The Price of Valor (17 page)

In some ways, this made sense. Since the revolution, the country had lurched from one crisis to another, each contributing its own unique flavor to the never-ending whirl of politics in the Deputies-General. Raesinia had watched with a feeling of helpless despair, simultaneously responsible for whatever happened and powerless to affect it. It would have led to many sleepless nights, if sleeping was something she'd still needed to do.

But things hadn't gotten any
better
, and here she was, feeling light as a feather. For the first time since the Vendre, she was on her own again, walking the streets without royal raiment or escort. And she had a goal she could actually reach with her own hands. If she lost sight of that, she only had to close her eyes to see little Emil dragging his mother's body across the cobbles. Whoever had done that had to pay.
And if Maurisk was behind it . . .

There was guilt at the back of her mind, of course. Guilt for putting Sothe in danger, for dragging Marcus into her affairs. Guilt for feeling happier than she had in weeks while people were suffering. But Raesinia had been living with guilt for a long time, and she'd learned to push it aside, to get the job done, to take her pleasures where she could.

“Something wrong?” Marcus said. He looked uncomfortable in his full dress uniform, with silver embroidery at his collar and a golden eagle on his shoulders. He'd insisted on wearing his old, battered sword, which was out of place among the polished buttons and neat, shiny leather straps.

“Nothing,” Raesinia said. “Just thinking that this place has changed.”

Which was true enough. The Exchange, an irregular expanse of open, muddy courtyard, occupied almost the entirety of the small Exchange Island, with only a single row of large buildings surrounding it. It was the beating heart of Vordanai commerce, a cyclone of paper and coin, spitting out a storm of letters and messengers to every city in the land. The briefest nod or handshake in the Exchange might mean the launching of a fleet a thousand miles away or the felling of a mighty forest, the destruction of a generations-old family concern or the formation of a new merchant empire.

The permanent structures around the edges of the courtyard represented the princes of commerce, the great banks, merchant houses, and the mightiest of shipping concerns and traders. More mundane traders had to make do with wooden planks laid across a couple of barrels, set up in clusters around the courtyard
according to some arcane scheme that took into account their line of business, seniority, and general respectability. Cora had tried to explain it to her once, but Raesinia's eyes had begun to glaze over after only a few moments.

Even Raesinia, however, could see that things were different now. Many of the great buildings were shuttered and dark; the foreign banks and merchants had abandoned their outposts, either with the revolution or at the advent of the war. Some had been vandalized, especially the Borelgai banks, where the mob had battered the marble and painted vicious slogans across the facades. Others had attracted squatters, traders setting up their temporary desks on the steps or in the lobbies, looking like pygmies invading the homes of giants among the massive, pillared porticos.

The Vordanai traders were still there, but there was a frantic, desperate edge to the activity in the courtyard. Couriers, dressed in the traditional red and gray like Raesinia, rushed to and fro in torrents, and men ran from one table to the next, waving their arms and shouting. Patriot Guards were everywhere, bearing halberds and black-and-blue sashes, and they had their hands full keeping the peace. Fights broke out with alarming regularity, well-dressed, portly men swinging at one another like schoolboys until the Guards arrived to pull them apart.

Exchange Central was an old, squat building on the eastern edge of the square. It had begun as a tavern, Cora had once told Raesinia, where traders liked to gather, and then become a kind of headquarters where the business of the Exchange in general was discussed. At some point the old tavern building had burned down and been replaced with this unlovely but functional three-story brick block, which looked more like a warehouse than anything else. Exchange Central was so old and so embedded in tradition, Cora had said, that it didn't need the elaborate marble facades of the banks to convince people that it was trustworthy. Everyone simply took it for granted.

Someone had at least considered the possibility that it might be a choice target for enemy saboteurs, though, because there was a squad of Patriot Guards standing outside. There was also a group of regular troops, with muskets and army-blue uniforms, since the army's quartermaster services kept their city headquarters here. These men all saluted as she and Marcus approached and they spotted the eagles on his shoulders. The Patriot Guards did not, but they didn't bar the way, either. Raesinia stayed a step or two behind Marcus, trying hard to look like a dutiful servant.

