Black Brillion

by Matthew Hughes

  The divide between the two unequal parts of Sherit society gradually widened into a chasm. Resentments festered on both sides. The rich told each other that the poor suffered the consequences of their own innate lack of initiative; the wealthy were entirely deserving of the fruits of their strivings, even when the strivings had actually been undertaken by some long-dead ancestor. The poor told themselves that it was wrong that a handful should live in sybaritic splendor while a multitude swinked and sweated for a daily crust that grew ever meaner. Neither solitude felt much inclination to speak to the other, and even less to listen. But both were becoming aware that revolution roiled and rumbled on the horizon.

  The rich had begun to fortify their manors and the poor had taken to fashioning simple but brutally effective weapons, when a novel and unlikely solution appeared. No one was quite sure whence the concept originated—some suggested that the idea had been planted by the Archon himself, wandering the world incognito—but suddenly a few of the younger plutocrats let it be known that they were willing to forgo their inheritances. They offered to donate all of their assets to a new institution called the Divestment, which would hold the wealth as a perpetual trust. Moreover, each citizen of Sherit would receive an equal dividend from the trust’s profits. In return, those who gave up their riches to the Divestment were rewarded with a newly created exclusive social rank—the renunciant class—which entitled its members to special preferences and distinctions.

  A renunciant need never pay for anything, be it a twelve-course feast in Sherit’s most exclusive restaurant, or a roast chestnut from a street vendor’s wagon. He or she could step into any conveyance, public or private, and ride farefree, saunter to the front of any queue. Whatever was required, a renunciant had only to put out a hand and it was filled. And filled gladly. At first, of course, the common folk suspected that the proposal was some ruse of the rich, but as more and more of the elite joined the movement—and as the first dividend payments arrived—the new institution caught fire in the popular imagination. People began to compete for the honor of serving their benefactors.

  Most of Sherit’s plutocrats soon saw the wisdom of relinquishing their holdings to the Divestment, so that they might reap the adulation and the very substantial material benefits that only renunciants could command. Why be hated for heaped-up treasure when one could ascend to a rank that conferred all the essential perquisites of wealth as well as the adoration of the populace?

  The Divestment soon came to embrace the combined wealth of almost the entire Sherit ownership class. Those few magnates who could not bring themselves to part with their hoards found themselves isolated from their former peers. They were pitied and derided, their impatient heirs waiting for the death that would usher them into the new elite.

  Meanwhile, the flood of wealth that Divestment dividends poured into the pockets of the formerly dispossessed Sheritics created a vibrant economy at all levels of society. The most enterprising recipients soon found ways to make their money propagate, and before long were founding new fortunes. But now the rising rich pursued wealth with only one end in sight: to amass enough to meet the Divestment’s standard for donation, thus qualifying the donor to “take platinum” and be elevated to renunciant rank.

  Meanwhile, many in the commerciant class strove to win the favor of the supremes. Restaurants preferred by renunciants, even though they dined in segregated rooms, became wildly popular with those who were not quite rich enough to approach the Divestment. Haberdashers who outfitted the cream of Sherit found their designs in mass demand. Any enterprise entitled to advertise itself “used by renunciants” enjoyed a swelling flow of recipient customers. Some merchants grew so prosperous by fulfilling the rarefied expectations of renunciants that they were eventually able to divest themselves of their earnings and join those they had formerly served. Without exception, they did so.

  Under the Divestment, Sherit society achieved a dynamic equilibrium. The circulating wealth bred upon itself and multiplied through the economic matrix. The best and bravest of the recipients used their dividends to struggle up through the layers, aiming to reach a level at which they could live in penniless abundance. The culture demonstrated harmony and vigor, and the Divestment was regarded throughout Sherit as a pinnacle of social development.

  Some found a minor flaw in the system: renunciants who traveled abroad received a more than comfortable stipend from the trust, but still found themselves enjoying a less luxuriant standard of existence than they were accustomed to at home. The original articles of incorporation decreed that the purpose of the institution was to benefit Sherit; why export the county’s wealth to outlanders? Besides, it was felt that nothing available outside Sherit’s borders could match the exquisiteness of the fine stuffs created for renunciants by the Sheritics themselves, so the point was moot.

  Baro paused in his reading and asked the hotel integrator, “Have there been any strong representations from Sheritics wishing to alter the terms of the trust?”

  The hotel replied, “Some years back, there was a discussion about increasing the stipend to allow renunciants to live abroad in the style to which they are accustomed.”

  “Who opened the discussion, and why?”

  “A few young commerciants. They felt that renunciant status brought a disadvantage to those who enjoyed gadding about beyond the county’s borders.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “The College of Trustees declined to alter the Divestment’s Grand Charter. Some of the petitioners left the county without taking platinum. The others donated their fortunes when they became grand enough and were duly accepted as renunciants. They are now themselves members of the College. So all is as it should be.”

  Baro decided that as the guiding intelligence of a fine hotel, the integrator was disposed to err on the side of conservativism. Besides, the young man’s training had encouraged him not to accept bland assurances. “How may I contact the College?” he asked.

  “They do not welcome casual inquiries,” said the hotel.

