The stitcher and the mut.., p.19
The Stitcher and the Mute, page 19
The woman’s face was familiar, as was something in her scarring. Not that Cora had met many Torn in her life, and not that any of the people of the Tear were without the scars caused by the rain of their homeland. But the long scar that divided this woman’s forehead, that Cora had seen before, at the Opening Ceremony of the election, back when Cora only had one body on her hands, that of Nicholas Ento. The Torn woman was Sorrensdattir, advisor to the Torn Chambers, and the person who had first given Cora a glimpse of what the Wayward election story was about. A story that had got its ’teller killed.
Sorrensdattir came towards her. ‘Is something for the Latecomer, this, Detective. To find you here.’
‘Why? Were you going to come and see me?’
‘My intention, yes, but…’
Cora held out her hand for the Torn greeting she’d first experienced at the Opening Ceremony: her hand taken in both of the Torn’s and each knuckle quickly pressed. But instead, Sorrensdattir glanced behind her, at the Assembly building.
‘I saw your Chambers go in,’ Cora said.
‘Could be yours too, if our story is for the black stones.’
‘Fancy your chances?’
Sorrensdattir laughed and the tornstone in her mouthpiece flared orange. The air around Cora was at once smoky, and not in a bindleleaf kind of way. This smoke was sulphurous and somehow hotter than bindle ever produced.
‘In Fenest, everything is numbers,’ Sorrensdattir said. ‘For the chequers, yes?’
‘It’s all one long gamble. Pennysheets say the Torn Hook will be made of tornstone. That one worth a mark to the chequers?’
‘You must wait, Detective, like others.’
‘Like I’m still waiting to hear about the Wayward story.’ Cora started forward. ‘You know more than you told me at the Opening Ceremony. What’s—’
Sorrensdattir held up her hand. ‘Not here,’ she said more quietly. ‘We meet elsewhere. I have something for you. That you will need.’
‘What is it? Surely you can just tell—’
‘The Hook Barge,’ Sorrensdattir said. ‘Not this night. Not the night of tomorrow. The third night, you come. Late. I will be there for the changing of the Hooks.’
Cora nodded, and the Torn woman made her way to the main entrance. Cora was once more left alone in front of the great Assembly building of Fenest. She waited a moment longer than she needed to, just in case the Audience sent her another coach carrying someone to talk to. But then it started to rain, the Painter as subtle as ever.
Twelve
It was close to dawn when Cora arrived at Beulah’s games house near Tithe Hall. Marcus was none too pleased to be woken by the secret doorbell, rung by pulling the rusty lamp beside a boarded door. The girl glowered at Cora, looking short of sleep. Fortunately, Marcus didn’t have to look healthy for what Cora needed – in truth what she was about to ask wouldn’t help the girl’s pallor one bit.
‘I need a quick word,’ Cora said.
‘With Beulah? She’s not—’
‘With you.’
‘Oh…’
Marcus led her down a carpeted corridor, her feet tripping over the hem of the long shirt she was wearing. The cloth was a lurid mess of red and yellow birds. Some Perlish design, likely left behind by someone whose losses took them down to their underwear.
The carpet was thick, the wallpaper’s print as headache-inducing as Marcus’ nightshirt. Cora felt as if her ears were jammed with wool, the games house muffled.
They passed doors onto rooms where cards were dealt, risks were taken, threats made. There was no sound from the games, but Cora could feel the hum of excitement through the doors.
Up ahead, there was a prone figure lying on the floor. Without breaking her stride, Marcus stepped over him. It was a Perlish man, snoring. Stale beer wafted from his stained clothes.
‘This one been with you a while?’ Cora said.
‘Long as he’s got money left to bet, Beulah says he can stay.’
Marcus stopped between two doors. She put her hand on the wall and pushed, and the paper seemed to fall inward: there was a door here, invisible until a knowing hand touched it in just the right place. Marcus stepped through and Cora followed. She’d seen plenty of this games house, as a detective and as a guest, but she’d never seen behind this wall.
