Beggar's Rebellion

by Levi Jacobs

  Tunla shook her head. “My aunt has done it, but she’s gone now, with Wenla in the villages. There are others in the city, but,” she shrugged, “I can’t find them like this.”

  Ella set her jaw. “Well I’m getting you out of here. I filed a lawsuit against Odril today.”

  Tunla whistled low. “Be careful, Ella. He has men looking for you.”

  She chuckled. “What he doesn’t know is if they find me, they’re in for a surprise. Tunla, I can slip so much deeper, for so much longer, than before. It’s—“

  “It’s part of pleasing your ancestors,” Tunla cut in. “The gift they give puts yura’s effects to shame. That is why we used to look down on its use, though now the youth take it like honeycakes. Though, to think that yura is able to help with ancestors…” She shook her head. “If we’d known this, we could have really fought the Councilate.”

  This was something Ella had been thinking about, like a heavy weight on her chest. “Whoever learns this first will have a huge advantage—in mining, in manufacturing, in fighting…”

  Tunla nodded solemnly. “And are you thinking of telling everyone? Of publishing it?”

  Ella winced. “I don’t know. Yes, I—it’s been my hope for years to find something like this. To learn something new and important about culture and resonance. But I know what people could do with this, and I don’t want the Councilate to just seize it, to suddenly have all their soldiers turn into Titans.” She gave a start. “Though, I may have already let it out. The street tough who gave me the yura, Tai, I mentioned it to him.”

  She looked at Tunla. “Do you think he’s a mercenary too? I first met him on the street, protecting some kids, but when he came here he was delivering something to Odril.” It was hard to believe it of him—he’d had such an honest face. But faces could lie.

  “He may well be. Many of our boys are in it now.”

  Ella nodded, disappointed. “Well hopefully he just thinks I’m a crazy lighthaired lady and doesn’t actually try it.”

  “Speaking of crazy lighthaired ladies, you really shouldn’t be here.”

  Ella glanced around. “I know. I’m going. But—Tunla I need your help. I need evidence for the suit I’m filing against Odril.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “Ledgers. Receipts. The paper trail to show he’s been embezzling, and that he’s helping the Houses launder money.”

  She nodded slowly. “I can do that. But—I’ll have to make copies of them first. It’ll take me a few days.”

  Ella heard a noise and spun to the left, but it was just a street urchin pushing a cart of blankets through the alley. “Let me know what you need. I won’t have much of a suit without these.”

  Tunla nodded. “Well don’t be stupid about it. Life is not so bad down here.”

  Ella remembered the other women looking at her, none willing to escape when she did. She hated how trapped they were—not only by Odril, but by the system that had beaten them into consenting to it. “Well I’m going to make it better.” She glanced around again, starting to feel unnerved. “I’ll come back every night and check on you. Leave me a note in the window if you can’t make it. I’m—sorry, that I caused all this.”

  Tunla waved at her. “This way I don’t have to do his laundry. And I think it did us all some good, seeing you walk out of here like that. Even if we’re not ready to do it.”

  Ella nodded. “Take care, friend.”

  Tunla returned the gesture, too far to clasp hands. “Atumbarye.”

  Ella cocked her head, knowing she should return the word though she wasn’t sure what it meant. “Atumbarye.” Then she struck her resonance and flexed time, vanishing into the night.

  Sablo was in his offices the next morning when she arrived, deep in conversation with two men in House Coldferth colors. He nodded to her and went on talking, Ella curious but unable to make out details from across the wide room. When they were done he gave her a smile. “Sorry about that. More rebel activity in the mines.”

  Her thoughts went immediately to Tai, to what she’d told him. Had they started doing it already? Was the secret out? “I’m sorry to hear it. Did you check over the books from yesterday?”

  “Had my auditor do it,” he said, buttoning up the silk robe he wore in the arbitrarium. “Said it looked quite professional. Another stack for you here.”

  “Great. I’ll get to work on them right away.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be done around lunchtime, if you want to take lunch. I know a great place.”

