Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(101)
I was almost sure of it.
*
TANISH COULD NOT BE dissuaded from rejoining the Seventh Street gang, at least for the short term, but he was escorted back to the weavers’ shed by two police officers and a pair of mounted dragoons in dress greens, to make sure Morlak’s boys got the message: Tanish was not to be touched. Tanish was to complete his recovery in peace. Tanish was to be happy in his work. If he wasn’t, life for the gang would get very difficult indeed.
Morlak was arrested for assault and receipt of stolen goods, Von Strahden for conspiracy and treason. He would hang for the latter. His story was a sidebar in the papers whose headlines blared simply, BEACON FOUND!
Archibald Mandel resigned under a cloud after the papers got hold of the fact that he owned sizable shares in Grappoli munitions factories. Given the war footing we had been on, said Sureyna’s report dryly, “this should have been considered a conflict of interest.” Meanwhile, diplomatic relations were reestablished with the Grappoli, border troops stood down, and the nightly demonstrations that had threatened to plunge Bar-Selehm into chaos evaporated without a trace. It would be absurd to say that race relations were now harmonious, but with the truth of the Beacon’s theft and the Mahweni land deals out in the open, the city took its step back from the brink of disaster at last.
The false-luxorite cave was secretly and reluctantly sealed by the government, but only after they proved that monkeys that were shut in there were dead within two days and that anyone who handled the mineral developed increasingly severe burning, headaches, nausea, and hair loss. Doctors had never seen the like of it before and didn’t have the beginnings of an idea how to treat it, so they took a couple of tiny samples, which they protected inside a box alternating lead foil with ceramic and an outer casing of steel that they sealed in a vault, then pumped concrete into the cave mouth. That the substance otherwise looked like luxorite was, astonishingly, kept under wraps, to keep people from trying to dig their way in. Those of us who knew different were instructed not to breathe a word of it or we would face charges of high treason against the state. I felt I had to tell Sureyna after all she had done, but I made her swear she wouldn’t print a word of it.
I appeared in the papers myself, though it was made to sound as if I had merely stumbled upon the cave and found the villains at work. I had acted “with honor and courage,” though the stories were not specific as to how, and soon the city was awash in rumors about a mysterious Lani woman who had saved the region from some terrible weapon. I told people it wasn’t true, but they preferred the heroic version, and tended to just nod and smile when I said otherwise, as if I were being discreet or modest.
*
TWO DAYS AFTER IT was all done, I returned to the Drowning in Willinghouse’s coach, Dahria dressed to the nines at my side, escorted by Mnenga and a liveried driver. I led them wordlessly through the tumbledown huts and faded awnings, through the ripe smells of moldering vegetables, charcoal grills, and foraging warthogs, to Rahvey’s house. We accumulated a watchful train, and word of our arrival went ahead of us like fire leaping from bush to bush till it seemed the whole community was out to see the return of their most curious prodigal.
In my arms I carried Kalla, openly for all to see.
Rahvey and her girls were already out on the porch, and Sinchon came running up from the river with a rusty pot in his hands. Dahria lifted her dress above the mud, but for once, said nothing, and her face was impassive, as if she had not noticed the way the crowd stared at her. Indeed, no one spoke, and I did not mount the porch steps, but stood below my sister, whose face was guarded. From the edge of the crowd I saw Florihn, the midwife, bustling imperiously to the front, her face hard. Four of the elders were there too. They looked cautious, watchful. Jadary, Rahvey’s youngest, stood on her tiptoes to see the baby in my arms, her hands clasped in front of her chest.
“I have brought you your daughter, Rahvey,” I said. “I took her to the orphanage, but I have seen it, and it is a hard, unfeeling place designed not to nurture children but to break them. They should not have your little girl. I cannot keep her myself, for though I have feelings for the child, I have neither the skill nor the patience to be her mother. You do. It is your gift, and I think that in your heart, you love it. I have a job, at least for now, which pays rather better. If you want to take her back, I will bring you money. Every week. More than enough to feed and clothe the child, educate her too, if you don’t object.”
Florihn snorted with scorn, but Rahvey said quietly, “Why would anyone object to educating a girl?”
I nodded cautiously, and for a moment, we watched each other. My focus was broken by a ripple in the crowd. A cab had arrived. Willinghouse, in tinted glasses and wearing a pale, elegant suit with a cravat, was watching from the road.
As if sensing something in the air, Florihn spoke. “The rule against four daughters is not merely about money,” she said, drawing herself up. “It is about what is seemly, what is traditional.”
“Traditions evolve,” I said. “People move on.”
“People leave, you mean,” said Florihn. “And when they do, they lose the right to decide what is appropriate for their people. You come here with your fancy friends, your white friends—”
“My grandmother was born just over there,” inserted Dahria brightly, in flawless Lani, pointing toward the river. “We’re quite an astonishingly diverse little band.” She smiled as if she had just remarked upon the weather, and the crowd stared at her. “I’m sorry,” she added to Florihn, who was blinking but otherwise motionless, as if in the grip of some curious catatonia, “you were saying?”