Firebrand

by A. J. Hartley

  “She was a spiteful harridan,” Dahria said, “but I believe we should not speak ill of the dead, so let us merely say that she was like many of the women of her generation with whom my social circle frequently intersects.”

  “That’s a depressing thought,” I said, watching the city go by.

  Dahria shrugged.

  “When you know what to expect, it’s harder to be disappointed,” she said. “Sometimes you meet one or two who are surprisingly pleasant and thoughtful, people who do Good Works for hospitals and schools, people who arrange the church flowers or volunteer at the local museums or orphanages or whatever. Some of them are quite nice. A few of them are even—dare I say it?—politically sensible.”

  She grinned mischievously, and I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not.

  “I didn’t meet many at Elitus,” I said. “Apart from Violet Farthingale. I quite liked her.”

  “The maid.”

  “Governess.”

  “Right,” she said, as if we were in agreement. I bridled, but she beat me to it. “Snob,” said Dahria.

  “You, you mean?”

  “No!” she protested. “You.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I shot back. I had been called a lot of things in my life, but snob was not one of them.

  “Inverted snob, then,” said Dahria. “Brimming with class loyalty and always ready to find fault with your betters.”

  “I would be happier if they didn’t assume they were my betters,” I said. “Besides, you just said I was right.”

  “I’m entitled to say it,” she said. “I’m one of them. It’s like family. If you are part of it, you can criticize it to your heart’s content, but if you’re not? Keep your mouth shut or face my wrath.”

  “I’ll remember to keep my feelings on Madame Nahreem to myself,” I said.

  “You do that,” she said. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t agree with me. Nothing good ever comes from that.”

  “That, I had already discerned,” I said.

  “My dear steeplejack,” she said in her silkiest voice, giving me her most feline smile, “when did you discover all this vim and vigor?”

  “We lowly steeplejacks call it piss and vinegar,” I said. “I’ve always had it. It just used to stay in my head more.”

  “Pray God it does for the rest of the day,” she said, putting the back of her hand to her forehead in mock horror, as if my language had made her faint.

  I grinned at her, and she, almost in spite of herself, grinned back before turning to face the window. I enjoyed being alone with Dahria like this. She could be infuriating: condescending, shallow, glib, and prejudiced. But in her heart she liked me, and not just for whatever entertainment value she thought I provided. Despite the difficulty of my assignment, the dour purpose of our journey, and the stifling confines of the dim carriage, I found I did not want to get out. Here we could spar, matching wits in our own peculiar version of a salon debating society, but out there I would have to be the silent servant, and she the imperious mistress. I hadn’t thought it before, but all of a sudden, I found myself wondering which of us enjoyed those roles least.

  “And you’re not,” I said. “Not really.”

  “Not really what?”

  “One of them.”

  She smiled, grimly this time, and conceded the point with a shrug that registered only in her eyebrows.

  “Because my one-quarter Lani brother and I have not been welcomed into the heady, northern climate of Elitus, you mean?” she said. “Perhaps not.”

  “I like you the better for it,” I said.

  “It’s not like I have a choice,” she said. “My parentage is my parentage.”

  “Still,” I said, flushed.

  “Then I will take that as a compliment and wear it safely and secretly in my heart.” She said it softly and without any of her usual arch humor, so that I watched her, waiting for what the music hall comedians called a “punch line.” When none came, and she simply gazed at me, a strange and intimate frankness in her warm hazel eyes, I just nodded and returned to looking out of the window, my face inexplicably hot.

  The ceremony—Dahria called it a service, a term I did not understand in this context—was grand and dour and white, and therefore was, as Dahria observed at its conclusion, a pretty good approximation of Agatha Markeson herself. The vaulted church, adorned with fluted columns and elaborate tracery around stained-glass windows that might have been beautiful if the fog outside ever permitted the sun to shine through them, rang with the strains of a great, overblown organ. It blasted its weighty anthems over the heads of the congregation so that it was all I could do not to shrink away from sound so ponderous and smothering that I felt I might reach up and touch it. I imagined it would feel hard as a coffin lid.

