City of Stairs (11 page)

The door swings open. Sigrud lumbers in, sits down before her desk, and begins to fill his pipe.

“How did it go?”

He pulls an odd face: confusion, dismay, slight fascination.

“Bad?”

“Bad,” he says. “Good, some. Also … odd.”

“What happened?”

He stuffs his pipe in his mouth with some hostility. “Well, the woman of the two, she works at the university. She is a maid … Irina Torskeny. Unmarried. No family. Nothing besides her work. I checked her rotation—she cleaned the professor’s office, quarters. All of it. She has been assigned to Dr. Pangyui’s offices since he got here.”

“Good,” says Shara. “We’ll look into her, then.”

“The other one … the man, though …” Sigrud recounts his confusing exploits in the ravaged neighborhoods of Bulikov.

“So the man just … vanished?” asks Shara.

Sigrud nods.

“Was there a sound of any kind? Like a whip crack?”

Sigrud shakes his head.

“Hm,” says Shara. “If it had been a whip crack, I would have thought it—”

“Paresi’s Cupboard.”

“Parnesi.”

“Whatever.”

Shara rubs her temple, thinking. Although Saint Parnesi has been dead for hundreds of years, his works continue to bother her: he’d been a priest of the Divinity Jukov who fell passionately in love with a Kolkashtani nun. As the Divinity Kolkan held very dour views on the appeal of sex, Parnesi found it difficult to visit his lover in her nunnery. Jukov—being a mercurial, clever Divinity—created a miracle that would allow Parnesi to hide in plain sight from enemies both mortal and Divine: a “cupboard” or pocket of air, which he could step inside at any moment, which allowed him to infiltrate the nunnery easily.

But, of course, one could use the miracle for less jovial purposes. Just two years ago it took Shara the better parts of three months to figure out the source of a documents leak in Ahanashtan. The culprits turned out to be three trade attachés who had, somehow, discovered the miracle, and if one of them had not been so liberal with his cologne—for Parnesi’s Cupboard does nothing to mask scent—Sigrud might have never caught him. But caught him he did, and things had turned quite grisly … Though the man did quickly surrender the names of his associates.

“I feared the miracle had become popularized, after Ahanashtan,” says Shara. “Something like that … It could be catastrophic. But if it’s not Parnesi … And you’re
sure
he vanished?”

“I can find people,” says Sigrud with implacable, indifferent confidence. “I could not find this man.”

“Did you see him pull out a sheet of silver cloth? Jukov’s Scalp supposedly did something similar. … But no one’s seen a piece of it in forty years. It would look like a silver sheet.”

“Your suggestions ignore a bigger problem,” says Sigrud. “Even if this man was invisible, he would have fallen several stories to his death.”

“Oh. Good point.”

“I saw nothing. I scoured the streets. I scoured the area. I asked questions. I found nothing. But …”

“But what?”

“There was a moment … when I did not feel like I was where I was.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“I do not quite know,” admits Sigrud. “It was as if I was somewhere … older. I saw buildings that were not really there.”

“What sort of buildings?”

Sigrud shrugs. “There are no words for what I saw.”

Shara adjusts her glasses. This is troubling.

“Progress?” asks Sigrud, looking at the clutch of lamps and mounds of paper. “I see you have drunk what looks like three pots of tea. … So the news will be either very good or very bad.”

“Like you, the news is both. The message is a safety deposit box, in a bank. The only question is, how to get to it?”

“You are not sending me to rob a bank, are you?”

“Good
gracious
, no,” says Shara. “I can only imagine the headlines …”
And,
she thinks,
the body count. …

“Are there no strings you can pull?”

“Strings?”

“You are a diplomat,” says Sigrud. “The City Fathers, they are puppets, more or less—right? Can’t you use them?”

“To a small extent. I could force them, perhaps, unless the box is being watched. And it seems Pangyui was being watched very, very closely. He was dealing with things … that I did not know he was dealing with. He did not tell me, it seems, the whole truth.” She looks up at Sigrud. “I am not sure if I should tell
you
, in fact. But I will, if you ask.”

