Eight women and twenty-three men were chained to the long string of wooden logs suspended by primitive sawhorses bound together with hemp cord on the side of the muddy, snowy road that led into the town. These were all who remained of the people who had taken over the island. Some were workers, others were former constables, and others still were wives and brothers who had simply taken advantage of their loved ones’ sudden rise to prominence. As far as Irina was concerned, they were all traitors to the Empire. Forget that murder was evil, or that methsel was the second most precious resource only to lifestone itself; they had hurt their neighbours and betrayed their duty as citizens.
The battle for the refinery had ended quickly enough. Irina and thirty members of the House Guard marched up, took fire from two men at the front gate, and after killing them found the entire rest of the enemy force to be armed only with melee weapons. It was only after they had killed all who didn’t lay down their weapons that some kind refinery worker had meekly told them firearms had a chance of causing deadly fires and explosions around concentrated gas from the well.
Now the prisoners were all lined up and chained to the logs in the typical custom of the Tribunal Committee for treasonous folk. The House Guards Irina had requisitioned from the Sunseeker were lined up across from them, ill at ease with their rifles in parade rest. They were not stormtroopers, they were little more than mercenaries at the end of the day. Many were veterans of the Corovokian Royal Expeditionary Force or the Kingdom Conscription Corps, but even still they had never been asked to act as a firing squad and it was plain that shooting chained targets who couldn’t fight back was painfully dishonorable to them.
The only reason they had even agreed was that refusal would have been grounds for them to join the prisoners on the log. Not that Irina had any intention of forcing them. In her head, she had planned to just go down the line herself if the men shied away from the grim duty. She would have to go down the line anyway when they were done, but the firing squad was more than just an execution method. It was a ritual, a symbol of Imperial might, and a warning to those who would dare violate the tenets of the Imperial Constitution, the decrees from Her Most Divine Majesty and her ministers, or the commands of the Tribunal Committee.
The townspeople seemed to know this as well, for none had demanded trials or mercy for most of the usurpers and many had come to watch the firing squad in somber silence with neither protest nor celebration. Irina had been convinced to release one woman the night before by a very brief meeting with a few of the townspeople who claimed that the woman had not done anything during the uprising except to kill her husband in bed. Her husband being a constable that all of her neighbours were relatively certain would beat her every chance he got if work were too frustrating, they argued that the woman could not have gone to the constabulary before for fear they might protect their own and so it only reasoned that this woman was acting in self-defense.
What convinced Irina to free the woman was that the lady herself happily not only corroborated the townsfolk in their story, but offered to be the first in the firing line anyway. The courage and determination on the woman’s face was believable enough, and Irina set her free without a second thought.
The other prisoners all had similar stories, of course, but only after they smelled the flicker of hope offered by the first. Unlike the battered woman, of course, they were all now chained to a log with blindfolds on in the clearing next to the radiography shack. Some smoked cigarettes. One man at the end smoked one of the long cheroots from the tavern. Many had taken two shots of whiskey in lieu of breakfast. One of the women and one of the men were weeping, but the rest sat stoic, not even shivering in the cold morning air with their breath as jets of steam issuing from their noses. Whether they knew they deserved their fate and accepted it, or still somehow held out hope was impossible to tell. Regardless of the reason for their apparent calm, Irina did nothing to disturb it as she paced down the line with a clipboard resting on her arm. She triple checked the death warrants bound within it and then set it down on a little folding table before crossing the road to the waiting soldiers. Once she crossed over to Gainstrom waiting at the head of his men, the man presented his sword to her hilt-first. She took it by the scabbard and crooked it under her arm while she made quick to button her greatcoat. Everything had to look right, it was the one thing these people truly deserved. Irina stood her collar up straight, folded it crisp, and carefully arranged her brooch and lapels while Gainstrom helped attach a golden epaulette to one of her shoulders for her.
“Thank you, shipmate.” she muttered to him blandly, then added, “More for the sword than anything else. I could do it with the boarding axe, but it would be much uglier.”
