by Chris Braak
Still, the charcoal suits and the grim mandate of the Coroners bought Beckett and Valentine a little space in the dark, hot, suffocating djang-house, and a small table in the corner. Valentine immediately ordered a cup of the stimulating djang; Beckett asked for nothing, and only scratched at a persistent itch by his eye.
“This,” Beckett said, as he placed the quarto on the table, “I don’t know what this is.”
“It’s a pamph-”
“I know it’s a pamphlet, Valentine. I mean, I don’t know where he got it. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It looks like an instruction manual for ectoplasmatics.”
“Well, maybe that’s what it is.”
“Ectoplasmaticists don’t like instruction manuals. They don’t like writing things down at all. So, where did this come from?”
Valentine pursed his lips and held the quarter up to the dim lamp at their table. “Well, this is definitely Southend parchment; that’s the cheapest one you can get,” Valentine Vie-Gorgon’s family was the Vie-Gorgons of Comstock Street. They had, in an effort to distinguish themselves from the more famous branch of the family-the Raithower Vie-Gorgons-succeeded in establishing a near-monopoly on the printing industry of Trowth. “I think you can buy a ream of it for a half a crown. The type’s Flood New Face, which is the kind they use on those new typing-machines. You could make this in your own basement, if you wanted.”
Beckett nodded. He’d suspected as much; even if an ectoplasmatist had managed to conquer his natural reticence over print, there’s no way he’d risk taking heresy to a genuine press-but those new machines were cheap, and widely-available. “Read it,” he told the younger man. “Tell me what you find.”
“Don’t you…” Valentine trailed off, a little awkwardly.
The fades that had been ravaging Beckett’s body had, recently, passed on to his left eye. The whole orb was invisible, leaving yet another dark, bloody red hole in his face and making him look even grim and skull-like. The eye was completely blind, as the creeping transparency caused whatever it touched to fail. Between his vanished eye, transparent nose, and the hole in his cheek that showed off his white teeth, Beckett looked horrifically grim-a man already dead, still lurching through life by nothing more than the sheer force of his obdurate will.
“My eyes,” the old coroner said, “Aren’t what they used to be.”
Two
After nearly a decade of drawn-out conflict, messy skirmishes, costly, bloody occupations, and disastrous engagements, the Ettercap War finally ended. The White Star, which broadsheet traditionally served as the voice of the Emperor and his ministries, announced an unconditional victory for the Trowth Empire. The precise details of the victory were lost in the flowery praise, grandiose claims, and the repeated insistence on the glory of the Empire in which the editors of The White Star had never lost faith.
In fact, the details of the victory were never fully-established by any of the many broadsheets, though speculation was rampant. The Observer insisted that the cost of phlogiston was substantially lower after the end of the war than it had been before the start-so, once a decade of crippling fuel prices had been eliminated, the Ettercap War could be counted a success. Other papers claimed that the war had been nothing but a failure, a pointless waste of lives and time, to satisfy the lust for conquest of William II Gorgon-Vie (Rex Imperator Trowthi, Word Preserve Him and Keep Him). One insisted that William II Gorgon-Vie was not the emperor at all, but some kind of heretical doppelganger fashioned by the remnants of the Corsay Trading Company.
The Ministry of Information, tightly-controlled by the Raithower Vie-Gorgons, quickly and quietly silenced any of the papers that were too critical-though they were perfectly content to allow the propagation of the most outlandish rumors. The presence and persistence of these entirely unbelievable claims at least served the illusion that all points of view were being expressed in the broadsheets. The Vie-Gorgons preferred a light touch when it came to affairs of state, and the more their involvement could be disguised, the better.
With the end of the war, thousands of soldiers, many of whom had been forced into service against their will, were brought home. Many, if not most, were crippled-often with legs, arms, hands, feet, or eyes missing. Some were crippled psychically, irreparably damaged by the oneiric munitions of the Ettercap. The remainder, healthy as they may have seemed, all nursed the trauma of the dragging, dirty war in Gorcia. They were taciturn men with wan faces, who wanted no company but their own. They were uncomfortable around bright lights and enclosed spaces. At night, they gathered in each other’s homes, and sat in tense, silent circles, and if some sense passed between them, it was invisible to the world outside.