  That was unexpected.

  “Sure. I’ll—be here,” she laughed, gesturing at the hefty stack of ledgers.

  He left with a smile, and she got to work, mind turning over her conversation with Tunla as the numbers tumbled in place. There were so many things she didn’t know about yuraloading—that was what she’d started to call it, in her mind—things she could find out if she met more people who had done it. Tai, at least, would be a start—she was supposed to meet him tomorrow night. Maybe he knew others. It was frustrating to think that Tunla knew more like him in the city, but couldn’t do anything locked up.

  Weighing heavier on her mind was what to do with the knowledge. Assuming her experience wasn’t just a fluke, yuraloading had the power to do so much. Beyond almost guaranteeing her admittance into the Thousand Spires—or a position as Councilate Advisor, for that matter—it would be worth hundreds of thousands if she sold it to one House or another.

  Ella opened another ledger, began the margin headings. That was the trouble—she didn’t want to sell it to a House, or to anyone in the Councilate. She didn’t want the money. She wanted to give the knowledge to people the Councilate was erasing, give them a way to fight back. A viable means to protect their lifeways and economies from being torn apart by the Councilate juggernaut that in the last century had overturned thousands of years of relative stability and cultural diversity, forcing the continent’s peoples into one erased, money-blinded herd.

  But who to give it to? Tunla? She was as ensnared as the rest of them. Or was the secret already out, and the House mercenaries using it to their advantage? She could only hope not.

  As promised, the Arbiter showed up a few minutes after noon bell, stopping at the door to deal with a few petitioners who had followed him up the stairs—just like she had two days ago, Ella realized—then stepping in and stripping out of his robes. She looked away, then blushed to realize he was wearing regular clothes underneath.

  Sablo caught the blush. “Ah—excuse me, Ellumia. I’m not accustomed to a woman in my offices.”

  She stood. “I can leave, if you—“

  “No! No, please. Are you still interested in some lunch?”

  “I am.” Not only was her stomach empty, but any chance she had to make a favorable impression on the man who’d be judging her suit against Odril—even if he’d been clear about staying impartial—well, it couldn’t hurt.

  He lead her down the Tower and onto the smaller walkways of Newgen, winding near the outside wall over the enclave’s babbling water and tended schools of painted trout, talking of the suits of the day and some of the details of his accounts. The walkway ended at a small café run by a woman whose hair was so platinum Ella mistook her for a Brinerider, though she spoke true Yersh. She sat them at one of just four tables, each with its own view of the café’s central pond, then bustled behind the counter.

  “This is lovely,” Ella said, taking in the skylights and babbling fountain and aroma of roasting tomatoes.

  “Isn’t it?” The Arbiter sighed, sitting back. “My days have gotten a lot easier since I found a place with good food and relative escape from the enclave citizenry.”

  “Well I’m sorry to burden you with one today.”

  “Please, you’re no burden at all. Quite the opposite.” He smiled, but it was hard to read if he was being polite or sincere.

  Ella struggled for something to keep the conversation going. “I… imagine a man of your power do
es have many burdens though.” What did you say to one of the seven most powerful men in the Councilate, arguably more powerful than the Councilors themselves? For the figurehead of a polity she despised, he really didn’t seem that bad.

  “Oh not so many, really. Though the rebel activity of late has given me trouble.”

  Real rebels or proxies? Would a Councilate official even admit to proxies? It was a key question for her suit. “I’ve heard rumors, that some of the rebel activity is actually a front for proxy attacks on rival Houses.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “There are not so many people in Ayugen who are aware of that.”

  She couldn’t tell if his tone was praise or warning. What would happen if she got on this man’s bad side? “It’s actually part of my suit against Odril. I have some pretty solid evidence he’s been helping Alsthen launder money to fund these groups.”

  “I see. Do you have anything else on him?”

  “Well, there’s his theft against me, if I can make it stick. And I think some evidence of him embezzling money from the House under cover of this laundering scheme.”

