The Wages of Sin [Aurin]

[Valentin]

Ash 54, 124

Vanholl Estate

The last time that Roderick Vanholl had been contacted by Valentin, it had been as a debtor forced to pay back the favors of an administrator. He'd waited nervously while the auditor conducted his business, terrified that his friends and colleagues would learn that he was working in tandem with the OIR. Nobody liked the taxman, but there wasn't anything you could do about it. Quislings, on the other hand... well, that was altogether different.

So Herr Vanholl had been quite relieved to see Valentin Valentin go after a few weeks of terrorizing the town. Between the auditor's return to Gel'Grandal and the shocking discovery of Frederick's mangled body underneath one of Allstead Shipping Company's own trains, the gossips of the town had their plates full and nobody thought to speculate at all on Roderick. For a few blissful months, he even hoped that perhaps he'd seen the last of the OIR, that he'd repaid his debts in full and gotten that devil off his back.

(Deep in his heart, of course, he knew that wasn't how these things work.)

Unfortunately, it had gone from good to bad when Valentin Valentin came back- and bad to worse when he came back with an entire complement of auditors. Five accountants, two junior investigators, and twenty policemen all encamped on Vanholl's estate, commandeering his manor and forcing him and his family into a small suite of rooms while they filled the rest with papers and confiscated material.

The OIR beset Valensier without warning, going from shop to shop, ranging into the countryside, acre by acre. For the better part of two weeks they had been dragging people in to answer questions, to explain their books, to tally their herds... and to pay. Day by day, the strongboxes the OIR had brought with them from Gel'Grandal grew fuller as Valentin pried every last missing aven out of the populace.

For Roderick, it was a nightmare. There was no question among his peers about where the OIR was staying, and while he protested that it was occupation rather than collusion, he knew full well that many of them would not believe it. At best, he would be an exile from society, protected from their scorn only by the shadowy presence of the Duke in his castle. At worst? Well, it wouldn't be entirely unheard of for a man in his position to join poor young Master Frederick.

For Valentin's part, however, everything played out smoothly as butter. This kind of tactical offensive operation was not especially common in the OIR, but they liked to do them every few years, to keep the tradesmen in line and make sure the nobles couldn't get away with too much graft. It had, perhaps, been luck on his part that his last visit to Valensier had uncovered sufficient fraud to warrant the action. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't. With the end of the Great Eclipse and the return of the seasons, the Imperial government in all its many incarnations was eager to get muscular, to make a display of power to the citizens and reassure them that things were back on track. The OIR was no exception.