“Yes, Madame Tribune.” Lukas agreed with a firm bow.
Irina resisted the urge to clap her hands and say something like ‘owroight lads, let us shoot them up, hey’. Gravity overcame her bearing as she flicked the sabre up and rested it over her shoulder. With her left hand she touched two extended knuckles of her fist to the visor of her peaked cap and waited for the men to take full notice of her before finally ordering, “Company, atten-shun!”
All at once, the men slung their rifles and stood upright in a perfect line. The blindfolded prisoners tensed at the command, and two more of the women began to weep.
“Order arms!”
In one swift motion, the butts of every rifle came down to the ground with a unison thud and the men held onto the muzzles of their weapons with their eyes pointed straight ahead at the prisoners across from themselves.
“Present arms!”
With the same precision as a rank of military men, thirty eight House Guards lifted their rifles in both hands and pushed them out in front of themselves. Irina unsheathed Gainstrom’s sword and the prayers began to come out among the prisoners. Some prayers were muttered, others were sobbed. Irina paced down the line looking up at each soldier with her eyes fierce and her face firm. When she reached the other end, she took two machine-like steps towards the prisoners and raised the sabre into the air while turning on her heel to face the firing line once more.
“Ready arms!”
In another crisp movement, all the muzzles came down and pointed right at their targets. There were thirty-eight House Guards left to thirty-one condemned, but Irina had carefully set overlapping firing schedules so that each prisoner would be shot five times total. One prisoner spat out his cigarette now and began screaming, begging for his life and making all sorts of promises. Everyone ignored him, even the gathered townspeople and the other prisoners.
“Company, on my mark…”
The one screaming man was becoming more incomprehensible, but Irina held the sabre up as though they were all standing in respectful silence. She panned her gaze over the firing squad, thanking each man for his duty in her mind and taking in every steely face before finally letting the sword drop.
She was not sure if she had even said the word ‘fire’, but the rifles erupted all at once, aimed at center mass and sweeping alternating shots down the line to pepper the prisoners as quickly as possible. Bloody wounds split open on the heads and chests of the prisoners who all twitched in their bonds, recoiling to the impacts. Cries and moans of pain mingled with oaths, surprised exaltations, and the thankful silence of the screaming man. One of the soldiers had fired out of turn to make sure and hit that one first. Irina wasn’t sure whether it extended the suffering of the prisoners next to him or helped them go to death in peace. Still, she shouldered the sabre again when every magazine was empty and said, in a somewhat burdened but less official tone, “Cease firing, men… Shoulder arms.”
Next, Irina finished her duty to the Queen by walking down the line of dead prisoners and slashing open both sides of each neck with fast and careful cuts from the tip of Gainstrom’s sabre. She stood side-on in a bladed stance, expertly slashing the necks with practiced familiarity to ensure the dead were, in fact, dead; though she was sure upon examining each one that they already were. The men of the Haradin House Guard aimed for the heads and the hearts of their targets, and from such a short distance it was hard to miss. The only thing her own stormtroopers would have done better was be able to stomach the ugly duty. When the last neck was cut, Irina knelt and picked up the still-lit cheroot out of the snow. A bit of careful puffing at first dried the few wet spots on it and she was able to keep it lit while she wiped the sword on a prisoner’s shirt before sheathing it to return to Gainstrom.
“Company, dismissed,” she commanded at last, then in a more humble voice told them, “Thank you for your duty, shipmates. I know it is not easy, but it is our way. I will see to it that each of you is compensated by the Tribunal Committee. I hereby end my requisition of you and your arms.”
The soldiers did not immediately part, however, though they did quite visibly deflate and return to a state of more casual readiness. From the crowd, Brother Dobran emerged in his full vestments and approached to draw a sickle over Irina with one curved hand before asking, “Madame Tribune, may I burn them as Corovokians?”
Irina nodded gently while unbuttoning her greatcoat. “Of course, Blessed Brother. They have paid their debt, they are traitors no longer.”