Sigrud shrugs. “I do not really care, to be frank.”

Shara does not bother to hide her relief. One of the things she values most about her “secretary” is how little he cares for the intricacy of obfuscation: Sigrud is a hammer in a world of nails, and he is satisfied knowing only that.

“Good,” says Shara. “I would not wish to make it known that we have unusual interest in Pangyui’s researches—for them to know that we do not know what Pangyui knew would be … Well. Unwise. We will need to be more subtle in our arrangements. I am just not quite sure how, yet.”

“So what do we do now?”

At first Shara is not sure what to say. But then she slowly realizes she has been thinking of a strategy all night: she was just not
aware
she was thinking of it.

Her heart sinks as she realizes what the solution is: yet she is so sure it would work she knows she’d be a fool not to try it.

“Well,” says Shara. “We do have one lead. Who do we have at the Ministry who’s good with finance?”

“Finance?”

“Yes. Banking, specifically.”

Sigrud shrugs. “I think I recall hearing Yonji is still there.”

She makes a note of it. “He’ll do. I’ll have to contact him very soon to check. … I
think
I am right. But I will need him to confirm the exact financial arrangements.”

“So we are still on our own? Just you, and I, against the whole of Bulikov?”

Shara finishes her note. “Hm. No. I doubt if that will do. Start sending out feelers. I expect we will need to recruit at least a few bodies, or a few eyes. They cannot know this has any involvement with the Ministry. But you are usually quite good with contractors.”

“How much are we willing to pay them?”

Shara tells him.

“
That
is why I seem so good with recruits,” he says.

“Very good. Now the last thing. I must ask you—do you have any party clothes?”

Sigrud lazily gestures at his mud-spattered boots and smog-stained shirt. “What about this,” he asks, “isn’t appropriate for a party?”

* * *

In the predawn light, Shara waits for sleep, and remembers.

It was toward the middle part of their relationship, though neither she nor Vohannes knew it then. She had found him sitting beneath a tree, watching the rowing team practicing in the Khamarda River, next to the academy. The girls’ team had just set their shell in the water and was climbing in. When Shara joined him and sat in his lap, as she often did, she felt a soft lump pressing into her lower back.

“Should I be worried?” she asked.

“About what?” he said.

“What do you think?”

“I try not to think at all when outdoors, dear. It tends to ruin things so.”

“Should I be worried,” she said, “that your favor might one day wander to another girl?”

Vohannes laughed, surprised. “I didn’t know you were so jealous, my battle-ax!”

“No one is jealous until they have reason to be.” She reached around, grabbed the lump. “And
that
seems like a reason.”

He grunts, not displeased. “I hadn’t realized we were quite so formal.”

“Formal? This is an issue of
formality
?”

“It is to me. So, what is it to be, then? Are you saying you assume you are
mine
, and I
yours
, dear? Are you sure you wish to be
my
girl, forever and ever, and belong only to
me
?”

Shara was silent. She looked away.

“What?” said Vohannes.

“Nothing.”

“What?” he said again, frustrated. “What have I said now?”

“It’s nothing!”

“It’s obviously not nothing. The very air has just turned colder.”

“It
should
be nothing. It’s … it’s my thing. A … Saypuri thing.”

“Oh, just say it already, Shara. Let me learn it, at least.”

“I suppose it doesn’t mean anything to you, does it? Calling someone yours. Saying they belong to you. Me being
your
girl. But we don’t say things like that here. And you might not understand … but then, your people have never been owned. And it sounds very different coming out of your mouth, Vo.”

Vohannes took in a sharp breath. “Oh, gods, Shara, you know I didn’t mean to—”

“I know you didn’t. I know that to you, it was a perfectly innocent thing to say. But being owned, and making someone yours—they have different meanings here. We don’t say them. People still remember what it was like, before.”

“Well,” said Vohannes, suddenly bitter, “
we
don’t. We lost that. It was
taken
from us. By your damn great-grandfather, or whatever.”

