Cities and Thrones

by Carrie Patel

  He shifted on his feet and looked around as if embarrassed to be seen with her. “Do you have to be so conspicuous?”

  She held out her arms and looked at her black clothes. “I’m not even in uniform.”

  He rolled his eyes as if she were being deliberately obtuse. “Forget it.”

  There wasn’t so much a border between the lawless tunnels – Bricklayer territory – and the rest of Recoletta as there was a vague and shifting no-man’s land. As Malone followed Arnault past an abandoned patisserie and a row of shops with boarded-up windows, she could almost feel a change in the air pressure.

  They turned a corner onto a street where rubble, shattered glass, and other detritus littered the ground. The remains of a battle, looting, riot, flight – Malone couldn’t tell. These things had happened all over Recoletta, and in the Vineyard more than anywhere else.

  “Do you have a plan?” Malone asked.

  “I have a few contacts. We may run into one,” he said after a pause.

  The thought brought her little comfort.

  They followed a ramp down to a plaza below. Malone wouldn’t have even realized she was in the Vineyard, once the most opulent district in the city, were it not for the precise maps and diagrams filed away in her head. And even these were starting to change, along with the political and physical topography of her city.

  The wide tunnels were choked with debris, and the walls were chalked, painted, and scarred with slogans and symbols. None of them looked familiar to Malone from her smuggler-hunting days, but she was beyond surprise at that.

  Arnault led them through what must have once been a storefront. The sign outside the door had been burnt black, and the ornamental reliefs had been torn from the walls, but the smell of fine spirits and malts hung in the air, a faint perfume over the sweat, smoke, and gunpowder.

  Just the kind of place Arnault would meet a contact.

  The contact in question waited on the other side of a narrow labyrinth of smashed shelves and overturned tables. He had a beard like a tangle of cobwebs and wrinkles outlined in soot and dirt. He could have been as young as fifty or as old as seventy – it was impossible to tell how much of his apparent age had accumulated with years and how much came from the cosmetics of ruin.

  He looked up, neither surprised nor startled to see them. “Mr Arnault,” he said. “What’ll it be?”

  “Just information. We’re looking for a few people.”

  “We’re still civilized around here.” The man reached under the counter in front of him and set three short glasses on top of it. “And this is no proper talk without a dram.” He reached under the counter again and pulled out a bottle half-full of amber liquid. The label had been peeled off, leaving only streaks of white like trailing clouds, but the man held the bottle with pride and reverence. “The twenty-year?”

  “You are too kind,” Arnault said.

  The man only grunted. The stopper gave a wet squeak as he pulled it out.

  “None for me,” Malone said.

  Arnault looked at her as if she’d just committed the gravest of social sins, but their host nodded and removed one of the glasses. When the other had been filled, he and Arnault raised one each.

  “To Recoletta,” the host said.

  “To Recoletta,” Arnault echoed.

  “Wherever she may be.”

  With that, each man drank. This was not the reckless and unrestrained toss of the head with the extravagantly impatient gulp, but rather a slow, savoring sip. Arnault closed his eyes, lost in an instant of careless bliss that Malone had not thought him capable of.

  And after a handful of seconds that passed at the pace of warm honey, his eyes snapped open, and he was back to business.

  “Now,” their host said, surfacing from his own glass, “who exactly are you looking for?”

  Arnault pulled something out of his jacket and placed it atop the counter. “The people who made this.”

  The whiskey merchant unfolded it, sliding something from between its pages and under the counter. He scanned it, turned it over, rubbed his narrow fingertips together, and Malone remembered the waxy residue on the pamphlets. “I see.”

  “And that’s about all we know about them at this point,” Arnault said.

  The merchant scratched his cobweb beard and made a thoughtful rumble deep in his chest. “You understand that I have no... personal connection,” he said. “I’ve heard rumors, but nothing more, I’m afraid.”

  “Are they connected to the Bricklayer?” Malone asked when the old man’s pause had stretched on too long.

