by Jo Zebedee
Ormuz waited until the data-freighter was just a dark speck high in the sky and then went aboard Divine Providence. He planned to search the gazetteer for information on Ophold.
Plessant was not happy. In fact, she was deeply unhappy. Events had conspired to turn a simple task into a tangled nightmare. Come to Darrus, her superiors the Involutes had said. So she did. And some regimental-lieutenant tried to kill young Ormuz. Take him to Kapuluan, Hukom had told her. And now she couldn’t… because of the murder of that selfsame regimental-lieutenant. Oh, she knew who had killed him—or rather, she could make an educated guess. Hukom. He would allow nothing to stand in the way of the Involutes’ desires.
During the train ride into Amwadina, Plessant sat and fumed. She felt increasingly estranged from her masters. It had always been the way that no one understood their plans but the Involutes. The rank and file operated on faith, an unshakeable belief that the Involutes knew what they were doing. But events on Darrus had been so quickly and so easily derailed that Plessant was finding it increasingly hard to accept the Involutes’ omniscience. They must have known about Merenilo, about his intention to assassinate Ormuz. If they had, why had they ordered Divine Providence to Darrus?
Plessant was unlikely to ever be raised to Involute. She was not devious enough. Every secret she held itched to be told. It took an act of will to tell her crew only what they were intended to know. She felt like one of the data-vats in Divine Providence’s hold, full to capacity and beyond, a moment away from spilling the knowledge she held… And creating a nasty mess on the decking.
She would have it out with Hukom. Ormuz was in her keeping; she must safeguard him from harm. She had taken a vow to do so.
The train drew to a halt at her station and she disembarked. A crowd of some half dozen proles preceded her up the stairs onto the street. She left them arguing over their immediate destination, and struck out for the Sidiqi. There was no guarantee Hukom would still be there, hiding deep within the catacombs beneath the bar. But Stiletto was still at Minadar—she had spotted the starship as she left Divine Providence.
The Sidiqi’s barman was surprised to see her, but nodded in acknowledgement as she strode to the door leading down to the underground tombs.
“Lady Plessant?” The serjeant sentry at the head of the stairs was clearly surprised to see her. He held up a hand to prevent her passing.
“He still here?” she demanded.
“Yes, but—”
“I have to see him. It’s important.” She winced—that had almost been pleading.
The serjeant pulled out a miniaturised caster from a pocket and whispered into it. Holding it to his ear, he listened to the reply, nodding as he received instructions.
“Well?”
“You know where to find him, my lady. He hopes you have good cause.”
Plessant grimaced. “He can bloody well hope what he likes.” She pushed past the sentry and descended the stairs. The stairs doubled back three times. Plessant’s irritation grew with each flight.
Sir Marit demar Hukom met her at the foot of the stairs. He waited, arms crossed, leaning casually against one rocky wall. His face remained blank and expressionless as she approached. “Marit,” she said.
“You should not be here,” he replied.
“Oh?” Plessant could not help the sarcasm. She was angry and annoyed. “Where should I be? Ophold? Ah, but I can’t be there… because the bloody OPI won’t let me launch.”
The knight sinister blinked. “Pardon?”
“They’ve put a lien on my ship. Because you went ahead and killed that regimental-lieutenant. That was stupid.”
Hukom uncrossed his arms and put a hand to the hilt of his sword. “He had to be removed. Would you sooner have the boy at risk?”
“Couldn’t you have been more subtle? I thought it was our watchword. Some inspector is investigating the murder and she knows we’re involved.”
“The Order?” Hukom blinked, shocked.
“My crew, Marit. She must know about the attacks.”
“You reported them?”
“Of course not! I don’t know what she knows or how she knows it. But I can’t leave this bloody mud ball until she’s interviewed us.”
“Fob her off, Murily.”
Plessant shook her head. “She’s sharp this one. From Shuto, if I’m not mistaken. Probably working on the investigation into the conspiracy the Involutes fed the OPI.”
“From Shuto?” Hukom frowned. “What’s her name?”