  “I am an agent of the Bureau of Scrutiny. My interest concerns a possible offense,” said Baro, producing his identifying card.

  “Probationary agent,” said the hotel’s integrator, whose visual percepts were more exact than the eyes of the front desk clerk, though both man and machine seemed to be afflicted with the same disdainful sniff.

  The young man cleared his throat. “True,” he said, “and you are at liberty to refuse a probationer’s query, although that may mean that someday you will see me return fully fledged at the head of an audit team.”

  “Audits disrupt our operations,” said the hotel. “Guests are discommoded.”

  “The Bureau’s suspicions are easily aroused, and once an investigation is begun, we fearlessly follow wherever it may lead. I must inform you that your reluctance to answer my innocuous question has already set my curiosity to tingling.”

  The hotel muttered something Baro couldn’t quite catch, although it might have included the phrase “cranny-poking scroot.” Then the voice said, in its normal plummy tones, “As it happens, this afternoon the Divestment holds an annual general meeting at its headquarters on South Hoadeyo Prospect. All the trustees will be present.”

  “Is the meeting open to the public?”

  “It is not closed,” said the hotel, in a tone that somehow indicated a shrug.

  The young man thought for a moment, then asked, “What time is the meeting?”

  “Three hours past meridian.”

  Another thought occurred to the agent. “Has Florion Tobescu asked for a wake-up call?”

  The hotel confirmed that he had.

  “For what time?”

  “Two and a half hours after meridian.”

  Baro thought some more. “What kind of matters are decided at the meeting?” he asked.

  “Policy matters,” said the hotel. “Investment strategies. Recipients consider it ungracious to pry into the College’s deliberations; it
is like receiving a gift, then sending it out to be valued.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Baro, “have any recent decisions of the College generated controversy?”

  The hotel’s answer was a while in arriving. “It is not a subject for polite conversation.”

  “We are not having a polite conversation. In fact, I am beginning to think of this as an investigation in its formative stages.”

  “They are no more than vile rumors,” said the voice, “scurrilous natterings of envious malcontents. Decent recipients pay no heed.”

  “The Bureau weighs decency on its own scales,” said Baro. “What is the nature of these rumors?”

  The hotel was not forthcoming, but in the next few minutes Baro Harkless coaxed some snippets of information from its data banks. The hotel integrator knew little, and most of what it could tell him had been gleaned from overheard conversations among menial employees.

  When he had heard all there was to hear, the agent asked to see the articles of incorporation that governed the Divestment’s operations. The document appeared on the screen and he read it quickly, making notes on his investigator’s pad. The articles were thick with formal legalisms and convoluted phraseology, but the young man was not fazed. Bost Hamel had judged him a fine ferret when it came to winkling the meat out of a text. But Baro had begged him to mute his praises, so as not to dim his dream of becoming a field agent. Still, he would admit to himself that his talent for finding just the right thorn in a thicket of legalistic prose could be useful. He made a few more notes, then examined his findings. A pattern had emerged.

  He dismissed the hotel integrator’s screen and asked to be connected with the local office of the Bureau of Scrutiny. After a brief conversation, he settled back in his chair to watch Luff Imbry sleep.

  Luff Imbry talked his way past both the College’s doorman and receptionist by claiming that the trustees anxiously awaited the sheaf of papers under his arm. In moments he was through the portal and across the elegant lobby and thrusting open a door on which a small placard announced that a meeting was in progress.

  The boardroom was the most beautifully decorated space that had ever felt the presence of Luff Imbry. The balance of proportions and colors was masterful. Every detail, from the quality of the light filtering through the chambrasoie curtains to the exquisite mix of colors in the carpeting, bespoke an epitome of tasteful assurance that the fraudster, whose own standards were not unrefined, found quietly intimidating. Around a table of dark wood, its surface so polished as to seem a pool of rich liquid, five men and two women, all in their middle years, each coiffed and accoutered to perfection, sat in plushly superlative chairs. At the head of the table a frosted blonde in a suit of ivory and turquoise looked in Imbry’s direction as he burst through the door but calmly completed the sentence she had begun before he entered.

  “ … those in favor?”

  A chorus of “ayes” came from around the table as all watched the intruder advance toward them.

  “Nay,” said Luff Imbry, reaching the table.

  Seven flawless heads performed an identical motion, combining a brief shudder and a sharp elevation of the chin. “By what right do you say ‘nay’?” said a completely bald man in maroon and silver who had had embedded in the skin on the left side of his face, from his temple to the corner of his epicurean lips, a crescent line of precious stones that captured all the colors of fire.

  “By right of these proxies,” said Imbry, fanning out a ream of printed paper onto the lustrous tabletop.

  The bald man glanced at one of them. “Forgeries,” he said.

  “Goodness,” said Imbry. He reconstructed his features into an image of astonished innocence. “We must immediately summon the provost.”

  Silence descended. The woman at the head of the table looked up at where the receptionist had poked his head tentatively around the door and waved the functionary away. Then she looked to each of the other trustees in turn, her delicately shaped eyebrows forming twin bows as far above her azure eyes as they would reach. She received six nods in reply.

