Gerrard Cowan - The Machinery

Rangle had even shifted her bed into this room, placing it behind a golden curtain. She liked the air here; it helped her to sleep, something that never came naturally.

The Tactician had been sitting at the dining table now for almost four hours, slowly leafing through the same old text. A lamp sent swirling shadows across the fresco. How many people have stared at that work of art? Which Tacticians have stayed here, have sat in this very chair? She had asked questions like these since she was a girl, watching her father hack a vineyard from the wilderness. Did anyone live here before us? Did savages dance their rituals among those rocks, before the Overland came?

Where have they gone?

Darrah threw herself into the seat beside Rangle.

‘What’s this one, then?’

Rangle smiled, and gently touched a page. ‘It is a very old one.’

‘All the ones you read are very old. Why don’t you read anything new?’

‘There is no fun in the new. I know about the new. I live the new.’

‘You do not.’ Darrah stuck out her tongue. ‘Garron Grinn is here, by the way. He’s shuffling about in the hallway.’

Rangle glared at Darrah. ‘And you thought you wouldn’t tell me till now?’

‘You said you didn’t want to speak to any Administrators until at least the 27th day of the 11th Month of the 10,000th year.’

‘Shut up. Send him in.’

Darrah pouted, leapt up from her chair, and vanished through the doorway. Rangle heard some murmuring outside, before Administrator Garron Grinn shuffled before her.

He was a tall man, and at least as old as herself, giving him a stooped, crooked posture, like a broken finger. A grey beard fell from his chin in unkempt spikes, mixing freely with the silver mat of hair that hung from his irritating head. His skin was black, as were his morose eyes, with which he cast sad little glances at his surroundings. He had a habit of clucking his tongue lightly when he saw something he didn’t like, which was often. He was, as usual, dressed in a heavy brown cloak, underlining his carefully contrived air of austerity.

Rangle had known Garron Grinn since she was sixteen years old, when she had first been whisked away from the vineyard to Watchfold. He had not changed in all that time. I’m sure that’s the same cloak.

‘Garron Grinn,’ she said, trying to sound as displeased as possible. ‘Did you receive my message?’

‘No, my lady,’ came the melancholy response.

‘Are you sure? Did my servant summon you from your bed in the middle of the night, demanding your presence in the White Rooms of Memory Hall?’

‘No.’

‘Are you certain, Garron Grinn?’ It was always both names with him, never just Garron. ‘Ah, then I know. My pigeon flew to you, with a message tied to its little foot. This instructed you to come hither, with all possible haste! That’s what happened, is it not?’

‘It is not, my lady.’

‘Then I came to you, in a vision, surrounded in white—’

‘You did not.’

‘Did you just interrupt me?’

‘No.’ He clucked his tongue.

She sighed, not to herself, but at Garron Grinn. ‘If none of these things happened, Administrator, then why, by the Machinery, are you standing before me now?’

Garron Grinn bowed, and it was a strange thing to witness. His rickety body creaked as he manoeuvred it back to what passed for a standing position.

‘We must discuss business, my lady.’

There came a giggle from the hallway.

‘Darrah,’ Rangle called, ‘please could you find something to occupy you elsewhere? Maybe in the People’s Level?’

There came a series of theatrical tuts, then the sound of feet tapping away along the corridor.

Garron Grinn clucked his tongue again. ‘Business,’ he said.

‘You can take care of business better than I.’ She meant it.

‘No. You were Selected. It is your duty.’

She rolled her eyes, as she had a million times before. It was most likely better suited to a teenage girl.

‘Very well.’ The Tactician of the West waved a hand at Darrah’s recently vacated chair.

Garron Grinn sat down, which was a much more complicated process than one could reasonably expect. After much sighing and creaking, he reached into the folds of his cloak and withdrew a sheaf of papers.

‘Applications for business licences; harvest figures; petty crimes. For you to review,’ he wheezed. ‘But there is no rush.’

That surprised her. No rush? There was always a rush where business was concerned, or so she had been led to believe.

Rangle flicked through the papers absentmindedly. ‘If there is no rush, then why are you here?’

Garron Grinn turned around in his chair, staring out into the shadows.

‘It’s all right,’ said the Tactician. ‘There is no one here but ourselves.’

The Administrator nodded, and clucked his tongue yet again. ‘It is the Watchers, Tactician.’

‘What of them?’ She cocked her head and gave Garron Grinn an accusatory look. ‘Have you done something wrong? Well, I won’t help you. You’ve always been up to no good. I knew it.’

Garron Grinn squinted. ‘No. Of course not. But I fear … that they have become interested in us. In our little capital.’

‘Watchfold? Fine. Let them. They are right to be. They are the power of this land, are they not? It would almost be an insult if they weren’t interested.’

Garron Grinn squinted again. ‘Ah, ah, ah, well, I suppose that is true. But don’t you …’ His eyes fell onto the old book that lay before the Tactician.

‘You think they care about my studies?’ Rangle asked with a chuckle. ‘I assure you, they know all about it, as you well know. Brightling herself gives me access to their library.’

‘Hmm.’

He had never liked her studies. Well, it mattered not. The Machinery had Selected her, not him . But he had a point, though he did not realise it. There were some things she did that the Watchers might not like. My study group. But Brightling did not know about that. She could not know about it. And Garron Grinn certainly did not know about it.

‘Garron Grinn, please. What is this all about?’

The Administrator reached back into his cloak. This time he withdrew a single piece of parchment, on which a series of names had been scrawled in red ink.

‘This was given to me by the Watchers in Watchfold. It is a list of suspected Doubters.’

Rangle shrugged. ‘The Watchers see Doubters everywhere. That’s their job. Let them round up these characters.’

Garron Grinn raised a skeletal finger. ‘That is not the point. This is more serious. These people have taken their Doubting to a bad level. They are pamphleteers, playwrights, that type of thing. As you know, the Watchers take a very dim view of unlicensed arts.’

Rangle was beginning to understand. Cultural control was fundamental to the Watchers; they simply would not tolerate anything that took place beyond their sanction. If this was happening in Watchfold, right under the nose of the Tactician of the West, it could look very bad indeed. Especially when said nose rarely made an appearance in its domain.

‘How long has all this been going on?’

‘It’s hard to tell. Some of these people are new to us, some of them we have discussed before. They are all harmless, in my opinion. But my opinion does not matter.’

‘What have the Watchers said?’

‘They haven’t said anything, though they’ve been seen on the dockside and in the Warrens. They’ve even turned up in the High Town.’

‘But not in the countryside?’ The countryside. A quaint name for half a continent.

‘Not as yet, my lady. But when the rot grips Watchfold, it quickly spreads. At least, that is what the Watchers say. And no one wants another rebellion in the West, madam.’