“Finesz.”
The knight sinister barked a laugh. “Finesz? Sliva Finesz? Then you need not worry, Murily.”
Plessant gazed at Hukom suspiciously but said nothing.
“She’s Norioko’s mistress. Her position is… a sinecure. A favour.” He frowned. “Although why send her all the way out here? Perhaps he tired of her.”
“I don’t think you should underestimate her, Marit.”
Hukom smiled grimly. “Then tell her whatever you want, Murily. Anything… providing it is not the truth.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rinharte glanced back over her shoulder as she hurried along the street. The hooded cloak and veil had seemed excessive when Gallam suggested she wear it, but now she was grateful for its concealing drapes and folds. She swore under breath. The two constables had increased their pace and were getting nearer. No one was running yet but it would not be long before Rinharte was forced to a jog. She walked more quickly, stooped to disguise her height.
What had she done? Something had made them suspicious—she did not know what. She hadn’t spoken. Perhaps it was her height? Her posture? Something about her had clearly not fit the mould of the Darrusï proletariat.
Gallam and Rinharte had been in the market, buying provisions. The constables had approached, intent on questioning. Rinharte had no papers. She could not afford to come under the constables’ scrutiny. Fortunately, Gallam was two stalls away, far enough to have been a stranger and not Rinharte’s companion.
Rinharte fled.
Cloak flapping, bent forward like an old beggar, she cursed as she left the market at a brisk walk. She had no route in mind, simply escape. Her abrupt departure did not put off the constables, who took quickly after her.
There was an alleyway ahead, a narrow dark passage between two buildings. As Rinharte drew abreast of its entrance, she pivoted and shot into its shadows. She broke into a jog. Behind her, the syncopated drumming of four booted feet came faster.
A voice yelled, “Halt!”
Rinharte ignored the shout. She twisted to look back as she ran, overbalancing and caroming off a wall as she did so. Two silhouettes stood framed in the alley’s entrance. They moved forward, pulling out truncheons.
At the corner where two buildings met sat a pool of impenetrable darkness. Rinharte folded herself into it, wrapping her black cloak about herself. She squatted and tried to still her panting. Footsteps echoed within the alley’s confines, sounding like a whole regiment of constables. Rinharte tugged her hood further forward and burrowed her gloved hands into her cloak’s folds.
“Where’d she go?” The constable was no more than two yards from Rinharte’s hiding place.
“Reckon we lost her?”
“No. She’s along here somewhere.”
“Got your lantern?”
Rinharte groaned under her breath. It was the darkness which was concealing her. She scrabbled about on the ground with one hand and uttered a quiet grunt of satisfaction as her fingers closed on a small piece of rubble. She pitched it underhand across and further back along, the alley.
“What’s that?” demanded a constable. “Hear it?”
“Hang on.” Moments later, a bright light cut through the shadows. There was nothing to see, of course. They were looking in the wrong place.
Rinharte exploded from hiding. Two steps and she lifted a leg and kicked out with the heel. Bone jarred as she hit something
. The constable went over backwards and slid several feet on the stone flags. His mate swung his lantern. Rinharte blocked his swing with a forearm. Wrapping a fold of cloak about the light, she yanked it from his grasp and sent it to smash on the ground. She punched forward, felt her fist hit. The constable yelped in pain. She laid her arm along the length of his, twisted and turned. He swung about, arm twisting up behind him. She rammed him forward. His head hit the wall with a satisfying thud. His legs folded, so Rinharte released him. He collapsed.
She ran to the entrance of the alleyway. Neither constable stirred. Before leaving the shadows, she pulled off her cloak and veil, bundled it up and threw it to one side. In the clothes she wore beneath it, she stepped into the street, and strolled nonchalantly home to the apartment.
Kordelasz was taking his time getting ready. Rinharte could not remain patiently seated and took to prowling about the living-room, ignoring Gallam’s amused gaze. The room was no larger than a pantry. How could people live this way? Admittedly, the apartment now held three, and not its usual one. And that one, judging by the mementoes scattered about, had spent many years here. Rinharte’s attention was drawn to a series of photographs on a shelf by the arch into the hallway: a succession of posed and natural tableaux.
