Chapter 61
Maya was impressed by the Clerics' response. Many Stations might lose focus if their Councillor were assassinated during an attack: the Contegons would go into quiet prayer, the Lords would be up in arms that everyone failed them, but the Clerics responded with quiet efficiency and a dignity that said Sol's work was greater than its workers. There were processes for what to do, ones they followed with silent tears and hidden grief.
Maya remained in the Cleric Councillor's office, searching for evidence, as they organised themselves. The method was confirmed as poison shortly after the Cathedral's most senior Doctor, a rotund man named Arch, arrived: Councillor Pale's mouth was ulcerated, and the smell of his rotting guts suggested his stomach had been eaten through by whatever he'd consumed.
The Acolytes both said prayers over his corpse as it was removed. It seemed the right thing to do, even though the words were meaningless. Request was interviewing the Clerics, leaving Maya to the scene.
Maya's search took hours, and her effort proved fruitless. Whoever laced Councillor Pale's water with the tasteless poison had done so quickly, quietly, and had left without a trace. She assumed it had to be a person, as there were no scratch marks or wounds on Pale’s body that the Disciple spider might leave.
Tone White arrived just as Maya was despairing over her waste of time. “I've only just heard,” she said. “What happened?”
“Someone poisoned Councillor Pale's drink,” Maya said, rising slowly from his desk. Her hands were tight lumps, and her throat felt bloody. “It ate him from the inside.”
Tone took a deep, slow breath. She shouted at Request, got her attention, then gestured for the junior Acolyte to enter the office. When she had, Tone closed the door and asked, “Are we alone?”
“We are,” Maya said.
“Do we know how fresh his water was? Who brought it for him?”
Request shook her head. “Even Clerics don't record drinking habits. Councillor Pale asked for water maybe two hours before he died, but it was simply brought by a Servant. The poison could have been introduced before, during, or after. No one remembers anything suspicious, but Clerics constantly brought papers to his desk: it would have been simple to slip something into the drink without him noticing.”
Maya tutted. Wasting so much of her time by going through the Cleric Councillor's desk had left her mood black, one which didn't seek to be darkened further until it had to be.
Tone asked, “Did any Cleric report seeing anybody unusual? Someone they didn't recognise.”
“No,” Request replied.
“Why would they?” Maya asked. She sat on the Cleric Councillor's desk and hunched forward, joined her hands over her knees. “If someone wears a Cleric's robes, they must be a Cleric. You don't challenge someone for their Identity Papers when you're in the very heart of a Station, do you?”
Tone tutted. “I suppose I wouldn't.”
“Especially not when there’s a threat, when people are gathering information about the delivery of a suspect trunk,” Maya said. She laughed darkly. “That trunk achieved many things, creating the chaos that allowed a conspirator to sneak into the Bureau: will petitioners have been marshalled carefully with so many Clerics trying to deal with the emergency? Will every Identity Paper have been checked? Whoever planned this knew nowhere is beyond panic’s obscuring power, and made sure to cover themselves in it.”
Tone's brow furrowed. Her lips moved as she tried to form a sentence, then she shook her head. “You assume that this was not a conspiracy by his Clerics,” she said.
“Yeah,” Request said, taking a step towards the Contegon Councillor. “It could easily have been a public execution, something to show their strength. Gangs do it all the time.”
“You weren't listening to the Cleric Councillor, were you?” Maya hissed. “He said he had information pertaining to our investigations which cleared him and his Station. If I hadn't been so damn angry that he'd not involved us in the trunk business, I might have asked more...” She punched the table. “Damn. Damn!”
“Sol, he did say something like that,” Request said, her tone rising. “Yeah, I remember. He wanted the Clerics to deal with the trunk to clear their name, so we would listen to him.”
