Guardian

by A. J. Hartley

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course. You were beautiful and kind—”

  She gasped and bowed her head.

  “Kind,” she echoed, as if it was a word whose meaning she had forgotten. “Kind. I wonder. But thank you. I am glad you remember something more than … this.” She gestured vaguely with her hands toward herself. Then nodded thoughtfully, saying nothing for several seconds before looking up again. “Your other question, I cannot answer,” she said.

  “Why not? What other question?”

  “You want to know why Madame Nahreem, old spider that she is, hired you after she had so failed with me.”

  “There’s no reason you would know that,” I answered, mustering a little defiance, though I did not bother to conceal the fact that she had indeed guessed what my next question would be.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t know,” she said, turning to me again. “I said I won’t tell you. She must tell you herself. It’s time. When she does, I will be here, waiting for you.”

  “What makes you think I’ll want to speak to you again?”

  She turned to me then, and her composure was cracked with grief and longing. Her eyes swam, and her smile was full of knowing and loss and sadness.

  “Oh, little Ang,” she said, her voice almost breaking. “I will be here.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  WHEN I GOT TO the town house, Dahria was in bed and Madame Nahreem was gone.

  “My lady did not feel her presence here aided her grandson’s position,” said Higgins. “She has left some money for legal expenses and instructions for word to be sent to her if there are any developments.”

  “She went back to the estate?”

  Higgins nodded.

  “My lady finds the noise and smoke of the city quite unsettling,” he said.

  “No doubt,” I said, with just enough hardness that the butler’s forehead tightened for a second with puzzlement or concern, but he did not pursue the matter.

  Unsettling, I thought. I bet she finds it unsettling, being back here where she was once a lowly steeplejack working the towers and chimneys of the great filth that is Bar-Selehm, instead of being the lady of a sprawling estate under a clear blue sky, her tame hyenas playing at her feet … I had half a mind to go after her, to demand the answers she had held back at our last interview. But I couldn’t. Willinghouse needed me here, though how I was going to help him, I had no idea.

  “There is something else, miss,” said Higgins, looking—as far as was possible within his customary butlery composure—uncomfortable. Actually, the word that came to mind was shifty. “You have a visitor.”

  “At this hour? Who?”

  “The lady says she is your sister.”

  I gaped. Vestris had beaten me home? Why?

  “Shall I show her in,” said Higgins, clearly in uncharted waters, “or will you join her in the withdrawing room?”

  “I’ll go to her,” I said. “She’s alone?”

  “She is indeed, miss. I served her tea while she waited.”

  My hand was on the door handle before I had fully processed the implication of what he had said. Vestris may have known various secret routes over the rooftops of the city, but it wasn’t plausible that she had arrived in time to take tea before I got back. I opened the door just as I realized the truth, a truth almost as hard to believe.

  Rahvey was sitting stiffly in her Cloudsday finest in an overstuffed armchair, looking deeply uncomfortable. The relief on her face as I came in was raw and touched with desperation.

  “What is it?” I said, panic wiping away all social niceties. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s the girls,” she said. “They are sick.”

  “What? Sick in what way?” I said, caught completely off guard.

  “I don’t know. Sick. Throwing up. Running to the toilet. Burning up. Tired. Really tired, like unable to stand up. Headaches. And then, this afternoon, some of Aab’s hair fell out.”

  Aab Samir was a deaf girl who played with my sister’s daughters.

  “They are all sick?”

  “Not Kalla,” she said. “Not me. Not yet. But the children. And Bertha, though she is not so bad.”

  Bertha was the black teacher I had hired to teach the Drowning girls when she wasn’t working in the factories downtown.

  “Why are you telling me?” I said, flustered. “You need a doctor!”

  “The one who visits the Drowning doesn’t know what it is. I thought you might know someone else…”

  Her face showed defiance and shame and desperation all at once.

  “I don’t,” I said, “but I’ll find someone.”

  “Thank you,” she said, as if I were some white lady from whom she had begged a crust. I scowled at her but then, to her amazement, opened the door and yelled into the hall.

