Текст книги "The Abyss Beyond Dreams"

Автор книги: Peter F. Hamilton

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

They were just finishing dessert, a heavy walnut sponge coated in thick toffee syrup, when a batch of Arnice’s friends came in. Slvasta didn’t even have to use his ex-sight to see who was making their way up the club’s broad stairs. He heard them a long time before they reached the restaurant. Their braying voices carried through the club, full of sneering and self-confidence. Slvasta never did understand how someone as basically decent as Arnice could ever talk with such people, let alone actively seek out their company.

The three of them blundered into the restaurant and, as one, yelled greetings to Arnice, sauntering over, stealing spare chairs from other tables. Their breath smelt of narnik smoke and whisky.

Slvasta stayed for a tactful five minutes, then excused himself. Arnice barely noticed. As he headed down the stairs, Slvasta saw with some dismay that Jaix was laughing heartily at the anecdotes of the youthful aristocrats. She would make Arnice an excellent bride, he thought.

‘Are you really going?’ Lanicia ’pathed him.

‘Yes, ’fraid so.’

‘Wait.’ She appeared at the top of the stairs and hurried down towards him. ‘You weren’t going to leave me with them, were you? What kind of officer and gentleman does that?’

He grinned. ‘Sorry.’

‘Sometimes I wonder how we ever survive the Fallers. I thank Giu we still have men like you, to protect us.’

‘We all play our part.’

‘Ha.’ She rolled her eyes and made a remarkably obscene gesture towards the floor above. ‘They don’t.’

Slvasta began to re-evaluate Lanicia in an altogether more favourable light – and realized he was staring at her divine face again. ‘There are always ways round people like that.’

‘So what party are you going to tonight?’ she asked as they walked across the entrance hall.

‘I won’t be. I have some work to do. It’s a good time to catch up.’

‘Oh, Slvasta, that’s terrible. Everybody parties the night a Skylord arrives, from the stevedores up to the Captain himself. We deserve it. Don’t you think?’

‘It would be nice, but, like I said, someone has to remain vigilant.’

They reached the door, and the concierge clicked his fingers, calling a carriage from the waiting rank.

‘I will be attending the Kayllian family party tonight,’ she said as the carriage pulled by a black terrestrial horse drew up beside them. ‘But until then I shall probably take to my bed to rest. I keep a day villa on Fortland Street. Would you care to escort me there, captain?’

Given his pause could only have lasted a second, Slvasta was impressed with himself for just how many thoughts for and against ran through his mind. ‘I would be delighted at such a duty.’

*

As always, Slvasta woke at six o’clock, just before his alarm clock was set of go off. His teekay reached out and flicked the little toggle on the top of the clock so it wouldn’t ring the hemispherical copper bells. He was glad to find it there beside the bed; indeed he was glad to find he was in his own lodgings, for he couldn’t really recall much about travelling back here last night. He’d certainly taken a cab from Fortland Street, but he’d kept dozing off during the ride home. An afternoon in Lanicia’s bed was as exhausting as a week of Faller combat exercises. She’d been very keen to explore the potential for wickedness his strong teekay could accomplish, casting off her shell as fast as she did her clothes. And his missing arm certainly didn’t seem to bother her.

He lay there in bed as the usual sounds of the morning city washed over him, remembering their repeated couplings throughout the afternoon, some dreamy part of his mind wondering what life would be like if they were wed and every night was spent like that. He sighed ruefully at the impossible thought. By now he’d learned that his status condemned him to being nothing more than an audacious dalliance for girls of Lanicia’s upbringing, some spicy sexual shenanigans before her inevitable society wedding. Still, there were worse things, he decided. And Lanicia had seemed different to the normal debutantes – more independent, smarter, more curious about the world. Not so . . . pointless. He shook his head at such whimsy and went into the little bathroom.

Slvasta had lodgings in Number Seventeen Rigattra Terrace, a nice four-storey white stone building overlooking Malvine Square, in the centre of one of Varlan’s more affluent districts. A proper gentleman’s residence. The landlord (from an old metropolitan family) had been delighted to accept a bachelor officer, even though Slvasta was only from a county regiment. The rent alone was equal to his captain’s salary, but of course that was paid for by the regiment.

Water gurgled in the pipes as he turned on the brass tap; as always, he had to wait a minute for it to warm up. There was a communal boiler somewhere in the building, burning logs loaded by the landlord’s mod-dwarfs. Everybody in Number Seventeen had one or two of the mods as servants. The practice was so well established that the building actually incorporated their pens in the basement, with a separate warren of passages and little doors opening into all the residents’ rooms. But Slvasta, of course, refused to have any kind of mod in his lodgings and had bolted the little door from the inside as well as putting a heavy dresser in front of it.

