City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(18)
“Where are we going?” asks Pitry.
Shara fingers the permission stubs in her pocket. “To be frank,” she says, “I don’t quite know.”
*
When they exit the university and begin to cross to the car, Shara slows down.
Sigrud walks behind her. There is a soft hiss as he exhales through his nose.
She glances down and to the side, at his hands.
He makes a tiny gesture with his index and middle finger, no more than a tap against his thigh. She glances to the right.
They look like ordinary people sitting at the café, but then of course they would: a man buried in a thick gray coat, with oily hair and two days’ worth of beard, who is slowly peeling back the packaging on a cigar; the other, a woman of about fifty or fifty-five, with skinny, bitter features, purplish, worn hands, and gray hair pulled back in a severe bun. The woman refuses to look up from her sewing, yet Shara can see her hands are trembling.
No. Not professionals.
“We’ll drop you around the corner,” says Shara. “Then, follow them.”
Sigrud nods and climbs into the car.
*
To get out of Bulikov by road involves a parade of admittance papers, of checkpoints, of bottlenecks and choked traffic, red-and-white striped gates and crossing guards and page after page of lists. All of the attendants—dressed in black or purple uniforms with dozens of brass buttons—are Continental. Have we so deeply regulated this city, thinks Shara, that its very citizens are willing to choke it? Her papers act as a magic ward, eliciting frenzied hand-waves, sometimes even a salute, and she and Pitry navigate the network of checkpoints within a half an hour—something a citizen of Bulikov accomplishes only if they wake up very, very early.
A polis governor’s “quarters” are always a tricky subject on the Continent. Shara knows that the official stance of Saypur on governors’ quarters, both of the regional and polis variety, is that they are only temporary: it’s practically part of her script, as a Saypuri official. The official stance goes on to state that the governor’s quarters are monitoring stations established by Saypur solely to keep the peace until the peace is self-sustainable. But, as everyone on the Continent asks every day: when exactly will that be?
Judging by the twenty-foot concrete walls, fixed cannonry, iron gates, and soldiers’ shouts echoing over the walls (which are less than two miles from the walls of Bulikov), the impression given by Polis Governor Mulaghesh’s quarters is that the peace will not be self-sustainable for some time. The facility is imposing, stately, mostly barren, and definitely, definitely permanent. Floor-to-ceiling windows stand behind the governor’s desk, and through them Shara sees green, rolling hills encircled by the concrete wall. She can also watch soldiers drilling on the parade grounds, dozens of soft blue headcloths bobbing up and down as the commandant barks out orders.
“Governor Mulaghesh will be with you shortly,” says the attendant, a chiseled-faced young man with a starved, mean look to him. “She’s currently taking a constitutional.”
“I’m sorry, she’s what?” asks Shara.
He smiles in a manner he apparently believes to be polite. “Exercise.”
“Oh. I see. Then I’m happy to wait.”
He smiles again, as if to say, How charming to think you had another option.
Shara looks around the office. It has all the soul and ornamentation of an axe: everything is clean gray surfaces, strictly designed to function and function well.
A small door on the side of the room opens. A shortish woman of about forty-five marches in wearing a standard-issue gray tank top, light blue breeches, and boots. She is drenched in sweat, which runs in beads down her immensely large and immensely brown shoulders. She stops and examines Shara with a cold eye, then smiles in a manner just as cold and marches over to the desk. She grabs hold of the corner, kicks her right foot up, and grasps the ankle with her right hand, stretching out her quadriceps.
“Well, hi,” she says.
Shara smiles and stands. Turyin Mulaghesh is, much like her offices, cold, spare, brutal, and efficient, a creature so born and bred for battle and order that she cannot tolerate another manner of living. She is one of the most muscular women Shara has ever seen, sporting wiry biceps and a sinewy neck and shoulders. Shara has heard stories of the feats Mulaghesh performed during the minor rebellions in the aftermath of the Summer of Black Rivers, and she finds herself believing all of them when she studies the immense scarring along Mulaghesh’s left jawline, not to mention her ravaged knuckles. She is, needless to say, a very unusual sort of person to occupy what’s fundamentally a bureaucratic position.
“Good afternoon, Governor Mulaghesh,” says Shara. “I am—”
“I know who you are,” says Mulaghesh. She releases the stretch, opens a drawer, and takes out a cigarillo. “You’re the new girl. The, what is it. Chief Ambassador.”
“Yes. Ashara Thivani, formally Cultural—”
“Yes, yes. Cultural Ambassador. Came in last night, right?”
“That’s correct.”
Mulaghesh dumps herself down in her chair and puts her feet up. “Seems like only two weeks ago they swept Troonyi in here. I’m surprised I still have a job. I thought the man’d burn down all the city in my time here. Just, honestly, a f*cking oaf.” She looks up at Shara. Her eyes are steel gray. “But maybe he got the fire started. After all, I mean, Pangyui died under his watch.” She points to Shara with the butt-end of the cigarillo. “That’s why you’re here, right?”