  “Higgins! Wake Miss Dahria, prepare the carriage, and summon the family doctor.”

  The butler, to his credit, did not hesitate.

  I’m not sure what Rahvey thought would happen, but she seemed bewildered by the speed with which we got ready and took charge. Within twelve minutes, we were in the carriage, Higgins—a revolver tucked into his belt—riding on top with the driver. In sixteen, we had collected the doctor, and in under forty, we were in the Drowning. There we left the coach and picked our way along the winding dirt tracks down through the shanties that sprawled along the riverbank.

  Mendelson, the white doctor, wore a black top hat and gray muttonchop side whiskers. He was closer to sixty than fifty and carried a capacious bag black as his suit, filled with instruments and phials of medicine. He gathered what information he could from Rahvey who, overawed by so grand a gentleman, had to be continually nudged and prodded to say more. He was kind to her, a fact that probably unsettled her as much as the evening’s other strangenesses. I said nothing, but watched the equally silent Dahria, who stared at nothing, lost in her own thoughts.

  Higgins had a shuttered lantern with a bulb of decent luxorite behind a directional lens, and he walked beside my sister, eyes on the weedy ground for the mambas and puff adders that plagued the area at this time of year. The sick girls had been grouped together at the edge of the constantly evolving village, huddled under a makeshift tarpaulin tent. Another child had been added since Rahvey left, so that they now numbered ten. They all attended Bertha’s classes, and I braced myself for being blamed for whatever contagion had come upon the settlement.

  The place smelled sour, unwholesome, and the sight of the children—Aab and Rahvey’s girls in particular, pale and sweating, listless and moaning in discomfort—struck through my heart like a fine spear. I saw Jadary tossing in between waking and sleeping, horrified by how thin and aged she looked. Radesh lay next to her, watching her sister, her face drained but her eyes wide and scared.

  “You should have brought me earlier,” I said, as if I were an expert.

  “Didn’t want to bother you,” said Rahvey. “What with … everything.”

  I looked at her quickly.

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course. Well. Let’s see what the doctor can do.”

  The elders were there, watching silently, and the old priest from the monkey temple was leading some of the parents in prayer. Florihn, the midwife, had brought bread and water to the sick, but she evaded my eyes and consulted with the doctor in a manner that was both professional and respectfully subordinate, keen to show she had made no mistakes. There was nothing for me to do. Feeling useless, I hung back and left them to it.

  “I’m sorry I woke you,” I said to Dahria. “I don’t know why I did. Company, I suppose. Not a very good reason.”

  “Good enough,” said Dahria, taking my hand and squeezing it gently.

  At this rare sign of affection, I gave her a startled look, conscious that I was blushing, but she was watching the doctor moving from bed to bed, her serious face lost in shadow.

  * * *

  “WELL?” I SAID TO Dr. Mendelson, as soon as he had finished his ministrati
ons.

  He pursed his lips and shook his head, dissatisfied.

  “I have made them comfortable for now,” he said, “given them something to bring their temperatures down, but I confess I am at a loss. At this time of year and in this place, I would stake my reputation on malaria, except…”

  “Except what?” I said, as he mused to himself.

  “The hair loss. The deaf girl is not the only one. The other symptoms, the fever, weariness, vomiting, and diarrhea, all might be explained by malaria. But hair loss…” He shook his head again. “I need to monitor them. I will find a place to stay here tonight.”

  I stared at him.

  “Don’t you have other patients who need you in town?” I asked. I did not say white patients, but that was what I meant.

  “Colds and various versions of ‘the vapors,’” he said. “Nothing that can’t wait or be treated by someone else.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” I said, meaning it.

  “It’s my job,” he replied, almost brusquely, as if I had questioned his ethics. “I’ll send for a tincture of quinine tomorrow. I have almost used up all the supplies I had on hand.”

  “I’m sure the Willinghouse family will reimburse you for your time and any necessary—”

  “I have no doubt,” he replied quickly. “Assuming the Willinghouse family has not had all its assets frozen by morning.”

