Oracle: The House War: Book Six (10 page)

Ruby did not appear to notice; she had settled into the fine art of dropping crumbs on extremely expensive parchment. She wasn’t Ludgar; her expression, while reading, was controlled. Either that, or she wasn’t surprised by the contents of the missive the way Ludgar had been.

Her lips pursed as she reached the end of the letter, presumably signed and sealed in the same fashion Ludgar’s had been. He glanced at the shelf to her right, stifling a yawn.

“You’re never going to get anywhere with an attitude like that,” Ruby snapped.

“So I’ve been told by many people. What those same people have failed to tell me is where exactly anywhere is, and why I should want to go there.”

“This,” Ruby said, lifting the letter, “is your anywhere.”

He had no need to feign his distaste, and felt it advantageous not to hide it. “The Merchant Authority? How many years have you known me?”

“Too many,” was her curt reply.

“If I had your success without your life, I’d consider it. But caravan travel gives me hives, and I don’t particularly look forward to facing bandits, either. That, and my Torra is atrocious. It’s true that the Merchant Authority bypasses both the travel and the obvious bandits—but it comes with Jarven, which I’m fairly certain is worse.”

Ruby gave a very unladylike snort, but she nodded. “Aye, he’s worse. Are you to wait for a reply?”

Jester didn’t particularly fancy carrying a reply that Ruby had any time to prepare; not given the obvious precautions she was taking. She learned from experience, and what she learned was not always safe for bystanders and casual civilians. “Not that I’m aware of. If I’m wrong, I’ll probably be back.”

She didn’t ask him what Finch’s game was. Ruby was clearly certain that she understood it; she evinced no surprise at anything the letter contained. “You’ll want to pass an informal message along to Finch,” she said, as she rose.

I really won’t
, he thought, but waited.

“Tell her that I’m impressed. Not surprised, mind, but impressed. I’d like to know just how much she thinks she’s learned from Jarven over the years. He’s not what he once was,” she added, “but he’s always been canny. Haerrad won’t like this move of hers.”

“I wasn’t sent to deliver a message to Haerrad.”

“You won’t have to. I’ll see you out.”

 • • • 

Jester was grim and silent in the carriage on the way to his third, and final, recipient. He could be; the carriage was empty. He was not being observed, and he faced no expectations other than his own.

He wanted a drink. Or ten. The visit with Ludgar had left him uneasy. The visit with Ruby had pushed him over the edge into fear. Ruby had expected some move from the Merchant Authority. Given her precautions, she had reasons to believe that move might be deadly.

No, he thought, shifting to look out the window. She had expected a move from Finch. Nothing he could have said or done would minimize the truth. Ludgar didn’t particularly want to believe someone as unimpressive as Finch was capable of flexing political muscles; it had not been difficult to convince him that she hadn’t.

Ruby couldn’t be moved in the same way. Jester regretted having avoided her so assiduously in the past. Had he not, he might have been able to influence her opinion.

Ah well. He was not yet done for the day. James Varson, the third man he had been sent to see was not ATerafin. He worked under the auspices of the Merchants’ Guild, which was, in theory, neutral. Jester understood the limits of theory. The Merchants’ Guild was ruled by a governing body, and the governing body was of course composed of representatives from those families who were both moneyed and old.

James Varson was not a direct descendant of any of those families. His roots were not as poor or common as Jester’s or any other member of the den, but his family’s wealth was relatively recent. They did not own land on the Isle; they didn’t own a lease there, either. James’ uncle owned a storefront in the Common, not the High Market. But the store, like Haval’s, was prosperous. Unlike Haval’s, it did not cater almost entirely to people who would otherwise shop exclusively in the High Market; James’ uncle was a cobbler.

Varson was not a man Jester had much social contact with; although he was younger, he was otherwise as much fun as Barston. The only thing that caused the man to show any genuine enthusiasm was music, which is why Jester knew him at all. The bards tolerated him, and one or two appeared to actually enjoy the man’s company, although the conversation in their presence took a turn for the technical.

