generations to go through life believing that Interior and Exchequer
are hot-beds of treason. Technically, we are acting contrary
to the Emperor’s wishes.’
‘That’s true, I suppose, but the Ministry of the Interior controls
the police, and Exchequer levies and collects the taxes. We’re
neither one of us ever going to be very popular, no matter what
we do. But you’re probably right. If the history professors at the
universities start telling their students that we’re traitors, people
might start claiming that it’s their patriotic duty to ignore the
officers of the law or to stop paying their taxes.’
‘That raises an interesting point, Chancellor Gashon,’ Teovin
mused. ‘You’ve got a sort of police force, haven’t you? – muscular
fellows who accompany your tax-collectors to make sure that
people pay what they owe,’
‘Oh, yes. One way or the other, everybody pays his taxes. I get
money ‘- or blood -‘from all of them.’
‘Follow me on this, if you will. The Elenes probably know
that Interior – and most likely the army as well – are opposed
to them, so they’ll try their very best to disrupt our customary
operations. I’d like to conceal some of my more valuable people.
Do you suppose I might transfer them into your enforcement
branch? That way I’ll still have a functional operation – even if
the Elenes start burning down police stations.’
“I can manage that, Teovin. Is there anything else you’ll need?’
‘Money, Chancellor Gashon.’
There was a pained silence. ‘Would you accept eternal friendship
instead?’
‘Afraid not, your Excellency. I have to bribe people.’ Teovin
paused. ‘There’s an idea. I could probably use some form of
tax-immunity as an inducement in many cases.’
“I don’t recognize the term.’
‘We give people an exemption from taxation in exchange for
their cooperation.’
‘That’s immoral!’ Gashon gasPed. ‘That’s the most shocking
thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life!’
“It was only a thought.’
‘Don’t even suggest something like that, Teovin. It makes my
blood run cold. Can we get out of here? Police stations make
me apprehensive for some reason.’
‘Of course, your Excellency. I think we’ve covered the things
we wanted to keep private.’
Stragen sat in the dark office listening as the two men pushed
back their chairs and went out into the corridor. He heard Teovin’s
key turn in the lock of his office door. The blond thief
waited for perhaps ten minutes, and then he went back to the
foot of the staircase. ‘They’re gone now,’ he called up the stairs
in a loud whisper.
Mirtai and Caalador came on down. ‘Who was it?’ Caalador
asked.
‘The head of the secret police and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer,’ Stragen replied. “It was a very enlightening conversation.
Teovin’s enlisting other ministries to help him. They don’t
know what he’s really up to, but he’s managed to convince
several of them that it’s in their own interest to join him.’
“We can sort out the politics later,’ Caalador said. “It’s almost
midnight. Let’s get to burgling.’
There’s no need,’ Stragen shrugged. ‘i’ve found what we’re
looking for.’
isn’t that disgusting?’
Caalador said to the Atan giantess. ‘he
tosses it off as if it weren’t really very important. All right,
Stragen, stun us with your brilliance. Make my eyes pop out,
and make Mirtai swoon with admiration.’
“I can’t really take much credit for it,’ Stragen confessed. “I
stumbled across it, actually. It is a secret room. I was right about
that. We still have to find the door, though, and make sure that
the documents we want are inside, but the room’s in the right
place. I should have thought of it immediately.’
‘Where is it?’ Mirtai asked.
‘Right next to Teovin’s office.’
‘That’s the logical place, right enough,’ Caalador noted. ‘How
did you find it?’
‘Well, I haven’t actually found it yet, but I’ve reasoned out its
existence. ‘
‘Don’t throw away your soft shoes or your black clothes just
yet, Caalador,’ Mirtai advised.
‘You hurt me, love,’ Stragen protested.
‘i’ve seen Elene reasoning go awry before. Why don’t you tell
us about it?’
“I wanted to do some constructive eavesdropping, so I went
into the adjoining office to listen to Teovin and Chancellor of
the Exchequer Gashon’s conversation.’
‘And?’
“I couldn’t hear a thing.’
‘The walls are stone, Stragen,’ she pointed out, ‘and they’ve
got sea-shells glued to them.’
