“Oh, be quiet,” snapped the Chief Counselor. A look of weariness crossed his face. “The end result of all this is that if the wizard did make his escape from the city through the travel station, then he’s long gone by now.”
“Well, yes, sir. They move along right quick, sir, the Consortium’s transports do. Not at all like it was in the good old days. The bad old days, I mean to say.”
The sergeant drew himself up, attempting a gesture of subtle reproof aimed at a superior. “And in any event, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir, we really have no reason to think the wizard would have tried such an obvious escape route as the official travel station of the city. More likely, sir, he’d have tried to leave through one of the lesser-used gates.”
“Yes, yes, I know. I’ve got police squads covering all the gates. We should know something soon. Fortunately, the wizard’s a noticeable man. That ridiculous gown! The hat and the staff! The perfect image of the sorcerer of popular superstition. And that horrid servant. God, Sergeant, did you ever see such a frightful dwarf? And that incredible sack he carries!”
Well, I am neither stupid nor unobservant, and it was immediately obvious to me that the wizard of the police search was the very same unpleasant fellow I had encountered on my way out of the station. Had the police not been distracted by my stupidity they would have apprehended their culprit but moments later.
Warring impulses—I should say, warring advice—raged within my mind.
On the one hand, I was mindful of the unanimous advice of my artist uncles:
Always curry favor with the rich and powerful. As long as you curry favor with the swine, you can do anything else—cheat ’em, take their money, seduce their wives, whatever. But always curry their favor.
On the other, there was the unanimous advice of my condottiere uncles:
Don’t tell the high and mighty anything. There’s nothing more suspicious than a man who volunteers information. The torture chambers are full of blabbermouths. It’s the seventh law of secret police: “If he spills his guts freely, just think what he’ll do under The Question.”
In the end, oddly enough, the question was resolved for me by the memory of the pitiful dwarf. A nice enough boy he’d seemed, ugly though he was. And I had no illusions as to a dwarf’s fate in the hands of the secret police. So I kept my mouth shut. And in so doing, I sealed not only my own fate but that of the world.
“You may go, Sergeant,” said Chief Counselor Gerard. Then, as the sergeant took my arm and made to drag me away, Gerard added: “Leave him here.”
The sergeant began to say something, thought better of it, and left.
When the door closed, Gerard turned to me. “Who are you, sir? Am I not correct, that you are from the Ozarine? What are you doing here in Goimr?”
“Quite so, Chief Counselor. My name is Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini, of the famous clan of scholars and artists. I just arrived from Ozar on board the CSS Lucre. Indeed, I do not believe I had spent more than ten minutes on Goimric soil before I was seized by your secret police.”
The look of embarrassment on Gerard’s face encouraged me to press home the advantage.
“As to the reason for my being here, I was invited by the King of Goimr to set up as the Royal Artist.” With a flourish, I drew the King’s letter from my pocket—which the secret police of Goimr, in that inefficient manner which I was coming to associate with everything Goimric, had not even searched.
“And here,” I added dramatically, as soon as Gerard finished reading the King’s letter, “is a letter of recommendation from the Consortium’s Director of Companies.”
I handed him the second letter. Gerard’s face grew gloomy. The King’s letter had not seemed to produce much effect on him. But the letter from the Director of Companies was a different story altogether.
” ‘Upstanding young man,’ ” he read from the Director’s letter, ” ‘scion of a great family’ . . . ‘one of Ozar’s most promising new artists.’ ” Etc., etc., etc.