An Investment in Betrayal
"I'm not qualified to be head of the house."
"What are you on about? Is it that damn law?"
Perhaps because he was a swindler, Loomdrax knew the law well too. You had to know it inside out to slip past it cleanly — so I supposed it made sense. When I nodded, his face turned serious.
"So you were planning to take the seat legally. Well, that would be why you said you'd marry the prince. Then there's nothing left to puzzle over."
"Exactly. But as you know, marrying right now is out of the question."
"Hmm. Then your only options are finding a new guardian, or seating Count Kolkos in the chair and turning him into a puppet."
It was the kind of thing only Loomdrax could say, knowing the guardianship system from books alone. The instant someone became your guardian, he held power second only to the head of the house. And who would hand over power like that without a fight? In the end, trimming a guardian's authority back down would mean pouring in an ocean of effort.
That time! That cost! Not that I couldn't shoulder it, but with a shortcut sitting right there, I refuse to take the long way around. And there was the risk of failure to worry about, too.
I could become head of the house myself, and yet I was meant to go through the whole rigmarole — appoint a guardian, wait until I came of age, and spend the years in between scrambling to strip his authority away? Absolutely not. When I shook my head, Loomdrax asked:
"You said the only way you can become head of the house is by marrying Prince Cassion. And marriage's off the table for now. So what's the best result you can walk out of this meeting with?"
"An extension of the guardian appointment."
"There's a deadline set down in law, you know. It ought to be kept."
A swindler, lecturing me about obeying the law. Goosebumps prickled up my arms.
"I did some digging — it's possible if the vassals never request a guardian appointment. Not indefinitely, but it buys me at least another year of leeway."
"There's your answer, then. Make sure they can't request one."
Loomdrax made it sound so simple that for a heartbeat it actually felt simple. It was anything but. The vassals needed the Ehrenberg family's subsidies.
"So pay them yourself. You're rich. You've got Phoenix Bank, and the savings guild's money besides."
Every last bit of that had its own appointed use. And handing over coin whenever someone cried poor was a fine way to breed bad habits.
"All right, enough. I'll think on it myself, so out you go."
I flapped my hands at him — shoo, shoo — and Loomdrax backed toward the door, grumbling under his breath.
"I'm bored."
Did he take me for a parlor word game to fill his idle hours?
"Then go swindle someone, since you're so bored. Ah — swindle!"
The moment the word left my mouth, a brilliant idea flashed as I looked at him.
"What, you want me to go sweet-talk the noble ladies again? Not doing it. That scratch on my nape from last time's gone and festered into a proper wound."
Loomdrax tugged down his shirt collar and shoved the "wound" in my face.
"Festered, my eye — there's not a mark on it, smooth as porcelain. And anyway, I'm not asking you to run a con!"
"I don't con you or your inner circle. Con them and there'll be trouble," Loomdrax said, more resolute than I'd ever heard him.
But this time, what I meant to ask of him was not a con.
"That's what I keep telling you. This time, I intend to shake everyone's trust in Count Kolkos."
I beamed at him; Loomdrax wore the expression of a man who hadn't the faintest idea what I meant.
On a night when the moon shone full and bright, I sat alone in a private dining room. Spread before me was a feast so generous that even two grown men would have left some behind.
Though steaming, succulent dishes sat within arm's reach, I touched not a bite. Right now, listening mattered far more than eating.
"Good day to you, Lord Noanda. I am Rudras, the man in charge of operations for the Rofiipa Trading Company of Brooke Kingdom."
Loomdrax's disguised voice drifted in from the next room along with his greeting. He had forged an identity for the meeting with Noanda. The Rofiipa Trading Company of Brooke Kingdom was real, and a sizable concern at that. Only the man called Rudras was a fabrication.
"A pleasure. I am called Noanda, secretary to Count Kolkos. I understand you were looking for me."
Noanda, who had been waiting in advance, scrambled halfway up from his seat to receive him.
I pressed my ear flat against the thin wall. Just beyond it, Loomdrax was meeting with Noanda — Count Kolkos's closest confidant.
"I was told you wished to discuss business with Count Kolkos."
"Oh dear, then the message was quite garbled on its way to you. I have come to see you, Lord Noanda."
Way to go, Loomdrax!
I could picture Noanda's expression perfectly — the flicker of surprise as those words landed. Which is to say: I was eavesdropping on the conversation between Loomdrax and Noanda.
"Hahaha. Me? I am nothing but a humble aide to Count Kolkos. And yet you seek me out, of all people... What is it, exactly, that you require?"
Noanda's eyes glinted sharp as knives.
Loomdrax, who knew perfectly well that Noanda was no easy mark, straightened in his seat.
"Your food is getting cold. Let's dine while we talk."
He said it to thaw the air, but Noanda only glared at him, not so much as lifting a fork.
Noanda had served at Count Kolkos's side for more than ten years.
Count Kolkos was a simple man, but one with enormous room to grow. He had been born grasping, as mere givens, the very things Noanda himself might never obtain even if he died and was born again: a great house, noble blood, and a title.
And if Noanda wished to climb higher in this world, there was no rope to grasp quite like Count Kolkos.
"And what is your dream, my lord?"
