| |
The moment Caedmon left, Gina spoke up. “Why don’t we tell him where Brother Hamon is? They can talk, and Brother Hamon can tell Lord Aldred where the Gramirens are, and then we can figure out where to hide them.”
Faustinus patted her on the shoulder. “That would be a lovely idea, except that if Caedmon finds the Gramirens, I’m afraid he’s going to insist on their handing back the treasure as a condition of taking them to safety.”
The girl looked confused. “But...why will that matter, as long as they’re safe?”
Moira patted the girl on the other shoulder. “If Caedmon gets the treasure, then it goes straight back to the Sigors, and our friend here doesn’t get to use it to start his own, private bank.” She shook her head. “Speaking of which, I really wish you’d give up on that idea, Servius. Extorting our allies to start a business isn’t the nicest idea you’ve ever had.”
“But remember,” he said, “that when we’ve got a bank, we can fund the takeover of the Dommolian silver mines, which will mean that Myrcia and our Empire will never again have to attack Loshadnarod. And since that war is part of the reason Broderick the elder seized power after his uncle died, in a way, we’re helping to ensure lasting peace in Myrcia, too. King Edwin will thank us.”
Moira rolled her eyes and Gina frowned at him.
“But...correct me if I’m wrong, sir,” said the girl, “I thought Myrcia only fought in that war because you talked them into it.”
Faustinus threw up his hands. “You know, it is very difficult to do right in this world when people insist on remembering what I’ve done in the past. And I’ll have you know that things are going quite well in regards to our brave new financial institution.” He went over to the sideboard and poured three glasses of wine. “I’ve spoken to several key senators and the procurator, and they don’t see any reason why we can’t get a banking license.”
“And what did that cost you?” asked Moira, rising to help him carry over the wine and the glasses.
“A little of my dignity,” he replied, “of which, as you know, I have an inexhaustible supply. But first we need to find where the Gramirens are, so we can secure the treasure to fund our bank.” He took a sip of his wine. “Oh, and keep Broderick and family safe from the Sigor assassins, too, naturally.”
“I’m working on that,” said Moira. “I’m getting very close with Brother Hamon.”
“Yes, so you’ve said. And while I, of all people, appreciate that one can never rush true artistry, I don’t suppose there’s anything you could do to...speed the process along, is there?”
He had one eyebrow slightly raised, and she knew instantly what he was asking. He had never asked her to do it in the seventeen years they had worked together. And he wasn’t even really asking now. He was merely making the suggestion. She could say “no,” and he wouldn’t mention it again. But if she said, “no,” then he would ask someone else to do it. And that someone would most likely be young Gina. And she wouldn’t dream of saying “no” to him.
Then again, Moira couldn’t pretend she was being noble about it. She liked Hamon, and frankly, if someone had to show him a fun evening in order to win his trust, she figured it might as well be her. Still, it felt odd to be doing it on the suggestion of her husband, even if they were getting divorced.
“If someone had told me twenty years ago,” she thought, “that someday I would sleep with a monk so my husband’s mistress didn’t have to, I would have laughed in that person’s face, and probably slapped them, too.”
She nodded at Faustinus. “I will see if I can...speed things up a bit.”
When she left the palace, she walked straight down to the Septentrius district and the Black Eagle Inn, where a half-dupondius to one of the housemaids revealed which room was Hamon’s. Unfortunately, he was out.
The maid said he’d gone out to get lunch and to check on his loan at the bank, and she further confided that, “He gets lost a lot, so I have no idea when he’ll be back, ma’am.”
That left Moira time to set the scene, and more than enough time to start feeling guilty about what she planned to do. She liked Hamon, and frankly the young man deserved better than to be sucked into the whirlpool of Faustinus’s schemes. But if Faustinus was right, and if they could really start their own bank and gain control of the Dommolian silver mines, then all her problems would be over. The Prefecturate of Correspondence and Communications could expand. Rather than ten or twelve Emissariae, she could have...fifty? A hundred? Five hundred? The mind boggled.
With that many agents, they could do more than gather court gossip and bribe foreign officials. They could become a permanent, all-encompassing, centralized intelligence network—the first one in the Empire. The first one in the world, in fact. Immani intelligence had traditionally been a haphazard affair, divided between sleazy, corrupt sadists on the one hand, and skeptical, holier-than-thou military officers on the other. But she and Faustinus had created something new with the Prefecturate and its various forebears. If they made it larger and spread it across the whole Empire, across the whole world, they could change everything.
