enter the villa at night. If caught, the consequences would be severe, but he couldn’t conduct a full investigation without a thorough search.
SouSmith went straight to the guest bedroom to change, and Adamat went to his office, feeling his way through the old, familiar home without the lights on. The smell of sweetbell, still very faint, was strongest in his office. He opened the liquor cabinet, removing a bottle of brandy, and poured out three glasses. He took one of them and sat down in his chair, lighting a match and setting it to the end of his pipe. He took a few deep puffs, making sure it was lit, and breathed the smoke out through his nose. He touched the match to his lantern wick.
“I’ve had a long day,” he said. He pressed the cool glass to his forehead and examined the man in the corner through the slits of his eyelids.
The man blinked in the sudden light of the lantern, his mouth slightly open. His skin, hued with an almost reddish tint, marked him from Gurla, while his pudgy face and a body flabby around the middle and soft like a woman’s betrayed that he had been castrated sometime before puberty. His head was shaved and he had no facial hair whatsoever.
Adamat gestured to one of the glasses on his desk. “Drink?”
The eunuch had been standing in the corner, hands folded within a long-armed robe. He stepped forward slowly. “How did you know I was here?” he asked. His voice was pitched high, like a child’s.
“I’ve heard about you,” Adamat said. “The Proprietor’s silent killer. It’s said you can appear and vanish without a trace. I’ve been an investigator for a very long time. Even the very best leave scratches when they pick a lock.”
“You are being followed by a number of people,” the eunuch said. “Field Marshal Tamas, agents of Lord Claremonte. How did you know it was me?” He sounded genuinely curious.
Agents of Lord Claremonte? Adamat tried not to let surprise show on his face. So that was Lord Vetas’s employer? “I’ve been expecting a visit from you since Tamas set me after his traitor. It had to come sooner or later.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Adamat raised his glass in recognition of the question, but did not answer.
The eunuch stepped up to the desk. He examined the glass of brandy but did not drink. SouSmith entered the room in nightclothes and a dressing gown. SouSmith paused. Adamat noticed his fists tighten, but that was the only reaction he gave to the eunuch’s presence.
“Hello, SouSmith,” the eunuch said. He inclined his bald head toward the boxer. “We haven’t seen you in the Arena for some time. We’d wondered when you were going to come back to us.”
SouSmith sniffed, as a bear might when it senses a snake. “When the Proprietor stops trying to kill me,” he said.
“Have a drink, my friend,” Adamat said to SouSmith.
SouSmith took his glass and retreated to the doorway to position himself in the only exit. The eunuch seemed unconcerned.
“I presume you’ve come because of my investigation,” Adamat said.
The eunuch’s face took on a businesslike seriousness. “My master instructs me to answer any of your questions, within reason, that will satisfy you that he is not the traitor you seek.”
Adamat considered this. He already knew why the Proprietor supported Tamas: Part of the Accords included a Kez police force that would have drastically changed the criminal underworld of Adopest—the Accords specifically mentioned the Proprietor’s head in a basket. They knew he was too powerful in the criminal underworld to leave alive. Hidden identity or not, the Kez would have torn Adopest apart until they found him.
With the danger of the Accords passed, the Proprietor might want to promote further chaos by removing Tamas. However, the Proprietor faced the same problems as many of his fellow council members. If Tamas died, then Kez was all the more likely to win the war, and the measures they sought to prevent in the Accords would be imposed anyway, and more besides.
“Why so forthright?” Adamat asked.
“My master has no interest in you putting your nose into his affairs—you have a certain reputation among his colleagues for unswerving doggedness. However, Tamas has made it clear that having you killed will attract his attention in a most unpleasant way. The easiest way to go about this is to get it over with.”
“Pragmatic,” Adamat muttered. Was the Proprietor being practical, or was he trying to manipulate Adamat’s investigation away from