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It took me over an hour to conclude that what I had brought out today was
indeed a later version of the first ever Annal and most of another hour to
realize that I would not be able to winkle out the book's secrets without
skilled help. Or a lot more time than I had.
Chandra Gokhale apparently died in that joy house. Likewise, his two
companions. There were witnesses. People saw them strangled. Then a red rumel
got left behind in the killers' haste to get away.
The Greys arrived almost immediately. They loaded the corpses into a cart,
saying the Protector wanted Gokhale's back in the Palace instantly. But the
Greys stopped being Greys moments after they left the pleasure house. Their
course led them toward the river rather than toward the Palace. The extra
bodies vanished into the flood.
A white crow dozing on a rooftop wakened when they started downhill. It
stretched and followed them.
Chapter 30
Murgen was there when Soulcatcher received the news. The report reached the
Palace in a remarkably short time and was unusually complete. The Greys worked
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hard to please their mistress.
The party bringing Gokhale to the warehouse had not yet arrived.
Murgen had been asked to look around the Protector's quarters while he was
there. We knew nothing about them. Nobody ever went into her suite. Not since
Willow Swan had gone to his reward.
Murgen would have to be questioned about how she lived in private.
Soulcatcher did not retreat there, however. She went out looking for the
Radisha right away.
The Radisha knew something had happened to Gokhale but she had not had
detailed reports. The women settled in the receiving chamber of the Radisha's
austere suite. Soulcatcher told what she knew. She used a very businesslike
voice. It was said sometimes that the Protector was her most dangerous and
least stable when she stopped being capricious and seemed calmest and most
serious.
"It seems the Inspector-General shared some habits with Perhule Khoji. In
fact, I'm now assured that his particular weakness was common amongst the
senior men of his ministry."
"There were rumors."
"And you did nothing?"
"Chandra Gokhale's private amusements, loathsome as I found them personally,
did not prevent his performing perfectly as Inspector-General of the Records.
He was particularly adept at generating revenue."
"Indeed." Soulcatcher's businesslike manner wavered momentarily. Murgen would
report his amusement at the thought she might actually have a moral opinion.
"He was attacked in the same manner as Khoji was."
"Suggesting somebody might have a grudge against the ministry as a whole? Or
that the Deceivers pick men of his particular weakness as ceremonial targets?"
"Deceivers didn't kill Gokhale. Of that I'm sure. This was done by the people
who lured Swan out and killed him. If they killed him."
"If?" The Radisha was startled by the implication.
"We saw no corpse. Note that we have no body this time, either. Men disguised
as our men were right there to haul the body away. That's two members of the
Privy Council lost in less than a week. Organizationally, they were the most
important. They made the machinery work. If the Great General was anywhere
nearby, I'd predict that he would be their next target. That gaggle of priests
means nothing. They do nothing. They control nothing. My sister proved that if
they're killed, they can be replaced by other do-nothings within minutes.
Nobody can replace Swan or Gokhale. The Greys are beginning to unravel
already."
Murgen made a mental note to mention that Willow Swan might have been less a
puppet than he led the world to believe.
"Why couldn't it be the Stranglers?" the Radisha asked.
"Because those people cut the head off that particular serpent the other day."
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She described events in the Thieves' Garden. Obviously, she had not bothered
to share the news before. It was clear that the Protector considered the
Princess a necessary but junior partner in her enterprise. "In a matter of
days these people, whom we thought ruined forever, have cut the head off one
enemy and have crippled the other seriously. There is a dangerous mind behind
this."
Not dangerous at all. Not even that lucky. But a sufficiently paranoid mind
will discern patterns and threats where only fortune has conspired.
Soulcatcher was ever alert for evils as great as her own.
"We knew they couldn't remain in the darkness forever," the Radisha said. She
corrected herself hastily, " I knew. The Captain reminded me often enough."
She did not need to bring up the past and her belief in mistakes she had made.
That devil was buried deep, hundreds of miles away. A much more immediate
danger was right there in the room with her.
The Protector was a mistake she had abandoned hope of living long enough to
correct. Blind to the consequences at the time, she had chosen to mount the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]