was a hollow feeling in Vick’s guts as dozens of pairs of hard eyes turned towards her. Like that moment in the mines, in the dark, the day her sister drowned. When she hissed for quiet, and heard the water rushing, far off.
They had her. She was done.
Risinau wagged one plump finger. ‘Collem Sibalt told me all about you.’
Her heart was thudding so hard she could hardly breathe. Hardly see. The children had pulled down the dummy of Bayaz and were beating it with its own staff, straw flying. She couldn’t believe how calm her voice sounded. Like someone else’s. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing. ‘Good things, I hope.’
‘All good things. He said you were a woman with a hard heart and a level head. A woman as committed to our cause as any. A woman who could keep her wits on a sinking ship.’ And Risinau stepped forward and folded her in a smothering hug while she stood there, damp with cold sweat and her flesh creeping. ‘Collem Sibalt was a dear friend. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.’
Judge was staring at her with those black, empty eyes, head dropped to one side. Vick couldn’t tell whether she was putting on a hell of an act or if she really was as mad as she looked.
‘I don’t trust this one,’ she growled.
‘You don’t trust anyone,’ grunted Malmer.
‘Yet folk still disappoint me.’
Risinau held Vick out at arm’s length, smiling. ‘You’ve come at just the right moment, sister.’
‘Why?’ asked Vick. ‘We on a sinking ship?’
‘By no means.’ The Superior-turned-revolutionary threw an arm around her shoulders. ‘We are aboard a ship embarking for shores of prosperity, shores of equality, shores of freedom! A ship headed for a Great Change! But the voyage will not be easy. At midday tomorrow, our fair city will pass through quite the storm. Yes, my friends!’ He turned towards the crowded warehouse, throwing up his hands. ‘Tomorrow is the day!’
And the Breakers and Burners broke into thunderous applause.
Welcome to the Future
The spike-topped wall seemed better suited to a prison than a manufactory, and Savine felt far from comfortable stepping through its iron-faced gate. Her monthly agonies had dwindled to a nagging ache, but the summer heat was more oppressive even than yesterday, and her sense of unease had been steadily growing all the way through Valbeck from the hill as her carriage clattered down murky streets strangely empty, oddly quiet, towards the river.
The three towering sheds were unlovely buildings of soot-streaked brickwork with few windows and no adornments. Even through the thick-soled boots she had chosen, Savine could feel the cobbles of the yard buzz with the movement of the great machines inside. Men slouched sullen about the yard, loading and unloading wagons, grey-clothed and grey-skinned, hard eyes turned rudely towards the new arrivals. Savine met the stare of one and he made a great show of spitting. She was reminded of the charming reception Queen Terez received on her rare appearances before the commoners. At least no one was screaming Styrian cunt! at her. But only, she suspected, because she was not Styrian.
‘The workers appear less than delighted by my visit,’ murmured Savine.
Vallimir snorted. ‘If there is a way to delight the workers, I have yet to find it. Managing soldiers was considerably more straightforward.’
‘One can have perfectly cordial relationships with one’s competitors, but rarely with one’s employees.’ Savine glanced over her shoulder at the ten armoured guards filing through the gate after them, fingers tickling their weapons. It did nothing for her nerves that heavily armed men looked even more nervous than she did. ‘Do we really need such a conspicuous escort?’
‘Merely a precaution,’ said Vallimir as he led Savine, Lisbit and the rest of their party across the yard. ‘Superior Risinau suggested you have a dozen Practicals about you at all times.’
‘That seems … excessive.’ Even for the daughter of the Union’s most hated man.
‘I felt their presence would only inflame tensions. In order to make the mill profitable, certain … efficiencies have been necessary. Longer hours and shorter breaks. Reductions in the budgets for food and living quarters. Punishments for talking or whistling.’
Savine nodded approvingly. ‘Sensible economies.’
‘But several of the older hands banded together to oppose them and had to be laid off. There was some violence. It became necessary to forbid any organising among the workers, though that was made easier by the king’s new laws against congregation.’ Savine’s father’s new laws, in fact, which