Chapter 32
Slant and Heart scoured eastern Buyer's Haven shortly after packing up their box room. They had to make the room look as though no one had ever used it first, which took some time, but they were soon en route. The streets improved dramatically as they went, and they even had to hide from patrolling Contegons, knowing that their dress would attract unwanted attention.
Once they’d run the gauntlet of entering the district, the Custodians each took a section of the quarter: Heart took the shopping district, and Slant took the warehouse district.
“Our nearest safe house is at the quarter's centre,” Heart said before they parted. “It's to the right of a shop called The Custodian, which should be easy enough to remember.”
“Really, it's that obvious?” Slant asked.
“Only to a Custodian,” Heart pointed out.
Slant went north, the point furthest from the other quarters with the cheapest and least-opportune land, to the warehouses. Buyer's Haven was still neat there, clean and liveable: the houses were well-maintained, the streets were regularly cleared of detritus, and the air seemed almost perfumed. It reminded him of the transition from the slums of Outer Aureu to the city proper.
This similarity angered Slant, made him painfully aware of the paucity of his clothing, especially compared to the Merchant's gold coats and their spouses' finery. He reaped odd looks, though no one challenged him as Merchants use the Stationless as cheap labour.
That was a problem, wasn't it? The Merchants were charged with providing a stable economy to generate taxes for the other Stations, but they got to keep the profits from their ventures. That encouraged greed. That greater profits mean more taxes for the Bureau only gave the Merchants fuel to cut corners and use the poor and vulnerable. Everyone closed their eyes to this, which gave the Merchants full license to do as they wanted: after all, if they were doing something evil, wouldn’t the other Stations stop them?
A chilling question struck Slant: if this 'quill and ink' Merchant is running a Seed network, would anyone care? If he paid a great deal of taxes, would his fellow Merchants really report him to the Contegones? Slant hoped so, but he couldn't shake the idea that a Merchant would be allowed to poison the poor like that.
Slant dwelt on this idea until he got to the warehouses proper. A series of huge, uniform buildings greeted him, lined up neatly in groups of six. There were easily a hundred of them, some shared between lesser Merchants but most individually owned. Each had Merchants' sigils or names painted on them, writ large in white paint: some were extravagant, others understated, but many were cheap.
These stores serviced Aureu, so, if their Merchant had a warehouse, it would be here, hiding in a shoal.
It was well into the night by then. Lun sprayed cruel light onto the pre-Cleansing buildings, making them look like butchers serving forbidden meat. Deep shadows skittered along each surface, following the Merchants who ran in and out of the warehouses, carting goods or organising, filing and measuring. Clerics were scattered among them, hired by wealthy Merchants to manage their empires, and even the white patches of their crimson robes became gray under Lun’s influence.
Slant remained out of sight, behind barrels or large bins when larger groups approached: there were fewer Stationless around than he’d expected. Perhaps openly using Stationless labour was frowned-upon, and those he’d watched being hired were ferried around in secret. At least, then, there was a line to cross.
Hours passed with him hiding, moving nonchalantly, or being disappointed when a warehouse was not the right one. Sol rose as he got to the last block of warehouses, dispelling Lun's awful light and dyeing the district a vibrant orange. Slant was hungry, thirsty, but determined to finish his apparently-fruitless search, especially when only six warehouses remained. At least they would know where not to find the Merchant...
The first two warehouses belonged to a Merchant who dealt in gems and ore. The third was shared. Bright white writing boasted that a fruit retailer named Joint and a clothier named Write operated from it. There was a small symbol besides the names, one Slant couldn't pick out across the street, so he got closer.
The Merchants had become scarce as Lun crossed the sky, perhaps preparing for a change in shifts, so he was alone. Heart racing, Slant jogged across and stood beneath the warehouse entrance. There, he saw a familiar drawing: a quill dipped into an inkwell.
Finally, this was what they’d been looking for, who they’d been looking for. It was tempting to peer inside, try to carry on alone, but he was risking enough as an unkempt Stationless man in the warehouse district. Instead, he snuck to Aureu's walls and circled the quarter so he wouldn't be noticed as he went to Heart.
