The count looked shaken. He was holding a red arrow in his other hand. “I hesitated,” he said. From anyone else, it would have been a concession of defeat, but Count Drake sounded victorious. “After all these years, I wondered, but it’s true. I really have changed. Thank you, God.”

Kylar looked at him strangely. “What are you talking about?”

“Kylar, we have to talk.”

45

I’ll be dead in a day or two, so please pay attention, Jarl,” Momma K said.

Jarl hesitated for a moment, and then sipped the ootai she’d poured him.

Damn, but the boy can be cold. But then, that was why she was having this talk with him, rather than with anyone else. “Tomorrow or the next day, Kylar or Durzo will come here and kill me,” she said. “Because I sent Kylar to kill a man he thought was Hu Gibbet, but actually was Durzo, disguised as Hu. Whichever one lived through their fight now knows that I lied, and that I betrayed them both. I know that you were once friends with Kylar, Jarl—”

“I still am.”

“Fine. I wasn’t going to ask you to avenge me. I’m ready for justice. Life from here is just a series of disappointments anyway.” Was that pity in the boy’s eyes? She thought it was, but she didn’t care. He’d understand if he lived to be this old.

“What can I do to help you, Momma K?”

“I don’t want you to help me. Things are happening fast, Jarl. Maybe too fast. Roth’s making a play at becoming Shinga. I suspect we’ll be hearing the sad news that Pon Dradin is dead any time now.”

“You’re not going to warn him? You’re just going to let Roth kill him?”

“Two reasons, Jarl. Knowing either of them could cost you your life. Are you ready to be a player on this stage?”

He scowled, actually thought about it, and then nodded.

“First, I’m going to let Pon Dradin die because I’ve been compromised. Roth blackmailed me into betraying Durzo and Kylar. I won’t share how. I’ve been humiliated enough. All that matters is that Roth owns me. I can’t oppose him in any way that he might detect or suspect or it will cost me something I value more than my life. So I’m going to die. I want you to replace me.”

“You want me to take your seat on the Nine?”

She smiled into her ootai. “I was never just the Mistress of Pleasures, Jarl. I’ve been the Shinga for nineteen years.” She had some satisfaction in the way her unflappable protégé’s eyes widened. He sank back in his chair.

“Gods,” he said. “That explains a few things.”

She laughed, and for what felt like the first time in years, she really felt like laughing. If exposing your throat always felt like this, she thought she understood for the first time why Durzo had loved the danger in his work. It made you appreciate being alive, standing this close to death.

“Tell me how it works,” he said.

It was what she would have said in his place. She would have accepted what the Shinga had said about her death and immediately started looking for how it would affect her, rather than expressing any sorrow that the Shinga would be dead. Or perhaps, in Jarl’s place, she would have given some moue of sorrow that her mistress would die, but it would have been a lie. Jarl gave no such pretense, and maybe she could respect him for that. He’d learned her lessons well. But it still hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded like he really meant it. Maybe he did. Or maybe he was just sorry that she was sinking into such softness that at the approach of her death she who had taught him how to manipulate his own pities and loves should want him to do that toward her. She couldn’t tell. Jarl was what she had made him to be. It was worse than looking in a mirror.

“Everyone in the Sa’kagé knows who their boss is. The smarter ones know who their representative on the Nine is. Of course, the Shinga’s identity is an open secret, which means not a secret at all. Put that together, and if you pool a few thieves and whores, you can figure out the entire power structure of the Sa’kagé. That’s been fine for the last fourteen years, because things have been so stable.”

“Was that stability because of your leadership, or just luck?” Jarl asked.

“My leadership,” she said honestly. “I had the last king killed and put Aleine on the throne, so we haven’t had pressure from above, and I’ve handled all the pressures from within. But the normal state of any Sa’kagé is upheaval, Jarl. Thieves and murderers and cutpurses and whores don’t tend to stay united. Assassinations are common. During your life it’s been far more peaceful than ever before.

“The first five years I was Shinga, we lost eight ‘Shingas.’ Six were assassinations from outside. Two I had to have killed myself because they tried to take my power. Only two seats on the Nine remained unchanged. For the last fourteen years, Pon Dradin has been able to indulge his vices freely so long as he attended the meetings and kept his mouth shut and didn’t step out of line. I never expected him to last so long.”

“So only the Nine know who’s really the Shinga?”

“And the wetboys, but they take a magically binding oath of service. The system does have its drawbacks. Pon is nearly as rich as I am just from kickbacks and bribes, and every new member of the Nine finds out that he’s been sucking the wrong toes for however long it took to climb the ranks. It irritates some of them mightily, but it also keeps some people off the Nine who don’t belong there. Best of all, it’s kept me alive and in power.”

“What does Roth mean to this?”

“Roth has just joined the Nine. He isn’t in on the secret. That’s why Pon will die sometime today or tomorrow. Roth thinks killing him will make him Shinga. But that actually exposes the greatest flaw in all my secrecy: if only eight people know who the real Shinga is, Roth only has to convince those eight that he is the Shinga now.”

“If the rest of the Nine are so afraid of him, how do I take his power?” Jarl asked.

Momma K smiled. “Exactly that. You take it. I won’t leave you defenseless, of course.” She reached into her desk and pulled out a small book. “My spies. I hope I don’t need to tell you that the longer it is before you burn this book, the less your life is worth.”

He took the book. “I’ll memorize it immediately.”

She leaned back in her chair. “He’s in a strong position, Jarl. People are terrified of him.”

“So that’s everything?” Jarl asked.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you where all my riches are stored. An old woman has to protect herself, just in case I live through this. Besides, if I die, you’ll have plenty of time to find it all.”

“Can I ask your advice?” he asked. She nodded. “I followed the men you asked about,” Jarl said.

Momma K nodded. She didn’t prod Jarl with questions. They’d worked together for long enough that she knew he would tell her everything.

“They were definitely wytches. They attempted an ambush on Regnus Gyre with a small retinue north of the city. Most of his men were wiped out, and all of them would have been except that he had a mage with him.”

Momma K raised an eyebrow.

“I was viewing them from a distance, but Regnus and the mage quarreled afterward and rode separate directions. My guess was that Lord Gyre didn’t know his man was a mage.”

“This mage defeated three wytches?”

“Everything spectacular came from the wytches, but when the smoke cleared—and I mean that literally—he was the only one standing. The man fought with his wits. He stalled two of the wytches until Lord Gyre’s soldiers could cut them down. He made a horse trample the third. I don’t understand magic, so maybe there was more I didn’t see, but that was what it looked like.”

“Go on.”

“Lord Gyre had only one man left after he and the mage quarreled. They took a circuitous route through the city and arrived at his manse after midnight. You’ve heard what was there?”