by D. K. Fields
‘And the rest of the Union?’ Cora said. ‘Those left on the wrong side of your walls?’
Morton smiled sadly. ‘I cannot help everyone, Detective. But I can help some, as long as you ensure the Lowlanders win this election.’
Thirty-Four
Dusk was falling as Cora left the Assembly building, and the rain had returned. Both made for a quiet early evening in the surrounding streets. The end of the election was usually marked by noisy gatherings – folk re-told the election tales to knots of listeners across the city, in whorehouses and gaming rings, in fancy taverns, in high-ceilinged drawing rooms and in windowless basements. The six stories spilled into the alleys, the wide streets and squares, and everywhere in between. While the first story of the election, that of the Caskers, would only now be reaching the most distant parts of the Union, shared and re-shared, a chain of voices carrying it to the Steppes and to the Tear, Fenest held its breath, waiting for the results to be announced at dawn.
But there was no revelry tonight. This election had brought death and destruction to the capital, and now those tucked behind locked doors and shuttered windows would be thinking of the death and destruction to come: the Tear was widening. The world was changing. The Union needed the Wayward to control the Assembly, but all Cora could think about was Ruth lying bound and bleeding. That thought set her moving, set her planning.
She had to save Ruth, and she had an idea how.
*
‘That dog wouldn’t bite a fly! Where do you find these animals? Perlanse? Give me strength!’
Donnata Jenkins was just where Cora had hoped she’d be: high in the tiered seating overlooking the ring in the back room of the Dancing Oak. Her silvery hair was once again tied in a tight knot at the back of her neck, but half had fallen loose and hung over her flushed face. Her hands were a blur of movement, shifting from shaken fists, claws of rage and open palms of incredulity.
Cora had arrived at a break between bouts as a winning dog was patched up and her prone opponent dragged out, likely headed for the River Stave. As the sand rakers moved in to deal with the blood, Donnata checked her betting slips, and Cora chose her moment.
‘Detective! What a wonderful surprise!’ Donnata’s eyes were bright, her tight, high cheekbones flushed. ‘Do you have any tips for the next, bout? I’m a fair bit down but if I can just get—’
‘No bets for me tonight,’ Cora said, and Donnata’s face fell.
‘Your credit still bad? I’m heading that way.’
She was shuffling her slips with a desperation Cora knew only too well. Cora put her hand over Donnata’s.
‘I need your help.’
Donnata’s feverish motions stopped. ‘My help?’
‘Yes, and it’s a big favour. You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but I’d ask you to listen. The life of my sister depends on it.’
Donnata folded her hands in her lap. ‘You have my attention, Detective Gorderheim.’
Cora took a deep breath. ‘I need to know where the election voting chests are stored, where the count takes place.’
‘And why would you need to know that?’
‘I… I believe there’s a risk of interference.’
Donnata’s eyes narrowed. ‘Interference? By whom?’
‘That, I can’t tell you. It would put you and Jenkins – Willa – at risk.’
‘I see. And what does this have to do with your sister, Detective?’
‘I can’t tell you that either,’ Cora said, at which Donnata scoffed.
‘You’re asking me to give away one of the most tightly guarded Commission secrets, if not the most tightly guarded. We’re talking top-level clearance here. Only a handful of people in Electoral Affairs ever know this information.’
‘And you were one of them,’ Cora said. ‘You were the Director.’
Donnata’s gaze strayed to the ring. The sand rakers were stepping out. It wouldn’t be long until the next bout.
‘I was,’ Donnata said. ‘But I hear you no longer work for the Commission at all, in any capacity.’
‘That’s true, but—’
‘Well this is a nice surprise!’ Jenkins was coming up the stairs towards them, a drink in each hand. ‘I wondered if you’d be here tonight.’
‘I’m nothing if not predictable,’ Cora said.
Jenkins handed one of the glasses to her mother, then said to Cora, ‘Can I get you something? To celebrate the election being over? It was terrible what happened to that woman at the story, the one everybody thought was the storyteller, but the actual ’teller, she—’
‘I’m not stopping,’ Cora said. ‘I was just asking your mother here to help me out with some information. Something from her days in Electoral Affairs.’
Donnata folded her arms across her chest. ‘Something sizeable.’
‘Something important,’ Cora said quietly.
Jenkins looked from one to the other, seemingly aware there was more to this conversation. ‘Well, Mama? Can you help?’
‘Willa, darling, what your friend here is asking, it’s… it’s quite the stretch.’
‘I know,’ Cora said, and looked square into Donnata’s eyes. ‘I appreciate the position I’m putting you in. I do. But I have to know, and it has to be now. I don’t have much time.’
‘Mama,’ Jenkins said, sitting down beside her mother. ‘You can trust the detective here. If she says she needs this information then she needs it.’
Donnata touched her daughter’s cheek, and Cora looked away. Beulah was beside the ring talking to a chequers. A whore passed them with a tray of drinks. It was a normal night in the Dancing Oak, and yet in Cora’s head, nothing was normal at all: Ruth was in danger. Cora had to find out where the voting chests were kept. And then?
‘But what that information could be used for,’ Donnata said to Jenkins. ‘That is a concern.’
