Blindfold

Dokken frowned, then sighed. “Schandra, could you please excuse us while we finish our conversation?”

The woman, Dokken’s longtime lover, placed her hands on her slender hips and widened her coal-black eyes. Her hair was long and silky, like spun obsidian, and her features had a smooth exotic cast that spoke of an African/Asian genetic mixture. She wore a scarlet blouse and a swirling black skirt, both made of the luxurious silk that had made his holding famous. “No, Franz, I won’t just excuse you. I’ve been polite over and over again, and you always forget to make time to talk to me. A few days ago you got back from being gone for two weeks, out of touch with everyone, riding around your holding like some sort of scout, and we still haven’t talked. Maximillian won’t say a word to me—and I need to discuss our family.”

Dokken raised his eyebrows with a long-suffering expression and turned from Tharion as if begging his indulgence. “What family, Schandra? We don’t have a family.”

“Ah, now you’re getting the point, Franz. Everyone else on this planet has children, and we don’t. Is it so wrong for me to have a couple of dreams, too?” Obviously, Tharion thought, Schandra had been rehearsing the discussion with her mirror while waiting for Dokken to return from his sojourn in the outer lands.

Tharion thought about Dokken’s legendary lack of heirs, the rumors of his sterility. A great landholder such as Franz Dokken should have long ago assured his inheritance, rather than risk losing all the lands he had claimed.

Tharion sympathized with Schandra, though: he, like all Truthsayers, had been rendered sterile by constant use of the Veritas drug.

“Schandra, I don’t wish to discuss this now,” Dokken said calmly.

“When?”

“Later. Now, if you’d please leave us alone—”

“When? Can I make an appointment? You put me off every time I want to talk to you.”

“Schandra, this may come as a shock, but I don’t keep you around for your conversation skills.” Dokken’s eyes narrowed, and his voice, though soft, held an unmistakable harshness. “I did not take you under my wing and spoil you with everything a woman could want just so I would have someone to chat with.” He glared at her with a fury he rarely showed to anyone. “Now, if you don’t leave immediately, I will throw you headfirst off of this balcony. Perhaps you’ll break your neck in one of the mulberry bushes. Then who will feed your precious silkworms?”

From the landholder’s expression, Tharion didn’t think Dokken was joking.

After a frozen moment, she forced a laugh. “All right, later then. Let’s do lunch sometime.” Schandra departed, taking one of the dessert plates with her, as if as an afterthought.

“I apologize for that,” Dokken said. “Women become so incensed about little things they have no control over, yet all the while they remain blind to the Big Picture. I never promised her children, yet now she thinks she has a right to demand them.”

Tharion toyed with his empty wineglass, set it on the balcony rail, then bent to sniff one of the geraniums. “It’s none of my concern, Franz,” he said. “My wife Qrista gets incomprehensible sometimes, though with the Veritas we can’t keep any secrets from each other.”

“A frightening thought,” Dokken said.

“Sometimes it is,” Tharion admitted. “Now, about this news?”

Dokken smiled, and in that unmasked glance he seemed immeasurably ancient. “I think I might have found some way to stop the black market smuggling of Veritas. You see, by interrogating the woman you saw in the square tonight, the one who was selling the stolen drugs … I discovered her source!” He fixed Tharion with his gaze, as if daring the Truthsayer to read his mind. “I know how Veritas is being taken from First Landing and distributed among the other holdings.”

Tharion perked up. “How?”

Dokken shook his head sadly. “I regret to say the culprit was one of my own men. Cialben, my associate for twelve years. You’ve met him. He was behind it all, and I was blinded by my own trust.”

Tharion blinked. “Yes, I remember him. How did he—?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve taken care of it. After tonight, much of the black market trafficking will stop. You can rest easy.”

Tharion stiffened. “What do you mean you’ve taken care of it? Did you take matters into your own hands again? I can’t allow you to keep—”

“Oh, be quiet, Tharion!” Dokken said curtly. “You’re not thinking again. Because this smuggling is chipping away at your Guild’s power, the last thing you want is to make a public spectacle of how thoroughly you’ve failed. Who would believe in a Truthsayer’s impartiality when he’s digging for knowledge that affects the Guild’s own monopoly on Veritas? It is against the law for any person other than a legitimate Guild Truthsayer or Mediator to use the drug. No deliberation is required.

“I have taken care of Cialben, quietly and permanently. It will be an unsolved crime, but the black market smuggling will stop, at least on this end. That’s all you need concern yourself with.”

