Widow's Welcome

by D. K. Fields

  Cora turned to see a familiar problem walking towards them: Butterman.

  ‘Audience-sake, why did they let you in?’ Cora said to the pennysheet hack.

  ‘They let everyone in,’ Butterman said, waving towards the bar where several other pennysheet writers were steadily drinking the place dry.

  ‘No need for you lot to do any actual work, is there? You’ll just make it up anyway.’

  ‘Right you are, Detective.’ He scratched under the rim of his tub hat. ‘Don’t s’pose you’ve got a word about that Chambers visit for my readers?’

  ‘Funnily enough, no.’

  ‘And you wonder why we get creative.’

  ‘Accusing us of not wanting to find the truth!’ Jenkins said. ‘Do you have any idea how an investigation works?’

  ‘I know it’s mostly boring. I’m sorry, we haven’t met. I’m—’

  ‘She knows who you are, Butterman.’ Cora pushed away his offered hand. ‘Constable, it looks like we both need another drink.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Now, Constable.’

  ‘They still don’t have a replacement storyteller,’ Butterman said, almost wistful.

  ‘Critic take you, don’t pretend you care. Whatever helps sell a few more ’sheets, right?’

  ‘Dead or alive, storytellers sell ’sheets.’

  ‘This year, no,’ a muffled voice said. There was suddenly the trace of smoke on the air. ‘The Wayward story. That will sell every pennysheet.’ A woman joined them, glancing from Cora to Butterman.

  A Torn woman.

  Seven

  In all her years, Cora had rarely been this close to a citizen of the Tear, and those few times were usually in Beulah’s dark, smoke-filled betting rings or games houses. At this moment, in Garnuck House, Cora was closer than she’d like. She could see everything.

  Three small glass boxes were strapped to the woman’s face. The glass was misted and smoky, like that of the older Fenestiran street lamps, and there was a flickering hint of a flame beneath. This woman had a small furnace covering her mouth. And inside it?

  Tornstone.

  Cora’s Seminary lessons came back to her. For as long as there had been stories told, the Torn had lived in the Tear: a great rift in the earth where lava flowed freely and ash rained from the sky. Every day the Torn lived and breathed fire and smoke. That changed a people, over time. The Torn had to adapt, or they wouldn’t have survived in their chosen land. A land that left them scarred – this member of the Torn was laced with a pale tracery that spoke of a long, hard life. Cora’s own scars, those that made her foot a lumpen mess, were nothing in comparison to this woman’s marks.

  When the people of the Tear did choose to leave – which was rare outside of an election – they took a bit of it with them, so they could breathe as they did at home. If the Tear was a smoky, ash-filled sauna, then Cora supposed Fenest’s air would feel like swallowing ice. Ice that tasted too much of a city, of people.

  But knowing that didn’t change how unsettling it was to see, in the flesh, this woman with burning volcanic rocks an inch from her face. Too close to Cora’s face too.

  Cora took a step back, bumping into the wall. Butterman felt no such fear.

  ‘You know what the Wayward’s story will be?’ he asked the Torn woman. ‘I’ve heard some of the Wayward come near the Tear. Not so close as to risk themselves, but—’

  ‘Close enough,’ said the woman. ‘Closer than any from Fenest.’ She looked at Cora. ‘We come to you, yes? We come for election, though your air is weak, like Drunkard’s piss.’

  ‘That’s Fenest all right,’ Cora said. ‘The centre of the wheel draws us all.’

  The Torn laughed. At least, Cora took the louder, harsh grating sound for laughter. The woman wore a dark dress of heavy cotton that bagged about her. Who knew what fashions made sense in the Tear? Or what their bodies were like beneath?

  ‘Wheels. You love them.’ The mouthpiece flared. ‘But wheels turn, and only Audience knows when they stop.’ The woman made a circling gesture with hands covered in old, shallow scars.

  ‘Time you were going, Butterman,’ Cora said.

  The hack looked back and forth between Cora and the Torn. ‘Not even off the record?’

  ‘As if I could trust you to honour that.’

  He produced a card from somewhere in his cheap suit. ‘If you want to talk to someone with real influence,’ he said, forcing the card on the Torn woman. He headed towards the bar.