They were in a narrow passage, well-lit and plain, thank the Audience. Marcus kicked the door shut and led Cora into a small sitting room where the remains of a fire glowed, casting warm light onto the comfortable-looking chairs and decent rug, a scrawny cat gently snoring. A clock on the mantle ticked out the night. It was as if she’d stepped into another world.
‘I can see why you put up with late hours,’ Cora said, looking around the room. On the chair nearest the fire, a boy was curled in sleep. A blanket was pulled up to his nose, but Cora recognised him.
‘How’s he doing?’ she asked Marcus.
‘Tam? He’s a quick learner. Clears the tables fast as you like. Gets out the way quick too.’ Marcus yawned and took the chair next to the sleeping boy. ‘Beulah says you can bring her more like him.’
‘Hoping I won’t have to.’
Tam was a Seeder boy Cora had found living in an abandoned stone works, just as she was closing in on Finnuc. He’d come north from his home only to find hunger and cold alleys to bed down in. Why he travelled all the way to Fenest, she hadn’t found out. She wasn’t going to tonight, either: Tam was sound asleep. Marcus yawned again, this time louder, and Cora got the hint.
‘I won’t keep you long,’ Cora said.
‘What you needing? Can’t wait for The Spoke?’
‘That ’sheet arrives too often for my liking. You been keeping up with the city school?’
‘Those stiff-shirt teachers,’ Marcus growled. ‘They don’t know nothing about this city. I keep telling ’em—’
‘Have you been going?’
A muttered yes, which Cora hoped meant the girl’s learning had improved. It was a sad irony of Fenest that the kids who sold the pennysheets could rarely read them. The bosses told the sellers the headlines and the sellers shouted them. Counting was more important in that line of work.
‘Good,’ Cora said. ‘I need you and some of your mates from school, those you can trust, to go to the archives in Uppercroft and look for something.’
‘How many of these mates am I supposed to have?’
‘Just bring as many as you can.’
‘And how long for?’
‘That depends how quick you get the work done, doesn’t it?’ Cora said. ‘Can you get them out of school?’
‘If you’re paying, they’ll come. But what do I tell my ’sheet boss?’ Marcus said.
‘That you’re ill. That Beulah needs you here. Choice is yours.’
Marcus rolled her eyes. ‘Thanks…’
‘Jenkins is already there. She’ll tell you all what you need to do.’
‘The toothy constable? She’ll be no good with these kids.’ Marcus’ raised voice made the boy Tam stir in his sleep. Cora waited, but he soon settled. The cat was awake now though and rubbed itself against Cora’s boot.
‘Constable Jenkins might surprise you,’ Cora told Marcus. ‘And go easy on her – amount of pennysheets I’ve had off you since the election started, you owe me.’
Even Marcus couldn’t argue with that.
‘Any more on the new Wayward storyteller?’ Cora asked, scratching behind the cat’s ear. ‘This person who married into the realm?’
‘Nothing. I think maybe that story I told you wasn’t so good after all.’
‘You just keep telling me what you hear.’ Cora nodded to the still-sleeping Tam. ‘If he can read and needs the work, take him too.’
Marcus saw her back to the main door.
‘I want you and the others at the archives as soon as you can get your boots on,’ Cora said. ‘Speaking of which…’
‘I bought ’em.’
‘Good to hear you haven’t started throwing your money away in here.’
‘You’re an example to avoid, Beulah says.’ Marcus grinned.
‘She’s not wrong.’ Cora stepped out into the street.
‘Where you going, Detective?’
‘Going?’
Marcus considered Cora in that cutting, all-seeing way of hers. ‘You got a look on your face. I know that look. And you’re making me go to the archives, with Constable Jenkins. You got to be going somewhere.’
‘Somewhere I shouldn’t.’ Cora headed down the street. ‘Be nice to Jenkins, and take a coat – you’ll need it.’
*
The address wrapped around her bindleleaf tin had to be wrong. She was looking at a row of stables.