As Heart said, there was a shop called the Custodian near the centre of the shopping district, one that sold custom weapons and armour. Slant eyed it for a moment, before moving between the shop and a haberdashery beside it.
Standing by a side door was Heart. It didn't look like he'd been waiting long.
“Good morning,” Slant said.
“Morning,” Heart mumbled. He looked drained: Slant supposed he had been awake for more than a day, having come here straight from his shift at the Zone. “Let's get some rest.”
Heart turned the door handle the wrong way. It moved up and around in his dirty hands, clicking three times during a full rotation. Then the door clicked open.
“Keep an eye out,” Heart said. He hadn't needed to: Slant was already checking for witnesses. Heart then reached up to undo some mechanism above the door, pressing a series of bricks. “Come on.”
No one had seen them unlock the door, and no one watched them enter. Inside, it was another narrow cupboard with string bedding and food hidden beneath the floorboards. Slant wondered how many such places were hidden across Aureu, how many secret locations that just the Custodians had, let alone ones the Stations owned? How had Wasp even arranged these places?
Before he could ask Heart, the senior Custodian rolled into his bed and began to snore. Slant sat down to watered-down wine and salted meat before joining the man in resting.
A dreamless sleep was interrupted when Heart shook Slant awake. “We've work to do.”
It took Slant a minute to wake, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. After he disembarked from his bed and stretched, he noticed that Heart had changed into Cleric's robes. Another set was folded at his feet.
“Where in the name of Lun did you get those from?” Slant said. “I mean, Lun, you've broken half a dozen laws just by putting that thing on.”
“The Custodians are well-connected, despite not being a Station. Yet,” Heart said. He picked up a small mirror from the food and wine compartment in the floor and looked himself over, ensured that the robes fit, that he looked the part.
Slant couldn't believe the nonchalance in his answer. Those were Station robes, clothes only to be worn by those who earned them. Even considering putting them on without permission was Heresy. What would Tower think if she knew Slant was wearing the robes she would spend years and years to earn?
“Seriously, where did you get these?” Slant asked.
Heart turned and sighed. “You're wasting our time.”
“And you're being a Heretic!” Slant shouted. “I can't believe you're not even troubled by this. What you have done, what you are asking me to do, is Heresy.”
“You'd better keep your voice down,” Heart said, stepping to be face-to-face with Slant. “And you'd also better keep your damn opinions to yourself. Particularly when you're wrong.”
“I'm wrong, am I?” Slant hissed. “I'm wrong that we would be put before a Hereticum just for owning these, let alone putting them on, let alone pretending to be Clerics?”
Heart looked him up and down, unsurprised by his reaction. “You're wrong that it's Heretical. There's nothing in the Sol Lexic that forbids wearing the robes of another Station. All we're doing is breaking laws, something which we've already done during this investigation.”
??
?We’d still go to a Hereticum! It's one thing committing fraud against the Stationless, but the Stationed...”
Slant stopped himself, heard what he was saying. Committing fraud was a crime no matter who the victim was. He should be used to breaking the law, as someone who robbed the crooked for money. This line he didn't want to cross was imaginary, enforced by social mores. He looked at Heart, so comfortable in those Cleric robes, and realised that the problem wasn't with Heart. He had already broken all social rules by breaking bones. It was just the severity, enforced by the Stations, which should concern him.
“We'll just try not to get caught, okay, Slant?” Heart said kindly.
“Alright,” Snow said slowly.
“Wash before you dress. Clerics wouldn't stink like us.”
Slant scrubbed himself with a wet flannel and soapy water, both provided by this larger cache of materials. His flesh crawled as he slipped the Cleric robes on, like he was putting on a suit of human skin. But when he was dressed, his robes tied the way that Heart had done his, Sol did not strike him down. Nothing had changed, except for his attire.
“What's the plan, then?” Slant asked, his voice still weak.
“I've found the Merchant's shop. His name's Write. We're going to have a look around. Having Clerics snoop around will make the bastard sweat, perhaps inspire a mistake. And, frankly, I hope you found his warehouse.”