A teenaged Gallam, looking pretty in some summery frock, tucked into the side of a young man. Rinharte envied her the happiness which seemed to radiate from the picture. At that age, Rinharte was already in the Imperial Navy. A midshipman, being terrorised by the likes of Dradzasc.
The next photo depicted a slightly older Gallam, accepting her qualification at technum. Rinharte glanced back at the woman perched in the armchair, trying to marry the person to her image. A good many years had passed since Gallam had matriculated—at least thirty, if Rinharte were any judge. The cheerful young woman with the shining black hair had become… smaller, almost harried. The trusting gaze had turned bird-like, the open expression prim.
Rinharte turned away. She had seen enough. She herself had no mementoes of her own adolescence—only her Imperial Navy personnel docket, held somewhere in the archives deep beneath the Admiralty Fort on Shuto.
“What’s taking him so long?” she complained. And was pleased to note she had correctly dropped the agreement between verb and object.
“He’s only been ten minutes,” Gallam replied. “He’ll be out soon.”
Rinharte crossed to the sofa and perched on the edge of the seat. Three days later, and the incident with the constables could have been a dream. For a few hours afterwards, she had felt invincible. Her vague feelings of defilement at her proletarian disguise had evaporated. With a kick and a punch, she had reasserted control over her life. Nothing in Amwadina could penetrate her invulnerability.
The euphoria had not lasted long. There was no search for the constables’ assailant, no constabulary bulletins, nothing on the local news circuit. Clearly it had been nothing unusual.
If she had felt disconnected, insubstantial, during her masquerade on Tanabria Station, she felt even less herself now. “Playing the prole”. She had sworn she would never do it, but circumstance had dictated otherwise. And now she doubted her own identity, her own place in society. If she could pass as proletarian, then what made her yeoman?
And Gallam. After five days of instruction in proletarian Swovo and mores, Rinharte found herself thinking of the philologian as an equal. She had proven a useful ally.
Ally. Rinharte grimaced. A prole an ally. There was no denying Gallam had been most useful: she had housed them, fed them, kept their presence from arousing suspicion, even dreamt up a plausible excuse for their imposition on her hospitality to offer neighbours. They were new additions to the University staff, arrived early due to a bureaucratic cock-up and so incumbent upon Gallam’s hospitality.
In a moment of recklessness, still on edge from her fight, Rinharte had suggested a night out to celebrate. It was also a gesture of appreciation, a way of thanking Gallam for all her help. Rinharte wore an outfit chosen by the marine-lieutenant—she had not been present when he had bought it, although Kordelasz swore Gallam had actually made the purchase and approved the choice. Rinharte did not believe him. She suspected him of having his revenge for that first trip to buy provisions, when he had been forced to wear Gallam’s clothes. But the philologian had insisted that what Rinharte wore was both appropriate and fashionable.
“I feel a bloody fool,” Rinharte muttered.
She wore a metallic green dress, short but loose-fitting, with long but tight-fitting sleeves; glossy skin-coloured hose; and heeled sandals made of some transparent material which was all but invisible. She had undone her Navy queue and put her hair up in a chignon.
“You look great,” Gallam assured her. “I only wish I could get away with something like that.” Which no doubt explained the prole woman’s sober knee-length black dress with high collar, and opaque grey hose.
Rinharte had never thought of herself as attractive. Nor was she when compared to her peers. But she was pale in comparison to the Darrusï—that and her height made her exotic to the proles of Amwadina.
“You’ll draw eyes tonight,” the prole woman added.
Rinharte grunted. She had drawn eyes on previous trips for provisions outside the apartment—including the constabulary’s. Fortunately, many found her height intimidating. Or was it her expression? Did she appear haughty? She still found it hard to consort with proles on so intimate a level, felt almost despoiled at having to do so. But neither did she want her disguise to be penetrated by everyone who set eyes upon her. Mere professionalism demanded she impersonate a member of the lower class as effectively as she could. That, and the fact that she was currently being sought by the knights stalwart and the captain of Galaba…
Kordelasz exited the bedroom. He tugged sheepishly at the hem of his blue reefer jacket, and clearly looked as embarrassed at his finery as Rinharte did hers.
