Cities and Thrones

by Carrie Patel

  Tran-MacGregor adjusted his cuffs and glared holes into the table.

  All eyes turned to Sato. His lips twitched. “Mr Vaughn, continue.”

  Malone shifted in her chair and made a conscious effort to keep her expression neutral. She wasn’t sure whom she’d expected Sato to back, but his lack of attention to the matter disconcerted her.

  It seemed as though his mind was fixed on other things.

  Vaughn adjusted his spectacles, looking eager to move on. “Ambassador Chakrun, diplomacy.”

  The ambassador looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. His olive skin was assuming a grayish hue, and new lines bracketed his eyes and mouth every day. “Nothing to report. Nobody’s responding to our diplomatic overtures. The other city-states won’t grant our envoys an audience or accept our goodwill gifts.” He coughed into a hand. “I should, however, note that the... situation in the city, not the least of which is the current lack of control over the markets, does not inspire the confidence of our neighbors.” He shared the quickest of glances with Tran-MacGregor. “Asserting our authority here would go a long way toward establishing a more secure reputation with these other city-states.”

  An uncertain silence followed. Sato sighed and made a rolling motion with his hand, and Vaughn moved to the next name on the list. “Mr Tran-MacGregor. Unless, ah, you’ve already covered it,” he added hopefully.

  Tran-MacGregor was leaning back in his seat, arms folded. “We need tax revenue, and we need to know what’s coming into our city. My previous remarks conveyed the extent of finance’s present concerns.”

  “Then we’re on to General Covas. Military.”

  The general was a dark-skinned woman in her early forties. Malone had heard that she’d been a factory manager in her life before Sato. That surprised some because her smooth, steady voice always hovered just below conversational volume. But it had the effect of forcing everyone else to concentrate on what she said. “Nothing new. No unrest, no riots. Our first priority should be keeping things that way.”

  Sato nodded, his gaze distant and unfocused.

  Vaughn shifted his papers and his eyes flickered to Malone. “Chief Malone with the police.” The anticipatory quiver of his upper lip seemed to suggest that a second report with good news was too much to hope for.

  She looked around the table and saw the others looking back at her. They already knew what she was going to say. She’d said it before and heard it lost in the myriad concerns of other departments. As she considered this, there was something calculating in their looks. She recognized it, knew it suggested an offer, an exchange of favors, but that nuance was a language she didn’t speak.

  Only Arnault looked back at her with contempt plain on his face. It was refreshing, really.

  “Crime has continued to grow,” Malone said. “My officers are reporting new burglaries and assaults every day, and we keep losing territory. There simply aren’t enough of us to police the streets.”

  She turned to Sato, whose mouth was a thin, bloodless line.

  “Give me more men. I need more people clearing out these tunnels. If we can spare soldiers...” Malone’s gaze flickered to General Covas. The other woman’s nostrils flared while her eyes narrowed to pinpricks. Malone knew she’d managed to step on her toes – again – but couldn’t help pointing out the obvious. “We’re all concerned about security. Black markets, too. If we can clean things up in the city–”

  “With all due respect,” Covas said, her voice calm but raised to a rare volume. Everyone snapped to attention. “Sending my soldiers to patrol Recoletta would be dangerous. People dislike being policed by their own military. It would invite comparisons to the old City Guard.”

  And the curfews and the period of mounting chaos during the Council’s final days. Covas didn’t need to say more.

  But Malone had to make one more effort. “Sir, the Bricklayer. If we only–”

  “The Bricklayer,” Grenwahl said, managing to speak the name as if it were a playful moniker for something much less sinister, “is a boogeyman. Gives criminals something to fear and our dogged chief something to chase.” His smile was as sickly sweet as treacle, and it was a slap in the face. “He doesn’t exist. At best, he’s an assortment of five or six different individuals operating independently of one another.”

  “If that’s true,” Malone said between her teeth, “those are five or six individuals we should eliminate.”

  “And when we do, five or six more will rise to take their place,” Grenwahl said.

  Malone opened her mouth to respond, but Sato spoke first. “Enough. Mr Vaughn, please continue.”

  “Er, next is Mr Arnault. Intelligence.”

  Arnault sighed in his usual languid manner, running a hand through his chin-length black hair. She couldn’t believe herself – she’d set him up perfectly to join the others against her. As if Covas and Grenwahl weren’t enough to deal with.

  “Malone’s right,” Arnault said.

  The other advisors turned to him, their eyes wide. For once, Malone did not feel that she was the only one left bewildered.

  Arnault seemed to take his time in explaining himself. “My sources refer to the Bricklayer, too. But this isn’t only a problem of crime. It’s one of authority. The Bricklayer – whoever it is – cleans up tunnels. Gets rid of vandals. He’s restored at least three ruined gas lines in the city, and he exercises his own form of vigilante justice. Executing criminals who prey on residents in his territories.”

  “He is a criminal,” Malone said.

  Arnault turned to Sato. “And he’s undercutting you by addressing the very problems you should be handling.” The rest of the table went quiet. Even though the advisors were quick to snipe at each other, they were all more cautious when it came to Sato. All of them but Arnault.

