by wildbow
“Whimsical?” I asked. “You have a funny way of pronouncing ‘practical’.”
Jamie rolled his eyes at me.
“A battleground,” Samuel said.
“One where you shouldn’t be at risk, but you’ll have options and protection either way,” I said. “Come on upstairs.”
The stairs led from the central room of the ground floor to the second floor.
Shirley was upstairs. A desk had been placed near the top of the stairs, but hadn’t yet been moved to a room. She was leaning over it, writing something down.
“Sylvester,” she said. She smiled, “Hi Jamie. You brought… friends.”
Her face fell for a moment as Pierre finished climbing the stairs. Eight feet tall, not counting the ears, and the same body weight as a typical man two feet shorter, his face was moderately horrifying to look at, more like a dead rabbit than a live one, and his clothes were disheveled and ill-fitting. Shirley managed to compose herself and put her face back in place a moment later.
“Hello, Shirley,” I said. “Meet Samuel and Pierre.”
She smiled and did a little curtsey. Any unease she’d displayed before was invisible now. Good poker face.
“That’s a new dress,” Jamie observed. “It’s very nice.”
“Thank you, Jamie. It’s nice of you to notice.”
“Did you buy it with your last payment? Because I seem to recall that you were waiting—no, you didn’t buy it with your own funds.”
“Sylvester told me I should go shopping, and gave me some money. Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” Jamie said. He gave me a pointed look. “No you didn’t.”
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Jamie retorted.
“You gave me a look. You’re going to say that’s coming out of my spending money.”
“I handed you money and told you it was your spending money,” Jamie said. “You then took that same money out of your pocket and handed it to Shirley. What money do you think it is, if not your spending money?”
“Organizational funds,” I said. “Because Shirley is the face of our organization. The person who isn’t wanted, who can show her face in the city without possibly raising hell? The person who can interact with anyone who stops by the house? She needs to look good.”
“Another ‘incremental advantage’, Sylvester?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m crossing my fingers it’s going to dawn on you that you can’t spend large or even medium sums of money to accumulate those small advantages. Maybe you’ll learn to spend small amounts on small advantages.”
“Keep crossing those fingers, then,” I said. “Because I’m forgetful, an especially when it comes to this stuff, I’m not about to learn my lesson.”
He opened his mouth, finger raised, as if he was going to retort, then slumped a little, defeated. I grinned.
“I have some change,” Shirley said. “I didn’t spend it all. I got a pretty good deal. I could take the dress back?”
“No,” Jamie and I told her, simultaneously.
“Alright,” she said. Her hands smoothed down the fabric of her dress. “Alright. Then, speaking of people stopping by the house, the first of the potential hires have turned up. She’s looking at the rooms in the red wing.”
I glanced down the hallway. The building effectively broke down into the central building, the blue wing, and the red wing. Down the hallway were a series of doors. The exterior wall at the end of the hallway was thin, the window looking out onto nothing but wooden panels and boards. When the builders were closer to being done, they would tear open the end of the hallway, opening the way to the extension, and then connect it to the hallway.
The archway of the hallway to the right had a line of red surrounding it, as thick as a wide painter’s brush was wide. The other hallway had a matching line of blue around it. There were plans to extend the color just a little bit further, to differentiate the two areas.
“She’s early,” Jamie commented.
“She is. Very eager.”
“First impression?” Jamie asked.
“She’s lovely. Nice. I worry she’s too nice.”
I frowned a little. “When you say that, I wonder.”
Shirley looked offended. “I’m not too nice! I can stand up for myself! Some.”
“You’re getting better,” I said. “And given time and more lessons with me, you’ll be a force to be reckoned with. But I’m worried about this woman who is apparently soft enough to give you doubts.”
“We’ll talk to her,” Jamie said.
I nodded. “Samuel, Pierre. For now, get yourselves settled. This central area is where staff will live, for the time being. Three rooms on that side, three on this side. You’re on this side.”
I crossed over to the doorways nearest the stairs, then opened two. The rooms were large, with beds, desks, bookshelves, standing closets, and space for more furniture if it was wanted. Supplies ranging from paper and pens to candles and decks of cards and small bottles of alcohol were laid out on top of the desks. In addition to the sheets on the crisply made beds were folded sheets, blankets, and towels.
“I know it’s a bit much like your cells were,” I said. “And being cooped up is the last thing you want when you’re free, but if you’d stay in your rooms for the time being?”
“Like my cell?” Pierre asked. “This is swank compared to my cell. I’m okay with this. Just give me room to stretch my legs later, and I’ll be the most loyal person you’ve got.”
“Noted,” I said. “Listen, I know those ears are probably pretty good. You may feel compelled to listen in, or even to leave your door ajar.”
“And I shouldn’t?” Pierre asked. “I’m well versed in paying attention to only what I’m ordered to.”
“No,” I said. “No, that’s the opposite of what I want you to do. Feel free to listen in. Pick up what you can. I know me and Jamie go at it like an old married couple sometimes, maybe you have doubts, and you guys may have more as things get underway and there are a lot of question marks in the air. Figure things out when and where you can. When we have work for you, we’ll spell it out, and the less spelling out you need when that happens, the happier we’ll all be.”