Cora made to speak, but Jenkins got there first.
‘Detective Gorderheim won’t do anything you wouldn’t do, Mama. She’s a good person. Believe me.’
Cora couldn’t look Jenkins in the eye but managed to nod. Donnata gave Cora one more long, appraising look then told Jenkins to go to the numbers board to find the odds on the next bout. The constable looked like she’d argue, but then to Cora’s relief she headed off.
As soon as Jenkins was out of earshot, Donnata whispered to Cora, ‘The Seat of the Moral Student. There’s a cellar. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for. Though what good that will do you, I don’t know, given that there’ll be people at the doors. Not many, because Electoral Affairs limit the number who know what’s inside the Seat, but those who are there, they’ll be armed. I can’t help you with them.’
‘You don’t need to,’ Cora said, her gaze on Beulah below. ‘I don’t worry over front doors. What time is the count likely to be?’
‘In my day, the Director of Electoral Affairs always arrived at midnight. Late enough that the streets were quiet, but plenty of time to be sure of the numbers. No one wants to rush a recount. I can’t see any reason why the midnight start would have changed.’
Jenkins was on her way back to them.
‘I hope you won’t betray my daughter’s trust, Detective.’
Cora headed down the stairs.
When she found Serus at home, she knew this would be a story for the Latecomer, that his luck would be on her side. The Rustan was pleased to see her, a huge grin lighting up his face when he opened the door to his narrow house in Derringate. Part of her wanted to go inside, lie down with him somewhere soft and warm, out of the rain and beyond thinking about what she was going to do at the Seat of the Moral Student. But another part knew she had to keep going. Ruth. Ruth was the most important thing. So she stayed on the doorstep.
‘What do you know about lock-picking?’ she asked Serus.
He wrapped his woollen jacket tighter. ‘I might know something. Depends what it’s for.’
‘Opening a lock in such a way that it
could be used again.’
‘You mean so someone couldn’t tell it had been opened?’ Serus said. ‘I might know something about that.’ He reached out for her. ‘Cora, what’s going on? Come inside, it’s pouring out here.’
She stepped back, leaving the shelter of his porch and letting the cold rain fall on her.
‘I’ll explain on the way.’
*
Serus was shocked, as she had known he would be. But worse was his disappointment.
‘Tell me you’re not serious, Cora. That you would even consider doing what Morton wants – change the election result!’
‘I… I don’t know what I’m going to do. We just need to get to the Seat and then—’
‘Then what?’
She had no words.
They were on one of Beulah’s underground routes. As soon as Donnata had said the voting chests were in the cellar of the Seat of the Moral Student, Cora had known she could get inside without having to go through the security on the front doors.
The passage was cold, and Cora felt herself shaking. Any care for her that Serus had shown on his doorstep when she’d first arrived had slipped into its own kind of cold. But he hadn’t turned back. That had to mean something. But if she went ahead and changed the result, Cora could risk losing him in the process. Life never offered her a win–win situation. For every gain, there was a loss, and the choice was hard.
She and Serus had a lantern each to light the way, but only Cora’s memory of Beulah’s map to guide them. There were precious few signposts in this set of passages, unlike the others Cora had used, and the lanterns seemed to make more shadows than beams of light. Cora was in the lead, and her shadow looked like some monstrous version of herself. She didn’t recognise it, and she didn’t want to think what that said about this whole enterprise. But if she didn’t give Morton what she wanted, Ruth would be killed. That Cora didn’t doubt, and so she kept walking, with Serus close behind.
They came to a set of low double doors on their left, set deep into the walls of the passage. The wood had a greenish tinge, and when Cora touched it, it was damp.
Serus wiped away the dirt, mildew and cobwebs to reveal a carving of a domed hat. ‘Been a long time since I’ve worn one,’ he said, ‘but I know a Seminary cap when I see one.’
‘Looks like we’ve found the Seat of the Moral Student then,’ Cora said. ‘Hold this.’ She handed Serus her lantern. There was no handle on this side of the doors, but only one door was hanging square. After a few shoves with her shoulder, the soft wood gave way easily enough, though the cloud of dust it set free had them both coughing.
When they could breathe again, Cora motioned for Serus to be silent as she listened for any noises above – had anyone in the Seat been alerted to their presence below ground? It seemed not. She waved away the last of the dust cloud and grabbed the lantern back from Serus. Beyond the doors was a low-ceilinged room. The floor was earth, just like in the passage. Dark shapes waited in the gloom.
The voting chests.
Cora made to go inside, but Serus caught her arm.
‘Cora, please – think about what you’re doing, what you’re putting at stake. You’re choosing Ruth’s life over countless others. Ruth – the person who abandoned you for thirty years!’
She shook him off. ‘Are you going to help me or not?’
Serus’s auburn topknot was covered in dirt and his metal cheekbones looked tarnished in the poor light. He sighed, and Cora felt a wave of sadness wash over her, so strong it felt like nausea. But stronger still was the thought of Ruth, the need to get her away from Morton.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said.
Cora didn’t wait for him to change his mind and stepped inside the room, Serus right behind her.
