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Husathirn Mueri looked strangely serene. “The chieftain is deeply troubled by what’s going on. She’s ordered me to put an end to his subversion of the children. To stop it right away, and to stop it for good. That should be clear enough.”
“But to kill an ambassador—”
“There’s no real need to keep using that word, is there?”
“But that’s what you want. I’m right, aren’t I? Aren’t I?”
Husathirn Mueri said implacably, “The situation is critical. He’s creating an enormous disturbance in the city. This is our responsibility, Curabayn Bangkea, and by all the gods we’re going to deal with it responsibly.”
Curabayn Bangkea nodded. He was begi
Husathirn Mueri said, “You’ll go to the games at the opening hour, and you’ll make sure you’re seen. Then you’ll leave, and you’ll make sure you aren’t seen. You’ll take care of the work that has to be done, and then you’ll go back to the games, where I’ll happen to run into you, and you’ll come sit in my box where everyone can see you and we’ll spend a little time together, just chatting, going over the highlights of the day’s contests. No one will suspect you were mixed up in anything unusual while the games were going on.”
He stared. “ I’lltake care of the work that has to be done, you say? You mean me, personally?”
“You and no one else. Taniane’s explicit order. What’s more, it’s essential that we mustn’t allow it to be traced back to her, or to me, for that matter. That would compromise the city leadership very seriously. Therefore you’ve got to do it, acting alone. Understand? And you have to forget it the moment it’s done.” Husathirn Mueri paused. “You’ll be suitably rewarded, of course.”
The only suitable reward, Curabayn Bangkea thought, would be the freedom to do as I please for a whole night with Nialli Apuilana. But they aren’t going to give me that.
He felt a burst of anger. What did they think he was, an animal, a barbarian? He was the captain of the guards, the upholder of the law. Why pick him for this filthy business? Couldn’t they have found some drifter in a tavern, who could be conveniently disposed of afterward?
I need you. You’re the only one I’d trust to do it.
Well, maybe so. That softened it, the fact of being needed, of being specially chosen. A secret mission at the chieftain’s specific request. Flattering, in a way. Unquestionably flattering. The only one I’d trust. A tavern drifter might bungle the job. Or might talk too much before getting it done. And this was official business, after all. Taniane’s order: put an end to the subversion of the children. A critical situation, yes. A threat to law and order, the spreading of all this hjjk-love.
His a
In any case he saw that he had no choice but to go along with it, like it or not. He was in this too deep already. He knew too much. Now he had to play the game out. Serve your masters loyally, rise to the top. Turn your back on them when they need you, and it’ll be the finish for you.
“You aren’t going to let us down, are you?” Husathirn Mueri asked, as if he had been using second sight on him.
“Not at all, your grace.”
“What’s troubling you, then?”
“I’d like to know a little more about the payment that’s involved, if that’s all right.”
Smoothly Husathirn Mueri said, “This whole thing has come up so quickly that I haven’t had time to work out the details. I’ll be able to tell you that this afternoon, at the games. But one thing I promise you: it’ll be suitable. More than suitable.” The ingratiating smile again, soothing, conspiratorial: we’re all in this together, and one hand washes the other. “You’ll be well taken care of,” Husathirn Mueri said. “You know you can trust me on that score. Can I count on you?”
I’d sooner trust in a rat-wolf, Curabayn Bangkea thought. But there was no turning back.
“Of course you can,” he said.
Afterward, when Husathirn Mueri was gone, Curabayn Bangkea sat quietly for a time, letting the breath travel in and out of his body. He was past the first shock. His anger was gone, and he was begi
Not just the advantage that would accrue from carrying out a sensitive and secret mission for which he’d been specially selected, or the power that his part in the removal of Kundalimon would give him over Husathirn Mueri and even over Taniane. But also there was the killing itself, what it would accomplish. The clearing away of something infuriating, something unacceptable. If I can’t have her, he thought, at least he won’t either. It was pleasing to think about, the killing itself. To come up behind the man who had made himself Nialli Apuilana’s lover — to seize him, to pull him into a dark corridor, to snuff the life from him—
That might just be the purgation he needed, freeing him from this torrent of impossible thoughts that tormented him. The obsession that had possessed him for so long. For days, now, nothing but Nialli Apuilana on his mind. Hardly any sleep, no rest at all. Nialli Apuilana and Kundalimon, Kundalimon and Nialli Apuilana. Feverish fantasies. Imagining her in that little room with the hjjk emissary, picturing him enfolding her in some weird caress he’d learned in the Nest, some bizarre scrabbling hjjk-like maneuver, vile and revolting. Bringing ecstatic gasps from her as she lay in his arms.
Very likely the reason why Husathirn Mueri wanted it done was co
He wondered what kind of payment he ought to ask for. He’d be in a strong negotiating position. One word from him and the city would explode with scandal: surely they realized that. He’d want exchange-units, certainly. A bushel of them. And a higher rank. And women — not Nialli Apuilana, of course, they could never deliver her to him, no one could, but there were other highborn women who were easier in their ways, and one of them — yes, they could let him have one of them, at least for a time.
Yes.
Everything took shape in Curabayn Bangkea’s mind in a moment.
He rose, do
He stared at her as long as he could, and then he turned away. He couldn’t stand to look at her for long. Too frustrating, too disturbing, all that unattainable beauty. The sight of her made his entrails churn.
After a time the rain let up once again. He left the stadium through one of the underground-level gates and went back into the center of the city. At this hour Kundalimon usually took his walk, down Mueri Way and into the park. Curabayn Bangkea was prepared. He waited at the mouth of a narrow alley in the shadows of the street just below Mueri House: ten minutes, fifteen, half an hour. The street was deserted. Almost everyone was at the games.
And there was the young man now, by himself.
“Kundalimon?” Curabayn Bangkea called softly.