Dobran bowed, and Irina turned to Gainstrom to nod in the priest’s direction, instructing him, “Have some of your boys help the man, hey, commander? I have to send these warrants along with my report, and I still have more things to check on before I can even do that much.”
Without another word, Gainstrom pointed at the closest of his men and began barking orders. “Hawkins, Buren, Sakemore; you three leave your rifles with the sergeant and help the Blessed Brother. Rest of you, repair to the Sunseeker and gather your shoregoing kit. Replenish munitions, and take any belongings you can’t stand to be without for a few weeks.”
Much to the chagrin of Commander Gainstrom, the Sunseeker’s detachment of House Guard would be staying on Lortar to keep the peace while they waited for the Home Office to send a garrison to man the island and appoint a new governor who might set up a new constabulary. Irina had ordered the gas well and refinery temporarily closed until House Haradin could send an inspection team and some replacement workers; which she had no doubt would come very soon as she had also ordered the workers kept at full pay in the meantime.
The looks the townspeople gave her as she strolled past them back to her clipboard and then off into the town proper told her that they were unaware of this outcome still. Either that, or it was hard to be grateful to the scarred up woman they’d just watched slice up their neighbours after putting them to the firing squad. Irina did not bother with them, as she still had much to take care of and it was never a Tribune’s duty to make friends. Still, it hurt to be so businesslike for the normally cavalier woman. Irina craved the company of a lover and a tall mug of cold beer over a game of dice or cards while some young boy sawed at a fiddle.
Instead, when she arrived at the Moon and Star Irina was forced to make do with the beer alone. Abigail had prepared a sort of reception in the tavern, with dried fish laid out alongside cookies and cakes for the townspeople who she knew would come in after the execution and the funerals. Irina gave the barkeeper a kind smile, but the one she got in return was mirthless. The little Tribune sighed and carried her beer, her cigarillo, and her clipboard into the back room, where she sat in a high-backed burgundy leather chair across an elegant coffee table from the prone form of Arlo draped over a green velvet sofa. Both Arlo and the sofa were somewhat paler than they’d started and in dire need of brushing. The bottle of rum Arlo had been drinking the night before had been left next to him, but refilled with water. Irina crossed her legs and drank some of her beer while looking over her clipboard in silence for a short while. She puffed complacently on her cigar. Once the death warrants were put away, she brought out her unfinished report on Lortar as she had found it and penned a few words onto some of the paragraphs before moving next to her report on House Haradin. At the bottom of it, she added, ‘Proceeded to Hookthorn with a stopover on Lortar. There saw House-Appointed Agent Arlo Haradin-Harkon attempt his duties.’
With this first sentence down, she gently set her beer on the coffee table and then brought the clipboard down with both hands sharply next to it so that the thunderclap would echo through the room. Even hungover, Arlo awakened in a panic. Irina was almost certain he never awakened any other way. Considering how frequently she awakened the same way, it was somewhat refreshing to see it on someone else for a change. The young man shot up with bloodshot eyes and fumbled for the holster on his belt only to find he was wearing none. Franticly his red and green eyes zipped around the room but took in practically nothing while his hands surged cautiously outward. Irina gave him a winning smile.
“G’morning, princeling.” she greeted cheerfully, as though the two were meeting for cards in the stern gallery of the Sunseeker. Arlo looked back at her quizzically, but did not respond as he leaned back into the sofa. While he sat up straight, Arlo held the blanket up with both hands to cover his chest like a lady caught bathing. Irina took up her beer and sipped it again, wishing she could go and watch a lady bathing instead of hassling the hungover soft man smeared onto the sofa in front of her. She tried imagining him in a whalebone corset again, but it just wasn’t interesting her the same way it had before.
“Good morning, princeling.” she repeated now with another grin.
“Good morning, Madame Tribune.” croaked Arlo in reply, apprehension visible in his bloodshot eyes.