Thirty-Five
All six chests were there, set close together, as if they were animals in a field taking comfort from one another. In the corner was a staircase. Cora crept halfway up to see what was at the top: another door, this one much newer-looking and sturdier. The public area of the Seat of the Moral Student was on the other side of that door.
She could picture the Seat well – her father had brought her here as a child, hoping his daughter’s stories might mean the Student would look favourably on her, help her studies. Help her be as clever as her older sister. Inside were the kind of benches and braziers found in every Seat in the capital, with an aisle running down the centre. At the front was a carved image of the Student herself. But now at the doors of this particular Seat there were armed guards who stood sentry against those passing on the street. Armed guards who never suspected the way in underground.
She told herself her father would have approved of what she was about to do. But that thought just made the nausea return. She went back down the stairs to where Serus was waiting.
‘We need to open all the chests,’ she told him. Even whispering, her voice sounded loud, as if it belonged to someone else. Someone who knew what they were doing.
‘Why all of them?’ Serus said.
‘I need to know who won. Then I need to… I just need them all open.’
Cora’s fingers brushed the pattern burnt into the wood of the nearest chest. She held up her lantern. In the poor light and the jumpy shadows that she and Serus cast, it wasn’t easy to see the marks in the wood. When the Director of Electoral Affairs and their minions came down here to do the count at midnight, they would need four lanterns apiece to be able to see anything. Between the light and her finger tracing the burnt lines, she thought they showed a barrel: symbol of the Casker realm.
‘Realm symbols,’ she whispered to Serus, ‘in the wood above the locks.’
Maybe he nodded, maybe he didn’t, but he seemed to have given up talking to her. Cora swallowed that hurt. At least he was focused on the job at hand. Loud in Cora’s head were the words Ruth had spoken when they were on foot in West Perlanse, just before the Seeder storyteller attacked them: When it comes down to it, to a moment of choice, which will you choose, Cora? She told herself she still didn’t know the answer to that question, and yet, to come this far, surely that was answer enough?
‘You told me you could open the chests,’ Cora said. ‘It needs to be done in such a way that they can be re-locked without anyone knowing.’
‘I will know,’ he said, without looking at her, ‘and so will your sister. How do you think she’ll react when she finds out what you’ve done to save her?’
Cora said nothing.
Without warning, Serus pulled the top of his middle finger off. Where there should have been bone was a thin, ridged piece of metal.
‘Is that a—?’
‘A lockpick. Yes. An accident when I was younger took the end of the finger. I decided to replace it with something useful.’ From a pocket of his coat Serus took another small piece of metal and set to work on the lock of the Casker chest. ‘Nullan, forgive me,’ he muttered, concentrating. Nothing happened.
‘Are you sure you can—’
‘Patience, Cora.’
‘There’s not enough time! The stones are counted at midnight.’
‘Then stop talking and give me more light,’ he said.
She did as he asked and held up the lantern. After what felt like hours, but could be measured in a few nervous breaths, there was a ‘pop’. The arm of the lock released and it fell to the floor with a soft thump.
They both looked at it for a moment.
‘It’ll go right back on again,’ Serus said.
‘The others,’ she murmured. ‘I need them all open.’
Without a word, he turned and started on the Perlish voting chest.
When he was far enough away not to see inside, Cora opened the lid of the Casker chest. She wasn’t surprised at the weight of it. Nor was she surprised by the bile threatening to rise up her throat. This was wrong. Every part of her knew that.
The chest was lined with a well-worn but plush purple velvet. She separated the white stones from the black, maki
ng two piles – both much the same size. She counted once, then counted again. Thirty white stones. Thirty votes of “no”, for the Caskers, which meant twenty black stones of “yes”. Twenty Casker seats in the Assembly. Poor Nullan. It had been a hard story to hear, and it must have been a hard story to tell. Hard, but necessary.
She closed the lid of the chest and hurried in the wake of Serus and his metal finger.
The Perlish had been predictably punished as unpopular incumbents. The Torn had done fair to middling.
At the Rustan chest she stifled a gasp, for Serus’s sake, glancing his way to make sure he hadn’t heard; he was already working on the last chest.
She counted only nine white stones, nine votes of ‘no’, for the Rustans.
That meant forty-one black stones. Forty-one seats in the Assembly. They were the clear winners so far, and surely not even the Wayward story could match that?
The Seeders had managed thirty black stones. A respectable showing for the Assembly in any normal year.
And then lastly was the Wayward.
Their chest had been left at the bottom of the stairs: last story told, last chest delivered. Serus was standing there, both palms on the still closed lid, his head bowed. Cora wondered if he was telling a story to a member of the Audience, and which it might be. The Stowaway who loved secrets? Or maybe the Dissenter, who listened to tales of protest? She settled on the Keeper – justice and fairness were for that Audience member.
‘Best you wait in the passage,’ she said.
‘What are you going to do, Cora?’ His voice was strained, tight.
‘I won’t be long.’
‘I’ll leave you my lantern,’ he said. ‘I’d rather not see what you’re about to do.’
As he passed her, he touched her shoulder, and it was all she could do not to lean into him. But she didn’t, and he left her to her choice.
She opened the Wayward voting chest.
