Cruel Zinc Melodies

84

‘‘Take a seat, Sergeant Garrett. Forget everything else. We have business to attend.’’ He had a jerky way of speaking that was unsettling.

Prince Rupert conjured a couple of chairs, placed them beside an empty cutting table. I didn’t protest his use of a rank I no longer wore. I avoid contradicting princes whenever I can.

I sat myself down, wishing I’d had the foresight to strap on my chastity belt this morning.

You need one when nobility invites you to come be one of the boys.

‘‘You’re skeptical and suspicious,’’ the prince said. ‘‘And nervous. Good. Your mind doesn’t freeze up when presented with sudden, unusual circumstances. But relax. Let’s talk like professionals, here away from everyone else.’’

Damn! He’d used the clown coat to create a way to meet without Block and Relway looking over his shoulders.

I peered around.

‘‘I’m alone, Sergeant. My bodyguards are somewhere warm. They don’t know I’m out prowling the stews again, alone.’’

He fibbed. A little, maybe. Their presence, behind the white, would be what I’d felt earlier, with senses honed in a more deadly place and time.

‘‘All right. You’ve got me here. Your Highness.’’ There were situations when he was supposed to be a ‘‘Your Highness,’’ and situations where he was supposed to be a ‘‘Your Grace.’’ I didn’t know the rules. I should’ve chosen my parents more carefully.

‘‘Neither Westman Block nor Deal Relway will be listening in. Neither will hear of this meeting unless you tell them.’’

I wouldn’t bet on Relway missing anything. Some of those guys out there shivering probably reported to him. Unless Rupert really understood that and did leave his people behind. In which case I’d been imagining what I’d felt out there.

I waited.

‘‘The situation at the World. The one involving Shadowslinger, Link Dierber, and the others. It happened as you described it?’’

‘‘Exactly.’’ I decided to dispense with honorifics till he insisted otherwise. Being me. Having to test the temper of whoever sat across from me. ‘‘I have no reason to distort the chronicle.’’

‘‘I thought as much.’’ He observed, ‘‘The Algardas erred when they brought those people to your theater.’’

‘‘Maybe. But they were just family, worried about their kids. The theater was full of dead bugs. The Algardas wanted to show the others what their kids had been up to. They weren’t there to start a war.’’

‘‘I suppose. Had they been, they wouldn’t have gotten so badly mauled.’’ As though he’d forgotten me, he muttered, ‘‘Too bad it wasn’t Kilsordona who got in the Bellman’s way.’’

‘‘Kilsordona?’’

‘‘Precisely. Yes. Oh. That would be the Nighthunter Kilsordona. The one wider than he is tall. A particularly unpleasant personality and a favorite annoyance of mine.’’

‘‘I didn’t know they let any Nighthunters come back from the Cantard.’’ They’d been one of the ugliest weapons fielded by our side. Invisible and undetectable after night-fall, the Nighthunters had been insane killers, often sent out to eliminate vampires and other night predators for which the Cantard is justly famous.

‘‘A few showed an ability to get over the need for murder. But that is nothing to do with us. Or this. A personal annoyance only.’’

I shuddered. His speech was increasingly creepy. ‘‘Uh . . . can you tell me what that was all about? Link Dierber going off, determined to get his brother and getting got himself instead?’’

‘‘Not so petty jealousy. The kind that happens in any family, but, for Link, magnified a hundred times. Link always made things bigger than they were. That was his psychosis.’’ Rupert paused. He waved a hand to indicate he wasn’t finished. He choked on his own words for thirty seconds before he got going again. ‘‘Many people would have lived longer, happier lives if Link Dierber had been stillborn.’’

‘‘And Belle?’’

‘‘Only half as mad as his crazy half brother. Only half as violent. Thanks to his upbringing.’’ He managed a note of sarcasm.

‘‘What happened between them? To start everything?’’

‘‘I don’t think anyone knows what the trigger was. And you could be the only one who cares. It certainly doesn’t matter. We have to deal with the situation that exists today.’’

Don’t you hate having to communicate with people whose heads don’t work like your own?

I don’t let it get to me. There are too many of them.

‘‘If you weren’t responsible for Dierber and the others being there, there’s no need to feel responsible for what happened, Sergeant.’’

I didn’t. The squabble between Belle Chimes and his family was an inconvenience. So were red tops who kept workmen from getting on with construction. Which I mentioned. Sourly. ‘‘What’s the bottom line going to be? My principal will be extremely unhappy if he gets dragged into a vendetta he didn’t start himself.’’

‘‘No worries. Only Schnook Avery is likely to carry a grudge. And Schnook will be taking up residence in a special sorcerer’s suite at the Al-Khar. He’ll stay there till we’re sure he’ll behave. Or till one of my idiot older brothers has him cut loose.’’

Mr. Jan sewed assiduously, hearing nothing.

‘‘What about Belle? And Lurking Felhske?’’

‘‘Felhske?’’ Distinctly unhappy at the mention. ‘‘Felhske isn’t germane.’’

Damn! He sounded a little heated, even.

Calmer, ‘‘We’ll see no more of him, I’m sure. The Bellman will be tracked down and arrested, though.’’

Understandable. ‘‘Why is he called the Bellman?’’

Prince Rupert stared for a moment, as though trying to work out if I was sincere, or just stupid. ‘‘Belle? Bellman? Nickname. Goes back to when he was about ten.’’

‘‘Those people load themselves down with silly monikers. I thought it might have some special meaning. Like Stormwarden. Or Windwalker.’’