  Cora took a deep breath and held out her hand. ‘Detective Gorderheim. Bernswick Division.’

  The Torn took Cora’s hand in both of her own and pressed Cora’s knuckles, quickly and firmly. Was that a Torn handshake? A curse?

  ‘I know you, Detective,’ the Torn said. ‘I am Sorrensdattir.’

  ‘You’re here for the election?’

  ‘What else brings my people to your streets? I am… you would say advisor for the Torn realm.’

  ‘And what do the Torn know of the Wayward story?’ Cora said, keeping her voice low.

  Sorrensdattir held Cora’s gaze for a moment, then looked away, into the shaking pool of the fountain.

  ‘We know enough. Ento died for his story. A story some do not want told.’

  ‘Why? What’s it about?’

  The woman walked towards the fountain. Everyone hurried out of her path, and Cora caught sight of one man making the Sign of the Tear. It was prejudice, plain and simple, and Cora knew she was as guilty as the rest of them. She’d broken up Casker bar-brawls, arrested Seeder bandits fool enough to venture into the city, caught Perlish traders who were making off with other people’s fortunes. But she wasn’t shying away from people of those realms in this fancy ball room. The Torn were no more dangerous than anyone else, they were just more different. And that was what scared people. Sorrensdattir didn’t appear to notice the reaction from those around her, or perhaps she didn’t care. She trailed her fingers in the water and looked up at the drops falling on the metal dogs.

  ‘Such arrogance, Garnuck, to make rain inside. To think such things are game. Rustan should know better. Maybe he stayed here too long, in Fenest, forget the truth. Water, fire, stone – nothing stays the same forever. The Wayward, they know change comes. Others here, they don’t want such a story.’ Sorrensdattir glanced about her.

  ‘I’m trying to find out who killed the Wayward storyteller,’ Cora said. ‘If you know something—’

  A noise. A bell ringing. A ripple of excitement went through the crowd and there was a surge towards a doorway at the other end of the room. Cora turned back to the Torn.

  Sorrensdattir was gone.

  Instead, Jenkins was there, at Cora’s elbow. ‘It’s time,’ the constable said.

  ‘Time for what?’

  But Jenkins was heading into the press of bodies, and all Cora could do was follow.

  The room broadened, the air all at once cooler, and near silence descended. At the far end was a deep balcony, half covered in shadows. Standing at the front, looking down on everyone beneath, was a figure dressed in a purple robe.

  Jenkins whispered, ‘Director of the Office of Electoral Affairs.’

  The Director waited for the last few murmurs to subside, then he opened his arms wide and, in a deep voice, began. ‘On behalf of the Commission of Fenest, let me welcome you to this, the two hundred and ninth election of the Union of Realms.’

  An enthusiastic applause greeted these words, with Jenkins clapping loudest of all.

  ‘It has been my pleasure to open the previous two elections, but, on this occasion, I stand before you with sorrow in my heart. You will have heard, I’m sure, through our great presses—’ Cora caught a glimpse of Butterman picking his teeth with a fingernail ‘—that the Wayward people have suffered a terrible loss, and so, too, have we all. Nicholas Ento has taken his place among the Swaying Audience. His tale is for them.’

  Was that a thinly veiled warning, Cora wondered. The Wayward would find a new
’teller, but would they have to find a different, less dangerous tale?

  ‘Make room for the realms!’ the Director boomed.

  Another bell sounded and the people at the front, closest to the balcony, were forced to move backwards. Cora nearly fell in the sudden press of bodies. When she could see again, a pair of young men dressed in purple tunics crossed the floor. Each carried a Perlish flag: two kenna birds, one red, one blue, their long necks intertwined so that they were looking at each other.

  A girl in purple followed the lads, this time carrying the Caskers’ barrel. The next flag was the crossed spades of the Seeders.

  Cora whispered to Jenkins, ‘I always forget the Seeders’ symbol.’

  ‘You know, most Lowlanders consider that name a form of abuse.’

  ‘That so?’ Cora said. ‘That’s probably why people use it so much.’ Her back was beginning to ache and it had been a long time since she’d had a smoke.