  The Arbiter nodded. “I would stick to the latter two claims. The proxy battles could get—messy.”

  “Messy?” She’d been hoping her suit would expose the issue, maybe put an end to it.

  Sablo grimaced. “Most of the Houses here are engaged in proxy wars of some kind—it’s been that way in every protectorate, until the Council approves full incorporation. But with the lower jury made of one representative from each invested House, it’s almost impossible to get the suits to stick.”

  Ella frowned. “Can’t you just order them to stop?”

  “I wish it was that easy,” he sighed. “My hands are tied by the Compact the same as any other Councilate authority. And the lower jury would never let it through.”

  “Because it would be mutually-assured destruction,” she said, remembering her conversation with Tunla.

  “Exactly.” The woman arrived with two bowls of a thick red soup, and Sablo thanked her.

  “So if there’s ever something illegal, but in the interest of all the Houses, then it’s legally untouchable. Seems like a flaw in the system.”

  The older man sipped at his soup. “You are a thinker, aren’t you? Sadly, I’m not sure there is an unflawed system. But we work with what we have. We’ll get your suit through, at least.”

  The woman brought a bowl of millet cakes then, and they spent the next few minutes eating in relative silence, as Councilate etiquette required. “It sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of the research yourself,” Sablo said on finishing. “Is legal doctrine one of your areas of study?”

  “Unfortunately no. I’ve stuck mainly to ethnography, along with an interest in the emerging study of resonances.” And if I told you what I’ve just found out, she thought, it would likely damn the world to Councilate rule. Though Sablo didn’t come off as cruel or power-hungry. That was the problem with a bad system: the people in it didn’t need to be bad for the system as a whole to do bad things. Though some of them—like Odril—undoubtedly were.

  Sablo paused. “About that, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. As much as I’m free to help you during the pre-arbitration time—I’d even say I’m mandated to do so, though I find it a pleasure—I won’t be able to directly help with any of the arbitration costs.”

  Ella cocked her head, then understood what he was saying. “With hiring a barrister, you mean.”

  “Yes. And with any other arbitration-related costs. If you had worked off your debt to me, and I was paying you a regular salary, well, you’d be free to use that as you saw fit, but I see you’ve already filed the suit.”

  “I have. Is it unrealistic to think I might represent myself?”

  He paused in the act of untucking his napkin. “You are a bright young lady, Ellumia. I don’t doubt that with time, you could become an accomplished legal counsel. But you would need years, not days.”

  His words triggered her, somehow. She could do this. “I was actually perusing the Tower’s legal library last night. Would you indulge me in a mock arbitration?” The texts had been full of these, simplified legal interactions to illustrate points or test wits.

  He smiled. “Certainly. What’s the issue?”

  She pursed her lips, looking around. “Aygla vs the House of Teas, on the legality of decorating with stolen Yersh artifacts.” There’d been a similar suit in one of the books last night, involving a stolen painting.

  “Ah.” He steepled his hands. “Well as defense I assert you must first prove the artifacts here are in fact Old Yersh.” The first kingdom had been full of blown glass statues and portraits, famously shattered when Worldsmouth conquered them. Glass art these days was more likely to be knockoffs than originals.

  Fortunately, art history had been one of the things proper for a minor House daughter to study. Ella took one of the smaller statues near them. “Hebgold bubbles,” she said, indicating the spiral pattern of bubbles trapped in the glass. “They come from a process lost in the Shattering. And since all intact Yersh artifacts are now protected under the antiquities act,” she smiled, victorious, “I believe the suit is mine.”

  Sablo raised an eyebrow. “Nearly. But I would challenge you on jurisprudence.”

  “Jurisprudence?”

  “This crime, which the defense in no way affirms did occur, would have occurred in the Yersh territory, likely unbeknownst to the proprietors of said Newgen tea house, meaning prosecution would need to be sought there.”

  “I—“ Ella searched for an answer, something from her readings, and found nothing.