  Thomas Markeson wore black, of course, but he looked as leaden as the music, and though there was an ironically healthy crowd for the event, there wasn’t much grief, though I suppose that people of Agatha’s station prided themselves on showing little emotion. Even her daughter looked stunned and overawed rather than actually sad, though perhaps she had just been well trained in self-control. She stood beside her father like a child pushed to the front of a crowd to shake hands with a visiting dignitary she had never heard of. Her governess, Violet Farthingale, veiled and in mourning black like the rest, sat on the other side of the aisle, never taking her eyes off the priest. I saw people watching her, occasionally nudging each other and whispering, and I thought that it would be ironic indeed if Violet was, in fact, the only person there who was truly sorry that Agatha was dead.

  I was not in black, or not entirely. Dahria’s wardrobe for her imaginary maid did not, she said, extend to attire befitting every social eventuality, so I had donned black gloves and a matching shawl and added black ribbon to my bonnet. I’d thought it would do, but I was mistaken.

  “Who do you belong to, girl?” snapped a voice I had heard before. “I want to give them a piece of my mind. Dressed like this for a funeral? It’s scandalous.”

  Serafina Dearbeloved. Of course. I shrank into myself, partly my old natural diffidence and partly panic that I was about to be recognized. Except, of course, the woman hadn’t really looked at me, except to determine what I was. Though we had met only days ago, she showed no sign of connecting me to the glamorous foreign dignitary with whom she had spent much of the evening the night Agatha Markeson died.

  “She doesn’t belong to anybody,” said Dahria, turning to her and giving her a brittle smile. “She works for me.”

  “Oh,” said Dearbeloved witheringly. “Of course she does. Well, you should have seen to her better. Unless, of course, you were trying to be disrespectful?”

  I hung my head, so I did not see the play of emotions in Dahria’s face, but her response came out clear and sharp as birdsong.

  “Believe me, Mrs. Dearbeloved, if I wanted to show disrespect, you would be in no doubt about it.”

  She seized my arm, turned on her heel, and gave the woman her back, marching us away and opening a black lace parasol like a shield, while Mrs. Dearbeloved sputtered, “Really!” in our wake.

  “I would cheerfully kill that woman,” said Dahria. “I’m inclined to think that her name is one of the bleakest jokes in the universe, aren’t you?”

  I glanced up just enough to smile at her from under my bonnet, but I looked down again hurriedly. Another woman I knew from Merita—elegant and gray-eyed—was making a beeline for us.

  “You seem to have outraged Mrs. Dearlyloathed,” said Constance under her breath. “I swear, Dahria, you can cheer up the most miserable of events.”

  She grinned impishly, leaned in, and kissed Dahria briefly on the cheek, an act that made Mrs. Dearbeloved huff some more and blunder away.

  “My one delight, dear Connie, is giving you pleasure,” said Dahria, returning the grin. She half turned to introduce me, and I lowered my head, face set. Mrs. Dearbeloved wouldn’t recognize Lady Misrai, but I had a feeling �
�Connie” would. Dahria hesitated, then changed course. “Is there to be a lunch? I swear churches make me hungry.”

  “I’m amazed you didn’t burst into flame as soon as you came in,” said Constance, archly.

  “You know,” said Dahria, “so am I. Would have livened things up a little, at least.”

  “What hypocrites we are,” Constance muttered, scanning the bustling crowd. “How many of these people actually liked Agatha. Half? A quarter?”

  “Less, I’d say,” said Dahria. “With good reason. I wonder if the one who did her in is here.”

  This time Constance really was shocked, though she almost giggled.

  “Who’s your money on?” she asked.

  “The governess,” said Dahria. “I believe there was something of a triangle going on.”

  Constance shook her head.

  “She was with me,” she said.

