by D. K. Fields
‘That was almost cruel,’ Serus said, once they were past the tunics.
Cora laughed, and she’d be damned to Silence if that didn’t feel good too.
They inched down the aisle, along with half of Fenest, it felt like. The benches on either side were full too but with a nod to a Rustan woman with a metal shoulder, Serus found them seats in the middle. As they sat down, he glanced up to the eaves.
‘I think this should be a good spot,’ he said. ‘Of course, it’s the first display, so you’ll have to forgive them if they’re a bit… well, rusty.’
Others in the Seat were looking up, craning their heads, twisting around as if they didn’t know where to look exactly, but they knew there was something in the roof that deserved attention. Cora couldn’t see anything but the old, dark wood of the Seat’s eaves. But then she caught a flash of movement in the shadows there.
‘Serus, is that… Did I just see a face up there?’
He grinned, and his cheekbones slid over one another in an alarming way. ‘They should be in place by now, and not too nervous, I hope. They’ve been practising for months.’
‘I still have no idea what you’re—’
His finger was on her lips. ‘You should have some surprises, Cora.’
She could taste spice on his skin.
The noise and chatter of those crammed into the Seat began to drop away. A Rustan woman made her way down the aisle towards the carved figure of the Commoner at the far end of the Seat, away from the doors.
‘Thank you, one and all!’ the woman called from beside the Commoner.
There was the sound of the great wooden doors being shut. The Seat was at capacity, and here Cora was inside it, next to Serus, about to be surprised. Or so he said.
‘We thank you for your patience,’ said the woman. She was tall, but broad with it. She looked like she could handle herself. ‘I promise, what you’re about to see will be worth the wait.’ Her voice carried across the open expanse of the Seat, reaching all those on the benches, and reaching up to the roof too – her words bounced off the wooden beams that stretched from each of the four corners of the Seat up to its apex. All eyes were on the eaves and the shelf set just below them that ran around the stone walls. There was definitely something, or someone, up there.
‘As many of you will know from the pennysheets,’ the woman continued, ‘the Rustan Hook will feature displays. The performance you’re about to witness has been specially timed to open the Hook, but subsequent performances will be random. When members of the troupe decide to appear.’
‘Troupe?’ Cora whispered. Serus gave her a knowing smile.
‘All who step foot inside this Seat,’ said the Rustan woman, ‘will have the chance to see something rarely glimpsed outside the Rusting Mountains. And that is what we bring you – the possibility of wonder.
‘First, however, a word of warning. I must ask you all to stay seated during the performance. No one will—’
There was a giggle. It came from overhead. Everyone craned their necks to see. Cora couldn’t make out anything.
The Rustan woman coughed and attempted to regain the attention of her audience. ‘No one will be in any real danger, though at times it may seem—’
Something fell from the ceiling. It was a blur of colour – red? And then there were cries from somewhere in front of Cora. Purple tunics rushed to the spot. People were squirming and pushing one another out of the way. A hand shot up from the bench where the thing had landed, and in it looked to be a holen, the fruit squashed and seeping its juice onto one unlucky person. The crowd broke into frenzied noise, no small part of which was laughter.
Beside her, Serus groaned. ‘They can’t behave themselves for one minute. Even here, for such an occasion!’
There was more giggling from above, this time from all four corners of the roof. The sound echoed across the Seat so that Cora had no idea how many were up there. It sent the crowd back into an expectant silence.
The Rustan woman at the front shrugged with some resignation. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you… the Rustan Hook!’
Eight
Music began – some tootling and a pattering drum. A small figure crawled out from under the eaves of the Seat. As Cora watched, her mouth dropped open: the figure was a child of perhaps five or six. He or she was dressed head to toe in blue, and they were climbing onto the nearest beam. Gasps and cries rippled through the crowd as more and more noticed the Rustan child.
‘How’s it possible they don’t fall?’ Cora whispered.