  The Torn’s flame came next, then the two triangles of the Rustans and their Rusting Mountains. And, lastly, the Wayward’s horseshoe, which sent murmurs through those watching.

  The seven young men and women who held the flags aloft remained facing the crowd, as the Director called for order.

  ‘I hereby give notice: the wheel turns and the Caskers are the first story. Patron’s Mount, three days’ hence. As is custom and right under the Audience, the Caskers will display their story Hook before their tale.’

  The Hook, a little teaser of the election story for the pennysheets and the chequers and the curious – and didn’t the Stowaway know it! Despite herself, Cora felt her own curiosity piqued by the thought of the Caskers’ story Hook, the first of the election.

  ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, Fenestirans and visiting friends.’ The Director lifted his arms above his head.

  Cora hoped, with every bindle-starved ounce of her body, that this wasn’t the start of the folk dance.

  ‘I ask you to welcome those who seek to please the Audience. Our ’tellers and your Chambers.’

  The Director dropped his arms to his sides and the shadows behind him rose to the ceiling: a curtain, and behind it – all the lights in the world.

  Cora closed her eyes to the glare but could still hear the gasps and cheers, and Jenkins gibbering excitedly to herself. Carefully, Cora opened her eyes, and saw all around her one thing: hunger. Suits and dresses be damned, these people would take their piece of the storytellers any way they could. Cora had seen the same look at the side of the ring, winners and losers shaking their chequers’ slips as a prize fighter was led to the floor.

  In the brightness of the balcony, a row of people waved to the adoring crowd.

  They were standing in pairs, one person in each dressed in brown robes. She was too far away to see the gleaming bracelets, the manacles-in-waiting, but they’d be there, on each wrist. The Chambers. And each with their storyteller: the men and women the Chambers had chosen to tell their realm’s story. And once the Chambers had chosen their ’tellers, they told only the Chambers from the other realms, until this moment when the identities of the ’tellers were revealed to all. These Chambers on the balcony had each known who, and what, Nicholas Ento was. Cora bit back a curse for Sillian and all the things that prevented powerful people getting what they deserved.

  She looked across them, left to right along the balcony, and realised that each pair was standing in line with their flag on the floor below. That made it easy to work out who was who, though there were other ways too.

  There was the group of four – two Chambers and two ’tellers – which was clearly the Perlish. Beside them was a small woman, with Inker’s designs winding up her arms. A Casker and her Chambers. First to tell her tale this year. Next in the line were the unremarkable Seeders.

  ‘Lowlanders,’ she mouthed to Jenkins, who was too absorbed in the spectacle to share the joke.

  The Torn were recognisable enough, with their smouldering mouthpieces. Beside them was a woman with a thick strip of metal covering her shoulder. Cora checked the banner below. Rustans. Next to the woman, her Chambers, whose robe hid the similar metal additions she was likely carrying.

  And then just one person, standing alone. The Wayward Chambers, with a space where Ento should have stood. Cora remembered the flat gaze of the grey-eyed Chambers from the cold room.

  They were all still waving, the crowd still cheering.

  ‘Is that it then?’ Cora said to Jenkins over the noise.

  ‘There’s the Hildantante. That’s next I think.’

  And as if summoned by the constable’s words, from somewhere in the corner, music started. Behind the flagbearers, a group of men and women were forming lines. They wore brightly coloured tunics beset with bells, and conical hats, and carried strangely shaped sticks they kept banging together.

  ‘I think I’ve seen enough,’ Cora said.

  ‘But the dance…’

  ‘You can tell me all about it tomorrow, at the station. Goodnight, Jenkins.’

  Cora pushed her way through the crowd, heading for the door, but that way seemed blocked. All at once she wanted to get out of Garnuck House, away from the laughing and the fine clothes. Away from the sight of the Wayward Chambers, standing alone.

  A steady stream of waiters was heading in the opposite direction, away from the doorway, carrying trays of empty glasses. With no better option, Cora followed them.