“Exactly,” Maya said. “He had something. He definitely did. If the Clerics were involved in this, he would have spoken to us in private about it. Instead, he needed to prove his innocence so we’d listen to him. But that’s a dead end now: his damn personal files are in code.” Maya leant back and struck the bundle of incomprehensible characters and symbols. “We'll not find out what was in them in a million fucking years!”
Tone's eyes raced along Maya's face, searching her, scanning. Maya watched her fellow Councillor consider her and asked, “What?”
“Are you coming down with something, Maya?”
“Is my health really the most important thing right now?”
She looked at Request, who also looked nervous. “I suppose not,” Tone replied.
“Do you have something to ask about my health, Request?”
“No. No sire.”
Maya glowered at them. Applekill appeared before her. “Maya, calm down. Take a deep breath, please.”
She turned her attention toward the Spirit. It was callous and unfair to appear when Applekill knew she couldn't reply, a trick the Spirit should be above. It made her furious, made her snarl. But her deploying such a cheap tactic meant Maya was losing her temper, so she took a deep breath, closed her eyes.
Bright red eyes stared back at her from behind her lids. They all blinked, then were gone.
“Maya?” Request said. “Are you okay?”
Maya opened her eyes. A shake of her head cleared the image of those eyes. “I'm just so furious about this. First the disciples go after us, then Councillor Pale? These Disciple traitors are beating us. They're winning. And they're laughing at us for our failure, we can feel it.”
“It's usually been the case that the Disciples beat us when they first engage in a war,” Tone White said, walking across to put a hand on Maya's shoulder. “They only enjoy that for a while before we respond and crush them. We will do the same here, I am certain.”
Maya let out a long sigh. “I wish I had your faith, Contegon,” she said, honest as she'd ever been.
Tone searched her face again and looked troubled. She opted to change the subject. “Whatever the Cleric Councillor discovered dies with him, like you said. Cleric Councillors spend their opening month in office designing ciphers for their notes and documentation: they are only allowed to use their full rank when no top Cipher Clerics can break it.” Tone looked at the pile of paper, but said no more.
“Someone who creates an unbreakable code wouldn't share what they'd learned with their juniors,” Request said. “If your secrets are that important, you keep them. No one else will know what he found…”
“Then why kill him?” Request asked, looking between the two Councillors. “Why go after him if they didn't know he'd found something concrete?”
“I can think of two possibilities,” Tone White said. Her voice was low, quiet. “Our conspirators might have realised they'd left a trail, some information in the Clerics' files which betrayed them, and so destabilised the Station to give them another year or so... by which time, they will have changed their methods.”
“Alternatively, they had been watching the Cleric Councillor, and they wanted to send a message with his death,” Maya growled. “They wanted us three, specifically us, to know they can get us at any time. They have warned and mocked us: more deaths are coming, and there's nothing we can do about it.”
“Well,” Request said, “we could find the fuckers.”
“Speaking of which, how have your interviews fared?” Tone asked.
They shared what they had learned from the last few days, their insights into the five suspects. “I believe we can strike Visit from the suspect list, or at least deprioritise her: the Mater Councillor is still too
busy actually creating her Station to achieve something like this,” Tone said after giving Maya a sidelong glance. “Plus she has no real influence to undertake this conspiracy.”
“How did she find out about our trip, then?” Maya asked.
“Her and Lord Councillor Blind are somewhat close. He could've let slip the information.”
Request tutted. “He broke the Secrecy Order.”
“If so, it adds weight to the case against him,” Maya said.
Request paced across the room. “So we've got the Farmer, who had the best opportunity but no motive. The Shield, who has motive and capability, but seems too Sol-fearing to follow through. The Artificer who has the technological capability, but learned about the trip too late to affect it. And the Lord, who has the network to enact a conspiracy, a motive, and may have broken the Secrecy Order.” She stopped, looked at the Councillors. “We know who we've got to go after, surely?”
Maya didn't answer. She wanted Councillor White to say it, wanted her own prejudices against the man to not be blamed for their decision.