“Listen in. Eavesdrop,” Pierre said.
“Yes,” I said. “Unless we’re making it abjectly difficult for you to eavesdrop, in which case don’t.”
“Uh huh,” he replied. He bobbed his monstrous head in something of a nod. “That’s vague.”
“You’ll figure it out,” I said. I moved closer to their rooms. Pierre turned to go into his room. Samuel was slower. I had to put a hand on his arm to steer him in the right direction. He looked back, at Jamie and Shirley. At Shirley.
My hand still on his arm, I wiggled my index and middle fingers against his arm in a set pattern. If I’d been holding my hand against a hard surface, it would have made for a short drumming sound. As is, it got his attention better than a squeeze or another touch might have. He looked down at me.
I shook my head slowly as I led him to his room.
He looked almost mournful as he walked into the room. I shut the door behind him, leaving it ajar.
She was, I supposed, the first woman he’d seen since he’d gone to jail, and she was a nice looking woman. A little slice of hell, perhaps, to be reminded that she was off limits.
“She’s taking a while to look at the rooms,” I observed.
“I told her I would take a moment to finish writing things down from our initial meeting,” Shirley said. She picked up papers from the desk and handed them to Jamie.
“She found something to do?” Jamie asked.
“I suppose she did,” Shirley said.
“Did you tell her anything about us?” I asked.
Shirley shook her head. “I wasn’t sure what to say.”
“Perfect. Do you want to make yourself scarce, Jamie? I doubt a random woman like this is going
to recognize you by your wanted poster. Wouldn’t be a problem if we’d come upstairs and saw her, but since there’s an opportunity to keep you out of sight…”
“Not a problem,” Jamie said. “Better safe than sorry.”
He walked up the stairs.
“Call her,” I told Shirley.
And with that said, I took hold of Shirley’s hand, turned my back to her, and placed her hand on my shoulder.
“Cordelia!” Shirley called out.
Our prospective hire didn’t take long to appear. She was blonde, nicely made up, with a blouse that had a frill on the front, an ankle length dress, and boots with heels. She beamed as she saw Shirley.
Rosy cheeked and warm, to look at her.
“Sorry, sorry! I was distracted,” Cordelia said. “And hello!”
She extended a hand for me to shake, smiling. I didn’t take it. Instead, I stared her down, my facial expression something close to what I wore when I was about to kill or hurt someone and I wanted them to know it. Cold, with as little humanity as I could manage.
Cordelia momentarily broke eye contact, faced with that.
“Cordelia, this is Sylvester. Sylvester, Cordelia.”
“Moving in, are we?” Cordelia asked, attempting to form a connection.
“I already moved in,” I said. “I was one of the first here.”
“Were you? I haven’t looked at the boy’s wing,” Cordelia said. “I looked through the girl’s rooms, very nice and tidy, and I peeked through the window and past the gaps in the planks to see the men at work. They’re putting a good sized bathroom at the end of the hall. Some other rooms, too, I think?”
“One for the boys, and one for the girls,” Shirley said. She’d realized what I wanted to do and she wasn’t outing me.
I did like that Shirley was a fast learner.
“Luxury,” Cordelia said. She flashed a smile, as if trying to exude enough positivity to overwhelm me and put a smile on my face.
“Bathroom shared with twenty other people, and some of them are, what, five? Six years old?” I asked. “Yeah. Wonderful.”
Cordelia rallied, “It looks like a very extensive bathroom. There were several toilets, stalls, more than one shower—”
“What did you do?” I asked her, interrupting.
“Do? I was a teacher, before I was—”
“No,” I said, firmly. “Your last job. You looked after children, right?”
“Yes. Three years of teaching, three years of tutoring and looking after a dormitory at an all-girl’s Academy.”
“You were very specific about the dormitory. Where did you teach?” I asked.
She laughed a little, defensive, caught off guard. “Are you giving me my interview, here?”
Shirley reached over to the desk with the papers and picked it up. It was covered in tidy handwriting, each section with underlined headings. Her finger traced down to the ‘employment’ part. “Three years of teaching. You didn’t say where, Cordelia.”
“I started at a school in Yearnsby, Lord Matthews.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Then Rookhill. Then Croftway Institute.”
“Fancy names,” Shirley said.
“They are,” Cordelia said, beaming.
“Was that it?” I asked.
“Was what it?”
“The extent of your teaching. You’re being evasive. Your hands are picking at the bottom of your blouse.”
Her hands moved away from the frilly part of her blouse.
“I worked at five schools in total,” she said.
“Over three years,” I pointed out. “That’s more than bad luck. That’s something going on behind the scenes. You have a vice. Drink? Chemicals? I know there’s a chemical problem around here. Drugs. Custom drugs.”
Her expression shifted as I said the words. Offended, but whatever it was that she was into, the hold on her was strong enough that even the mention of recreational drugs made her eyes sparkle for an instant.
She managed to sound offended and proper as she asked, “Who are you to pry, hm? Some might call that rude.”
