A Choir of Lies

by Alexandra Rowland

  The Chants sang, begging for Shuggwa’s capricious mercy, and they danced night and day. The Chant-people knew the stars, but not the sea, and they had no idea if there was land to be found, or how far it was, or in what direction. But they had their boats, and the web of ropes that lashed them together, and they had their Chants to guide them and carry them across the waves and sing to save them from the water.

  They couldn’t have done it alone. Even a Chant, solitary, couldn’t have done it.

  They danced for Shuggwa and sang to the heavens, and the ocean currents carried them north, in the direction of the Eye of Shuggwa (which you Heyrlandtsche call the Whirlpool) where it hung bright and low in the sky. And when they saw at last land on the horizon, the Chants fell down in exhaustion and had to be carried ashore, caked with salt but alive, and saved from the sea.

  * * *

  360. Fuck, no. What did I say before when you were trying to tell this story at van Vlymen’s salon? This one’s ours.

  361. Hm. Okay, I see why you chose this. But you could have given her “Paika and the Flood,” or “Old Bagu’s Dream” about the river god who rolls out of his banks, or literally any other tale about any other mythic deluge.

  362. Good adaptation, fitting this detail to your audience. Makes it more real to her.

  SIXTY-ONE

  I leaned my arms on the desk. “Here in Heyrland, you live right at sea level—when the king-tides come, it’s more like a few feet below, as much as a dozen in some places. Why is that?”

  “Because it’s ours. It’s home.”

  “So you fight against the sea. Your whole country fights every day to keep back the water. Because if the dikes come down, everyone drowns.” I leveled another look at her. “Sterre, when you brought the stars-in-the-marsh, when you employed me to make them more than they were, you built a dike that you knew might fail. You knew about the disease, and you knew that it strikes sooner or later. You built the dike and then you made me lie about it. You told me to tell everyone that it was good and strong and worthy of trust, and now the water is about to come rushing in, and people are going to be ruined. Some of them might die.”

  “You’re embellishing the extent of my responsibility in this,” she said quietly. “Everything has risk. We didn’t tell them to trade the futures contracts. We didn’t tell them to bid the prices through the roof.”

  “No. But you put me in beautiful clothes in front of them and told me to do my worst. You told me to pull them by their hearts, like—” I swallowed. “Do you know about the Pezian gift? Nudging?”

  “Yes. A gift, you think it? Every Pezian I’ve known has called it ‘the curse.’ ”363

  That plucked a twisting note of sharp emotion on my inner strings. “Everyone can nudge like that,” I said. “Or they could if they learned and practiced. It’s no different than persuasion. It’s no different than what I do, but I do it with words and stories instead of magic.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I don’t think the Pezians would agree with you, nor do I. I’d call what they do coercion.”

  “You asked me to make the flowers irresistible,” I said. “You asked me to nudge them into buying the flowers, and I did, with the tools that I had. I did it by hand; REDACTED Acampora364 could have done it by magic. It’s no different.”

  “Speech is not considered criminal, the last I checked,” she said flatly. “Using the Pezian curse on someone is. It’s nearly a capital offense over there when it’s used on a person. One step below battery or rape.”

  “What I did—what you asked me to do—isn’t that much better. You lied, and you involved me in your lie. You knew the risk; you knew that the disease would come sooner or later. Can you accept the consequences of what we did? You know it was wrong. You asked me about angry mobs just now, and don’t try to convince me that you were joking. You know you’re ruined.”

  She flinched and dropped her eyes, twisting her hands in her lap.

  “Your reputation matters to you,” I continued. “And that’s been destroyed, or it will be as soon as enough people hear the truth that I’m going to keep telling them. But . . . I think your community matters too, doesn’t it? Everyone is part of the wall that keeps out the sea. If one stone in the wall is weak, the whole thing comes down. You believe in the dikes, don’t you? You believe like some people believe in gods.”

  “Yes,” she said, very quiet.

  “When the dike broke during the storm, where were you?”

  “My warehouse by the docks.”

  “And what were you doing there?”

  “I sent out a few boatloads of ship’s rations—water, tack, dried meat, and fruit. A few barrels of nails, some tools, some oilcloaks—that was all we had that would have been useful. I lent Mevrouw van Petijer boats so her people could take loads of wood and stone out.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “It’s just what you do. When the dike goes down, you run towards it, not away from it.”

  “Right. Even if you’re scared?”

  “Especially if you’re scared.”

  “Because you have to be strong and brave to keep all that water back. You have to have a conviction that even enormous, impossible, futile tasks can succeed if every person shows up to help. If we all give what few useful things we have—a barrel of nails or water or hardtack, or a spare hammer. Right? And one day, the water’s going to come in anyway, and Heyrland will be lost again. But for today . . . We can keep it back another day. If we do the strong and brave thing. If we fix the dike. I’m already doing all I can. I need you to help me.”

  She glanced up at me—her eyes had gotten red. “I never wanted this. I once dueled a man who called me a cheat, you know. Stabbed him in the arm.”