In response to the return of Trowth’s young men, women who had been called up to work in their absence were sent home. Some women, pleased to see their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons returned to them-damaged though they were-were happy to leave their work to the men. Some, accustomed to the agency that employment had provided, resisted. During Second Spring, they demonstrated; they wore sashes and marched in front of government buildings. During Second Winter, when the sub-zero weather made public demonstrations potentially lethal, they published pamphlets, articles, monographs. They held meetings in their homes and discussed what it would take to enable them to return to work. Thirst wetted with a taste of equality, they began to consider even more drastic and improbable ideas: equality. Independence. Suffrage.
William II Gorgon-Vie reacted to the mounting unrest in his capital city in the traditional style of the Gorgon-Vies: bluntly. He declared the formation of a Committee on Moral Responsibility. Their mandate passed directly from the Emperor and into the world: they were to prevent morally salacious ideas from becoming commonplace. Committee members sent agents to all of the publishers at once, to ensure that no more incendiary tracts were printed. They went into every ministry, every government institution, every business that had even the smallest effect on social policy, and delivered the Emperor’s message to the women of Trowth: “Thank you for your help during the war. It’s over now. Get out.”
This was how, after six years of loyal service, Elizabeth Skinner lost her job with the Coroners. She was summarily dismissed, without even her last week’s salary. In fact, because the Coroners had continued to employ her for a full month after the formation of the Committee on Moral Responsibility, there had been veiled threats that she might owe the Coroners money, for illegally collecting pay during that time.
When the political officer-a thin man in a tweed suit, one of the lesser Gorgon-Ennering-Daior cousins-had come to Raithower House to demand compliance, Beckett had only sat, sunk deep into a chair in the sitting room, glowering. Forty years in the Coroners, and he’d become used to being jerked around by politics and bureaucracy. He’d learned that there was no way to fight it, or avoid it, that it wasn’t given to him to decide the rules, only to do his job within them as best he could.
It had been Valentine-naturally-that had risen to her defense, and nearly gotten himself arrested for assaulting a Committee member. He had attempted to defend her quite forcefully. For her part, Skinner had quietly collected her things and gone home.
Now, she sat in a small djang house that ought to have been structurally incapable of housing as many people as it clearly did. Their voices blurred together into a constant noise, a pulsing ocean of a conversation. The warmth from their bodies and the heat lamps on the walls made the air stifling. Heat and sweat made her itch under her corset, and under the silver plate across her eyes.
She quietly sipped at her djang, relishing the bitter tang of it on her tongue, and considered what she ought to do with her last six crowns.
“Miss Skinner.” Peter Wall had pushed his way through the crowd of customers in the shop. His father owned the djang house-had, in fact, been one of the early advocates for the medicinal, social, and culinary benefits of djang when it had been introduced from Corsay-and Peter had worked there since he was old
enough to carry a plate.
“This is yours,” Peter said, clattering a plate down in front of her. Skinner heard him set a fork down, carefully placing it by her left hand.
She quickly tried to calculate how much of her dwindling funds this might represent. A penny for a cup of djang she could afford, but she needed to be a little stingy with her food. “I can’t- ”
“On the house, miss, you know.” Peter told her. “Da don’t like to see anyone hungry, if he can help it. Gives him a sour belly all day, and then mam’s got to feed him bread pudding for dinner…well, it’s a right mess, if you take my meaning.”
Peter left before Skinner could thank him. She was half-tempted to try and follow him with her clairaudience, to see what his father really had to say about it, but, as the smell of food wafted up to her nostrils, found more important things to occupy her mind. Her belly rumbled, and she set to the meal with gusto.
It was not hearty, the way traditional Trowth fare was, but the concoction of sweetly-pickled apples and pears, minced nuts and dates, and liberal application of white pepper was more than enough to quell her appetite. In the short-term, at least. There was still the matter of living on six crowns in a city that was legally forbidden from giving her work.