Slant nodded. “It's in the north-west of the warehouse district, shared with a fruit retailer.”
“Good,” Heart said with a smile. “Actually, let's go there first. A surprise inspection might turn up more.”
As much as Slant had felt exposed without his grey robes, he felt far more naked in Stationed robes. Everyone who looked at him was judging him, taking notes for the Hereticum to come. The Clerics who passed seemed to know who he was, were rushing to tell the nearest Contegon. But there was no reprisal, no complaint or arrest as he led Heart to the Merchant's warehouse.
“Relax, damn you,” Heart whispered. “You're making it obvious by being so scared. Act like a Cleric.”
“I'm not a Cleric,” Slant whispered as low as he could, “so I don't know how to act.”
“Be haughty, anal, and numbers-obsessed.”
Slant didn't find that helpful, but they were nearly at Write's warehouse, so he had to get himself under control. He closed his eyes, focussed on being officious and pedantic, stereotypes which would drive Tower mad. Deep breaths helped him to find a centre of calm from which to act.
When he opened his eyes, they were close enough to the warehouse to see the writing on its entrance. “Let me talk,” Heart said.
“I will.”
Heart strode up and knocked on the warehouse’s large, open doors. Merchants around the entrance stopped working to watch. Slant ignored their stares to look into the warehouse: it was divided into two, a clothing and a fruit section, by a chalk line. In the clothing section were bags filled with cloth, arrayed perhaps by colour or quality. Write's 'half' was barely a third, his clothing empire overwhelmed by fruit.
“Good morning, this is a spot inspection called by the office of the Merchant Councillor,” Heart said loudly. “Who is in charge of this warehouse?”
The Merchants all looked to a tall and well-built woman around Slant’s age. Her eyes were narrowed gems set in her hardened face. “You have paperwork for this inspection, I assume?” she asked.
“And you are?”
“I am Joint,” she replied.
“Ah, Joint, very good,” Heart said. He reached into his robes, and pulled out a flattened scroll sealed in yellow wax. “Here is the paperwork, if you wish to inspect it?”
Slant tried not to goggle at the document: how had Heart gotten an official-looking letter like that? And how had it been sealed with a Merchant's seal? The document had to be a bluff, a sealed paper to cover their story, much like their robes.
Joint walked over and looked at the seal. She examined it closely before turning to her Merchants. “It's legitimate. Everyone, out whilst the Clerics work. That includes Write's lot, okay?”
The Merchants didn't seem to mind putting their work aside: Slant guessed this would be a welcome rest. Men and women in muddied robes filed out of the warehouse and Joint joined them, standing like a crowd watching a street entertainer. Some lit cigarettes. Most sat down, breaking out booze to share.
“We will be as quick as we can,” Heart said. “Do you mind closing the doors behind us? We don't want anyone to see who we are inspecting, if you understand me.”
Joint looked Heart up and down. “Alright,” she said. “You heard the Cleric. Close the doors.”
The men and women who had settled down grumbled, but all did as they were told. The heavy doors were heaved together and shut, leaving the two not-Clerics alone in the warehouse to carry out their fraudulent inspection.
“Be quick,” Heart said in a low voice. “Look through the clothing bags.”
Slant jogged to the sacks of clothing and reached inside, rifling through for any sign of Seed: bags of the drug, perhaps the red Seedling flower, even a Seed bowl or spoon. He moved as quickly as he dared, squeezing the sacks and digging through those that felt odd. Bag after bag held only abandoned scraps of clothes. Some were damaged or blood-stained. Heart looked as frustrated as Slant felt: they were playing their hand to find nothing.
When they were halfway along Write's section of the warehouse, Slant asked, “What if they don't keep the Seed in the clothing bags?”
“What do you mean?” Heart asked as he went through a bag of used underclothing.
“Well, you saw a delivery given in a rucksack, right?” Slant asked. “What if they keep the Seed in those rucksacks, rather than these bags of clothing?”
Heart shook his head. “That doesn't make sense. How else would someone move large quantities of Seed, huh? They wouldn't bring a load of rucksacks in: it would look weird. No, if there's Seed here, it has to be brought in bulk, in a way no one would suspect.”