Irina took a long pull from her cigarillo and actually inhaled the tail of the cloud she let out before leaning forward to offer it to Arlo. She imagined he would not have taken it if he’d known it had come from the mouth of a dead man, but watching him nurse it now she supposed it was probably for the best.
“Surprised you weren’t awakened by the gunfire.” she told him blithely while watching him fumble with the cork on the rum bottle full of water that had been left next to him. “Must be nice being left to sleep all day while others must contend with Her duty and Her enemies.”
Arlo drank deeply from the bottle of water, then smoked more of the cheroot before passing it back across to Irina. She took it and watched him scratch at his cheeks with both hands. He was staring past her, distracted and shaken by his recent memory. She recognized the signs, but this was why she was here.
“Will you accompany me to the seafort?” he asked once he had something like his bearings, “I left some things behind there.”
“No need, princeling,” rejoined the Tribune. She took the cheroot from her mouth and tapped the ashes into an onyx ashtray before pointing the glowing cherry at another sofa caddy-cornered to his own. His overcoat and waistcoat were neatly folded with his rolled garrison belt and its shoulder-strap stacked on top of them. His holster, revolver, and sabre were neatly arranged next to them, the latter leaning against the back of the sofa. Arlo took it all in with mute dissatisfaction.
“Gainstrom and his men brought everything back here for you while you slept. Sweet Abby also took the liberty of brushing your coat as well as cleaning your weskit and hanging it by the fire.” Irina informed him, her voice still brimming with helpful kindness. She was, of course, being sarcastic, but no stranger would be able to detect this. “Everything has been ordered for the young master just so. Which I woulda seen to it meself, were I not otherwise bespoke and were it not for the kind efforts of our boon companions.”
Arlo nodded, perfectly capable of taking her sarcastic meaning but not in the mood for any jocularity himself. He leaned back on the sofa again and sighed at his gear with a long frown. Then, something else seemed to strike him and he sat up again looking around with a somewhat fearful expression. “What about… her?”
“Who’s that?” Irina asked pleasantly, as though she didn’t jolly well notice the conspicuously missing tumor of a giantess that had been practically sewn on the young man’s side for the entirety of the five days she’d known him.
Arlo furrowed his brow at the Tribune and responded darkly, “You know who.”
“Last I saw the Lady Oathkeeper, she was sat in the chapel praying.” Irina answered now. She stubbed out her cheroot and finished her beer. Both had been good to her, but toying with Arlo was taking up too much of her time. She needed to get on with her day, so she uncrossed her legs and decided to get serious. “I had come in for my prayers like a good Corovokian, but I was nonetheless happy to see her, as she was on my list, so to speak. I asked her what transpired at that seafort yesterday, and she could not answer me except to begin crying like a child. Char-grinned, I was, for I would like to know.”
Across from her, Arlo drank more of his water and sighed again. Irina remarked inwardly that he was quite full of air this morning, but something about his hunted expression made her keep this comment to herself. He worked his closed mouth a bit, then tilted his head one way and the other.
“I felt guilty that I could do nothing to help you.” Arlo explained now, trying to affect a shrug as though it were nothing, really. “I felt guilty that I was so useless. I had a daydream, of a sort, a vision of myself going up the hill and scouting the enemy position at the seafort. When you came into town, I thought I would tell you what I had seen. Maybe you would be… less disappointed in me.”
“So you made the little mistake of bringing your pet soul-sucker with you, hey?” Irina prodded now, smiling darkly at him, “And she had a bit of fun, didn’t she? Lost control of herself and went wild, am I right or am I right? Yes or yes, young Arlo?”
It was surprising to see the man’s face twist up in a scowl. After how he’d been acting so far, Irina expected him to happily throw the big woman under the methroller, but instead it seemed like the very question agitated him. He also seemed to struggle in finding an answer, once again working his mouth wordlessly while he shook his head. Eventually, though he couldn’t elucidate yet, Arlo spat, “No! Not like that, anyway, not– You are so prejudiced that you would miss real crimes while fake ones get punished! ‘Yes-or-yes’, forsooth.”