Tharion cinched his blue sash tight against the night chill that had suddenly begun to sink into his bones. He pressed his lips together, bristling at how Dokken treated him—like a child. “Where is he? A Truthsayer should interrogate him! We could get a lot more information.”

Dokken’s cool expression told him that there would be no interrogation. None at all. Tharion shook his head angrily. “When will you ever consult me before you do something like this, Franz? I deserve to be part of the decision.”

Dokken snorted with impatience and downed the rest of his wine, turning to go back to the fire and his dessert. “I have my own problems, Tharion. Some of the landholders are allying themselves against me. I can feel it, though they’re keeping it quiet. We could even have a bloodbath like the civil war sparked by Hong and Ramirez almost a century ago. That’s my main concern right now.

“For now, I’ve stopped the smuggling, Tharion—what more could you have accomplished by involving yourself? Get on with your work, and I’ll get on with mine. I need you to be strong for my coming battles.”

Then Dokken shouted for the chef to bring another plate of strawberries to replace the one Schandra had taken.

CHAPTER (#ulink_4df074de-779a-50f8-9572-34cd1c00a09e)

5 (#ulink_4df074de-779a-50f8-9572-34cd1c00a09e)

i

Dreaded anticipation made the evening pass with all the speed of a rock eroding. Troy whiled away the hours trying to concentrate on a new painting, his second of the evening. He would have to wait until it was late enough to slip into the slumber-quieted city and fix the stupid mistake he had made.

Before this mess, he had eagerly anticipated a relaxing few hours of experimenting with his new paints—carmine and burnt sienna—but now the thrill was soured. He managed to paint a coppery crimson sunset with a storm rolling in; the orange-gold rays streamed across a lush imaginary landscape sometime centuries in the future, when tall cities spread like monuments across the face of Atlas, where forests grew wild rather than trapped in rigid rectangles of conditioned soil.

But Troy felt distanced from his art, preoccupied with thoughts of dire consequences for his clumsy and unforgivable clerical mistake. He got the perspectives all wrong so that the cities were foreshortened, and the people were far too tall. The rays from the painted sunset streaked out at an astronomically impossible angle.

Terror gnawed at him. What if he got caught keying in the revised manifest schedule when he went back to the warehouse? The sol-pols would haul him off to the brig in Guild Headquarters, and he’d probably be exiled back to the Mining District. Cren would undoubtedly fire him if Troy simply apologized and tried to rectify the glitch in the light of day—though this one was far more easily fixed than his previous mistake of swapping shipments. Cren would also fire him if Troy said nothing and the manifest error wasn’t fixed. His choices seemed to funnel to this single option.

On the other hand, it was only marginally likely that someone would discover him out on the streets at this late hour. Logic continued to hammer at his brain, though his emotions were not entirely convinced. Troy shivered.

The viewplate in his living room buzzed with an incoming call. Troy jumped, leaving a trail of reddish ochre across his fresh painting. With a rueful smile he realized he might have to paint that into a meteor flashing down.

Another wash of panic brought pinpricks of cold sweat showering out of his skin as the viewplate buzzed again. Who could be calling him at this hour? Had Cren discovered Troy’s error after all, working late? Were the sol-pols giving him sufficient fair warning to pack a few belongings before they marched him off to prison? Was an arrest done that way? Troy didn’t know. He had never needed to worry about the sol-pols before.

Pale and frightened, he tapped the Receive button on the viewplate—and was astonished to see the image of his family sitting in the common room in their small communal dwelling. He laughed with relief as he realized this was the day of their weekly communication.

“Look, Rambra,” Troy’s mother said, “he’s actually glad to see us. That’s a pleasant change.”

“Must be up to something,” his father said gruffly in an attempt at humor.

Behind his parents he saw his little sister Rissbeth flaunting a new dress. Rissbeth had devoted her life to demonstrating that Troy was her natural enemy, and had done everything in her power to be his complete opposite. His older sister, Leisa, looked at him fondly. He missed her very much.

“Are you surviving in the big city?” his mother Dama asked. “How is your job? Do you have new friends yet?”

“I’m doing my best, Mother,” he answered. Always the same questions. He knew what was next.

“Have you signed up for one of the matching services? You need to be married. You are old enough. Leisa is pregnant. Did we tell you that last week?”

“Yes, you told me that last week, Mother. I’m very proud of her.”

Rambra said, “I hope that’s not the only set of grandchildren we’re going to get.” Out of view behind her parents, little Rissbeth tossed her head in challenge, as if to show Troy that she was willing to do her duty to have children.

“I haven’t signed up for the matching services yet. I haven’t had time.”