Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [56]
Perhaps things are quieter here, with the Wasps gone, Che wondered. Perhaps the old man’s getting bored.
‘Well now, who’s this, eh? Maker’s girl, and the Wasp assassin.’ He leered at them through the stumps of his fangs. ‘Trouble coming, is there? For certain there is.’ He used his stick like a lever, prying his laborious way across the room before dropping down into a creaking chair. ‘Come join me,’ he invited. ‘Tell me what trouble you’ve brought us.’
‘No trouble, I hope,’ Che replied, and Hokiak chuckled.
‘They hanged two Beetle-kinden yesterday,’ he remarked, without further explanation.
CheandThalricexchangedglances.‘Whodid?’sheprompted.
‘The militia. Said they were Rekef. For once I believe it. They were asking questions before they were caught, these two stretch-necked fellows. There’s a certain stink off them, more even than normal Rekef, and that stink goes all the way to Capitas.’
‘What questions?’ Thalric asked.
Hokiak’s rotting smile was hideous. ‘You don’t need to ask it, assassin.’
‘I’m no assassin,’ the Wasp said irritably.
‘I know two governors of Myna who’d call you a liar,’ the Scorpion pointed out. ‘No wonder the Consensus is twitchy, if you’re back in town.’
‘What have you guessed?’ Che asked, annoyed at all this obfuscation.
‘Rekef from Capitas will be here looking for me – or they soon might be,’ Thalric explained. ‘General Brugan might not have given up. Which makes our business with you that much more urgent, Hokiak.’ He fixed the old man with a stern look. ‘Unless you’ve decided I’m merely a commodity again.’
Hokiak scowled, less the villainous broker and more – or so it seemed to Che – the put-upon merchant. ‘You flatter me, assassin. Those were the days, eh? Sell the resistance and the Empire to each other, and have both of them paying you for the privilege. Good times, good times. The current lot lost their sense of humour when they took over, I’ll tell you that straight. Her up top, Kymene, who I personally kept out of Wasp hands, she came down here after they chose her to run the Consensus. No more deals with the Wasps, she told me. No deals with the Empire. Keep your smuggling, your racketeering, your private work – but the moment anyone looking like a Wasp agent heaves into view, it’s pass them over to her, and I can whistle for a profit.’ The old man shook his head disgustedly. ‘So, tempted as I am, I wouldn’t be selling you to the Rekef, Master Assassin, even if I could find one with his neck kept short.’ The ruined smile returned. ‘Though I thank you for giving an old man credit.’ He looked from Che to Thalric, and back. ‘A man could wonder, it’s true, how come the two of you are still on the same road as each other, so long after, and whether there wasn’t something in all those suspicions we all had about the pair of you last time. But me? I stay out of politics these days. Consensus wants to interfere with my business, then I’m damned if I’ll go an inch out of my way for them.’
Che shivered, only now appreciating that narrow escape, for of course the Mynans had thought she and Thalric were Imperial agents last time, and Che herself had narrowly avoided being tortured or killed for it. And yet here the two of them were, together again, and it was bound to make Hokiak wonder.
‘We need a guide westwards,’ Thalric announced. ‘You must know someone. We have a little wherewithal.’
‘West?’ Hokiak grimaced. ‘West ain’t so easy these days, with troops on both sides of the border.’ Seeing their downcast expressions, he held up one hand. ‘But, yes, I do business with types whose work takes them that way. Easy enough to find one who’s willing to take a couple of friends over. There are a few kicking their heels in the city even now, waiting for a commission to take them back across the border. I’ll send word out, and you can just wait here. That’s it then, is it?’
‘Nothing more troublesome than