[Closed] Sources and Methods

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - Hazlar Street Coffee House, The Painted Ladies

The Thirty-third of Vortas 2719, Nineteen minutes past the twenty-second hour

Part I - Shrikeweed

T

he coffee shop on Hazlar Street, small, cramped, the air too close with the fug only a freezing day and provide. The little booth only amplifies the effect. Still, it is the most private space he can find. It smells of wet wool, the sharp tang of cold every time the door opens, it opens all too often. It smells gloriously of coffee. The wrong sort of course. Bastian pressure coffee, made fast and strong, served in tiny cups with a little side glass of soda water.. Still good. It had been his preferred brew when he was younger, before he discovered Mugrobi coffee, before the Elephant had spoiled him. Setting aside such things, the coffee here was more than passable. It was, in fact, excellent.

The silent man behind the counter, drooping moustachios, spiral tattoos in blue across his knuckles, makes his coffee strong. Red-brown and verging on black, the top marked with a little cloud of frothed cream and just a whisper of nutmeg. He has not expected such a place here, in the narrow streets of the Painted Ladies. He is glad of it. A little space to gather his thoughts amid almost familiar surroundings.

Across from him, hands wrapped around a steaming mug serving more as a hand warmer than a drink, Bailey is slowly thawing out. His cheeks are red with the cold, his lips only now returning to a living color. A long afternoon in the cold. A long afternoon watching.

“Asked about, Mr Shrike, and Ms Weaver’s shop’s got a good reputation. Quality merchandise and quality prices. Takes all manner of clients. Human, wick, even a few gollies. Ma says she’s bought the odd fabric from her. Nothing fancy, mind, but good quality.” Bailey raises the huge mug with both hands curled under the great round bottom, and takes a long, long, drink. In one of the museums in Brunnhold, a little one that no one really bothered with, he’d seen a red and black vase with ancient personages drinking wine from a bowl. They had seemed so noble, stiff and formal. It could not have been so rigid in life. Not in the Thief’s movements were any judge. Spare, careful, yes, with those not-quite-manners of his. Not dignified, but done with dignity.

“I had no idea your mother would stoop to base commerce.”

“Scurrilous lies sir. We are in home streets here. A wise thief does not steal at home. A good thief is a good neighbor.” He speaks them like ancient proverbs, like axioms from some obscure ethical tradition. Perhaps they are. Custom and practice know no bounds.

He sips his coffee, watches the boy, the Thief, slowly return to warmth. It is a long process, quiet, companionable. This is a strange alliance, yet he thinks it solid. It is not his first. It will not be his last. It cannot be. One mind cannot process all the twisting conspiracies, cannot tease each thread apart. He cannot be in many places all at once. He cannot stretch himself so thin. And there are places he cannot go.

Let him be the mind then, the machine to tabulate and reason, to create new truths from disparate facts. Let the Thief be his eyes and ears, at least in this place. He should not be here, not amid these streets. Not wearing this face, this name, these clothes.

It is different in the Rookery, down on the river. There he has no name, no occupation. The boxing arena on Canby Lane is no place for names. A liminal place, neither quite legal nor quite illegal. Nothing sanctioned of course, nothing formal. They are all there for the same reasons. To test themselves, to purge their frustrations, to be surrounded by wordless shouts that drown out all words in the mind, to take blows and give them. To think of nothing but motion in space, to have no other cares. His is not dressed to go tonight. He is not ready. Tomorrow perhaps, or the night after. Too many thoughts dancing about in his head, too many in need of organization.

“So,”says the Thief, still drinking from his huge bowl of coffee, “where am I off to next?”

“Next?” He has been toying with that. Where should he send his eyes and ears? Back across the River, back south and south. Back to Ro Hill? The Incumbent is still at risk, he requires watching. The Weaver is at risk. The Weaver is the more reliable source, and sources need protecting. She still speaks tenderly of him. A closeness and immediacy he has not expected. A parting my lead to wistful remembrance or recrimination. Neither appeared in the Weaver’s voice, in her words. She still sees him. Under guise and perhaps not often. Her appearance at the Incumbent’s house is proof enough. And does he ever come here? To see his little bird now set free of her cage?

“Stay here for a while,” he says, and raises his own cup to his lips. Lips chapped and cracking from the cold. “Keep watch on the shop, on the lady. And keep and eye out for her visitors.”

“You think this mystery lady will pop by? Buy a bit of silk and exchange a few florid letters, professing scandalous love?” The Thief is smiling, wicked and flashing-sharp. “Or should I set off for some quiet villa? Yew hedges and moss-covered fountains? Always good for a lark, those places.”

“The lady is already within.” Again he turns the cup. There is little enough point in holding back. His agent will need the information if he is to carry out the next tasks. To not be distracted. “It is herself.”

Bailey’s eyebrows raise almost to his hairline, eyes grow as large as dinner-plates. A long, whistling exhalation escapes his lips, ripples the surface of his coffee. They sit for a while, saying nothing, staring into their drinks. It is Bailey who breaks the silence. “That’s a scandal and a half, and no mistake about it. We could make a fortune off knowledge like that. Say the word Mr Shrike, and I’ll arrange matters.” Bailey gazes again into his steaming coffee. “No, I suppose that angle’s already taken. And his Incumbentness ain’t the mark now is he.” The Thief gives an awkward smile. “Sorry Mr Shrike, old habits. Spot a decent pigeon and the plucking follows, natural as you please.”

The Thief could take the information, sell it through whatever shadowy network of information brokers he knows. No. Even if he did, the matter is too unbelievable, too much of a scandal. A scandal with no proof. The danger remains. It will have to be neutralized. Easy enough. “We’ve got a rather plumper pigeon to pluck. I cannot say it will be lucrative. I very much doubt it. But it will be, as you are so fond of saying, ‘a lark.’ There is the other lady.”