  “You were there?” asked Dahria, delighted. For all the talk of who I had met and what lines of work they were involved in, I realized I had never mentioned Constance.

  “Father insisted,” she said.

  Father? Not only had I not mentioned her, I hadn’t even wondered who she was.

  “I was consoling her,” said Constance. “The old battle-ax had unleashed some of her usual venom at the poor girl, and I was drying her tears. Wasn’t her.”

  “The husband, then,” said Dahria. “He looks the type.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Constance, eyeing Markeson, who was big, red-faced, and barrel chested as ever but, somehow, diminished by his mourning, if that was what it was. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d have the nerve, to tell you the truth. He’s a blusterer and a behind-doors operator, but not, I think, a man of action.”

  I risked a half look at her at that. She looked shrewd and a little pink in the face, as if something about Markeson annoyed her.

  “Maybe he paid an assassin,” whispered Dahria with wide-eyed glee.

  “One of the servants said they were overheard squabbling just before she died,” said Constance. “In the hallway outside the room where she was found. They were told not to say anything to the police. The club would prefer that it looked like the work of an intruder.”

  “Maybe it was Richter,” said Dahria.

  The Heritage party leader was also in attendance, patting Markeson on the shoulder in a manly way. He was dressed in his familiar almost-uniform, though his red and silver armband had been replaced with simple black. Now that the crowd were clustering around the bereaved husband like flies around carrion, I could see that they were all there: Richter and his party cronies, including Barrington-Smythe, his usual smile empty as his eyes; the mongoose-like arms manufacturer, Montresat; Nathan Horritch, sepulchral in a black silk top hat; and Lord Elwin, looking like he was en route to a very gloomy ball. Vandersay and Rathbone were brooding quietly together, and even the doorman, Wellsley, was in evidence, crisply precise in his formal mourning wear. The only one of the prominent men from Elitus who wasn’t there was the Grappoli ambassador, which was perhaps why Lady Alice seemed to be floating off by herself, looking out of place and eager to be gone, like a winter butterfly.

  “The company you keep, Connie,” said Dahria warningly. “You need a better class of social life.”

  “I’ll tell Father,” Constance answered.

  As she bustled away, I nudged Dahria hard. “Who is her father?” I asked.

  “Nathan Horritch, of course,” she said. “The textiles man. I’m surprised you didn’t say she was there.”

  I frowned, trying to process the idea that Constance was the daughter of one of the men who seemed most deeply involved in the whole messy business, only to be taken aback by Dahria stooping to peer under my bonnet.

  “Civet got your tongue?” she purred.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Connie must have made quite an impression,” she cooed. “But then she’s a very beautiful woman. I’ve always said so. I’m just a little surprised you didn’t mention meeting her.”

  I gaped at her stupidly, trying to make sense of her implication, and then she snapped on her usual smile and said, “Joking, my dear. Only joking.”

  But I didn’t think that was entirely true.

  “You’re very … focused on this case, aren’t you?” she added after a moment.

  “It’s my job,” I said, pleased to move to matters I understood.

  “Yes, but it’s more than just a way of putting money in your pocket and food on the table for you, isn’t it?”

  “Isn’t that enough? Maybe if you’d ever gone without food on the table—”

  “Yes, yes,” Dahria cut in. “You were very poor and life was hard, but it’s not now, is it? I mean, you might fall from a great height or get shot, but you’ll die in better clothes.”

  “It’s all I hope for,” I said, matching her dryness.

  “But that’s just it, isn’t it? It’s not all you hope for. It’s not about money, food, or clothes, and this time it isn’t even personal. When you first came to work for my brother it was about that Lani boy.”

  “Berrit,” I said.

  “Exactly. You were very driven and passionate about it all because he was one of your own. But you’re just the same on this case when you have no personal connection at all. So what, my dear steeplejack, drives you?”

