. Goes by Adisu the Damned.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘When I had your job, Guiscard, I knew the name of every criminal who could command a blade from Grenmont to the docks.’
‘You don’t have my job anymore.’
‘And I still know the name of every criminal who can command a blade from Grenmont to the docks.’
‘This Adisu – what exactly has he done to you?’
‘At this exact moment, he hasn’t done anything. But if we wait around till tomorrow, he’ll make sure I’m not here to answer that question a second time.’
‘I’m sure you’ve done something to deserve it.’
‘We’ve all done something to deserve it.’
‘And what exactly would you like to have happen to your unfortunate adversary?’
‘The world would be a finer place without him crawling on its surface, but so long as he’s out of my way, I don’t really mind. The bay or the dungeon, your preference.’
‘I can’t just disappear a fellow without reason.’
‘In fact you can – that’s basically the point of being in Black House. You can pretty much do anything you want to anyone, and they can’t do anything back to you.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Say I could do it. Why would I?’
‘In exchange for the kindnesses I’m doing you.’
‘Awful presumptuous of you, thinking to cash in a chit you haven’t earned yet.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning for all your big talk about having Joachim Pretories’ ear, so far you’ve given me nothing more solid than broken wind.’
‘I don’t imagine I’ll be of any more help to you dead,’ I answered. ‘Try to think a few moves ahead, Guiscard. The Association and the Giroies will be at war soon enough. You’ll be happy to have me around when they do.’
‘So you’ve said – I’m still not sure I understand why Pretories would want to stir up violence against the Giroies.’
‘Same reason any leader goes to war – to divert attention from their own failures. Better to get everyone focusing on an enemy than have them mull over his inability to keep their pensions inviolate.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘The world rarely does,’ I said. ‘You need to look past how you think things should work, and pay attention to how things actually do.’
‘Regardless,’ he said after a brief moment of thought, ‘I’m an Agent of the Crown, tasked with upholding the law and enforcing justice. Neither of those activities are served by what you’re asking.’
‘You never hit a suspect? Never set a man up for a fall he didn’t know was coming? Your past so lily white as all that?’
‘There’s a difference between bending the rules and bringing the full force of Black House to bear on a private struggle between two . . .’ he sputtered for a moment, trying to find a term to sufficiently convey his contempt, ‘. . .
