Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“Did the handyman come around?” he asked gently.

“Hmph,” she replied. “He did. I don’t want you using Blackhat money to fix up my house.”

Michel stopped, staring at her. “Your roof was leaking.”

“I can handle a leak.”

“It was destroying your books,” he tried.

“I’ll get more.”

“You’re being obstinate, Mother.”

“I don’t care. Blackhat money is soaked with the blood of my people. Our people .”

“You’re only half-Palo, Mother.”

“And I’m proud of that half!”

Michel paced back and forth, starting half a dozen sentences in his head and stopping each one before he said something hurtful. He finally took Sins of Empire out of his pocket and showed it to her. “Please, Mother, just do me a favor and avoid this particular pamphlet. It’s not going to do anyone any good if the Iron Roses pick you up in a sweep.” She harrumphed again, which was about as good an answer as he was going to get. Michel opened his mouth when he caught sight of the clerk from the bookstore peering around the corner. “What is it?”

“Sir,” the clerk said, “your books are ready.” He handed Michel a neatly wrapped package. Michel looked at the package in his hands, then at his mother.

“These are for you,” he said softly.

His mother took the package. She could feel the weight of them, and he could tell by her face that she knew instantly what they were. He wondered when the last time she’d been able to afford leather-bound books was. She handed them back.

“I won’t take books bought with Blackhat money,” she said.

Michel wanted to shake her. “Just take them, Mother.”

“No!”

The clerk gave a little cough, clearly embarrassed, and Michel turned on the poor man instead. “You,” he said. “I want you to make sure she never pays for another book here. Understand? I’m going to check, and if I find out you’ve been charging her for even a single penny novel, I’ll burn this damned place down.”

The clerk’s eyes grew wide, and Michel heard his mother’s gasp as he strode from the alley. He tossed the package of leather-bound books onto a table and strode down the street, looking for the closest hackney cab. He was two blocks away before he found one and was soon inside, riding in welcome silence toward the Millinery.

“She doesn’t understand,” he said to himself angrily.

“You knew she wouldn’t.”

“I’ve always hoped she would. Someday.”

“Does that make you a fool or an optimist?”

“Both.”

It took him half the ride before he calmed down and realized he’d left her food sitting on a table in the bookstore. With the money she spent on penny novels, it was likely all she would have to eat for the next few days. He swore at himself and almost yelled for the driver to turn around.

One thought stayed him.

She’d gotten a copy of Sins of Empire . Not a week ago, but yesterday. The Iron Roses were meant to have rounded most of them up. Even if this was one young revolutionary who’d managed to hide a few stacks of the pamphlet, the fact that they were still being handed out could mean something. It could mean that they were still being printed.

But by whom? And where?

Michel climbed out of the cab at the Millinery and paid the driver extra to go pick up a basket of bread and deliver it to his mother’s address. Inside, he found Agent Warsim at his desk in the corner, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“You busy?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. I need you to make me a list of every printer in the city. Be thorough.”

“Yes, sir. May I ask why?”

“Because I have just one idea, and I’m going to search every printing press from here to Redstone until I have a better one.”

Styke broke his fast with an iced coffee and a thumb-sized piece of horngum just a few short hours after his late-night discussion with Olem and Vlora. He sat at a Palo-owned café on the northwestern side of the plateau – a prime spot on the ledge overlooking the Hadshaw River. Scarcely two paces and a handrail separated him and Celine from a hundred-and-fifty-foot sheer drop to the gently sloped foot of the plateau, then another fifty down to the floodplains on the bank of the Hadshaw where squat, wooden tenements sat upon stilts driven deep into the earth.

The land around the plateau that had once been nutrient-rich fields plowed by Kressian farmers was now suburbs of these stilted, flood-resistant tenements stretching for miles into the distance. It was a strange sight to Styke, a whole new part of Landfall that hadn’t existed when he entered the labor camp scarcely a few miles from here. It made him feel like a stranger in his own city.

Celine stood at the railing, watching the people far below mill about the streets like ants, and swinging herself back and forth. She was a loose rail or a stiff wind away from tumbling over the side, but Styke remained quiet – and within easy reach.

His body ached from his brawl with the dragonman, and he could already feel the tenderness where the bruises would soon appear. His sleep had been restless last night, listening to Celine snore while the feather mattress, an unheard-of luxury for so long, felt lumpy and uneven beneath his back. As hard as he tried to keep his head down and just do his job, he couldn’t help but wonder who had tried to kill Lady Flint, and what Tampo’s ultimate interest in her was. Styke had never managed to be a blind follower – even back during the war he’d ignored half his orders – and playing by the rules now irked him like an ill-fitting saddle.

“What kind is that?” Celine asked, pointing.

Styke glanced over the edge, following Celine’s finger to see a spotted horse far below them being led along the streets by its owner. “Palo Hotblood,” he said.

“It looks the same as any other,” Celine said, shooting him a suspicious look.

“The markings are Palo. Kressian horses rarely have that coloration. Look at the strong conformation, the hindquarters, the arched neck. That’s a horse bred for agility and speed. Very sure-footed in the swamps and dense forests. Probably being brought into town for an auction. The roads down on the floodplain are soft, and the keeper is walking ahead so as not to risk a broken leg.”

Celine pointed to another horse farther down the road, pulling one of the lighter, open-aired hackney cabs that were popular down there. “And that one?”

“Starlish Trunsin,” Styke said. “Standard Kressian carriage horse. They cut the tail short to keep it from getting caught in the carriage, and in Starland they used to make wigs for the nobility out of it. Probably itched like a hat full of fleas, but there’s no accounting for taste among rich people.”

Celine pointed out almost two dozen more horses as Styke worked through a second cup of iced coffee, obliging her by naming the breed – or likely mix of breeds – and a few characteristics of each. He found the exercise relaxing, and the realization that he hadn’t lost his touch even after ten years of rarely seeing anything but the old, worn-out mares they worked to death in the fens left him feeling pleased with himself.

He had just begun to smile, the horngum doing its work on his sore muscles, when a voice behind him said, “You know a lot about horses, Mr. Styke.”

Styke turned in his seat to find Gregious Tampo standing a few feet back, top hat on his head, leaning on his cane. He looked like he’d been there for more than just a few moments, and Styke was annoyed he’d let anyone sneak up on him like that. “Had a few in my time,” he said.