  “I hope it will not come to that,” I said.

  “As do I,” he remarked, giving me a frank look. “As do I.”

  It occurred to me only later, as Dahria and I made our return journey to the town house, that he had not asked my name or how I came to be there. He had promised to keep us informed, and we had left in a cloud of futility, painfully aware that there was nothing for us to do. With neither the doctor nor Rahvey riding in the carriage with us, there was ample room for the butler, but he retook his place on the driver’s plate, though whether that was a matter of professional decorum or pained embarrassment at the situation we had left behind, I couldn’t say.

  It was a long, dark ride to the house, and neither of us was in the mood to talk. As Dahria slept, or pretended to, I focused on what I might do the next day to help Willinghouse. In this I was about as productive and useful as I had been in the Drowning, and on our arrival, I went to bed feeling not so much sad as lost and out of my depth, as if the world were crumbling around me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  * * *

  BUT SOMETHING CAME TO me in my sleep, or in that drowsy half-awake state in which I spent much of the short, anxious night. Not a plan, exactly, but a course of action that might be the beginnings of a plan. With nothing better presenting itself, it would have to do.

  At first light I went to the kitchen to rebuild my maid’s attire, complete with demure cap and apron borrowed without explanation from the hooks by the door. The burly Lani cook looked up from the stove and grinned at me.

  “Rasnarian goat curry tonight,” he said, either not noticing or not caring that I was helping myself to servant clothes. “Your favorite.”

  It was too—the first meal I had eaten in the house the night Willinghouse’s men had brought me there, and I thought about it as I walked all the way over to the Parliament House in the gray light of the morning. I waited only ten minutes before the stream of servants and other menial staff began to file dutifully in through the tradesmen’s entrance round the back. I chose a Lani girl of about my age dressed in similar attire and attached myself to her at the tail end of the line.

  “Good morning,” I said. She gave me a look of sleepy surprise, and I said, “I’m Zora. I’m new.”

  “Bindira,” she replied instinctively then, thinking better of it, added with a smile, “Bindi.”

  “Hello, Bindi,” I said, as if with great relief. “Have you worked here long?”

  “Just over a year,” said the girl.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “So you know what you are doing.”

  “What section are you working in?”

  I had gotten as much as I could out of Dahria about the internal workings of the government buildings, but she hadn’t been very knowledgeable, and this was all going to be somewhat improvised.

  “Government canteen,” I said. “Preparation and service.”

  “Which?”

  My first mistake.

  “They hadn’t decided when I was hired,” I said. “Said they’d send me where I was required.”

  “You were sent by an agency?” said the girl called Bindi, taking a couple of shuffling steps closer to the door as the line inched forward.

  “Weren’t you?” I said, sensing another error.

  She made a face and shook her head emphatically.

  “Everyone is hired through central staffing,” she said. “Security. They must be shorthanded.”

  “I think so,” I agreed, seizing the possibility. “It’s only a temporary position. More’s the pity. It must be nice to know you have a secure occupation.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, with a noncommittal shrug. “They work us hard and the money is kanti, but it’s safe and steady, so long as you keep your nose clean and don’t upset the Gentlemen.”

  “The MPs?” I clarified.

  She nodded.

  “I’m in light housework,” she said. “Dusting, cleaning, making up the fires in the winter. Keep myself to myself as much as I can. Less likely to get in trouble that way. One girl in service tipped a flagon of sack over one of the Gentlemen in his cabinet office last week! She was dismissed and on the street before they had cleaned it up.”

  “Expensive accident,” I said, trying to sound shocked.

  “Oh, I’m not sure it was an accident,” she said, giving me a furtive look. “That particular Gentleman needed a cooling off. Scandalous, he is. But that’s the way of things. He gets handy, and she loses her position. That’s why I like dusting. Less chance of having to deal with anybody who might not like what I do. I had one once who followed me round, criticizing. It was all I could do not to hit him with my mop. But that’s not how you get ahead, is it, walloping your betters?”

