My senses returned to me. I grew dimly aware that Ephinas and Gennadios were sobbing in terror.
“You two,” said Ana to them. “Outside. Now. And stay there. Otherwise I’ll send Din after you, and he’ll render you as pretty as Uxos.” Then she sat back in her chair. “Din—get your sword and get this idiot upright. We’ve some talking to do.”
* * *
—
WEEPING, Uxos gave us the full spill of it.
Someone had approached him two months ago, he said, when he’d gone into town to buy more gardening grafts for the plants. This person had told him that Commander Blas was a traitor to the Empire, and had been slated for assassination, and Uxos could either participate in his assassination or be brought up on charges himself. Uxos had been tempted to walk out on such an outrageous claim—until this person had told him of the reward involved. For if he participated, he would be made a rich man.
“Who was this person?” asked Ana. “They didn’t give a name?”
“They didn’t,” he said, sniffing.
“Didn’t mention an Iyalet they worked for? Didn’t show you any documentation of their authority?”
Uxos shook his head.
“What did they look like?” asked Ana.
“He had…had some kind of disease,” said Uxos. “His clothing was very fine, but his face was swollen, disfigured. I could barely understand what he said at first.”
“You’re sure it was a man, though?”
“I…think so. His voice was high. I suppose it might have been a woman.”
“Fuck’s sakes,” snapped Ana. “Can you even tell me what race the person was, you fool?”
“I think…Tala?” said Uxos, terrified. He gestured to me. “Like him?”
“And no residence? No method of contact information?”
No, Uxos said. All Uxos knew was that he would be paid half of the reward money up front when he agreed to help the assassin; then he was to visit the northwest corner of the grounds first thing each day. If he were to find a yellow wooden ball waiting for him, that would mean the assassination would take place that night, and he should return to that very spot at midnight to help the assassin enter the gates.
“And this assassin,” said Ana. “Was it the same person who contacted you?”
“They were all in black,” said Uxos. “Even…even wore a mask, a…an odd one. With a strange nose…”
“A warding helm,” said Ana quietly. “The kind the Apoths use to prevent themselves from breathing in contagion.”
“They didn’t even talk to me.” Uxos sniffed. “They didn’t have a sword or anything. Just a little wooden box in their hands. They walked in, then walked right out. It wasn’t until later that I saw the fernpaper rotting from where they’d touched the door. I panicked and…” He dissolved into tears. “I shouldn’t have taken it. Shouldn’t have taken the money. But I’m so old. They won’t keep me forever. And after that I’ll…I’d have nothing.” He dissolved into tears, head bowed.
“Din,” said Ana quietly. “Your bonds, please. I believe now is the time for their first use.”
I fumbled at the bonds at my side, then knelt and placed them on Uxos’s hands with a click. He kept weeping, as if unaware of what I did.
Too old to be groundskeeper by half, I’d thought when I’d first seen him. Maybe I should have known then.
* * *
—
AFTER I HAD submitted Uxos to the Arbiters at the Iudex office, I picked up some food and returned to Ana. We lunched in her little house, eating fried bean cakes and sipping aplilot tea.
“Sanctum’s sakes,” she muttered. “Next time buy flesh, Din. I require blood and organs to function, the less cooked the better. Offal. Blood pie. Anything but these roots and legumes…”
“Noted, ma’am,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “How’d you do it, though?”
“Do what?”
“Well. How’d you put it all together so fast, ma’am?”
“Oh, I didn’t put it all together,” she said. She slipped off her blindfold to eat and blinked her yellow eyes in the dim light. “I still don’t know who killed Blas, or why. That will take time to figure out. And I still don’t know what Blas was giving to the Hazas. Yet you can’t predict the madnesses of men. Projecting motives is a fool’s game. But how they do it—that’s a matter of matter, moving real things about in real space. The question of how a knife was forged in one place and then traveled across the countryside to be buried in the throat of some dumb bastard entails a lot of tangible, definite facts.” She pointed at me. “You get the facts, Din. I do the rest.”