So it was a win for his career, to be sure. Rarely did his bosses associate his name with anything positive, but the taming of Valensier's finances would be a feather in the lawyer's cap. But it was also an opportunity for feathering a very different sort of nest.

~~~

In the back of the same guest house (which he had commandeered for his private use while his underlings were forced to bunk together in pantries and closets), the same man sat in the same chair, and he laid the same hands upon the same mirror to speak the same words.

"Aurin Kavafis," spoke Valentin "Open the window between worlds and let me see him; let him see me. Let the lines of light and sound be exchanged; let the surface of the glass become the surface of the world, and the ripples go as I direct."

This time, when the portal opened, Valentin Valentin did not say anything at all. Instead, he simply tossed a scrivened paper through the tiny portal to his drop-point with Aurin. Though Valensier was practically a backwater in terms of magic, even for the Imperium, he was no longer operating secretly. None of the farmers and shopkeepers he'd been terrorizing had the kind of money or connections it would take to be magically monitoring him- but the nobles did. If one of Duke Dardouen's worthless progeny were watching, he wanted the anomalies they detected to be brief, incomprehensible.

When Aurin found the letter, it was unnamed, but simple in form and singular in portent:

I am settled in at the usual place, and prepared to move. Contact me when you are in position, and we will put the fear of the Divines into the remaining conspirators. I will show them the wall, and you need only offer them a way out.

[Aurin]

It hadn't been a lack of any communication, but time had passed and Aurin wasn't entirely sure if the discovery of the would-be insurrection hadn't changed their plans so entirely that Valentin wouldn't need his services any longer. That would be a shame. It was a new sort of challenge and involved all sorts of things that Aurin was good at: lying; cheating; murder; mayhem. But he eventually came to find a note from the man. Apparently, he had missed a magic mirror face time, but then, he hadn't been expecting him. On the back of it, he scrawled a return message, equally opaque, and prepared.

Aurin had a thousand balls in the air, but he rarely dropped a single one. He made a few arrangements, a few alterations, and delegated what he could.

Soon enough, Darus of Haqs was back in Valensier. His attire was a bit finer this visit, hair long enough to curl a bit, rakishly the way Gertie liked it, and whatever Solunarian skin treatment he had just had was suddenly all the talk of anyone with a fair amount of pride and a penchant for grooming. He was positively glowing. And, of course, his conversation was scintillating as always. For all that he wasn't even from the Imperium, he always came with news from abroad, even news from their capital, and was more worldly and cosmopolitan than any of them.

But he was gracious, and he was set up in his old rooms, his old haunts, and was positively forlorn over news of dear Frederick's death. Of course, everyone remembered how famously they had got along the last time he was in town.

Of course, he didn't speak to the tax collector, but rather made jests behind his back. But, of course, ever polite, he offered a florid bow the first time Valentin Valentin—his name most likely proof that his family can't file anything properly, let alone their taxes—saw him. And so VV knew where to find him.

[Valentin]

The day after Valentin Valentin first saw Darus again in public, he felt a little illicit thrill. He'd been busy the last few weeks, no doubt about that, but it had all been work he was used to. Work he could account for, no matter what questions were asked. Seeing the criminal again in the flesh reminded him like nothing else that he was here on false pretenses- pretenses which could quite easily see him tortured to death in the upper belfries of an Inquisition stronghold.

But though Valentin was no actor, he was unpleasant enough that nobody was paying much attention to his face and demeanor. He brushed Darus aside, his gaze lingering perhaps a few moments too long, and stomped off, dragging his terrified entourage of junior auditors, accountants, jackbooted police and mewling tradesmen. Another day's work, another handful of coins snatched away from the deceitful and stingy for the Imperium's greater benefit.

And when he got back to the Vanholl Estate...

"We've squeezed the town dry." he told the mission's secretary, who nodded dutifully as if she were having the same thought herself, "This is a small pond, but there are some big fish hiding around the edges. Let's start after them."

"Ja, Herr Valentin." she responded softly, in a voice which might have been mellifluous if it weren't on edge with nerves, "W-which entities do you have in mind?"

"We'll hit up the Riverlands Trade Concern tomorrow." the man said, apparently taking no note of his assistant's shaky voice, "Then the quarry companies the day after. Both of them. Then the bottling factory." Valentin paused for a moment, and then, as if an afterthought, "We should hit Allstead Shipping too. Put that down for three days from now."

"Ja, Herr Valentin." the secretary said again, breathing a sigh of relief as he stomped out of the room.

~~~

This time, when Valentin opened his Window, the distance was short enough that he could reassure himself that even a very diligent mage was unlikely to notice from outside the grounds. He waited until he'd spotted Darus in his lodgings and confirmed to his own satisfaction that he wasn't entertaining anyone.

"I've just composed a letter to the Allstead Shipping Company." the lawyer began, skipping introductions, greetings, formalities, or any other such matter, To put them on notice of inspection in three days. That alone should get them to panic- you just need to slip in and show them a little false hope."

[Aurin]

Of course, Aurin would likely be entertaining someone sooner or later, but he did like to have business sorted before pleasure, unless business and pleasure were one and the same, and he wondered if Valentin was asexual, which was fine, but, if not, whether his foreplay was, like, talking dirty maths or getting his hands smacked with a ruler by a busty, disciplinarian librarian type. Perhaps one day, he would catch Valentin a little intoxicated, and a little loosened up, perhaps after they had a major victory in this campaign against money launderers, and he would ask him what turned him on other than a balanced ledger.

He snickered to himself, but quickly swallowed it when they were speaking window-to-window. While Aurin wasn't the most powerful or skilled of warders, he was also largely untrained and so had figured out weird work-arounds when it came to magic. Thus, his rooms were warded, those wards inextricably bound up in auras such that anyone scrying wouldn't see much more than wards against thieves. It reminded him, now that he thought of it, of how the Sunsingers guarded their fortress, clever bits of magic used to obfuscate and misdirect rather than, say, the wards the Hytori had around their entire fucking kingdom.

Overkill, he thought to himself.

But the powerful did like to flaunt their power. Except Aurin didn't often like to flaunt his power, preferring to be the one who side-swiped the unsuspecting. It was more gratifying that way. Perhaps that was why he had props, like Lord Yserloo at the theater.

Anyway, he nodded.