So, with a transport spell, she settled into Hamon’s room and tried to think how best to approach the monk. If Faustinus were a woman, he would probably strip naked and wait in the monk’s bed. But Moira didn’t have it in her to be so vulgar. Besides, from everything she had seen of Hamon so far, appearing in his bed naked would probably make him run screaming from the room. No, a little more subtlety was called for. She thought about it for a while, and then her eyes fell on the little copy of the Halig Leoth that sat on the table next to his bed.
He was a man, but he was also a monk. He had come here because he supported the Gramirens, but he also thought he was doing Earstien’s work. Moira still had one arrow carefully hidden in her quiver, one aspect of herself she hadn’t bothered to reveal yet. And it had nothing at all to do with sex or sensuality. It was her magy. She was a hillichmagnar, and according to Ivich doctrine, she was a blessed angel of Earstien, sent to earth to guide and help mankind. Hamon couldn’t help but respond to that.
When he arrived, therefore, she was seated primly in the window seat, fully clothed and flipping through the Halig Leoth.
“Lady Moira!” he said. “What are you...? How did...? Who let you...? Can I help you with something?”
“I happened to be in the neighborhood,” she lied, “and I thought I would stop in. The maid was very helpful when I explained that you and I were friends.”
His face flushed. “You shouldn’t have done that. That’s exactly the sort of thing that can damage a young lady’s reputation. My reputation, too, come to think of it.”
“As long as you and I and Earstien know the truth,” she said, smiling, “then there’s no sin in it. How was your visit to the Procellus Bank?”
He sighed heavily and slumped onto the edge of his bed. “Not good. The bank refuses to make the loan, and they won’t explain why.”
“Did you speak to the branch director, Mr. Megalos?” she asked.
“He refused to see me. I had to hear it from the junior loan officer. Good fellow. I felt sorry for him. He really wants to help.”
Moira sat up even straighter than usual. “What do you mean, ‘He wants to help’?”
Hamon explained that the young loan officer, a fellow by the name of Quintus Verrus, seemed very sympathetic toward the Gramiren cause. “He’s tried to make some loans to help out some of the refugees. For instance, there’s this one woman, a Lady Dagra. Her late husband, Sir Wyatt Yates, died in the war, and I actually knew him a bit at court. Mr. Verrus just went on and on about how he’s tried to get the bank to help her start a bakery, because he really seems to care.”
“Her husband was at the Myrcian court, but she wants to start a bakery?”
“Yes, I didn’t think it sounded terribly practical, either, but it shows this Verrus fellow has a good heart, don’t you think?”
It sounded to Moira as if this young junior loan officer was terribly idealistic. Or, as Faustinus would put it, gullible. If he was a loan officer, then he’d have to be a fully paid-up member of the Accountants’ Guild, and he’d be personally licensed by the Treasury department in the city.
“I think,” said Moira slowly, “that young Mr. Verrus sounds very promising.”
“Yes, quite promising, except that he can’t approve the loans himself.”
“I think perhaps I might be able to help arrange something,” she said. And she stood, crossed the small room in three strides, and sat next to him. He was visibly alarmed, but she kept the Halig Leoth ostentatiously on her lap to reassure him. “Brother Hamon, there is something about me that I haven’t told you yet. Something that I think may change how you see me.”
Then she held out her hand and performed a simple combination of a condensing and a freezing spell. A mist formed in the air and swirled around, turning into snowflakes. Hamon gasped as she turned her hand, sending the tiny blizzard soaring around the room, ending on the leaded-glass window, where it formed icicles and fantastic frosted patterns before melting away in the sun.
“You’re...you’re an angel,” he said. “You’re a hillichmagnar.”
“Yes. I may not look it, Hamon, but I’m 105 years old. I trained at Diernemynster, and I served at the court of Myrcia before you were even born.”
His face scrunched up with the effort of deep thought. “I...I know who you are. I’ve seen the court records from the days of King Ethelred and King Edgar II. And I’ve heard the older people talk about the hillichmagnars they knew at court when they were young. You’re Moira Darrow. That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she said. She didn’t bother to mention that she was technically still “Moira Faustina.” This didn’t seem like the time to bring it up.