  And while Arnault looked up again as if she’d again said something unbelievably crass, the old man startled, gazing back at her with apprehension. He set his glass on the counter. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know much about that, either. I make it a point to stay out of the Bricklayer’s affairs.” She could see him clamming up, withdrawing, his hands retreating from the glass into frail fists.

  “I understand completely,” Arnault said. “We both do.” This with a significant glance back at her. He turned back to the merchant. “We appreciate whatever you are able to share.” He gave the older man a slow nod.

  “Of course.” The merchant mopped his face with a ragged silk handkerchief. “The Twilight Exchange has been set up at Maxwell Street Station for the last three days. Should be there a couple more before it moves again. I’ve heard word that the people you’re looking for have a contact there. A cheesemonger.”

  Malone bit her tongue. Arnault was no fool in his dealings, but it was all she could do not to say something that would inevitably earn her another barbed look.

  Arnault slipped the pamphlet back into his jacket. “We’ll head to the exchange, and we’ll see that your name stays out of it.”

  “Please, stay as long as you’d like.”

  “One of these days, I’ll take you up on that.” Arnault raised his glass to the wan lamplight and inspected it before finishing it in another long, slow sip. He set his empty glass back on the counter, and Malone followed him back to the street.

  They were a dozen paces back into the rubble and shadow of the streets before Malone spoke. “That man. He knew something.”

  “And he told us,” Arnault said, not deigning to look at her. “Which is why we’re headed to Maxwell Street Station now.”

  “No. About the Bricklayer.”

  “That’s not who we’ve come to find tonight.”

  Malone half considered jumping in front of him, but she was certain he’d barrel right past her anyway. “Convenient for you to point that out now.” Particularly when he’d been the one to bait her with a possible connection in the first place. “Especially after your transaction back there.”

  He shook his head. “What conspiracy are you onto now?”

  They passed the line of shops and into a narrower tunnel with a vaulted ceiling that tapered to a fine point. Most of the gas lamps had been smashed or ripped from the walls, but every third or so burned steadily. It was just enough to navigate by. “You paid him. I saw.”

  The corners of Arnault’s mouth twitched with cruel satisfaction. She could barely see it in the low light. “Like you’ve never paid a contact.”

  “You slipped it into the pamphlet. Hoping I wouldn’t notice.”

  He placed one hand over his heart. “I was only trying to protect your delicate sensibilities. And look where that got me.”

  Flippancy to hide deceit, like hasty sweepings over tracks. Arguing with him was useless, but it felt good.

  His grin returned. “You might not be so uptight if you’d just had a glass of the single malt.”

  The passage seemed to narrow up ahead. Or was it just the tunnel vision of her anger? “We all need limits. I draw the line at sharing the spoils of looters and profiteers.”

  Arnault was silent for several seconds before Malone heard his dry chuckle. “Francis Petrosian has owned that shop for thirty-five years. He’s survived, no thanks to us, by selling information and w
hatever else he’s able to get his hands on these days. Used to sell the finest spirits in Recoletta. You saw about all he was able to salvage.”

  Malone said nothing as they emerged from the passage and into another plaza. It opened to the streets one level up, where tall, arched windows looked down on them. Smashed, draped with ragged towels, and strung with clotheslines, they had once been some of the most coveted apartments in Recoletta.

  But as she looked up and around, Malone noticed something else, which was that she could actually see the plaza clearly. Gas lamps, mismatched but functional, protruded from the walls, and though the paving stones were cracked, they were clear of rubble and litter.

  Arnault seemed to have noticed the same thing. “Careful,” he said, his voice low. “We’re in Bricklayer territory now.”

  The thought silenced her questions and padded her steps. And yet with the apprehension came a kind of reckless delight.