  “What do you seek, recipient?” she asked.

  “A seat at this table, to begin with,” Imbry said.

  The woman hesitated the briefest of moments before gesturing to a chair that stood against the wall. It silently made its way to the table, and the forger sat down. It was not just the most comfortable furniture he had ever known; it gave a new definition to the experience of sitting. He sighed, then said, “I hereby withdraw my nay and vote all my proxies in concurrence with the other trustees. However, when we get to that part of the agenda in which new business may be considered, I will move a few motions.”

  The renunciants exchanged glances. “Within reason,” said a thin-faced man in a suit of softly iridescent gray stuff.

  “To be sure,” said Imbry. “Like you, I have no wish to destroy the Divestment, only to dine upon it.”

  The trustees made small noises of helpless distaste. Imbry allowed himself a smile and rubbed his plump palms together as if he rolled between them the warm, yeasty dough of great expectations.

  “You will dine no better than any other felon,” said a voice from the doorway, “as you stare at the uncompromising walls of the Contemplarium.”

  Imbry looked up and saw the doorway filled by the black and green uniforms of the Bureau of Scrutiny. Before them stood a slim young man who was plainly struggling to keep a stern expression on a face that longed to split into a delighted grin.

  Imbry swore. “It’s the scroots,” he said.

  “Indeed,” said the young man. “I am Agent Baro Harkless and you are taken.”

  “Thank goodness for the Bureau,” said the chair of the College. “However, there is no call for extremes. This is only a civil matter, and our legalists can well manage it.”

  “When I said, ‘you are taken,”’ Baro told her, “I used the pronoun in its most inclusive sense. This man is apprehended for forgery and extortion, the rest of you for fiduciary malfeasance and breach of trust.” He motioned the agents forward. “Seize them.”

  Baro could tell that Ardmander Arboghast was displeased but he felt that the section chief could not deny that results outweighed any technical defaults. Not only had Baro apprehended eight malefactors—including Imbry, whom the Bureau had vainly pursued for years—but he had prevented a potentially disastrous dislocation of Sherit County’s social cohesion, preserving an institution that had much to recommend it.

  Arboghast must be a fair man, else how could he have risen to his present rank in the Bureau? So Baro told himself. The section chief would have to admit that there had been more than mere luck involved in the taking of Imbry and the others. True, Baro had ended up in Sherit by a fluke, but he had shown good investigative instincts when he began rooting about in the Divestment’s articles of incorporation and discovered the same wrinkle that Luff Imbry had detected.

  These factors Baro turned over in his mind as he stood at rigid attention before Arboghast’s desk. It had already been a busy morning for the young man, including a summons to the Senior Training Provost’s office where he was informed that further probation had been waived. A full agent’s pips now adhered to his epaulets as he waited for his superior to hand him his first field assignment. But Arboghast was letting him wait while he once again perused the case summary.

  The report detailed how the young commerciants had not given up after their efforts to persuade the College to dispense more largesse on behalf of renunciants living abroad had been rebuffed. They had instead got themselves named to the College of Trustees, a somnolent body that few craved to join. After centuries, the Divestment had become staff-run; the policy-making board did little more than meet annually to approve whatever the senior mandarins recommended.

  Once they had achieved control, the new board members replaced key senior staff with lackeys who shared their frame of reference. With the aid of coconspirators established outside the county, they quietly diverted vast
funds—including their own recently donated fortunes—into newly formed pools of wealth outside Sherit, from which they could draw when they went abroad. No other Sheritic, recipient or renunciant, knew of their embezzlement; only the conspirators knew that they had broken the compact that kept Sherit a place of peace and good order.

  But they had made one error. Of necessity, they had had to deal with persons of dubious reputation to create the out-of-county pools of capital. It was inevitable that someone like Luff Imbry, swimming the back channels of Olkney’s criminal underground, would become aware of one of these secret repositories. Once the swindler had traced the tainted money’s ownership back to the Divestment, he began to investigate the institution.

  Every person who received a dividend from the trust—that is every adult citizen of Sherit—was entitled to vote at the annual general meeting. Recipients who chose not to attend could authorize someone else to cast their votes by signing a proxy. Those who did not attend and did not send a proxy were deemed to have automatically delegated their voting rights to the College. In the long ago, when the institution was first formed, many ordinary Sheritics would attend the yearly meetings, but no recipient had attended one of them in generations.

  Luff Imbry had prepared a mass of forged proxies, which if accepted would entitle him to a seat on the board. He never expected the highly dubious documents to pass, but he counted on the trustees’ recognizing that exposure of his fraud would bring an official inquiry, revealing their own indecencies. To enhance the odds that the trustees would accede to his blandishments, the swindler visited Sherit on a number of occasions in the months before the meeting, spreading rumors among the lower echelons of society about renunciants who only feigned giving up their fortunes for the common good, and who lived abroad in riotous splendor on diverted funds. By the time the annual general meeting was held, an undercurrent of anger was rising among Sherit’s lowest layers. The trustees were aware that sudden exposure would almost certainly bring them a loss of status, wealth, and, probably, liberty.