He did not, to Jester’s mind, join in the high-stakes power politics that divided the merchant Houses from the common merchants who, like anyone else in the city, were simply trying to make a living. He was therefore curious about both Finch’s message and James’ possible reactions to it. Unlike Ruby or Ludgar, Finch had no authority over James; an argument could be made that the inverse was true. Terafin had a House member serving as part of the governing council of the Merchant Authority, but Finch did not fill that role.

Jarven did. He did not, however, do so because he was ATerafin; only three of The Ten had managed to gain such a seat. He had earned his place on the council at about the same time he had been adopted into Terafin; Jester did not think this coincidental. The Merchant Authority could in theory ask Jarven to resign, but as the Merchant Authority was composed of men and women who had had various dealings with Jarven over the years, it was likely that no one could be found who was willing to publicly make that demand; privately wouldn’t cut it.

Jester entered the Merchant Authority, passing between the Authority guards, who failed to notice his existence. Failure in this case was good; if they did notice someone, it usually boded ill for their chances of entry. He passed the throng of merchants and businessmen who were lined up at the open wickets, and headed toward the offices located to the right.

The guards who fronted the open doors to the offices were less generous in their appraisal of those who approached than the guards on the exterior of the building. It was in these offices that merchants of note, wealth, or significant power bypassed the wickets and the lines which were mandatory for everyone else. For many of those men and women, entrance into the offices was a distant dream, but the enterprising often tried anyway.

Even the lesser members of The Ten were expected to stop and state their business; Jester therefore appeared to be both diffident and slightly bored. Business as usual. He had no reason to lie.

They demanded some proof that he was, in fact, ATerafin, and when he lifted the ring, demanded to see the item being delivered. This was not business as usual. Jester seldom chose outrage when dealing with guards, and settled on confusion instead, opening up his expression slightly to convey mild hurt.

He did remove the scroll case from his satchel; he showed it to the guards but did not allow it to leave his hands. To his surprise—genuine surprise—they demanded that he open it.

“My apologies to the Merchant Authority,” he replied, “but the message is to be delivered, in person, to James Varson. It is not to be opened or read by any save James Varson. If you are concerned about its contents, you may make your concerns clear to Jarven ATerafin.”

Silence.

“I will take my leave.”

“Wait,” the guard on the left said. “You said Jarven?”

“I did. You’ll note the seal that binds the case is his.” He hesitated, and then slid into a less polished variant of Weston. “Look, it’s not worth my job to crack this seal. If you’re worried, one of you can accompany both the case—and me—to Varson’s office. If you’re unwilling to do that much, I’ll take it back and tell Jarven to deliver it in person.” He had now left the narrow and inconvenient path of truth, but again, didn’t stray far. He knew that Finch would be ill-pleased, and that Lucille would be enraged. He doubted that Jarven would be anything but amused.

The guards, however, did not.

They shared a significant glance; it was broken when the older of the two exhaled. “Things have been dicey today,” he said, adopting the same tone that Jester had. “It’s not you. It’s not your delivery. You said you’re
Jester
ATerafin?”

“I didn’t choose the name.”

“And Terafin didn’t demand that you change it?”

“No. Can they do that?”

The guard shook his head. “Go in.” He paused briefly, and added, “You’re probably going to be stopped once more. Varson’s office is more or less undamaged; he doesn’t seem to have been one of the targets.”

Jester blinked. “Targets? Was there some sort of—”

“Yes.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“It’s your job.”

“Yes. But I like my head to be attached to the rest of me; if I lose this job, and I’m still breathing, I can find another one.” He made great show of reluctance; it was only partly feigned. The building was not on fire. Jester had assumed that some difficulty with individual members had occurred, causing a security shutdown while it was sorted.

The fact that Varson’s office was “more or less undamaged,” however, changed that. “When you say Varson’s office—”

“You’ll see. Are you going to go in or not?”

J
ESTER REALIZED HE KNEW lamentably little about Haval Arwood. He intended to remedy that as swiftly as possible. He felt a grudging admiration for the tailor, and buried it beneath resentment. There was no way that Haval could have known that something untoward was to occur in the Merchant Authority, but Jester had no doubt, as he walked past the guards, that
this
was the reason Haval had chosen to make his approach today.