Noanda showed no intention of eating a single bite, so Loomdrax lost interest in the food as well. He had posed the question while dabbing at the corner of his mouth; met with nothing but a few slow blinks, he smirked and pressed on.
"I'll come straight to the point. Just how long do you intend to spend your life wiping up after Count Kolkos?"
Noanda's face crumpled. So the master of the Rofiipa Trading Company was one of those parvenus who'd stumbled into riches on sheer luck — and plainly the men in his employ were as vulgar-tongued as their master.
"Count Kolkos's dream is a remarkably ambitious one, I hear. Has it truly never occurred to you that you are being used for that dream?"
Loomdrax half hoped Noanda would take the bait, flush with anger, and spill what the Count's ultimate goal actually was. But Noanda proved, as ever, no easy catch.
"Used? Whatever do you mean?"
"People who tended to Count Kolkos's affairs and then vanished overnight, without a squeak — they are too many to count on one hand."
Loomdrax drew a slip of paper from his pocket and held it out.
Billy
Jacob
Billy and Jacob. Noanda knew them too — thugs who would seize anyone who borrowed from Count Kolkos and failed to repay, beat them within an inch of their lives, and wring out double the sum. But what were those two doing on this list?
"I don't know them," Noanda said flatly. Yet the eyes that said it were wavering, ever so slightly.
"If you don't know them, then nothing to be done. Only this — nothing guarantees that you, Lord Noanda, won't end up just like Billy and Jacob."
"As I said. I don't know them."
At which Loomdrax chimed in with a soothing "Of course, of course. How could you possibly."
"Let's speak of investment, then. I want to put my money not into Count Kolkos, but into you, Lord Noanda. That venture the Count means to launch this time — what was it again? Let us run it under your name."
Loomdrax began his pitch in earnest.
"The idea came out of your head in the first place, didn't it? How would the Count, with that shallow brain of his, ever have conceived something so brilliant? And yet you handed over the idea — and what did you get for it? Surely you don't count that monthly salary of yours as fair payment."
"Think, man. The money you stand to make from this venture is staggering. All you need do is resign, and start the business before Count Kolkos can. I'll front the capital. In return, when you walk out, simply state — clearly — why you are leaving. You know the reason better than anyone. Say what you are feeling at this very moment. The fear that you might be betrayed."
"Wh-who are you?" Noanda shot to his feet, having heard the pitch through to the very end.
"Let us pretend this never happened."
"Suit yourself. But if your heart should change, we meet again at this restaurant, two days from now. Ah, what a shame — all this lovely food going to waste."
Without so much as a glance at Noanda, who stood there trembling where he'd risen, Loomdrax picked up his fork and knife and set about the meal with real dedication.
Noanda exhaled a few rough, furious breaths over Loomdrax's head, then flung the door open and stormed out.
Loomdrax waved a lazy hand, cheeks stuffed with meat.
And a short while later, Diana came into the room.
"Eating all by myself — so lonely, Diana." Loomdrax whined, yanking off his wig and flinging it aside.
"So? Do you think that Noanda fellow will waver?"
"Going by his eyes alone, he was already trembling with the sense of being betrayed. Looks as though something in the past truly poured oil on that suspicion of his — that Count Kolkos might one day throw him away."
"Ah, there was. He went halves on a venture with a friend once, and the moment business turned a profit, he snatched up every last of the man's shares and threw his friend into a cell."
Loomdrax nodded. He swallowed what was in his mouth, rinsed it out with water, and then fixed Diana with a serious look.
"What's the story with Jacob and Billy? I read your script word for word, but you didn't dirty your hands with anything nasty, did you?"
Loomdrax had proclaimed he would raise Diana into a swindler of the century, yet the moment she moved to set foot into the world of darkness, something in him recoiled.
She's still young, that's all. Raise her a little longer, and then — a proper con artist...
Loomdrax burst out laughing at his own thoughts. He had started running cons at eight, younger than Diana. It had been swindle or starve in those days — which meant he was hardly in any position to scold her for dipping a single toe into the dark.
"What do you take me for? Jacob and Billy accepted enough coin to last them a lifetime and departed for another territory. Their house was dressed up to look burgled, too."
So when Noanda, rattled by Loomdrax's words, went digging for Billy and Jacob, all he would find was a disappearance — or a midnight flight. As though someone had been hunting them down.
But the pair did have crimes to answer for, so I saw them safely out of sight — and half a day later, I reported them to the constabulary myself.
Everything after that, I'd leave to fate.
"Well, well. Clever little thing, aren't you? The more I look at you, the fonder I get."
Diana grinned.
"All I need is for Lord Noanda to hand in his resignation at Count Kolkos's residence and, on his way out, let fall a single line — that the man is hard to trust. After that, they'll sow their own seeds of suspicion without any help from us."
A man who had devoted ten years of his life to Count Kolkos, turning his back on him. That alone would strike a heavy blow at the trust Count Kolkos commanded.
The seeds of doubt sprouted fast. Word arrived that Noanda and Count Kolkos had torn into each other at a teahouse.
And two days later, Noanda came looking for Loomdrax.
"Count Kolkos never had the slightest intention of sharing any profit with me!"
Listening to Noanda's bursting voice from the next room, I let a knowing smile curl my lips.
"That investment — make it in me!"
I would supply the money. Which meant it was now Noanda's turn to move for me.