“Are you sick?” Rego says.
“No, I’m ready.”
Rego has heard rumors about Birming’s problems with his partner, but you don’t ask after another’s house. Birming’s not the type to speak about his family anyway. Nor is Rego.
Birming climbs onto the wagon and takes the reins, Rego sits beside him, and Pashing’s squad escorts the wagon to the Blue Tower.
From some windows they receive cheers. From others, the splatter from upturned pots of excrement. Rego nods to them all. He understands why Herse has craved his influence since they were boys. Nobody hates a nobody.
Rego hears a crowd in the tower plaza, the largest in the city, when they’re still several blocks away. It sounds like the sea crashing against a cliff. Throughout his sleepless night, Gate had received reports of people gathering there in defiance of the law, but apparently with the blessing of the guard. They can’t quail now, Rego thinks. This is where it begins. Herse once confided in him that a war wouldn’t start with Ayden, it would start with Hanosh, and this wagon is the van. They have to show themselves.
As they come around the corner into the din, Rego sees that people have flooded the south half of the plaza in front of the tower and more are surging in from surrounding lanes. Too few demand the war. Laborers, fishermen and seamen, foremen, traders and shopkeeps, barkeeps and night folk, the vomit of prisons and workhouses, artists and other wastrels, a motley of the undyed, the white, the black, and even a few silk. Whole factories and offices must be empty. Rego reads the simple declaration in their numbers: You can’t fire us all or fit us in your dungeons.
Many, unable to wait for Council to begin, are throwing dead fish at the tower’s massive doors while the four guards flanking them maintain their stiff posture. There are nearly as many children as adults in the crowd, and they’ve taken to the chanting with a passion and a pitch all their own, especially those armed with sacks of minnows. A majority has strips of bleached cotton tied around their heads like whitecapped waves. Women are tearing off the hems of their skirts to make more.
This is not good. These should be their people. He has to hand it to Ject. His rumor was an effective counter, and his guards are letting it simmer. A couple dozen arrayed in pairs around the plaza are doing less than the tower guards and with worse posture. Their commanding sergeant, Husting, meets the wagon as it enters. Pashing says to him, “Break up this demonstration. It’s illegal.”
Husting says, “Why, as a restraint of trade? Ask the owners of those grill carts and coffee carts. They’ve never done so much business this early. It’s a flash market, not a demonstration.”
A pig-tailed little girl in a darling blue-check dress made of feed sacks sees them and yells, “Pa, there they are! Let’s get them.” Part of the crowd breaks toward the wagon.
A man with six fingers and a stub says, “If there’s a war, it won’t come out of our pockets!” The others shout in agreement. Another holds up his bony son and says, “You want him to starve?” The boy cries in terror, which infuriates the crowd more.
Rego has never fought in a battle or wanted to. His blade is slow, and he’d be washed away on a battlefield like crops in a flood. But he would follow Herse anywhere, just as he did when they were growing up, Rego younger and smaller, Herse including him in all his escapades and making sure Rego ate. Herse always said he would shine in his own way sometime. This is his moment.
Rego and Birming take the chest from the bed and put it between them on the seat. It lands with a distinctive jingle and clink. He stands and with a flourish takes the key from his pocket. The crowd’s anger shifts momentarily to curiosity. Rego unlocks the chest with a happy snap. He pockets the key and turns to the crowd, one hand on the chest lid. He flips it open. The chest is stuffed with the small raw cloth bags he spent the night filling while Herse was out rallying the troops.
He opens one and tips silver into his hand. “If there’s a war, those good Hanoshi who volunteer will receive an immediate bonus of four whole coins.”
That’s the monthly for many. A discord resonates throughout the crowd. One man calls out, “I’ll do it for three!”
The six-fingered man says, “You fool! They’d pay you with your own money.”
“No,” says the father, “they’d pay you with my money.” He lowers the boy and confronts the bargainer.
Arguments break out across the plaza. Scores of people surge at the wagon when they hear the army is giving away coin.
“You can’t perform army business in the city,” Husting says.