Eight doors, the split kind they used for horses. The top of each was open. Some of the beasts looked out, and swung their thick necks to and fro. In other stalls, the inhabitants were just shadows and noise. People were milling about with pitchforks and barrows, opening and closing the doors, murmuring to the horses. The air was sweet with hay. All the early business of the new day.
Cora was in an alley across from the stables. She’d made the time to come here, so she felt she should stay a few minutes. Time for a smoke and to give her aching foot a rest. It hadn’t taken her long to find the stables after she left Marcus at the games house. The place was only a few streets over from the station. Did that make it more or less likely that Ruth was here, near Cora? It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to see her sister. Ruth wasn’t here.
Some part of Cora was pleased the address was wrong. A large part, if she were honest. Now Cora didn’t have to find out if Ruth really was back. She didn’t even know why she’d tried.
Because of Nicholas Ento, the murdered Wayward storyteller. Because of Finnuc. People were dying, the election was facing problem after problem. And Ruth was back. If she had anything to tell Cora about the Wayward story, about why Tennworth didn’t want it told, then Cora had to see her. But it was pointless. She’d done what she could, and now she was going back to work.
She tossed the end of her bindle to the ground then turned into the street.
‘You came then.’
That voice. It was familiar, but it wasn’t her sister’s. Cora looked back at the stables. A small woman in a cowl was coming towards her. Inked designs stole up her wrists.
Nullan, the Casker storyteller. And Nicholas Ento’s lover.
Cora had last seen Nullan in the grounds of Burlington Palace tending the victims of Black Jefferey, a plague many in Fenest believed the Casker story had brought to the city. Nullan was the last person Cora had expected to see here, but it couldn’t be coincidence.
‘I thought you’d gone back to Bordair,’ Cora said.
‘Wish I could,’ Nullan said.
‘What’s keeping you in Fenest then?’
‘The same thing that’s brought you here this morning, Detective. She’s been waiting for you.’
‘I don’t—’
But Nullan turned on her heel and walked back towards the stables. Cora had no choice but to follow.
The stablehands paid no mind to her and Nullan, didn’t look up from their work or stop their chatter. Several wore cloaks of stiffened animal skin: Wayward clothes. There was an alcove halfway between the stalls that Cora hadn’t noticed before. As she followed Nullan she saw the alcove had a short staircase, which led to a loft space.
‘Nullan, what’s going on? Do you—’
‘It’s not me you need to speak to, Detective.’
Is it Ruth? Cora wanted to ask but her mouth was dry. Is it Ruth up here? Her heart was hammering in her chest. It was anger but it was love too. How could it not be? Anger’s fire could only exist if there was love to stoke it.
The stairs ended in a tiny landing and a low door. Nullan knocked, twice quickly, then a pause, then two more knocks, slow this time.
From behind the door, a floorboard creaked. Then a voice said, ‘Come’. A voice Cora knew, even after all this time. She had to lean against the wall, fearing she’d fall over. She wanted to get out, back down the stairs and out into the open air. Back to the station, to her world. But her legs wouldn’t move. Her lungs wouldn’t fill. Nullan opened the door, then did her best to stand aside in the narrow space to let Cora pass. Cora took a deep breath, feeling her chest rattle with all her years of smoking, and was surprised to find herself thinking: how much bindleleaf have I smoked since Ruth left? She stepped into the loft space.
She had to duck immediately to avoid hitting her head on the beams, but at the apex she could almost stand upright. The door closed behind her. Nullan was gone. The loft was long and narrow, the low beams running the length of it. At the far end was a table, and seated behind it, staring straight at Cora, was a woman in a dark dress. The same woman Cora had seen outside the station the other day, amid the chaos of the street. The same woman who had been in the winery carriageway when Cora had arrested Finnuc. Her sister.
Ruth stood and came towards Cora. ‘It’s been a long time.’
‘More than thirty years.’
Ruth’s steps were slow, deliberate. She was just as thin as Cora remembered, but the years looked to have been hard on her. Her face was pinched. Grey hair peppered her temples but the rest was still deep brown. There were only five years between the two of them but the gap seemed to have widened. Ruth looked worn out. She picked her way through the trunks and cases scattered about, and the saddles – so many saddles. What looked like bedding was squashed into the far corner amid spider webs and old straw. And, hanging from a hook, a Wayward cloak.
