Wrath of Empire

Chapter 41

Michel stepped down from Ichtracia’s carriage, holding on carefully to the door until his feet were on firm ground. He wasn’t entirely certain of his body, even after two days of forced recovering in Ichtracia’s townhouse. Everything seemed to work, despite how sketchy her sorcery-and-surgery combination sounded, and he was in less pain than if he had just been stitched up again by Emerald.

Which didn’t mean he didn’t hurt. He looked up at the columned facade of the Landfall City Bank. It was an enormous building, over sixty feet tall with foreboding gargoyles perched on the decorated eaves, all finished in black marble. Last he heard, the bank had been ransacked and abandoned during the invasion and had sat empty ever since.

Now, though, half a dozen carriages sat out front, all of them bearing the black and red curtains of the new regime. A Dynize flag hung from the highest point of the roof, and he saw a steady stream of people coming and going. He couldn’t help but wonder if Ichtracia had fixed him up only to turn him over to Ka-Sedial to be tortured. He looked up at the driver of the carriage, one of Ichtracia’s footmen. “Tculu,” he said, “why am I here?”

“I just brought you to where I was told,” the footman responded. He snapped the reins and drove off before Michel could question him further.

Two days locked up in Ichtracia’s townhouse. Two days without any information from the outside world. It was worse than when he’d been stuck in Emerald’s morgue, if only because he had no way of knowing who had survived the blast that destroyed Yaret’s house, and whether he would emerge with any allies left among the Dynize. Other than Ichtracia, that was, though Michel couldn’t consider her an ally. At best she was an enigma.

After his healing, they had exchanged less than ten sentences. And now? He was dumped outside the Landfall City Bank.

“Michel!”

Michel turned to find Tenik walking toward him from beyond one of the carriages. He couldn’t help a smile, a wave of relief sweeping across him at the sight of a familiar face. “Tenik, I’m glad to see you alive.”

“Perhaps,” Tenik responded in a somber tone. “Come with me.”

“What do you mean, perhaps?” Michel asked. Tenik didn’t answer, turning sharply and striding away with a purpose that was incongruous with the laid-back man Michel had gotten to know. Michel was surprised at the brusqueness, and he slowly followed Tenik up the steps of the old bank and through the enormous front doors. Despite Michel’s obvious discomfort, Tenik neither offered a hand nor slowed his pace. Inside, the cavernous main hall was a whirl of activity – men, women, and children seemed to fill most of the space and a vaguely organized sort of indoor camp, with tents and partitions splitting the room into thirty or forty smaller ones.

Tenik navigated the space with ease, and Michel had a difficult time keeping up. He paused in the center of things for a breather, only to look up and see Tenik waiting ahead, watching him with a cold stare that put Michel on edge.

They continued to the back of the great room and up two flights of steps to the bank manager’s offices. Four Dynize soldiers stood watch outside, muskets shouldered. “Watch him,” Tenik told them before slipping inside the offices. Michel felt their eyes turn on him instantly, and he shifted uncomfortably, wondering what he had walked into. There was something very wrong here, and it took him far too long to figure it out.

The realization hit him just as the door opened and Tenik reappeared: Everyone here thought that Michel was responsible for Yaret’s death. He felt a trickle of sweat roll down the small of his back, and the behavior of Tenik – and the angry stares of the guards – now made so much more sense. This bank was the Household’s staging point, where they’d all gathered to recover. Michel was the man responsible for this, or so they all thought, and he had little doubt who’d spread that rumor.

Tenik stood in the open doorway for a moment, his expression troubled, obviously trying to read Michel. For his part, Michel could do little more than sweat openly, knowing how pale and frail he looked. He knew what guilt looked like, and it wasn’t all that different from a man trying to keep himself together when he is physically and emotionally empty.

“All right,” Tenik said, “come in.”

Michel stepped through the door and into the bank manager’s offices, which he could tell in a single glance had been co-opted by whoever was taking over Yaret’s position as the head of the Household. Michel wondered briefly how the line of succession affected the Name, and if Yaret would fade into obscurity, forgotten by all but a few dusty history books.

