“Sir, she’s only fifteen.”
“Oh, I don’t mean now. What I propose is that, well, Kylar, that you get betrothed. Ilena’s been infatuated with you for years, and I propose that we give it a couple of years to see if anything comes of it, while you’re . . . well, while you’re learning my business.”
“I’m not sure I understand, sir. In fact, I’m sure I don’t understand.”
The count slapped his pince nez against his hand. “Kylar, I want you to—I want to give the chance to leave the life you’re in. Learn my business and take it over for yourself someday. I’ve spoken with the queen, and with her permission, I’ve found out that we could transfer my title to you. You’d be a count, Kylar. It’s nothing special, I know, but it would make you legitimate. You could be what you’ve been pretending all these years.”
Kylar’s mouth dropped open. “Transfer your title? What do you mean, transfer it?”
“Oh, Kylar, the title hasn’t done me any good anyway. Bah! I don’t have any sons to pass it on to anyway. You need it and I don’t. Anyway, I want to do this, even if the whole betrothal with Ilena doesn’t appeal with you. This would give you time, Kylar. Time to figure out what you want to do with your life. It cuts you free. Free of them.”
Free. Out of the Sa’kagé. It was the most noble gesture Kylar had ever heard of—and after last night, it was too late.
Kylar looked at the floor and nodded. “It won’t work, sir. I’m sorry. Believe me, I’m . . . You’ve been more than kind to me, far kinder than I deserve. But I don’t think that”—he nodded toward the picnic Logan and Serah were sharing—“is for me.”
“I know you’re planning on leaving, Kylar.”
That was the count. Right to it. “Yessir,” Kylar said.
“Soon?”
“I meant to be gone already.”
“Then maybe the God led me to speak with you now. Durzo told you not to listen to my preaching, I suppose?” Count Drake was looking out the window, but his voice was aggrieved.
“He said if I believed you, it’d get me killed.”
“A fair enough statement, I suppose,” Count Drake said. He turned and faced Kylar. “He used to work for me, you know.”
“Excuse me? Durzo?”
That brought a small smile.
“Before he was a wetboy?” Kylar could hardly imagine that there had been a time before Durzo Blint was a wetboy, though he supposed there must have been.
The count shook his head. “No. He used to kill people for me. That’s how we know each other. That’s how he knew he could trust me with you. Durzo doesn’t have much of a social life outside his work, you know.”
“You? You ordered kills?”
“Not so loud. My wife knows, but there’s no need to frighten the maids. I’ve tried to not preach at you with words, but rather let my life stand testimony to what I know, Kylar. But maybe I’ve erred in that. A saint once said, ‘Preach at all times. When necessary, use words.’ Can I take a minute of your time?”
Some part of him wanted to say no. Not only was it awkward to hear someone you respect try to sell you something that you knew you weren’t going to buy, but Kylar was living on borrowed time. It seemed that at any minute news would arrive accusing Kylar of last night’s theft, and this whole pretty picture would pop like a bubble. Logan would know him for what he was. Serah would have another chance to berate him. The count would get that disappointed look on his face that cut to the bone. Kylar knew the count would be disappointed in him, would never really know how much good Kylar had done last night and at what cost to himself. The count would be disappointed regardless of what Kylar did now, but Kylar didn’t have to see it.
“Of course,” he said. It was the right answer. This man had raised Kylar, had allowed him to live a life impossible for a guild rat. Kylar owed it to him.
“My father inherited a large fortune from his father, enough that he mingled with Gordin Graesin, Brand Wesseros, and Darvin Makell—I guess you wouldn’t know about the Makells, they were wiped out in the Eight Years’ War. Anyway, he tried to impress these sons of dukes by throwing money around. Lavish parties, gambling, renting out entire brothels. It didn’t help that his own father died while he was still young. Of course, our family was soon in poverty. My father took his own life. So at the age of nineteen, I took control of a house on the brink of ruin. I had a good head for business, but I saw it as beneath me. Like many who have no reason for pride, that very lack of reason for it made me the prouder.
“But certain realities have a way of making themselves felt, and debt is one of them. Not surprisingly, one of my father’s debtors had a way that I could make ‘easy money.’ I started working for the Sa’kagé. The man who recruited me was the Trematir. If he’d been better at his job, he would have only gotten me deeper and deeper in the Sa’kagé’s debt, but I soon found out that I understood men and money and the ways they work together better than he did. Strangely enough, I had fewer qualms.
“I put my money into whatever made money. Specialty brothels to cater to any appetite, no matter how depraved. I started gambling dens and brought in experts from around the world to help me better separate my patrons from their money. I funded spice expeditions and bribed guards not to investigate the cargo. When one of my businesses was threatened, I had bashers take care of the problem. The first time they went too far and accidentally killed a man, I was shocked, but he wasn’t someone I liked, and it was for my family, and I didn’t have to see it, so that made it palatable. When I clashed with the Trematir, it was an easy decision to hire Durzo. I was naive enough that I didn’t realize he went to the Shinga immediately to get permission first. They gave it to him, and I became the Sa’kagé Master of Coin.”
Kylar was hearing every word, but he couldn’t believe it. This couldn’t be the Count Drake he had grown up with. Rimbold Drake had been on the Nine?
“I traveled a lot, setting up businesses in other countries with fairly good success, and it was then I had my horrible revelation. Of course, I didn’t see the horror in it at the time. I could only see my own brilliance. In four years, I had paid off my family’s debts, but now, I saw a way to make real money. I sold the Sa’kagé on the idea. It took us ten years, but we got our people in place and we legalized slavery. It was introduced in a limited form, of course. For convicts and the utterly destitute. People who couldn’t care for themselves, we said. Our brothels filled with slave girls whom we no longer had to pay to work. We started the Death Games—another of my bright ideas—and they became a sensation, an obsession. We built the arena, charged the admission, monopolized the food and wine sold, ran the gambling, sometimes stacked the odds. We made money faster than we’d ever imagined possible. I hired Durzo so often that we became friends. Even he wouldn’t take all the jobs I offered. He always had his own code. He’d take jobs on the people who were trying take my business for themselves, but if I wanted someone dead who was just trying to stop me, I had to hire Anders Gurka or Scarred Wrable or Jonus Severing or Hu Gibbet.