City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(9)

“Suit yourself. But Bulikov, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is quite different. It has structures that remain in place, inflexible to our influence. And I don’t just mean the walls. Why, just three months ago the polis governor had to stop them from hanging a woman for taking up with another man—I am sorry to discuss such a thing before a young woman, but—for taking up with another man after her husband died. And the man had died years ago! The City Fathers would not listen to me, of course, but Mulaghesh …” He trails off. “How odd it is that the city most decimated by the past is the also the city most dead-set against reform, don’t you think?”

Shara smiles and nods. “I agree entirely.” She tries very hard to avoid looking at the painting hanging over his shoulder. “So you do possess Dr. Pangyui’s remains?”

“What? Oh, yes,” he says around a mouthful of biscuit. “I apologize—yes, yes, we do have the body. Terrible thing. Tragedy.”

“Might I examine it before its transport?”

“You wish to see his remains? They are not … I am so sorry, but the man is not in a presentable state.”

“I am aware of how he died.”

“Are you? He died violently. Violently. It is abominable, my girl.”

My girl, thinks Shara. “That has been communicated to me. But I must still ask to see them.”

“Are you so sure?”

“I am.”

“Well … Hm.” He smears on his nicest smile. “Let me give you a bit of advice, my girl. I once was in your shoes—a young CA, patriotic, going through the motions, all the dog-and-pony shows. You know, anything to make a bit of name for myself. But, trust me, you can send all the messages you want, but there’s no one on the other line. No one’s listening. The Ministry simply doesn’t pay attention to cultural ambassadors. It’s like hazing, my dear—you do your time until you can get out. But don’t work up a sweat. Enjoy yourself. I’m sure they’ll send someone serious on to handle it soon enough.”

Shara is not angry: her irritation has long since ebbed away into bemusement. As she thinks of a way to answer him, her eye wanders back up to the painting on the wall.

Troonyi catches her looking. “Ah. I see you’re taken with my beauty.” He gestures to the painting. “The Night of the Red Sands, by Rishna. One of the great patriotic works. It’s not an original, I’m sad to say, but a very old copy of the original. But it’s close enough.”

Even though Shara has seen it many times before—it’s quite popular in schools and city halls in Saypur—it still strikes her as a curious, disturbing painting. It depicts a battle taking place in a vast, sandy desert at night: on the closest wave of dunes stands a small, threadbare army of Saypuris, staring across the desert at an immense opposing force of armored swordsmen. The armor they wear is huge and thick and gleaming, protecting every inch of their bodies; their helmets depict the glinting visages of shrieking demons; their swords are utterly immense, nearly six feet in length, and flicker with a cold fire. The painting makes it plain that these terrifying men of steel and blade will cleave the poor, ragged Saypuris in two. Yet the swordsmen are standing in a state of some shock: they stare at one Saypuri, who stands on the top of one tall dune at the back of his army, brave and resplendent in a fluttering coat—the general of this tattered force, surely. He is manipulating a strange weapon: a long, thin cannon, delicate as a horsefly, which is firing a flaming wad up over his army, over the heads of the opposing force, where it strikes …

Something. Perhaps a person: a huge person, rendered in shadow. It is difficult to see, or perhaps the painter was not quite sure what this figure looked like.

Shara stares at the Saypuri general. She knows that the painting is historically inaccurate: the Kaj was actually stationed at the front of his army during the Night of the Red Sands, and did not personally fire the fatal shot, nor was he near the weaponry at all. Some historians, she recalls, claim this was due to his bravery as a leader; others contend that the Kaj, who after all had never used his experimental weaponry on this scale and had no idea if it would be a success or a disaster, chose to be far away if it proved to be the latter. But regardless of where he stood, that fatal shot was the exact moment when everything started.

Enough politeness.

“Do you meet with the City Fathers of Bulikov in this office, Ambassador?” asks Shara.

“Hm? Oh, yes. Of course.”

“And have they never … commented upon that painting?”

“Not that I can recall. They are sometimes struck quiet at the sight of it. A magnificent work, if I do say so myself.”

She smiles. “Chief Diplomat Troonyi, you are aware of what the professor’s purpose was in this city?”

“Mm? Of course I am. It kicked up quite a fuss. Digging through all their old museums, looking at all their old writings. … I got a lot of letters about it. I have some of them here.” He shoves around some papers in a drawer.

“And you are aware that it was Minister of Foreign Affairs Vinya Komayd who approved his mission?”

“Yes?”

“So you must be aware that the jurisdiction of his death falls under neither the embassy, nor the polis governor, nor the regional governor, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself?”