CHAPTER 46

“I don’t understand.” Algali’s diction left much to be desired; he was feeling his teeth with his tongue, trying to assess the damage.

“Damn it, young man, I’m not enough of an idiot to ask you whether you’re part of an underground! I’m asking – what did the men from Aragorn’s Secret Guard want with you?”

Algali was silently trying to assess the situation. The whole thing reeked of a badly staged play, complete with the valiant white-clad rescuer arriving out of a chimney at the precise moment when the princess is already in the hands of the hairy bandit chief but somehow has not yet been deflowered. At least, it would appear this way if not for a couple of things: the sword with which the mashtang has already cut his bonds was real, and so had the thrust to the jester’s chest been (judging by the sound), and the blood Algali wiped from his right cheek was real blood rather than cranberry juice. It did look like he got mixed up into someone else’s spat; in any case, it won’t get any worse than it already is.

“By the way, I am Baron Tangorn. What’s your name, fair youngster?”

“Algali, Junior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, at your service.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. Let’s analyze this situation. My sudden appearance in this house has to look staged – such coincidences happen only in books – so I look a very suspicious character to you…”

“Why, Baron, I’m extremely grateful to you,” Algali bowed with exaggerated ceremoniousness. “Were it not for your intervention, my end would’ve been tragic, indeed.

Would you believe that these people have decided that I belong to some kind of an Elvish organization…”

“Now let’s look at this from my vantage point. Forgive me, but I’ll assume that my Gondorian ‘colleagues’ were not mistaken… Don’t interrupt me!” There was a commanding clang of metal in the mashtang’s voice. “So: I have come to Umbar from Ithilien on a special mission to establish contact with the Elves and convey certain vital information to them – for a price, of course. Unfortunately, Aragorn has learned about my mission and is trying to prevent the transfer of this information, since for him it’s also a matter of life and death. His Secret Guard is hunting me. Three days ago they tried to arrest me at the Seahorse Tavern, and we’ve been playing cat-and-mouse all around the city ever since. The mouse has turned out to be a scorpion, so these games have so far cost them seven dead – eight, including this one.” He nodded nonchalantly towards the jester.

“Anyway, tonight I finally discovered one of their hideouts – 4 Lamp Street – and naturally decided to pay them a visit. What do I find? I find the Secret Guardsmen interrogating – so attentively as to neglect guarding the place – a man whom they believe to belong to the very same Elvish network I’ve been trying to locate for the last two weeks without success. So which of the two coincidences looks more suspicious to you?”

“Well, speaking theoretically…”

“Of course, purely theoretically – we have agreed to stipulate your membership in the Elvish network only for the purposes of this discussion. In any event, I’m inclined to believe your story; to be honest, I have no options. First, you need to hide…”

“No way! All these spy games of yours…”

“Are you a complete idiot? Once you’re on the list at 12 Shore Street, that’s it – you’re doomed. You will only prove your non-membership in the Elvish network by dying under torture, whereupon they’ll shrug and apologize for their mistake – maybe. So even if you know nothing of this, you have to find some hidey-hole; and I’m not about to understand your problems and offer you one of mine, mind you. Whereas if you’re indeed from the Elvish underground, then this miraculous rescue means that you have a long and elaborate debriefing by your own security service – or whatever you call it – to look forward to. In that case, you’ll simply relate all you’ve witnessed so far and tell them the following: Baron Tangorn from Ithilien is seeking to contact Elandar.”

“I’ve never heard this name.”

“You couldn’t possibly have, not at your level of clearance. So: if your commanders decide that this merits their attention, I’ll be waiting for you at seven on Friday evenings at the Green Mackerel restaurant. Make sure to tell them that I won’t deal with anyone but Elandar himself: I’m not interested in flunkies.”

After leading the stargazer out on the porch, into the night streaked with fireworks flashes, the mashtang halted his protégé: “Wait up. First, remember this house, the address, and all that – trust me, you’ll need it. Second, once I find out from this gymnast why 12 Shore Street decided to target Algali, Junior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, I’ll put his written testimony into a letter that I’ll leave for you at Mama Madino’s establishment in the Kharmian Village. All right, lad, go now. I’m going back to talk to our mutual friend while the coals are still hot in that censer.”

It did not look like the Junior Secretary took the mashtang’s warning to heart. He wandered the night streets for a while (probably and laughably looking for a tail), and then went into the Shooting Star bar, the favorite haunt of the art and bohemian crowds; the place was always crowded and now, on Carnival night, positively packed. Here, in the light, one could see that Algali did not escape unscathed: his hands shook visibly. Waiting for the bartender to mix him a Forget-me-not – a complex cocktail of eleven ingredients – he kept mechanically stacking a few coins, but his disobedient fingers kept knocking the stack over.

