The Power and the Glory

Book 2 Chapter XIII: Job-Seeking

Warning: contains references to attempted sexual assault of a child/teenager.

I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.
-- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

It usually took Irímé only a few minutes to decide what he thought of someone and whether they were trustworthy or not. It was an survival skill he had developed very early in life, made essential by three facts. One, his mother was notoriously neglectful and dismissive of his feelings, and had a habit of showing him off to her friends as a future member of the royal family. Two, her menagerie cost money, more money than her income, so she constantly invited richer people to her dinner parties without any regard for their character. Three, as his mother was so fond of reminding everyone, he was... Well, unusually beautiful to put it bluntly, even though the thought made his skin crawl. Not because of his looks on their own, but because of how certain adults behaved towards him because of them.

While still just a child he had developed the ability to sense when someone was an ordinary, decent person and when they were a pervert waiting for him to let his guard down. He had encountered far too many of the latter sort to ever feel comfortable in large groups of people. As an extension of that, by watching someone when they didn't know they were being watched he had learnt how to make an educated guess at their general character. Therefore he knew no one here was a threat to him -- even if they were a threat to others. And that was why he was so confused when he finally met Siarvin face-to-face.

Basic decency said that someone who murdered a baby was the vilest of the vile. Yet as Irímé watched Siarvin out of the corner of his eye, he saw only a perfectly normal man who treated Shizuki like his own son and was polite -- if somewhat cold and distant -- towards Koyuki. For several minutes Irímé tried to reconcile what he saw with what Ilaran had told him about Haliran's first child and its tragic fate. He failed. In despair he gave up and moved on to the other three.

Shizuki was the easiest to understand. Snake spirit or not, he was just a normal child. A bit more blood-thirsty than most, perhaps, but considering his upbringing that was hardly surprising. Then again, Irímé had met plenty of children who adored anything full of blood and gore. So perhaps Shizuki's excited descriptions of how much the bitten man bled wasn't entirely thanks to Haliran's influence.

It took Irímé only a minute's observation to tell Koyuki was uneasy here and felt badly out-of-place. He carefully avoided looking at Siarvin -- or anyone else for that matter -- if he could help it. In Irímé's experience that was usually the sign of someone with a guilty conscience. He stopped himself before jumping to any rash conclusions about Koyuki hiding something from Ilaran. What he'd heard at the trial was a good enough explanation of it. Anyone would have a guilty conscience after sleeping with a married woman, acting as a spy in the house of one of her enemies, and hiding stolen goods for her.

Besides, if the events in the crypt and the courtroom had proved anything, it was that Ilaran was no fool. Eccentric and with a flair for the dramatic, yes, but not a fool. If even Irímé had noticed Koyuki's behaviour, then Ilaran certainly had.

And that brought him to the last member of this strange group. After their dramatic previous meetings Ilaran should have been the easiest to figure out. Instead Irímé found himself unexpectedly baffled. The only new thing he'd learnt about Ilaran in the last few minutes was that he found assassination attempts bizarrely entertaining. That was the sort of weirdness Irímé would expect from Abi, not from someone who had previously seemed sane and relatively normal.

It didn't help that Ilaran listened to the others' conversation with a disturbingly blank expression. Irímé couldn't guess what he was thinking. He wasn't even sure he was thinking of anything at all. A few unpleasant past experiences had taught Irímé to be wary of anyone who was so hard to read. Yet he already knew Ilaran was... "Trustworthy" was the wrong word when he knew Ilaran was here for his own reasons and would act in his own best interests. But for the minute at least they were on the same side. And that state of affairs was likely to continue for some time.