Most of the women that had been employed during the war had still lived at home; sometimes with fathers or grandfathers, too old or too respectable to be pressed into service, but just as often with mothers and sisters. They could easily, though sometimes uncomfortably, return to those households and wait patiently for a husband or gradually retire into spinsterhood, as they saw fit. Skinner did not consider either future especially appealing, and, moreover, had neither the interest nor the ability to return to her family’s home.
The situation left her with a feeling of inevitability, a sense of impending doom that she couldn’t shake off. There was no work. There was no way home. No matter how she looked at it, she was stuck with a handful of coins to her name-a need that exceeded her means, and no ready solution.
Skinner finished off her food and sipped at the djang, taking the opportunity to soak up as much warmth as she could before she had to go back into the cold. She stayed at the djang house until about mid-day. The city, still freezing, was at its warmest then. It would turn into an icy nightmare when the sun went down, and since she’d have to walk…well, people still died from Second Winter in Trowth, and not just the indigent and destitute. Skinner decided to walk home shortly before tea.
Bundled in a thick coat, with heavy mittens and a fur hood, Skinner took the short, ice-slick path back to her boarding-house. It was in Chapel Height, a modest, clean little neighborhood near New Bank, and a fully-entrenched Crabtree-Daior outpost in the Architecture War. Skinner had always supposed that this meant low buildings with flowery downspouts and baroque styling, but had never seen it herself. She preferred the Crabtree-Daior style because of its sturdy walls and moderately-wide hallways, which were much easier to navigate sightlessly.
Skinner lived on the first floor of the boarding-house, which had been established only a few years earlier precisely to give young ladies a place to live-peacefully, and without the threat of scandalous assignations with rambunctious young men-while they worked the jobs of the absent soldiers. It was managed by Mrs. Crewell, a gentle woman who took great care of her charges-perhaps as a way of spiting fate for her name, or perhaps because she simply enjoyed the irony of it. Mrs. Crewell was a particular sort of stout, gruff, middle-aged woman so numerous in the city that they might as well have been their own species and had, by fair means and foul, acquired a significant number of grandchildren. She made particular use of their youthful energy and agility in maintaining the boarding-house.
“Miss Skinner,” Mrs. Crewell called, when the ex-coroner arrived. Skinner could hear the woman bustling about in the living room, waging her lifelong crusade against grime. “Miss Skinner, if I could have a word.”
Rent, Skinner thought immediately. She wants this month’s rent. How far am I behind? Only three days…she can hold out until the end of the week, at least, certainly-
“I…there was a visitor, today,” the woman said. “From the Committee. They’re…well, they’re to encourage women to be going back to their families, and all that. So…” Skinner could hear the soft brush as Mrs. Crewell wrung her hands. “So, I’ve to close the house down. By the end of the month, they say. Now, don’t you worry about the money; I’ve plenty by me, and Word knows there’s little more you can do. But you’ll need to find a place for yourself, and soon as can be.”
“I…” Skinner’s stomach flipflopped, and her hand went involuntarily to her mouth. At least she doesn’t want the rent for this month. She choked off a bitter, perverse laugh at that. “Yes. I understand. Thank you, Mrs. Crewell, you’ve been very kind.”
“Course, course,” Mrs. Crewell said, softly. “Oh! Someone’s left a letter for you. Fancy paper, looks like. Have you got a gentlemen, Miss Skinner?”
“No,” Skinner said, firmly. It was probably a bill from the Committee, asking for her salary back.
“Shall I read it for you?”
“No. Not…I’d just like to sit down for a minute, Mrs. Crewell.”
“Oh dearie, of course,” the housekeeper replied. “You go on up to your room, I’ll send Roger in to you in a few minutes.” Roger was one of Mrs. Crewell’s innumerable grandchildren. He was only ten, and just learning how to read, so Mrs. Crewell employed him as Skinner’s reader. The arrangement actually worked out fairly well; while ten-year-olds are not notable for their ability to keep secrets, Roger was just young and incurious enough that he hardly understood a word of the messages that he relayed to the knocker.
Not that it matters, Skinner thought. She was unlikely to receive any missives from the Coroners any time soon. “Yes, all right,” she told the housekeeper, and, shucking her coat and gloves, made her way to her room.
