“I … Thank you for the praise, sir.”
“I’m not flattering you, Colms. It’s just a fact.” He pointed toward the door. “That broadsheet said the governor was going to address the city later this afternoon. I’ll bet the Second Octant constables ask us for help managing the crowds; they always do. So I’m going to send a street detail. Go with them and listen, then report back to me what Governor Innate says, and pay attention to how the crowd reacts.”
“Yes, sir,” Marasi said, stopping herself from saluting as she snatched her handbag and ran to follow the orders.
“GENTLEMAN JAK IN THE CITY OF FOUNTAINS”
Part Six
“The Sinister Soiree!”
I need not remind my astute readers of the precarious situation in which I was left at the end of last week’s column, but for those of you whose heightened tastes have just now led them from the gutters of disgraceful journalism to the noble pages of The House Record, let me present a short recapitulation.
Through the efforts alone of my silver tongue and tin-quick mind, I gained access to Lady Lavont’s private party in New Seran wherein she planned to auction the only remaining buttons from the Lord Mistborn’s favorite smoking jacket. Handerwym, my faithful Terrisman steward, had prised the information that the leader of the Cobblesguilders planned to steal the buttons by swapping them with impeccable forgeries at some point during the night.
As Handerwym watched the tin buttons from the hors d’oeuvres table, I rubbed elbows with Lady Lavont, and her inner circle, who found me completely enchanting. That was when the man in the striped white suit pointed a gun at me. (Continued Below!)
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“There are enough supplies in reserve to meet most demands over the next four months,” says Lord Chapmot Heviers, a Circle member with strong ties to Corbeau. “But after that, most grain will start going to the highest bidder. If you own bakeries, you will think twice about selling loaves at five clips each when you could be selling whiskey at forty clips a bottle.”
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6
Wax soared through the air above Elendel, hat held by its strings to his neck, mistcoat waving behind him like a banner. Below, the city bustled and moved, people swarming through its roadway arteries. Some glanced at him, but most ignored him. Allomancers were not the rarity here they had been in the Roughs.
All these people, Wax thought, Pushing off a fountain shaped like mists condensing into Harmony with arms upraised, bracers glittering golden on the otherwise green copper statue. Women sat on its stone edge; children played in its waters. Motorcars and horse carriages broke around it, sweeping to the sides and charging down other roads, going about the ever-important business of city life.
So many people—and here, in the Fourth Octant, a frightening percentage of them were his responsibility. To begin with he paid their wages, or oversaw those who did; on the solvency of his house rested the financial stability of thousands upon thousands. But that was only part of it; because through his seat in the Senate, he represented any who worked for him, or who lived on properties he owned.
Two divisions within the Senate. One side, the representatives of the professions, was elected and came and went as people’s needs changed. The other side, the seats of the noble houses, was stable and immutable—not subject to the whims of voters. The governor, elected by the seats, presided over them all.
A good enough system, except it meant that Wax was supposed to look after tens of thousands of individuals he could never know. His eye twitched, and he turned, Pushing off some rebar sloppily left sticking from a tenement wall.
Towns were better in the Roughs, where you could know everyone. That way you could care for them, and really feel you were doing something. Marasi would argue that statistically, leading his house here was more effective in creating general human happiness, but he wasn’t a man of numbers; he was a man who trusted his gut. His gut missed knowing the people he served.
Wax landed on a large water tower near a glass dome covering his octant’s largest Church of the Survivor. People were worshipping inside, though a greater number would come at dusk to await the mists. The Church revered the mists, and yet with that glass dome they still separated themselves from it. Wax shook his head, then Pushed off along the nearby canal.
He’s probably finished by now, Wax thought. He’ll be on one of the nearby docks, listening to the lapping water.…
He continued along the canal, which was cluttered with boats. Tindwyl Promenade, which ran along this canal, was crowded—even more so than usual. Dense with life. It was difficult not to feel subsumed by the great city, engulfed, overwhelmed, insignificant. Out in the Roughs Wax hadn’t just enforced the law; he had interpreted it, revised it when needed. He had been the law.
Here he had to dance around egos and secrets.
As Wax searched for the right dock, he was surprised to eventually find the reason for the traffic on the promenade. It was all bunched up, trying to get through a large clot of men with signs. Wax passed overhead, and was shocked to see a small cluster of constables from the local octant amid the picketers—they were being pressed on all sides by the shouting men, waving signs in an uncomfortably violent manner.
Wax dropped through the air and Pushed lightly on the nails in the promenade boards here, slowing his descent. He landed in a crouch in an opening nearby, mistcoat flaring, guns clinking.
The picketers regarded him for a long moment, then broke apart, taking off in different directions. He didn’t even have to say a word. In moments the beleaguered constables emerged, like stones on the plain as the soil washed away in a sudden rain.
