The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  The second-floor gallery overlooked Cooke Street and Cooke’s Arcade, where ring tosses, cakewalks, shuffleboards, and tetherballs entertained a crowd of well-dressed children.

  “I’m so sorry, Captain. Today is Airman’s Day. If you could permit me a few moments more,” Leonid said.

  With the assistance of a footman, King Leonid donned a bright white smock and a stocking cap, sewn to resemble an orange candle flame. Then he approached the railing of the gallery, raised his arms, threw back his head, and crowed.

  The children in the arcade below roared back at him. With the help of his staff, the king lit votive candles inside paper lanterns, making them puff up and float. Into a paper gondola beneath each lantern, the king placed a single shining penny. He released these gifts, one after another, to the screeched approval of the children. Edith saw that many of the children had come prepared with peashooters and slingshots. Some of them targeted the balloons themselves, others shot at the children who raced to catch the falling coins. One of the tea lights shifted midair, igniting the envelope that carried it. Half a dozen children ran toward rather than away from the fiery mess when the lantern plopped upon the cobblestones. The adults in the surrounding cafés marked the commotion with vague amusement.

  Observing the general chaos that the lanterns caused, Edith wondered why anyone would encourage such bedlam among the young. King Leonid noticed her consternation and explained, “It’s called a Penny War. And I thought the same thing when I was a younger man: What on earth are we teaching our children with such a thing? But you know what’s interesting: The children who do the shooting rarely get to collect the prize. Often the pennies just go rolling off, so even the first to arrive when the lantern comes down aren’t always the one to walk away with the gold. Perhaps those children will spend the rest of the day complaining about the unfairness of it all. Which of course is the lesson. Nothing is fair. I believe in love and chance and beauty. But I think it is unkind to pretend that fairness exists in the world.”

  Edith had a different interpretation. She thought the so-called Penny War was a patronizing sham. The king had created a dishonest circumstance, incentivized bad behavior, and then interpreted the predictably desperate result as having some instructive merit. It was hard to listen to an old man opine about fairness while he stood there throwing crumbs at children like they were pigeons in a park.

  Edith was just about to voice her opinion when King Leonid’s brother arrived. The girdled crown prince, red-faced from the walk, seemed surprised and unhappy to see Edith there.

  “Well, this puts me in a very bad light, doesn’t it, Leo? Or maybe that was exactly the point.”

  “Really, Pepin,” the king said, shooing off the servants who’d helped him launch his penny flotilla. “How is your blunder possibly my fault?”

  “It is not my blunder!” the treasurer snapped, hooking his thumbs behind the lapels of his overstretched sienna jacket. “I told you last night, the error lies with the archivist.”

  “I’m sorry you had to witness this, Captain Winters. I was hoping to spare you the scene.” King Leonid pulled the candle-flame stocking from his head.

  “I don’t understand,” Edith said.

  “It seems my brother has lost track of the Sphinx’s painting.”

  “I told you, I know right where it is!” Le Mesurier tugged a small notepad from the pocket of his waistcoat. He opened it and riffled to a page. “See here—The Brick Layer’s Granddaughter is in the one hundred and second locker on the third shelf beneath Grandfather’s collection of pewter tinder boxes and above Princess Hannah’s tiara, seized during the Battle of Port Eccles.” The swallow-breasted treasurer tapped at his pad vigorously. “It’s right there!”

  “You’ve lost it?” Edith said.

  “It’s not lost!” Le Mesurier patted the red fringe of his hair. “It’s just not where it’s supposed to be. The matter is already under audit. I have never failed an audit. Never! I am confident that I will have the object in hand soon.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain. This is inexcusable,” the king said, looking ashamed for his brother. “The Royal Vaults are embarrassingly immense and, unfortunately, not as well organized as we would like. We sometimes mislay one treasure amid the trove. But all my vaults are absolutely secure, and it is only a matter of hours until we find and can deliver The Brick Layer’s Granddaughter to you. In the meantime, I ask for your patience.”

  Edith had removed her tricorne when she had entered the palace. She had spent the interim with it in hand or under arm, but she reseated it on her head now, and said, “I understand. I shall return in the morning, Your Majesty. I hope that will give you sufficient time to sift through your fortune and find me my painting.”

