The Dives | Mid-Afternoon
How could Constable Inspector Valentin come to this rather unsavory conclusion?
Well, it was easy.
That unwashed stench was just the familiar scent of another clocking riot.
That's how.
Feuds among traveling wicks weren't an uncommon occurrence out in the uncivilized and unpriced wilds outside of the jurisdiction of the Seventen, especially considering the laws had decreed centuries ago that nomadic wicks were sovereign and could do whatever the clocking hell they pleased so long as they didn't do it in plain view of their galdori superiors. However, given wicks still had the right to bring their questionable businesses and suspicious wares into the cities to sell in the markets in places like the Dives, so, too, did the halfbreeds bring their opinions and their conflicts.
It was well known that the Red Crow and the Yellow Eye had been feuding for years, although Rhys had absolutely no idea why or if it would even matter if he did have a clue, but he knew that in heat like this one, there was very little anyone could do to put out the fires of tempers once they flared with earlier curfews or more patrols.
That hadn't helped, obviously. If anything, the extra patrols had only made the risk of conflict worse, and today was a fine example of that truth. Or, at least, it would be. For the moment, it was easier to hope that this wildfire could be contained before it got out of hand.
It was, as far as the young Valentin was concerned, most likely a lost cause.
The scuffle started simply enough: a Red Crow merchant had set up his humble stall in the early morning hours, his writ of merchandizing stamped at the gate by a loyal galdor officer in green without a second thought. His wares consisted of careful beadwork—necklaces, bracelets, a few articles of leather clothing. All of it quaint and well worth the hats and forts he was charging for it all to feed his three little wicks back in the wilderness. That same morning, a Yellow Eye basket weaver, who also seemed to like to dabble in the beadwork, also had his writ stamped and brought his nicer, less humble cart into the narrow street in the Dives, parking himself next to that Red Eye with only a cursory glance in the other wick's direction. His baskets sold for almost a whole shill, sometimes a handful of tallies. He even asked far more for his beaded bracelets than that quiet Crow did, as if he thought more of himself than his neighbor who simply had learned to live on less.
The comparison became a topic of conversation, the conversation turned into a debate on tribal politics, and like all political conversations eventually devolved into, there eventually came that first blow. A child squeaked. A kenser snorted. And suddenly, everyone on the street jumped right in.
At least, that was Constable Inspector Valentin's completely made up but probably just as likely story that he told himself as he attempted to hover in the shade of the dilapidated building that looked just as unremarkable as the next one this deep into the Dives, one hand cautiously resting on his baton while the other shaded his sharp blue eyes against the bright mid-afternoon sun at this house.
Gods, it was so clocking hot. Unbearably so. He'd rather be stuck indoors doing paperwork today.
But no.
Practically swimming in the hand-dyed green of his uniform soaked through with sweat, the tall blond with his three snaps waved two more patrols forward to wade into the mess, this time, thank Alioe, they had begun to bring in the chroven. He wasn't there to stop the fight so much as find the perpetrators and take them in for questioning. He would have gladly leant a hand in breaking up the scuffle as it left stains on the cobblestones and probably at least one dead body to stay warm in the sun, but he and his Ensign, Potiphar, were asked by that clocking ersehole of a Patrol Captain—Captain D'Arthe, a name that made his chest ache and his face twist into a sneer at the same time—to wait until a path had been cleared before they started questioning witnesses.
They'd been waiting a clocking half an hour,
"By the Circle, Pots, I think we should just jump in, don't you?" Rhys hissed impatiently, shifting to reach for his baton, "We can subdue those stop-clockers over there and start our questioning."
"Oh, sir, I don't know." The young, small-statured man shoved the spectacles up his nose for the umpteenth time that house, his sweaty face an imperfect surface to keep them in place, "I'm rather afraid of Captain D'Arthe."
"Clock him. You know Haines has our erses. We outrank those two Patrols anyway. Come on." Too hot to stand still anymore, too restless to just stand by and let the work be done for him that he'd clawed his way through Brunnhold to wear the uniform for, Constable Inspector Valentin stepped out into the blinding light and moved toward the three wicks who were engaged with each other—one with a frying pan, one with a dagger, and the other with ... a dress.
"Alioe—" Ensign Potiphar groaned, gathering his field and beginning to mutter a few careful, almost studious words in Monite, words meant to set their targets' skin burning and stinging with a sudden, uncontrollable rash, especially near their faces.
"That's enough now. Time to break it up. Everyone step away from each other and get against the wall—"