He still had a couple of clean dress shirts in the wardrobe. The pile of dirty linen was getting unreasonably large again. Without mod-dwarfs cleaning the rooms and taking care of such things, he had to organize his own laundry service.

The last of the dawn river mist was drifting away as he left Number Seventeen. A team of civic council mod-dwarfs were busy in the street, extinguishing the flames in the street lamps, trimming the wicks and refilling the little reservoirs with pressed yalseed oil ready for the night. He nodded to their wrangler and made his way down Tandier Avenue to Rose’s Croissant Café. It was his first stop every morning. Inside, he joined the usual bunch of early risers, plus a few nightshift people on their way home. These were working people, and he felt comfortable around them. It had taken a while for the other regulars to grow accustomed to him, but he was now accepted as one of them.

Rose herself was serving this morning: a big woman in her eighties, wearing a floral-print dress. ‘Half my girls are late,’ she complained as she brought his orange and mango juice over. ‘Out partying last night, no doubt. So it might take a moment longer this morning, sorry.’

‘Guidance is worth celebrating,’ he assured her.

She gave his face a shrewd look. ‘And they weren’t alone,’ she decided. ‘I think someone had a nice time last night.’

‘I’ll have scrambled egg and smoked lofish on brown toast, Rose, please. With tea.’

‘She’s a lucky girl,’ Rose declared as she left.

Slvasta grinned and opened one of the news sheets Rose provided for her clientele. The rack beside the door held both official news gazettes and pamphlets from the smaller political parties. Rose had been nervous the first week he started visiting her café when she saw him reading through the pamphlets, most of which were critical of the National Council, or the Captain’s officials (never the Captain himself, which Slvasta found interesting). But he was interested in the genuine grievances that were raised in the pamphlets – the way cheap old housing was kept in such bad repair, the rising cost of food, the lack of jobs and the low wages among the poor, the slow but noticeable increase in people drifting to Varlan from various outlying provinces, particularly Rakwesh. And always the rumours of nests – though most of those were satirical attacks on suspicious ties between merchant families and councillors. Then there was Hilltop Eye, a relatively new pamphlet that always contained some highly embarrassing stories of the aristocracy and their corrupt involvement with officials, or some family’s semi-legal financial affairs. Twice in recent months, the city sheriffs had tried to track down the ‘citizens’ collective’ that produced it – to no avail. Distribution was clever, with civic mod-dwarfs counter-ordered and given the pamphlets to take to cafés and pubs and theatres. Nobody knew who or what the citizens’ collective was, though the best rumour Slvasta had heard in the Regimental Council offices was that the Captain’s family was behind it, using public condemnation as an excuse for cracking down on families that didn’t pay their full taxes. The latest Hilltop Eye had arrived overnight while everyone was out partying (good tactics, Slvasta thought admiringly). Its main story was about the hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old mayor of New Angeles, Livanious, who it seemed was diverting a lot of city funds into his own coffers to pay for outrageously decadent parties and keeping a seventeen-year-old mistress, Jubette, in a luxury villa on an offshore island – safely away from his (seventh) wife. Livanious, as everyone knew, was Captain Philious’s uncle.

So much for Hilltop Eye being produced by the Captain’s family, then, Slvasta thought cheerfully as he ate his scrambled eggs. There were quite a few people in the café chortling over the pamphlet as they had breakfast. It was a bold story to put into print, confirming what everyone ’path gossiped anyway. The problem the authorities had with Hilltop Eye was the way it encouraged other pamphlets to be equally audacious. Questions about the activities it reported were already being asked in several district councils. Nothing in the National Council yet. But if it carried on exposing theft and fraud like this, people would want to know just what Captain Philious was going to do about it. Probably a question the good Captain would be asking himself this fine morning.

*

Slvasta arrived at the Joint Regimental Council building just after eight o’clock. It was a monolithic stone building on Cantural Street, whose three lower floors were a maze of corridors leading to hundreds of small offices occupied by junior staff. Slvasta, at least, had an office on the fourth floor, with a broad arching window that gave him a view out into the central quad, with its fountain and topiary flameyews.

Keturah and Thelonious, his assistants, were waiting for him as he settled behind his desk. Both of them held bundles of files and papers, which made him shudder inwardly. Thelonious had bruised-looking eyes set in a pale face, and his shell was none too stable, allowing little bursts of nausea to trickle out – clearly badly hungover. Slvasta chose to ignore it.