  I didn’t think she’d want me to take any notice of her feelings or of the tears she barely kept in check. “I think that the sort of friends you have and the way they talk about you is . . . telling. You have a lot of acquaintances, but I’ve only met a few of your friends. They seem like good people, most of them,” I said slowly. “And these good people seem to think that you’re a good person too. You knew that the sickness would probably come eventually, but you didn’t know when. If it had taken three or four years, perhaps the demand for the stars-in-the-marsh would have died out on its own, naturally and gradually, and it wouldn’t be such a catastrophe. You aren’t a cheat, per se, because you didn’t design it this way on purpose. But you did conceal part of the truth. You’re responsible for it.”

  “I was greedy,” she said. “And incautious.”

  “Show me someone who isn’t. If you do manage to find one, then they’ll have different sins in place of those, I can guarantee that.”

  “When do we get to the part where you tell me how to lash all our boats together and navigate by the stars to guide us to land?”

  I smiled. “There’s only one thing to do. Your reputation is crumbling, but I can save it. I can save you. I can get you out of this, but you’ll have to sacrifice something to do it. You’ll have to give something up with the knowledge that you will get nothing in return. When I tell you to lash the boats together, I’ll mean all of them, and . . . you seem to have ended up with the entire city’s stock of rope.”

  “What am I giving up?”

  “Everything,” I said. “I can save you, but when I do, you’ll be a pauper. You’ll have nothing left. You’ll have to start from scratch.”

  She stared at me in horror. “I’m only human,” she protested. “How can you believe that I’m capable of that? Of giving everything up, of knowingly relegating myself to the poorhouses?”

  Because, I thought but did not tell her, if someone believes in you hard enough, sometimes it persuades you into doing the thing you thought impossible. Sometimes that’s the only nudge you need.365 “You are capable. I know you are. I know you want to do the right thing, and that you have the means to do it. There’s nothing stopping you except whatever is happening in your own head right now
. So what’s holding you back?”

  “Oh, you know. Fear,” she said, falsely airy, and pulled a lace handkerchief from her pocket. “My parents were poor. I grew up sleeping in drafty, dirty rooms and going hungry when the bread lines were a little short, and wearing ragged old charity clothes on my back. And you ask me to go back to that?” She shook her head slowly, incredulous. “I’ve been afraid this whole time, you see. Of that, of falling back into that. I’ve been running away from that fear like it was a pack of ravening wolves. I got lucky the first time. I can’t count on luck a second time.”

  “You won’t need to,” I said gently. “Or not as much. Because you aren’t the same person now that you were then.”

  She snorted. “Too right,” she muttered, wiping her eyes with the handkerchief.

  “It’ll be easier than it was before,” I said. “You have more know-how, and more connections. And surely a person of such unusual honor and selflessness deserves some assistance, does she not? People know you and they know the sort of person you are, and they’ll know even better when the truth comes out, and you own up, and make amends. You won’t live in the poorhouses—you have dozens of friends who will give you shelter, feed you and clothe you and provide you with a warm bed and a roof over your head, people with the money to spare to help you get back on your feet, to invest in whatever Sterre de Waeyer’s next great project will be. Think of each person you’ve helped in the past—do you really think they’d let you drown? In every fairy tale, a good deed or a kind word is repaid threefold. When the real dike broke recently, how many people lost their lives to fix it?”

  “Seven. Four mannen, two tzelven, one loestijr.”

  “Did you hear their names afterwards?”

  She paused. “Yes.”

  “One of them was a pickpocket; did you know that? But now everyone says, ‘Bardo Vanden, he was one of those people who died the other night, poor thing,’ don’t they? He was a hero. And you’re going to be a hero, too.”

  “You can’t know that!” she cried. “You don’t know how it is here—people care about morality and goodness. And you expect them to just forgive me?”

  “I can know that,” I said calmly. “I made useless flowers into priceless treasures, didn’t I? If you do things that a hero would do, then you’re halfway there already. It can be easy and simple, if you decide that it is. Just give them their money back,” I said. “All of it. We’ll buy back every futures contract, and we’ll refund everyone who purchased a bulb. We’ll drain your coffers dry.”

  A long silence wound through the room. “That’s crazy. You know that?”

  “It’s not crazy,” I said. I stood up, clasped my hands behind my back. “Everything we do, we do because of stories of one kind or another. Sometimes they’re small ones, like what color is fashionable this season, or how you can throw a penny off a bridge to make a wish, or whether penny-throwing from bridges is silly. Sometimes they’re bigger ones, like manners and laws and the importance of keeping promises. We tell each other these stories, and then we all have a rough idea of how to behave to each other in order to get along. These are a crucial part of why it’s possible for people to live all crammed in on top of each other like this without murdering each other,” I said, gesturing around to indicate the city. “You think my idea is crazy only because it doesn’t fit into the story you know: that a clever person can, with a bit of luck and a great deal of business sense, build herself up from nothing into the richest vroleisch in the city, and that she will then hold on to that place of comfort and security with both hands.” I perched on the edge of her desk. “But you’re going to flout the story, a thing that nobody ever, ever does unless they’re pushed to it. And everyone else is going to think it’s crazy too, at least for a little while. No one has ever done anything like what you’re doing before. No one is going to know how to deal with it, or what to think of it, because you do have a reputation as a sensible, clever person with a canny business sense. You have excellent credit; you said so yourself. You might not have realized yet that your credit is not just financial, but—”

  “Moral?”

