CORPORAL TSANWE EMTEZU LIVED in Morgessa, the largely black area on the northeast side of the city, close to the Ramsblood temple, an orderly neighborhood of small, well-maintained terraced houses with tiny front gardens where roses and the sandalwood-scented heylas grew. Most of the people who lived there were factory workers and tradesmen. Their children went to Hillstreet School or, if they were religious, to Truth Mountain, which was run by Pancaris nuns. Most left at twelve, going on to apprenticeships or, like Sarah, straight into employment.
Emtezu’s wife opened the door, cradling an infant only a couple of months older than the one I had left at Pancaris. She was black, though I had seen other wives and husbands in the neighborhood who weren’t, and she looked me over, her face carefully empty. When she led me through into the back, she moved with unstudied economy, graceful as a dancer, and as we passed the foot of the stairs, she called up, stilling the movement and childish laughter that came from above without raising her voice.
“When I come up there I expect you to be ready for school,” she said.
She led me into the kitchen, where her husband was sitting at the table, staring at a newspaper. He did not seem surprised to see me.
“I suppose I should be glad I’m not being arrested for the way I took you to see Sohwetti,” he said. He glanced at his wife, who was fussing by the sink, and I could tell his casualness was feigned. “Am I likely to be?”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t know what you were leading me into.”
“It seems I had our leader’s priorities wrong,” he said bitterly.
The front page of the Morning Star on the table in front of him blared, SOHWETTI SIGNS SECRET LAND DEAL!
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
He sat back and folded his arms. “It’s not yet clear whether what he did was illegal or not,” said Emtezu. “It will cost him his political position, of course, and probably a lot of money, not least of which will be in refurbishing the state residence for his successor. It seems there was a fire there after I left.”
He said it carefully; a statement, not a question.
“Apparently so,” I said, considering the competing images on the front page, a formal portrait of Sohwetti and a rushed, blurry image of the burning villa. “I was lucky to get away unhurt.”
His eyes held mine for a moment, then he nodded. “So yes,” he said. “Sohwetti is finished, and rightly so, though his fall will please some a good deal more than the Mahweni he represented, and that is less good. He was not a great man. He had his weaknesses, but he served my people as well as himself, and his disgrace reflects badly upon us.”
“He will be replaced,” I said.
“Yes. In time. And after a good deal of squabbling, all of which will allow our political enemies to regroup and consolidate. Until then, the unrest will build. Bloodily. If we are forced into a war with the Grappoli over the stolen Beacon, men like me will have to play riot policeman to thousands of my people who do not want to fight and die for a mineral they could never afford to buy and are not allowed to touch. Then I will have to decide which way to turn my rifle, and that is not a day I look forward to. I am glad to see you well, Miss Sutonga, and I mean you no harm, but your appearance has not been good for me or my people.”
“I understand that,” I said.
Emtezu’s wife pushed a ceramic mug across the table toward me, then returned to the sink. The baby she was cradling in one hand was asleep. I sampled the drink. It was cool and fragrant, a sweet wine made from flowers.
“So what can I do for you, Miss Sutonga?” asked her husband. “I assumed matters were concluded, but your presence here suggests otherwise.”
“The missing Beacon has not yet been recovered,” I said. “And I don’t think the Grappoli have it.”
Emtezu just sat there, head tipped slightly on one side. When I matched his silence, he eventually shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said, “are you accusing me of something?”
“No,” I said. “I’m trying to make a connection.”
“Between what?”
“Between the disappearance of the world’s largest piece of luxorite and the death of an old Mahweni in the Red Fort.”
He waited for more, then just shook his head. “I can’t help you,” he concluded.
“What do you know about Archibald Mandel?” I asked.
He sighed, then shrugged. “Not much more than you, I imagine,” he said. “His command was only nominal, particularly since he became a politician. I barely saw him.”
“So the running of the fort fell to…?”
“Sergeant Major Gritt,” he said.
He spoke the words carefully, without inflection, but I felt the sudden stillness of Emtezu’s wife. It was as if a cloud had crept across the sun.
“That’s the man with the cane,” I said. “The sword stick.”
He said nothing, but looked away for a second. His wife had still not moved a muscle.
“What are you driving at, Miss Sutonga?” he asked, unfolding his arms. “You come into my house with no authority—”
“Exactly,” I said. “I have no authority. Nothing you say to me has any legal weight. Everything is off the record.”
He stared at me, and there was doubt in his eyes.
“Have you heard the term ‘Tchanka’?” I asked.
The static charge in the room seemed to leap. Emtezu’s eyes widened, but he shook his head.
A lie.
“Tell her.”