Irina didn’t get offended, but she did tap the shield on the front of her hat. “You don’t get the badge for killing innocents.”
Next, she tapped the brooch on her left lapel. “And you don’t make First Degree for being prejudiced. If I was what you said, I would’ve blown her head off already.”
Now, Irina leapt to her feet and leaned across the table, extremely satisfied that Arlo lurched away from her either in fear or disgust; hopefully both. She drew her boarding axe from its frog and grasped it by the head so she could poke him in the chest with the haft and ask, “But I ain’t, am I? No, Arlo, I’m in here wasting my time with you.”
She prodded him with the axe in time with her words, satisfaction surging in her while she watched his face permutate between fear and indignation, lecturing all the while, “Because, even though I am fair, I do still have opinions and I would like them confirmed or denied. So: explain to me how it is your little recce of that seafort turnt it into a blinkin’ charnel house, hey? Lay it out clear for dumb ol’ prejudiced Rina so she can get her head on straight.”
Arlo grasped the handle of the axe prodding him in the chest. For a bit of a laugh, Irina let it go, expecting it to fall onto his lap; but Arlo held it firm and rose to his feet with his face set in stony determination. Irina felt a tingle of manic excitement rush through her as Arlo pulled himself to his full height and gave her a taste of her own medicine by gently prodding her chin with the blade of her axe to bring her gaze up to meet his own. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to beat him senseless with it or reach out her hands to tickle his ribs, but Irina was thrilled to see something like backbone entering the soft willow switch of a boy.
“If you must know,” he told her, evident scorn and shame crossing his features. His cheeks flushed, but his brow remained furrowed and he explained, “I was captured on the road. Because as I keep trying to tell you all, I do not know the first thing about making war. I did not even remotely consider that they would have scouts or lookouts, so when they saw me easily and took me I gave them some lie that I was there to negotiate the release of the governor, only to find they were not in possession of said governor.”
Irina gently took both of her hands and pinched the blade of her axe, but did not push it away quite yet. Instead, she smirked softly up at Arlo and waited for him to finish.
“Placelle Lamella came to rescue me.” Arlo continued, ignoring the smaller woman’s hands for the moment other than slightly lowering the axe. “I am not sure what would have happened to me otherwise, but I do not think it would have been anything short of slavery. The bandits’ chief was of no interest in negotiating with the likes of us. He said he had other masters in mind.”
Now, Irina took the axe back. She slid it into the frog on her belt, then rose up on her toes and gently pinched Arlo’s nose with evident affection that left him looking surprised. Once she let him go, he mimed her act and pinched his own nose, as though expecting to find a thumbtack stuck in it. Irina crossed her arms behind her back and rocked onto her heels, saying, “Ah, I wish you always had guts like that, princeling.”
“I may be displeased with the Lady Oathkeeper; but if she should be punished, it should be for something she actually did.” Arlo shot back with a haughty look of his own. Regardless of his hesitation to risk life and limb, it did seem like the lad actually had a sense of justice about him. Irina was grateful for it.
“So, if she’s so blinkin’ innocent, then, what has got you displeased, hey?” prodded the Tribune while she sat down and retrieved her clipboard.
“Did you see what she did in there!?” Arlo asked next, aghast. “I mean to say, Madame Tribune, you called it a charnel house but you make no jest in doing so.”
Irina nodded, but pointed her ink pen back at him to quibble, “Right, but as you said the alternative was slavery. It might have been slightly cleaner if Gainstrom’s men had stormed the place, sure, but those men would still be dead.”
Arlo crossed his arms petulantly. “She killed them all in the most horrifying ways. I heard at least two begging for help. Then she butchered their leader in the most extreme cruelty I have ever witnessed in my life right in front of me. To top it all off, after all of this–” He had to stop talking so he could bulge his eyes and rub his temples.