He flinched. He wasn’t immune to her magic, either. He said, ‘‘The reports about you appear to be accurate.’’

Great chance for a wise remark. Relway, Block, or any of their underlings would have gotten one. The prince, not so likely. ‘‘Excuse me?’’

‘‘You worry and fuss about things in no need of fuss or worry.’’

An unusual way of stating it but a sentiment I’d heard expressed a few hundred times before. ‘‘None of this has turned out real satisfying.’’

‘‘That’s life. Did you do your job? It looks like you did what you were supposed to do. That should be satisfying in itself.’’

I grunted. What was I doing in the back room of a tailor’s shop, during a blizzard, talking to the number-three man in the kingdom, under circumstances suggesting that the meeting was part of something big and secret?

‘‘Why am I really here?’’

‘‘In addition to matters discussed? Two reasons. What’s buried under your theater?’’

I shrugged. ‘‘I don’t know. My associates think it’s a dragon. I’m not sure I agree. It doesn’t feel like what I think a dragon ought to feel like. We hope we can tame it with cold. Whatever it is, that seems to be putting it back to sleep. A few days’ more winter should do it. Anyway, I’m not supposed to discuss it. The fewer who know anything, the fewer there are who will be likely to provoke it.’’

He eyed me unhappily. ‘‘The main reason for this is that I hope to recruit you into a new law enforcement department. In a senior position.’’

‘‘Huh? Another one? Me? Be a tin whistle? I don’t think . . .’’

My lack of enthusiasm didn’t please the prince. ‘‘I’d think this would be your dream job. Doing what you do, with the Crown behind you. Your income guaranteed.’’

Being told what I could and couldn’t do, what I could and couldn’t wear, even being told how to lace my boots.

I wanted to yell, ‘‘Get thee behind me, foul demon!’’ But it was better to temporize. ‘‘I was a Marine. I’m proud of that. But it isn’t going to happen again.’’

‘‘You not being your own boss.’’

‘‘Exactly.’’

‘‘You’d have more freedom than you think.’’

That would be true the day the air filled with live, squealing bacon thicker than a gnat swarm. ‘‘You’d have to get more specific before I’d consider it. I like my life the way it is.’’

‘‘I’d hoped to make you my personal observer inside the Al-Khar. Straightforward enough?’’

‘‘Ah. . . .’’ Yes. He wanted to set me up to look over the shoulders of the masters of the Guard, Watch, and Unpublished Committee.

He said, ‘‘I’m gathering people who are the best at what they do. With you we’d start out using an arrangement like the one you have with the Weider Brewery. Outside the Al-Khar your Special Office would handle things we don’t want the Guard or Watch seen ham-handing. Inside, you’d be Director of the Office of the Chief Inspectorate, publicly tasked to watch the watchers. You’d follow a career arc similar to Director Relway’s but with your name becoming less well known. You’d have the city’s most talented people reporting to you. You’d do highly important work but the public would remain unaware of it.’’

A snake oil salesman ought to have more facility expressing himself. The prince’s tics left him sounding like a crook even if he was being honest. ‘‘Whatwould I be doing if I wasn’t keeping Relway honest?’’

‘‘Not yet. Not a word more than what I’ve said. I repeat. This isn’t to become part of public discourse, now or if you accept the position.’’

All right. He was offering me a job. A real job. Probably doing what I do, till I weaseled my way in where I could keep an eye on the darkness at the heart of the Al-Khar.

‘‘If you accept I’d want you to bring all your resources with you. And to disengage from private arrangements.’’

That killed it. Wasn’t going to happen. But I wasn’t ready to break his heart in front of so many absent witnesses.

He sensed the change. His eyes narrowed. ‘‘Compensation would be commensurate with your level of responsibility.’’

‘‘Generous, huh?’’

‘‘Very. I’m asking you to give up a lot.’’

My eyes narrowed. But temptation remained well behind me. I couldn’t imagine the king of Karenta being more generous than the king of beer. Not to mention less controlling.

‘‘Enough to let you retain your usual associates. Though they couldn’t know what you’re doing. Some don’t know how to keep a secret.’’

‘‘You’ve been checking up.’’

‘‘We could, in fact, set up departmental expenses separate from salaries. But you’d have to keep detailed records. You’d have to account for everything. And be prepared to argue convincingly for expenditures. I’m creating a fiscal oversight group, too.’’

The more he talked the more his offer sounded like a nightmare come true. ‘‘It’s interesting, the turns life takes.’’

‘‘Seize the night, as they say.’’ His excitement was gone. He knew I wasn’t buying.

He soldiered on, though. He asked my thoughts on the leading personalities of our day. A dozen times he said, ‘‘I never thought of it that way.’’ Or, ‘‘Is that how the little folk see it?’’ He had a strong interest in the differences in thinking between his class and those of us who do the world’s work. Not that he saw any particular merit in the plebian viewpoint.

He might have been slumming, or just enjoying a freak show.

He kept going back to popular attitudes toward Relway, Block, the better known human rights agitators, and the Contagues. And, more obliquely, his brother the king. I was as honest as I dared be. While growing ever more suspicious.

Morley would be heartbroken. I’d have to tell him that, as yet, he had done nothing gaudy enough to have caught the eye of Good Prince Rupert.

It would be nice if he kept it that way.

Mr. Jan did seize the opportunity to take additional measurements while I was there. Though my new coat would now be delayed till he completed the masterwork he was creating for the prince.