They'd stopped in front of a door at the side of the corridor. Nondescript. Unadorned. Adamat looked up and down the hall.
"Here?"
"Yes."
"I see."
"You were expecting something else?" the eunuch asked. "Something more grand, perhaps?"
Adamat examined the plain trappings of the hall, caught sight of a woman with a bundle of papers in her arms, wearing a long, plain dress and looking so ordinary it hurt his brain.
"No, I suppose not."
The eunuch rapped on the door.
"Come," came the brisk order.
Adamat stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
The room was very well lit, much to Adamat's surprise. It was a significantly sized office with fine wood paneling, high-arched windows, and a fireplace framed by ornate brickwork. Two well-worn chairs sat next to the fireplace, not far from the door. At the opposite end of the room was a wide desk, partially blocked by a screen. Adamat took note that, aside from the fine rug on the floor, there were no decorations.
Beside the desk sat a severe-looking woman with a sharp jawline and pronounced crow's-feet in the corners of her eyes. Her posture was immaculate, her dress smoothed over her legs. A half-knitted scarf sat in her lap.
"Inspector Adamat?" the woman asked.
Adamat nodded, looking curiously at the screen. He could hear pen scratches from behind it.
"My name is Amber," the woman said. She pronounced the word like "amba." "You must first know that if you see the master's face, even by accident, you will die."
Adamat found himself suddenly less curious as to what was behind the screen.
"Sit," the woman said, gesturing to one of the chairs beside the fire.
Adamat sat.
Amber went on. "I speak for the master. I am his mouthpiece, and you may address yourself to me as if I were he, and I will address myself to you also as if I were he. Now, I'd like to apologize for the evening you spent in our cellar. Most unfortunate."
The scratching of the pen had stopped. Adamat noticed that Amber was no longer looked at him, but behind the screen. Perhaps reading some kind of hand language from the master?
"It was wholly unpleasant, I assure you."
"To the matter at hand," the Proprietor said through Amber. "There is a man by the name of Lord Vetas that has been causing my organization no small amount of problems."
"I don't know the name," Adamat lied, wondering why he bothered. He'd already told the eunuch about Vetas and his family.
"Come now. He's kept it very quiet, but the name has been passed around the very top levels of Tamas's military cabinet. Along with yours. I'd find it a very large coincidence that my men stumbled across you following one of Lord Vetas's spies."
"Stranger things have happened," Adamat said.
"Such as Taniel Two-Shot," the Proprietor said, "a celebrated war hero, putting a bullet between the eyes of a god on top of South Pike Mountain? Or Field Marshal Tamas, one of the most reasonable men in Adro, declaring a chef the god of Adro?"
Adamat drummed his fingers on his pantleg and watched Amber as she watched behind the screen. It was disconcerting to carry on a conversation this way, but he seemed to have no alternative. "You don't believe that tripe, do you?"
"I didn't say I believed it," said the Proprietor through his interpreter. "I tend to only believe hard facts, but if I only acted on hard facts, I wouldn't be here. Half of my trade is whispers and rumors. Information."
"Information is power," Adamat agreed. "You've certainly made your living well enough."
"It's not just power, it's money. But I'll give you this for free: Field Marshal Tamas is dead."
Adamat clasped his hands together to hide the sudden shaking of his fingers. Was this true? Could the field marshal be dead? If that was the case, Adamat was suddenly without a sponsor. His campaign against Lord Vetas already had little enough backing for a man that dangerous, but sixteen soldiers and an open checkbook was nothing to scoff at. Adamat wasn't sure he was prepared to take on Vetas alone.
"How do you know?" Adamat said when he trusted himself to speak. His voice wavered.
"I received this missive from General Hilanska of the Second Brigade just this morning." A hand reached out from behind the screen and gave a note to Amber. She in turn gave it to Adamat. "I assume his other councillors – Lady Winceslav, Prime Lektor, Ondraus the Reeve, and Ricard Tumblar – all received the same note."
Adamat slipped the silk ribbon off the note and unrolled it. The letters were Adran, but the single paragraph gibberish.
"A cipher?" Adamat said.