He paced away from the sofa and out into the room rubbing his temples like the truth was buried deep inside of him and he had to really get some space to reach inside himself and dig it out. Finally, after a prolonged period of apparent suffering, he whipped around with his bloodshot eyes wide and said, “After doing these things before my very eyes, she took off her trousers and tried to make love to me! She said she didn’t have enough to eat, and needed to make me feel good so she could finish feeding!”
Arlo looked so harassed, so used, that Irina almost felt bad laughing. Almost. She guffawed heartily at the very concept, clutching both hands over her stomach while she whooped and whinnied until she was coughing and sucking in air so she could laugh some more. Arlo took on an expression that reminded her of a wet cat, so she pointed at him while she laughed some more. Tears misted in her eyes and she was getting lightheaded from laughing at him, but still she managed to wheeze some more before finally just saying, “So?”
“So what!?” Arlo snapped.
“How was she?” Irina creaked, only to peel into laughter again.
“I don’t know how you think I could at a time like that!” he protested, “I may be a man, but just so– It’s not so simple as you think!”
Irina sighed in contentment and leaned back in her chair with the clipboard to write an addendum to her report: ‘Agent Harkon shows promise as a servant to the House and the Empire, but lacks resolve as of yet. He is steadfastly loyal, however, with a strong sense of justice.’
“So you just think I am a soft whiner, then, like always.” Arlo accused now, even though he hadn’t seen what she’d written. Her laughter and apparent indifference to the situation was enough for him. “What’s the point of talking to you? You will always look down on me because I was born wrong.”
Irina chuckled to herself a little, but set the pen down again and looked up at Arlo and spoke sincerely to him; not just about him but also herself. “To be quite frank with you, sire, I have little use for upper-class people– and no mistake. I have my reasons, but they are of even less use to you. As for the Lady Oathkeeper…”
Now, the Tribune imagined herself in the same situation. She had been captured more than once by people who wished to do her harm, and it was not hard to imagine the situation. She had also certainly done her fair share of imagining what Placelle Lamella looked like with her trousers off, despite her best efforts. She tilted her head one way and then the other, weighing the situation in her mind, but her answer was always the same.
“If you ask me,” said Irina, “I have a deep degree of cautious disdain for soul-suckers, but if I had just watched her brutally murder a band of men who had taken me hostage with aims to sell me into slavery, and then she pulled that fat arse of hers out of its hiding place and begged for my attendance…”
The Tribune held up both of her hands with two fingers extended and looked back and forth between them as though they were instruments to choose from before miming the act of spitting on each pair of fingers. She presented these to Arlo with her eyebrows dancing and explained, “I woulda got to work right away. One for her, one for me while I does it, and my mouth to split the difference. And I mean to say, lad…”
Irina licked her lips in the most obscene manner possible, extremely pleased that prudish young Arlo covered his face and turned away from her while she growled, “Hate her though I may, nothing gets me wetter in my nethers than a woman who kills in the name of Her Most Divine Majesty.”
Arlo coughed a somewhat ironic, “She watches, you know.”
Irina chuckled at this and added, “I hope She likes what She sees.”
It was nearly thirty minutes later according to Irina’s wristwatch that she was stuffing a stick of shortbread into her mouth while she crossed the street again to make for the radiography shack. Interviewing Arlo had saved her the trouble of trying to weasel more information out of the Oathkeeper and there was no telling how much trouble she would have trying to force the Orderhood to provide an injunction for her to extract the information by force. Still, Irina couldn’t help but walk away from the whole situation still miffed. She had not told Arlo the reason why she wanted to know what he was up to at the seafort once he revealed just how badly he hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place. Two members of the House Guard had died attacking the refinery, killed when the occupiers opened fire from the gatehouse. Irina had felt that if she had some advance knowledge the seafort was already clear, she could’ve kept Gainstrom and his squad with her, and together they may have had an even more overwhelming advantage in numbers.
Those two men may have lived.
Irina rolled her sleeve back over the wristwatch and shouldered open the door to the radiography shack. Inside, one of the men who’d helped clean up the bodies was manning the set, and as soon as she entered he knuckled his forelock.
