Promise of Blood

“Doing what?” Adamat’s mind raced. Palagyi had been a predictable thug. Adamat could deal with him. This Lord Vetas, however… he was a dangerous man. Dangerous like the Proprietor: the kind that made policemen retire early.

“I want to know everything about Tamas. Everything he does, everything he says to you. What he has you looking for.”

“My loyalties are not for sale,” Adamat said.

“You’ll have to change your loyalties, then.”

“I don’t know who you are, or who your master is,” Adamat said. “I’m loyal to Adro and I will not change that.”

“My master has the Nine’s best interests at heart, I assure you,” Lord Vetas said. His quiet, sibilant voice was beginning to irritate Adamat. He almost had to strain to hear the man.

Adamat said, “The Nine is not the same as Adro. For all I know, you work for the Kez. The newspaper says they’re sending ambassadors and that they still want Tamas to sign the Accords.”

“I don’t work for the Kez.”

“Then who?”

“That is of little consequence to you.”

“You aren’t endearing yourself,” Adamat said. “You come into my home, kill a man in my very living room, and threaten me? How do you know I won’t send for the police this instant?”

A shallow smile flitted across Lord Vetas’s face. “I am not the sort of man one summons the police on,” he warned. “You of all people should know that.”

“Yes. I’d already realized that.” Adamat gritted his teeth. “You’re the type of man who gives face to evil.”

Lord Vetas seemed taken aback. “Evil? No, good sir. Just pragmatism.”

“I know your kind,” Adamat said. “And you seem to know me. Or you think you do. Now, get out of my home.”

He glanced at SouSmith. Palagyi had been strangled by his own man. Would the same thing happen to Adamat? Was SouSmith really a friend? The boxer looked troubled. He watched both the goons and Lord Vetas all at once and cracked his knuckles like he did when he was ready for a fight. “I will pay you your money,” Adamat said, “if you have indeed taken over the loan. Or I will face the streets when you kick me out. I will not betray a client or my country.”

Lord Vetas examined his hands thoughtfully. He stood up and took his hat off the desk. “I’ll return when I have leverage.” The statement was matter-of-fact, yet the word “leverage” sent a chill down Adamat’s spine. “Meanwhile, as a show of my master’s good faith, we’ll suspend your loan.” He passed by Adamat and tipped his hat. “Consider our employment offer.” He gave Adamat a small card with an address printed on the back.

It was not until Lord Vetas and his thugs were gone that Adamat remembered the body in his favorite chair. He regarded SouSmith grimly. “Find us some lunch in the pantry. I’m going to figure out something to do with that.”

“Jakob has a great attachment to you,” the woman said.

Nila sat across from the woman at a cafe table and sipped from a warm cup of tea. The sun shone overhead, a stiff breeze moving through the streets, and she could almost forget about the barricades just around the other side of the building, where royalist partisans held a wary standoff with Tamas’s more numerous and better-trained soldiers.

“I can’t stay,” Nila said.

The woman examined her over a cup of tea. Her name was Rozalia and she was a Privileged. The Hielmen said she was the last Privileged left in all of Adro, but no one knew where she’d come from. She wasn’t a member of Manhouch’s royal cabal. Why she had any interest in Nila was impossible to say. Nila had no idea how to act in the presence of a Privileged. It was impossible to curtsy sitting down. She kept her eyes on her tea and tried to be as polite as possible.

“Why not, child?”

Nila sat up straighter. She didn’t consider herself a child. At eighteen, she was a woman. She could wash and press and mend clothes and she might have one day married Yewen, the butler’s son, if the whole world hadn’t gone to the pit with Tamas’s coup. Yewen was gone now, maybe fled, maybe killed in the streets.

When Nila didn’t answer, Rozalia went on. “We have a parley with Field Marshal Tamas in the morning. If he comes to his senses, if General Westeven can make him see reason, you may find yourself nursemaid to the new king of Adro.”

“I’m not a nurse,” Nila said. “I wash clothes.”

“That doesn’t have to define you, child. I’ve been many things in my life. A Privileged is neither the greatest nor the least of them.”

What was greater than a Privileged? “I’m sorry,” Nila said.

Rozalia gave a sigh. “Speak up, child. Look me in the eye. You aren’t a duke’s washerwoman anymore.”

“I’m lowborn, ma’am… my lady.” Nila tried to remember how to address a Privileged. She’d never even met one before today.

“You’ve saved the life of the closest heir to the throne,” Rozalia said. “Baronies have been gifted to the common folk for less.”

Nila swallowed and tried not to imagine herself baroness of some barony in northern Adro. This kind of thing didn’t happen to her. She could feel the Privileged’s eyes studying her.