It was with some surprise that he entered a second doorway and found Yaret himself sitting behind the manager’s old desk, leaning forward, fingers steepled, brow furrowed as one of his cupbearers spoke earnestly. At the sight of Michel, Yaret raised his hand, and the woman beside him fell silent.

There were four other people in the room besides Michel, Tenik, and Yaret. Michel recognized each of them as Yaret’s top lieutenants. He tried to figure out who was missing and couldn’t come up with anyone. Had none of them died in the bombing? His pleasure at the news – and the sight of Yaret alive and well – was tempered by the fact that everyone in the room looked at him with the same weighing, anger-tinged way the guards outside had. He was, he realized in an instant, on trial.

“Michel,” Yaret said by way of greeting. “We’re all rather surprised to see you alive.”

Michel was about to answer that the feeling was mutual, but realized how bad that would sound before the words left his mouth. Instead, he just nodded. “I have the feeling I’ve missed a lot.”

“Indeed. There are quite a lot of rumors swirling around about you right now.”

Michel glanced at Tenik, but the cupbearer was clearly going to be of no help. He felt a spark of anger and grabbed on to it, using it to prop himself up in the face of silent accusations. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he had a pretty good guess. He’d almost killed himself just attempting to warn them of the bombing, and here they were turned against him. “I’m going to guess that those rumors include my involvement with the bombing of your Household.”

“Do you deny them?” Yaret asked.

Michel glanced around at the hostile faces. He’d begun to think of these people as his colleagues, Tenik even as a friend. He didn’t deserve this. He was too tired, in too much pain. “Of course I deny it. You want an explanation for my absence the last week? Here it is.” He launched into a quick summary of his adventures, starting with his search of Forgula’s house, then his shooting by Hendres, and his recovery with Emerald. He finished with his attempt to warn Yaret about the bombing, and his time spent locked in Ichtracia’s townhouse. He glossed over a few key details, like Emerald’s name and occupation, but kept everything fairly true to reality.

Yaret and his people listened without interrupting, watching him carefully throughout the whole story. Michel ended with a sigh and, without being invited, took an empty chair from the corner of the room and dragged it over in front of Yaret’s desk before collapsing into it.

“Ichtracia saved you from Forgula?” Yaret asked.

It was not the first question Michel expected to be asked. “She did. I have no idea why.”

“She’s taken a liking to him,” Tenik interrupted, clearing his throat. “She has ever since Michel tagged Forgula at the war games.”

Yaret snorted, burying a half smile, the closest thing to humor to enter this room since Michel’s arrival. “No telling what’s in a Privileged’s head. Especially that one.” He squinted at Michel, then suddenly produced a piece of paper. It was hastily scrawled with the words Evacuate Household. Bomb. – Michel. He set it in the middle of the desk so that Michel could see it. “That,” he said, “is the only reason you’re standing there right now, and not already handed over to the bone-eyes for questioning. Because of this note, we were able to get everyone out of the townhouse in Chancellor’s Court before several barrels of gunpowder were detonated in the basement. The house was destroyed. The Household was saved.”

There was a note of gratitude in Yaret’s voice that made Michel’s heart sing. He reined in his elation. This was still a trial, and it could still go bad.

Yaret continued. “Forgula has openly accused you of being responsible for the bombings that have taken place across the city. She and several witnesses claim you were present just before the destruction of my house. From your explanation – and from this note here and the witness of the child who brought it to me – you were attempting to warn us.”

“I was.”

“Good. Then I think we both see what Forgula is up to. Without evidence, though, Sedial will demand that I hand you over to the bone-eyes for questioning.”

Michel glanced between the faces. They were all a little gentler, but cautiously so. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think you do understand what Forgula is up to.”

“Oh?”

Michel produced the list of addresses that he had taken from Forgula’s house. The paper was stained black with his blood. He handed it to Tenik, who examined it with a frown. “That,” Michel said, “is what I found among Forgula’s papers. It struck me as important at the time, so I confiscated it, but I was shot before I could give it a second thought. In my weakened state, I didn’t grasp the significance of the addresses until the morning of the bombing, and that’s when I attempted to reach the house to warn you.”