“I hate it when you talk about tha—”

“Oh, I know you do. But at least
your
people have
your
memories, however unpleasant they are. You’re allowed to read about
my
history here. Hells, this school’s library has more information on us than we do! But if I tried to bring any of it home, I’d be fined or jailed or worse, by
your
people.”

Shara, abashed, did not answer. Both of them turned to the river. A cygnet stabbed its dark bill down among the reeds; its long white neck came thrashing up with the pumping, panicked legs of a tiny white frog trapped in its mouth.

“I hate this,” said Vohannes.

“What?”

“I hate feeling we are different.” A long pause. “And feeling, I suppose, that we do not really know each other.”

Shara watched as the rowing teams did sprints across the water, triceps and quadriceps rippling in the morning light. First the girls’ team passed, followed by the boys, dressed in considerably less clothing and showing quite a bit more muscle.

And was it her imagination, but did the lump in her back move just a little as the boys’ team emerged from the shadow of a willow and broke into sunlight?

He sighed. “What a day.”

We are not ourselves. We are not allowed to be ourselves. To be ourselves is a crime, to be ourselves is a sin. To be ourselves is theft.

We are work, only work. We are the wood we tear from our country’s trees, the ore we dig from our country’s bones, the corn and wheat and grain we grow in her fields.

Yet we shall never taste it. We shall not live in houses made of the wood we cut. We shall not hammer and forge our metals into tools for ourselves. These things are not meant for us.

We are not meant for ourselves.

We are meant for the people across the water. We are meant for the children of the gods. We are as metal and stone and wood for their purposes.

We do not protest because we have no voice to protest with. To have a voice is a crime.

We cannot think to protest. To think these things is a crime. These words—these words you hear—they are stolen from myself.

We are not chosen. We are not the children of the gods. We are the soulless, we are ash-children, we are as mud and dirt.

But if this is so, why did the gods make us at all? And if we were meant only to labor, why give us minds, why give us desires? Why can we not be as cattle in the field, or chickens in their coops?

My fathers and mothers died in bondage. I will die in bondage. My children will die in bondage. If we are but a possession of the children of the gods, why do the gods allow us to grieve?

The gods are cruel not because they make us work. They are cruel because they allow us to hope.

—Anonymous Saypuri testimonial, cir. 1470

T
he house of Votrov is one of the most modern homes in all of Bulikov, but you could never tell by looking at it: it is a massive, bulky, squat affair of dark gray stone and fragile buttresses. Tiny windows dot its bulging sides like pinpricks, some filled with the narrow flicker of candle flame. On the south side, away from the prevailing northern wind, it features massive, gaping balconies arranged in what appears to be a stack, each balcony slightly smaller than the one below it, ending at a tiny crow’s nest at the top. To Shara, who grew up seeing the slender, simplistic wood structures of Saypur, it is a primitive, savage thing, not resembling a domicile as much as a malformed, aquatic polyp. Yet in Bulikov it is quite new, for unlike so many homes of the old families, this house was built specifically to accommodate the cold, wintry climate. Which, one must remember, is a somewhat recent development.

To acknowledge things have changed,
thinks Shara as her car approaches,
is akin to death for these people.

Her stomach flutters. Could he really be inside? She never knew about his home before, and to see it now, to realize it is real and that he had a life beyond her, strangely disturbs her.

Be quiet,
she says to the mutterings in her mind, yet somehow this only makes them louder.

A huge line of automobiles and carriages inches forward to the Votrov manor entrance. Shara watches the rich and celebrated citizens of Bulikov emerge from their various methods of transport, one lapel flipped up to shield their faces from the frosty air before hurrying inside. After nearly half an hour, Pitry, tutting and wincing, pulls the car through the estate gates and up to the door.

The valet receives her with a look as cool as the night wind. She hands him her official invitation. He takes it, offers a curt nod, and gestures with one white-gloved hand to the door, which he is pointedly not holding open.

With a chorus of squeaks from the car’s shocks, Sigrud emerges and mounts the bottom step; the valet twitches almost imperceptibly, bows low to Shara, and opens the door.

She steps over the boundaries.
How many parties have I been to in my life,
thinks Shara,
with warlords and generals and proud murderers? And yet this one I dread more than any of those.

