Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks [77]
“You’re the Shinga of the Sa’kagé,” he said quietly.
Though she’d been prepared for it, hearing the truth spoken aloud frightened her. But this was why she’d hired Quoglee Mars in the first place. She’d paid him for a flute piece, then had her informants drop hints to him of a much bigger story, the kind of tale Quoglee couldn’t resist telling. But the man was incredibly bright, and that made him dangerous. “How’d you learn?” she asked.
“Everyone knew you were Jarl’s right hand. When he disappeared, none of the Sa’kagé’s work was interrupted. Agon’s Dogs continued training, the Nocta Hemata happened, and there was no rush of thugs’ bodies floating in the Plith. The Sa’kagé isn’t an organization to put off a struggle for succession just because there’s a war. You’ve been Shinga for more than a month, haven’t you?”
Momma K let out a long, slow breath. “Fifteen years,” she said. “Always behind puppet Shingas. Shingas don’t tend to die of natural causes.”
“So what are you buying? I’m guessing you want more than a flute piece.”
“I want you to sing a song of Terah Graesin’s secrets.”
“Do you know what those are?” Quoglee asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve made my living telling lies and you know it. Because the truth is damning enough. Because you’re renowned for winkling out the truth on your own.”
“So if you can’t dam the river, you wish to channel it. How do you propose to buy me off?”
“You want more than coin?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“Oh yes.”
“Then I’ll give you what you wish,” she said.
“I want your story. You will answer every question I ask, and if you lie in any particular, I will use your tale to cast you in a devastating light.”
“Now you tempt me to take my chances with prophecy and signal the wetboy I have waiting behind that curtain to kill you. A whore’s truth has too many sharp edges. I will tell my story and not spare myself, but I will not share the secrets of the men I could destroy with what I know. It would be my death, and some few of them deserve better. I will give you more of my story, and more about the Sa’kagé, than you could ever learn alone, but that is all. And you will not tell it for at least a year. I have work to do first.”
Quoglee’s skin had turned green, making the impression of a frog complete. “You don’t really have a wetboy behind that curtain, do you?” he asked.
“Of course not.” Quoglee was a coward? Odd. “Do we have a deal?
He inhaled deeply, as if trying to smell the wetboy, and slowly he regained his balance. “If you tell me why you’re doing this. I don’t believe it’s because of some whore’s dream.”
She nodded. “If Logan Gyre were king, Jarl’s dream of a new Cenaria might come to pass. Things wouldn’t have to be how they were for my sister and me growing up, or how they are for the guild rats now.”
“Sounds awfully . . . altruistic,” Quoglee said.
Momma K didn’t let his tone anger her. “I have a daughter.”
“Now that I didn’t know.”
“I’m the richest, most powerful person in this country, maestro. But a Shinga’s power dies with her, and my wealth will be taken by whoever finally murders me. Having a daughter has cost me the man I love and quite nearly my life. But as much as she endangers me, I endanger her much more. I need Logan Gyre to become king because that’s the only way I can go legitimate, and going legitimate is the only way I can pass anything on to my daughter except death.”
Quoglee’s eyes were wide. “You don’t just mean to be a merchant or even a merchant queen, do you? You mean to establish a new noble house. How would you buy such a thing?”
“That’s a tale I’ll tell after the coronation. Do we have a deal?”
“You want me to learn a queen’s darkest secrets