“I guess so.”
“And if it’s to go to a Mercati,” said Hart, “it’s to go to me.”
Will leaned forward and stared at him. Hart said, “You want to add something?”
Will quickly went through a dozen responses, and said, “No.”
“Good. Now, here’s the interesting part. I hope you won’t think me eccentric.”
God!
“But I’ve taken the liberty of notifying the City of Pearl of our mutual intentions. Adrian’s and mine, I mean.”
“Ummm.” Will was losing the ability to comment intelligently on this conversation. He hoped that it only reflected Hart’s insanity and not his own.
“They claim they can identify the true Crown when it’s located, and they’re interested in doing so. Very interested.—Oracles don’t make you nervous, do they? They do some people.”
Will shook his head.
“Good, because you may have to meet one when he or she comes to the Opal to identify the Crown, assuming, of course, we find it.” He turned toward Will’s cup. “You’re not drinking your tea.”
Will picked up the cup mechanically and drank from it. Hart said, “Logically, our purposes are two: First, to locate the Crown, and second, to confuse and embarrass Adrian Mercati. Doing the second will give us a more clear field for the first.”
“I like Adrian,” said Will, and he heard himself to his own horror. He’d drunk too much last night, and dealing with Hart was taking its toll.
Hart glared again. “I know, Willie, he’s a likable person. Can we not drag in irrelevancies?”
“Sorry.”
The brothel they were sitting in was an old wooden structure, and the top floor had been used for assignations for two hundred years. A floorboard outside the door had been left warped and creaky, Will had been told, to warn any lovers of the approach of a jealous mate. It was meant more as a joke than a real warning.
The floorboard creaked now. Their eyes met, and Will was out the door in a second. He pulled in a short balding man with a blue cap slouched over one eye—pulled him hard onto the floor, where the cap rolled off and he banged an elbow and cried, “Yow!” This didn’t stop him from scrambling for the door again, kicking and biting on his way.
Will was forced to give him a good blow to the chin to slow him down, and die man responded with an immediate faint onto the floorboards. “Clay jaw,” said Will. He looked for something to tie the hands with, but nothing presented itself. Trying to tear the Baret skirt the eavesdropper was wearing proved futile. “Well, it’s not like he’s dangerous. I guess they’ll send someone up here to find out what the racket was. Maybe we should push him under the bed.”
“If it’s between consenting species I doubt if they care,” said Hart. He nodded toward the man on the floor. “What do you think?”
Will examined him. “He’s not wearing state security clothing. And if he’s working out of uniform, he’s not very good. Also, we were relatively careful about people following us on the way here. Also, even if they did, they would probably assume we came here for the obvious reasons. I think he’s an independent, just looking for some kind of edge. Saw two foreigners with money come up and decided to see what he could find out.”
The man groaned. He shifted his head left and right, his eyes still closed. Hart spun the dial of his accent a few degrees closer to Sangaree, assuring unintelligibility to a native Baret.
Hart said, “You think he’s somebody’s riff?”
“I doubt it. Just a nathy who got in over his head.”
“Let’s make him our riff, then.”
Will looked at him.
Hart said, “We need to make contact with the less respectable folk down here. Besides, it’s proper procedure, isn’t it? For the Guard and the EPs both.”
“Have I had a chance to thank you yet for getting me transferred?”
Hart allowed some impatience to show. “We’re working on a time limit, old pal. The Diamond is breathing down our necks. As far as I’m concerned, if this person knows anything we can use, it belongs to us by eminent domain. Or right of force. Or finders keepers. I don’t care.” He stood up. “Do your job, sergeant.”
Will bent over the intruder, put one hand on his chin, and began waking up their new riff.
His name was Maltin. He didn’t seem to bother much with a second name. He was a thief and blackmailer, and regarded himself as generally harmless—beneath the notice of your lordships, if he could be permitted to say.
But he did understand something of the flow of money in Lankio Quarter, and the direction that most of the bribes went in when they vanished in the administrative district. “Everybody knows they’re collected by the minister’s people.”
“Which minister?” asked Hart.
“The Minister of Truth.”
Will said, “They have a department for that here?”
“He means the propaganda arm of the government,” said Hart. He stood up and paced across the room. “There’s a party at the Duke’s tonight, the minister will probably attend.” He came back to himself for a moment and noticed Will and Maltin were both looking at him. He laughed, took out a wallet of hand-worked leather fat with notes and threw it to Will.
“Pay our riff, Willie. And ask him to keep in touch.”
Ten days later Will was invited to the villa of the Minister of Truth, halfway up a mountain at the far northern edge of Everun. There was no question of walking that distance, and in fact he was flown in the minister’s private aircar.
The villa was by a mountain river. On the trip up they rose over a long, long waterfall and pierced through the curtain of mist steaming from its foot. Will kept his head