  They led her into a service area – tables piled with glasses and bottles, casks stowed beneath them. Waiters milled around. Men and women in aprons were hauling crates of fruit and bread. Everyone was too busy to notice Cora. She caught the coolness of fresh air and saw an open door: the back entrance to Garnuck House. She picked a way through the throng, in striking distance of getting back to the Fenest she knew. The real city. The grime and the gutters and the noise. She raised a hand to push open the door, and almost collided with a woman in a purple tunic.

  ‘Hey!’ the tunic said. ‘You’re not s’posed to be back ’ere.’

  ‘Right you are, I was just leaving,’ Cora said.

  ‘Not tha’ way you’re not.’ Despite being shorter than Cora by some way, the woman put her hands on her hips as if making up for it in width. ‘Guests go out the front, see?’ The woman looked Cora up and down. ‘Is you even a guest?’

  Cora reached for her badge. ‘Actually, I’m a—’

  ‘Oh, lay off her, Sylvie, she’s with me.’ A striking face appeared in the doorway.

  Sylvie turned to the man. ‘With you how?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? That’s my sister, visiting from down south. She only wants a quick smoke before I get back to it.’

  The tunic took in both of them. ‘Don’t look alike, do you?’

  ‘Dawsons make beautiful men and serious women, that’s the right of it.’ The man grinned, which seemed to go some way to thawing Sylvie.

  ‘All right then, just don’t take too long about it. Have your reunions on your own time, see?’

  Cora edged past her, following the man into the yard behind Garnuck House.

  It was quiet after the noise inside, and Cora felt her shoulders soften, her back ease. She’d been tense all night, but now she was free of it – free of the election. But for how long?

  ‘Rough in there,’ the man said. He was a waiter, judging by his uniform. He was big, a few inches taller than her and well-built. A year or two younger, maybe. Smoke curled from his hand and she caught the smell of bindleleaf.

  She reached for her tin, but he passed her a rolled smoke.

  ‘Your job to be on hand with these?’ she said, taking it.

  ‘Something like that.’ He lit it for her. ‘You don’t look like you work for the Commission. Don’t look from out of town, neither.’

  ‘And you’re a Casker in a uniform,’ she said, repaying the favour; his wrists were inked.

  ‘Guess that’s why we’d both rather be back here, and not in there, then. Name’s Finnuc Dawson.’

  ‘Is th
at a Casker name?’

  ‘Could be,’ he said.

  ‘So tell me, Finnuc, you like your chances this election?’ She gestured back towards the Opening Ceremony that was still going on without her.

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘I saw the numbers,’ Cora said. ‘Not so good as the Wayward, but that was a few days ago, now.’

  ‘That’s the beauty of numbers, ain’t it? They never stay the same for long.’

  ‘What does?’ she said.

  ‘If you plan on backing the Caskers, you could always wait for their story Hook.’

  ‘You mean your Hook.’

  Finnuc shrugged.

  The Hook: Cora hadn’t been to see one since she was a little girl. Not since Ruth had left.

  ‘It’ll be packed,’ she said. ‘Don’t know if I could face it.’

  ‘I could take you.’

  ‘You don’t need to—’

  ‘I was going anyway,’ he said. ‘Like to make a day of it. Where should I pick you up?’

  She waited, certain he wasn’t serious. But he waited likewise. What was the harm?

  ‘You know Bernswick station?’

  ‘I know of it, sure.’

  ‘Ask for Detective Gorderheim.’

  He almost dropped his bindleleaf.

  She smiled as she walked out into the street.

  Eight

  The next morning, Cora was barely through the station’s door before Constable Jenkins was upon her. Cora felt tired just looking at the young woman. All that brazen enthusiasm – it wasn’t right in their line of work.

  ‘Morning, Detective.’

  ‘So it is.’ Cora hefted the stack of pennysheets Marcus had left on the station’s front steps. She was beginning to regret asking for all the editions.

  ‘Let me help you,’ Jenkins said, and grabbed a wedge of ’sheets threatening to escape Cora’s arms.

  They passed the front desk, the sergeant there giving Cora a cursory nod. Cora knew the man but couldn’t recall his name. Leeman, Leeson, Lewis, something like that.

  ‘… Ento’s lodgings.’

  Cora stopped dead. ‘What was that, Constable?’