At the edge of High Town, a team of roadsmiths were installing a lamp-pole shaped like a palm tree. It was uncommon to see men working on an Enday, but the authority of the godsworn waned with every passing year. The men’s efforts didn’t bother him, nor the gods from what he could see.
He thought the device pretentious and a marvel, and stopped to look at it for a while. Glow-stones moulded as coconuts hung from its ferrous fronds. It had cost a fortune, he reckoned, and been positioned for show alone. Its magic was destined to illuminate nothing but the guards hired to prevent its theft, but the wealthy of Bromwich would not be outshone by relatives and rivals in Lundenwic, Alchester, Ebarokon, Aldergrove or any other city of the Unity that might have the means for cunning.
He had been living away from Turbulence long enough to notice its stench. Few rode horses in the narrow, cobbled street that passed through the shadows of derelict mansions and the tenements crammed between them. Without horse manure to collect for fuel or fertiliser, scavengers could not make a living – and so the shit, animal or otherwise, was left where it fell. To keep a tidy heel you kept to the middle of the streets.
To show that he was not afraid, he slowed his pace to a measured and heavy stroll. It was a walk that claimed dominion. A warning to vagrants and cutpurses that he would not be moving on anytime soon. He had practised it in the seminary’s cloister until his feet had blistered and then bled. It was essential, Lay Brother Hernandez had told him, that before he entered a dark alleyway or rounded a street corner, men knew what he was. Attention to detail, the instructor had said, would one day save his life.
He hoped it was true. Daniel was conspicuous in his bright uniform. That said, there was no reason for street pirates to trouble him – he wouldn’t pay them for passage and they knew it. If an aspirant was assaulted the Brotherhood of Censors would perform an inquisition, use the sight to take confessions. Nobody wanted that. The men who lounged in doorways or on street corners – peekers for the gangs – averted their faces as he approached them, or sidled into shadow. He didn’t know why they bothered. He knew most of them by name or to which gangs they belonged. He wondered how many would recognise him in his finery.
It was sundown when the mill came into view. It was in better shape than he remembered, freshly painted, the brass finial of its curved cap polished bright. The sails were locked, despite the flaccid breeze. Daniel stopped in dread as he spotted his father perched halfway up one of the frames, repairing a sailcloth. That was impossible. Father was long dead, his ashes on the wind. Daniel had lit the funeral pyre himself, watched the bastard’s body burn under the indifferent glare of the midday sun.
Not Father. Jon, standing in Father’s old spot. His brother had grown a beard. Daniel wondered why and whistled his relief. He wanted his brother to notice him but the mill was too far for a shout or a wave, so he stepped up his pace.
He was sweating when he arrived. Jon was at the loading door, arguing with a sour-faced man in a long broadcloth coat. Jon’s strong jaw was locked in restraint, his fists were bunched and his face was pained. A scraggy stevedore waited close by with a handcart, picking at his thumbnails. Trouble, Daniel thought, and switched back to his slow walk.
“We agreed two pounds,” Jon said.
“I’m making hard biscuit. I don’t pay for silk when I need cloth.”
Jon flapped his arms like a stork. “What’s in the bag is in the bag. If you want middlings, I’ll fetch you some.”
“I’ll take what I’ve paid for.” The baker jabbed his thumb at Jon. He was enjoying this. Not for long.
“Belay your yapping,” Daniel commanded. The baker rounded on him in radish-faced fury. The man was almost as large as Jon, which mattered not a jot.
“I know who you are. Piss off. Come back when you’ve got a badge.” The baker’s anger was real, but lacked control. It was the weakness of an untrained mind.
“What makes you think I need a badge, son?”
Without taking his eyes from the man, Daniel unhooked the manacles from his belt and let the chain unfurl to his ankles. As a censor in training, he was not permitted to make arrests, but the cuffs were of heavy iron and the chain just long enough to swing to good effect. They would do some real damage. He twirled a wristlock in the air and it whistled menacingly. The colour drained from the baker’s face. His stevedore got set to run.