The bartender looked at this exercise, grunted and put the cocktail aside: “Lemme pour you some rum, buddy, it’ll do you right…” He spent a couple of morose hours in a corner talking to no one, then suddenly ordered another cocktail, after which he left the bar, took some back alleys to the Bridge of Wishes-Coming-True, totally deserted at this predawn hour, and disappeared.

Had someone been watching Algali then, he would for sure have referred to supernatural forces: the man simply vanished. Theoretically one could posit a jump into a gondola passing under the bridge, but the suspended span of the Bridge of Wishes-Coming-True is thirty feet above water; a Foreign Ministry clerk is likely incapable of such acrobatic tricks, plus the feat would require precise synchronization. At any rate, all other explanations would be no less fantastic. Of course, one could simply say meaningfully: “Elvish magic!” but those words do not explain anything; in other words, how Algali made it to a plain fisherman cabin on the shore of Barangar Bay remained a mystery.

Two hours later he stood naked in the middle of the cabin, eyes closed and arms outstretched. A slight black-haired girl who somehow resembled a sad vivino bird was slowly moving her palms along Algali’s back a hair away from it. Having examined his entire body in this manner, she shook her head negatively: “He’s clean. No magic dust.”

“Thank you, baby!” The man who sat in the corner on an dried-out barrel had a firm, calm face of a captain on a storm-shaken bridge. “Are you tired?”

“Not very.” She tried to smile, but the smile came out wan.

“Rest an hour or so.”

“I’m not tired, honest!”

“Go rest. That’s an order. Then check his clothes once again, thread by thread – I’m still concerned that they may have planted a beacon on him.” He turned to a young man in a bat costume: “What’s your story?”

“Counter-surveillance detected no tail, at least from the Shooting Star to the bridge. I followed him, since anyway I had to remove the rope ladder he used to go down to the gondola, and it was all clear.”

“Any problems?”

“None. We alerted a cover team the moment we got the danger signal – the Forget-me-not plus the tumbling coins. Over the second cocktail the bartender told him which post had the ladder, and it all went down flawlessly.”

“All right, you’re all dismissed for now. Algali, put something on and tell your story. You have my complete attention.”

***

With one last glance at the back of the Junior Secretary receding down Lamp Street, the man who called himself Baron Tangorn (it was him, in fact) returned to the first floor of the house. Work there was in full swing: the gymnast and the jester, both alive and well, were busy cleaning up the room. The jester was already out of his bloodied clothes (the baron’s sword had pierced a bladder filled with pig blood and hidden on his chest) and was now taking off the mithril mail, grimacing with pain. Seeing Tangorn, he turned to show him his side, which sported a large purple bruise:

“Look what you done, boss! Betcha you broke my rib!”

“The dungans you got cover pain and suffering. If you’re angling for a bonus, forget it.”

“Really, man – whyn’t you just stab me, careful-like? Why lay it on for real? What if that mail shirt of yours broke?”

“Well, it didn’t,” the baron responded matter-of-factly. “By the way, hand it over.”

He had painted the mail with black enamel, so that it looked exactly like ancient Mordorian armor – he had no desire to demonstrate mithril to his partners.

He turned to the gymnast, who was carefully wiping blood splatters off the armchair.

“Inspector! Don’t forget to put the censer back where it was.”

“Listen, Baron,” the other responded irritably, “don’t teach me how to clean up a scene!”

Then he recited a couple of well-known saws about an impudent son giving his father sex advice and about the main reason for not making love on the Three Stars Embankment being the passerby who would drive you nuts with their advice. Tangorn had to admit that the man had a point.

“Where did you get all this?” Tangorn fingered one of the ominous-looking pullers he fished randomly from the tin bowl.

“Just bought all his tools off a market dentist for three castamir s, plus added some handyman’s tools. Add a little dried blood and it all looks very presentable, if you don’t look too close.”

“Very well, guys, thank you for your service.” With those words he handed Vaddari and his henchman a bag of gold apiece. “Will ten minutes be enough for you to finish cleaning up?”

The inspector thought about it, then nodded. “Excellent. Your ship,” the baron turned to the jester, “sails with the dawn. In those lands fifty dungans is quite enough to set up a tavern or an inn and forever forget Umbar and its policemen. My advice is not to publish any memoirs of this night, though.”

“What’s ‘publishing memoirs,’ eh, boss?”

“That’s when someone gets drunk and starts telling stories. Or gets too smart and sends a letter to police.”

“Whatcha saying, boss? I never rat on my pardners!” The man was upset.

“Keep it up, then. Mind that Lame Vittano owes me a few and considers himself my brother, so if anything goes wrong, he’ll find you even in the Far West, never mind Vendotenia.”

“You dissing me, boss?”

“I’m not ‘dissing,’ I’m warning. Sometimes, you know, people want to get paid twice for the same job. All right, guys, farewell and hope we never meet again.”

With those words the baron walked out, hesitating at the door for a few seconds: the job awaiting him on the second floor required more than just guts.