The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson Page A

on some back page.
    Aminata’s touch on her shoulder snapped her out of her work trance. “The count’s proceeding apace, Your Excellence. The vaults are full of metals and jewels gathered for tax season, so it will take time.”
    How deep would the rot run, how high the rebellion reach? Could Ffare Tanifel’s arrangement, the corruption Su Olonori had been so desperate to root out, still be marked in the ledgers here? Was the Imperial Accountant still the key to the plot?
    When would the rebellion come for her, to court or kill?
    â€œThank you, Lieutenant.” She tapped Aminata’s hand, once then twice, the deliberate rap of a schoolteacher. “Mind your familiarity.”
    *   *   *
    I T took all day and every clerk in the bank to finish copying the ledgers, and another night for the marines, working in shifts, to count the vaults. Late in the evening Muire Lo arrived with coffee and a train of servants, and with their help Baru began shuttling the originals back to her office.
    By the letter of the law she’d gone too far. The originals had to remain on the Fiat Bank’s premises. But Baru would take the risk. She needed these records, and she needed them untampered with. If the Imperial Accounts could not be kept in order she would be powerless and blind. Without a strong arm and a sharp eye, Aurdwynn would throw her overboard and drown her.
    In her tower she found Cairdine Farrier napping behind her desk. He woke at the sound of the door, eyes slitted lazily, and considered her in smug silence for a moment. “You wanted an appointment with me?”
    Oh, to snap at him, to say the first and least wise things that occurred: That’s my desk; get out, get out of my tower, get out of my province. Or tell me what you sent me here to do.
    She unbuttoned her greatcoat with slow deliberation, folded it, and set it aside. Wine and goblets stood ready on a side table. She poured something red as if she’d picked it herself. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Please, find a seat.” A new one.
    He chuckled and stood with a low groan. Dark half-moons hung beneath his eyes. “It’s a very nice office. Lovely vaulted ceiling. This was Stakhieczi stonework, built for the new Duke of Lachta—he’s vanished, by the way. Even his sister Yawa doesn’t know where he’s gone, or so she insists. They call him the Phantom Duke, though I suspect he’s just very bashful, probably due to excessive childhood exposure to Yawa—where was I? Masonry, yes. The Stakhieczi are unparalleled, they have masonry in their bones. Shame about the previous Accountants, isn’t it?”
    â€œImmaterial to me.” She circled the desk to claim her own chair. “My job is to perform my duty to the best of my ability. The unhappy fates of Olonori and Tanifel are only history. Knowing the last Imperial Accountant was murdered would only have been a distraction.”
    This was her rebuke: why didn’t you tell me ? But Cairdine Farrier did not rise to it. Instead he shook his head in reproach. “History is never only a distraction.”
    She shrugged with affected weariness, studying him, his round face and flat nose, the weight he’d gathered during years on Taranoke. The hair at his temples had silvered. He would probably die before her, and when that day came, what would she think?
    â€œI can’t control history,” she said, “so it’s not part of my job.”
    â€œControl. Good.” He drummed his fingers at the edge of the desk. “When you speak of control I know you learned the right lessons from Taranoke. But history must be part of your job.”
    â€œYou made me an accountant. Not a scholar.”
    â€œWe do have an emperor, you know.” Cairdine Farrier sniffed his wine. “He sits on a throne in Falcrest with nurses to feed him mush and wipe his ass. When he dies, another