“But I thought Diernemynster had forsaken the Gramirens entirely.”
“Many of them have.” She affected a stern frown. “But not me. I served in the Loshadnarodski War with Broderick Gramiren the younger, now the rightful king in exile. I can’t say that he and I were best friends, but we came to respect each other.”
Hamon jumped off the bed and knelt at her feet. “Lady Darrow, if you truly wish to help us, then I will do any service that you require.”
The boy truly had the soul of a knight, not a monk. She smiled, took his hand, and kissed the inside of his wrist. “You should be careful making a pledge like that to a lady, Brother Hamon. You never know what sort of services I might ask for.”
His face went bright red, from his neck to the tips of his ears. “My lady, I...I will do my best. Any...um, honorable service, that is.” But he didn’t take his hand away.
She kissed it again, this time in the center of the palm. “As long as you and I and Earstien know the truth, there’s no sin in it.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said, leaning slightly forward, lips parted, eyes wide.
She could have kissed him on the lips right then and there, and in fact she wanted to quite a bit. But she couldn’t forget that she had come here to do a job. So, instead, she gave him a very chaste kiss on the forehead, and holding his face in her hands, she said, “I must keep the royal family safe. Tell me where they are, so I can go help them.”
“My lady, I know I should tell you,” he said with a tormented look. “But it is not my secret to tell, and I must pray and meditate on whether I ought to do so or not.”
She wanted to smack him over the head, but she restrained herself and gave him a warm smile. “The word of an angel of Earstien is insufficient?”
“No, my lady. As far as my own secrets are concerned, I would happily tell you anything. I will do whatever you tell me to do. I am entirely yours.” He cleared his throat, and his face went even redder, “But give me time to consider whether to share their majesties’ secrets with you.”
All in all, it was not the complete success she might have hoped for, and she left the inn feeling that her own, personal needs were entirely unsatisfied. But it was a definite step in the right direction, both for Faustinus’s plan for the stolen treasure, and for her own desires.
It had started raining, and she walked slowly up the hill, not caring in the slightest how damp she was getting. When she got back to her house, she drew some water for a bath, heated it with magy, and topped it off with rich, scented oils. Then she settled in, imagined what Hamon must look like under those robes, and slowly built herself up to a long, lingering climax.
She finished just in time; only a few minutes later, she felt Faustinus’s magy. She went down wearing her dressing gown and still feeling decidedly twitchy between her legs. She didn’t bother putting on any other clothes. In the first place, even if her robe should fall open, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen a thousand times. And in the second place, he might take her state of undress as an invitation, and at that moment, she wasn’t sure she didn’t want him to.
“Looking well as always, my dear,” he said, as they met by the doors to the garden. “I’ve spoken to the Procurator’s office, and we’ve essentially got our license ready to go. How are things with Brother Hamon?”
“I think he fully trusts me at last,” she said, and she explained how she had revealed her magysk nature and played upon the poor boy’s religious sensibilities. Faustinus found this enormously funny. She finished by saying, “He’s still making up his mind about whether to tell me where the Gramirens are, though.”
Her husband’s face fell, and he shook his head. “Then he doesn’t really trust you at all, does he? Ah, well. I suppose you can take another crack at it tomorrow.”
In the strictest sense, this was true. She felt as if she had traveled an enormous emotional distance with the young Myrcian monk in a very short period of time. And yet, Faustinus was right—she hadn’t gotten him to reveal his secrets, yet.
Annoyed, she drew her robe closer together and crossed her legs. “There’s one other thing,” she said crisply. “If you haven’t found a banker to help start your bank yet, I think you should have a look at the loan officer Hamon has been dealing with.”
She briefly relayed to Faustinus her discussion of Quintus Verrus with Hamon. And at the end of it, Faustinus clapped his hands and cried, “Oh, well done, my dear girl! Well done, indeed. He sounds like a prime candidate, doesn’t he? Let’s invite him to see us tomorrow.”
“You mean both of us?”
He stood up. “Yes, both of us. Our license is ready. No more half measures. Let’s go start a bank.” Then he walked over to her garden wall and, with a single, unspoken spell, he vanished.