Bailey’s face scrunches up, confused for a moment, then it smooths over and the old wicked smile returns. “The madame? The unpleasant piece?”

“The same.”

“Tricky, very tricky.” Bailey leans in, bringing the coffee bowl close. He can smell the strong coffee, great quantities, diluted a bit with hot water. Black and black. How the Thief can consume such a quantity alludes him. Where in the boy’s skinny frame can he store such a quantity? “Madames are always close. Confidential like. Rather like lawyers, in that regard. Begging your pardon, sir.”

He dismisses the insult with a gesture, shoos it away like a moth on a summer night. An airy nothing. “For now, leave her to me.”

“You sir? Your pardons again, but what’re you going to do? Drown her in paperwork?”

“After a fashion, yes.” There will be records in the Archives, bills of sale and tax records. All cleverly doctored, but they will be there. And there are the other names. Prudhome, Megiro, d’Arthe, Verdier, Antonacchi, Azmus. Enough to start cross-referencing, pulling cases and documents, papers of incorporation, tax records and their charitable deductions. Charity. He thinks of human girls, some bought, perhaps some given, given to improve them. Charity is barbarism. A sign of decadence, decay. Even decay is recorded.

“As for you, I request and require that you stay here. Eyes open and ears to the ground. Tell me who comes and goes. At what times and for how long they stay. Should anything strange strike your fancy, you have my leave to follow it up as you see fit. I will require reports.”

“Begging your pardon yet again but I’ve only got one body, one set of eyes and ears. I can’t be skulking around here and watching out for the Incumbent. Ain’t possible sir, not for all the magic under the moons.”

And now it is his turn to smile. “Keep an eye on things here. Follow up on what leads you may find. And reports Bailey. Either by post or in person. Every week upon the Nines, or whenever something of moment arises.”

“Right you are sir.” Bailey raises the bowl one last time, drains it somehow. He rises, wraps his scarf around his neck, and gives and odd little salute. Thumb and forefingers pinched around the eye, the rest upright, held to the brow. He flicks his hand away. "Be seeing you."

He goes, back out into the cold. Back out into the Painted Ladies. Back to his work.

The light in the streets is growing fainter, the chill autumn evening setting in fast. He looks at his watch. Nineteen minutes past the twenty-second hour. He will have to depart. When the coffee is done.

[Runcible Spoon]

Vienda - The Painted Ladies
The Thirty-third of Vortas 2719, early evening

Part II - Bailey

C

hill in the streets and chill still lingering near to his bones. The coffee has helped, but not enough. A little magic, perhaps, just a very little, to stave off the worse of the chill? A few words, half-whispered, a spare motion of the hands. The blood in his veins grows warm for an instant, just the barest of increases. It flows, warm and fast. He should feel comfort, a slow melting. It is not so. The flash in the blood is too sudden, too hot. More a fever than the feel of the fireside. Still, at least he can feel his fingers and toes loosening up, feel his limbs unwind and put themselves at his disposal. How long will it last, he cannot tell. Magic’s a damned fickle thing, even at the best of times.

It better last a good long while, he thinks, frowning nothing in particular. It is going to be a long night. A cold night. A night in the streets. That is nothing new. Neither are these streets. Old streets, uneven cobbles and worn brick, right and proper streets. His streets, even now. He’s a Ladies man in all the ways that count. He speaks the cant, walks light and sure upon the streets, knows all the allies and byways, can come and go as he likes. Carries the place with him wherever he goes. Never forgets it. The place, like the heat, is in his blood.

Away behind him, still in the little Bastian coffeehouse on Hazlar street, the other man with streets in his blood is still drinking coffee. Different streets of course, Smike’s End and Crosstown, Clockhouse and Lower Ro Hill, but streets all the same. At home, in his streets, Mr Shrike walks like any good thief, like any man in the business. Sure, easy, without haste, with liquid speed. Suppose that’s why he likes the man. Something in common, city boys down to their souls. Well, that and Mr Shrike pays regular and dosen’t take any delight in thrashing him, even when mistakes are made. And mistakes have been made. Somehow the stern talkings-to are worse. Less painful though, so there’s that.

Not far to his destination. Far enough in the chill air and the periodic snow. It clings to gutters and to eaves, builds up in little drifts. Not enough to muffle everything, not enough to cover even half the streets. Just enough to make every step treacherous. Magnificent. Not even his feet can carry him unscathed through these streets should he have to flee.

He’s already chosen his route. Down Curlew Street, across to Beckworth Cross, and on to Jagger’s Lane. The opium den at the bottom of the stairs is easy enough to dart through, out toward the Pool and then to the stash house. Old Pol will be behind the door, as per usual. Old Pol will let him in, ruffle his hair and cuff him playfully about the ear. The privileges of family.

Egress settled. Never start a job without an escape plan. Never start a job without a vantage point.

The second floor of the little old public house, Griswalds. For a couple of tallys and a flashing smile he can get a pint of bitter and sit, barely moving, for as long as he likes. Maybe he’ll play draughts against himself, left and against right. Just to pass the time. It don’t take much attention to lose to yourself.

The bells, all seven of them, jangle when he passes into Griswalds. He means them to ring, means them to ring in just the right pattern. The barman stops the traditional wiping of a glass,looks up, gives a friendly nod. “Afternoon Squeaks.”

“Afternoon Reg. The usual if you please, if you still remember it.” Squeaks. An old name, back when he was just a thief, back when he played the game for Wilkes. Reasonable enough name, his voice had sounded like a door hinge badly in need of oil. At least that had passed. Well, mostly.