Inside was a vast lobby, low-ceilinged and claustrophobic, with at least two dozen doors leading deeper into the building. Couriers, in uniforms that matched
Raesinia's, came and went constantly with envelopes and parcels. More guards, both army and Patriots, waited by the walls, and behind a circular central desk four harassed-looking young men frantically shuffled files and barked terse instructions at a waiting queue of couriers and servants.

Marcus headed for the desk, following Raesinia's instructions. She was surprised to see his manner change, as though he'd slipped on a mask. Around her, he had to fight his tendency to be deferential, so it was a bit startling to see him put on the stern, impatient face of an army officer. Raesinia supposed that commanding troops required a kind of acting all its own, projecting an unwaveringly confident persona to keep morale up.
Marcus may be better at this sort of thing than he gives himself credit for.

“Yes?” the secretary behind the desk said, then looked up and added, “Sir?”

“Commercial records,” Marcus said.

“What about them?”

“I need to examine them.” His tone was clipped and dismissive.

“Sir,” the secretary said, with a strained smile, “while we strive to be helpful, our commercial records fill quite a large part of this building. I can't have them all brought to you. Is there something particular you're interested in?”

“I'll know it when I see it,” Marcus said.

“I'll be assisting the colonel,” Raesinia said. The secretary raised an eyebrow at the sight of her, but no more than that—female couriers weren't common, but they were hardly unheard of. “Just point us in the direction of this year's local shipping records and we'll be out of your hair.”

The secretary sighed and indicated a door. “Make sure he doesn't disturb anything,” he said to Raesinia. “It's your job's worth if you leave a mess in there.”

“Of course.” Raesinia looked up at Marcus. “Come along, sir.”

The guard standing beside the door unlocked it with a key from his belt, and closed it again once they'd passed. They found themselves in a wooden-floored corridor leading to a rear staircase, with no one else in sight.

“That's it?” Marcus said. “I can't believe that worked.”

“Uniforms.” Raesinia plucked at one of her buttons. “It's something I learned from Sothe. Get the uniform right and you're most of the way there. A little bit of bluster usually does the rest. Come on.”

The staircase led straight to the third floor, which was, as the secretary had implied, mostly full of records. Bookshelf after bookshelf of heavy tomes with cheap linen covers stretched to the walls, but Raesinia led Marcus past them without a glance.

“These are all old,” she said. “The Exchange has them copied out and bound after a couple of years. What we want is further on.” She was only repeating things Cora had told her, of course, but it was hard to resist the opportunity to look like an expert. Marcus seemed suitably impressed, and Raesinia grinned to herself.

There was apparently not a great deal of demand for commercial records, since the floor seemed almost abandoned. At the back of the large room of bookshelves, there was a set of corridors leading back into a maze of smaller rooms, each behind a cryptically labeled door. Raesinia, experimentally, tried one with a tacked paper scrap that read
GNS
0708 and found it full of mountains of ledgers, bound up with twine and adorned with more cryptic messages. The next two doors she tried were solidly locked, and the one after that led to an empty room.

Cora had told her approximately what to look for, but the girl had never been in here herself, and she'd obviously not been versed in the Exchange's arcane filing system. Raesinia looked around at the rows of identical doors, frustrated.

“What now?” Marcus said, stepping forward to look both ways down a cross-corridor.

“I'm thinking.”

“Think quickly.”

Raesinia opened her mouth, but didn't get the chance to speak, because Marcus grabbed her by one arm and pulled her hastily around the corner. She let out an undignified squeak as he pressed her against the wall and huddled beside her.

“
What
are you doing?” she hissed.

“Someone's coming.”