There were more guards in the hall than there had been on the open floors. They were grim and harried; this was clearly not the job they’d anticipated when they’d rolled out of bed this morning.

Forewarned, he answered questions for every few yards of progress; the questions were curt, but stopped short of the ridiculous demand that Jester himself break the seal of the scroll he now visibly carried by hand. His name appeared to ease the suspicion of the guards on the interior, just as it had done the guards on the exterior. Jester was not a name one chose if one wished to remain invisible. He had once considered a change of name; defiance and a certain resentment of patrician attitude had hardened his desire to hold on to it. It seldom came in useful, but when it did, it was a blessing.

He turned a corner to the left and stopped walking.

Fully two of the offices were no longer functional, at a conservative guess. The doors that had previously indicated their presence had been shattered; splinters and long boards had imbedded themselves into the opposite walls.

He didn’t ask what had happened to the occupants of the offices, but better understood the guards’ offhand comment. James Varson was not a credible target; his position was relatively minor. Or it had been. At least one of the ruined offices belonged to the man to whom Varson reported.

Jester considered retreating; any reaction Varson had to Finch’s letter would pale into insignificance this afternoon. But he’d just talked his way through four sets of guards, and cold feet at this point would arouse entirely unjustified suspicion.

There were two guards at Varson’s doors, but the exterior room, in size and accoutrements similar to the Terafin offices in the Authority building, was a vast, empty cavern. The desk the secretary usually sheltered behind was unoccupied; the office looked deserted.

But the door to at least one of the rooms was ajar. Jester cleared his throat loudly; in the current state of the office, this was just shy of shouting.

A familiar man peered out through the open door. The dark circles under his eyes implied hangover or lack of sleep; on closer inspection, it appeared to be dirt or soot. If Varson was surprised to see Jester, it didn’t show; he seemed merely weary.

“May I help you?” he asked, as if he had spent years sitting in the secretarial chair. “I’m afraid we’re understaffed at the moment.” James Varson had never been one to exaggerate.

“I can imagine,” Jester replied gravely. “And I wouldn’t have the effrontery to be here if I’d had word before I arrived in the Authority building.”

“The council made the decision to keep the offices running in a minimal fashion,” Varson replied, in as neutral a tone as a disgusted man could muster. He ran hands through his dark hair; Jester could see splinters in its strands. “You don’t have an appointment, do you?”

“No. If it were my appointment, I would cancel it now, with groveling apologies all round.”

That evoked a smile from Varson, who did not appear to recognize Jester.

“I was sent to deliver a message.” Jester held out the case he had taken out of his satchel for the inspection of multiple guards, and at last surrendered it. “It was handed to me before the Merchant Authority opened for business; I’m certain it could have waited, otherwise.”

James Varson took the scroll case and turned it around so that the seal faced him directly, and Jester lost that certainty. He was not, as Ludgar had been, suspicious; he was not, as Ruby had been, displeased but expectant. He looked up at the messenger and said, “I’m certain it wouldn’t.” He didn’t open the case. Instead, he handed it back to Jester. “Return this to Finch.”

When Jester failed to move, James said, “I know what it contains, and I would like it to be safe, for the moment. Our guards are now working overtime, but some of the protections that are normally functional within the interior offices have been destroyed. We’ve lost a number of important portfolios, and a number of equally important trade agreements.

“I assume no like tragedy has yet affected the Terafin offices.”

“I haven’t been back to the Terafin offices,” Jester replied. “Were other branches of the building affected in the same way?”

James Varson hesitated, and then said, “Yes. Three. The most notable damage has been in the Authority council’s offices, but we are not the only occupants to suffer losses.”

Jester hesitated and then said, “Come back to the Terafin offices with me. The guards aren’t letting anyone through.”

“You’re here.”

“Yes, but I threatened them with Jarven.”

Varson grimaced, a sign that he was indeed under stress. “I fail to see why such a threat would be effective.”