Reg says nothing, he just pulls a pint of the amber-gold bitter. The good stuff, nice and floral, into a properly clean glass. Sauntering up to the bar, he puts down his coin and takes the pint. “Need to stay a while Reg, upstairs in the quiet.”

“On the game, Squeaks?”

“Don’t rightly know Reg. Might be. Might not. The day ain’t over yet. Plenty of surprises left.”

The barman nods, slides the glass over. “Take care Squeaks. I can’t have anyone wearing their majesties’s bracelets here in my establishment. There’s a rumor goin’ round that a greencoat has taken up residence hereabout.”

“Snitch-job? Or just enjoys slumming it? Granted, the Ladies is nicer’n most.” The Ladies may not be rich by any estimation, but it has its dignity, its own character. A proper Viendan neighborhood, ancient, full of a history more colorful than the houses.

“Just passin’ on what I heard, Squeaks.”

He pays it little mind. There are other, more pressing matters. Up the stairs now and by the picture window. A commanding view of the street and out and along toward Woven Delights. He waits. He watches. He does not have to wait long.

A man alone, walking up the street. A man old and not old. Reddish hair going grey. Well dressed and well composed. A well-dressed man about town. And a man he has seen before. It is the scene in reverse, though the carriage and the oblong case are gone. His Incumbentness coming to visit the messenger. No. Coming to visit his mistress. It still seems outside the bounds of reason, of sense. Yet here he is. Walking the streets with fluid step and casual grace. A man at home. A man who knows these streets. A man who has walked them all too often.

The pint of bitter is half finished on the table. Let it stay. There are matters more pressing that fine sharp ale. Down the stairs and out into the freezing streets. Out and away toward Woven Delights.

Along the alley and toward the back rooms he goes, silent, careful, unnoticed. There are windows here, and he holds his ear close. Hears only muffled voices. Nothing clear, nothing with meaning. A lady, the lady and the man. No words pass through the panes of glass. Only tone. Quiet, companionable. Likely to last a while. That at least seems clear.

Mr Shrike drinks his coffee slow. Drinks it all too much. Does the man survive on coffee alone? No. Coffee and brandy seem to be all he consumes. Will he still be afoot? Still in the coffeehouse? Nothing for it. It is worth the attempt.

Down Hazlar street to the coffeehouse, through the door, no seven bells, and a dart to the quiet, close, and private booth. Mr Shrike is still here, drinking coffee, thinking.

“Bailey?” he says, looking up, confused and more than a little annoyed.

“Pardons once more Mr Shrike, but he is here.” He slides into the booth, smooth as a greased bearing. Mr Shrike is still holding his cup, still thinking, still processing. “The Incumbent himself.”

The inevitable. Mr Shrike turns his cup. Once, twice, three times. Clockwise, anticlockwise, and clockwise again. Processing. Analysing. Taking stock of things. Does it help, the gesture? Is it his own sorcerous motion? Difficult to tell. He keeps his field so close to his skin, so reigned in. It must pain him. He never seems to mind the pain.

“He has gone in? To speak to the Weaver?” The cup still turns, faster and faster, right, the left, then right again. Again. Again. There is a light in those colorless eyes, a fire. What is he thinking? What are his plans? “What did you hear?”

No questions about his actions. There is no need. Mr Shrike knows, trusts, why he would do. Best to tell the truth. “Which I weren’t able to make out any words sir. All that hanging cloth and such, muffles everything. They were talking, sure enough, low and calm and easy, but no words made it out. Private as could be hoped. Private, but not suspiciously so. A lady who keeps to herself.” A lady with plenty of secrets. “And his Incumbentness, I’d swear he knows this place, and knows it well. Been here before, any number of times.”

Mr Shrike stops in his turnings. Stock still now, unmoving. “Then ask after him among your fellows, by description only, not by name. Cover it how you will. Does he only visit the Weaver, or does he have other business here?” There is something Mr Shrike is keeping close, some secret. Well, let him have it. It will all come out in the end. “I do not have the answer. Find it for me.” A statement of fact. A statement of confidence.

“I’ll do what I can sir. I ain’t promising nothing. There may be nothing to find.” A dodge, a cover, and all a fake. The walk, the ease, the man has been here before, knows these streets, knows the feel of bricks under his shoes. Not quite the thieves’ walk. Not yet. But growing. “I’ll keep an eye out sir, report back when I know anything. Or nothing.”

“Carry one Bailey.” His preferred phrase. A commission to act as he sees fit. He sees fit to return to the darkening streets, to wait and to watch. For a time at least. For a house of hours. Then, on to Old Pol, to Ma, to all the others in the family and beyond. Such a man as his Incumbentness, well, he’d stand out around here, now wouldn’t he?

“Good night, Mr Shrike.” He gives the salute again, the one he has known since as long as he has memory. Another family tradition. “Be seeing you.” And so he goes. Out into the cold, into the gloaming. The shadows are growing. The shadows are his old allies. Shelter me now, he prays, and keep me from prying eyes.

Roll

> @Runcible Spoon#6257: `1d6` = (3) = 3 (Bailey’s Blood Warmer)
@Sidekick#6198

Roll

> @Runcible Spoon#6257: `1d6` = (5) = 5 (Observation of the Incumbent)
@Sidekick#6198

Roll

> @Runcible Spoon#6257: `1d6` = (6) = 6 (Shrikeweed still in the Painted Ladies)
@Sidekick#6198

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - The Archives

The Thirty-sixth of Vortas 2719, Nineteen minutes past the twenty-fourth hour to seventeen minutes past the twenty-eighth hour

Part III - Shrikeweed

T

hree days. Three days since he last spoke to the Thief. Three days since the Incumbent went to visit his little bird, now free, in the Painted Ladies. He has said nothing to the man. There is no point. It would be folly, a too-early play of his hand. And what is the game? That remains unclear. All the more reason to keep the cards close. To wait, to watch. To learn the rules.

