Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

A shiftie officer stood on one of the wagons, a Commonshare worldsinger by his side, amplifying his voice as it filled the square. ‘By order of the First Committee of the Commonshare of Jackals, any gathering of three individuals or more not licensed by prior arrangement with the First Committee shall be classified as counter-revolutionary activity. Secondly, by order of the First Committee of the Commonshare of Jackals, the Circlist philosophy has been classified as an uncommunityist activity and is henceforth banned. The punishment for violation of either of these two rulings of the people is excommunication from the commonality and fellowship of the state.’

People trapped behind the line of equalized troops cried out in fear and anger until the more vocal complainants were beaten down with sabres and rifle butts. Most of them had read enough in the Middlesteel penny sheets about the early days of the revolution across the border in Quatershift to recognize the euphemism used by the Carlists when they shoved members of the old regime through a Gideon’s Collar. Excommunication from the commonality and fellowship of the state.

Bonefire watched the erection of the massive meat-processing machine in the centre of the square in fascination. ‘They’ll let us go down and watch, you think?’

‘Those are Jackelians,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘They are our people.’

‘We are your people now, pup. They are hamblins. I can go down and get them to throw a few jinn bottles up at you if you need reminding.’

‘Come on, Alpheus,’ said Flare. ‘We need to check the stores for when we travel south.’

‘Let the pup stay,’ called the Special Guardsman as they left. ‘I used to watch them give jiggers the rope outside Bonegate when I was a lad. It never did me any harm.’

Outside, the Commonshare’s military engineers raised the frame of the Gideon’s Collar with the ease that comes only from practice.

Damson Davenport peered out of the door’s peephole at the Quatershiftian soldiers. They banged harder. She opened the door and they cuffed it aside before she could take it off its chain, breaking the lock and seizing her while a line of soldiers ran into the rookery’s hall.

‘We’re not quality on this street, young man,’ said Damson Davenport. ‘I work in the jinn house over on Sling Street, not the palace of bleeding Greenhall.’

‘Quiet, old woman,’ said the soldier, pulling her out towards a gypsy-sized caravan drawn by a train of four horses, a mobile blood machine pouring steam into the sky. The rumours were true, then. In the street the Jackelians were being herded into one of two groups guarded by metal-fleshers. Her neighbour Mister Kenwigs had told her that those metal things used to belong to the race of man once, but that did not seem likely.

They took a sample of her blood and then made her wait for the results. What were they testing for? The wagon was not large enough to contain the records of everyone in Middlesteel. It had to be the new required-citizen register — guardians and silks and famous Jackelians. Nobody on this street would be on that list. If only they did not find the girl. Shouts sounded from inside the rookery and Damson Davenport’s worst fears were realized. Poor Cru’brin. Everyone in the crumbling tenement had known the young craynarbian from when she was an infant. It did not take long for them to drag her out, still wearing the tattered red uniform of the Sixth Foot. Better she had been slaughtered with the rest of her company or had disappeared into Shell Town. Hiding with her mother had been madness.

A tall officer appeared by the wagon. The craynarbian’s captor jumped up and hastily saluted him. ‘Marshal Arinze.’

The marshal ignored them and walked up to the struggling deserter, followed by another soldier, his blue uniform cropped at the side to display his muscled arms. There was a boy who loved himself, tutted Damson Davenport. Too many days down the muscle pits with a mirror in his back pocket.

‘Harbouring enemy troops,’ said Marshal Arinze. He called to the soldiers pulling the weeping people into the street. ‘Compatriot sergeant, burn this building down. There shall be no relief given to the enemies of the people.’

Swearing at the marshal, young Cru’brin tried to break free of the leather straps binding her sword arm. The troops struggled to hold her.

‘Compatriot marshal, if I may…’

‘Compatriot Colonel Wildrake?’

‘Let me show these counter-revolutionary criminals the power of the Commonshare, the superiority of our forces.’

Arinze rubbed the colonel’s arm with a worried look on his face. ‘You do not need to continually prove your loyalty to the revolution, compatriot colonel. You have advanced our cause in Jackals more than any brother save Tzlayloc himself.’

‘Look at her, compatriot marshal, her scrawny shell. What kind of muscles can she have under that armour? My lats are falling towards the corpulent without a test worthy of the name.’

Arinze sighed. ‘Hold the burning, sergeant. You, compatriot private of the Sixth Foot. You shall have a chance to prove the worth of this decadent city of yours. You see before you a gladiator of the Third Brigade. If you can beat him in a match I will spare your entire street from punishment.’

A space was cleared for the craynarbian deserter and Colonel Wildrake, the marshal momentarily distracted as his soldiers dragged a man with a red beard up towards the commanding officer’s entourage.

‘You’ve got the wrong man!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve done nothing. I just row a boat on the estuary. I ferry people up and down the Gambleflowers, that’s all.’

‘Compatriot Meagles,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘Secretary of the Middlesteel Four-poles Union. His blood code is confirmed by the required-citizen register.’

‘The Union is a proscribed organization,’ said the marshal. ‘You have been encouraging uncommunityist tendencies among the people. Unproductive tendencies. The people must labour to advance their cause, not spend their days as idlers tossing balls of leather at pieces of wood on the grass.’

‘It’s just a bit of a lark,’ begged the boatman. ‘We always go to the inn afterwards for beer and jinn. Please, you can come too, you and all of your soldiers.’

Arinze slapped him to stop the blubbing, then raised his voice for the benefit of the Jackelians being rounded up in the street. ‘Four-poles is banned , debating sticks is banned , summerpole dancing is banned , the singing of “Lion of Jackals” is banned , membership of political parties is banned . You shall work hard in the service of the people as equals and the community will serve you each well in return.’

One of Arinze’s troops indicated the boatman. ‘Processing group thirteen?’

‘A Gideon’s Collar is too good for him. A visible example must be set. Take Compatriot Meagles to the boulevard at Rollfield and hang him from one of the lamps alongside the corpses from the House of Guardians.’

In front of the rookery Wildrake had stripped down to his trousers, and the soldiers who had been oiling his muscles stepped back. It was freezing in the street and Wildrake rubbed his biceps as the bite of the cold wind dug in. He nodded at the troops holding the craynarbian and they released her into the shadow of the street. She was at the height of her youthful vigour, sword arm sharp enough to slice a sapling oak in half, but still looking scrawny on her meagre army rations. Not that you could judge, of course — craynarbian muscle groups worked in different ways, and she was at least strong enough to march with one hundred pounds of shell underneath her infantry knapsack.