  It was true that I felt little for the dead cat burglar called Darius or for the odious Mrs. Markeson, and the shuffling of secret plans between hostile nations felt like so much political abstraction. But I thought of the faces belowdecks in Markeson’s barge and of the sandals with the flowers by the riverbank, the shrill cry of a woman splashing back to a listing raft. They were not me, these people, and their miseries outshone mine like the Beacon does a candle, but in one sense at least, my nightmare about the flooded rice festival, when we had been united in tragedy, had been right. I knew something of what it was to be displaced, to be ignored, to be a tool when useful and an inconvenience when not, to be not quite a real person. It wasn’t so very different from Berrit. The crux of the matter came down to a question: if I, who shared the plight of the discounted, the abandoned, the repudiated, would not stand by them, stand for them, who would?

  But I could not say such things to Dahria. Not here. Not now.

  “I need to know,” I said. “The answers. The picture. We live in a city of shadows and lies. A constant, poisonous fog. I have to see light around the corner. I need truth.”

  She gave me a long look, amused and thoughtful, then nodded once and said, “Then you have work to do.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  THERE HAD BEEN NO report of the women and children I had seen in the barge: no complaints to the police about suspicious people or minor thefts, no grumbling among the street gangs about foreigners on their turf, nothing in the papers about newly arrested people put in the deportation camps. The more I thought about it, the more I could imagine only one of two scenarios. Either my presence in the warehouse, coupled with the death of one of their men as they came after me, had made the smugglers whisk the refugees away to where they had been intended to go very quickly indeed, or the refugees had taken advantage of the confusion to escape. I wanted to believe it was the latter, but my heart told me that if they had fled, guideless, into an alien city, someone would have seen them.

  “What happens to refugees when they come here?” I asked Sureyna.

  She shook her head.

  “They mostly have nothing when they arrive because they give what money they have saved to the pirates and smugglers who bring them,” she said. We were eating a lunch of samosas and starfruit purchased from a Lani bakery a block from Szenga Square. “A very small number may have family here already, but few of them are legal immigrants, so while they might hide out with them, it’s a short-term solution. If they are caught, they will be shipped back and whatever belongings they have confiscated to meet the cost of their shipping. They can’t legally work in the
city, so some of them will try to get out into the bush, get positions working on farms or ranches where they will be asked fewer questions, but it’s risky. They don’t have the money to pay for counterfeit papers, though I’ve heard that some of the black gangs will take them in anyway.”

  “To do what?”

  “All the things no one does by choice,” she said. “Mostly illegal. The boys handle whatever the adults don’t want to be caught dealing with—drugs, weapons, whatever. The girls—”

  “Yes,” I said. I knew what the girls would be made to do.

  “And they never get out. Ever. The gang is the only thing between them and the law—deportation, imprisonment, or worse—so they become slaves. The Mahweni have a phrase for it: inkambu-mtoti ingwane.”

  I raised my eyebrows, and she shrugged self-consciously.

  “I don’t really speak the old language,” she said, “not fluently, but I remember a lot of what I hear. The phrase is the name of a plant which has a sweet and fragrant flower surrounded by sticky tentacles. Pretty from a distance but very large. You see them out in wetland parts of the bush. Flies are drawn to the nectar, even small birds. They get caught and slowly dissolved. The Mahweni name translates to something like ‘sweet field octopus.’ They—we, since the city blacks have adopted the phrase as well—use it to describe the appeal of the city to foreign refugees. Anyway, once here and enslaved by the gangs, they are trapped. Some of them run away, but they rarely get far, and punishment from the gangs is terrible.”

  She didn’t need to tell me that. I’d seen enough of it on Seventh Street.

  “What if they are captured by the authorities?” I asked.

  “Returned at their own expense to their homeland, if they have any money at all,” said Sureyna. “Otherwise, the journey will be shorter. They are packed onto trade barges and dumped midway up the east coast.”

  “Wouldn’t that put them on the edge of the desert?”

  “Saves time and money,” said Sureyna darkly.

  I pictured the low-slung boats, their smoky innards jammed with starving, desperate people.…