The Philosophical Strangler(4)

But a chokester’s agent can’t afford to let his mind wander. “Who are the King’s guardians?”

“They consist of the following,” replied Rashkuta. “First, the King has his elite soldiery, a body of twelve men, the cream of the Sundjhabi army—”

“Not to be compared to the buffoons in Sfinctrian uniform,” sneered the Prince.

“—secondly, he is accompanied by his Grand Sorcerer, one Dhaoji, a puissant thaumaturge—”

“Not to be compared to the fumbling potion-mixers called wizards in these heathen lands,” sneered the Prince.

“—and thirdly, should you penetrate these barriers, you will confront the Royal Bodyguard, Iyesu by name, who is a master of the ancient martial arts of the South.”

“Not to be compared to the grunting perspirers called fighters in your barbarous tongue,” sneered the Prince.

I looked at Greyboar. He nodded.

“We’ll take the job. Now, as to our fee. We will require ten thousand quid, payable half in advance and half upon completion. In addition, of course, to the twenty quid you owe us for this meeting.”

Our clients gaped. “But we were informed that you only charged one thousand quid for, uh, for your work!” protested Rashkuta.

“And we are only charging you a thousand quid for strangling the young master’s uncle,” I agreed cheerfully. “In addition, however, it is necessary to charge two thousand for the elite soldiers, three thousand for the unexcelled sorcerer, and a clean four thousand for the incomparable master of the martial arts. As a rule, such trifles come with the job. But—I am only respecting the Prince’s fiat—his uncle’s protectors are not to be compared to the riffraff we normally encounter in our work.” A nice touch, this. To be sure, I was demanding an outrageous fee. But I’d be a poor agent if I didn’t milk the Golden Cow when I could. “Greater greed is the greedy man’s gratuity,” as the wise man says.

“We can find another to do the job!” countered Rashkuta. But it was weak, very weak.

“Greyboar’s the best.” No boast, it was a simple fact. And by the look on their faces, our clients had already learned as much in their investigations.

Rashkuta tried to bargain, but His Adolescence cut him short.

“Pay them. We are not peasants, to squabble in the bazaar.”

You could always count on royalty. Why the world was such a madhouse. Buggers’d rather slaughter each other’s plebes than compromise their noble dignity. Parasites, the lot of them. I’d always agreed with Greyboar’s sister on that point, even if I thought Gwendolyn’s ideals were a lot of utopian nonsense.

“Going to be a bit of trouble collecting the back half of our fee,” I said to myself. It was clear from his glare that Tadpole the Terrible was not pleased with us. But I wasn’t worried about it. Greyboar was the dreamy type, true, but he was always quick enough to squeeze what was owed to us out of recalcitrant clients. That is not a metaphor. He fed them the money first. Crude, I admit, but the word got around.

Rashkuta counted out the money and slid it across the table. Naturally, he made a big production out of it, hunching his shoulders, eyes flitting hither and yon. As if a Flankn cutpurse this side of an asylum would intervene between Greyboar and his commission.

Naturally, too, he had to add: “How can we be certain that you will do the job, now that you possess such a princely sum?”

“Matter of professional ethics,” growled the strangler. Rashkuta made to press the point, but Greyboar transmuted a chunk of the oak table into sawdust, and that was that. An easy-going and tolerant sort, Greyboar, but he’d always been testy about his professional ethics.

“Where can we find the Prince’s uncle?” I asked.

“He retains a suite at the Hospice of Stupefying Opulence. You are familiar with the establishment?”

“Of course.” Wasn’t quite a lie. I’d seen the outside of the place. I was even familiar with the servants’ quarters in the back, due to a brief but torrid affair with one of the maids in my earlier years. But I’d never been in the guests’ portion of the Hospice. They catered to a rather different clientele.

“However,” I continued, “it will prove a wee bit difficult for us to saunter through the main entrance, don’t you know. Exclusive, it is. They’d as soon let in a measly baronet as a leper. Doormen standing on porters on top of bellhops. Professional busybodies, the lot of them, they send ’em to the Royal Academy of Officiousness. Desk clerks get three years’ postgraduate training. What I mean is, we can’t very well march in and announce we’ve come to throttle the King of the Sundjhab. We’ll need help getting in. Are you staying there too?”