become less grey so she had no clear picture of him any more, and she hated that. Just one more glimpse. That’s all she wanted for her birthday, a chance to burn his face back into her treacherous memory. She wiped her eyes and looked around to see if anyone had noticed – she’d learned quick enough not to cry where anyone could see, especially in front of Vocho, who would rib her about it for days, but she was on her own up here.
Down on the docks the familiar start to the day. Calls floated up on the breeze, sailors shouting to longshoremen, faint curses, the toll of the god-buoy and the measured tick of the duellist automaton in the arena behind her.
Then other noises, less familiar. An unusual crowd around the harbourmaster’s office, where the king’s men oversaw everything, made sure all the taxes – and maybe a few more – were paid. A tax for berthing, a tax for hiring a longshoreman, a tax for having blue sails. Things had always been tight, but she’d heard Da muttering about taxes late at night, when he thought she was asleep. She wasn’t exactly sure what taxes were, only you had to pay something or else you ended up in the Shrive.
She had no worries about that here. No muttering about taxes, or seeing executions, or those politics things Da had told her about. Here she just had training and making it through another day. Down on the docks, though, it looked as though a lot of people were worried about them. A lot seemed to be complaining to the harbourmaster anyway. A southerner longshoreman – easy to spot because he was a blond head taller than everyone else – shoved his way forward to confront a man dressed in bright red. Kacha could picture the gold braid on the harbourmaster’s uniform and remember the smug look on his face when he told everyone he was a king’s man. The dock rats had all kept their distance as he’d a reputation for using a switch on any child he thought getting too big for their boots.
Hard to tell from this far away, but by the way the southerner picked him up, she thought it a safe bet he didn’t give a rat’s tail whether the harbourmaster was a king’s man or not. She couldn’t quite see what happened next, but she saw well enough when the southerner heaved the harbourmaster into the foul water at this end of the jetty. Even from where she was, Kacha could hear a ragged cheer.
“Well, that’s put the fox among the chickens.” Eneko’s voice startled Kacha enough, she almost fell off the parapet. He looked down towards where she was watching. The crowd had changed now. Before it had been loose, nervous, unsure. Now men strode with purpose under the direction of the tall southerner. Gathering things together, blocking off the docks with carts and crates, collecting long billhooks and gaffs. What were they doing?
“Gods damn it, I knew it was coming, it had to come, but I didn’t think it’d be this soon. How did Bakar get out of the Shrive again anyway, the shit-stirring bastard? I thought he’d be there for good after all that crap at Novatonas’s execution. His followers have been muttering away while he was gone, making little clockworks in secret where they think the priests can’t see, but now things are really going to go tits up.”
Kacha squinted down at the docks again – yes, the big blond. She’d thought he looked familiar. She’d last seen him with a mouth full of blood being dragged up the steps to the Shrive. No one ever got out of there, excepting to meet the guillotine, or so all the bards sang anyway. But this one had managed to from the sounds of it.
They watched for long moments as the barricades grew, and so did the shouts and the waving of makeshift weapons. Someone got hold of a Reyes flag and set it alight to much cheering. Someone else rolled a barrel out of one of the inns along the dockside, and the cheers grew louder.
The roar died down when the clatter of horses came along the narrow streets from the palace. King’s men, a whole street full of them, swords out and ready, a few of the new windlass crossbows in among them – the priests had muttered that they were a touch too close to blasphemous clockwork, but