The first rule of any game is learning to stack the deck. Better if you can do it while everyone is watching.

Early evening now, crisp and cold and too bright., he will make his first cut, feeling about the edges of the cards. Feeling how they might be marked. Good stock, heavy, stiff, well made. Patrician cards for a patrician’s game. Not the sort of game a clerk from the Clockhouse is invited to play. He has invited himself. He will need to inspect the whole deck. The Archives, the Marsden Street door, less grand then the main entry, more private, more proper to him. It has always been his usual door. It would hold at least some of the cards he needed. Perhaps a whole hand.

Dust. The smell of beeswax and cedar oil. All familiar. A place he accounts among his own. He had spent two years here, seconded and a research assistant, a reverse filing clerk. Hundreds up hundreds of reports he had pulled, noted, commented upon, refiled. No one reads them. That is never the point. The documentation is its own end, its own reward. An advantage now. He will read them, as many as he can. It will take days, weeks, of careful work. He has time. Time at least until Ophus, until the caoja.

Then there will be no time at all.

The catalog rooms, the great octagonal center chamber, ringed in galleries of shelves, three-floors high. Beyond,the four radiating halls with their heptagonal research rooms, the anchor-points in a labyrinth of papers. A labyrinth of papers about papers. It is almost a romantic place, old and strange, too aesthetic, too beautiful. Far too cumbersome. A sacred space for performing the rituals of finding, the rites of classification. Long, slow, agonizing, exacting rites. He is admitted to their mysteries, knows the secular prayers he must utter. The esoteric gestures that need to be made. He has prepared the necessary sacrifices. Time and reason. All been done before. Unnumbered times. A long, deep breath. Then another. And another. It is time to begin.

It is slow at first, only the merest of scratchings, a thousand-thousand pens upon and infinity of paper. The distant coiling of springs and the turning of gears. Then the field-flow along his skin. Galvanic, sharp, like the air after a lightning storm. The gears in his mind are turning now, echos of field field. Discordant at first. In need of calibration, of adjustment. He has no coffee to set his mind in motion. Such luxuries are barred here. It is proper. It is a hindrance. The Mona will have to serve instead. Their results are more sure. Their costs higher. For two nights, perhaps more, he will not dream, the spaces in his mind will be cold and dead. Food and drink will taste of nothing but dust and sand. His head will pound and his vision will be full of lights that have no source. He will pay the price. There is no other option.

At the central desk, a lone catalog clerk. Ageless, colorless, sexless. Nameless? Perhaps they had a name once, all too soon forgotten. That is the Mona thinking for him. Too fanciful, even after all these years. The clerk will have a name, he thinks back in barbs, we need not learn it. It will be, regardless. An ebb and flow, a slither along his thoughts. They are more his own now. Mechanical, unlovely, directed.

“Your inquiries sir?” The clerk is used to carrying out the first steps for others. Right and proper for most. A hindrance for him.

“I have authorization,” he reaches into his breast-pocket and removes his credentials. Clearance for all but the most sensitive information, all bound together in dark green leather, seals in vermillion ink. “And I am well tutored in the system. I will be here some time, and require either the requisition of a private research cell, or else the transfer of papers to my offices in the Chancery.” He still maintains his old office. No-one has bothered to seize it. They all expect him to return, perhaps in the new year. Home, at last. Home behind the indigo door with its bright locks, no longer new. It will not happen next year. Perhaps never.

“A cell can be provided, yes.” The clerk seizes the credentials in a wizened hand, pores over them like a carrion-bird on a corpse. They lick their lips, an old habit it seems, and look oddly satisfied. Oddly vicious. “In the north wing.”The north wing. In this season. It will be half-freezing. The cell will remain in shadow all through the daylight hours, frost will cover its windows when night falls. His overcoat is heavy enough, at least for a time. There is no virtue in arguing with the clerk. They are the the master here. “N-19. It should be free. What name shall I put down?”

“Shrikeweed.” It is on his credentials, on his seal and his signet. He cannot hide it, cannot change it. It has been tempting. The Protocols forbid it, at least in the early stages of the work. The best cover is no cover at all. Attract no attention, provide no hints at some darker agenda. The ordinary is rarely suspected. A ledger is placed before him, he signs his name in his small, well-formed, Chancery hand. The clerk sniffs. Not approval. Not disapproval.

“This way, Mr Shrikeweed.” The ancient personage beacons with an outstretched talon.

“I will find my own way, thank you. We all have our duties and our places. Yours is here, and mine, for a time, is N-19.” A dusty nod, and the clerk lets him pass into the catalog without further comment.

The north research room. Chill as could be expected. Phosphor lamps overhead shine green and cold through colored glass. There are others here, civil servants like himself, at least in the main. Perhaps a private researcher for a lawyer or an academic sits at one of the small desks. By custom and good practice, none pay any heed to the others. Each is alone. The others are merely furniture.

The Index, or rather one of the Indices, takes up most of the center of the room. Drawers upon drawers, each containing little cards, numbered, categorized, cross-referenced. Topics, persons, case numbers, summaries, classifications. It is all here, it is not easy to navigate. The gears in his field spin up, his mind begins to race. Jarring at first, when the two sets of gears meet, smoother now, they turn as parts of the greater machine.

