The Tripple Inn is notable for three things: cheap rooms, cheaper beer, and the cheapest secrets in the Harbor if, like Omer, you’re fluent in drunk.
Having ridden all night, he planned to go straight to sleep, but a man in the common room chooses Omer to tell his tale of woe to, and no one ever went broke trading in woe. He gets the man to tell him about a load of Meresi cinnamon that is stranded on the docks for want of harbor fees. Omer thinks the Shield could pick it up cheap, and that would mean an easy finder’s fee for him.
As he pours the man some wine to open the negotiation, the good half of Felic’s face slides into the doorway. He locates Omer, one side of his lips moves, and he disappears. A moment later three men take his place. If they haven’t spent time at the oars, they will, should their scars testify against them. The one with a half-red eye leads them to a table behind Omer, a hand on the hatchet tucked in his belt.
4
* * *
Having spent a half hour staring at manifests, bills, and logs to avoid staring at the galleys leaving for Yness, Livion climbs to the Upper City and the Blue Tower, where Council takes place. Three hundred feet tall, the tower is the most recent magnification of the simple wooden keep around which the city first grew. The previous iteration was called the Raven Tower for the birds that had long roosted on it. The current name comes from the great blue dome that was added when the tower was heightened to mark the League’s creation. The ravens now float around the dome’s white cupola, their own private tower.
Livion hurries across the plaza in front of the tower, through the tall double doors, and up a wide staircase to a thin vestibule. It’s crammed with the aggrieved and desperate waiting for the public pleading later in the meeting. As a guard lets him through the door into the council chamber, Livion wonders how many of them would end up dying if Hanosh went to war. They seem to wonder why, having paid their pleading fee, they can’t go in with him.
The semicircular room covers half a floor of the tower. From an elevated banc the councilors face two columns of pews populated by those scheduled to address them. Agents and factotums from the major and minor companies, as well as the few petty companies that can afford it, have standing tables around the room. Each sports a small company flag like those in front of each councilor, except theirs belong to the richest companies in Hanosh.
The largest tables are empty, though, their flagsticks pulled. Over the last six months, the other League cities have called their lead agents home to protest Hanosh’s war talk. They still have their sources in the city and their alliances with various companies, so the Council declared the gesture mere pageantry. Livion slows as he passes through them, feeling the weight of their agents’ absence, until he notices Chelson staring at him from one end of the banc and he ducks into a back pew.
The Council is dispensing with basic business: decobbling the streets in the workers’ district instead of repairing them (back--burnered), installing more streetlamps in the servants’ district (rejected), adding workhouses in both (heartily approved). It’s dreary talk in a dreary room. The walls are bare stone, the ceiling plain wood. The only decoration other than the flags hangs behind the banc: a large pine H. The symbol of the city, its crossbar extends beyond its stems, making it look like either a gallows or, as the Aydeni say, a double cross.
Livion wishes they could meet in the original council chamber beneath the dome. He’s heard it’s magnificent, with gorgeous murals, stained glass windows, and dominating views, a celebration of all the League aspired to be. But when the councilors discovered how taxing it was to climb so high, they moved Council here to what had been a ballroom and left the old chamber to the rats and dust. The decision makes sense in retrospect. The League is decaying too. And no one has balls anymore. They’re a pointless expense.
Eles, leader of the council, gavels the ongoing business closed and opens the speakers’ portion of the meeting. Ject, general of the city guard, rises from the front row. He’s polished from his boots to his mustache. Given his rank, he’s allowed dyed silk for his shirt, which is cut to recall a guardsman’s blouse. Its deep green vibrates against his red sash of rank, which glitters with a long matrix of honors. His tight pants are brushed to perfection. A ceremonial dirk completes his outfit.