  Chapter Ten

  If you lie loud and long enough, it eventually becomes the truth.

  —Oren Robinson of the Daily Reverie

  I don’t know why you came if you aren’t going to eat anything,” Haste said, taking an immense bite of her chocolate éclair.

  “I’ve already had a tart, a turnover, and a cupcake. If I eat another sweet, it’s just going to come right back up,” Edith replied, grateful to be leaving the latest bakery in their spree. It was a wonder between the pressing crowd and all those fragile displays and tenuously tiered cakes that she’d not put her elbow through anything. Or anyone.

  Haste had spent the past ten minutes eating cream puffs and listening with undisguised amusement as Edith complained about her morning, but now she seemed ready to move the conversation along. “So the upshot is, the Sphinx wants his old painting back. They’ve lost it. Now what?”

  “I guess I go back in the morning,” Edith said.

  “And I’ll show you how to do it right this time,” Haste said, eyeing the éclairs displayed behind the shopwindow of the bakery next door. Edith couldn’t see any obvious difference between that confectionary and the one in Haste’s hand, but Edith had learned that the only truly unpopular opinion one could hold when it came to the question of which bakery reigned supreme was the opinion they were all more or less the same.

  Detecting a discordant clank, Edith snapped her head back. The grinning sun chugged a little, then rattled on.

  While she had been waiting for Haste outside the first bakery, Edith had bought the early edition of the Daily Reverie off a newsboy. She’d scanned the headlines for mention of the stalled sun, the dangling youth, and their crash landing, curious to know what the repercussions would be and when the track repairs would commence. But apparently the incident didn’t merit a single mention. Edith was doubly annoyed to see that the editors had found plenty of room to opine upon Voleta and her defense of a parrot.

  Edith had made the further error of reading some of the account of her own arrival to the ringdom and discovered that she was described as “an earnest woman with a drainpipe arm and a tatty cocked hat.” She took exception to her tricorne being called tatty. It wasn’t shabby; it was experienced.

  “Have you heard of the Mermaid?” Edith asked.

  “Of course! She’s the latest object of our public affection, though I think her fame is probably about to wane.”

  “Why do you say that?” The two women paused and lifted their arms to allow a school of small children to rush around them.

  “Well, it’s just the way things go here.” Haste peeled the paper cup from her éclair and threw the sticky wrapper in a public waste bin, which, judging from the trash in the street, was treated as largely decorative. “Women are treated like cut flowers: They’re plucked from their roots, stuffed into some fancy staging, set out on display where they become the object of praise and critique for, oh, a week or two. Then when the blooms begin to droop or fade or just look a little too familiar, they’re put out with the rubbish.”

  “That’s a hateful cycle,” Edith said, scowling. She wondered if such a thing might’ve happened to her if she had not been disfigured by a Parlor brand. She liked to think she would’ve evaded such a fa
te by dint of willpower and self-possession. But then, hadn’t Marya been independent and clever when she arrived at the Tower? Hadn’t she been resourceful and determined? Acknowledging that Marya had been a victim of the Tower required Edith to admit she might’ve been one, too. Edith wondered whether Marya was a beneficiary of her fame or the victim of it. Did she have the ringdom wrapped around her finger, or was she, as Haste suggested, nothing but a spoiling bouquet?

  Haste licked cream from her gold fingers. “I don’t think it’s hateful so much as fearful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I can’t speak for the rest of the Tower, but I think most Pelphian men are just leery of women. I really do. They’ll say, ‘No, no, no, women are weak. They’re foolish. They need looking after and direction.’ But I think deep down they can’t forget that they came out of a woman, were nursed by a woman, and had their little minds sculpted by one as well. When they grow up, just the thought of it makes them uneasy. But rather than face their fear, they look for ways to dominate and possess us, to create proof that we are weak, and they are strong. I’ll tell you this: The harder a man brags about his thunderous escapades in the lady’s boudoir, the more frightened he is. I’m sure you’ve noticed how much they love giving us diminutive nicknames. The Mermaid, the Leaping Lady …”

  “The Gold Watch?”

  “Exactly, because we shake them to their infant bones.”