"If you happen to have copies of what's going on with them, I would appreciate a chance to look them over. I don't want to appear too, too good to be true, but enough of a solid option out of financial danger, and prepare some icing for the cake should they waffle." He could also use that to get more out of the Allstead Shipping Agency. For all his work, Valentin hadn't paid him yet, so he would take a chunk out of their fortune if he could in order to filter monies back into Portions for Foxes.

"And if you're being tactical about your inspections, I can tailor my pitch even more precisely."

He glanced at something on his fingernail, then flicked it away.

[Valentin]

"I can drop off their public filings," Valentin offered, before his mouth curled into an unattractive grimace "But I can already tell you that the files are risible lies. Even if Lady Allstead were alive, the figures are fraudulent. I'd have expected the butler to be better at covering up finances than this, but I suppose Frederick was bringing something to the table after all."

Valentin sniffed, indicating his disdain for the idea that tax fraud was 'bringing something to the table', but he said nothing more about it. After all, if they were successful in this business, he certainly wasn't going to report the source of any newfound wealth accurately. It would be years of surprisingly good sales of his dearly departed grandfather's remaining treasure, what bits and bobs the house hadn't already liquidated to make up for his own father's financial mismanagement.

He'd had time, now, to think on what he was doing. He didn't have to continue on this path. If he'd simply never contacted Aurin again, he could have finished out the case here, gotten a little award at work, continued on for another twenty years and retired. Perhaps someone would even appoint him to some senior bureaucratic position to finish out his term- it wasn't unheard-of, though Valentin Valentin had made few friends during his tenure so far. It would be a comfortable life, fading back into obscurity.

It would be the end of his house, of course, but who would blame him? Who expected anyone to go to bat for the legacy of House Valentin, which had struggled along for generations as some middle-of-the-road officers' house until his Grandfather had literally stumbled into wealth and glory. He expected he could keep the literal house in the north end until his parents had finally passed, and then quietly sell it, moving to some middling townhouse further from the palace. What did he care? He bore the Rune of Traversion, and hardly ever left his office.

No. No, it wasn't for the house, or for the House, or even for the money. It was that he was damned tired of spending his life counting up the money of the most abominable crooks and thieves in the entire Imperium, just to see those pathetic shadows of men continue to rise in power and influence. If there was to be no equity in the world, he might as well seize some of theirs unequally for himself.

"As I see it, their first instinct will be to hide the facts. On the books, Frederick Allstead died in a tragic accident at home and Lady Allstead is still alive, in mourning. They must try to either impersonate her or make some poor excuse for her absence- the latter being more plausible, to me. Once I visit, I can drop unsubtle hints that the deception is not working. We need not get them to evacuate while I am here; I will make an announcement that all irregularities will be reported at the end of the season."

"That will give you time to establish some convenient way out for them, just as they are most frenzied in seeking it."

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[Aurin]

The end of the season wasn't all that far away in financial terms, but, like a predator scenting blood, he felt the urge to move quickly. Aurin had grown used to being the leader of teams in any sort of confidence game, so it was a lesson in patience to work with Valentin. The lawyer wasn't a problem, and Aurin couldn't pull this off without his expertise; it was just a necessary frustration.

"Even a broken clock is correct twice a day?" he offered for what Frederick had brought to the table. While Aurin acknowledged that he was a bad man, if he ever felt a pang of conscience, he assuaged it with the knowledge that he mostly stole from those who had more than they could ever need. They were mostly bad men and women. People like Frederick Allstead and his ilk were born into a game whose rules and setup already favored them and continued to predate upon people with few in the way of protections.

"A shame I never met Lady Allstead. Might have been fun to show up at a party wearing her face and form and give Freddie a stroke. Ah well... Yes, please send me their public filings as soon as possible and via Traversion when I am here to receive them. I don't want to leave things lying around in case my rooms are ever searched, but I can ward them in my absence. Keep me up to date on any communications sent to them, preferably beforehand, so I can be ready to respond accordingly."

He found himself shifting weight from foot to foot, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet. Someone was ready for blood. If he was anxious to begin, it was because advantages had a habit of disappearing if one didn't strike while the iron was hot.

[Valentin]

"Never met Frau Allstead" Valentin said absently "But her ghost-"

The revenuer caught himself, glancing up at Aurin and blinking, then cleared his throat.

"Never mind that. I'll be in touch, and soon. You make your preparations to present yourself to the Allstead household with all deliberate speed."