“Would you
stop
acting like we're trying to spring somebody from the Vendre? We're supposed to act like we belong here.” Raesinia slipped free of his grasp and peeked around the corner. An old man in a leather apron was walking slowly down the corridor, humming tunelessly to himself. She pulled back before he noticed her. “Stay here.”

Marcus looked aggrieved but didn't protest. Raesinia stepped away from the wall, backed up a little, and walked casually out into the junction with a distracted air, peering at the labels on the doors. When she saw the old man, she smiled, and he grinned back at her.

“Sorry,” she said, endeavoring to look sheepish. “I'm supposed to be looking for local shipping records, but I think I'm lost.”

“It does take a while to get used to the filing system,” the old man said agreeably. “Any particular product?”

“Gunpowder.” It was a risk to admit what they were looking for, lest it tip off their prey, but the conspiracy against her couldn't include
every
random caretaker who happened by. “Stuff from the past few months.”

“You want PEX08,” he said. “It's just around the corner that way. You've got the key?”

Raesinia nodded. “Thanks! Let me just collect my burden here.” She went back around the corner and grabbed Marcus by the arm.

“Look stuck-up,” she hissed at him, then led him back past the old man. To his credit, Marcus managed a very credible look of disdain as they went by. Raesinia raised her eyebrows theatrically, and the old man winked at her as he went past.

When he was out of earshot, Marcus looked down at her quizzically. “Stuck-up?”

“Best way to get on someone's good side is to make it ‘me and you against the idiots.' My guess is that the Exchange staff isn't too pleased at having to live side by side with the army.”

“I'm glad I could serve as a convenient idiot,” Marcus said. “Now where are we going?”

“Right here.” Raesinia stopped in front of a door labeled
PEX
08. She tried the latch and as she'd expected, found it locked.

“Let me guess,” Marcus said, a faint smile on his face. “Sothe taught you to pick locks as well?”

“Nope.” Raesinia undid the buttons at her collar, opening her coat enough that she could reach down to the small of her back. From there, she removed the thin, flat metal bar that had been rubbing against her spine all morning. It was about two feet long, and tapered into a wedge at one end.

“What she taught me,” she went on, fastening her collar again, “is that only polite burglars pick locks.” She slipped the thin end of the wedge between the door and jamb, just in front of where it latched, wiggling it back and forth with wooden splintering sounds until it was solidly stuck in place. Raesinia let go of it and stepped back, leaving the metal bar sticking out at a forty-five-degree angle to the door. “Pull on that, please. As hard as you can.”

Marcus paused, looking over his shoulder, but the old caretaker's footsteps were no longer audible. He took hold of the bar with both hands and set his feet. When he pulled, leverage worked its magic, and the wood holding the latch in place on the other side of the door gave way with a
crunch
. The door swung inward.

Raesinia collected her pry-bar and threaded it carefully back past her collar into its hiding spot. Marcus examined the doorjamb, frowning.

“Someone may notice that,” he said.

“We'll be long gone by then. It doesn't look like these rooms have gotten much use lately.” Dust lay heavy on the stacks of ledgers in the room, piled haphazardly in twine-wrapped piles. “You take that side, I'll take this.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything that says Halverson.”

He nodded, and they began their search. The dust was thick enough that Raesinia had to run her finger along the spines of some of ledgers to see the names penciled there. There were more ledgers than she'd initially anticipated, but they were tied up and grouped together, so she made relatively quick progress. She was nearing the back of the room when a sound from outside made her stand up straight.

“Think I've got it,” Marcus said. “There's a whole stack that says Halverson, anyway—”

“Shh.” Raesinia raised a hand. The distant footsteps were getting closer. “Someone's coming.”

“Should I try looking stuck-up again?”

“That would have worked better before I broke the door open.”

“Maybe you should learn to be a polite burglar.”

Raesinia couldn't help grinning at that. Marcus could be witty, when he forgot he was talking to the queen. It felt a little like working beside Sothe, with her dry, dark humor.