  Sablo smiled. “A brilliant start, though. If you ever need help in guiding your studies, or an ear for questions, I think that’s still within my legal limits.”

  Ella held down frustration, and the nagging feeling of being further in the man’s debt. “Thank you, I likely will.”

  The bill arrived, and he took it before she could react. “Naturally, this is on me.”

  Ella tried to protest, half in earnest and half-channeling the noises her mother used to make. “Consider it a business expense,” he overrode her, winking.

  There was something too familiar in his gaze as they left, in the slightly proprietary way he guided her back to the Tower, but she was too frustrated by their mock arbitration to think much of it. That he couldn’t fund a lawyer came as no surprise. But that the law should be so complex—well, it shouldn’t be a surprise either. But it was proof she had more work to do.

  “You know,” Sablo said as they neared his offices, “you could always postpone the arbitration. Work for me awhile longer, until you’re able to afford professional representation. The…consequences if you don’t win the suit could be unpleasant.”

  “Consequences?”

  He reached for the door. “In suits of personal injury like this, if the defense is successful, a countersuit of personal libel often follows. And with your fragile economic standing…” He shook his head. “You could end up in debt to the man for a long time to come.”

  In debt? To Odril? Her stomach dropped and her fist clenched on the door. “I thank you for the warning,” she said, struggling to keep a calm face. “But that will never happen.”

  18

  Summers sear and lion’s bite, either one o’er winter’s night!

  --Achuri children’s rhyme

  The boat rocked in the river current, the only sound the rush of water on rudder and the tense breathing of eight armed rebels.

  “Watch it!” Ilrick wheezed from the front.

  “Watch yourself,” someone snapped back, maybe Beal. Tai sat near the front with Weiland, straining his eyes for lights, for the Coldferth dockhouses. They’d taken trails through the hills east of the city, then waited for nightfall on the shore of the Genga before pushing off. The star had just set, blue afterglow outlining the hills to the west, other lights in the sky beginning to poke through.

  “There!”
r />   Tai saw it too—a twinkle around the bend.

  “Okay everyone,” Karhail’s voice came, low. “Remember the plan. Ilrick goes first, tries to draw them off. Lumo, Theron and I deal with the ones who stay. Weiland, you help out where needed, let us know if Ilrick’s in trouble. Tai, Beal, Eyna, get in and get as much yura as you can. Yell when the boat’s full, and we all run, or swim for it. Right?”

  “Right,” came a chorus of tense voices. This was the biggest hit they’d done, Tai’s first, and they’d spent hours debating the strategy. Coldferth stored their yura in a well-guarded dockhouse, and information said they were nearly full, ready to ship north. Like the rest of the major and minor dockhouses, Coldferth’s was behind the city’s line of dock guards, so they’d decided to come in by boat, at the darkest hour of night. It was to be surgical—quick in, quick out.

  That didn’t last long. Beal struck one of the pier beams guiding the boat in, and someone fell out with a shout and a splash. “Ilrick,” Karhail hissed “Up. Now.”

  Ilrick leapt for the dock beam, striking resonance and shouting as he went. “Prophets, oh Prophets! Descending Gods, a man tries to enter a friendly game of dice and—“

  His voice faded as he got up and moved down the dock. Ilrick was a mosstongue, able to convince and confuse with his voice—in this case, that he was a nearly-drowned lighthaired noble. A distraction.

  Shouts of Coldferth’s guards rose a moment later from the warehouse, fifty or so paces down the dock. “Tai,” Karhail cued, while Beal and Matle pulled in a spluttering Theron, their new brawler.

  Right. Tai braced his feet against the front of the boat, hoping this worked. “Concentrate, Tai,” Lumo said. “This one is easy.”

  Tai struck his resonance, then thickened the air and pushed forward, knees caving some as the force of his push met the resistance of the water. The boat lurched forward, skimming between the pillars of the dock, rattle of feet overhead as the guards ran out to Ilrick. Moving the boat had worked great earlier today, so long as he made no thought of nudging downward. He’d nearly drowned trying to save the boat.