Sworn in Steel (45 page)

Raaz’s eyes went wide. “You . . . you mean you’ve been carrying it on you this whole time?”

“I’m an Imperial living in an inn with a bunch of actors in the middle of Djan—where the hell else would you hide it to keep it safe?”

“I had just thought . . .” Raaz shook his head and chuckled. “No, never mind what I thought. You’re right: It’s best you hand it over now, especially if
you’re going to be without a token. Not having a patron is bad enough, but if you were caught with those papers? Even a merchant sheikh wouldn’t be able to worm his way out of
that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m no merchant sheikh. Hell, I’m barely a criminal one back home, let alone down here. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if . . .” I
stopped midcut, my knife poised, and looked up at Raaz. I grinned.

He inched back slightly in his chair. “What?”

I set my blade down and turned toward the stairs. “Fowler!”

Raaz started. “If I could ask—”

“Fowler!”

“Is there anything—?”

“What the fuck do you want?”
Fowler’s voice came flying down the stairs, followed hotly by the woman herself.

I pointed at the courtyard. “Get out there and tell Tobin and his people to stop packing. In fact, get them to start unpacking. Now.”

“
Un
packing?” said Fowler. “Why?”

“Because they have an audition to practice for.”

“I thought the audition was fixed.”

“There’s fixed,” I said, “and then there’s fixed.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Just get out there and stop them. I’ll explain later.”

Fowler glared and grumbled, but she headed out the door.

Raaz cleared his throat. “This is all very dramatic,” he said, leaning forward ever so slightly, his hand reaching for my doublet, “but if I could just get Jelem’s papers
. . . ?”

I ripped open the rest of the seam and pulled out the remainder of the packet. “You said even a merchant sheikh couldn’t shake these off if the despot’s people found them on
him, right?”

“Ye-es.”

“So, then, what do you think would happen if they found them on a prince of the
Zakur
?”

Raaz’s eyes filled with understanding, followed quickly by dread.

“No,” he said, standing “No, I can’t—”

“Sit,” I said, doing the same myself. “Calm yourself. And let me tell you a little story about an ambush and a group of
neyajin
and a conversation in the dark. . .
.”

“S
top fussing,” I said.

“Go screw yourself.”

I dropped my hands and stepped away from Fowler. “Fine, have it your way. But it’s not going to work.”

“The hell it isn’t.” Fowler adjusted the sheathed knife so it sat farther along the small of her back. “There, how’s that?”

I looked at her, at what little there was of her costume, at the brass handle of the weapon peeking out, glaringly obvious from at least three different directions. I shook my head.

“Dammit!” The knife hit the wooden floor with a solid, angry clatter.

“Hsst!”
whispered Ezak, standing a few feet away. He gestured out toward the stage and gave us a stern look. Fowler offered a gesture of her own. Ezak rolled his eyes and
returned his attention to the performance.

We were standing in the wings of one of the padishah’s amphitheaters in the second ring of el-Qaddice. I’d been told that the son of the despot had constructed several theaters
around the city over the years for the various troupes and performers he sponsored. Each was designed to lend itself to different kinds of presentations, with such things as acoustics, lighting,
floodable versus hollow stages, and even movable topiary being taken into consideration. Even though we were performing a Djanese play, the troupe had been booked in a theater constructed in the
imperial style: high walls, open roof, with a wooden stage that extended out into the open area, or “pit,” where the more common members of the audience stood and watched the show.
Those with the ready, or the social standing, or both, occupied the higher tiers and balconies, the better to look down upon the rest of us.

Despite what Ezak had said in the yard about Tobin wanting to play Djan, I hadn’t been sure he’d be willing to stay, especially considering Heron’s letter. But he hadn’t
hesitated a heartbeat when I’d broached the subject.

“Done,” he’d said, turning to direct his people.

“Just like that?” I’d said.

“We’re players, sir. You are our patron. You’ve told me there will be a place to play and an audience to watch. What better reason do I need than that?”

“I can think of half a dozen, easy.”