‘There’s no such thing as a soundproof wall, Mirtai. There are
always cracks and crannies that the mortar doesn’t seep into.
Anyway, when I tried the office on the other side, I could hear
everything. Believe me, there’s a room between that first office
and the one Teovin uses.’
“It does sort of fit together, dorlin’,’ Caalador said to Mirtai.
‘The door to that room would almost have to be in Teovin’s office,
wouldn’t it? Those documents are sensitive, and he wouldn’t
want just anybody to have access to them. If we’d just taken a
little while to think our way through it, we could have saved
ourselves a lot of time.’
“It wasn’t a total waste,’ Mirtai smiled. ‘i’ve learned the art of
burglary, and I’ve had the chance to absolutely wallow in your
affection. You two have made me happier than’ I could possibly
say. The office door’s certain to be locked, you know.”
‘Nuthin’ simpler, little dorlin’,’ Caalador smirked, holding up
a needle-thin implement with a hook on the end.
‘We’d better get started,’ Stragen said. “It’s midnight, and it
might take us the rest of the night to find the door to that hidden
room.’
‘You’re not serious,’ Ehlana scoffed.
‘May muh tongue turn green iffn I ain’t, yet Queenship.’ Caalador
paused. ‘Dreadful, isn’t it?’ he added.
“I don’t quite understand,’ Sarabian confessed.
“It’s a cliche, your Majesty,’ Stragen explained, ‘taken from a
tyPe of literature that’s currently very popular in Eosia.’
‘Do you really want to dignify that trash by calling it literature,
Stragen?’ Baroness Melidere murmured.
“It satisfies the needs of the mentally deprived, Baroness,’
he shrugged. ‘Anyway, your Imperial Majesty, the literature
consists largely of ghost stories. There’s always a haunted castle
complete with hidden rooms and secret passages, and the
entrances to these rooms and passages are always hidden behind
bookcases. It’s a very tired old device – so tired in fact that I
almost didn’t think of it. I didn’t believe anybody would be so
obvious.’ He laughed. “I wonder if Teovin thought it up all by
himself or if he plagiarized. If he stole it, he has abominable
taste in literature.’
‘Are books all that available in Eosia?’ Oscagne asked curiously.
‘They’re fearfully expensive here.”
“It’s one of the results of our Holy Mother’s drive toward
universal literacy during the last century, your Excellency, ‘
Ehlana explained. ‘The Church wanted her children to be able
to read her message, so parish priests spend a great deal of time
teaching everybody to read.’
‘The message of the Church doesn’t really take all that long
to browse through, however,’ Stragen added, ‘and after the
browsing’s done, you’ve got crowds of literate people with a
skill they can’t really apply. It was the invention of paper that
set off the literary explosion, though. The labor costs involved
in copying aren’t particularly high. It was the cost of parchment
that made books so prohibitively expensive. When paper came
along, books became cheaper. There are copy-houses in most
major cities with whole platoons of scriveners grinding out
books by the ton. It’s a very profitable business. The books don’t
have illuminations or decorated capitals, and the lettering’s a
little shoddy, but they’re readable – and affordable. Not everyone
who can read has good taste, though, so a lot of truly dreadful
books are written by people with minimal talent. They write
adventure stories, ghost stories, heroic fantasies and those
naughty books that people don’t openly display in their bookcases.
The Church encourages lives of the saints and tedious
religious verse. Things like that are produced, of course, but
nobody really reads that sort of thing. Ghost stories are currently
in vogue – particularly in Thalesia. It has something to do with
our national character, I think.’ He looked at Ehlana. ‘The business
of getting the information out of Teovin’s hidey-hole
is going to be tedious, my Queen. There are mountains of
documents in there, and I can’t take whole platoons of people
in over the roof every night to help plow through them. Mirtai,
Caalador and I are going to have to read every document ourselves.’
‘Perhaps not, Milord Stragen,’ Ehlana disagreed. She smiled
at the blond thief. “I had absolute confidence in your dishonesty,
dear boy, so I knew that sooner or later you’d find what we
were looking for. I struggled for a time with the very problem
you just mentioned. Then I remembered something Sparhawk
once told me. He’d used a spell to put the image of Krager’s
face in a basin of water so that Talen could draw his picture. I