  As they passed through lit and swept streets, Malone saw men and women conducting seemingly ordinary business – carrying bags of groceries, walking hand in hand, and bearing satchels and briefcases, thin-lipped with purpose. If they lived in fear of a mysterious criminal overlord, they seemed to have forgotten it for now. The gas was on, and the storefronts had been sanded and chiseled smooth.

  By all appearances, they had walked into a functional neighborhood, and yet it bore no resemblance to the Vineyard.

  Something was unmistakably different, even if Malone had a difficult time pinpointing it. Perhaps it was an inevitable side effect of the infliction and repair of so much damage; maybe, when the spurs and spars in the stone were ground smooth, when the streets were swept clean and the floor tiles polished, maybe some essential part of the Vineyard had been scoured away.

  Or maybe it was the people. Dressed in simple yet clean slacks, blouses, and skirts, their nails trimmed short, they didn’t look like whitenails. But, then again, neither had the whiskey merchant.

  Before Malone could ponder the matter further, her attention shifted to the rising sound of activity up ahead.

  Before the revolution, Maxwell Street Station had been the transportation hub of the Vineyard. A stop for the railcar and suspended trolley lines that ran through the district, it had borne whitenails across Recoletta. Jet-black coaches, polished daily, had waited along the adjacent avenues and tunnels.

  Transportation service to and from Maxwell Street Station had stopped about a month after Sato’s takeover. But as Malone and Arnault approached around the curve of Blackstone Street, the place seemed to rumble with the thunder of wheels and the steam hiss of brakes.

  Yet they passed under a wide, basket handle arch and entered the station, and the railcars were still, slumbering metal snakes, and the suspended trolleys nested in the eaves on the upper level of the station. All around them, however, were people bartering, arguing, and parleying in the quick, hushed tones that Malone knew for black market patois.

  While the black market wasn’t confined to a single location, most people had come to associate it with the Twilight Exchange. What had started as haphazard and spontaneous meetings between a handful of desperate and resourceful traders had grown into a massive and deceptively organized marketplace – even Malone had been unable to pinpoint it before. It was said that the Twilight Exchange was now the largest and most lucrative market in Recoletta. Seeing it for the first time, Malone had no doubt this was true.

  She and Arnault passed between makeshift stalls and blankets spread with goods, from everyday soaps and oils to fine jewelry.

  Yet they’d been directed toward someone specific.

  “A... cheesemonger?” Malone asked.

  “Someone who sells cheese.”

  “I know that. I’m asking if you know who we’re looking for.”

  “Whoever it is, I’m sure we’ll smell him when we’re close.”

  They willed themselves invisible, which wasn’t too difficult when everyone else around them was obviously doing the same.

  The merchants were crowded close together, but each looked as if he or she could pack up and disappear with the folding of a blanket or a sweep into a basket. What had enabled the Twilight Exchange to survive long enough to grow was its mobility – when it first formed, it had appeared at a new street corner every night. Contrary to popular belief, it was named not for the times of day at which it appeared and disbanded, but for its transient nature – it was said to vanish as quickly as the last light of day.

  Malone had heard that in its first month, it never popped up the same place twice, and merchants and buyers alike relied on word of mouth to find it. These days, it still supposedly dissipated and reformed around a network of those in the know, but that network had grown large enough to leak. And the Twilight Exchange would, at least, generally stay in one place for a few days at a time. The sheer number of merchants required it.

  Which could make finding their cheesemonger difficult, Malone thought as she looked through the throngs.

  Across the station, she caught sight of a stack of exotic-looking pastries. “We should at least head for the foodstuffs,” Malone muttered. “Those sellers are likely to group together.”

  “That’s what we’re doing,” Arnault said.

  She looked back at the pastry stand and then at their parallel path. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, Arnault.”

  “Only if you don’t mind scaring them off. Now, relax and try to enjoy the scenery.”

  But, now that she knew where they were headed, all she could pay attention to was their leisurely pace toward the goal.

  At long last, they found a man selling strips of salt-packed fish from a barrel, and a thrill quickened in Malone’s gut.

