Page 27 of The Tainted Cup

Ana snatched it out of my hand and read it with narrowed eyes. Then she chewed her lip, and spat, “Shit!”

“I’d have thought this would be helpful, ma—”

“It’s helpful in making this damned complicated!” She held up the small red-leather book we’d gotten from Gennadios. “Because if this book is accurate, then I am almost certain the assassin is located inTalagray,or thereabout.”

“How so?”

She slapped down Gennadios’s book, then held up the secretary’s letter like it contained some horrid accusation. “It’s as I thought. Blas was staying in Talagray for the past three months before his death. Which makes sense, of course. A commander in the Engineers should be expected to spend a hell of a lot of time in the city that maintains the sea walls before the wet seasons.” She stabbed a finger into the heart of Gennadios’s open book. “But Blas’s visits to the Haza estate were very erratic. The last trip he made here was the thirteenth through the fifteenth of the month of Egin. I’m guessing he just kept slipping away to go frolic with the dainty maidens. This means you definitely couldn’t know when he was going to be here unless you were verycloseto him. So the killer must be someone who was observing the commander, in a much larger city that’s about sixty miles to the south of here, along roads we probably aren’t permitted to travel on—even if our investigationisinvited to come! Which it might not be! The bastard is clever, I’ll tell you that. They made sure to do this before the wet season began properly, so they could move freely along the roads.”

“Then what’ll we do, ma’am?”

She glowered for a moment. “Well. I guess I better write some damned letters.” She grabbed a parchment and a quill.

“To whom?”

“To the Iudex office of the Tala canton,” she said. “I’ll inform them of what we’ve found here, and ask permission to come interview all witnesses. Though I probably won’t mention Blas playing about with prossies. That would be rather less than tactful. I'll even pay the small fortune to have it sent by scribe-hawk. They'll have to pay attention to it then!”

“You want to send me to Talagray, ma’am?” I said, startled.

“Hell no. For something like this, I’d accompany you. Regardless, I’m not optimistic that we’ll get any response for months. The wet season is simply too chaotic. Nobody’s going to care about one murder, even if it is a goddamn Engineering commander dying to contagion. Not with leviathans sniffing about the sea walls.” She noticed my disappointment. “What’s the matter with you, child?”

“I’d thought, ma’am, that being as we solved a murder, at least something might happen.”

“What were you expecting? An increase in pay, or a promotion? Or that the emperor himself might send you a nice note, along with a troupe of plaizaiers to come balance atop your delicates?”

“A troupe of…ofwhat,ma’am?”

“Plaizaiers,” she said. “Court dancers. Pheromonally enhanced folk whose mere presence drives people mad with arousal. By Sanctum, is this canton really so uncivilized? Either way, Din, wehaven’tsolved a murder. Rather, we arestillsolving a murder. And we won’t solve it at all until you send this damned letter!”

She gave me the letter, and I posted it. And that, I thought, would be the end of it for some days.

CHAPTER 8

| | |

I WAS LYING INmy bunk, dozing as I listened to the half-dozen other Sublimes snoring in their sheets. I didn’t know any of them: I was too old to be an apprentice, and thus too old for the Sublimes’ quarters, so I didn’t associate with them much; but I had grown used to sleeping with strangers about. I almost found the sound comforting.

I listened to the rain pattering on our fretvine roof, and then the sound of distant thunder.

The thunder continued, on and on. It crackled, then snapped curiously. Then more snaps, and more.

I sat up in my bunk, realizing I was not hearing thunder at all.

I stood and shouted, “Out of bed! Now!”

“The hell?” muttered one of the boys. “What’s the matter with you?”

“That’s bombard fire, goddamn it!” I shouted. I ran for the door. “Get outside, now, now!”

I scrambled out into the driving rain to find I wasn’t alone: the wet night was filling with figures sprinting from their quarters, all of us making for the earthworks on the eastern side of the town’s fortifications. We ran up the sides of the hillocks, grabbing grasses to haul ourselves higher on their slippery slopes, until finally we came to the eastern side and peered south.

I narrowed my eyes. It was hard to see in the glittering, rainydarkness, but I thought I could spy flickers on the southern horizon, flashes of yellow-white light. Bombard fire, bright and brilliant.

“Can’t be,” said a voice near me. “We’re too far out to hear or see bombards…”

“Unless it’s the big guns,” said someone else. “Then who knows?”

“Or they could be firinginfrom the sea walls,” said another boy quietly. “But then that would mean…”