“Let’s not get carried away. It’s a small disagreement.” Jon stepped between them, shying from the spinning metal.
“I’m a regular customer,” the baker protested over Jon’s shoulder.
“Then act regular.”
Daniel whipped the iron to a halt and fought to maintain a stern face as a price was hurriedly agreed. After the deal was stuck, he helped to load the flour onto the handcart. The baker paid and left without a word. Daniel bade him a good evening. Jon spat onto the cobbles, once they were out of view.
“I’ve given that man fair trade for years. Now he picks at me like a piece of carrion.”
Daniel grinned. “Did you see the look on his face? I thought he was going to soil his pants.”
“You scared him. He might not come back.”
“Bollocks. If that flour was as good as you said he got a bargain.”
“He’d better.” Jon frowned and counted the baker’s payment again, as if a second calculation might improve the result. “Come on in, Dan. See the baby. Dinner’s waiting.”
Daniel embraced his brother, trying to squeeze out the anxiety that bunched his massive shoulders. Jon patted him on the back as awkwardly as ever.
As they entered the great hall of the mill-house, Jon touched the crescent moon engraved above the door. Daniel smiled at the familiar gesture and copied it, for luck. Inside, the fine oak armoire was missing. So was the long floral tapestry from the side of the minstrel gallery, where as kids they had hidden from Father’s rages. Otherwise, all was as he remembered. Anna was stooped in the broad hearth, stoking a small fire, her long black braid tucked back into her cap. Her head lifted as they entered the hall and she called Jon over to take her place, wiped her sooty hands half clean on her apron.
“They let you come!” The warmth of her smile demanded another in return. Anna had always been a handsome lady and the hard work of marriage and motherhood had done nothing to diminish her gaiety. She hugged Daniel warmly and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“The grading starts tomorrow; I’m allowed a few hours for family business.”
“I’ve fed the little one already. I’ll put her to bed.” Anna took the baby from her swaddling hook on the wall and hung Daniel’s cape in her place. The baby blinked contentedly.
“Hand her over.” Daniel laid his cudgel and manacles by the door and cradled his niece-to-be in his arms, rubbing her tiny nose with his own. It wouldn’t be long now before her first smile signalled the arrival of a soul in her body. “Only a few more weeks till her naming.”
“I was thinking of Dahlia.” Anna said it quietly and waited for Daniel’s reaction. He felt a jab of pain and scowled, then a sense of shame as Anna turned away, crestfallen, to light the dining candle. It burned cheaply, with a fitful green-tinged flame.
“Working on the next one yet?” Daniel said to neither of them in particular, trying to restore some jollity. Anna clacked her emptied mug down, tousled Dan’s hair and reclaimed the gurgling baby. She had forgiven him already.
“What makes you think we want more kids?” Jon said.
“This place.”
“No reason why a woman can’t run a mill,” Anna shouted as she carried the infant upstairs.
“A maid can’t haul grain sacks,” Jon grunted from the fire.
They’d decided to keep the girl-child nonetheless. “If she gets Anna’s looks she won’t be wanting for gentleman helpers,” Daniel offered.
“Watch it,” Jon cautioned.
“Tha
t earned you an extra slice of pie,” she said. “Don’t wait on my account. I’ll check on Mother, feed her some pap.” Anna disappeared into the master bedroom.
Daniel and Jon sat at the dining table, a huge slab of oak worn pebble smooth with age. There was no wine and the bread and cheese were no fresher than they needed to be.
“We should pray,” Jon said. He raised his arms above his head and began to mumble thanks to the whole of the Rational Pantheon. Dan pretended to do likewise, and thought about his training.
They picked at the food. Daniel asked after the few friends they shared in Turbulence. Jon seemed distracted, gave half answers, looked miserable.
“Are you still upset about that baker?” Daniel asked. “I only wanted to make sure you got a fair deal.”
“That tosspot? No. Remember I told you about the manufactory they were topping off on Arkwright Hill?”