In stark contrast to the exterior, the interior is stunningly lavish: hundreds of gas flames line the entry hall, each filtering through tinted chimneys to provide a flickering, golden hue; a staggeringly complicated chandelier of crystal slabs appears to drip down from the rounded ceiling, giving one the impression of a massive, glowing stalactite; and at the center of the room, two huge hearths are filled with roaring fires, and between them a set of curling stairs twists upward to ascend the vaults of the home.

A voice not dissimilar to Auntie Vinya’s says,
You could have lived here with him
if not for your pride.

He did not love me,
she says back,
and I did not love him.

Shara is not stupid enough to convince herself these are truths; but neither, she knows, are they wholly lies.

“The reason it’s so big,” says a voice, “is because he owns all the damn builders, of course.”

Mulaghesh stands at attention before a pillar. Just looking at her posture makes Shara’s back hurt. Mulaghesh is dressed in her uniform, which is pressed, polished, spotless. Her hair is tied back in a brutal bun, and her knee-high black boots boast a mirror shine. Her left breast is covered in medals; her right handles the considerable overflow. Overall, she does not look well dressed, but rather carefully assembled. Shara is almost tempted to search the seams of her coat for rivets.

“The original home vanished in the Blink,” says Mulaghesh. “Or so I’m told.”

“Hello, Governor. You look quite … impressive.”

Mulaghesh nods, but does not take her eyes off the socialites milling before the fires. “I don’t like for these people to forget what I am,” she says. “Despite all diplomatic pretenses, we
are
a military presence in their city.”

Once a soldier,
thinks Shara,
always a soldier.
Beside the hearth on the right is a plinth with five short statues standing on it. “And those would be the reason for the occasion?” asks Shara.

“They would be,” says Mulaghesh. She and Shara wander toward them. “It’s an art auction, benefiting the New Bulikov party and a number of other vaguely worthy causes. Votrov’s become well known as an art fan. Pretty controversial stuff, too.”

Shara can see why: while none of the stone figures are nude to the extent that they’d show anything one would actually wish to see, they come
very
close, with the fold of a robe or the neck of a guitar in just the right place to shield things from view. There are three female statues, two male, but none are particularly physically lovely: they are bulky creatures, with wide hips and shoulders and fat thighs.

Shara squints as she reads the plate at the bottom of the plinth. “
Peasants in Repose,
” she says.

“Yes,” says Mulaghesh. “Two things Bulikov doesn’t like to think about: nudity and the poor.
Especially
the nudity, though.”

“I am familiar with this city’s stance on sexuality.”

“Not so much a stance as a glower, though,” says Mulaghesh. She picks up a horn-flute of ale from a passing footman and quaffs it. “I can’t even talk about it with them.”

“Yes, I wouldn’t expect you could. Their disgust for our more … liberal marital arrangements is well known,” says Shara.

Mulaghesh snorts. “It didn’t seem liberal when
I
was married.”

As nearly all Saypuris were treated as chattel under the Continental Empire, many were forced into marriage or divorced on the whims of whichever Continental company or individual owned them. After the Kaj overthrew the Continent, Saypur’s laws on marriage and personal freedom were greatly influenced by these traumas: in Saypur, two consenting spouses enter into a six-year contract, which at its end they can either renew or allow to expire. Many Saypuris have two, three, or even more spouses in their lifetimes; and while homosexual marriage is not formally recognized in Saypur, neither does Saypur’s vehement observance of personal freedom allow the state to forbid it.

Shara observes the scandalous protuberance underneath one statue’s robe. “So one could categorize this work as countercultural.”

“Or as pissing in the eyes of the powerful, yeah.”

“A crass way of putting it,” says a voice. A tall, slender young woman dressed in a menagerie of furs walks to stand just behind them. She is terribly young, not much older than twenty, with dark hair and high, sharp cheekbones. She manages to look both very Continental and yet also very urbane, two characteristics that often conflict. “I would instead say that it is embracing the new.”

Mulaghesh raises her horn-flute in a sardonic toast. “That I shall drink to. May its feet find earth, and may it run fast and far.”

