ike the souls of the dead,” he murmurs, watching Shrikeweed’s half-baked sideways smile, about as fitting for this table and these words as the bubbling cheese. It’s more of a grimace, this time. Tom cannot smile, either; if he meant to lend his words some wry, teasing tone, he looks deathly serious, sitting and studying Shrikeweed’s face.
Names, dates, circumstances! He’s not so quick to call it mung, not anymore. But he still doesn’t understand.
He thinks, then, of Ava, turning the crackling pages in a ledger one by one, careful of the ones that were wont to stick. Lacquered fingernails gliding over lines of coded records. Paperwork lives on.
Intas was the first time he ever saw Hawke. Sitting at the table, doing business with a cocky grin and a spur in his teeth. Business: cigar smoke, the smell of brandy. He’s stood guard while men do business with each other. Paper bags of product, stacks and rolls of ging. Where were the ledgers, then? The records? Somewhere, he realizes now. Always something to be taken down, when all’s changed hands. Hawke employed men like Penley, too.
He’s staring daggers into the mushrooms, now, glistening in their sauce, smelling richly of earth and spices. All these things are invisible to a man who doesn’t know how to read. Tom has known how to read for some time now.
Venal men, Shrikeweed said. Just men?
Genevria Trevisani. A businesswoman. His eyes sharpen. Records, he thinks, somewhere. Paperwork lives on.
There’s a blank, he thinks. You can see the cords that connect the Judge with Megiro and d’Arthe easily – the Order, the Oculus – even the cords that connect d’Arthe and Megiro and Trevisani. Immense influence, even then, for a widow with a modest side-qalqa. But not enough influence to pull some of the strings she’s pulled.
All men have enemies. He thinks of Castor Devlin, souring the faces of every man at that table like turning fruit. The Headmistress, too.
Serro hasn’t been seen; there are whispers, but he hasn’t resurfaced yet. Not in the flesh. Without direction, it’s all pina things – safehousing, holding fast, holding breath; like the upkeep of a spell – and the occasional kov throwing a stacks special through some golly’s window, like all that ging can’t put out another fire. But –
His head aches. He takes another sip of kofi. In the corner of his eye, he sees Shrikeweed turning his cup, slow, methodical. Right, left, right.
I, we, could do the same. We can still. If I can trust you.
Trust is a strange and fickle thing. Who trusts anybody, these days?
The cup clatters, unsteady, on the saucer. He looks up and meets Shrikeweed’s eyes. The soft phosphor light still picks out the gold; there’s still rage lined thinly in red around the lids.
You lost someone, he thinks.
He feels that rage in the pit of his heart. The opera made him cold, insensible. Now he sees the stranger reflected in the window in the corner of his eye; the stranger’s hands on the table. His chest aches with the anger of it. He feels like a trapped animal. “Do what you can retrospectively,” he says, softly, “but this will not be the last chance you get to make your minutes, Mr. Shrikeweed. The Incumbent’s face is still a tool in our box. And they seem to have taken an interest in you, too.”
He looks askance, finally, at the reflection. Full-on. He can’t see much but the glisten of eyes underneath the brow, the hollows of cheeks.
His lips twitch. “I don’t know who their enemies are. I don’t even know –” Anatole says his words; he has to look away, down. “I need to know more. These men are acting on behalf of – something – someone else. There are connections I can’t draw. Trevisani has to do with it. She’s too powerful, for what she – does. Someone owes her a favor.”
The name has slipped out before he can stop it. He glances up sharply, his eyes darting round the Elephant. Looking, this time, for the lass that makes the kofi. You never know.
She’s there, at the counter; he doesn’t think she’s listening. Rows of kofi paraphernalia glint behind her, brass and copper and a few sparks of silver.
It looks damned mung to sit here with steaming yats and not eat it. Hesitantly, Tom reaches for a slice of toasted bread with a shaky hand. “You’re a Pendulum man,” he starts, looking back up at Shrikeweed. “Or you were.” The twist of his lip is more bitter than wry. “What do you know of the Order of the Pendulum?”