  Sato gave Arnault a sober nod.

  For one brief moment, Malone was certain Sato had finally been swayed. He was ready to give her hunt for the Bricklayer his full support.

  “Mr Vaughn, is that everyone?” Sato asked, looking as if he’d just made up his mind about something.

  “Just Mr Quillard,” Vaughn said. “Library affairs.”

  Every head turned to a round, boyish figure with a timid smile. Nothing seemed to sway Sato’s moods so quickly as news from Quillard.

  And yet he seemed completely oblivious to this. Malone hadn’t spent enough time with him to figure out whether it was incredible optimism, an extraordinary lack of social awareness, or a streak of cunning that ran deeper than any at the table could fathom.

  He gave the rest of the advisors a timid smile, like a schoolboy called on to speak in front of the class. “Cataloguing operations continue to run smoothly. We’re finding a great variety of literary, scientific, and historical texts. They’ve been organized as you requested, with the copies made available to the public. I think you’ll be most pleased at our archives on antiquity – they’ve grown significantly since your last visit. I’ve arranged to have some of the records on ancient governance sent to you, as you requested.”

  Sato nodded and smiled over this news like an ill man over a bowl of hot broth. “Very good news, indeed.”

  Quillard continued. “We’ve had new visitors to the collection, too.” Sato had opened the old Directorate of Preservation, the Council’s formerly secret history archives, to the public, and he’d been moving copies and transcriptions there for people to read. Getting more Recolettans to visit the collection, to take an interest in the excavation of the Library of Congress, to embrace the history that had been off limits for so long – these were personal crusades for Sato and had been part of his original motivation for opposing the Council.

  The other advisors frowned and shifted in their seats. Malone had quickly learned that, while many of his associates shared his vision for a more equitable and transparent government, few shared his zeal for history. Even those who did felt that, right now, his obsession was a distraction at best.

  But something
in Quillard’s faltering smile gave Sato pause. “What exactly does that mean?”

  Quillard wiped at his brow. “Well. The good news is, all of the books in the collection are copies, so this is more of an inconvenience than a real loss. But a few of our reading rooms were vandalized. About a hundred books, all told.” He must have been one of the few people who wouldn’t have tried to hide news like this. Perhaps that was why Sato had chosen him for the job.

  Sato worked over something in his jaw. “I don’t suppose we caught the persons responsible.”

  “No.” Quillard inexplicably brightened. “But they did leave something behind.”

  He slid something – several somethings – across the table. Folded papers with garish block letters printed across them. Pamphlets.

  Malone picked one up and flipped through it as she saw several of the other advisors doing. It was coated with a strange, waxy residue and filled with generic screeds against Sato, his foreign army, and all of the collaborators now propping up his regime: “Oppose the traitor Sato! Take back Recoletta, tunnel by tunnel!”

  “Might help us track them down,” Quillard said. He seemed to be the only person at the table who didn’t acknowledge that this was bad news.

  Everyone else was watching Sato and the rising color in his face. Malone felt she could tell exactly where he was in the pamphlet as he read, his lips working silently and his eyes narrowing.

  “More than vandals. Insurgents,” Sato muttered.

  “Grumblers,” Arnault said. “Nothing more.” Only he seemed unconcerned by the pamphlets, but with him, it was always hard to tell.

  Judging by the uncomfortable looks around the room, everyone else had made the uncomfortable connection between Sato’s own rise to power and these seeming challengers.

  Sato pulled his eyes from the page in his hand long enough to look at Arnault. “Black markets and petty crime are one thing. But this,” he said, brandishing the pamphlet, “this is a call to arms. They’re organized. And they’ve staged their stunt around the defacement of the books we’ve offered them, the very ones the Council always forbade. What is this if not a declaration of open rebellion?”

  “They’re acting out,” Arnault said, as patiently as if he were explaining playroom bullies to a child. “As long as you allow them to, they’ll come around to your position. They’ll realize this tantrum is a freedom they never had under the Council.”

  “And yet they miss the Council,” Sato said, assaulting one page of the pamphlet with a rigid finger.

  “The devil you know,” said Arnault, his expression unreadable.

  Sato sighed. “It didn’t start out this way. When the smoke cleared, everyone was happy.”

  “Because the smoke had cleared,” Arnault said. “And because they hadn’t yet confronted changes.”

  “That’s the problem,” Sato said. “They don’t want to confront changes. They’d have happily let Ruthers and the rest of the Council bleed them for generations more as long as it was predictable.”

  “You just need to give them time.”

  “I need to give them a reason to see this government as legitimate. Once they acknowledge our administration, the rest will fall into place.”

  And while the others around the table shifted and made surreptitious eye contact with one another, Malone saw her opportunity.

  “Sir,” she said.

  Sato looked up at her. So did the rest of the advisors.

  Malone cleared her throat. “If you want the people to recognize your authority, you have to remove the clearest threat to it,” she said, thinking of the Bricklayer and his shifting fiefdom. She remembered, vaguely, something another officer – she couldn’t remember who – had said to her a lifetime ago. “Show them who keeps Recoletta clean.”