“The one with six sails?”
“A pair of eightsails, with ten-foot sweeps.” Jon could not hide his awe at the scale of the beast.
“Right,” Daniel recalled, “they finished rigging it last month. I heard the slipstream wasn’t too bad.”
“It wasn’t at first, just a little bit more buffeting. I made some changes, ran the mill a little longer at night.” Jon already knew how to set the mill better than Father ever had. Daniel regarded him proudly.
“Sorted,” Dan said.
“No. Last week I was up in the bin room. One moment the mill was running like clockwork. Then nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“A couple of minutes of freewheel. Then it stopped dead.” Jon popped his fingers.
“Sounds like cunning to me.”
“Right. They paid a master to divert the winds to their advantage. The bastard came down from his glass tower at the Verge, spouted some Mammon-Dagon, and now I’m buggered.”
Dan had heard such complaints before, from the mouths of vandals and vagrants. The law was not kind to such men.
“The Convergence is the greatest enterprise of the Unity, the source of all our magic,” he warned.
Jon swept the table in frustration. “It was wrong, how they used to treat the Cunning, but there ought to be laws.”
“So long as the works were properly licensed they were legal.”
“There’s a surprise.” Jon set down his cup. “I’m finished.”
Dan didn’t know what to say.
“Cheer up; we’re supposed to be celebrating,” Anna called out as she returned to the table.
“I’m not a censor yet,” Daniel said, still troubled by Jon’s words, but his chest puffed out anyway, as if in preparation for the badge.
“Just getting a chance to take the tests is an honour,” Anna said. “You’ve wanted to be one since you were a little boy. You used to make capes out of grain sacks and try to arrest the rats.”
Daniel shifted uncomfortably at the memory. “You joined in sometimes – the damsel in distress.”
“Until I came and rescued you.” Jon picked her up and perched her on his knee.
“You shouldn’t tease,” Anna said. “He’ll be promoted to prosecutor before you know it, be a magistrate some day.”
“Gods help us,” Jon said, and they laughed together.
“Daniel, we have a present for you. I found it cleaning out your old room.” Anna handed him a book wrapped in cheesecloth. It was his old History of the Brotherhood, well-thumbed in familiar places. He remembered the hours spent reading it on the cold metal platform that ringed the mill’s bagging floor. As a child, he had skipped over the politics and history, delighting in the tales of justice dispensed, heroic censors and the notorious rogues they brought to book or final reckoning.
“Do they feed you well, at the seminary?” Anna asked as she ladled a greasy pottage into their bowls. Some bird meat and a few lonely apple seeds floated on its surface. It smelled better than it looked, but not by much.
“Warm milk and a biscuit before bedtime, every night.”
Jon laughed. “How’s the studying? You used to struggle with your schooling.”
Only because you were my teacher, Daniel thought, but let the comment slide. “Rulings. Precedents. Amendments. You just have to remember them. I took my examination in law last week and passed soundly enough. There’s no getting round it. We have to prove we can fight using words.”
“It’s ‘we’ now, is it?” Jon said. “You want to be careful with that.”
“It’s called the Brotherhood for a reason.”
“They aren’t your family.”
“Who would have thought it?” Anna interrupted. “Daniel Miller, a scholar of justice.”
Daniel waved his spoon in the air. “Everyone knows what justice is. Give me a squadron of men and half an hour and I’d deliver more justice to Turbulence than any lawyer in history. It’s the meditation that’s the hardest.”
“It must be a wonder, to see with the gods,” Jon said, suddenly solemn. There was no way Daniel was going to be drawn on the details of confession. If he started, the questions would never end. He sipped at the stew. It tasted mainly of water and scalded his tongue.
“We kneel for hours.”
“I can’t imagine what your father would have thought about Daniel becoming a censor,” Anna said.
“Fair point,” Jon said, “and for that we should open a bottle – one I’ve been saving.” He vaulted from the table. Anna looked away before Daniel could catch her eye.