  “Social. People trust you. You break the story and they will be alarmed and confused. They’ll try to think that you’re crazy, but it won’t fit with the stories they know about you, so they’ll be forced to discard them. In time, all they’ll be able to conclude is that you’re . . . good. You’re more good than they ever expected anyone to be.”

  “Does it even count as goodness if we’re being so sneaky and deliberate about it?”

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “Yes. Because it’s still the right thing to do, and we’re still saving people and undoing the damage. We’re fixing the dike.”

  I have to believe that’s true. I understand why she was dubious; I do. But I have to believe that “good” is about the actions you end up taking and the help and healing you offer, and not about how much time it takes you to decide or what the thoughts in your head are beforehand. It’s not wrong to have a plan—we just think truly good people are ones who do it impulsively and recklessly, and who never have to think about it. I used to be like that, and I want to be like that again, but . . . this is a really, really big mess. And when you’re doing something big, you need a plan, and you need help. If I learned anything from my old master, it was that.

  “You can fix the dike,” I said. “Or you can let the city drown. You have boats; you have rope. You even have a Chant to guide you by the stars and sing the waters calm.”

  “And all I have to do is ruin myself.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “I can’t. Fuck. I can’t do it.”

  I sat there in silence, looking at her for a long time, waiting for her to change her mind. And then I left.

  So now I flex my hands and roll up my sleeves, and I get to find out what a solitary Chant can do alone. If any god is watching, I beg indulgence and mercy.

  * * *

  363. Told you so.

  364. Well, that’s one way to unmake him.

  365. Don’t align yourself with Orfeo, even like this. What we do is nothing like what the Pezian curse does. It grabs and yanks, and we outstretch our hand and wait for someone to take it.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Except I’m not alone.

  I went to Mistress Chant.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You were right.” I stood in the common room of the Rose and Ivy, my hands empty. She had refused to go anywhere quieter.

  “Of course I was.” She was in the middle of a solo game of some sort involving dozens of hexagonal ceramic tiles, each with a different tiny picture painted on one side—a carp, a cherry blossom, a candle, a clock.

  “I made a really big mistake. I didn’t think that it was something that would have . . .” I shook my head. “I didn’t think. And when you tried to smack some sense into me, I mostly didn’t listen. That was a mistake too.”

  “Why are you here?” At last she looked up from her game.

  “I need help. I asked you the other day about undoing a story. It’s not working—no one listens, no one believes, no one wants to set aside their fear enough to accept what I have to say.”

  “Then your new story isn’t strong enough.”

  “I know. I made the first one too big to control by myself. I just want to fix it, and help however I can. I want to make it right.”

  “And why should I bother helping? It wasn’t my story. As you say, I tried to smack sense into you. What do I get out of this? Besides moral superiority and a warm feeling of having done the right thing, but I’m not short of either of those.”

  “What is it that you want? What’s even within my power to give you? Money? I have some, I could—”

  “I don’t want a cent if you were paid it from de Waeyer’s coffers.” She paused over her game and folded her hands. “I want the story.”

  “That’s it?”

  “The whole story. The true story, as you saw it happen. I want to know everything you know about what’s b
een happening, from the moment Sterre de Waeyer decided to import stars-in-the-marsh to now, this moment, this instant. I want you to tell me something real, and I don’t want you to cringe away from the truth or make excuses.”

  “Why? Why that, of all things?”

  She gave me a sharp look. “What did I say about asking me questions you already know the answer to?”

  “So it’s because you’re a Chant and that’s what you do? That’s it?”

  She sighed and sat back from her game. “Heyrland is in strong competition for the title of the second-biggest and most influential trade empire in the world, keeping good company with the rest of the pack as they all trail distantly behind Araşt, somewhere off on the horizon—nobody’s arguing that they’re in first place. Heyrland wishes it had one percent of the pocket change that Araşt left in last year’s coat. Still, Heyrland’s managed to beat off Avaris, Vinte, and Borgalos from establishing any kind of really reliable network here along these southern hemisphere coasts of the Sea of Storms, and they—not Araşt—have managed to wrestle an agreement for exclusive access to trade with the Ammat Archipelago, not counting smugglers and pirates.

  “The short version, Brother-Chant, is that the ripples of what you’ve done here may well be felt as far north as Sdeshet and as far east as the Archipelago. I want to know the whole story, from your perspective as the man who was at the very center, at the eye of the storm, so that when I go elsewhere and a farmer or craftswoman or merchant complains about fewer Heyrlandtsche ships coming to port to buy their goods, I can tell them that I know the why of it, and I know the man who put his finger on the scales of fate. Rather like your master, isn’t it?”

  “At least I come by it honestly,” I said. “And I’d like to undo it.”