‘Watch first,’ Serus said, ‘then I’ll tell you.’
The drum’s rhythm became faster, and the child in blue scaled the roof beam on all fours, and at speed too. It wasn’t a scramble. It was more graceful than that. The child moved quickly, as if they were climbing a tree rather than the ceiling of a Seat, some two hundred feet from the ground.
As the child reached the very top, the music stopped. It felt as if the whole Seat was holding its breath. Then, the child fell backwards.
Everyone gasped.
But the child wasn’t tumbling onto the benches far below. They were hanging from the apex of the roof by their feet. By their feet?
The child’s arms were dangling, and Cora now saw that the blue one-piece suit they wore had a small sail of cloth. It hung from their back, and was now unravelling as they were upside down. A sail unravelling to reveal the Rustan realm’s symbol: a pair of peaks. Whichever instrument was doing the tootling now gave something of a flourish, and the crowd cheered and clapped.
The drum began again and the tune continued, this time with more instruments. More children appeared from the corners of the roof, each one dressed in a suit of a different colour: red, green, yellow, purple. They raced along their respective beams, bouncing and bounding – one even did a flip as they went.
Cora couldn’t look away. In time with the music, two children jumped from their beam, right into the air. Many in the crowd shrieked or squealed – surely this time one would fall!
But instead, the children caught each other. The two wearing red and green clasped hands with the blue, and all three hung there.
A moment later, the child in yellow grasped the foot of the red, the purple child the foot of the green. All of them together in a strange kind of star. No – it was something else. The colours.
‘Like a rainbow,’ Cora said.
A rainbow under the eaves of the Seat, made up of children in brightly coloured clothes. A rainbow that curved up and over the symbol of the Rustans.
‘They’re doing very well,’ Serus said.
As the applause continued, the children bounced back onto their beams and took a bow. Then sharing glances and cackling, they all reached into their suits. Holens and other fruit were dropped with childish abandon. Those below who were hit began to curse and shout at the adult Rustans at the front, who were looking on in dismay. The rest of the crowd hooted with laughter.
‘Serus, are you blushing?’ Cora asked.
He wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘Just when you think they’re going to behave, they go and ruin it.’
‘I think they’re fantastic!’
And they weren’t finished.
The drum beat changed, slowing down but booming out across the Seat. The child in blue once more took up their position, hanging upside down from the beam. Then, the red child leapt into the air only to be caught by their feet. With each beat from the drum another child took flight, was caught, and added their momentum to the swing of the pendulum.
When the last child joined the display, the applause was thunderous. Cora let out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding.
A line of Rustan children, arcing through the air and reaching from the roof beams.
Then, one by one, starting from the bottom, the children scrambled up each other, then ran along the beams. Their speed was incredible, and within a few beats of the drum, the column of children had dispersed. From the ledge that
ran around the roof of the Seat, five small faces peered down. The crowd waited. And waited. The children stayed where they were.
From the way the music trailed off, as if the instruments had been abandoned, one after the other, Cora had the sense the show had ended earlier than the adult Rustans had planned.
‘Do you think they’ve finished?’ she asked Serus. From the babble in the Seat, it sounded as if everyone was asking the same question.
‘Who knows? Our children are a law unto themselves.’
The Rustans at the front had a huddled discussion with much pointing and handwringing, then the tall woman who’d opened the Hook thanked everyone for coming.
People stood, and the central aisle was at once jammed, the purple tunics unable to do anything except bemoan the lack of organisation from the Rustans. For Cora, to see representatives from the Commission in a flap was an extra highlight.
As they waited to join the lumbering procession out of the Seat, she wondered what this Hook meant for the Rustan election story. Would their tale be one of flight, and so escape? Or childish innocence, perhaps. There was also the rainbow. That was a beautiful thing made of different parts. But five parts in the Hook. Was that significant? There were six realms in the Union.
‘The Hook has certainly set you thinking,’ Serus said.