  “It sounds like betters might be overstating the case,” I said, eyeing the guard on the door. I wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to demand of me.

  She laughed at that.

  “Overstating the case!” she repeated. “What an odd way you have! Quite fancy. No wonder they made an exception with your hiring.”

  I was clearly spending too much time with Dahria. Her attitude rubbing off on me would only lead to trouble.

  “Blimey,” I said, overcompensating. “This line don’t ’alf move slow. What are they checking?”

  “Work papers, of course,” she said. “You not got any?”

  “Said I’d get them at the end of the day,” I invented.

  “They won’t let you in without papers,” said Bindi wisely. “Security.”

  I had feared as much, but I had a second line of attack. I fished in my purse and drew out a creamy envelope inscribed with copperplate script.

  “Cor!” said Bindi, impressed. “What’s that, then?”

  “My letter of reference,” I said, like they were the crown jewels. Dahria had drafted it herself and signed it in the name of Lady Alice Welborne, the rich debutante who had been romantically entangled with the Grappoli ambassador. It was a risk, but Alice was such an intellectually flimsy creature, a girl with no interest in anything beyond fashionable parties and suave entertainments, that I thought the possibility of her being known by anyone in government was very remote. Her actually being there in person was impossible.

  When it came to it, the guard just scowled at the letter, then thrust it back at me.

  “Not work papers,” he said.

  Bindi shot me an anxious look.

  “I was told they weren’t ready,” I said, playing up my Drowning accent, “but they would be processed in the course of my workday. Is that a problem?”

  “Not unless you want
to get paid,” said the guard with a sour smile. “Won’t make a farthing till your paperwork is filed. Still want in?”

  “Yes, sir. Most certainly.”

  “Your funeral.” He shrugged, turning his gaze to the stragglers who had hurriedly joined the back of the line and checking the clock on the wall pointedly. “One more minute and I’m closing this door, whether it costs you your position or not,” he announced warningly to the girls. The latecomers blushed and looked down, bobbing little curtsies, though they shot each other gleeful looks once they were inside. One of them couldn’t have been older than the sick girls I had seen the night before.

  And still knows more about how this place works than you do …

  Perhaps so, but I had a steeplejack’s poise and a spy’s nerves, I told myself. I thought of the neutral mask, but its calming effect was derailed by the image of Madame Nahreem telling me that she had once trained my sister Vestris.

  Focus. Like you’re on a high ledge. One false move—

  I turned to Bindi.

  “Which way is the canteen?” I said.

  “Government or opposition?”

  I cursed inwardly. It had never occurred to me that the ruling party would dine separately, and I made a mental note to berate Dahria for paying so little attention to what her brother did all day.

  “Government,” I decided. I didn’t know what I was looking for yet, so where I began was of little consequence.

  “Then I can show you,” said Bindi. “The Gentlemen’s Sitting Room is just down the hall, and that’s my first stop. Got to pick up my supplies.”

  I had never seen such silent labor. The corridors rang with the feet of parlor maids, cleaners, footmen, and guards, but no one said a word. The place thrummed with an industry so careful and efficient that it felt military, and an odd part of me thrilled to it, as if I was—however illicitly—part of something bigger than myself, something grand. I kept my eyes front and matched Bindi’s brisk but careful pace so as to not draw attention.

  The rear halls were stone flagged and cool at this time, giving way to ceramic tile and eventually wood as we pushed deeper into the building. We had entered at street level, but the official entrance at the front was atop a flight of imposing stairs, so that the lobby and the primary meeting rooms and offices were all on the floor above the hive of servants where we were now. A labyrinth of back stairs and passageways allowed the staff to go into the upper rooms without cluttering the hallways or exposing the human machinery that kept the building functional. The difference between the two floors and the means by which one reached them was monumental. Bindi led me up one nondescript staircase that doglegged back on itself and out through a plain door into a broad and elaborately carved stone hallway carpeted in crimson and gold. It was still quiet at this hour, but as the day progressed, it would be a thoroughfare for the most powerful men in the land.