“Corp’ral Sakemore, right?” Irina asked while setting her clipboard on the long table in the dimly lit room.
“Aye, Madame.” Sakemore answered politely. He pointed to the set next and said, “Two messages for you so far.”
“Alright, shipmate,” she said back, then extended an upturned palm. “Let’s have ‘em.”
The soldier turned to the desk and picked up a pair of note cards. He handed them both to the Tribune, but also explained their contents. “Committee Waystation Humble reports message confirmed delivered to mainland, and the Hache-em-ess Lodestone confirms receipt of advice and plans to follow it.”
Irina nodded, then unclipped a sheaf of papers from her clipboard to hand them over. “These are the death warrants for the prisoners. Kindly transcribe them for transmission to Waystation Humble, if-you-please, and I shall make it worth your while.”
Sakemore nodded and took the warrants but did not start work right away. Instead he seemed to be waiting for something else. When she didn’t produce anything for him, he asked, “What about your official report, Madame Tribune?”
“Committee Members and those in our direct chain-of-command only, I’m afraid.” came her somewhat apologetic response. If she was paying for his time, a full report would certainly be worth quite a lot more of it. Irina shrugged. “Best I can do ya is the death warrants, mate, sorry.”
“Well, in the interest of fairness, Madame Tribune,” confessed Sakemore, though he was already turning to the set and tuning the dials once more, “I actually had hoped you would let me send those reports so I could just know why these people did all this.”
“Is that so?” Irina asked with a slight chuckle at the man’s audacity.
He nodded. “Corporal Lipple, I did not know well other than he was a fine enough man, but Glostin was my mate and I am also on speaking terms with his sister. I would hate to not be able to tell her what her brother died for.”
“He died for the Empire.” Irina started firmly, then instantly softened before she even got a look at Sakemore’s reaction. “But I understand your meaning. My report is classified for national security reasons, but I plan on letting your boss Gainstrom know before I leave anyway since he is stuck here in part because of me.”
“So, I shall get it from him, then?” asked Sakemore.
Irina shook her head and sighed, “Nah, mate. That won’t do. I’ll just give you the short version.”
She plopped into a rolling chair on the other side of the room so hard that it drifted her into a corner of the countertop where she raised her elbows and rested them on the surface before asking, “You don’t smoke, by any chance, do ya?”
Having watched her for the better part of two days now, Sakemore was well-aware of the Tribune’s habit and he wordlessly produced a tin cigarette case for her. She greedily lit one and took a decent drag before leaning back again and telling him what she’d found.
“Papers in here, in the refinery, and up at the seafort indicated that our Big Gav was in talks with the Guild of Sovereign Seafarers.” she explained, much to the apparent surprise of the soldier who immediately lit a cigarette of his own upon hearing the news. “According to one of the prisoners, he had been accruing methsel for some time in hopes of selling it to pay Guild dues. But upon being let go at the refinery, he hatched a scheme to give up the island in exchange for lifetime membership for himself plus five-year cards for some of his mates.”
“Queen save us!” choked Sakemore, “What would’ve happened to all the people who live here?”
Irina shrugged. “Not too much, I suppose. The worst of it happened before we came here, and we kilt those who done it. My guess is maybe a little pay cut for the workers in the refinery, big pay rise for the foremen, less foremen. Longer hours all around. For people who want to leave, probably they take a loss on their house selling it to a Guilder in exchange for passage back to Imperial waters. For those who stay, it’s the nickel-trickle of non-Guild rates and fees until they can get membership or maybe…”
The Tribune leaned back and swirled the cigarette around with her hand before planting it between her lips and staring up at the ceiling with an indifferent face. “Maybe they just get a job on a ship if it’s the right half of the bunch. Gold-Before-Blue Guilders are not so bad, they still recognize Her Divinity I suppose.”
“If that’s the case,” Sakemore argued now, hunched over his own cigarette with a look of extreme disappointment in his fellow Corovokians, “Why is it they don’t obey her decrees and serve the Empire?”
