he seemed, Ricard had warned. Well, what did he seem? A dusty bookkeeper. An accountant—though admittedly the finest one in Adro. So what more could he be? Anything, Adamat supposed.
“You’re late.” The reeve didn’t bother to look up from his book as Adamat entered.
“My apologies. The streets are awfully full, with the festival and all.” Adamat didn’t bother adding how unusual it was to hold appointments on a festival evening. Something told him the reeve didn’t actually enjoy having fun.
“Save the excuses for someone else. Don’t waste my time, Investigator,” the reeve said. “I didn’t try to have Tamas killed. I have neither the patience nor time to answer your questions. The ledgers still need to be kept in Tamas’s absence.” He made a face, realizing that he had let something slip.
“So he is missing?” Adamat asked.
The reeve glared at him.
Adamat examined the reeve for a moment. Ondraus was a small man, bent from decades of leaning over a desk, shoulders hunched. His face was long, his cheeks sallow, shoulders narrow. Ondraus was one of the most well known men in Adopest. This was quite the feat, considering that he rarely showed his face in public, he had never sat for a portrait, and he reportedly tried to alienate everyone he met. Adamat could see that the last seemed to hold true. He could also see that Ondraus would not be talking about Tamas’s disappearance.
Adamat’s weeklong investigation had turned up frustratingly little. The reeve handled the nation’s treasury—with the exception of the king’s purse, though there was a rumor that that had changed with Manhouch’s execution—from that little desk in the corner. He had an office on Joon Street, which he never visited, where a team of bookkeepers did most of the labor. Everything they did was double-checked by the reeve. He had no known hobbies, no known friends. His housekeeper had been with him for forty-some years, but no one considered them to be friends. He had one bodyguard, who went with him whenever he left the house, which was rare.
Rumor had it the reeve had ridden at the hunt, that he had been there when Tamas disappeared. Adamat couldn’t picture the man on a horse.
“You don’t seem the type of man to betray his country,” Adamat said. “As the city reeve you could undermine Adro from its very heart without Kez help. It’s not a question of money. My research indicates that you’re one of the wealthiest men in Adro. You receive two hundred thousand krana a year for services rendered, and you own three million acres of farmland in Fatrasta, half a million acres of Bakashcan coastline that includes a major port, a coal mine in Deliv, and half of a trading company in Kez. I do wonder at all the foreign stock. Do you not have faith in your country?”
“You’d know if you were more thorough,” Ondraus said. “I own three gold mines and twelve Mountainwatch toll roads. I own three hundred and twelve thousand acres of vineyards, and I finance a merchants’ guild in the north.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Ask your friend, Ricard Tumblar, if you want to know more. I personally employ three thousand of his union workers in my ironworks.”
“Among other factories,” Adamat said.
Ondraus’s eyes narrowed. “You knew.”
“I was just curious what you’d catalog as the most valuable.”
“If you don’t suspect me, then why are we having this conversation?”
“I never said I don’t suspect you. I’ll admit you are low on my list. I want to know, sir, what the books tell you.”
“I don’t get your meaning.”
By the way Ondraus’s hand tightened on his ledger Adamat suspected he understood perfectly. “Money. You track everything. Even things a reeve shouldn’t know you have cataloged.” Adamat pointed at the ledger with his cane. “I’ve taken a look at your books on Joon Street. Very thorough. Very impressive.”
“Those aren’t for public eyes,” Ondraus snapped.
“I’m not the public. I had to bully my way past your clerks. They’re very loyal to you. Now, tell me, what does the flow of money tell you?”
Ondraus watched him through those bespectacled eyes for several moments before he responded. Calculations were being made, thoughts sliding into place.
“If the motive is money,” Ondraus said, “which it almost always is, then you have nothing to suspect of either the Proprietor or Lady Winceslav. I’ve had access to the Winceslav books for months now and there is absolutely nothing irregular about them. The Proprietor—well, criminal or not, he pays his taxes. Every