A Long Way from Adua

Superior Lorsen lowered the letter, frowning at Vick over the rims of his eye-lenses. He looked like a man who had not smiled in some time. Perhaps ever.

“His Eminence the Arch Lector writes you a glowing report. He tells me you were instrumental in ending the uprising at Valbeck. He feels I might need your help.” Lorsen turned his frown on Tallow, standing awkwardly in the corner, as if the idea of his being helpful with anything was an affront to reason. Vick still wasn’t sure why she’d brought him. Perhaps because she had no one else to bring.

“Not need my help, Superior,” she said. No bear, badger or wasp was more territorial than a Superior of the Inquisition, after all. “But I don’t have to tell you how damaging it would be, financially, politically, diplomatically… if Westport voted to leave the Union.”

“No,” said Lorsen crisply. “You do not.” As Superior of Westport, he’d be looking for a job.

“Which is why His Eminence felt you could perhaps use my help.”

Lorsen set down the letter, adjusted its position on his desk and stood. “Forgive me if I am dubious, Inquisitor, but performing surgery upon the politics of one of the world’s greatest cities is not quite the same as smashing up a strike.” And he opened the door onto the high gallery.

“The threats are worse and the bribes better,” said Vick as she followed him through, Tallow shuffling behind, “but otherwise I imagine there are similarities.”

“Then may I present to you our unruly workers: the Aldermen of Westport.” And Lorsen stepped to the balustrade and gestured down below.

There, on the floor of Westport’s cavernous Hall of Assembly, tiled with semi-precious stones in geometric patterns, the leadership of the city was debating the great question of leaving the Union. Some Aldermen stood, shaking fists or brandishing papers. Others sat, glumly watching or with heads in hands. Others bellowed over each other in at least five languages, the ringing echoes making it impossible to tell who was speaking, let alone what was being said. Others murmured to colleagues or yawned, scratched, stretched, gazed into space. A group of five or six had paused for tea in a distant corner. Men of every shape, size, colour and culture. A cross section through the madly diverse population of the city they called the Crossroads of the World, wedged onto a narrow scrap of thirsty land between Styria and the South, between the Union and the Thousand Isles.

“Two hundred and thirteen of them, at the current count, and each with a vote.” Lorsen pronounced the word with evident distaste. “When it comes to arguing, the citizens of Westport are celebrated throughout the world, and this is where their most dauntless arguers stage their most intractable arguments.” The Superior peered towards a great clock on the far side of the gallery. “They’ve been at it for seven hours already today.”

Vick was not surprised. There was a stickiness to the air from all the breath they’d wasted. The Fates knew she was finding Westport more than hot enough, even in spring, but she had been told that in summer, after particularly intense sessions, it could sometimes rain inside the dome. A sort of spitty drizzling back of all their high-blown language onto the furious Aldermen below.

“Seems the opinions are somewhat entrenched down there.”

“I wish they were more so,” said Lorsen. “Thirty years ago, after we beat the Gurkish, you couldn’t have found five votes for leaving the Union. But the Styrian faction has gained a great deal of ground lately. The wars. The debts. The uprising in Valbeck. The death of King Jezal. And his son is, shall we say, not yet taken seriously on the international stage. Without mincing words—”

“Our prestige is in the night pot,” Vick finished for him.

“We joined the Union because of their military might!” A truly mighty voice boomed out, finally cutting through the hubbub. The speaker was thickset, dark-skinned and shaven-headed with strangely gentle gestures. “Because the Empire of Gurkhul threatened us from the south and we needed strong allies to deter them. But membership has cost us dear! Millions of scales in treasure and the price forever rises!”

Agreement floated up to the gallery in an echoing murmur.

“Who’s the man with all the voice?” asked Vick.

“Solumeo Shudra,” said Lorsen, sourly. “The leader of the pro-Styrian faction and a royal thorn in my arse. Half-Sipanese, half-Kadiri. A fitting emblem for this cultural melting pot.”