Irina could only shrug again. “Per the Guild itself, they don’t think she’s the one at the helm, if I understand it right. I don’t really know them well. Seen them in Society Enclaves, had a beer with them once or twice on that neutral ground, but we don’t talk politics or religion much. Makes it easier to shoot each other when we cross paths on the water, I suppose.”
With one last sigh, the little woman slapped her thighs and hopped to her feet again. She adjusted her belt, then patted Sakemore on the shoulder affectionately before adding, “At the end of the day, mate, it’s really just a matter of faith. Send off those warrants for me. I’ll give you a couple of half-bobs when I get back if you do.”
And with that, Irina ducked back out into the cold midday air. She hadn’t meant to stay as long as she did, but there was always time to work in a cigarette break. She jammed her hands in her pockets and strolled down the main road to the chapel, tossing her cigarette down into the icy mud before passing beneath the arch. Her main plan at this point was to figure out whether Gainstrom planned to burn his men in the chapel yard on Lortar or give them to the Ten-Thousand Seas. Any sailor would prefer the latter, while most landsmen wanted to be burnt; but it was always difficult to tell with marines and even moreso with those of the merchant variety. She was sure any person who didn’t know who her father was would expect a Tribune wanted to be taken home to Corovos and burnt in the capitol, but Irina knew she wanted to be plunged into the deep and was always ready to offer the same for any who requested it. After that, she needed to find addresses for the families of the men who had died so they could be paid both for their loved ones’ time and the blood price for their loss. It was a grim business, but Irina prided herself on never leaving things like this undone.
Only, when she walked into the chapel yard she saw Placelle Lamella seated beneath the boughs of one of the trees to the right, in front of the chapel’s library wing. Irina felt distracted, perhaps even slightly concerned over the Oathkeeper. Arlo’s story had amused her greatly, and though she hated to admit it, left her feeling a bit envious as well. So, she stuffed her hands back in her pockets and leaned on the corner of the building to watch the heartleech and study her.
Placelle Lamella was seated at the base of the tree with her back against the trunk and her legs stretched out in front of her. She was wearing a liturgical robe instead of her usual armor or cassock, and it looked like she had been cleaned at some point. Considering that the woman always looked like a motley collection of stains with messy hair and now she was sitting in clean clothes with her hair neatly brushed, Irina figured somebody else must’ve done the cleaning, because even under Arlo’s care the most Placelle Lamella ever seemed to get was a comb and a rinse. Now she was seated limply at the foot of the tree as prim and pretty as a doll. Someone had left a small whale tallow parlor heater in the grass next to her to keep her from freezing, though the heartleech barely seemed capable of noticing. The doll comparison had been adequate in more ways than one, for the Oathkeeper’s eyes were more glazed over and distant than Irina had ever seen them. Placelle Lamella seemed to be lost in a daze, staring endlessly through nothing at nothing with unfocused eyes pointing slightly upwards to some unseeable horizon. Her mouth hung slack, and her breathing was so shallow that she did not even seem to make mist.
The only evidence she was even animate were the tears, quiet streams pouring down the huge woman’s face and neck. Her cheeks glistened with them and droplets had pricked the collar of her chasuble in spots that showed up like reflective pips mingled in with the green and gold on white muslin. Irina could not help herself. She was drawn to the sight and she rested there against the wall for a time just watching and deciding how to feel about it.
In the end, for the first time since meeting Placelle Lamella, she decided that she felt sorry for the girl. With a sigh, she peeled herself off the wall and approached the Oathkeeper to kneel before her. She searched the woman’s eyes, seeking some kind of intelligence in them, but Placelle Lamella was somewhere far away at that moment. So, she did all she could think of to do and tousled the girl’s hair before planting her knees in the cold wet grass and leaning forward to put a little kiss on the Oathkeeper’s forehead.
“You tried, Lady Oathkeeper, I know you tried your best.”
Irina got no response, and she did not expect she ever would.
