The Liar's Key
“What about the clockwork soldiers?” I cut across him. “Is there a ‘concern’ that specializes in those? Could I buy a piece of that?” I didn’t want to make any such a purchase but the only time I’d seen a flicker in those blank banker eyes of his was when Davario was discussing his ghoulish pet project, dead flesh on metal bones.
“Ownership of the soldiers rests in the hands of many private individuals and business enterprises. There is no central regulation, though the state, in the name of Duke Umberto, hold the rights to the Mechanists’ knowledge—”
“The rights to knowledge that nobody understands . . . I think I’ll pass on that one. But tell me—how many ten thousandths of House Gold would I need to own before I got to have a say in what goes on in your laboratories? How much would I have to pay over to find out just how far the Dead King’s hand reaches into the things that get built below Davario’s office?”
If possible Marco’s face grew even more stiff and more pale at my impertinence. “The utilization of cadaver material on our mechanical frames is perhaps . . . commercially sensitive in detail, but not a secret in general. We contract input from independent experts in the field. Again, their names are not classified information.”
“Give me one then,” I said, grinning as broadly as I could, trying unsuccessfully to spark an echo on lips so narrow and bloodless that I doubted they even had the ability to smile.
“I can give you three, one of them newly arrived in town.” He hesitated. “But all information has value in Umbertide and nothing of value is given away.”
“So would a thousand florins purchase the names of your specialists?”
“Yes.” Marco reached into his tunic and drew forth a sale bill, no expression on his face but the speed with which he moved was enough to know that even the heart of a juiceless creature such as him beat a little faster at the thought of a thousand in gold. He placed the bill on the table and reached for a quill so I could sign.
“No,” I said, holding out my hand. Marco studied it quizzically.
“Prince Jalan, why are you hold—”
“So you can give me my licence, Marco. You must consider me ready to make purchases since you just offered to sell to me.”
I heard his jaw grind and click as he pulled the document from his tight black overcoat and handed it to me.
“Don’t feel bad, Marco, old boy, I was born for places like this. Got an instinct for them, don’t you know. This time next month I’ll own the building.” I slapped him on the shoulder, mostly because I thought it would annoy him, and walked off rubbing my hand. Despite appearances the man was built like a rock.
• • •
That night in my room at Madam Joelli’s I dreamed of Hennan, running scared across a dark and stony field. It seemed I chased him, getting closer and closer until I could hear the ragged panting of his breath and see the flash of his bare feet in the moonlight, dark with blood. I chased him, hard on his heels but always out of reach—until I wasn’t and I reached forward. The hands I caught him with were hooks, black metal hooks, cutting into his shoulders. He screamed and I woke, sweating in the black night of my room, finding his scream my own.
• • •
I spent several days watching the ebb and flow of things across House Gold’s trading floor and made a few trades, small bets against the price of olives and salt. Salt is traded on huge scales, a seasoning for the rich but an essential preservative to everyone else, and despite Umbertide having a salt mine in the hills that could be seen from its walls, the city still imported significant amounts of the stuff from Afrique. Once I had the feel for the mechanics of the business, I moved on.
I graduated to the Maritime Trading House, a large sandstone edifice fashioned rather like a domed amphitheatre and situated on the edge of an extravagantly green park near the middle of the city’s financial quarter. I call it a quarter but it’s closer to two-thirds.
Each day from first light to midnight crowds of the wealthiest men in the Broken Empire gather within the airy confines of the Maritime House and shout themselves hoarse while runners, normally young men with quick minds and quicker feet who hope one day to be doing their own shouting, carry trades back and forth. It’s not so very different from betting on fights back at the Blood Holes in Vermillion, except the fights are just the differences of opinions about the value of cargoes being brought into various ports by ships which the vast majority of the traders will never see or care to see. Ships with the most distant destinations and which have gone unsighted the longest time attract the largest odds. Perhaps that ship will never be heard of again; perhaps it will turn up in three weeks laden with nuggets of raw gold, or barrels of some spice so exotic we don’t have a name for it, just an appetite. Ships about which some information is available—maybe a sighting a month back by another captain, or some word that it was fully laden with amber and resin when inventoried off the Indus coast in the spring—those ships are safer bets, with lower odds. And you don’t even need to wait until your ship comes in to take your profit or endure your loss—any bet can be sold on, perhaps at considerable gain or perhaps for far less than it was purchased, depending on what new information has come to light in the interim, and how trustworthy said information is.