Valentin Valentin closed the Window then, in no fit mood to entertain any questions about Lady Allstead's ghost, or explain how his introduction to the phantom in the Archives had inspired this entire scheme. Instead, he devoted himself to preparing the papers for Aurin. Ordinarily, such a chore would have been left to a junior accountant, but Valentin wanted no trace of his involvement in any of this. In the remote chance that this was picked up by an Inquisitor somehow, someday, there would be not a single, solitary witness to testify to Valentin's involvement with the Allsteads.

Some doors were too risky to open, even by the smallest hair-thin crack.

When Darus of Haqs awoke the next day, he found the file laid out on his nightstand. It was surprisingly extensive- but most of that was, unsurprisingly, useless. Decades of business information about the Allstead Shipping Company was valuable only from an academic viewpoint. While Sir Tupin had yet lived, it had been a modestly exciting venture, built from an original proposal to establish a new cross-shaped shipping line passing directly through Valensier and allowing one-week shipping between each of the major regions of the Imperium, eventually expanding into a line as far east as Haqs. A happy accident of timing had made the venture unexpectedly profitable; sudden resumption of hostilities in Atinaw closing one of the existing air traffic lanes.

Flush with success and money, Sir Tupin had gone wild, investing in half the ventures on the continent. He'd managed to grow a small fortune into an unbelievable one over the course of six years, then lost half of that over another two. The man had been convinced of his own genius... but more than that (Valentin speculated, in handwritten addenda) he'd been steered astray by his wastrel brother, who had ambitions of becoming a great society man himself. If Tupin had continued, he might have managed to fritter away his entire fortune.

But all men die. when Sir Tupin had passed away, the business was left to his wife. Frau Allstead was an extremely conservative Gelerian woman, and kept that philosophy in her finances. She rapidly divested of the worst of Tupin's ventures, including all of his brother's pet projects.

Over the course of pages and pages of dry finance, Valentin Valentin's meticulous notes and references led Aurin inexorably to a narrative. Tupin had grown rich by accident, been taken advantage of by his brother, and when he died, Frau Allstead had cut him off. Newly adapted to the lifestyle of the well-to-do, Frederick had decided to kill his sister-in-law. Valentin noted drily that although Frederick had spent much time and air dabbling in rebellion, not a single gold coin had ever gone to supporting such a thing.

(Probably for the best, or the Inquisition would certainly have been all over Valensier by now.)

What the file could not tell Aurin was why the household was still running. Sir Tupin's majordomo and accountant were plainly in on the scheme, but they seemed to be taking no particular risks with the remaining finances. The trains, as it were, all ran on time. Were they smuggling it out of the duchy? Were they simply paying themselves to continue to do their old jobs? Valentin had no idea. Those were the motives which Aurin would need to crack if they wanted to spirit away the last of the Allstead fortune.

[Aurin]

"I mean, I know a few Grymalka in Zaichaer if you need someone to look for her ghost. I don't fuck with necromancy, but I know people who will fuck with it for me."

Long story, of course, that he wasn't likely to share. Valentin didn't want to be friends, and Aurin was fine with that. Business partners didn't have to be friends. In any case, the lawyer seemed distracted and Aurin didn't try to keep the connection open when it was clear he wanted to go.

The thrill along the slipspace woke him up, knife in hand, but it was just files. He slept a bit longer, then woke up, ordered coffee and breakfast, the which he received in a dandified dressing robe. The slippers were fire, though, even if they were stupid looking.

Aurin knew enough about finances to skim and focus where appropriate. He had actually managed the finances of the Velvet Cabaret before taking on the Golden Peacock, all the while speculating, buying, and selling with the covert intelligence he collected, all that being Portions for Foxes. Darus of Haqs was a legal person, even, at least according to the official census and other documents in Haqs. His business ventures, such as they were, could be traced back to Portions for Foxes if one was determined, brilliant, and got a tip, but otherwise, he was rather excellent at obfuscating.

He laughed to himself, still in character as Darus while not dressed for the day, imagining taking Valentin to the Velvet Cabaret, throwing money at the courtesans, and seeing the man come undone, or come apart, but come some way or another.

In any case, by the time he was dressed somberly—for a Haqsian dandy—and presented himself at the Allstead household to pay his respects, he had a rather clear picture of the Allstead fortune and was already forming some possible schemes to lure out whomever was now controlling things from the shadows. But he needed to know who that was, and get more of an inside track, before he could tailor it all to perfection.

"I apologize," he said grandly to whomever answered the door. "I have been out of town and only just heard about the lamentable fate of the late and great Ser Frederick. I have come to pay my respects." He then attempted to swan past whomever it was will they or nil they.

Fortunately, he was known as Haqsian, so he couldn't know the proper etiquette in Valensier.