“He only plays at being harmless and doddering.”

“Yes,” James agreed, as if Jester’s observation was entirely beside the point. “I understand that. But he’s unlikely to come here and rate the guards. He has some dignity.”

“He might send Lucille?”

“That would be a more believable threat, but given events today, Lucille’s more likely to chew you out for being petty during a crisis.”

Jester grinned; James was, of course, completely correct. “Fine. Your guards are gullible. Or perceptive. I did have a message to deliver to you, and it was sent by Finch ATerafin. I think you should come back to the office with me.”

“You’re not employed by the Terafin arm of the Merchant Authority, that I’m aware of.”

“I’m not—but after today’s work, I fully intend to have a few words with Finch before I head back to a warm bed and a few drinks.”

James hesitated. “I’m not certain it would be wise,” he finally said. “But it is almost impossible to have a meeting of any import in the usual offices. Very well. I will return the message to Finch myself, if you’ll wait.”

 • • • 

The guards looked marginally relieved when James Varson and Jester ATerafin left the offices together; James was clearly considered above suspicion. It was a good bet, in Jester’s books; Varson was the kind of man you wanted working for you. He was definitively not the man you wanted as a drinking companion, and as most of Jester’s interactions with the moneyed were social, he had rarely given Varson more than an irritable stray thought.

He repented of that. Although Varson, in the clearer light of the Authority’s public great room, was covered in fine soot and dusted in splinters, his bearing had not changed. He was perhaps a touch paler, but it was hard to tell, given the gray that had settled on his skin and his clothing.

Word had clearly traveled; there were four guards in Terafin tabards posted at the outer doors. Jester recognized two of them by name, but given his companion, offered only a slight nod. They stopped Varson, as expected, and asked his business, but it was cursory; they didn’t give him the same runaround the Authority guards had given Jester.

Lucille was behind her bastion of a desk. Unlike Varson, she was clearly pale and clearly upset, but she rose as the doors opened, and her brow crinkled in open confusion. “James?”

“I’m sorry, Lucille,” he said, in a genuinely apologetic tone of voice, “but I don’t have an actual appointment. I hoped to have a few words with Finch.”

“And Jarven,” Jester added.

Lucille frowned. “Is Jester working for you now?”

James looked slightly shocked. “No.”

“Then why are you keeping his company?”

“He was sent to deliver a message from Finch, and unfortunately, the office is not in a position to properly deal with it at the moment.”

“No, of course it isn’t. You’re all right?”

“I am, yes. So is Vivi. Charlie wasn’t as lucky. He was in the magister’s office when the attack occurred.”

“And the magister?”

Varson’s expression shuttered. “Healers have been summoned.”

Given the wreck of the office, Jester would be surprised if there was enough left for a healer to work with. He kept this to himself as Lucille came around the desk, abandoning the ledger of official appointments that otherwise ruled the office. “She’s speaking with someone now, but I’m certain she’d like at least a glimpse of you. You’ll take tea?”

“Honestly, Lucille, I don’t think I have the stomach for refreshments today.”

 • • • 

The first, and most obvious, thing that Jester noted was that Lucille did not go to Finch’s office; she went directly for Jarven. She knocked at the doors, but not in the usual thunderous way she did when knocking wasn’t so much a courtesy as an early warning. She entered the office and returned.

“Finch will see you now,” she told James. “Give her a moment to see her visitor out.”

Her visitor was a large, round bear of a man with a distinctly Northern style of hair. He didn’t looked pleased, but there seemed to be no room for pleasure in the chiseled lines of his face. He did not, however, storm out in a huff, and he offered Finch the Northern equivalent of a bow before he exited the office proper.

Finch, however, had turned to James. She held out both hands, and he placed his, briefly, in them. “I’m so grateful you came,” she said, in a voice that would have been at home in the West Wing. “I’ve been huddled in my office worried sick.”

His hands tightened. “Vivi went home, but she’s fine.”

Finch paled. “Charlie?”