  Sato was watching her closely now. So was everyone else, and she knew from their expressions that what she had said had been the wrong thing, but she didn’t yet know why.

  “I just need leads. I have a department of reasonably capable inspectors. If even a few squads of Covas’s soldiers could take over patrol duties, I could focus my efforts on stopping these people.”

  Arnault’s eyes went wide with horror.

  Sato nodded slowly. “The direct approach. That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Malone.” He opened his pamphlet wide. “Your first lead.”

  She stared at the creased paper, understanding of what she’d done only slowly dawning. “Sir, I was talking about the Bricklayer. His network–”

  “Can wait for now. Locating these insurgents is your first priority.”

  How quickly they had evolved from simple pamphleteers. A wave of queasiness washed over her.

  She watched the other advisors. Arnault seethed. Grenwahl and Covas eyed her coolly. The rest avoided her gaze completely. She would have to dig herself out of this on her own.

  “I’m... not qualified for this kind of investigation.” Malone gritted her teeth against her excuse. It tasted like bile, but it was better than a witch hunt. “And neither is my new department. I chase criminals. Smugglers, thieves, and killers. Tracking down political cells is not my area of expertise.” If it had been, she thought with a grimace, she would have caught Sato long before he’d gotten this far.

  “I know,” Sato said, laying his pamphlet on the table. “That’s why Roman will liaise with you on this.”

  The muscles in Malone’s face went stiff. Across the table, she felt Arnault’s rage boil over at her.

  That was hardly fair, but it was beside the point.

  Malone felt arguments and objections welling up inside her. Before she could give voice to any of them, Sato clacked his papers against the table and announced, “Dismissed.”

  The other advisors rose, making quick exits before they found their own burdens increased. She stayed in her place, knowing there was little else anyone could do at this point to actually make things worse for her. So she gathered her thoughts and waited until the room had emptied, and then she made her way to Sato’s office as if pulled by its gravity.

  She was annoyed, but not exactly surprised, to see Arnault already there. The two men looked up as she entered, and Malone read her own displeasure on Arnault’s face.

  “I was just about to call for you,” Sato said, smooth and pleasant.

  She squared her shoulders and planted her feet in the doorway. “I wanted to discuss these pamphleteers.”

  “Good. Because the two of you need a plan.”

  She felt the noose tightening.

  “Have a seat,” Sato said, lowering himself into a carved, high-backed chair. At a nod from Sato, Roman stiffly did likewise.

  Malone sat, watching Sato’s folded hands across the desk. Next to his elbow was a book – something with a thick cover and the shabby decadence typical of Quillard’s archives. It was embossed with fading, gilded letters: The Republic. Plato.

  Sato opened his mouth and took a quick breath, as if deciding how to begin. “Malone, I know the last few months have been rough on you. For several reasons. You lost many of your colleagues, and you’re coping with a new position. One to which you are not, perhaps, well accustomed.” He spoke slowly, looking away. He wouldn’t acknowledge the parallel between them, but his sudden flush said clearly enough that he recognized it.

  Malone’s jaw muscles tightened. “This is not my usual method of investigation.”

  “Nor is sitting in an office and sorting reports. What you need is a culprit.” Sato flashed a flat smile. “And I’ve found one for you.”

  She swallowed, preparing to barrel directly to the point. “Sir, it’s the wrong culprit. We need–”

  Sato’s palm came down hard on the table. “We need to restore confidence, Malone.” His lips were pressed together, and there was an edge in his voice she hadn’t heard before. Even Arnault was motionless.

  Sato continued. “We can’t force the merchants back to their stalls or chase the black marketeers out of business. We can’t even keep up with the th
efts and assaults your people report every week. But we can handle this.”

  Arnault remained silent, still seated awkwardly at the corner of the desk, but a muscle in his cheek spasmed.

  Sato folded his hands again and seemed to relax. Or slump. “We’ve all had to make compromises. But you’ll do this work because it needs doing. Before it grows into something we can’t handle.”

  A memory rose in her mind of the councilors Sato had executed, lined up and standing before their nooses. Only their faces shifted and changed until Malone wasn’t sure whether they represented herself, or Sato, or the unknown pamphleteers.

  She shivered, though at which possibility she couldn’t tell. But one look at Sato’s face confirmed that the matter was no longer up for discussion.

  Malone steeled her nerves and swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “Understood. Although...” her eyes flickered to Arnault.

  “You work better alone.” He followed her gaze. “I’ve heard that speech already. But you’re going to work together because you need his information and he needs your investigative skills.” He looked back at Malone for a brief moment. “Now, unless there is anything else,” he said in a tone that indicated there clearly wasn’t, “I’ve got to get back to work. And so do you.”

  Malone made her exit as quickly as possible.

  Chapter Three

  Uneasy Alliances

  After that day in the souk, Jane made daily trips to the Majlis. She soon learned that the veiled woman who had hired her over tea and honey cakes was the Qadi, the elected judge and arbiter of Madina. Jane eventually came to understand that, while her closest counterpart in Recoletta would have been Councilor Ruthers, the two were actually quite different.