The Ritual of the Finding

First, there are the names:

• Antonacchi
• Azmus
• d’Arthe
• Megiro
• Ogden
• Prudhome
• Trevisani
• Vauquelin
• Verdier

The cross-tropics:

• Property owned by subjects
• Property taxes owed by subjects
• Building code violations
  • Details of same
• Charities in Bellington
• Girls’ Reformatories
  • Membership, patronage, or governance of same
• Corruption trials. Subjects as judge, prosecutor, defendant, witness, member of the jury
• Domestic disturbance trials and accusations. Discovery of patronage at Trevisani’s would lead to disharmony. Divorce?
  • Evidence reports, affidavits, transcripts, motions for same

And on and on. He pulls the cards he needs, the starting points. There are dozens now, and he will need dozens more. A broad search. How else can he begin?

The only words he has for the work still sound alien to him. Farmer’s words, sowing, winnowing, harvesting, reaping. What farm has he ever seen but what went past him in the few times he has left his city? He always averts his eyes when traveling abroad. He cannot bear to see beyond his narrow streets and undulating hills. His bridges and the airship towers. And yet these are the words he knows. History in speech, time defined in words.

Words words words. He has some of them now, coarse and rough. Case numbers and names. Records to pull from across the archives. Scattered, isolated. Disconnected? False leads are inevitable. The world is not neat, connections are untidy. There is sifting yet to do. Harvesting first. Collecting. Then winnowing. Searching.

The Ritual of the Collections

Tax records lie in shelves and files in the east wing. Down and down, three floors along marble steps, worn hollow in the middle by too many feet. What are you looking for? And when you find it, will you know it? Good questions. Are they his own? The Mona’s? Perhaps it does not matter. If I knew, he speaks in the turnings of his field, then I would not begin with so wide a search. Do you, he thinks, to his current pluralities, have any suggestions? Or shall I wander about, gathering all too much material?

There is no reply, only the non-sound of the turning of the harmonious gears.

He is casting into the dark, looking for even the smallest of lights.

Property Tax Assessments for Bellington, Region IX, 2716. He flips through a few pages, drinking in addresses, street names. Comparing them to what he already knows.In the chill of yesterday afternoon, he had gone for a stroll in Bellington, looking for walnuts and macadamias. Looking for houses with yellow trim and hard by a pub. Bellington is full of most of these things, but on Carnelian Street he may have found a house to match the description the Weaver had given him. On North Grange Avenue another. The Way of the Orangeries held one more prospect. And down Nightjar Lane yet another. Sets of addresses. Most of the houses in Bellington, as in Smike’s End, are townhouses, set one against another. Teracing the side of the hill and down toward the river. Bellington is more elegant, its streets broader, fewer apartments like his own, perched above shops, commingled among the markets. A quieter place too, at least away from Bell Avenue and its shops and theaters, its restaurants and galleries.

There are fine houses there too, old and set back from the street. Harder to see their gardens and plantings. Harder to see the nature of their trees.

Audit of Charities and Nonprofits in Bellington, Districts VII through IX, 2717. They’ll mostly be artistic charities. Benevolent societies for painters and musicians, patrons of the arts looking to shave off a little tax burden in pretending at magnanimity. The Royal Opera is already supported by taxes. Perverse to let the rich choose how much of these taxes they wish to pay. More perverse still that they pat themselves on the back for their artistic spirit.

The reports he places onto a small wooden cart. It’s wheels squeaking and complaining at the burden. Tax records first, then criminal records from the galleries between the east and south wings. Domestic and civil cases from the west wing. The cart is full to bursting, straining further under the weight. Well, it is a start at least.

The first collection is finished.

The Ritual of the Searching

Cell N-19 fails to be freezing. Brass and copper piping has been installed, running to a small steam radiator. It hisses and gurgles. A benevolent snake, a tame dragon from some legend. That is the Mona talking again. It must be. There is no space in his head for such fancies. Not any longer. A welcome surprise, the warmth. Even in such an ancient place, improvements occur. It is right and proper that they do so. It is sound.

The cell is sparsely furnished. A desk, a chair, a phosphor lamp, a small table, and an empty bookcase. It will not remain empty for long. The files, the ledgers in his arms, will find a new, temporary home. These are only the first of many. The first card he will play in secret.

And so he places the records upon the shelves, one after the other. The order now is the order the Archives thinks matters. It is the wrong order. It will change over time.

He sits at the desk and readies the ritual instruments. His small, oval reading glasses, his notebooks and his pens. The little slips of lightly gummed and colored paper to mark the records and mark his notes.

Another breath, and then another. His field grows, uncoils like a slowly unwinding clock spring. It fills the spaces of the cell with the ghosts of gears and the shuffle of paper. The work will take hours, days. That is no matter. Other than his work in Stainthorpe Hall, he has little enough to do.

“Well,” he says, to himself as much as the gear-turnings in his field, “shall we begin?”

Roll

> @Runcible Spoon#6257: `1d6` = (4) = 4 (Shrikeweed’s Metadata Search)
@Sidekick#6198

[Runcible Spoon]

Vienda - A Waterside Apartment, The Painted Ladies
Late Night of the 33rd of Vortas, 2719

Part IV - Bailey

M

a’s making tea again. Never a good sign. Serious business happens over tea. Well, serious family business. Out in the world, on proper business, serious matters are handled over whiskey and gin.

“Been a while since you were home, boy.” Ah yes, the recriminations against the prodigal son. So that’s how it was going to be. He expects this, has prepared for it. That does not make it any easier. Ma’s put on that disappointed face that only mothers can master. There must be a school somewhere that teaches it. Or they learn it in secret cabals of old ladies. Probably the latter. Everything, crime, politics, religion, everything, always comes down to secret cabals of old ladies. He’s never trusted a knitting circle, sewing confabulation, or ladies card party. Probably planning someone’s demise. Or marriage. Same thing really.