“Maybe we should wait until after I’ve passed,” Daniel said. “The grading’s a serious business.”
“I thought you were going to train for another year?” Anna said.
“I’m ready for it.”
Jon returned from the pantry clutching a couple of goblets and a bottle with a peeling label. “Tulip wine.”
Anna kissed Daniel on the forehead. “I’m going to bed. Don’t drink it all. You’ve both got work tomorrow.”
Daniel pretended to sip at his drink, let Jon top it up a fraction after he emptied his own. The fire dwindled as they talked about life in the seminary. Daniel described the daily routine of exercise, combat instruction, study and meditation.
“It’s all order and discipline. That was hard at first. Now I see it differently. There’s no thieving or squabbling. Men work together instead of taking advantage. It makes me think how things could be different.”
“Different?”
“In Turbulence. If the censors paid more attention. Stopped crime instead of just clearing up afterwards.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe we’d still have our sister.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jon said.
They stared at embers in silence for a few minutes. Jon emptied another glass. “What’s it like being the only Turbulence boy?”
“Easy. Most of the aspirants are much younger. Orphans and foundlings. They don’t know how the streets work, and the Brotherhood is their only family. I’m exciting to them. A big brother.” He winked at Jon. “Anyway, I’m not the only one.”
“Who else?” Jon was already blinking from the booze.
“Lay Brother Hernandez. It’s a good story. He used to fight in the pits – had an unbroken record. Wylde’s and Gordon’s bookies got upset.”
“Sounds like he wouldn’t take a fall.”
“The Brotherhood let it be known that it would be better for all concerned if Hernandez ended up teaching at the seminary.”
“Rather than floating face down in the Windrush. What does he do now? He must have been too old to learn the sight. He can’t be on the streets.”
“He’s the master-at-arms. He teaches me how to fight.”
Jon snorted and Daniel smiled knowingly. Hernandez had taken him aside after his first week in the seminary. Some warriors, he had said, were talented but lazy.
Others were great athletes who lacked patience and wiles. Every student presented a unique challenge. For Daniel, he had promised, it would be finding enough time to perfect what Hernandez could teach, and that had been the truth of it.
“Tell me stories,” Jon slurred, “dirty street stories.”
“I’d love to, but I’ve got to head back. Grading starts tomorrow, remember.”
Jon planted his elbow on the table. “Let’s wrestle. Come on – for old times’ sake. The loser finishes the bottle.”
Daniel laughed. “There’s nothing left in the bottle. Are you sure you want to put your record at risk?”
Jon cleared the table with a sweep of his huge forearms. They bulged under his cloth shirt. Jon was thirty pounds heavier than Daniel, and four inches taller. He might not be a trained warrior but he spent most of his day throwing hundred-pound grain sacks around.
They locked palms. Jon applied pressure slowly, as if the game were a test.
“You’re as strong as ever,” Daniel grunted. Jon levered his forearm downwards, inching Dan’s hand towards defeat. Daniel allowed his mind to enter the still place that Hernandez had shown him, saw himself and Jon from the outside, two brothers bonding in loving opposition. He inspected the angles, how the forces came together in their palms. With bewildering speed, he spiralled his wrist, twisted Jon’s hand back on itself and sent it crashing down.
“What was that?” Jon stared at his prone hand, shocked.
“First time for everything,” Daniel grinned.
“I’m drunk. Fuck.”
“It’s only a game.”
Jon’s face screwed up tight. He looked tired and vulnerable, nothing like the brother who had raised Daniel into manhood.
“How can I take on big jobs if I can’t guarantee delivery? I can’t stay up all night waiting for a ten-minute gale on the off-chance. I’m losing customers. And if they build another factory I won’t get a robin’s fart of a breeze.” Sometimes Jon got angry when he was drunk – that was why Anna didn’t allow it – but not sad, like this. “I go to temple every week, make offerings. I’ve prayed correctly – to the Father for courage and the Mother for wisdom, even to the Watcher for knowledge of what is to come.”
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 2