‘What have I got?’ he asked.

‘Transport policy sub-committee meeting at ten,’ Keturah said. She checked her clipboard. ‘Aflar nest incursion briefing at fifteen hundred hours – the Marine Commandant will be chairing that one himself. Inter-region communication and cooperation budget sub-committee meeting, seventeen hundred hours.’

It was an effort, but Slvasta managed not to groan. ‘Okay. Reports?’

Thelonious stepped up to the desk and put his pile of files down on the oak top. ‘Two Falls in the last ten days. We’re just getting the notice from Portlynn. The other was way down south in Vondara.’

‘Thanks. I’d like the final Portlynn report when it comes in. For now, just get me some tea, please, and remind me about the transport meeting a quarter of an hour before it starts.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Keturah said with a hesitant smile.

Slvasta waved them both out. When the heavy door had shut behind them, he looked at the map of Bienvenido, which took up an entire wall. It was covered in tiny yellow pins, indicating Falls. They were denser in the tropics, becoming progressively sparser further from the equator. According to the Watcher Guild, the Faller eggs, which always came from the section of the Forest closest to Bienvenido, would naturally fall along the equator; it was only little inaccuracies in their trajectory as they left the trees, and the way they drifted on the long flight through space, that left them peppering the whole planet.

He went over and stuck two yellow pins in the new Fall zones. His map had several clusters of red pins for sweeps in which their officers had reported suspected impacts devoid of an egg. And, according to the Marine Commandant’s office, the Faller Research Institute hadn’t issued any requests for a new egg to experiment on for years now. He’d sent Keturah over there to check; she’d come back with a date with one of the junior clerks and his promise to report any such request when it happened.

The first red pin Slvasta had ever put in the map, the day he arrived, was just below Adice, where he’d encountered Nigel. Black pins were based on reports of people disappearing without explanation. He’d set the criteria as three or more people in one area to qualify. The heaviest concentrations, naturally enough, were in Rakwesh Province and the Aflar peninsula, west of the Spine mountains.

As always, he stared at the ‘Nigel’ pin. There were few other red ones near it, and no black ones within two hundred miles. If Nigel had taken any more eggs, it wasn’t anywhere within five hundred miles of Adice. In fact, Slvasta hadn’t read any report of missing eggs that matched the profile.

‘Where are you?’ he asked the map.

*

The transport policy sub-committee meeting was held in one of the big conference rooms on the fifth floor. Twenty-three officers (seven of them majors) sat around a long mercedar table; that left another seventeen chairs empty. Age-darkened oil paintings of past regimental commanders gazed down at them from the walls. Aides and staff bustled round, served tea and coffee to the officers, then took their seats around the wall, notepads open and pens ready.

Arnice sat next to Slvasta and told his staff to fetch him a coffee. ‘My third this morning,’ he confessed. ‘How about you? Did you have a good night?’

‘Very pleasant,’ Slvasta said, keeping his smile to a minimum.

‘You sly old dog, you. Jaix said Lanicia told her you both had a great time together.’

‘That’s what I like to hear – first-hand information.’

‘In this city? Listen, that’s like a licensed news gazette. So when are you seeing her again?’

‘No real plans.’

‘My dear fellow, you must strike while the iron’s hot. Her family owns part of the South-Western Rail Line company. Admittedly, she’s only the fourth daughter, but nonetheless there’ll be a handsome dowry for you there.’

‘And what about the person herself?’

‘You really do have a lot to learn about society, don’t you? I now officially consider it my personal challenge to see you wed properly by year’s end.’

‘Really? Then do please tell me what her father is going to say when he meets a one-armed pauper.’

‘And that is going to be the first part of your education. Do away with your modesty, learn to emphasize your finer points. None of the chaps in this town is a tenth as honourable or heroic as you. Admit it, you’re a fine catch. And, married well, you could go back to Cham and take over the regiment.’

‘In another fifty years.’

‘Ah, great Giu, that’s clearly my second challenge. You’re in such a hurry to get things done. Life here has a pace, a rhythm.’

‘One that suits you, not me.’

‘I’m on your side. Come now, shall I ’path Jaix to set up a meal tonight? A splendid, fun double date? What do you say? And don’t try and claim you’re frightfully busy, for I know you’re not.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Excellent answer. We’re meeting the gals at the Piarro restaurant at eight thirty.’