Vick knew all this, of course. She made a great deal of effort to go into every job well informed. But she preferred to keep her knowledge to herself whenever possible, and let others imagine themselves the great experts.

“During the forty years since we joined the Union, the world has changed beyond all recognition!” bellowed Shudra. “The Empire of Gurkhul has crumbled, while Styria has turned from a patchwork of feuding city-states into one strong nation under one strong king. They have defeated the Union in not one, not two, but three wars! Wars waged for the vanity and ambitions of Queen Terez. Wars we were dragged into at vast expense in silver and blood.”

“He talks well,” said Tallow, softly.

“Very well,” said Vick. “He almost has me wanting to join Styria.”

“The Union is a waning power!” boomed Shudra. “While Styria is our natural ally. The hand of the Grand Duchess Monzcarro Murcatto is extended to us in friendship. We should seize it while we still can. My friends, I urge you all to vote with me to leave the Union!”

Loud boos, but even louder cheers. Lorsen shook his head in disgust. “If this were Adua, we could march in there, drag him from his seat, force a confession and ship him off to Angland on the next tide.”

“But we’re a long way from Adua,” murmured Vick.

“Both sides worry that an open display of force might turn the majority against them, but things will change as we move towards the vote. The positions are hardening. The middle ground is shrinking. Murcatto’s Minister of Whispers, Shylo Vitari, is mounting an all-encompassing campaign of bribery and threats, blackmail and coercion, while printed sheets are flung from the rooftops and painted slogans spring up faster than we can scrub them off.”

“I’m told Casamir dan Shenkt is in Westport,” said Vick. “That Murcatto has paid him one hundred thousand scales to shift the balance. By any means necessary.”

“I had heard… the rumours.”

She got the sense that Lorsen had heard the same rumours she had, delivered in breathless whispers with a great deal of lurid detail. That Shenkt’s skills went beyond the mortal and touched the magical. That he was a sorcerer who had damned himself by eating the flesh of men. Here in Westport, where calls to prayer echoed hourly over the city and cut-price prophets declaimed on every corner, such ideas were somehow harder to dismiss.

“Might I lend you a few Practicals?” Lorsen peered at Tallow. To be fair, the lad didn’t look as if he could stand up to a stiff breeze, let alone a flesh-eating magician. “If Styria’s most famous assassin is really on the prowl, we need you well protected.”

“An armed escort would send the wrong message.” And would do no good anyway, if those rumours really were true. “I was sent to persuade, not intimidate.”

Lorsen was less than convinced. “Really?”

“That’s how it has to look.”

“Little would look worse than the untimely death of His Eminence’s representative.”

“I don’t intend to rush at the grave, believe me.”

“Few do. The grave swallows us all regardless.”

“What are your plans, Superior?”

Lorsen took a weary breath. “I have my hands full protecting our own Aldermen. The ballots are cast in nineteen days, and we cannot afford to lose a single vote.”

“Taking away some of theirs would help.”

“Providing it is done subtly. If their people turn up dead, it is sure to harden feelings against us. Things are finely balanced.” Lorsen clenched his fists on the railing as Solumeo Shudra boomed out another speech lauding the benefits of Styria’s welcoming embrace. “And Shudra has proved persuasive. He is well loved here. I am warning you, Inquisitor—don’t go after him.”

“With all due respect, the Arch Lector has sent me to do the things you can’t. I only take orders from him.”

Lorsen gave her a long, cold stare. Probably it was a look that froze the blood in people used to Westport’s warm climate, but Vick had worked down a half-flooded mine in an Angland winter. It took a lot to make her shiver. “Then I am asking you.” He pronounced each word precisely. “Don’t go after him.”

Below them, Shudra had finished his latest thunderous contribution to noisy applause from the men around him and even noisier booing from the other side. Fists were shaken, papers were flung, insults were grumbled. Nineteen more days of this pantomime, with Shylo Vitari trying everything to twist the outcome. Who knew how that would turn out?

“His Eminence wants me to keep Westport in the Union.” She headed for the door with Tallow at her heels. “At any cost.”