I dearly wanted to tell her I was the person in charge, but I didn’t. Instead, I said, “I’m one of what will be forty or more people that live here. I’ve spent my life in orphanages, and on the streets. I’ve been hurt, I’ve hurt people, and I’ve seen things so horrible you wouldn’t imagine. Some of the other children will be the same. This isn’t some prissy-pants girl’s school, and it’s not a nice school. It’s an orphanage. And you’re going to have to match wits with youths that have nothing to lose. You’ll lose that battle of wits and wills, and you’ll crumble. You don’t belong here.”
“Well, we can agree to disagree on that,” she said, firm and confident. “I’m glad you’re not the one making the decision.”
“He might not be,” Shirley said. “But I saw your eyes light up when he mentioned drugs. I’ve known women who had the same look.”
“You’re accusing me, without any proof?” Cordelia asked. The indignance became borderline outrage. “I haven’t even had my interview.”
“I don’t need proof, and there’s no need to move on to an interview,” Shirley said. “All I need to do is say no. No. If you’ll go downstairs and to the back door, I think the carriage driver is still there. He can take you back to the city, wherever you need to go.”
Cordelia puffed up, mouth slightly agape, as if she were about to put up a fight. Then she sensed that she was lost. She remained puffed up as she descended the stairs, artificially tall and proud.
There was a pause as we heard her cross the room. She said something I couldn’t quite hear to one of the workers on her way to the back door.
“That was unkind, Sy,” Jamie said, from the top of the stairs. “Were you putting on a show for our new hires? I’m betting you knew she was a bad fit by the time she’d said five words.”
“Not quite that fast,” I said. “I felt she was wrong, but I thought maybe if she stood up to me in the right way or showed more steel, she could work. If she was sober, she could’ve worked out.”
The doors beside me opened. Samuel stood in the doorway. Pierre sat on one corner of his bed—he’d extended one overlong leg to open the door with his toes. Now he hunched over, elbows on his knees, looking comically oversized for the surroundings.
“The next person should arrive in half an hour,” Shirley said. “Will it be the same routine?”
I shook my head. “Too time consuming. There are things to do. Before we pulled today’s job, our hires made a call to Radham. With luck, the Lambs are coming. With bad luck, they’ll hold them back, send someone else, and Jamie and I have to finagle some sort of countermeasure for the someone elses. We have the skeleton of something here. We need bodies. I want something operational before the Lambs arrive. At a minimum, based on where the Lambs were last seen, that’s going to be two days.”
“You like setting difficult time limits for yourself,” Jamie observed.
“If we waited any longer to pull the prison job, we ran the risk that the Lambs’ search would be deemed a failure and they would be pulled back.”
“Like when we were chasing Fray,” Jamie said.
“Exactly like when we were chasing Fray. We spent too long tracking her down, always one step behind, and they threatened to pull us back to the Academy. Same idea here. This is the timeframe that makes sense. Two days before there’s trouble. Today, I’ll recruit. Tonight—”
I glanced at Pierre and Samuel.
“—Tonight, we work. I’m done bitching about money, and, frankly, I don’t want anyone getting in the way when the Lambs turn up. I want to figure out who the major players are, locally, and get them under our thumb.”
“What?” Pierre asked, as if he couldn’t have heard right. Samuel simply looked deeply, deeply concerned.
At least Shirley and Jamie seemed to be on the same page as me, or at least willing to roll with it.
Well, almos
t on the same page. Jamie said, “You know it’s not going to be easy, even if we do that. They’ll have help, especially with the city being Academy supported.”
“But you get what I’m going for?”
“I get what you’re going for. The Lambs turn up, and half the city folds in on them, with traps and problems at every other turn. I know how it is, Sy.”
“There’s something deeply cathartic about being on the other side of that particular paradigm,” I said, smiling at the thought.
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Dyed in the Wool—12.3
“Mr. Salte!” I called out. I waved the man down before he could start his wagon into motion. His stitched horse was a heavily modified one, something between horse and ox in frame, with long hair covering much of its neck, shoulders, and face. Given the man’s personality, I suspected he was secretly pleased at having that sheer muscle and presence that made other wagons and carriages get out of his way.
He put the reins down and leaned back, daubing some sweat from his forehead as he watched me approach. He was one of a horde of people who were making their way out of the market and heading home for the day. The market was set up three times a week, with rotating locations. This market location, at the east end of town, was the quietest of the three. Furthest from the railroad, nearest the small Academy.
Here, the students retired after a long week of study, stocked up for the next week, and sometimes drank. Goods included handmade notebooks, oilcakes, butchered meat, tree-grown meat, vegetables and clothing. It said a lot that a fair portion of the clothing conformed to the local Academy standards. From the way that Mr. Salte had sold off his vegetables and filled the space he’d made with bags of things, it looked like the vendors used the quieter night to stock up as well.
“Simon,” Salte greeted me. He was a man who’d been aged considerably by dint of the sun, not by time. He wore a suit on business days, but the edges were worn, not crisp, and he’d undone some buttons at the throat. “I’m still looking forward to having the owner of your orphanage over for tea, you know.”