“I sent along some coin for Lydia’s wedding. A fair amount too. She could buy a nice set of dishes with that. Proper dishes too, only second hand and hardly any chips.” Lydia, one of his less irritating sisters. Second least irritating, after Charlie. Right, should probably call her Charlotte now, not so little as she used to be. Well, maybe she’s let it slide. For him. Younger, but not by much. Probably out now, working some Uptown crowd. Always fast with her hands was Charlie. Faster than him. Fast like Ma.

“Coin ain’t the same as showing up.” She brings over the pot, a cast iron affair, the one he’d nicked from a house in Bellington. A pointed gesture. He’s not sure what the point is. Well, not yet. “We could’ve used you, Bailey, what with your Da as dead a doornail.” She made a blessing gesture. “May he rest in peace.” Bailey made it in time. Respect for the dead. Respect for Da. He’s been a good man. A good teacher. Strict, sure, exacting, but always with a rogue’s grin and a sweet when you’d done well. Or better yet, one of his stories. The stories. Those were his province now. Easy enough to forget that. “What’s a wedding without the man of the house telling old tales to keep the crowd awake and put us all in mind of where we come from and why we carry on?”

“Sorry Ma, I weren’t thinking along that line. And I can’t stand that scaly kov she’s taken up with. A right piece of work. Don’t know why they kip together. Never did.” Well, Bill Dravis did have a regular job at least. So the money was steady. Steadier than his temper. A longshoreman and built like a draft-kenser. Well, a damned neckless one. Never trust a man with no neck.

Ma’s nodding. “We’re keeping an eye on him, sure enough. Anything nasty happens to Lydia and the kov’s for it. Stone shoes maybe, or to the drains with him. Either way, he’ll end up in the river like the shit he is.” At least is one thing they can agree on. Decent enough starting point.

The tea’s steeped enough by now. Best if he pours it. Filial piety and all that. It’s the Gioran blend, from the smell. Something between green and black. A little on the greener side, this one, with a far-off hint of something like milk, or butter. “Lemon?” There are a couple of strips of peel in a little bowl. Ma nods, and he twists the peel over the tea and drops it in. Does the same for his own.

“Look Ma. I’ll try to be better about coming home. It’s just I’ve been fair busy.” That was the truth. Up on Ro Hill for nights on end. Now scouring about the Dives. And before all this? Running errands, picking up packages and delivering others. Mr Shrike has a lot of correspondence, and he’s never really home. Usually in some office or other, safe among his papers. It would be better, easier, if he stayed that way. No luck there. More than once he’d had to go hunt down Mr Shrike at that dingy boxing den on Canby Lane, or in one of the quack doctors’ surgeries in the neighborhood. Black eyes, cracked ribs, dizziness and the like. He always recovered, patched himself up, or went to some golly doc who could do a bit of magic and heal him up. Following Mr Shrike on those nights was never anything like a lark. He never would have expected Mr Shrike to have such a hobby. “My employer’s a bit eccentric. Not bad, not once you get to know him, but strange. He has me running to and fro on gods know what errands, and in between those jobs, well, I’m still on the game. Got to keep my skills sharp.”

“A wise thief never leaves his art to languish.” Ma entoned the saying, showing that odd reverence of hers.

“Just so.” And a wiser thief never refuses a good cup of tea. Especially on a freezing night. “Ma,” he says, after a little while. He’s been trying to figure out the right approach. One the one hand, he’d be around the Ladies and Dives in general for who knows how long. But he’d be on the job for Mr Shrike, and Mr Shrike always demands diligent work. Demands it of himself too, at least. “So, my commission in the Ladies has been extended. Don’t know how long I’ll be afoot, but I’ll try and drop by when I can.” He pushes the tea aside, looks Ma straight in the eyes. No, not Ma, Lizzie Craddock. This is proper business. “I need to know if there’s been a golly about, a fine gent, getting on in years, reddish hair going grey. Not a big man, but no frail cove either. Though he might have been earlier in the year. Or last year.” Mr Shrike said his Incumbentness had been ill, very ill, at the end of last year and the start of this. It was why Mr Shrike was with him at all. That was something to go on. Not much, but something.

“There’s always a few gollies about, down on their luck, dissipated wastrels, slumming it for fun. Though the Ladies ain’t no proper slum. It would be to the likes of them.” The Ladies is nicer than most of the Dives. Cleaner, better cared for, proud of its ancient history. Still, it’s no Ro Hill. It ain’t even Smike’s End. “But a man like that? Don’t know. What’s the line, my devious boy?” Ma’s smile is warm now, her interest piqued. Easiest way to put her in a good mood is to give her a tantalizing tale. He better give her one.

He can’t come out and say it. His orders on that are clear enough. Still, he is to ‘carry on’, and carry on he will. “Relative of Mr Shrike’s, an uncle on his Da’s side. Bit eccentric, even by golly standards, and has a habit of disappearing from time to time. They’ve had to drag him out of opium dens and low boozers on occasion, and they’re getting right sick of it.” Not the cleanest of lies, but serviceable. “Looking to make sure the uncle’s not doing anything too scandalous, not owing too much money.”

