Chương 179: Chapter 200: The Chessmasters

I am under no illusions that I'm the grand chessmaster in this mix. In the subjects of mathematics and the sciences, I am a revolutionary genius. History will look back on this as Natalie's Renaissance, the new enlightenment of knowledge. In the subject of magic I'm somewhere between a rare curiosity and an avant-garde trailblazer. But in strategy, subterfuge, and the subtle side of soft politics?

I'm an unusually-canny child with no education in these matters and a lot of 'unlearning' to do before I understand anything, surrounded by people whose families have spent centuries honing their techniques of inference and influence and teaching their children these ways from early years and testing them, training them, honing them until they were adults where they would spend decades of experience mastering these trades.

Forget the Grennicks, most of the Greifir have more experience than I do at navigating obfuscation and obtenebration, and they're a caste of warrior-priests devoted to personal honor. So my estimation of my position tends to waver between "the least competent negotiator in this room" to "helplessly and hopelessly in over my head". I try to cover that with confidence but the simple fact is that my talent and training lie elsewhere. For a year and a half, this has been my handicap and my hampered hardship.

And now I'm finally going to overturn this issue.

"Ah, Wolloem, you do good business with the Kadot clan, yes? Could you be so good as to find out whether their stand here is representative of Brunbling policy or in spite of it?" And like that, I've taken one of the Harigolds that is much better-trained in this subject and whisked him off to find out whether the Lesser House is signaling the true intentions of the Marquis, or if this is their attempt to foster enough support to break away from the Brunblings.

I've got resources, experts, connections, subordinates: it's time to act like it. Instead of scampering about to overturn every stone with my own hands like I had been doing, I now sat back in a cocoon of friendly faces, and with a suggestion or a polite request I mobilized sharp-witted operatives to do the hard parts for me. I've got people to cover for my weaknesses now.

People who can take the raw data, fourteen dimensions of whispered allusions and shadowy subtext, and weave these cobwebs into a page that I can read in the daylight. Pages I can hole-punch and assemble into a ledger and timestamp my entries so that the myriad mysteries of this inscrutable infidelity can be scribed and screened and cross-referenced. This whole cloud of nebulous hints can be turned into something that even the most literal mind can understand.

I whisked three more distant relatives off to errands or errata, before I made it to the warm beating heart of Harigold hospitality.

"Hi Petty. Hi Bruce."

"Natalie."

"Cousin Nat." They gave me respectful nods. The atmosphere here was different. Usually when I met them, I was running into distant cousins at a social event, their people and my people coordinating to put us near each other. Today these were my lieutenants waiting for my arrival.

"You've both been well?" I asked, expectantly. Bruce shrugged noncommittally, but Petty looked annoyed.

"So, on Twoday I made a major leap in progress on that investigation. The Cerulean Circus. I thought I had a weak point I could put leverage on. And then the next day, he's dead in a mysterious carriage accident that doesn't even injure anyone else but leaves him looking like a dozen thugs with a grudge spent all night making sure he did not know anything he wasn't telling."

"Ah," I said.

"So, you were close to something?" I moved us further into the corner, the easier to watch the room.

"I was as close as I could be without knowing what I was close to," she said bitterly.

"A distribution officer for the royal reserve warehouses. A government officer in contact with lots of departments, could have potentially been bought off by any of the Houses. Interrogating him would have been a treasure trove, but his corpse gives me nothing to work with." Good thing I know where to find necromancers in abundance. I cleared my throat.

"Keep investigating other routes. I... possibly have some help to offer here. But I will need to check in with some people, very privately." I gestured and an empty standing-table lifted itself and drifted our way. The gesture was not really necessary, but it does feel very natural to make some degree of motion to focus intention. And, making a 'magical' gesture helps the people around you understand that something is happening, so they won't startle so much when a table bumps down in front of them.

She smiled tightly.

"Thank you. I have been investigating these disappearances for months, and it seems like every week I get more invested. Something very unsavory is going on there." I grimaced, but only slightly. My makeup was not conducive to that and I did not want to crease Zyco's work.

"I suspected, and I'm sorry. I will happily help how I can." As long as I don't have to get close to it myself. I've got enough going on without being confronted by some kind of sex-crimes network.

"Surprised you arrived alone," Bruce put in.

