Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,82

treasure everyone was seeking. Either one of them could have her killed, if they wished.

But she knew things they didn’t. And that was worth something.

“There’s more,” she said.

“Is there?” asked Gregor. “You omitted something from what you told me?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t tell you the part about how my client is the one who shut down all the scrivings in the Commons.”

* * *

The room fell silent. Everyone stared at her.

“What?” sputtered Orso. “What do you mean?”

“Your client?” said Gregor.

“Yeah,” said Sancia.

“One man did all that?” asked Gregor.

“Yeah,” said Sancia.

“Yeah?” said Orso, exasperated. “You can’t say something like that and then just keep saying yeah!”

“Yes. Please explain yourself,” said Gregor.

She told them about the escape, how she’d fled the fisheries and hidden in the Greens—omitting, of course, the bit about how Clef had helped her—and then she told them about the campo man, and his odd golden pocket watch.

Orso raised his hands, shaking his head. “Stop. Stop! This is insane. You’re telling me your client used one device, just one, and it somehow dampened or negated all the scrivings in the Greens, and Foundryside, and half a dozen other places to boot?”

“Basically,” said Sancia.

“One button, and all the commands and all the bindings and all the etchings just stopped?”

“Basically.”

He laughed. “It’s madness. It’s idiotic! It’s…”

“It’s like the Battle of Armiedes,” said Berenice suddenly.

“Eh?” said Orso. “What? What’s that?”

She cleared her throat. “The Battle of Armiedes, from the Occidental Empire. Long, long ago. There was a giant fleet of scrived ships, threatening to overthrow the empire. The hierophants met the fleet with but one boat—but that boat had a weapon on it, and when this weapon was used, all the ships…”

“Simply sank to the bottom,” said Orso slowly. “That’s right. I remember now. When did you learn about that, Berenice?”

“When you made me read those eighteen tomes of hierophantic history while we were negotiating with our people in Vialto.”

“Ah. Now that I think about it, it seems a bit cruel that I made you do that, Berenice.”

“That is because it was, sir.” She turned, looked at a bookcase behind her, and found one huge tome. She hauled it out, flipped it open, and scanned the lines. “Here’s the passage. ‘…but by focusing the influences of the imperiat, the hierophants were able to wrest control of all the sigillums of their foes, and discard them as if they were chaff among the wheat. And so the king of Cambysius and all his men sank to the bottom of the bay, and drowned, and were never heard from again.’ ” She looked around at them. “That description always puzzled me…but if they were describing an actual tool, it might make sense.”

Orso cocked his head and half closed his eyes. “By focusing the influences of the imperiat…Hm.”

“So it doesn’t say if it looked like a big, weird pocket watch?” asked Sancia. “Because what I saw looked like a big, weird pocket watch.”

“It doesn’t,” said Berenice. “But if the key survived, then I suppose other tools could have as well.”

“How does knowing this help us?” asked Gregor.

“It doesn’t,” said Sancia. “But I saw him. I saw his face. And he’s got to be the man running the whole crew, from the men who ambushed me at the fishery to the ones who tried to kill us just tonight. If this gold pocket watch—this imperiat, if that’s the word for it—if it’s anything like the key, he probably spent fortunes getting it. You don’t hand that off to your lieutenant. You keep it in your own damn pocket. So that must have been him.”

“What did he look like, Sancia?” asked Gregor.

“Like campo sort,” said Sancia. “Clean. Clean skin. Clean clothes. Proper clothes. Like you, I guess,” she said, pointing at Berenice. “Not like you,” she said to Orso.

“Hey,” said Orso, offended.

“What else?” said Gregor.

“Tall,” she said. “Curly hair. Stooped posture. An indoor man for indoor work. Measly beard. But he didn’t have a loggotipo, or crest, or anything so simple.”

“That is a vague description,” said Gregor. “I suspect you will now say that if you saw him, you’d recognize him. Which would be useful for you—since we’d then need to look after you.”

“If I had more, I’d tell you more,” said Sancia.

“But it could be anyone!” said Orso. “Any house! Morsini, Michiel, Candiano—or even our own, I suppose! And we’ve no way of winnowing down our options!”

“The gravity rig doesn’t tell you anything, Orso?” asked Gregor.

“No,” said Orso. “Because that thing is some unprecedented,