“What are you doing?” he asked.
Colin took a step toward the man, who slumped against the banister.
“Don’t,” he wheezed.
“I have to,” Colin whispered. He stooped down. The man’s arms came up, too weak now to stop Colin from cutting his throat.
The corpse slipped to a sitting position. Colin slid down next to him and watched the students, distant now, entirely unaware of what had just happened.
Unlike the two men coming from the city, who were walking purposefully toward him. Colin put his arms around the dead man’s shoulders, as if the fellow had passed out from drinking and he was keeping him warm.
But there wasn’t any need for that. One of the pair was a tall bald man with angular features, the other an almost snoutless Khajiit. Arcus and Khasha.
“Into the river with him now,” Arcus said.
“Just catching my breath, sir.”
“Yes, I saw. Quite a fracas, when all we asked you to do was slit his throat.”
“He … he fought.”
“You were careless.”
“First time, Arcus,” Khasha said, smoothing his whiskers and twitching his tail impatiently. “How slick were you? Let’s get him in the river and be gone.”
“Fine. Lift, Inspector.”
When Colin didn’t move, Arcus snapped his fingers.
“Sir? You meant me?”
“I meant you. Sloppily done, but you did do it. You’re one of us now.”
Colin took the dead man’s legs, and together they heaved him over. He hit the water and lay there, floating, staring up at Colin.
Inspector. He’d been waiting three years to be called that.
Now it sounded like just another word.
“Put on this robe,” Khasha said. “Hide the blood until we get you cleaned up.”
“Right,” Colin said dully.
He got his documents the next day, from Intendant Marall, a round-faced man with an odd ruff of beard beneath his chin.
“You’ll lodge in the Telhall,” Marall told him. “I believe they already have a case for you.” He put down the pen and looked hard at Colin. “Are you well, son? You look haggard.”
“Couldn’t sleep, sir.”
The intendant nodded.
“Who was he, sir?” Colin blurted out. “What did he do?”
“You don’t want to know that, son,” Marall said. “I advise you not to try and find out.”
‘“But sir—”
“What does it matter?” Marall said. “If I told you he was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of sixteen toddlers, would that make you happy?”
“No, sir.”
“What if I told you his crime was to make a treasonous joke about her majesty’s thighs?”
Colin blinked. “I can’t imagine—”
“You’re not supposed to imagine, son. Yours is not the power of life and death. That lies far above you. It comes, in essence, from the authority of the Emperor. There is always a reason, and it is always a good one, and it is not your business, do you understand? You do not imagine, you do not think. You do what you’re told.”
“But I’ve been trained to think, sir. This office trained me to think.”
“Yes, and you do it very well. All of your instructors agree on that. You’re a very bright young man, or the Penitus Oculatus would not have approached you in the first place, and you have done very well here. But any thinking you do, you see, is in service to your job. If you’re asked to find a spy in the Emperor’s guard, you must use every bit of logic at your disposal. If you’re asked to quietly discover which of Count Caro’s daughters has been poisoning his guests, again, use your forensic training. But if you’re given a clear order to steal, injure, poison, stab, or generally do murder, your brain is only to help you with the method and the execution. You are an instrument, a utensil of the Empire.”
“I know that, sir.”
“Not well enough, or you wouldn’t be asking these questions.” He stood up. “You’re from Anvil, I seem to remember. One of the city guardsmen recommended you for testing.”
“Regin Oprenus, yes sir.”
“Without his recommendation, what would you be doing right now?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
But he did, in a general way. His father was dead, his mother barely got by doing laundry for the better off. He’d managed to teach himself to read, but his education wouldn’t have gone much further than that, and if it had, it wouldn’t have been of any use to him. At best he might have worked in the shipyard or managed to hire onto a ship. The Imperial invitation had been a dream come true, offering him everything he’d wanted as a young boy.
And that was still the case, despite … this. And now he would draw a salary. He could send his mother some of that before she worked herself to death.
“This is the test, isn’t it?” he said. “Not last night. Now.”
The intendant ghosted a little smile. “Both were tests, son. And this isn’t the last, just the last official one. Every day on this job is a new challenge. If you’re not up to it, the time to say so is now, before you’re in over your head.”
“I’m up to it, sir,” Colin said.
“Very well, then, Inspector. Take the rest of the day off. Report for duty tomorrow.”
Colin nodded and walked away, in search of his new lodgings.