Orca by Steven Brust

they’ve been denied by birth; I don’t know. I’m just giving it to you as it hit me at the time. She was sitting at a table—not a desk, for a change—and reading a book, or pretending to. She looked up as I came in and gave me a quizzical half-smile, then rose to greet me; she was quite thin and had very short, light-colored straight hair—a “warrior’s cut,” in fact, which went oddly with her dress, which was a flowing blue gown. She had the Orca eyebrows—almost invisible—a largish mouth and thin lips, narrow, wide-set eyes, and a strong chin. Her voice had a bit of the twang of the region, but not as much as our hostess has, or most of the people we’ve been running into around here, and it was quite musical sounding. She said, “Your name again was—?”
    “Kaldor, my lady.”
    “You wished to speak to me?”
    “Yes, my lady, if I may have a few moments.”
    “You may. Please sit. Here. What is your business?”
    And here, Kiera, is where I paid the price of deceit. Maybe. Because it occurred to me that I might just be able to come out and ask her if she’d be willing to let us buy this land, or at least plead the case. But if she said no, and she was then questioned by Domm, they’d have no trouble tracing me back, and that could be unhealthy.
    I said, “My condolences, my lady, on the death of your father.”
    She raised an eyebrow—it looked like a practiced maneuver—and said, “Yes, certainly.”
    I said, “It is the death of your father that brings me here.”
    She nodded again.
    I said, “I have reason to believe the Empire is not looking into his death as seriously as they should.”
    “That’s absurd.”
    “I don’t think so, my lady.”
    “Why?”
    “I can’t tell you exactly.”
    “You can’t tell me?”
    I shook my head. I said, “If you would like, though, a friend of mine who knows something about it will come by, and he can tell you more—he just wanted me to find out if you cared.”
    “I care,” she said. “But I don’t believe it.”
    “But will you talk to my friend?”
    She stared at me very hard, then said, “All right. When can I expect him?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “I’m not to say, my lady. He’ll identify himself as my friend, though.”
    She looked at me for quite a while, then nodded and said, “All right.”
    I stood up and bowed. “I’ve taken enough of your time, I think.”
    She stood, which was a courtesy I hadn’t expected, and as I left, the servant came and escorted me to the door. I left the way I’d come and began walking back to town. What had I accomplished? I’m not certain, but I had left a way open for me to return in some other guise, even as myself, if it seemed appropriate.
    I considered the matter as I walked. The day was still young, and I had a long way to go to reach the Baroness of Reega, and my feet were killing me.
    Reega lived on a hill—I guess the rich always live on hills, maybe because the aristocrats do—called Winteroak, which was on the northern edge of Northport, overlooking the Kanefthali River Valley. It was quite a hike, so as soon as I was out of sight of Endra’s place I sat down long enough to remove the black Phoenix Stone and perform a quick spell to make my feet feel better. I couldn’t do a whole lot without letting the watchers know what I was up to, but it helped. I put the Phoenix Stone back on and continued. If they were like me when I was following someone, they would have noticed at once that they couldn’t locate me either psychically or sorcerously, and they’d wonder about that, but my luck would have to be awfully bad for them to pick that moment to try again. Sometimes it’s worth a certain amount of risk to alleviate discomfort.
    This is a funny part of the world, Kiera. Have you noticed it? The landscape, I mean. Maybe it’s because we’re so far north of the equator, or because the Kanefthali Mountains start only a few hundred miles