Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

‘Helleron,’ Tynisa suggested. ‘There’s your name.’

Totho shrugged, as best he could in the crush. ‘Well, I think it’s. . it’s got promise. I’d like to work here. Everything ever manufactured is made here. What do you think, Che?’

She felt rather guilty in the face of his enthusiasm, but she replied, ‘Collegium for me, every time.’

‘And that must be the Benevolence,’ Salma said suddenly. Ahead of them, past a line of near-identical inns and stables, lay a square. The largest building fronting it was facing them as well. The driver had been wrong, however: there was only one skeleton patterned in pale bricks amongst the darker stone. The other figure depicted a woman, austerely offering her hand to the same cadaver. The ‘old Benevolence place’ had been an almshouse once, offering succour to the needy, the destitute, the sick and the mad. Now it was a workhouse, where any succour was bought with a hard day’s labour. There was little enough going free in Helleron.

Salma struck without warning, his fingers pincering the wrist of a boy even as the child was putting a hand into his pocket. There was a fraught moment, for the child produced a blade, and then Che saw it was not even a child, but a Fly-kinden adult got up in child’s clothing. A long look passed between Salma and the wretch, and then the Dragonfly let him go, and the man was immediately lost in the crowd.

‘You should have called the watch,’ Che said.

Salma gave her a bleak look. ‘Just having to live here seems punishment enough.’

‘There are an awful lot of people here,’ sighed Tynisa. ‘How are we going to find this Bolwyn individual?’

‘We’ve missed him,’ Salma said. ‘He’d be expecting us off the Sky Without which must have got in. . Totho?’

‘Yesterday,’ Totho guessed.

‘We have to hope that he’ll come here again to look for us. So let’s get up on the steps of the big place over there, and watch for him. And if he doesn’t come today, what’s left of it, we’ll try it again tomorrow. If that doesn’t work then we’ll make other plans. What other plans, though, I don’t know.’

‘I’ve got some relatives in Helleron,’ Che suggested. ‘I can probably remember their name, given a minute. Someone must know where they live.’

‘It’s a fallback, possibly,’ Salma confirmed. ‘Now, eyes on the crowd, and try not to look suspicious.’

There was no Bolwyn that day, or if he was there at all, they missed him. They ate unpalatable food from even less palatable vendors, and when the smoggy gloom deepened into night they sought refuge at one of the inns, only to find its prices unheard of, so that their communal wealth would barely buy them enough space on the common-room floor. Che then remembered that they had passed a Keepers’ wayhouse coming in, and they tangled back through the gaslit streets trying to find it. They were not the only ones abroad after sundown, for at first they encountered guardsmen with oil-burning lamps and crossbows, but only in those areas where the residents had wealth worth protecting. The other nocturnal pedestrians were involved in darker trades, either practising them or seeking to buy. The four soon had plenty of offers in their short journey, from the pleasures of the flesh to drugs and potions to small valuables whose current owners were anxious to part with them.

The wayhouse, found at last, promised no better accommodation than any of the inns, but it was to be had for the price of a reasonable donation, and they could rest easy there without the fear of getting their throats cut. The Keepers were a charitable order, originally from Collegium, which had spread throughout the Lowlands as part of the great upswell of humanist philosophy a century ago, when good deeds had been fashionable, and the wealthy competed in funding public works. The benevolent way of life still endured in Collegium, but apart from the grey-robed Keepers there was little enough of it to be seen in Helleron.

The next day, halfway to noon, Salma spotted their man.

They had been taking it in turns to stand up and stare, the others meanwhile sitting on the steps of the Benevolence, as many did. No beggars there, though. From time to time a pair of Ants with clubs dangling at their belts came out from inside, and anyone who could not show them at least a coin or two was thrown off roughly. The Benevolence provided only one form of charity for the poor, which was earned with hard graft.

Salma nudged Che with the toe of his sandal, startling her out of a light doze. When she stood up, as they all did, he murmured, ‘Far end, on the right corner. What do you think?’

Che saw only a bustle of people there and it seemed impossible that Salma could have recognized any face at that distance.

‘Give me the picture,’ the Dragonfly demanded. He glanced quickly from the sketch to the crowd. ‘It’s him, I’m sure of it. Look, he’s coming this way.’

It took the others longer to pick him out from the crowds, even with Salma muttering constant directions. Then the face leapt out of the mob at them. A man with a heavy, unshaven jaw, hair already receding a little from the time that picture was drawn. He wore the open, sleeveless robe that seemed to be the fashion for artisans and middle merchants here, but the under-robe below it was supplemented with a buckled leather cuirass. A man undoubtedly expecting trouble, and this impression inspired a kind of trust.

‘We have to approach him. He won’t know us,’ Che said.

‘Allow me,’ Tynisa said, and sauntered casually down the steps of the Benevolence. They tracked her progress through the crowd, moving with no obvious direction or urgency, until she was within arm’s reach of Bolwyn. He twitched as she passed, turned to look, and they guessed she must have snagged his sleeve. She spoke to him, simply an apology rendered, then apparently interest expressed by a male Beetle of middling years towards an attractive young woman of another kind. Interest repaid, as she smiled at him, and a moment later the pair were walking away together, making for one of the roads leading out of Benevolence Square.

‘Off we go,’ Salma said, and the other three descended into the crowd, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible as they intercepted Tynisa and her newfound friend.

Once out of sight of the square, the two of them ducked under the awning of a clothier’s shop and mulled over fabrics until the stragglers caught up. Bolwyn glanced around guardedly. He had a long knife sheathed at his belt, and one hand constantly plucked at the robe over it.

‘Where have you been?’ he demanded. ‘Why weren’t you on the Sky ?’

‘Due to mutual friends who wanted more of our company,’ Tynisa told him. He grunted.

‘So you’re Stenwold’s new people,’ he remarked. ‘He said to expect a Commonwealer and I’m not sure I believed him. Nice of him to pick his people so they’re just about as conspicuous as possible.’

Salma looked at him levelly. ‘I can’t believe you saw through my disguise. Besides, I’ve seen a half-dozen of my kinden so far in Helleron. We get everywhere, apparently.’

Bolwyn shrugged. ‘So, you know me but I’m not sure I need to know you, yet. We’ll let the chief decide on that. When’s the Old Man himself expected?’

‘We don’t know,’ Che admitted. ‘He said he’d meet us here as soon as he could, but there were. . problems back home.’

‘Even in Collegium now? Well, how the world turns,’ Bolwyn said, scratching his stubble. ‘Let’s get you off the streets as soon as, shall we? Come with me and just try to keep up.’

He looked each way down the street before hurrying out into the crowd, obviously used to Helleron’s human press. For them, however, it took a fair deal of shouldering and elbowing to keep pace with him.