  “Cowards.”

  “Ah, but there is nothing so dangerous as a coward!” Haste said, then crammed the rest of her éclair into one cheek, chewed a little, then spoke around it: “I’m curious, what do you make of Leonid?”

  “He’s a fine actor,” Edith said.

  “Doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous, though,” Haste said as soon as she had swallowed.

  “I came in through the Parlor. Believe me, I know how dangerous actors can be.”

  “What about the Sphinx? You can’t say he’s not theatrical.”

  “Well, he’s not throwing pennies at children, but yes, he’s theatrical.” When they passed the open door of a cake maker’s shop, a young woman in a white apron burst out holding a round, white cake piled with flowers of orange icing. She forced the cake on Edith, deflecting her firm refusal with a firmer insistence, until Edith would’ve either had to let the cake fall on the street or take it in hand.

  She carried the cake until they were out of sight of the bakery, then she found a newsboy who was quite delighted to receive an entire cake.

  Haste watched the whole exchange with amusement and, once the cake had been disposed of, said, “I do wonder sometimes if all of this was really necessary.” She waved a hand over her golden chest. “I wonder if I could’ve survived with something a little less showy.”

  “Can I ask, is it mostly a shell, or …?” Edith let the question hang, unsure how sensitive the subject would be.

  But Haste seemed unperturbed. “No. I lost half my ribs, one lung, my stomach, and most of my bowels to the explosion. The heart’s still mine, but the rest is the Sphinx’s plumbing.”

  “Incredible,” Edith said, thinking how simple her arm was in comparison.

  “I imagine. I haven’t seen it. Though I suppose most people haven’t had a look at their guts. Not the lucky ones, anyway.” With the bakers’ alley now behind them, Haste craned about, looking for open seats in the nearest public house. “I’m thirsty. What say we find ourselves a drink?”

  But Edith had something else in mind. That morning’s dispatch from the Sphinx had included no mention of either Senlin or her investigation of his hotel room. She took this as license to continue her search because either the Sphinx was aware of her efforts, and looking the other way, or he was not so omniscient as he liked to pretend, in which case, he could use the help.

  “Does Pelphia have a jail?” Edith asked.

  “It does, of course. Why?”

  Not wanting to reveal the true nature of her interest, Edith fabricated an excuse. She said that the Sphinx wished to make certain that the prisons of the Tower were humane and decent places, concluding, “You can learn a lot about a society by examining how it treats its prisoners.”

  “All right,” Haste said, smiling at a joke Edith had not detected. “Let’s go to jail.”

  The jail sat between two ornate playhouses in the crowded theater district. From a distance, the prison looked like an old maid squeezed between a pair of fashionable ladies. The playhouses were arrayed in lights and alabaster shades, with pearlescent fixtures and colorful bills. Their marquees were as crowded as a princess’s dance card. The jail looked comparatively drab. And yet, it seemed to attract a larger crowd than either theater.

  The face of the prison was composed of a collection of cages, stacked four high, one upon the next like blocks from a toy chest. The inhabitants of these cages ranged in appearance from half-naked wretches to overdressed lords. Many of the inmates reached through the bars, calling the crowd to harken to their tales of misfortune and misdeed. The audience, who loitered about the curb, ate tea cakes and snap bread, popcorn and bonbons, and between bites heckled or encouraged the prisoners to continue their dramatic efforts.

  The bars of the cages, Edith soon realized, were set far enough apart that the prisoners could slip in and out at will. Indeed, even as she watched, a young man squeezed between the bars of his street-level cell to retrieve a flower that an admirer had thrown short. The moment the young man had the flower in hand, he returned to his cell by the same manner he’d escaped and resumed his loud lamentation about how he had been driven to slay his romantic rival in an unsanctioned duel. In the cage immediately above his, a lady in a fashionably ripped frock flung herself against the bars and cried for the king’s mercy. A group of top-hatted fops in the street applauded and whistled, suggesting what sort of mercy they’d show her if she would come down to join them for drinks.