Ma nods. It’s not exactly too far off from what might be the truth. His Incumbentness is already enjoying a real corker of a scandal. Odd thing though. Mr Shrike reacts like that’s only one more ‘interesting datum’ to feed into that machine behind his eyes. Any other golly would need a damned fainting couch dragged and to be fanned with some stupid doily on a stick. But not him. Sits there, cool as a summer cucumber and files it away. Like he has no time to be scandalized. There’s something else afoot, that much he’s smoked. Something with the Madame, the nameless men, and the Weaver. Gods dammit. Now’s he’s sounding like Mr Shrike, even in his head.

Something dark’s in the offing. Darker than a man with a strange taste in mistresses.

“That why you were asking about the cloth shop? This uncle spend too much on cloth? A fancy lad? Or is Miss Weaver operating a secret opium den in her basement?”

“Can’t say. Can’t say ‘cause I don’t know. There any rumors of her operating a den?” A wild stab in the dark, but one in keeping with the thread of tale.

“Gets a few customers at odd hours. Some stay a fair amount too. There’s rumors of course. The usual kind for a woman alone, no family, no gent. I don’t pay those much mind. Formless things. Just the usual natter. She seems nice enough, and does a good business. She ain’t local, but she ain’t a bad sort. Far as I can tell.” That was high praise. About the best someone from the outside was likely to get. Well done Miss Weaver. May you profit by it.

Ma pours more tea now, dosen’t bother with the lemon this time. “A well set-up golly gent getting on in years.” The fingers on Ma’s right hand start to move, up and down, up and down. Ever so slightly, thumb sliding underneath. He never sees where the coin comes from. Never does, even after all these years. The old concord, edges worn round by time and use. At speed, the coin travels in her hand, rolls upon rolls. Reverses of direction, flourishes, disappearances. Ma’s thinking. Remembering. He thinks of Mr Shrike and his cup turning. Hand gestures. Something all clever people do while thinking. He should probably develop his own. Maybe folk will think he’s clever too. “Other rumors afoot too. Last year, round about this time, maybe a little later, I recall passing a man what sounds like your Mr Shrike’s uncle. This were up in Soot. Now there’s a nasty place. Stunk of cattle shit, fish guts and black smoke. I only remember him ‘cause his field were powerful strong. Odd that. Stronger even than Alice the Vroo.” Alice had been one of old ladies. The one’s best never to cross. And Alice could curse anyone she pleased, muddle your thoughts, or wrack you with pain and doubt. Good job she’s passed now. At the age of 107, still holding grudges. Probably passed those on to the other old ladies. Grudges have a life all their own.

“Was there anything else about him Ma? How was his walk, his bearing?”

Ma smiles again. Leans forward, a bit of a sparkle in her dark eyes. “It weren’t all that steady. A man a little unsure of his feet. But that’s all I can say. I only passed him a moment. Without that field, I’d not remember him at all.”

A little more to go on. Still not much. He hates going up to Soot. To Clatterings, and Collier's Fair. Worse still to Fly-Ash. Smoke and offal, the runoff of tanneries and gods knows what else. If ever they have to introduce Bill Dravis to the afterlife, well, he can meet the river up by the tanneries. Better than he would deserve.

Nothing for it. He’ll go up tomorrow. Tonight it is already too late, and a Ladies man ain’t welcome so far from home when even the pitiful streetlights don’t shine. Nasty fellows up that way. Felling hammers and meathooks in hand. They’d make short work of him. And at this time of night, there’d be no one to ask. He swallows a mouthful of tea, nearly choking on it. He’s got few contacts up that way. It ain’t his patch. Still, he knows a man who does. A man who’s owed favors. He owes him too.

“Ma, can I stay here tonight? I need to steel myself for tomorrow.” He takes another swallow of the tea, gathering himself. “I’ve got to go and talk to Wilkes.”

Ma’s smile fades, her face grows, not quite sad, but that worry that only a mother can wear. She nods and gestures toward the old and battered sofa. Then, she rises, crosses the little room over to a table, and picks up a heavy glass bottle. It meets the table with a heavy thunk. You could kill a man with that bottle. She pulls the cork and slides it over. Whiskey. It was time to talk real business.

Roll

> @Runcible Spoon#6257: `1d6` = (5) = 5 (wheedling information out of Ma)
@Sidekick#6198
[/roll]

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - Lesser Larch Street, Smike's End

The Thirty-ninth of Vortas 2719, Eleven minutes past the twenty-ninth hour

Part V - Shrikeweed

T

he Thief arrives with only an hour to spare. No matter, he has arrived all the same.

“Apologies Mr Shrike,” he is breathing hard, both flushed and pale, looking more than a little worse for wear. His scarf is undone, and there are welts, as if from fingers, fading slightly, turning a livid green. A lean and a limp shows he’s favoring his left side. It is a familiar stance, and one he knows all too well. Bruised ribs, perhaps cracked. Bad enough to hurt with each breath. Not so bad that the Thief cannot run. And he has run. How far? It cannot be all the way from Painted Ladies. Miles of twisting streets, dead ends and alleyways, then on and over the river, and at last up the hill to the rooms up on Smike’s End. He will have taken some conveyance. Why not take it all the way here, or at least to the Larch Street junction?

“Come in. Catch your breath, gather yourself.” He ushers Bailey in, does not bother with the removal of boots or the donning of slippers. Such civilities can be suspended. There is news. There is data. What else matters? So he coaxes him into a chair by the dying fire. The Thief collapses, winces at the pain of it, slows his breathing, winces a bit more. Slow now, slow, Bailey regains some of the composure he tossed aside in this last, mad dash. His breathing evens out at last, color beginning to re-balance in his face.

Now is not the moment for the Thief to speak. It would be no kindness to insist now. He looks at the clock on his desk. Forty nine minutes until midnight. Long enough to recover, long enough to begin his report before the appointed day is passed. He will give the Thief that, let him rest in assurance that he has fulfilled his obligations. Fulfilled them in letter and in spirit.