“Thanks, sir,” said their captain, an older woman whose blonde hair poked down straight about an inch on all sides around her constable’s hat.
“They’re getting violent?” Wax asked, watching the last of the picketers vanish.
“Didn’t like us trying to move them off the promenade, Dawnshot,” the woman said. She shivered. “Didn’t expect it to go so bad, so fast.…”
“Can’t say I blame them much,” one of the other constables said, a fellow with a neck like a long-barreled pistol. His fellows turned to him, and he hunched down. “Look, you can’t say you don’t have mates among them. You can’t say you haven’t heard them grumble. Something needs to change in this city. That’s all I’m saying.”
“They don’t have the right to block a main thoroughfare,” Wax said, “no matter their grievances. Report back to your precinct, and make sure you bring more men next time.”
They nodded
, hiking off. The promenade’s knot of pedestrians slowly unwound itself, and Wax shook his head, worried. The men running the strikes did have a grievance. He’d found some of the same problematic conditions among the few factories he owned—long hours, dangerous environments—and had been forced to fire a few overseers because of it. He’d replaced them with overseers who instead would hire more men, for shorter shifts, as there was no shortage of laborers in the city who were out of work these days. But then he’d needed to up wages, so that the men could live on the shorter-shift income—making his goods more costly. Difficult times. And he didn’t have the answers, not to those problems.
He hiked along the promenade a short distance, drawing more than a few stares from people he passed. But he soon found what he’d been looking for. Wayne sat on a narrow dock nearby. He had his shoes and socks off, feet in the water, and was staring off down the canal. “Hello, Wax,” he said without looking as Wax stepped up.
“It went poorly?” Wax asked.
“Same as always. It’s strange. Most days I don’t mind being me. Today I do.”
Wax crouched down, resting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
“Do you ever wonder if you shoulda just shot me?” Wayne asked. “Back when you and Jon first found me?”
“I’m not in the habit of shooting people who can’t shoot back,” Wax said.
“I coulda been faking.”
“No. You couldn’t have been.”
Wayne had been a youth of sixteen when Wax and Jon Deadfinger—a lawman who had been mentoring Wax—had found him curled up in the crawl space under a house, hands over his ears, cloaked in dirt and whimpers. Wayne had thrown his guns and ammunition down a well. Even as Deadfinger had dragged him out, Wayne had been complaining of the gunfire. Shots only he could hear, echoing from that well.…
“Any number of the boys we run across and take down,” Wayne said. “Any of them could be like me. Why did I get a second chance, but none of them do?”
“Luck.”
Wayne turned to meet his eyes.
“I’d give those lads second chances if I could,” Wax said. “Maybe they’ve had their moments of doubt, regret. But the ones we shoot, we don’t find them unarmed, hiding, willing to be brought in. We find them killing. And if I’d found you in the process of armed robbery all those years ago, I’d have shot you too.”
“You’re not lying, are you?”
“Of course not. I’d have shot you right in the head, Wayne.”
“You’re a good friend,” Wayne said. “Thanks, Wax.”
“You’re the only person I know that I can cheer up by promising to kill him.”
“You didn’t promise to kill me,” Wayne said, pulling on his socks. “You promised to have killed me. That there be the present perfect tense.”
“Your grasp of the language is startling,” Wax said, “considering how you so frequently brutalize it.”
“Ain’t nobody what knows the cow better than the butcher, Wax.”
“I suppose…” Wax said, standing up. “Have you ever met a woman named Idashwy? A Feruchemist.”
“Steelrunner?”
Wax nodded.
“Never met her,” Wayne said. “They keep kicking me out of the Village when I visit. Right unneighborly.”
So far as Wax knew, that wasn’t true. Wayne would occasionally toss on some Terris robes, mimic their accents, then sneak in to live among them for a few days. He’d eventually get into trouble for saying something crude to one of the young women, but he wouldn’t get thrown out. He’d baffle them, as he did most people, until he got bored and wandered away.
“Let’s see what we can find,” Wax said, waving down a canal gondola.
* * *
“Five notes, for one basket of apples! That’s robbery!”
Marasi hesitated on the street. She’d driven the motorcar up to the Hub for the governor’s speech, then parked it with the coachmen who took pay to watch and refuel motors, intending to walk the rest of the way on foot. The Hub could be a busy place.
That led her here, near this small street market with people selling fruit. With disbelief, she saw that one vendor was—indeed—selling apples at five notes a basket. Those shouldn’t cost more than half a boxing per basket, at most. She’d seen them for a handful of clips.
“I could get these at Elend’s stand for a fraction of the price!” the customer said.
“Well, why don’t you go see if he has any left?” the cart owner said, nonplussed. The customer stormed off, leaving the cart owner with her sign proudly proclaiming the ridiculous price. Marasi frowned, then glanced down the row of stands, barrels, and carts.