Slvasta shook his head, grinning ruefully. ‘You are impossible.’

‘My pleasure.’

Colonel Gelasis from the Captain’s Marines called the meeting to order. There were twenty-seven items on the agenda, from the provision of trains and increasing the cooperation of the rail companies (by National Council law if necessary) to boot leather selection for tropical-based regiments. The only item Slvasta cared about was fourteenth, the one he’d proposed; he’d had to back numerous other items and policies to even have it considered. That had been a hard and rapid introduction to political horse trading. Item fourteen was the legal requirement for all regiments to abandon mod-horses in favour of terrestrial ones when engaged in a Fall sweep.

‘Excellent notion,’ Colonel Gelasis said. ‘Especially in view of Captain Slvasta’s testimony concerning abnormal Faller control of mod-animals. I trust everyone read the report?’

There was a general wave of amusement round the table, which Slvasta did his best to play along with. He didn’t need dropped shells to know the answer to that one: no. It was his own response to all the other appended reports on the items. It was always a puzzle, given that he spent his days achieving nothing, that he had no time for anything.

‘If I may,’ Major Rennart said.

Slvasta looked at Rennart with interest. He wasn’t a regiment officer, but on assignment from the Lord General’s staff.

Gelasis gave him the floor.

‘I’d like to second the proposal, and move that it is forwarded to the Treasury for a detailed cost–benefit and implementation timescale analysis.’

‘Is that good?’ Slvasta ’pathed privately to Arnice.

‘They’re taking it seriously, if that’s what you mean.’

‘How long will that take?’ Slvasta asked out loud.

‘I will see that it gets a top team,’ Rennart replied.

‘Yes, but how long until they finish reviewing it?’

Rennart glanced round the table, with a what-can-you-do? mien showing through his shell. ‘Those of us serving for a while are familiar with the progress of review teams.’

That brought several chortles from the officers. The aides were starting to watch keenly.

‘Could you tell us newbies?’ Slvasta asked impassively.

‘The preliminary report shouldn’t take more than a year.’

‘A year?’ Slvasta couldn’t believe it. Aside from his attempts to try and spot any sign of Nigel within the myriad of reports he could request, Slvasta had devoted all his efforts to engineering a switch to terrestrial horses. It was the first stage in what he considered the essential modernization of regimental practices. ‘Why does it need a year? And why involve the National Treasury? This is a matter for individual adjutants, surely? My own Cham regiment was instigating the change when I left.’

‘That’s very commendable of them,’ Rennart said. ‘But if we start to issue advisement notices that involve any sizeable purchase, those same county adjutants will send the bill back to the Treasury. And, believe me, young captain, you do not want to be held responsible for annoying the Captain’s Chief Chancellor.’

‘But—’

‘I’d advise you to listen to Major Rennart,’ Colonel Gelasis said. ‘We have a way of doing things here. I understand that they are slow and irritating to any serving officer recently brought in from the field, but nonetheless this is the way that three thousand years of government has produced as best method. You cannot argue with that much history. Now, captain, you have an excellent opportunity to see your proposal move forward towards enactment. If it is not approved for Treasury review, I will have no choice but to strike it from Council policy. How do you wish to proceed?’

Arnice didn’t move. He wasn’t looking at Slvasta, and his face was perfectly impassive. ‘Take it,’ he ’pathed privately. ‘For the love of Giu, Slvasta, be practical. The more paperwork you create, the harder it is for the administration to ignore it.’

Slvasta nodded formally to Major Rennart. ‘My apologies, I meant no disrespect. I am indeed accustomed to faster decisions. But, given this opportunity, I would like to second the proposal for Treasury review.’

‘Splendid,’ Colonel Gelasis said. ‘Vote, gentlemen, please.’

Everyone raised a hand.

‘Excellent. Major Rennart, kindly see that through. Now, item fifteen, provision to increase sweep deployment remuneration for reserve forces’ daily food consumption.’

Slvasta didn’t even bother to listen. Once again he hated himself for being beaten, for playing their game. He hated Arnice for being right, too. There was only one way to do things – the same way there’d always been. Friends of the Treasury officials who owned stud stables would be brought up to speed about the proposal, allowing them to prepare their responses to the official request to purchase bid, when it was eventually issued. In about ten years’ time.

‘You did well,’ Arnice assured him as they walked down the stairs together afterwards.

‘It doesn’t feel like it,’ Slvasta told him.

‘Nonsense. You’ve only been here eighteen months, and you’ve already got the Lord General reviewing a proposal.’