She sat in her small chair, and held her cane between her hands, wondering what she should do. She had little in the way of personal items or clothes, so packing them up should be no great trial. Except that she had nowhere to take them, nothing to do with them. If she went down to Red Lanes, maybe, or into Riverside. The indige had different ideas about their women, one that the Empire tended to tolerate. Maybe they’d let her rent a room there? Six crowns would buy her a little more than a month, if she set something aside for food. That would take her to the end of Second Winter, at least. She’d never afford movers, though, or a coach, so she could bring only what she could carry. A few dresses, and she’d have to be diligent about laundering them herself. The guitar was light, but would not hold up well in the freezing cold air, even in the short time it took to get across the city. She’d have to wrap it up in her smallclothes. And then what? Once she got there, once she was living in Riverside, then what?
Don’t think about that. You can’t do anything about that. Solve the problems that are in front of you first. Skinner noted, with a wry grin, that her inner voice had begun to sound an awful lot like Elijah Beckett.
“Mum?” Roger rapped on her door. “Mum, I’ve got your letter, mum.”
“Come in, Roger,” Skinner told him, and suddenly realized that her room was freezing. She’d left the heat on low when she went out. “Go ahead and put on a light, and turn the heat up a little, would you darling?” She heard the faint screech of the lamp-switch, and felt the warmth from the heater. “Good lad.”
“Gram says I’m to read this. All right?”
“Yes, please.”
“Uhm.” The sound of paper rustling, as the boy opened it. “Oh! There’s a fancy crest on it, looks like. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be…”
“It’s all right, Roger, just read the letter.”
“Uhm. To. Miss Elizabeth Skinner. It has come to my at…attent…”
“Attention.”
“Attention. That you and I share si-mi-lar in-terest. Interests. I wooled-”
“Would.”
“Would. Be pleased if you joined me at the Royal the-a-ter. Oh! At the theater. I shall send a coach for you. At seven. Yours…” The boy stopped, and Skinner heard his breath catch. “Oh. Emilia Vie-Gorgon.” Even a ten year old knew the Vie-Gorgon name. The Vie-Gorgons were one of the most famous of the Esteemed Families of Trowth; their legendary feud with the Gorgon-Vies was one of the defining elements not just of politics, but of the Architecture War, of culture and entertainment, of virtually every aspect of the Empire. The Vie-Gorgon family was second from the Imperial Throne, and Emilia Vie-Gorgon’s brother was next in line to be Emperor. An invitation from her-an invitation to someone like Skinner-was like…well, it wasn’t like anything. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The Families didn’t associate with the commoners unless they had to, and even then it was only appropriate for the least relevant members-fourth or fifth sons, like Valentine, or else secondary or tertiary cousins. Emilia Vie-Gorgon…if Trowth had a princess, Emilia Vie-Gorgon would be it.
“It don’t say,” said Roger, “if you want to accept or not. Shouldn’t it say that?”
Emilia Vie-Gorgon probably didn’t consider that someone might want to turn her down. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Roger. Tell me, do you know what’s on the playbill at the Royal tonight?”
Three
Beckett sat at his desk and stared. It was piled high with papers-with the reports that he’d been demanding. Arrest reports, biographies, kirliotypes. Pictures of crime scenes, spattered with blood, pulsing with strange auras. Stacks of clippings from the broadsheets, relating tales that ranged from the mundane (“Abundance of Rats in Red Lane Gutters”) to the unpleasant (“Third Severed Hand Found in Mudside”) to the purely outlandish (“Gendarmes Replaced With Ectoplasmic Dopplegangers: Who Can We Trust?”). There were reports of looted crypts, hospitals that had been robbed, men that had been found bleeding dreams into the streets, or wandering about with scaly arms grafted to their bodies. There were lists of men in custody, trolljrmen who’d unwisely practiced their chimerstry away from the secrecy of their hospitals, of indige geometers who’d been brought in for engaging in heretically hyper-spatial mathematics, human men rounded up from the duetti clubs where they’d been purposefully over-dosing on veneine…