Chapter 21

Pouring from a small flask between them, Zuri filled two glasses with the thick amber liquid. Without saying a word, he lifted his glass above his head in quiet salute to his drinking comrade of the moment. Both drained their glasses.

“Please tell me what you know about Greenvale temple,” Zuri asked Kortazar as they sat in the Kaosa temple.

“Greenvale is a proper place to learn many unspoken skillsets, Ghura,” he said. “You can learn how to identify another’s vulnerabilities, how to geld your competitors, and how to make lessers suffer with gratitude. You can experience the power of wealth and the magnitude of royal appointment. Until you serve at Greenvale, you cannot understand the depths of obsequiousness and the encompassing universe of pandering before those given all rights by birth though they lack all abilities.”

“You counted money there, if I remember correctly,” Zuri said.

“Count? No, my role was not to count money. My job was to assess the weaknesses buried in our debt load and to identify the opportunities available on our credit side. Counting is for interns.”

“I don’t understand,” Zuri said.

“Let’s say the temple has a large debt payment due in a year, which the temple simply cannot pay. The best course is to take the available cash and purchase a warehouse with a loan. The lender is going to insist on an insurance policy for the building to protect their investment. The temple buys a policy for the building at the estimated appraisal instead of the cost of the loan. The temple also purchases the appraisal of the building with an extra tip to the appraiser on the side for a worthwhile number. A month or so later, the building burns down. Insurance is forced to pay. The grantor is given short-shrift for which he can sue but never collect, and the debt is paid off. If I did my best to squeeze out every last penny, the temple makes a small profit as well.”

“Holy crap,” Zuri said. “Holy crap.”

“I was good at my job, but I developed a conscience, which is a terrible impairment in the Greenvale temple. Concocting a plan, I convinced the Gura-sho that the Qirin Guras were shorting the Patriarch quarterly payments by significant sums. Having demonstrated my find, I knew he would insist that I solve the problem. In his way of doing business, if someone brought a problem to him, it was the finder’s problem to solve. He kept his hands clean, at least superficially. Acting distraught at the assignment, I packed up my few belongings and hired a guide to take me to Kaosa. I’ve been happy ever since I arrived.”

“Kaosa is not a happy place,” Zuri said.

“For those of us whose lives are shunned or even condemned by the rest of the Kingdom, Kaosa is a godsend,” Kortazar said.

Zuri refilled their glasses. “Drug addict, gambler, imbiber, curb-crawler, what?”

“I don’t prefer the company of women,” Kortazar said over the lip of his glass before downing the liquor.

“No one in Kaosa cares,” Zuri said. “I understand the appeal for a shunned class. Still, finding a bedpartner in this city who meets other criteria of a city-bred man cannot be easy.”

“You would be surprised,” Kortazar said. “In the underground culture I inhabit, Kaosa is a destination, a haven from persecution. We bring skillsets and credit that the city desperately needs, and we thrive here. I don’t pay for the soup kitchen with the temple treasury alone, Ghura. Many of us believe in raising up the downtrodden.”

“Layer by layer, I am learning about the kingdom,” Zuri said. “Today, I am convinced twice-over that the Ghura way is the antidote the kingdom needs. I wonder if Adana knows?”

“Adana Two Doves?” Kortazar asked. “She is a silent investor in some of our endeavors, including a private club.”

“I knew I liked that woman,” Zuri said.

“Only yesterday she located new sources of fine liquor, a hot commodity,” Kotazar said. “Now that I think about it, did you have anything to do with it.?”

Zuri rose to his feet. “If you think Adana’s new acquisitions are exciting, wait until you hear about the new arrangement with the Governor. I will upend the world as the rest of the Kingdom knows it if I am not careful.”

Zuri peeked into the Gura-sho’s office, wondering if there was anything worth investigating. “What do you know of Gura Emil?”

“Standard fop,” Kortazar said. “He’s smart enough to avoid the Gura-sho, but he chooses to stay out of the way because he is afraid of him. The expanded definition of Gura in Covanera is that the Gura-sho rules over them with fear of reprisal and dismissal. Obedience is only the first requirement, and his threats are real. It’s not like Gura is employable outside the temple structure; no one needs a personal Gura. Emil does a worse job of hiding his anxiety than most.”

“According to your assessment, I should have threatened him instead of trying to befriend him,” Zuri said. “I should have spoken to you first.”

“I would have advised that you not threaten him,” Kortazar said. “He is already terrorized, and as a weak man, he would stick with the terror he knows rather than choosing a new one. If a chance existed of swinging the man away from the temple, the offer had to be a hand of salvation.”

“He failed the Ghura test too,” Zuri said. “He ran away from the power of the Ghura. If he is a man who has made peace with the fact he will live always in fear of his superior, then he never had the fortitude to pass. Damn. Where will I find suitable candidates?”

“If you are asking a back-office operations man, I would suggest you return to the same environs from which you emerged,” Kortazar said. “Did you not say that the Gura temple is waning? At the least, don’t waste your time there.”

“Besides my mother’s protective embrace, I’ve spent my days in gaming rooms, brothels and bars when I was not in school. To be honest, I’ve spent most of free time in the back of the brothel, not in the customer areas.”

“You are looking for tough, resilient, and resourceful people who know how to thrive in disadvantaged circumstances,” Kortazar said. “I cannot think of better places to find such people.”

“True,” Zuri answered absently as he gave into his curiosity. He sidled over to the Gura-sho’s desk and began poking through the papers. “Anything worthwhile in these piles?”

“Deredia likes to write courtesan bodice-rippers,” Kotazar said. “His lack of imagination is a mite disconcerting. A Greenvale veteran might conclude his repressed passions are comical because his breadth of experience by his age is woefully narrow. Only between us, I doubt he has ever given his wife an orgasm; the poor suffering woman.”

“I believe she chose to remain at his former posting when he accepted Qirin,” Zuri said as he opened a drawer. “He hinted at it in a double-blinded, back-handed manner when I spent the night in the rectory. He is a toad.”

“He is a successful man of his place and epoch,” Kortazar said. “Remember, this is why you don’t like him or his ilk.”

Zuri walked back into the front office. “I understand why the Greenvale Temple hired you; your acumen is impressive, truly. I don’t understand why the Gura-sho allowed you to live.”