‘I suppose . . .’

‘Well, not the Lord General himself, more like his staff.’

‘Right.’

‘Actually, if we’re being realistic: his staff’s clerks.’

‘You’re always such a comfort, aren’t you?’

‘Look at it this way: I’ve never had an item moved up to that level.’

‘All right. So what happens now?’

‘They’ll spend a year and a vast amount of money messing it about and watering it down, then it’ll be shown to one of the Chancellor’s junior under-secretaries, who’ll add his own notes and send it back for further review. After it’s been bounced around for a while with everyone contributing to show their own worth and importance, it’ll be sent up to the National Council financial review board for a final vote. Oh yes, and you’ll be the one who presents it to them. A wife like Lanicia will give you greater kudos when you do.’

‘Water it down?’ Slvasta asked incredulously. ‘We either buy the horses or we don’t. How can that be watered down?

Arnice raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ll find out. Treasury chaps can be rather inventive when it comes to purchase proposals. Always have been. That’s just the way of it.’

Slvasta wanted to bellow in frustration. To think, when he woke this morning he’d assumed he would finally be making progress. ‘Then maybe it shouldn’t be the way of it.’

‘Ah, a revolution,’ Arnice said. ‘Now there’s a true goal for you. Be nice to your old upper-crust friends when it comes to putting us aristos in front of the firing squad, eh?’

‘I certainly won’t forget what you’ve done for me.’

‘I should think not. Starting with the Piarro at eight thirty tonight. Don’t be late.’ Arnice patted him on the shoulder and hurried on down the stairs to hail another group of officers.

Slvasta watched him talk to them, the easy chat and smiles. He almost envied the way Arnice knew everyone, knew what to say and how to comport himself. If it had been Arnice putting the proposal forward, it wouldn’t be diverted by Major crudding Rennart. He had the connections, knew the way to smooth progress. The embodiment of the very system that was thwarting Slvasta.

‘I’m out for the afternoon,’ Slvasta told Keturah and Thelonious when he reached his office.

‘But, sir, you’ve got—’

‘Don’t argue,’ he snapped at Keturah. ‘Rearrange things.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Her shell didn’t quite harden fast enough to conceal her resentment at the way she was being treated.

Join the club, he thought, and stomped out.

*

It wasn’t that far to the National Tax Office, a walk down Walton Boulevard towards the palace, then cross over at the junction with Struzaburg Avenue where the statue of the Landing Plane stood – a weird triangular sculpture, badly worn by time and constant bird droppings. Half a mile along Wahren Street, the granite façade of the Tax Office’s hall of records loomed over the delicate bundwine trees with their ruddy spine-leaves waving in the wind. Eight storeys of offices and archives with small dark windows that didn’t open. He’d been told there were more archives below it as well – ten basement levels, apparently.

The circular entrance galleria was clad in a drab brown marble, with broad stairs spiralling up all eight storeys, where it was topped by an elaborate glass cupola. There were two receptionists behind the curving desk, and five civic guards. If it hadn’t been for his uniform, he doubted he would have been allowed through the door.

‘Do you have an appointment, captain?’ one of the receptionists asked. He was an elderly man in a black tailcoat with a grey striped waistcoat. His glasses were thick pebbles. The whole place with its silent, timeless existence was draining Slvasta’s anger and determination away fast.

‘I’d like to see a clerk called Bethaneve, please,’ he said, hoping his rank was enough to ensure compliance.

‘Is she expecting you?’

‘She is dealing with a case for me. It has become an urgent matter for the Joint Regimental Council.’

‘I see.’ The receptionist wrote something on a small chit and handed it to a mod-dwarf, the smallest one Slvasta had ever seen. The creature disappeared into a little archway behind the desk. ‘If you’d like to wait, captain.’

Slvasta sat on one of the two wooden benches, which looked out of place in the big space. By the time the mod-dwarf returned, all his early determination had gone, evaporated into the cool air, and he was feeling slightly foolish at his impetuosity. But the setback in the policy meeting had been infuriating. He wanted to achieve something today. Just for once.

‘Bethaneve will see you,’ the receptionist said. ‘Office five-thirty-two.’ He gestured to one of the guards.

The five flights of curving stairs made Slvasta realize how long it had been since he’d done a run. He was breathing heavily when they started walking down one of the long corridors on the fifth floor. They must have passed fifty doors, his ex-sight revealed clerks sitting behind desks in their individual offices. The long rooms between them contained row after row of shelving, with every centimetre crammed with files and ledgers.

