No evidence of sedition.”
“Stepson, if your commander heard you promise that he’d have your guts out.”
“Give me the quiet I need and I’ll give you the quiet you need. You and I
understand each other. You won’t have a friend left in our ranks-if I fall. Do
you understand me?”
“Do I understand you’ve got your price, Rankan?”
“Mutual advantage.” Heat rose to his face. Breath came shorter. “I don’t give a
damn what you name it, you know where we all are: trade’s slowed to a stop,
shops are closed, taverns shut down-are you making money? Merchants aren’t; you
aren’t; no one’s happy. And you know and I know that if this PFLS craziness
goes on we’ve got a town in cinders, trade gone down the coast, revolutionary
fools in control or martial law as long as it takes, and corpses up to the
eaves. You see profit in that?”
“I see profit everywhere. I survive, Rankan.”
“You’re not fool enough to go up against the empire. You make money on it.”
Bodies stiffened all around the room. Strat folded his arms across his chest and
recrossed his ankles top to bottom.
“He’s right.” Jubal snapped his fingers. “He said the right word. Let’s see if
he goes on making sense. Keep talking.”
There was disturbance on the Street of Red Lanterns; but the crowd that gathered
did it in the discreet way of Red Lantern crowds: peered through windows and out
of doorways of brothels and taverns and just stopped in ordinary passages down
the Street if they were far enough away. It was glitter and drama, was this
district; and a great deal of the tawdry, and in this thunder-rattling night and