"I keep hearing about this rotating selection of young men you plus-one to social events, but it seems like I never see them."

"I tend to fly solo when I'm at politically meaningful events," I said.

"And that tends to be most of where your calendar and mine intersect. I could bring one of my fellas, but I suspect that could raise the odds of them being assassinated just to spite me." I reached out with two fingers into a burning-white hole in space, and plucked out a thick brass coin. I started it spinning on the table next to us, and it stood upright, balancing itself perfectly without slowing at all. I leaned my elbow on the table and glanced around the room.

"Nathan's decided to make himself a bother today," I told them, scanning over the room. Petty tensed up.

"What has he done?"

"He told me that he believes in me." Ah there he is, over by the Aumerje. No doubt advising them on how to keep me pinned with that obnoxious contract. They have not yet attempted to enforce its terms or bring me in, but I'm pretty sure they're biding their time while they get something ready. Odds are that whatever 'assessment' Inquisitor Pina has planned for me is going to be something special and terrible.

"Believes in you."

"Mm-hm." Petty and Bruce shared a look. This time at least I knew what it meant.

"Seems sinister enough to me," he said dryly.

"Hopefully soon he'll back off and just betray you to the royals and the magisters some more."

"I worry less when I know he's lashing out at me," I said, still staring across.

"When he does things that don't make sense, that's when I get worried. That usually means that I've been falling behind and I didn't even know it." Bruce had to chuckle.

"I know I've never been on anyone's list of best siblings and my personality would strain things with Wendy sometimes," he said.

"But what you and your brother have going on is uniquely fucked up." Petty rolled her shoulders.

"I don't know about uniquely-" The brass coin was still spinning, and I looked at it almost in annoyance. Nothing. Nathan glanced my way as if feeling my attention. I waved my fingers at him with a cheeky little smile, then I looked away with a scowl.

"What is that, anyway?" Bruce asked, nodding to the spinning brass coin.

"The Scryer's Gyre. It lets me know when he takes any action against me," I said.

"In word or deed, in outcome or intention. If he denigrates me behind my back, or shares my secrets, or if he says something innocuous that turns someone against me. If he just calls me to the attention of someone who wishes me ill. And yet... nothing. He could not be more well-behaved."

"Good," Bruce said firmly. I sighed in annoyance, and a little depression.

"I want to say it's good. But honestly it just makes me more suspicious. Nobody should be able to avoid doing something against me with terms that nebulous. But there's... nothing."

"And if he was doing something?" Petunia prompted.

"I'm not sure. Snowballs? Maybe send an owl to harass him. Yank his feet out from under him. Shards of glass. Something, something to lash out at him. To show him that he can't mess with me any more. And now... nothing. Can't even get my revenge because he's being a perfect little angel."

"-never mind, Bruce was right," Petty said sourly.

"You two have something uniquely fucked up." I feel like she might be judging me just then. I stared at the coin some more, willing it to give me a reason to fuck him up again.

"This will stop spinning when Nathan starts taking action directly or indirectly against me," I told them.

"So why does it feel like he knows? Is that a sibling thing, that they can tell exactly how far you can be pushed?"

"You have a magic coin that tells you exactly when your brother is betraying you so that you can send owls to dive at him? That's... actually a lot more normal sibling behavior than I expected," Bruce said, adjusting his glasses.

"But I'm not taking back what I said." The atmosphere here was not festive, but restive. Knots of people going through the motions of pleasant conversation while they shot open glares or sneaky glances at the other clusters. Schemes would hatch, fledge, fly and die in the course of an hour. Allegiances were color-coded for visual clarity, but also disguised by those same colors as splinter groups or ambitious blocs would surge within the Houses trying to influence the larger body towards one path or another.

The dimmed lights and sound-swallowing draperies concealed a great many sins. Dark red carpets, dark red curtains, ceilings lost to darkness and glossy teak-black furniture. The space was wide open and level, broken only by the supporting columns that were mantled with asymmetric arras and created covert alcoves to cozen the coven. At normal galas there would be more breakage of the space, gardens and mezzanines, and the venue would be structured to keep people on the move- churning, as I like to think of it.

Something to keep the cliques unclasped and the camps unpacked so that people would mingle, socialize, expand their social horizons. But, I have to assume by design, Fashion is different. No central tables, no dance floor, no music. No angled entries to the catering service corridors, no side rooms or breezy exits. Instead, it was structured so that people would find their group and stay there.