He had smiled. “As can I. But what good will they do me, hey? I’m a boardsman, sir. An actor. I’d rather earn my banishment through my tongue and my trod than sulk away like a
kicked dog. As would, I think, the rest. No, keep your reasons and your plots and your schemes to yourself. That you are willing to stand between us and the wazir is enough for me to walk the
boards.” He’d paused to beam. “To walk them in Djan, no less!”

And now he was.

“And what of me?”
cried Tobin from the stage, playing the part of Abu Ahzred—the future first despot—with more relish and zest than I’d ever seen in the
rehearsals.
“Am I to simply stand aside and look the fool this night?”

“Why should this night be different from all other nights?”
Marianne, the troupe’s female lead, stage-whispered to the audience, pantomiming a pair of cuckold horns
behind Tobin’s back. Tonight she was the djinn Efferra, draped in silks and beads and tiny cymbals that gave off an audible shimmer whenever she moved.

Laughter and a few shouts from the crowd. Even though we were performing in Imperial, there was enough broad humor—and enough translators scattered through the crowd, all at the
padishah’s expense—to make the play work.

I picked up the knife, touched Fowler on the elbow, and drew her farther into the wings. Even here, back among the props and the clutter, light from the magical globes hovering over the stage
cast weak shadows across the boards.

“Listen,” I said. “You know how this has to happen. I barely got Fat Chair to agree to meet me here in the first place. If that bastard sees people prancing around with
half-concealed steel, he’s going to stroll. Or worse.”

“I won’t even be near you,” said Fowler. “How the hell is that a threat?”

“How will it do me any good?”

Fowler set her jaw and turned away. When Tobin had initially asked her to play the spirit, Sekketheh, who came to haunt the despot-to-be with visions of eroticism and cruelty, she’d barely
been able to say “yes” fast enough. But now that I’d come up with a plan that involved meeting with Fat Chair during the performance, she was itching to put her actor’s
drapes aside and haunt my blinders. The only problem was, the play couldn’t go on without her down here—and I needed it to go on. Without the performance and the finale I had planned, I
wouldn’t be able to set up Fat Chair, let alone make it out of the theater and across town to Heron’s alive.

It was going to be a near thing. Nearer than I liked, and nearer than I’d let on to Fowler. Which was the other reason I wanted her down here. I didn’t care for the idea of putting
my people in any more danger than I had to. Not here, not tonight.

I put a hand on Fowler’s shoulder. She didn’t rip it off at the wrist. Good sign, that.

“I need you down here,” I said. “Need you to keep your Oak Mistress’s eye on things. If anything goes wrong, I want to have someone I trust ready to read the signal and
come to the rescue.”

“If anything goes wrong,” she said, “it won’t matter how fast I see the sign: I won’t be able to make it to you in time.”

“Then I’d best not let anything go wrong, had I?” It sounded weak even as I said it, felt worse as she turned and set worried eyes on me.

“Let me come with,” she said. “I can keep out of sight, shadow you.”

“Dressed like that?”

“You know what I mean.”

I reached out and took a strand of her sun-gold hair between my fingers. I shook my head. “Not in this crowd, Fowler. Not even dirtied up and in your street clothes.” I let her go
and forced my voice to take on a more businesslike tone. “You made sure everything is where it’s supposed to be?”

Fowler nodded. “I’ve got my street drapes and Degan’s sword stashed near here. Once it’s done, I’ll gather them up and wait for you at the Black Ken.”

“Good.” I didn’t like the idea of leaving Degan’s sword behind, but I liked the idea of trying to crack the padishah’s ken with it on my back even less. Added bulk
aside, the thought of it ending up in some guard’s hands if things went wrong and never having the chance to make it back to Degan didn’t sit right with me. Better Fowler keep it for
now.

“Be careful on your way out,” I said.

“You, too. And keep an eye on Wolf. He may have agreed to help with this, but I don’t trust that bastard any farther than I can kick him.”

“That makes two of us.”

I turned away and headed toward the tiring room and the small door beyond that to the main theater.

“Hey,” said Fowler.

I stopped, looked back. “What?”

“You realize that when I told you to start acting like a Gray Prince, I didn’t mean for you to try to emulate the dead ones, right?”