“What is that?” Yaret asked Tenik.

Tenik’s eyebrows rose. “It’s a list of addresses – corresponding to every single one of the bombings, including the one that destroyed our house.”

“You’ll find that the handwriting matches the writing in Forgula’s pocketbook,” Michel said, trying not to sound smug.

Three of Yaret’s lieutenants began to mutter. A fourth gasped openly. Yaret stilled them with a raised hand. “And?”

“I propose that Forgula has been working with Marhoush and the Blackhats. She struck a deal with them to kill as many of Sedial’s enemies as they could. I have no idea what the Blackhats are getting in return, but it’s clear from that list of addresses that she knew ahead of time where they would occur. I’d be willing to bet that Marhoush or je Tura has a matching list.”

Yaret nodded at Tenik, who slipped out of the room without a word. Michel opened his mouth to ask where Tenik was going, but Yaret cut him off. “You’re accusing Ka-Sedial of treason.”

“I am,” Michel said. “Forgula ran the errands, but it’s too convenient of a pattern for Sedial not to have given the order.”

“Would he dare?” one of the lieutenants asked.

Yaret tapped a finger against his chin, staring over Michel’s shoulder at nothing, a scowl etched on his face. “Sedial has dared an awful lot. He would never risk the empire – if all of this is true, he probably has a plan to eliminate the Blackhats as soon as they’ve served their purpose. But he has never been above destroying his enemies.”

“All of that was supposed to change with this war. We were supposed to be united,” another of the lieutenants growled.

Yaret didn’t answer him. Somewhere in the bank, Michel thought he heard a scream. He tried to ignore it. He was completely certain of this conspiracy now. It made too much sense, and it was clear from Yaret’s body language that he wouldn’t be hard to convince. Not with the evidence Michel had just put in front of him.

Yaret meditated in silence for several minutes, his eyes half-lidded in thought while his lieutenants avoided Michel’s gaze. When the quiet had almost become unbearable, the door opened and Tenik returned just as suddenly as he left. He held a leather pocketbook – Forgula’s – in one hand. He plucked the bloodstained address list off the table and compared the two, then nodded. “The handwriting is a match.”

“And Marhoush?” Yaret asked.

“He’s changed his story.”

Michel perked up at this. “Marhoush is here?”

“You can tell him,” Yaret said to Tenik.

Tenik nodded, then turned to Michel. “We brought Marhoush in the evening after the bombing and handed him over to our own Household questioners. His story has corroborated the story Forgula told us – that you are still a loyal Blackhat, spying on the Dynize – but I just went to him with the story you told us and he broke down. He said that Forgula has been funneling the Blackhats supplies in exchange for conducting bombings at the addresses and dates she gave him. He even told me where to find a copy of that list you brought us.”

Michel allowed himself to close his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. When he looked up, Yaret was smiling at him thoughtfully. “I’m glad you’re still one of us,” Yaret said.

Michel swallowed his guilt, pushing his real self deeper into the back of his head. “I’m glad I had evidence that Forgula is a lying sack of shit. What do we do now? Is this enough evidence to accuse Sedial?”

“I think it is,” Yaret replied.

Tenik raised his eyebrows. “That will be dangerous.”

“Dangerous or not,” Yaret said with a shake of his head, “Sedial must be brought to heel.”

Michel was hit with a sudden sense of foreboding. “Perhaps Tenik is right,” he said.

“In what way?”

“That it’s damned dangerous. Too dangerous. Sedial is the emperor’s man, right? And he commands the armies and the Privileged? If we go after him openly – if we force him into the light – he may just crush us underfoot. It would be his only option.”

“He tried to kill me,” Yaret said quietly. “He tried to kill my Household. I will not let this stand.”

“We won’t,” Michel assured him. “But I think I know of a way we can punish him without forcing a more deadly confrontation.”

“I’m listening.”

Michel took a deep breath. This idea would lessen the ugliness, but it would also make Michel another very powerful enemy. “When is the next public event where both Sedial and Forgula will be present?”