Slant stopped, looked around the warehouse. On Write's side were only cloth bags and a small office, neither of which could hold much Seed. On Joint's side, though, was row after row of shelving, each holding clay jars sealed with wax. Staring at them, an idea sprung to mind.
“What if the Seed comes in those?” Slant asked.
“What?” Heart asked irritably, throwing the clothes in his hand to the ground. “What are you going on about instead of doing the dirty work?”
“Those fruit jars, the Farmer's ones,” Slant said, pointing. “They are sealed, you can't see what's inside them, and they are delivered in bulk.”
Heart looked up, seemed to see the Farmer half of the warehouse for the first time. “What, you think the other Merchant might be in on it?”
“Well, Seed has to be grown somehow, doesn't it?” Slant said. “Only a Farmer would have the knowledge, experience, and land to do so. I imagine Wasp has been inspecting the Farmers for years, trying to find something, but the Custodians can’t look inside those jars because it would give them away. I mean, it would be easy to slip jars of Seed amongst their deliveries...” He paused, his mind racing. “Well, if they marked them out somehow. Write's Merchants could even swap the jars out without Joint knowing.”
“I was hoping you'd be talking nonsense to get out of looking through these foul clothes,” Heart said with a tut. “But you're talking sense. Go on. Be quick. Check for odd jars.”
Slant ran to Joint's section of the warehouse and worked along the shelves, looking for unusual markings or colouration. The jars were identical, produced by Artificers to exact specifications. On row after row, no shelf held any unusual jars, anything that would be marked out.
Heart was nearly done with the bags. The Merchants' patience would be wearing thin. If they were going to find anything, it would have to be soon.
Slant stopped. If there were jars with unusual markings, there would be an official explanation for their existence. As such, they would b
e kept together rather than spread out. It was a guess, but it was all he could think of, so he went with it.
Now he paused to search each row only briefly. The jars varied only in the contents written on the waxed lids, whether it were raisins or dried apricots. It occurred to him that a particular product might mean Seed, but that would be impossible to prove without violating each jar. And there were so many shelves and their time was short... but he didn't rush, made sure he was confident to move to a new row.
Someone knocked on the warehouse door, and said something Slant was too far away to hear. Heart looked up, having done with the last bag, and shouted, “You will give us two more minutes, Merchant, or I will have your hide.”
The angry Merchant said something else, and Heart replied, “Okay, one. One minute.”
One minute. He had only one minute. Slant tried not to think this might have been a stupid theory, that he was wasting valuable time by looking at Farmer's jars. Perhaps Write was a middleman, or perhaps the Merchant only bought Seed to guarantee the Zone's labour. But he found nothing. The jars were all the same, and he was almost at the last set of shelving.
The knock on the door boomed louder this time.
“Have some damn patience, Merchant,” Heart called. “We'll be out in a second.”
Nothing. Nothing. He'd found nothing. Then he was at the last set of shelves, hidden in the far corner of the warehouse. Slant looked along the shelf expecting to find nothing once more, to have wasted this golden opportunity. But he didn't. At the back, on the bottom row, were jars marked with twin crosses. No wording, no lable, only the deep scratches. He stepped forward and examined the nearby rows, checked whether this was a rare marking, and there was nothing like them around.
Holding his breath, Slant picked up a cross-marked jar. It was much heavier than he'd expected. There were maybe twelve of them secreted away at the darkest part of the warehouse. He checked the seal, and found it unbroken: no one had opened it since the Farmer had sealed it.
“I've found something,” he called to Heart.
“What?” Heart shouted back.
“I've found something! These jars are marked differently to the others.”
“Check inside!” Heart shouted as he raced to the warehouse doors. “I'll hold off the Merchants.”
Slant nodded, and looked around for something to open the jar with. At the end of the row was a slender knife hanging from a length of thin string, perhaps for opening jars to check their contents. He used it to cut the seal and prise the lid open. It would never be resealed properly, but, if the contents were normal, he could just drop the jar and feign clumsiness.
The lid came off with a sigh, and Slant looked inside. What he saw nearly made him drop the jar anyway.