James Varson closed his eyes, and Finch’s eyes rounded. She turned to Lucille as Lucille headed into the back room. “I don’t think he’ll have much appetite,” she told the older woman, “not for food, but if you could—”

“Already done, dear.” To James she added, “Go in and sit down; it’s likely the only peace you’ll have for the next week.”

Finch released his hands, slid an arm through his, and gently guided him toward Jarven’s office. She glanced once at Jester, and nodded emphatically toward those doors; he moved to open them. She lifted a hand in swift den-sign; he almost missed it.
Follow
.

Since curiosity was a character flaw, he did.

 • • • 

As it was Jarven’s office, the old man’s presence was no surprise, if no delight; the second desk in the office, however, almost made Jester miss a step. Jarven smiled beatifically.

“It’s a good desk,” he said, with a fond smile at Finch. “I chose it myself.”

“It is,” James replied, assuming Jarven spoke to him. Frowning, he added, “It’s almost exactly like yours.”

“It is exactly like mine,” Jarven agreeably said. “Finch is in all ways indispensable, but a word to the wise: she is not to be left in charge of furnishing her own office. She prefers the drab and the mundane, and none of my efforts to change this have borne fruit. Come, James, join us. We meant to celebrate Finch’s promotion, but given the events today, are forced to let it pass without fuss.”

James nodded and took the chair Finch all but pushed him into. Jester, watching the three, felt like an outsider. He generally did, but this was unwelcome, because at the center of this group was Finch.

“You were right,” James said, laying both of his arms against the cushioned rests and sinking into the chair.

“That does happen from time to time,” Jarven replied. The door opened; Lucille came in bearing a heavy tray. A teapot sat at its center, which made Jester grimace; a bottle of something entirely more welcome sat by its side. There were both teacups and cut crystal glasses, and Lucille brought the tray to Jarven’s desk.

To what Jester assumed was Jarven’s desk. He cast a furtive glance at Finch, but she was watching Varson with genuine—and obvious—concern. If Lucille mothered, she was a harsh and disciplinary parent; Finch was softer and more soothing. Jarven watched as well, but spared a glance for Jester; he was amused by Jester’s discomfiture.

“When you’re wrong, ATerafin,” James replied, “one always has to look at the advantage you accrue from
being
wrong.”

Jarven’s eyes crinkled as his lips folded into their familiar, paternal smile. It was an expression Jester disliked. “I was wrong about you,” he offered. “The advantage to me in that?”

James look confused.

“Jarven,” Finch said, in a voice that sounded surprisingly similar to Lucille’s. “I’m not sure today is the right day for your teasing.”

It irked. A day that included Jarven was always difficult; Haval had compounded it. In the presence of these two old men, Jester felt young and incompetent, a sensation he did not enjoy.

Sharing a title with Jarven would have been unthinkable two weeks ago. Sharing power with Jarven remained, to Jester’s mind, impossible. Jarven was aware of this; the desk was an extreme way of staking Finch’s claim. It was not junior to his; it was not shabbier or less expensive. The office had been rearranged so that the desks were side by side, but tilted slightly toward the window so that they almost faced each other on a slant. The shelving remained flush against the wall; Jester suspected that Jarven’s office was the same magical fortress that Teller’s was.

There was nothing to mark Finch as junior besides the obvious: her demeanor and her age. Even her clothing, to Jester’s eye, was sharper, the colors more saturated. Her hair was drawn up in the netting favored by the fashionable, and he saw a glitter of diamond in it.

Yet she looked like Finch, to Jester. A mouse in wolf’s clothing. And he knew, as of today, that she wasn’t. That he would have to look more carefully, and see more clearly. No mouse, no matter how precious, could occupy the desk she now occupied. No mouse could survive Jarven, and Finch had done more than that.

Jarven was, as rumor oft suggested, fond of Finch. Finch adored Jarven. Adoration in either case had not dimmed the clarity of their perception; it had only blinkered Jester’s. If he were to be honest, and he seldom bothered, it was this fact that he found most annoying. He
lived
with Finch, and had failed to see in her what Jarven had seen.