"Indeed. It says -"
Adamat cut him off. "That Kresimir has returned and Field Marshal Tamas was cut off behind enemy lines with only two brigades. He's presumed dead."
Silence from the Proprietor. Amber stared behind the screen for several moments. Her eyes opened a little wider before she delivered the Proprietor's response. "That was … impressive."
Adamat gave the missive back to Amber. "A perfect memory makes ciphers very easy to decode. I spent two summers as a boy memorizing the keys to over four hundred different ciphers, both common and uncommon. That one is extremely rare, but I don't forget. Kresimir. I thought Taniel Two-Shot put a bullet through his eye?"
"Gods. Rumors. I've built this empire in Adro's underworld by making very good guesses, and my guess here is that General Hilanska wouldn't say such a thing unless he believes it fully."
Adamat leaned back. He stared at the screen, feeling less intimidated for some reason. What was behind that screen? What kind of a person? The hand Adamat had seen reach out was old, obviously male, with manicured nails. The Proprietor didn't spend his whole life behind a screen. Somewhere else he had an assumed identity. One that allowed him to move about in public.
"Only a handful of people in Adopest know this information," Adamat said. "Why tell me?"
The Proprietor seemed to hesitate. "Because it puts you to the wind. Tamas was your employer."
"And you want to employ me?" Adamat felt his hackles rise. In all his life he never thought he'd have a job offer from the Proprietor himself.
"Ricard Tumblar will ask you to help with his campaign for the new ministry. He'll offer to pay well. I can pay better. Other than that, what role could you possibly fill? A place back on the police force? I don't think you want to be walking the streets in uniform over the next few years."
"What would you hire me to do?"
"That brings me around to my first question. What interest do you have in Lord Vetas?"
Adamat tilted his head to the side. The Proprietor didn't know about Adamat's wife. Which meant the eunuch hadn't told him yet. It also meant either the Proprietor wasn't working for Lord Vetas or that he was not close enough that Vetas had told him about Adamat.
"He has my wife. I'm going to find him, rescue my wife, and kill Lord Vetas."
Adamat heard a low chuckle from behind the screen. He couldn't help but scowl.
"Perfect," the Proprietor said through Amber. "Just perfect."
"Why should you care about Lord Vetas?"
"As I said, he's been causing problems for my organization."
"What kind of problems?"
"Ones that I can't handle without things becoming very noisy. He has at least sixty enforcers, and one of them is a Privileged."
Adamat's heart jumped. A Privileged? Pit, how could he deal with something like that? "It might help if you were more specific about the problems."
"None that concern you."
Adamat smoothed the front of his shirt again. "A turf war, maybe? Vetas is moving in on your sources of revenue? Stirring up trouble in the underworld? Stealing your manpower, maybe?" That would explain why Roja the Fox was one of the guards holding Adamat's children hostage – but if Roja had gone over to Vetas without the Proprietor's blessing, it meant that Roja thought Vetas the stronger of the two.
A scary thought indeed.
"None," the Proprietor said, Amber's translation somewhat icy, "that concern you. This meeting is over. You may leave."
Adamat blinked at the abruptness of it. "You don't want to hire me?"
"Not anymore."
"And you're not going to kill me?"
"No. Out."
Adamat stood and examined the room once more, careful not to focus too much on the screen. Everything here was of a very fine quality, but not handcrafted. The paneling was milled, the candelabras secondhand. Even the desk looked like the kind that were made a dozen-a-day at a large carpenter's workshop. Nothing here that could be traced.
Except the rug. Gurlish, by the design, and even to an inexperienced eye the fibers were finely woven.
Adamat fished inside his jacket for a handkerchief. He blew his nose noisily and dropped it, then bent and snatched it from the floor, making sure to look away from the Proprietor's desk.
When he stood, Amber still had the expectant look on her face that told him he'd overstayed his welcome. She glanced toward the door and he nodded.
Outside, the eunuch stood by the door.
"Stay here," he said, going into the Proprietor's office.
Adamat took the moment alone to examine the fibers in between his fingers. There were only a few, all crinkled and dry. He couldn't tell them from the lint in his pocket. But he knew a woman who might be able to identify them.