‘You must have thought I’d joined the Audience,’ Ruth said, closer now, and Cora wanted to stop her. Couldn’t bear to have her within reach because she feared she’d grab her, hurt her, or forgive her. And too much had happened for that.
‘I hoped you had died,’ Cora said.
Ruth’s step faltered and she stayed where she was, ten or so feet from Cora, but it might as well have been the length of the Union.
‘I told the story to the Widow every night until I could finally leave that house. Every night,’ Cora spat. ‘The story of your death.’
Ruth blinked several times but she didn’t look away, Cora would give her that.
‘It was bad then,’ Ruth said, ‘after I…’
‘After you sold our parents to the pennysheets and fled the city? Yes, Ruth, it was bad. It was the end of the world. And you left me to deal with it. You left me—’
Cora turned away. This wasn’t how she wanted this to go, and what did it matter anyway? The past was a story with an ending, one that couldn’t be changed.
‘I had no choice, Cora. What I found in the files at home, I couldn’t ignore it.’
‘Yes, you could. It was only money. Half the trading halls were on the take, not just our parents.’
‘Only money?’ Ruth said, incredulous. ‘It’s corruption. It’s rot. How can you blind yourself to it?’
‘Because I live in Fenest, Ruth. It’s easy to take the high ground when you don’t stick around to see what it’s really like being here.’ Cora shook her head. ‘You’re just the same as back then, so ready to tell everyone else what’s wrong with their lives when you can’t see the truth about yourself.’
‘Which is what?’ Ruth said, her voice hardened now.
‘That you… it doesn’t matter.’
‘What, Cora? Now’s your chance to say it. After all these years.’
‘You love a cause more than you love people.’
‘Cora—’
‘That’s why you’ve come back now, isn’t it? All these years and no word to me, and now here you are. Tell me I’m wrong.’
‘That you should think that way about me…’ Ruth looked away. She was surely too thin, too brittle, this woman who was and was not her older sister. But she was strong, too. Ruth seemed to burn with strength. ‘It’s because I care about people. I care about their lives – their cause, if you want to put it that way, Cora. It wasn’t just about the money. The files in the study – there was so much more going on. I only saw a glimpse that night, our family’s part, but I was right about the injustice.’
‘So you decided you were going to change the Union,’ Cora said flatly.
‘I decided to try! I had to, Cora. And I’m glad I did. Everything I’ve learned since— The north has always had power over the south, Cora, and Fenest has helped them to keep it.’
‘Well if it’s always been so terrible, why come back now? What’s changed?’
‘Everything.’ Ruth looked her dead in the eye.
‘You did go to the Steppes, didn’t you?’ Cora said.
Ruth seemed uncertain. ‘What? That’s not important. What matters—’
‘The last Mother heard was that you’d joined a caravan going to the far north. You joined the Wayward. Is that where you’ve been all these years, with them?’
Ruth looked like she was weighing up what to say, then she nodded. ‘I don’t think I was meant to stay in one place all my life,’ she said softly. ‘When I joined the caravan, I realised how much I needed to move around. To see life from all angles, not just the Fenest way.’
Cora looked around at the chaos of the stable loft. ‘So I can see. This is how you live?’
‘I don’t need the trappings we had as children, the things Fenest values. It’s worthless. I don’t know how you stand it.’
‘Stand what?’
‘This place.’ Ruth swept her arm around the loft and the city beyond the roof tiles. ‘The Wayward people helped me understand a different way of living. And in return I helped them.’
‘Helped them how?’
‘That’s a story for another day,’ Ruth said. ‘What you have to know, Cora, if it’s going to work between us—’
‘If what’s going to work?’
‘—is that I didn’t plan any of this, how my life has turned out. What happened at home. The people who asked me to get the files, they offered to take me with them. I knew I had to get out of Fenest, but I always meant to come back. For you, Cora.’