“Sure, now you tell me.”

I smiled. Fowler smiled back, neither of us quite believing the faces we were putting on. Then I left.

“Please explain to me,” said Fat Chair as he looked up, “why I shouldn’t have you killed right now.”

We were in a balcony roughly halfway up the left side of the theater. Screens carved to look like interwoven grape vines separated us from the boxes to either side, and a low wall with a
spiral-turned railing kept us from accidentally strolling off into space. Fat Chair was seated before me on a long low couch that had clearly been brought in just for him, taking up what had once
been enough space for five chairs. Now it was a challenge to fit him and me and the two coves he’d brought with into the balcony and not have someone fall out.

Not that I wasn’t starting to think that might be the idea. . . .

“Aside from the fact that we both agreed there’d be no bloodshed,” I said, “there’s always them.” I pointed past the crime lord and out into the theater, to
the large, canopy-draped box that sat two-thirds of the way up the gallery, center theater. It was within easy shouting distance. “I don’t think the padishah’s guards would
appreciate a murder happening this close to their charge, even if it was just us. They seem to be picky that way.”

Fat Chair glanced over his shoulder at the box and the two-deep array of green-jacketed guardsmen surrounding it on three sides. Within, several more soldiers stood to hand, as did a small host
of functionaries, servants, and councilors. In the center, resting on a deep cushion, sat a thin-faced man with uneven cheeks and pursed lips, studying the play. He was dressed in silks that shone
even from here, and wore a turban so elaborate that it looked as if it might require structural support on a bad day. Rings and jewels clung to him like rainwater after a storm, and I
couldn’t help thinking that a deft filcher with quick hands could lift a lifetime’s worth of profit in just a few moments up there. But then again, given how the padishah’s eyes
seemed to take in everything—not just the play, but the pit, the audience in the seats, the movement and shift of both the light and the shadows cast by the breeze-blown fabrics around
him—I couldn’t imagine many thieves making it out of that box alive, no matter how good they were.

And that was ignoring everyone else who was standing around him—including, I was pleased to see, both Heron and the wazir.

Fat Chair let out a small snort and turned back to me. The effort had caused a sheen of moisture to appear on his upper lip. He wiped at the sweat mustache and said, “You think my man
can’t kill you silently?”

“You think I can’t make a lot of noise if he tries?”

The crime lord’s gaze flicked past my shoulder. I resisted the urge to turn around, to shift my eyes, to tense my back. The man was the closer of the two behind me and had had cold eyes.
The woman, at least, had nodded when I came in, but she was also the one who had taken the sole dagger I had on me—I’d been relieved of the rest of my steel even before I’d been
allowed to climb the stairs to the gallery. Two on one, both behind me. Bad odds.

“Very well,” said Fat Chair. “Never let it be said that I don’t keep my word.” He leaned back on his couch and picked up a small square of paper from the table
beside it and held it up. “Any requests?”

“How about a letter of patronage?”

He made a crease and chuckled. “Or maybe just a token instead? No, I don’t think so. Not that I’m not that good . . . I am . . . but no.”

“Not even for some other pieces of folded paper in exchange?”

He paused. “What kind of papers?”

“The kind that you aren’t going to want to turn into birds and apes and Angels know what else to leave lying around for the despot’s people to find.”

He looked up at me. “So I was right, you are here to smuggle magic.”

“I’m here to do a lot of things, but crossing the
Zakur
isn’t one of them.” I reached into my doublet—slowly, so as not to startle the coves and their
knives behind me—and pulled out the paper animal I’d bought on the way over. I set the figure on the edge of the couch, its bared teeth toward him, its bushy paper tail pointed at me.
“I should have known better than to challenge the wolf in his own den. That was a mistake, and I apologize for it.”

He picked up the folded wolf and turned it in his hands. It was made of crisp, bone-white paper, the creases knife-sharp. Pigments had been carefully applied and then gently washed away in
spots, making it look as if the creature were ready to breathe, ready to leap, ready to howl, if only the right words were spoken.

Fat Chair held it to the light shining up from the stage. “Exquisite.”

It damn well should be, I thought—I paid enough for it.