“You look very handsome,” Gallam told him.
Rinharte glanced across at the prole woman, detecting an odd note in Gallam’s voice… The philologian’s gaze was not entirely companionable. She was attracted to the marine-lieutenant.
Blood and corruption, thought Rinharte. The marine-lieutenant had another weapon there, as deadly as his sword; but he seemed oblivious to its existence.
They hurriedly readied themselves to leave the apartment, Rinharte pulling on a knee-length coat in a shade matching her dress, and Gallam draping a black cloak about herself. Kordelasz had no outerwear, but clearly felt undressed without a sword on his hip.
Gallam chose the venue. “Better not go where I’m known,” she told the other two. “We don’t want to have to answer too many questions.” She paused halfway down the stairs. “In fact,” she said, “I know exactly where we can go. It’s not far. Crews from Minadar use it.”
It entailed a train ride. Sitting on a wooden bench in the carriage, as the train rattled through the tunnels beneath Amwadina, Rinharte found herself staring at her reflection in the window opposite. Faint and ghostly, like an old photograph, against the rushing tunnel wall. She felt ghostly. Over the last five days, she had found herself coming to like Gallam. But not as one would a favoured servant or useful retainer. As a friend. They had spent too much time in close proximity for any other relationship to form. Those first few nights, Rinharte had slept in Gallam’s bed, while the proletarian slept on a pad on the floor. (Kordelasz spent the nights on the sofa in the living-room.) After switching off the lights, they often spoke—conversations on the edge of sleep which covered all manner of subjects. By the third night, Rinharte had offered the bed to the older woman, and taken the floor-pad for herself. They were on first-name terms: Suha and… Rinharte had taken the alias Riz Gotovach after a cook in her parents’ household she remembered fondly from childhood. Kordelasz had named himself Garfi Niwashi.
The bar was called the Sikkir. A sign in looping Kilmï script, the same in Swovo beneath it, hung above the do
or. The Kilmï was an affectation—no one could read it but scholars of ancient Darrusï history. Kordelasz pushed open the door and stood to one side to allow Rinharte and Gallam to enter.
The Sikkir was busy. Drinkers occupied every table, and a crowd shifted and roiled throughout the room. While Kordelasz fought his way to the bar, Rinharte and Gallam found a vacant spot against one wall.
The bar could never be mistaken for an upper-class drinking establishment. Yeomen and nobles would not accept sitting or standing in such close proximity to each other. They demanded large airy rooms, comfortable furniture, and prompt and solicitous service. They also expected some form of entertainment—typically a group of musicians—which was neither crass nor obtrusive. Something which could not be said of the pounding beat of the recorded music playing in the room. On a series of glasses scattered about the bar a variety of entertainments—a music programme, a melodrama, sports, an action series—played silently to no one. Animated wallpaper. The lack of accompanying sound rendered the images difficult to fathom: on one glass, Rinharte saw an actor playing a knight duelling with three grey-clad assassins. Grey Princes, she supposed. Whether they had ever existed was moot, they had entered popular mythology. The legend—that they had secretly manipulated the rulers of the Old Empire for centuries—was enough to see them cast as the villains in thousands of melodramas.
Amused, Rinharte watched the knight dispatch his assailants with suspicious ease. The moves the duellists made were balletic, frequently seemed to defy the laws of physics. The “knight” leapt several feet up into the air, twisting, turning and somersaulting to bring him down behind the assassins. The laws of physics served at the will of the needs of drama.
Rinharte turned her attention to the Sikkir’s customers. The most common form of dress was a coverall festooned with patches. Ship crew. Others wore proletarian finery. Many were clearly the worse for drink. They talked, laughed, joked, and gesticulated in groups.