‘Is it that obvious?’ Cora smiled. ‘They were amazing, the way they just flung themselves into the air.’ The courage. The trust they had in each other. The trust they had in themselves.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the rascals decide to do their best work when the Seat’s empty.’
‘You mean that wasn’t their best work?’
‘Honestly, Cora, what you’ve just seen, they could do that in their sleep.’
‘But how? You said you’d tell me.’
‘Hair,’ he said.
She glanced at his topknot.
‘Not there. On their hands and feet. That’s what lets them climb. That and a complete lack of fear.’
‘Rustans have hairy hands and feet?’
‘When we turn twelve, thirteen, those tiny hairs fall out, and our climbing days are over. The end of childhood is a painful thing in the Mountains.’
‘Sounds sad.’
‘It is… unimaginable,’ Serus said, and there was such misery in his voice, she had to change the subject. Which was no bad thing. She needed his help.
‘The fire yesterday,’ she said quickly, ‘at the distiller’s.’
‘What about it?’
Cora looked around, but the others queueing to leave the Seat were wrapped up in their own chatter. ‘Do you know who’s investigating that fire?’ Cora asked.
Serus’s metal cheekbones began to vibrate. Was he… was he grinding his teeth?
‘Funny thing about that fire,’ he muttered. ‘No one’s investigating.’
‘How is that possible?’
‘A message came from the Wheelhouse,’ Serus said. ‘Commission said that the recent hot weather, combined with some poor ventilation practices, was to blame. Too much heat and the making of spirits… No mystery there.’
‘I’ve read as much in the pennysheets.’
‘That’s just it, Cora – that story was in The Spoke before I’d heard from the Wheelhouse.’ He paused, letting that sink in. ‘In short, no one has properly checked the distiller’s, and I’m telling you that as the Chief Fire Investigator for Fenest.’
‘But why isn’t there an investigation?’
Serus shrugged. ‘I was told it isn’t a priority. It’s an old building in a less important part of the city. No one can trace the owner. No one died in the fire.’
‘That’s not true!’ But even as she said that, she realised she hadn’t seen any bodies. Who had spoken of them? The lad who met them at south gate. The head herder, Hyam. And then Tannir, who would tell another Wayward story if he had his way. ‘I need to see it for myself,’ she said, as they reached the door of the Seat. Emerging from the gloom, she and those around her squinted against the early morning light.
Serus rubbed his chin. ‘What’s your interest in this fire, Cora?’
‘I’ll tell you that when you’ve told me what caused it.’
He gave her a long look, then agreed.
Nine
Cora and Serus caught a gig. When the driver dropped them off – two streets from the distiller’s to cover their trail – Cora reached for her coin purse and found it worryingly light. Serus stepped in, waving away her half-hearted effort at protest.
‘I’ll fill in a few Commission forms to claim it as a work expense,’ he said.
The gig clattered off, the driver seeming to think her coins might be at risk if she hung around any longer. What more could you expect from a Clotham’s gig? At least they’d managed to take that cheaper option. Cora would have felt worse about Serus paying if it had been a more expensive Garnuck’s coach.
She started walking in the direction of the distiller’s. There was smoke on the air.
‘So, here we are,’ Serus said. ‘A once-detective and a city fire investigator, at a fire the Commission decided doesn’t need investigating.’
‘Serus, I don’t want you to risk—’
‘It’s fine, Cora. I should have been asking questions about this before now.’
‘Then why didn’t you?’ The words were out of her mouth before she’d thought them through.
The look he gave her – she couldn’t work it out. Was he hurt? Or guarded? Either way, it wasn’t good. But she’d had to ask him. It came from spending all this time with Ruth: her sister wasn’t afraid of difficult questions. In fact, she seemed to love them and the uncomfortable truths they often brought to light.
‘The Commission’s message was unequivocal,’ Serus said, his voice cool. ‘This fire was not a cause for concern.’