His wife had not turned around. Not yet. But then she said it again, and this time she did.
“Tell her, Tsanwe,” she said.
“I don’t know what you—” the Corporal began.
“If you don’t, I will,” she cut in. “He is a monster. A tyrant to our people. A killer, and not only in war.”
“Hearsay,” said Emtezu. “Hearsay that could cost me a dishonorable discharge at very least.”
“This will not go to the papers,” I said. “Or, if I can help it, the police. I am a private investigator exploring a separate crime.”
There was a moment of silence, and the walls of the kitchen, so different from the extravagant opulence of the Sohwetti estate, felt like they were closing in like the jaws of a vise.
“What do you want to know?” asked Emtezu.
“Several days ago you went to a luxorite dealer’s shop on Crommerty Street,” I said.
Whatever he had been steeling himself for, it was not this. He looked utterly baffled. “Yes,” he said. “So? Gritt said he had something to collect.”
“His cane.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he need you to go with him?”
“There had been some minor disagreement over the price of a piece he had been looking at,” said Emtezu dismissively. “He didn’t want to make a fuss. Just take his cane and leave while I talked to the shopkeeper. He seemed to think that a black man in a luxorite shop would attract so much attention that he would be able to do what he wanted unnoticed. Thought it was funny. Why? What is this about?”
“You didn’t think that strange?”
“Gritt sometimes…” He sought for the words.
His wife supplied them. “The sergeant major thinks his corporal is his personal servant,” she said. “The man uses his authority to make my husband, a good man, a strong man, run errands like a child, a slave.” Her face was hot, her eyes wide.
Emtezu bowed his head and, feeling his weary humiliation, I tried to refocus the conversation.
“You are sure it was his cane?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” said the Corporal. “He’s had it for years. It was a gift from the prime minister himself when he left the regiment.”
“Benjamin Tavestock gave him the cane?” I repeated.
“Yes. So?”
“And how did it come to be in the shop?”
“It had been stolen a few nights before,” said Emtezu. “These things sometimes show up in pawnbrokers’ very quickly.”
“Ansveld’s shop isn’t a pawnbroker’s,” I said. “Luxorite only. Other shops on the street are less singular in their focus. Macinnes’s, for instance. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Emtezu shook his head.
“Did Gritt know a Lani gang leader called Morlak? Big man, wears his hair long and tied back.”
“If he does, I’ve never seen them together,” he said.
“Do you think him capable of torturing a man to death?” I asked.
There was a long, loaded pause. Under the hard stare of his wife, Emtezu finally nodded.
“He’s done it before?” I asked.
“During the food riots, we took Mahweni prisoners,” said Emtezu. “They were locked up in the tower and interrogated. Some of them were there for days, and the black soldiers—my company—were kept at a distance, sent on maneuvers, patrols, or crowd control.”
I thought of Sarah’s uncle, who had died of his wounds after one of those riots.
“One day when we came back, the cells were empty,” said Emtezu. “They had been rinsed out, but you could still smell the blood and filth, so my men were ordered to scrub them clean.” He said the last words as if they were barbed and tore his throat on the way out.
“And the prisoners?”
“Never heard from them again,” said Emtezu. “At least a couple wandered home a day or two later, barely able to stand and reeking of alcohol. Getting people drunk was one of Gritt’s favorite methods of making them talk, but it also makes sure no one believes them if they tell tales of imprisonment and torture. One man’s body was found not far from the fort, killed, it was said, by weancats or hyenas. Two others were never found. An internal investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing against anyone stationed at the Red Fort.”
I nodded. There was a finality in his voice that said quite clearly what he thought would come of any poking around on my part. The likes of Gritt were immune to prosecution, and any attempt to bring them to justice would probably result only in collateral damage.
“Is this why you were going through the archive in the library?” I asked. “Searching for evidence of Gritt’s activities that you could feed to Sohwetti?”
He smiled sadly. “You are very clever,” he said. “But I found nothing. And with Sohwetti humiliated…” He shrugged. “I’m sorry I can’t help.”
“You have,” I said. “And I’m grateful.” I turned to his wife. “And for the wine. It was delicious. I hope…” I faltered, unsure of what to say. “I hope tomorrow is a better day.”
“We all do,” she answered, showing me out. “Every day. These are bad days in which to raise children.”
I nodded, thinking of Kalla so that my eyes fell on her infant and my heart was suddenly filled with sadness and regret.
“Miss Sutonga,” added Emtezu.
I turned and found him brooding, watching me. “Yes?”
“Do not go near Claus Gritt,” he said. “He may not actually be the devil the Mahweni think him, but he is close to it. Very close indeed.”