Tone knew this. She turned to see if Maya would reply, but Maya refused, challenging the Contegon Councillor. And she did not disappoint. “We should investigate each equally still.”
“Why?” Request asked.
“Yes, why?” Maya repeated.
“Flux has not been adequately investigated, nor have Note and Draw. I'm certain if we dug into any Councillor, we would find something to incriminate them, as we have with Lord Councillor Blind. We've only determined that we can best find evidence against the one we most want it to be.”
“Then we need access to more evidence,” Maya said. “We need the Councillors' personal files, and to interview each Servant, their families, their friends. I mean, are we currently watching their homes to ensure they're not burning important evidence?”
“The Councillors are being protected for their safety,” Tone replied evenly. “As are their premises. But Maya, anything more would require express approval from the Council. It would be a grave and illegal invasion into the matters of another Station without that.”
Maya stood. She loved that Tone was skirting the edges of her abilities, but it wasn't enough. “Then I shall raise this request to the Guardian. Now. The rules must be relaxed whilst we search for the traitors. We must get deep into every Councillor's past and shine Sol's light where Lun wishes things to remain hidden.”
“We must search the shallow waters of their heart,” Request said simply.
Maya stopped. Everyone knew Chain had communicated to her ragged cadre that they should douse the Disciples in the Journey using that quote. At first, she thought her Acolyte was trying to rile her. But few outside of the Hereticum knew of Chain's slip, so she probably was still a hero.
“Yes,” she said. “And when we find these traitors, we'll drown them in the Journey.”
“Maya, you are forging a dark path,” Tone said. “I understand your anger at Pale's death–”
“And my friends' deaths,” Request added. “Don't forget them. Ever.”
“I would never do so,” Tone replied evenly. “But the rules about investigating another Station exist for a reason. When you start digging into another Station’s dealings, you are questioning thousands of people. Damning them even. I do not know that I can support you in this.”
“What?” Request exclaimed. “Why not?”
Maya stood close to Tone, face-to-face with the older woman. “We would do anything and everything to bring whatever scum is helping the Disciples to justice. They killed our Acolytes. They killed our Cleric Councillor. None should be allowed to survive.”
Tone stepped back, raised her hands in surrender. “I understand your depth of feeling. More than once, I saw Disciples kill people I knew, people I loved. But darkness is a poor answer to darkness, Acolyte Councillor. Consider this carefully, else you won't have just the suspects against you in this matter.”
Maya licked her lips, then lowered her head. “Perhaps I was too forceful there.”
“I don't know,” Request said. “I'd say you weren't forceful enough. We should be tearing these damn Councillors apart to get at the truth. And a Contegon Councillor should be strong enough to support that. We only seek to bring Sol's fire to bear.”
“Spoken like a young fool, and a criminal,” Tone hissed.
Request was about to say something everyone would regret when Maya stepped between them. “We are all letting the pressure of this get to us.” She looked between them. “All of us. Let's separate, consider our moods, and meet again tonight to share a drink and forgive each other. Okay?”
Tone stepped back and laughed, shook her head. “You're right. Sol, I've not been that wound up in decades. The Second Invasion was easier than this.”
“For some of us,” Request said.
“Request, stop,” Maya said, her tone a simple warning. “The Disciple traitors are doing a good enough job of undermining our authority and our investigations. Let's not add to their successes.”
Request's dark eyes flashed at Maya, but she said only, “Sorry.” She added, “A drink later might be good. It does feel like we need to loosen up.”
“Until tonight, sires,” Tone said. She acquiesced and left.
“That thing you said about drowning the traitors in the Journey?” Request asked as she went to leave too.
“What about it?”
“We can only do that after I get five minutes with each of them.”
Maya laughed. “Only five minutes?”
Request laughed too. “I don't want to be greedy, now, do I? We are the representatives of Sol's fury and his righteous indignation, not Lun's desire for mindless violence.”
“That we are,” Maya lied, thinking of her true mission. “That we are.”