The Liar's Key

The modern standing behind the abomination that Davario seemed so proud of offered me the thinnest of smiles and watched me with dead eyes.

“Charmed,” I said. All of a sudden I wasn’t sure which unnerved me most, the monstrosity of corpse and metal before me, or the white-faced man standing in its shadow. Something was seriously amiss with the man. A coward knows these things, just as the cruel and violent have an instinct for seeking out cowards.

Without further remark Marco led the clockwork soldier from the room.

“He’s a banker then, this Marco?” I asked as the door shut behind them.

“Among other things.”

“A necromancer?” I had to ask. If the House Gold were extending the use of their clockwork soldiers by means of such crimes against nature then I had to wonder who was doing the work for them and if the Dead King had his bony fingers in their pie.

“Ah.” Davario smiled and showed his small white teeth, too many of them, as if I’d made a witticism. “No. Not Marco. Though he has worked closely with our practitioners. Necromancy is an unfortunate word with overtones of skulls and graveyards. We’re much more . . . scientific here, our practitioners adhere to strict guidelines.”

“And what of Kelem?” I asked.

The banker stiffened at that. A nerve touched.

“What of him?”

“Does he approve of these . . . innovations? Of your practitioners and their arts?” I really wanted to ask if Kelem owned half of Red March but perhaps I didn’t want to hear the answer to that question.

“Kelem is a respected shareholder in many of Umbertide’s institutions.” Davario inclined his head. “But he does not control the House Gold nor make our policy. We are a new breed here, Prince Jalan, with many profitable associations.”

Davario took a piece of parchment from his drawer, heavy grade and cut into a neat rectangle. The thing had been marked all over with precise scrollwork and an exquisitely detailed crest of arms. He took his quill and wrote “100” in a clear space near the middle, signing his name below.

“This is a credit note for one hundred florins, Prince Jalan. I hope it will be sufficient for your needs until your great uncle’s paperwork is certified.” He slid it across the desk to me.

I picked it up by the corner, and shook it as I might a suspect letter. It hadn’t any weight to it. “I do favour cold currency . . .” I turned the note over, the reverse decorated in more scrollwork. “Something more solid and real.”

A small frown creased the flesh between Davario’s eyes. “Your debts aren’t currency, my prince, and yet they’re every bit as real as your assets.”

My turn to frown. “What do you know about my debts?”

The banker shrugged. “Little more than that they exist. But if you sought to borrow money from me I would know far more about them by sunset.” His face became serious and despite our civilized surroundings I felt little doubt that in the matter of collecting what might be owed to the House Gold Davario Romano Evenaline would be no more inclined to show mercy than Maeres Allus. “But I wasn’t talking about your debts: it’s your Uncle Hertet’s debts that are the stuff of legend. He’s been borrowing against the promise of the throne since he came to his majority.”

“He has.” I managed to stop the words becoming a question. I knew the heir-apparently-not liked to spend and had several ventures on the go, including a theatre and a bathhouse, but I had assumed that the Red Queen indulged him in recompense for her failure to either be a doting mother or to die.

Davario returned to his theme. “Debts are very real—they’re not hard currency but they are hard facts, my prince. This note is a promise: it carries the reputation of the House Gold. The whole of Umbertide, the whole of finance, runs on promises, a vast network of interlinked promises, each balanced on the next. And do you know what the difference is between a promise and a lie, Prince Jalan?”

I opened my mouth to tell him, paused, thought, thought some more, and said, “No.” I’d uttered plenty of both and the only difference seemed to be the side you looked at them from.

“Well and good, if we ever found someone who did we might have to kill them. Ho ho ho.” He spoke his laugh, not even pretending humour. “A lie may prove true in the end, a promise might be broken. The difference might be said to be that if a person breaks one promise then all their promises are suspect, worthless, but if a liar tells the truth by accident we don’t feel inclined to treat all their other utterances as gospel. The promise of this note is as strong, or weak, as the promise of every bank in this broken empire of ours. If it breaks, we plunge into the abyss.”