  The higher cages were accessible via a ladder that was attended by a constable in a pickelhelm. The constable was responsible for helping prisoners in and out of cages rather than keeping them there. A coin dispenser gleamed from his belt. He punched out change for a middle-aged man who arrived in a white suit splattered with red, which looked more like merlot than blood. This new prisoner claimed to have stabbed his father with a carving fork, to the constable’s obvious indifference.

  “It costs a shekel for five minutes,” Haste said, and stopped a young girl who was carrying a tray full of sweets. Georgine bought a bag of candied roses and began to pop the crystalized petals into her mouth as she spoke. “For three minas, you can stay overnight.”

  “Why in the world would anyone want to do that?” Edith asked.

  Haste smirked and rummaged through her bag of candy. “Entertainment. Boredom. Latent guilt. Who knows? You see that man up there in the top right cage, the one wearing dishrags and an eye patch? He’s an earl. He’s been up there for three years. I don’t know how he affords it. I don’t think he ever leaves.” And as they watched, the shabby earl stuck his pale bony legs between the bars and began kicking them merrily.

  “Doesn’t he have a family or a business or a wife?”

  “None that he cares for, apparently.”

  “Is the whole prison a sham?” Edith shoved aside a young man who’d backed into her while trying to catch a garter slung through the bars by a pretty inmate.

  “Most of it, but not all. There’s a pen in the back where they sober up the violent drunks and stow the rabble-rousers. And there are maybe a dozen cells for legitimate prisoners. The most common crimes are financial in nature and committed by influential men. So the cells are well furnished and usually not occupied for very long. Honestly, half the time it’s impossible to tell the prisoners from the visitors. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Despite having little hope that she’d find Senlin confined there, Edith followed Georgine on a tour of the jail. It was the jolliest prison she’d ever seen. There were guards present, but most of them sat inside the cages with the
formal prisoners, playing Beggar-My-Neighbor. A female prisoner (or perhaps she was a visitor) had convinced a guard to allow her to apply some of her makeup to his rather weathered face. The guard sat with her in his lap and his eyes shut as she tried to apply a deep blue shadow without blinding him. The prison floor was strewn with streamers and smashed flowers. Empty bottles and glasses seemed to fill every surface. If it had not been for the abundance of iron bars, Edith would’ve thought she’d stumbled upon the drunken conclusion of a week-long wedding.

  When she saw no sign of Senlin, she was almost relieved. He would’ve found all of the carousing insufferable. “So this is where the condemned hods were kept before the execution?” she asked.

  “You heard about that, did you?”

  “I try to keep informed,” Edith said vaguely. Of course, she couldn’t add that she had learned of the injustice from Senlin’s reports rather than the Sphinx, who’d stayed mum on the whole ordeal.

  “No, they weren’t kept here,” Haste said, her expression clouding. “Hods are held in the gatehouse between the ringdom sewers and the black trail … or the Old Vein, or whatever you like to call it.”

  Someone nearby retched violently. The unpleasant splash was followed by a round of cheers.

  “Could you show me the gatehouse?” Edith asked.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Haste crumpled up the empty candy bag and put her fists on her hips, the same pose she’d struck when she’d first met Edith, though it seemed less welcoming now. “Look, if the Sphinx sent you to investigate me or how I’ve dispatched my duties, I wish you would just come out and say it. I thought we were going to be honest with each other.”

  Edith raised her human hand in a gesture of peace. “I’m not here to check up on you, Georgine. I’m really not. I’m completely convinced that you are a conscientious defender of the peace, and I have nothing but admiration for the work that you do. But you’re just one person, and you yourself have said that you don’t have much access or influence over the political activities of the ringdom.” Edith lowered her voice before she said, “The Sphinx is worried about the possibility of a coming conflict between the ringdoms and the hods. I’m just trying to figure out if the Pelphians are banking the fires of war or defending the rule of law. As an outsider, none of this makes much sense to me.” She paused to wave at their surroundings. A drunken fop in a crumpled jacket waved back at her, believing that he had been summoned. He took a few steps toward her, and she pointed an iron finger at him. “No!” she barked. He turned on his heel and staggered into an open cell to flop upon an empty cot. Edith resumed her speech. “But I’m at least wise enough to know that the Daily Reverie is probably not an immaculate record of the truth. I just want to see the facts for myself.”