Suspiciously low quantities, all ’round. She walked up to the cart owner with the high prices; the woman stood up stiffly, braids shaking, and shoved her hands into the pockets of her apron. “Officer,” she said.
“Five is on the high side, wouldn’t you say?” Marasi asked, picking up an apple. “Unless these are infused with atium.”
“Am I doing anything wrong?” the woman asked.
“You have the right to set your prices,” Marasi said. “One simply wonders what you seem to know that nobody else does.”
The woman didn’t respond.
“Shipment coming late?” Marasi asked. “Apple harvest gone bad?”
The woman sighed. “Not apples, officer. Grain shipments out of the east. Simply not coming. Floods did them in.”
“A little early to be speculating on food prices, don’t you think?”
“Pardon, officer, but do you know how much food this city eats? We’re one shipment away from starvation, we are.”
Marasi glanced down the row again. Food was moving quickly, most of it—from what she could see—being sold to the same group of people. Speculators grabbing up the fruits and sacks of grain. The city wasn’t as close to starvation as the cart owner claimed—there were storages that could be released—but bad news moved faster than calm winds. And there was a good chance this woman was right, that she’d be able to sell her apples at a premium until things calmed down in a few days.
Marasi shook her head, setting down the apple and continuing toward the Hub. There was always a press here, people on the promenade, vehicles on the streets trying to force their way into the ring around the Hub. More people today, crowds drawn by the speech causing traffic clots in the regular bustle. Marasi could barely make out the giant statues of the Ascendant Warrior and her husband in the Field of Rebirth peeking out over the throng.
Marasi walked up to join another group of constables who had just arrived, on Aradel’s orders, their carriages lagging behind her motorcar. Together they wended their way through the streets on foot toward the executive mansion. The governor preferred to address people from its steps, a few streets up into the Second Octant from the Hub.
They soon reached the large square before the mansion. Moving here was more difficult, but fortunately the constables from this octant were already in attendance—and they had roped off various areas near the front and sides of the square. In one, dignitaries and noblemen sat on bleachers to hear the address. In another, the Second Octant constables clustered and watched the crowd for pickpockets from the steps up into the National Archives. Other constables moved through the crowd, officers readily identifiable by the blue plumes on their hats.
Marasi and Lieutenant Javies, who had command of the field team, made their way toward the National Archives, where their colleagues from the Second Octant let them pass. A mustachioed older constable was directing things here, his helm—under his arm—bearing the double plume of a captain. When he saw Marasi, Javies, and the team, the man lit up.
“Ah, so Aradel sent me reinforcements after all,” he exclaimed. “Rusting wonderful. You chaps go watch the east side of the square, down Longard Street. Foundry workers are gathering there, and they don’t look too pleasant. This isn’t the place for their picket lines, I dare say. Maybe an eyeful of constable uniforms will ke
ep them in check.”
“Sir,” Javies said, saluting. “Those masses are pushing up against the steps to the mansion! With respect, sir, don’t you want us up there?”
“Governor’s guards have jurisdiction, Lieutenant,” the old captain said. “They brush us back if we try to do anything on the actual mansion grounds. Damn pewternecked bulls. They barely give us warning anytime the governor wants to have a say to the people, then expect us to do the hard work of policing this mess.”
Javies saluted, and his team ran off.
“Sir,” Marasi said, remaining behind. “Constable-General Aradel wanted me to bring him a direct report on the speech. Do you think I could get a spot on those bleachers to watch?”
“No luck there,” the captain said. “Every niece and nanny of a house lord has demanded a spot; they’ll gut me if I send someone else over.”
“Thank you anyway, sir. I’ll see if I can work my way to the front of the crowd.” Marasi moved off.
“Wait, constable,” the old man said. “Don’t I know you?”
She looked back, blushing. “I’m—”
“Lord Harms’s girl!” the old captain said. “The bastard. That’s it! Now, don’t get red-faced. That’s not meant as an insult, child. Just what you are, and that’s it, simple as day. I like your father. He was bad enough at cards to be fun to play against, but he was careful not to bet so much that I felt bad winning.”
“Sir.” News of her nature, once kept discreet, had moved through all of high society. Hanging around Waxillium, who created such stirs, did have its drawbacks. And her mother did have something of a reason for her angry letters.
Marasi was quite accepting of what she was. That didn’t mean she liked having it thrown at her. Old nobleman officers like this, though … well, they came from a time when they felt they could say whatever they wanted, particularly about their subordinates.
“There’s space with the reporters, Little Harms,” he said, pointing. “Up near the north side. Not great for watching, as you’ll have steps in your way, but a great place for listening. Tell Constable Wells at the rope I said you could pass, and give my best to your father.”
Shadows of Self Page 10