‘No ex-sight perception, please,’ the guard told him. ‘Tax material is classified.’

Slvasta almost protested that ex-sight couldn’t read entries on paper even if he could distinguish individual sheets, but of course that was one of the rules. It didn’t matter if it was relevant or not.

The guard knocked on a door.

‘Come in,’ a ’path voice said.

The guard opened the door. ‘I will wait until you’ve finished, then escort you out,’ he told Slvasta, and indicated a wooden seat back at the last junction.

Bethaneve was a surprise. He’d been expecting someone at least as old as the receptionists downstairs. Instead she was about his age, with thick unstyled auburn hair that hung just below her shoulders. She wore a green cardigan over a shapeless blue polkadot dress which had a slim white lace collar and a skirt that fell almost to her ankles, but allowed a view of her black leather shoes. It was the kind of outfit he would expect to see on a centenarian. But then it fitted the location, no matter how young and bright the wearer.

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he said.

‘I’ve been here seventeen months, and nobody has ever asked for an appointment before,’ she said with a small smile. ‘Actually, I don’t know anyone on this floor who’s ever had a visitor. I’ll be talked about for weeks in the canteen.’

He smiled back. Bethaneve wasn’t as pretty as Lanicia. Her features were too broad, and her nose larger – which was an unfair comparison, he told himself sternly. For Bethaneve had a lightness which was especially noticeable in this small dreary office with its single high window.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It was just that I did put in a review request four months ago. You sent me an acknowledgement and said it was underway. I’d appreciate a progress report.’

‘Yes, that was unusual. We’ve never had a request from the military before.’

‘Is that a problem? I was told I had the authority to make the request.’ It was Arnice who’d suggested it as a way of tracking down his elusive quarry after he’d found nothing in the Erond regiment personnel records. Everybody on Bienvenido had a Tax Office file, the one inescapable constant.

‘As one of the Captain’s officers, you do, yes.’

‘So? How’s it going?’

She gave him an awkward look, then gestured to one of the shelves which covered two walls of the office from floor to ceiling. Black and red leather ledgers were piled up all along it, looking as if they were about to slide off. By the archive hall’s standards, it was akin to anarchy. ‘This is my investigation. I’m working through every variant of Nigel I could think of registered in Erond county.’

‘And you haven’t found him?’ Slvasta sighed.

‘No. Certainly not a trader as you described. However, there are some boatowners who have similar businesses, although none of them is called Nigel.’ She smiled.

Slvasta liked that smile, it animated her. ‘Ah, excellent. Can I see their files?’

‘These are just the registration ledgers,’ she said. ‘The actual files are still in the vaults. I haven’t requested them yet.’

Slvasta looked at her, seeing the smile fade. Looked round the woeful office. ‘You have a lot on. I understand.’

‘Oh,’ she blushed. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. If it’s really urgent I can order the files up. They’ll be here in a week. My supervisor has to approve the request.’

Slvasta started laughing. ‘Rushing it through, huh?’

‘It’s really quite quick.’ She shrugged. ‘By archive standards, anyway. It’s just . . . things are done in a certain way.’

‘Because that’s the way they’re always done.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I thank you for putting in the request. Can I ask another favour?’

She nodded quickly. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘I’d like to take you out to dinner. Tonight, if you’re not doing anything.’

Bethaneve blushed again as she gave him a startled look, but her gaze didn’t stay on his empty sleeve for very long. ‘Um, well . . .’

‘Please say yes. I’ll have to go out with my fellow officers if you don’t. Would you really wish that on anyone?’

‘That’s a trick question,’ she said, her voice challenging, not a clerk’s voice at all.

‘Not really. I’m just a country boy, posted to the city and finding it hard. Take pity on me, please.’

‘My landlady locks the door at ten thirty.’

‘Quite right, too. Can I pick you up at seven?’

‘Yes. Thank you. That would be nice.’

And so very worth enduring Arnice’s dismay at abandoning their double date.

*

Bethaneve had lodgings on Borton Street, an area where housing was a lot cheaper than anything on Rigattra Terrace. But not quite working class, he decided as the carriage pulled up outside the neat three-storey blue-brick house. Borton Street was formed by old, classically tasteful houses, with cracks running up the brickwork and walls starting to bulge. In another century or two they’d be demolished and replaced, as they had replaced those that stood here before. Such was the cycle of continual regeneration. The city didn’t get any bigger, though Arnice claimed each cycle built a little higher than the last. Like the society it housed, Varlan craved stability.