  Arnault scowled as if he’d read her thoughts. “Just keep your head down and follow my lead.”

  So she did, eyeing flour-dusted rolls, sticky buns, berry preserves, and thin sheets of cured ham, and realizing again how ridiculous this all was.

  Until a tangy, pungent odor hit her nostrils and she saw the woman sitting cross-legged on a spotless blanket, ringed with wheels and blocks wrapped in parchment paper or cased in red or yellow wax.

  She glanced up at Arnault, who had already stopped to examine the wares. They were stacked and bunched with a system of organization that seemed to defy any obvious logic.

  “What are you looking for?” the woman asked. Her graying hair was coiled in a tight chignon, and she looked up at Arnault over gold wire-rimmed spectacles. Her plain dress was an inch too short in the sleeves, but her shoulders were draped with a finely embroidered shawl.

  “What do you have?” he asked.

  She smiled, but her expression wasn’t friendly. “Sharp cheddars. Blocks of hard sheep’s cheese. A few rounds of creamed goat cheese. And some ripe blue.”

  Arnault was silent for several seconds. “Is that all?”

  She gave him a second, thoughtful look.

  “We were sent to you on a personal recommendation,” he said. “I was hoping you’d have some special stock.”

  The woman adjusted the spectacles on the bridge of her nose and looked away, as though she’d written him off as an idling browser. “All of my wares are of the finest quality, sir. If anything I’ve mentioned interests you, let me know.”

  Arnault pulled the folded pamphlet out of his jacket and held it out to her. “I’m looking for something like this.”

  The cheesemonger recoiled from it too quickly, her eyes white with surprise. “I don’t know what that is, but you seem to have made a mistake.”

  He shook the creased pages inches from her spectacles. “You haven’t even given this a good look.”

  She sniffed and turned away from him again with the affronted dignity of someone fleeing an unsuitable dinner conversation. “You’re obviously at the wrong stall. I suggest you take your business – whatever it might be – elsewhere.”

  She unstacked and restacked her parchment-wrapped cheeses, something to occupy her
attention while she waited for this awkwardness to pass, no doubt. She sorted haphazardly through the piles in front of her, yet in the middle of her chore, she reached behind herself to touch several blocks covered in red wax. It seemed like an unconscious movement, and it gave Malone an idea.

  “I’ll take one of those,” she said, pointing at the red blocks.

  The woman looked back at Malone, her eyes widening as she must have realized what she’d just done. “Those aren’t for sale,” she said, her voice flat.

  Malone pulled her wallet out of her pocket and paged through the crisp bills. “How much?”

  “They’re not for sale,” she repeated with more conviction. “Those are on reserve. Special order.”

  Malone paused, her fingers astride a pair of ten-mark notes. She glanced over at Arnault, whose teeth were just slightly bared.

  Malone reached into her other pocket and removed her badge, a silver shield that fit easily in the palm of her hand. It was the same one she’d been issued when she’d first joined the Municipal Police years ago, even though her position as chief had come with a larger and more ornate badge.

  But the small size came in handy now, and she knelt to show it to the cheesemonger. “It would be easiest if you let me take a look now.”

  The vendor raised her head one more time, her resolve melting as she looked around the market and saw no source of aid or relief. She grabbed one of the blocks behind her and slapped it between Malone’s knees with a sullen frown.

  A knife sunk into the center of the block. Malone looked at Arnault in irritation as he wedged a cleft in the wax, but even she’d heard the crumple and squeak of paper. Arnault stripped the wax and the thin parchment layer beneath it away, revealing a stack of pamphlets like the one he’d brought.

  “Where did you get these?” Malone asked the cheesemonger.

  The woman smirked. “You said we had mutual friends.”

  “You can tell me, or you can tell Sato himself.”

  The cheesemonger’s smile fell. “They come about once a week. They drop these off, and I see that they get distributed to a few regular buyers.”

  “Names,” Arnault demanded.