Chapter 1 #6
“Gosh, you think so? Good heavens. Yes, of course it stinks. What am I supposed to do about it?”
She did that thing where she closes her eyes then opens them again. “Fine,” she said. “I guess I don’t like being kept hanging about in waiting rooms.”
Waiting rooms with ceilings by Rutimer. Actually, me neither. “Stop grizzling,” I said. “Say your prayers or something.”
I’d had the sense to bring a book to read. She scowled at me, then closed her eyes again and started mumbling the Dimittimus. She was about halfway through when the door opened and a man who looked like an assistant deputy torturer told us that the holy sister would see us now.
The room the holy sister had been assigned was simply breathtaking.
I’m guessing it was once someone’s private scriptorium, because it had the most amazing window, tall and narrow, flooding the desk with beautiful light.
I could do really good work in that room, if anyone ever gave me the chance.
“Sit down,” said a voice from behind us.
There were two chairs, with their backs to the window.
“I’m Sister Framea, I work for the holy mother. I’m going to brief you on the mission.”
The holy mother clearly knew her stuff when it came to recruiting goons.
Sister Framea was young and beautiful, the perfect choice if you wanted to make a monkey out of a celibate male.
Just as well there was no need for her to waste her resources on me.
I could feel without looking that Svangerd had taken one of her instant dislikes.
“You two,” said Sister Framea, “are going to Angkola. Your job is to get hold of a book. I take it you know all that.”
I nodded.
“Fine. Now, we need a good cover for you, so we’ve come up with something rather clever. You’ll be attending the royal court as ambassadors from Brother Jovian.”
She paused and looked at us. Nobody said anything for quite a long time.
It was one of those moments. Somebody had to speak up and point out the obvious, but of course it wouldn’t do any good at all.
The idea was idiotic, for reasons we all knew, but someone inconceivably higher up the food chain had taken the decision, so there was absolutely no point arguing.
Eventually, somebody said, “Understood” in a small, sad voice. I have an idea it was me.
“We’ve got Supply working on suitably exotic outfits for you,” Sister Framea went on.
“Obviously money’s no object, so I’ve got treasury chits here for you both, and a couple of warrants.
They’re good for up to a thousand gulden at any office of the Knights or the Poor Sisters anywhere.
Naturally, if anything goes wrong we’ve never heard of you and you’re on your own. Any questions?”
“Paperwork,” I said. “Credentials.”
She gave me a look that would’ve been arch, coming from anyone else. “Oh, I think we can leave that up to you, can’t we? I’ve been given to understand you’re the best in the business. Talking of which, do you want us to cut a seal for you, or can you make your own?”
“I’ll manage,” I said.
“That’s what we assumed. Now for obvious operational reasons, the less we know about the details of what you get up to, the better for all concerned. You know where you’re going and what you’ve got to do when you get there. Anything else is your business and we really don’t want to know. Got that?”
“One question,” Svangerd said, in her scary-ominous voice. I know it’s scary and ominous; to anyone else it just sounds like she’s mumbling. “Why Brother Jovian?”
Framea shrugged. “Ultimate deniability, I guess. Nothing whatsoever to connect you to us.”
She didn’t know the reason. Interesting. “Apart from the fact that we’re on record as working for the abbot.”
“Ah.” She smiled. “We’ve covered that. As of now, you two are officially renegades.
You’ve stolen a large sum of money from monastery funds and absconded, and we’re offering a substantial reward for you, dead or alive.
” She pulled a wry face. “I don’t suppose it’ll fool anyone in the business for more than five minutes, but it’s practically impossible to disprove, which is all that matters.
So do be careful, both of you, because sooner or later there’s bound to be genuine bounty hunters coming after you.
I’m sure you’ll be able to deal with them, and if you have to, well, you know, then it’s no great loss, is it?
The main thing is, it’ll do your cover no end of good if you’re genuinely wanted fugitives.