Cora checked her bindle tin, just to have something to look at. ‘And you wouldn’t go against that, no matter how much you thought it was wrong?’
‘There are risks to breaking the rules, Cora. You of all people should know that.’ He swept past her.
‘Wait, Serus – you don’t know where you’re going!’
‘The amount of smoke still hanging about, it’ll be hard to miss the source.’
She caught up with him, and they made their way down a narrow, cobbled street, side by side, but Cora felt far away from him. So much for starting something new with Serus.
They were on the edge of Derringate, where that part of the city slid into Easterton. Fewer well-to-do houses here than in Derringate proper, but the distiller’s was on a decent enough street. Easterton Coach Station was in sight, but its noise couldn’t be heard from here, and there were none of the cutpurse hideaways that dogged the streets nearer the coach station. Cora kept half an eye on those passing by, and each time she and Serus turned a corner, she glanced back to see if they were being followed.
‘Expecting company?’ Serus said.
‘There’s a cutpurse for every corner.’
She could tell he didn’t believe her.
The ashy smell grew stronger and stronger, until in front of them were the still-smoking remains of the distiller’s – Ruth’s previous safe house, now not safe for anyone. Cora had spent a night here before the trip to the woods with Ruth and Nullan. She hadn’t slept much, but that was hardly a surprise, given the narrow bench she’d been lying on. She and Ruth had been sleeping on the second floor. There wasn’t much of that left now by the looks of things. The roof had collapsed, taking the third floor and most of the second down with it. All that remained to see from the street was the front wall of the ground level rooms, the glass in the windows blown out.
‘I think they were blue, the exterior walls,’ Cora said, looking at the now blackened stonework. ‘And the door was impressive – this big glass pane made of the bottom of bottles. All different colours.’
Serus stepped towards the gaping entranceway then squatted amid splintered wood, broken glass and the few p
ennysheets that had drifted into the mess. ‘Not much of the door left now. This kind of blaze would melt something like that. You said the place was packed with spirits?’
‘It looked like a going concern to me.’
‘Which makes it hard to believe no one has claimed the building,’ Serus said, ‘or that the Wheelhouse can’t trace an owner in its records.’
A thin purple rope was strung across the doorway, and on it was pinned a neat square of white paper. Do not enter. This building is scheduled for demolition and is unsafe. Then a long file number that would mean something to only a handful of people deep inside the Wheelhouse. At the bottom of the page was the spoked wheel: the sign of the Commission. Serus yanked the rope away and tossed it among the old pennysheets drifting around the doorway.
‘What were you saying about rules?’ she said.
He went inside.
‘Wait – is it safe?’ she called after him, then remembered she was with the Chief Fire Investigator of Fenest. With care, she picked her way through the doorway.
She found him standing at the end of what had been the hallway. Ash flakes danced in a breeze she couldn’t feel. The walls remained, but there was nothing above them save the grubby clouds. She hoped the Audience were enjoying this story. Was it one for the Pale Widow, Audience member for death? The Wayward claimed that people had died here, but the Commission and the pennysheets said everyone had made it out. They couldn’t both be right.
A cool sweat crept across her neck as she caught a smell. It was the same sweet-sickness that had been in the woods beyond the camp. If there were bodies buried in this rubble, it wouldn’t take long for them to declare themselves. A few hot days and the stench would be wicked.
‘Cora?’ Serus was frowning at her.
Stray ash flakes had settled in his knot of auburn hair. She wanted to brush them away. But she didn’t.
‘Stairs were ahead,’ she managed to say, ‘some leading down to the cellar, and another staircase going up.’
‘And these rooms either side of us?’
She glanced through the blackened door spaces into burnt chaos beyond. ‘This was an office. Lots of papers. The other was a kitchen. I can’t remember the rest. It was dark when I arrived, and dark when I left early the next morning.’ The place had been lit with few lamps, but enough to catch all the different coloured glass bottles. It had been pretty.