“You do not sound like you think it likely, Governor.”

Mulaghesh grunts into her ale.

The young woman does not appear surprised, yet she says, “I always find it disheartening that you are so doubtful of our efforts, Governor. I would hope that, as a representative of your nation, you’d lend us support.”

“I am not in a position to lend anything, especially support. Nor am I in a position to officially say much. But I am compelled to listen to your City Fathers quite frequently, Miss Ivanya. And I am not sure your ideas, ambitious as they are, are on fertile ground.”

“Things are changing,” says the young woman.

“That is so,” says Mulaghesh. She stares balefully into the fire. “But not as much as you imagine.”

The young woman sighs and turns to Shara. “I hope the governor has not saddled you with too much gloom. I would prefer if your first social event in Bulikov would have a
lighter
mood to it. You are our new cultural ambassador, are you not?”

“I am,” says Shara. She bows politely. “Shara Thivani, cultural ambassador, second-class, and acting chief of the Saypuri Embassy.”

“I am Ivanya Restroyka, assistant curator to the studio that donated the pieces. It is a genuine pleasure to have you here with us, but I must warn you that not everyone here will greet you so warmly—fusty old attitudes are sometimes so hard to shrug off. Yet I hope that at the end of the night, you will count me a friend.”

“That is extremely kind of you to say,” says Shara. “Thank you.”

“Come, allow me to introduce you to everyone,” says Ivanya. “After all, I am sure that the governor will not wish to sully herself with such social responsibilities.”

Mulaghesh picks up another ale. “It’s your funeral, Ambassador,” she says. “But watch that one. She has a taste for trouble.”

“I merely have
good
taste,” says Ivanya, smiling beatifically.

It immediately becomes clear that despite her youth, Miss Ivanya Restroyka is a seasoned socialite: she carves through the groups of the glamorous and the powerful like a shark through a school of fish. Within an hour Shara has bowed before or shook the hand of nearly every luminary at the reception. “I wished to be an artist,” Ivanya confides to Shara. “But it simply didn’t turn out that way. I didn’t have the … I’m not sure. The
imagination
, I suppose, or the ambition, or both. You have to be a bit outside things to make something new, but I was always very much
inside
things.”

A small hubbub breaks out before one of the hearths. “What could that be?” says Ivanya, but Shara can already see: Sigrud stands with one foot up on the hearth, reaching into the fire to pull out a small, flaming coal. Even from here she can hear it sizzle as it touches his fingertips, but his face registers no pain as he lifts it to his pipe, sucks twice, exhales a plume of smoke, and tosses it back. Then he skulks away to a shadowed corner where he crosses his arms, leans up against a wall, and glowers.

“Who is
that
creature?” asks Ivanya.

Shara coughs. “That is my assistant. Sigrud.”

“You have a
Dreyling
as your assistant?”

“Yes.”

“But aren’t they
savages
?”

“We are all products of our circumstances.”

Ivanya laughs. “Oh, Ambassador … You are
so
much more provocative than I could have ever hoped. This will be a grand friendship. Ah! What perfect timing!” She breaks off from Shara and trots away to a tall, bearded gentleman slowly descending the stairs, picking his way down with a white cane. His right hip bothers him: every other step, his right hand snaps down to steady it, but he maintains a regal posture, dressed in a trim, somewhat conservative white dinner jacket and sporting an ornate gold sash. “And
there’s
my darling. It took so
long
for you to come down! I thought it was women who took forever to get dressed, not men.”

“I am going to put in some sort of pulley-lift in this damn house,” he says. “These stairs will kill me, I’m sure of it.”

She drapes herself around his shoulders. “You sound like an old man.”

“I feel like an old man.”

“But do you kiss like one?” Ivanya pulls him in, though he resists a little before indulging her. Someone in the crowd gives a soft
whoop!
“No,” she concludes. “Not yet. Will I have to check every day, darling?”

“You will have to make an appointment, if so. I’m terribly busy, you see. Now. Who do we have sponging off me tonight?” he asks merrily.