It had been a bad idea to bring him. Vick knew she was better off alone. A lesson learned fresh in the camps with every family member gone in the frozen ground. Her father, shivering, lips turned blue, shortened fingers turned black. Her mother, always asking what she’d done to deserve this, as though deserve had anything to do with it. All the sweat and pain it had taken to get that medicine for her sister. Turning up with the bottle gripped tight to find her stiff and cold under the threadbare blankets, her brother still holding her hand. Only the two of them left. Vick and her brother. His big, sad eyes, just like Tallow’s.
You’ll never hold up someone who can’t swim for themselves. In the end, they’ll drag you down with them.
Mozolia sighed, stretching one arm across the back of the bench. “But I daresay you have not crossed the Circle Sea to discuss trees.”
“No. To discuss the forthcoming vote.”
“People here talk of little else. A momentous decision. But not one that you and I can take any part in. Women cannot be Aldermen, after all.”
Vick snorted. “Women might not sit in the Assembly, but they can still control the men who do. You have at least five votes in your pocket.”
Mozolia shrugged her heavy shoulders. “Six. Possibly seven.”
“I wonder if you might be persuaded to cast them for the Union.”
“I might be. But not easily. I had one grandparent from Yashtavit, one from Sikkur, a third from Ospria and a fourth from the Old Empire. I am welcome, or perhaps equally unwelcome, at five different temples in the city. I sometimes forget which version of God I am supposed to be praying to. In other nations I would be called a mongrel. In this mongrel city I am the norm.” She smiled out at the yellow lawns, where people of every shape and colour walked, sat, chatted in the shade of every strange and wonderful tree God had made. “A merchant in fabrics cannot afford to take a narrow view. My business stretches across the Circle of the World. Suljuk silks and Gurkish linens, Imperial cottons and woollens from the North.”
“Not to mention all those fine new textiles spooling from the mills of the Union.”
“Not to mention those.”
“It would be a shame, for a merchant in fabrics to be cut off from the largest market in the world.”
“There would be frustrations, of course, but, like water, commerce always works through the cracks in time. And becoming a part of Styria would offer its own opportunities.”
“I understand the Serpent of Talins can be a domineering mistress.”
Mozolia’s turn to snort. “As several Union generals have discovered to their cost. But when people are willing to compromise, she can be reasonable. Look how the citizens of Talins have prospered under her rule! And I rather like the idea of a woman in charge, don’t you? Even a domineering one. We women really should do everything we can to work together.”
“Or should we do exactly what the men do, and put sentiment to the side, and follow the greatest profit?”
Mozolia smiled, ever so slightly. “Fancy that. You speak Styrian after all. I hope His Eminence sent an unsentimental sum of money along with you.”
“Something better.” Vick flicked open the letter and held it out between two fingers. The signature of Arch Lector Glokta lurked at the bottom, the lethal punchline. “Trade rights once controlled by the Guild of Mercers, managed by His Majesty’s Inquisition for these last thirty years. His Eminence is prepared to cut you in, quite handsomely.”
Mozolia took the letter and weighed every word. Vick didn’t rush her. She closed her eyes and tipped her face towards the sun, breathed in the perfumed air. So rare, she had a moment to just sit.
“A nice, neat bribe.” Mozolia lowered the letter. “Well judged.”
“I understand that here in Westport, you like to be honest about your corruption.”
“I take it all back, you are positively fluent.” Mozolia rocked her weight forward and stood, casting Vick into shadow again. “I shall consider your offer.”
“Don’t take too long. We women really should do everything we can to work together.”
Vick nudged the over-heavy drapes aside to peer into the street. The sun was setting on a largely wasted day, a muddy flare above the maze of mismatched rooftops, the thirsty treetops, the puffing chimneys, the spires of a hundred temples to a dozen versions of the Almighty. She wondered if it helped, to believe in God. Whether it was reassuring or terrifying, to look at all this shit and know for sure it was part of some grand plan.
Vick pressed her thumb into her aching hip as she watched the candles being lit at some Thondish shrine, the lights twinkling in the windows, the bobbing torches of guides who led foreigners to Westport’s best hostelries, best eateries, best back-alley muggings. The low murmur of voices passed the door, a coquettish giggle tinkling off down the hallway.
Tallow frowned around the room. It was an idiot’s idea of how a palace might be decorated, all velvet and peeling gilt. “What kind of arsehole arranges to meet in a brothel?”
“One who likes whores and making people uncomfortable,” said Vick. Sanders Rosimiche, by all accounts, loved both. A strutting loudmouth, but one who’d voiced support for the Union in the past, and a vote was a vote. People often say that bullies should be stood up to, but Vick usually found it more productive to let them bully her. That was why she’d made a rare visit to a dressmaker, in the hope of looking as feminine and yielding as possible. Hair down and combed with oil in the Westport style. She’d even worn perfume, Fates help her. The one thing she’d refused was high shoes. In her line of work, you never knew when you might have to run for your life. Or kick someone in the face.
“Fuck these things,” she grunted, hooking a finger into her corset and trying vainly to wriggle into a comfortable position. Despite being made to measure, it fit her incredibly badly. Or perhaps it was cut to fit the woman people would like her to be, not the one she was.
She wondered what Sibalt would’ve said if he’d seen her dressed like this. I wish I’d met you sooner, maybe. Things might have been different. And she’d have said, You didn’t and they’re not. And he’d have given that weary smile of his and said, You’re a hard case, Vick, and he’d have been right. She caught herself missing him at the oddest times. Missing the warmth of him, the weight of him in her arms, the weight of his arms around her. Missing having someone she could touch.
But Sibalt cut his own throat when she betrayed him. Thinking about what he might’ve done was a waste of time.
She let the drapes fall and turned back into the room, caught Tallow frowning at her, as if at a puzzle he couldn’t quite find the answer to.
“Do you have to keep staring?” she snapped.
“Sorry.” And he shrank back like a puppy got a kick. “It’s just, you look…”
“Absurd?”
“Different, I guess—”
“Don’t forget it’s the same woman underneath. The one who’s got your sister for a hostage.”
“Not likely to forget that, am I?” he snapped, a hint of sullen, useless anger showing. Even that reminded her of her brother. The look he used to have when he told her they had to help people, and she told him they had to help themselves. That wounded righteousness. “Why are you even here?”