Servers came from several doorways and would travel by straight lines, which created radial lanes and helped segregate the space. Two restroom exits only, the sole entrance and exit for guests was a narrow doorway to the vestibule that would not accommodate heavy traffic, brightly lit on the other side so that anyone moving to or past the door would be backlit and highlighted.

I'm not saying that this space was built to foster divisions and suspicions, but I think that someone noticed its aptness for that and that is why the Hall of Arts main display space became the standing standard venue of the Fashion Week main event. And now I am sconced in a corner, overseeing all, with the rest of the room arrayed in order of allegiance to yours truly. The best clique is my clique, the best faction is my faction.

This is the platform from which I'm going to take enough power that nobody can stop me from saving the world. Instead of navigating the floor trying to find the right meetings, I posted hopeful adherents to the periphery to receive and relay messages now. It sounds so strategic, but in practice it just looked like "Ah, Stivin, I'm going to be tucked away with Petty and Bruce for most of the evening, if anyone comes looking for me would you be a dear? Thank you so much!"

And instead of trying to winnow answers out of the other houses, I would mostly delegate to Bruce and Petty. This was a matter for a delicate touch- the best outcome was to task the right people for each job. So if Great-Uncle Wolloem has numerous business ventures with different Kadot investors, and married the cousin of the current Kadot earl, and vacationed with the main advisers to that house, then obviously Wolloem is the person I should ask to find out how authentic Kadot's current overtures were.

But I don't know that stuff because that's what Nathan was being taught back when I was being loaded up on geography and the main exports of every district and township of Meadowtam. My intended role had been to marry out and make sure that whoever I was sold off to would have a good impression of Meadowtam. Instead, I'm sitting in the seat that he was intended for. Fortunately, both Bruce and Petty did have extensive training in the family tree and all its assets, so I could borrow that expertise.

They knew all the Great-Uncle Wolloems, but they don't know the significance behind the fact that Pailser was positioned opposite from Tannerly. That's my job. Complementary expertise.

"Evening, m'lord, m'ladies," said the jovial-looking great-uncle.

"I poked around a little bit, easy enough. Funny thing was what nobody was saying. Sure I asked my wife's relations and they were mute about the standing. But then I talked to the merchant Kadot, and they didn't have anything to say neither," he said, tapping his nose and giving me a wink. I gave him a nod and the same gesture back, and he found some other members of the House to stand and gossip with.

"The hell does that mean?" Bruce snorted.

"Kadot's two branches never agree on anything, except that they do not question orders that come down from Brunbling," I told him.

"So that means that Kadot House is under orders not to tell anyone why they're posted over next to us instead of nestling under the wing of the parent house. Not to lie, just not to say. That means they're not spying like Pailser is, and that means that Marquis Brunbling told Earl Kadot to come over here and spend some time. The Marquis will be telling the other Dominionists that the Kadot are over here to spy on us. But it's actually a message to us to let us know that Brunbling sends as much support as it can.

They can't be too overt because all Freckentop has to do is twitch interest rates the wrong way and Brunbling will go bankrupt and lose everything. This is the most they can feasibly do right now, and they're doing it."

"Yeah?" Petty prompted.

"It means that Brunbling would support us if they could, and if I adjust circumstances so that they can jump ship, they will jump ship."

"Damn," Bruce said, shaking his head.

"You really think you can pry entire Houses out of the Dominionists? Right out from under Freckentops' noses?"

"Cousin, I've already got two plans in the works and three backup contingencies to do exactly that," I chuckled.

"Now, where's little Stethanie? She's supposed to bring me some tidbits on Tannerly."

"Which one's that?" Petty asked.

"Duskare's cadet," I said, chuckling.

"They got brought up from the minors because of their alchemical innovations."

"How do you know all this stuff?" Bruce asked, shaking his head. A rhetorical question. Funny, considering he knew every birthday and shoe size of every Harigold within fifty feet of us, as well as the names of everyone that had been short-listed for their engagement. They've got their knowledge base, I've got mine, and the lack of overlap makes us both stronger. So maybe I'm not the expert chessmaster outmaneuvering all the others here. But I think I'm gonna do just fine.