” She gave me a dazzling smile. “Isn’t that what you always say? Nothing deceives like the truth?”
“Actually,” I said, “that was Saloninus. I just quote it a lot.”
“Splendid. Now, don’t let me keep you. Sister chamberlain will let you know when your outfits are ready to try on. Make sure they’re a good fit.”
To her credit, Svangerd didn’t start until we were back outside, in the cloister garden. “Fucking lunatics,” she said. “Of all the stupid, half-witted—”
“Yes,” I said, as loudly and firmly as I dared. She scowled at me. When Svangerd is angry with someone other than me, she’s always reluctant to take yes for an answer. She calls it needing to be heard.
“Brother fucking Jovian. How in God’s name are we supposed to pull that off? Everybody knows—”
Ah, but they don’t. That’s the whole point.
Everybody knows, though nobody admits to believing, about Brother Jovian.
It all started, as far as I can tell, about three hundred years ago, when things were even worse than they are now, and people were ready to believe any damn thing so long as it gave them a tiny glimmer of hope.
Brother Jovian, so the story ran, was a king, incredibly powerful and rich, ruling a vast kingdom somewhere a long way away north-east, or possibly south-west. The people he ruled were, of course, savages, but Jovian himself was a Robur, not to mention a properly ordained priest of Holy Mother Church; and as soon as he’d sorted out one or two trifling local problems, he was going to come charging down (or up) leading a huge army, and he was going to restore the empire, slaughter whoever happened to be the Enemy at that point, and bring about the earthly paradise.
(I can’t resist a brief digression on the term savages.
That’s a word meaning people who are different from us, therefore by definition ignorant, barbaric, vicious, superstitious and unhygienic.
We ignore the fact that, compared to Sashan and Echmen, sixty per cent of the population of the known world, we genuinely are savages: ignorant, barbaric, vicious, superstitious and decidedly unhygienic.
It’s the same, I’ve noticed, with poverty.
Go down into Poor Town and you’ll find whole streets of poor people who won’t let their kids play with the kids in the next street, because they don’t want them mixing with those trash.
I guess we put on these airs because we weren’t savages before the empire fell, and somehow we still fondly believe that we’re the heirs of the imperials, not a bunch of down and outs squatting in the ruins of their houses. Easy mistake to make.)
What with one thing and another, Brother Jovian hasn’t turned up yet, but that’s all right, no doubt he has his reasons, and people are prepared to make allowances.
He must be getting on for three hundred and fifty years old, but by all accounts he’s still as hale and hearty as he’s always been, and Holy Mother Church is always getting letters from him, and sending letters back, which is how we know it’s all true and not just some pack of fanciful lies.
Nobody ever gets to see these letters, because Holy Mother Church never actually admits to having received or sent them, understandably enough since they’re undoubtedly crammed with sensitive information about troop movements and supply chains, the names of deeply embedded agents and so on and so forth; but it’s one of those open secrets that everybody’s in on, and everybody knows someone who knows someone whose cousin happened to see a copy lying about on somebody’s desk, and the occasional leaked details that percolate down to street level are absolutely convincing; like, for example, the fact that Brother Jovian has waist-length grey hair, a long white beard and a birthmark on his left cheek, he walks with a slight limp, wears a scarlet gown trimmed with ermine and is partial to turbot and pickled walnuts.
How he gets turbot in the middle of the north-eastern steppe (or the heart of the Blemmyan desert) beats me, but the fact that he manages it only goes to prove how rich and powerful he is, doesn’t it?
“Actually,” I said, once she’d exhausted her store of pent-up emotion, “it’s not a bad idea.”
She stared at me. “You’re mad,” she said. “You’ve been breathing in mercury fumes or something. What’s the matter with you?”
“No, listen,” I said. “It’s a simple forgery job. Now, then. What am I good at?”
“Is that a serious question?”
“Forgery,” I said. “Let me think about it.”