The tea in the iron pot is still steaming. He poured it perhaps ten minutes ago. Ordinary green tea scented orchid flowers. The Thief could stand a cup, something to slow him further, something to bring a little more warmth to him. And he could use a cup as well. To feel the heat passing into his fingers through a celadon cup, to hold, to turn. Two cups, bowls really, smooth and handless. He has always preferred such cups. Less genteel perhaps, less the kind of cup one might find in an Incumbent’s drawing room, but then again, he was no Incumbent.

The pale green liquid pours fast and hot, steam still rising. A fine, sharp, floral scent. Green like the tea. “Here,” he says, pressing the bow into Bailey’s hand, “drink, and take your time. Unless the city is ablaze or our lives are to be snuffed out, I can wait for your report.” Bailey nods, a faint smile on his lips. Relief. Thanks. He brings the bowl to his lips, closes his eyes, and lets the heat and fragrance dispel whatever freezing fog in upon him.

And as for himself? There is still work to do, still documents to be cross-referenced, reports to be read. Transcripts over which to pore. It is not as though he had planned to turn in, not for hours. Perhaps not until well after dawn.

The Incumbent will not expect him tomorrow. The tens are days of his own. Days meant for rest. Days he spends spreading himself thin as tissue-paper. As fragile? He has not broken yet. The gears behind his eyes turn onward, the ink in his veins does not run dry. “My head is full of words,” he says, to himself, to the papers upon his desk. And it is full. Full to bursting. Pages upon pages of notes, of memoranda, of marginalia, of commentary, and still the words push outward from within his skull. He cannot purge them fast enough, cannot drain his mind before it fills again.

“Got another couple for you.” Bailey, turning in his chair by the fire, voice almost sounding living, like himself. He is still holding the tea bowl, still looking haggard, battered and bruised. Behind that, the flashing wickedness, the spark of devious, of secret knowledge. “If your head can stand them.”

He will stand them. “What are the words?”

The Thief takes another sip of the tea, leans back into the shadows of the chair. He is silent for a little while, building suspense. The silence thickens, and somehow the shadows of the chair, the shadows around Bailey seem to grow deeper. He has never understood if this is magic, or some trick he has learned. There is always a little magic about the Thief, tiny things, the barest of whispers from an alien field so unlike his own. And there is long practice as well. The Thief has told him as much, that he was born and raised to the trade, to be unnoticed, invisible, silent. Whatever the origin, the shadows around Bailey’s face, the shadows of the dying fire, grow conspiratorial, leaning in to listen to everything that is said. Or to obscure it all from prying eyes.


“Tom Cooke.” A common enough sounding name. It makes no appearance in any of his research. It is attached to no report, no litigation or tax statement. In the files of his memory the name has no entry. A man’s name, simple, solid. A human name. An Anaxi name.

“Should I know the name? Or is this some new contact, some other person to track down?” If so, the thread is growing longer and longer. Thinner and thinner. Already there are too many names. Over a dozen now, and growing. What is one more name?”

“Funny thing sir, but I think you know him. But not by that name. This is one he wears when he don’t wish to be himself.” A wink, a grin. There is no doubt who the Thief means. That does not mean all is revealed. Obscurity persists, but at least there is a dim shape of it now.

Tom Cooke. Another name. It would be, he remembers thinking, much easier if they were two men. The one before, and the one after. ‘He’ and ‘I’. ‘His’ name he has known for months, for years. It is the name that in public and perhaps in private, matches the man. There is ‘I’’s name now. Or at least a name to call him by. The other man. The man himself. Have you kept them carefully apart, Incumbent? One man for the light, for politics and society? A man of convention and seeming rectitude. And the other? The man of sentiment, and a man of a less salubrious past. Why make such a man, endow him with a name and even a history, why bring life to a fiction? Who, what, is ‘Tom Cooke’?

There is no obvious answer. Still, the man exists, has come into full being now. The man of the hour, the name who wears the Incumbent’s face. No. He wears his own face, always has, but now, it seems, he wears it alone.

What can unmake a man? It is a wrong question, though he asks it every day. A blind alley down which he has walked too far. It is late to turn around, but not too late. A new question then. What can change the nature of a man? Old and new, before and after, Anatole and Tom. The same, and not the same. Always the latter in ascendancy. Tom waxes and Anatole wanes. They are out of balance, out of joint. For how long? Time, it is said, is an arrow, but all else goes in cycles. How many times has the cycle happened before? How long until another turning?

“Well done Bailey. We have more than when we started.” He looks at the bruises on the Thief’s throat, notes the labored rise and fall of his breath. More is known. A price has been paid. “Your injuries. Were they sustained in learning the name?” Bailey nods, and says nothing more. He is entitled to some secrets of his own. “A physician. Should I call for one?”

“No need Mr Shrike. It ain’t bad, and nothing I’ve not suffered before. It’s all a few days old in any event. More pain than damage, you see. Cost of doing business is all.” True enough. The price for information is high. And he knows well that it can be bought for pain. “I’ll be right as rain in a couple of days. And I ain’t done yet. There’s more afoot I don’t understand. The Incumbent keeps going back to the fabric shop, keeps having long conversations with Miss Weaver. In that back room. Conversations I can never quite make out. I’ve heard old lovers talk sir, any number of times, but this tone’s all wrong. Not amourous. Not bitter. Kind sir, but not passionate. Avuncular’s nearer the mark. It don’t make no sense sir. No sense at all.”

One more curious thing. One more mystery to add to the pile. The pile is growing all too rapidly. If he is not careful, he will be crushed in the avalanche.