Chains (4 page)

But Sarn and I were not alike. If he ever did take over from Morlak he would rule Seventh Street with the same scorn for whatever did not put money in his pocket, the same unfeeling hardness, the same bland cruelty. You could see it in him now. All he lacked was the power to let it out.

His nervous energy stilled as he stepped out to greet a black man in shirt-sleeves carrying a bucket in each hand. The man spoke to him, a wary greeting as between people who did not know each other, and then they were going into the tent, Sarn still moving his spiky head to and fro like a nervous animal.

I frowned. The Seventh Street tent was a little bastion of the gang, and its privacy was fiercely protected, particularly by Sarn. That he would allow an outsider in, particularly one of the Mahweni, was mystifying.

“Oy!”

The voice came from below, and it was charged with anger. Startled, my hands momentarily stiffened and I had to force myself to get a grip on the wet metal before I lost my balance. Then I looked down into the bullish face of Harkson, the foreman.

“Is that supposed to be work?” he bellowed. “Get down here!”

I came down slowly, carefully, feeling my anxiety making me unsteady in ways I was not used to.

“Sorry, sir,” I said, fumbling in my tool belt. “I left my wire brush up there earlier.”

Harkson's eyes narrowed.

“Did you get it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get on with your job,” he said, “or I'll be suggesting Sir William rethink some of his plans.”

“Yes, sir.”

I walked quickly away, eyes down so that he wouldn't see the fear in my face, silently cursing that I did not know if the black man had left the Seventh Street tent or not.

*   *   *

An hour later, however, I looked down from my painting to see Sarn making his way up the ladder to work on the adjacent chain. I stopped what I was doing and made my way back to the scaffolding platform and down.

“Where do you think you're going?” Sarn demanded, his black eyes hostile.

“Call of nature,” I said.

“Girls shouldn't be up here,” he snapped, pulling a face. “Need to be able to hold it. All right. Go, but hurry up. I mean it, Sutonga. I'm watching you.”

Likewise
, I thought as I clambered down and scampered along the catwalk to the tent camp. In the interests of what the white bosses called decency, boys and girls had to be kept apart, but only nominally. A single sheet was hung across the Seventh Street tent for the sake of privacy. Some of the smaller boys would occasionally try to peer through the pinned seam, giggling, and I would warn them what I would do to them if they did it again. I wasn't sure what I'd do if it was one of the older boys, but I slept with a mortar knife under my pillow. I was the only one on the girls' side.

The boys' side of the tent smelled, but I had expected that. It wasn't like the sheet hung around my corner kept it out. Sarn's bedroll was not packed away like the others, but bunched up, so it was the first place I looked. It concealed the two metal pails I had seen the Mahweni carrying. Inside was the dull rust of distorted steel washers—factory-casted rejects. Probably they were meant for the smelter.

But why had Sarn acquired them? I picked a handful out, feeling their weight, listening to the sound as they chinked together.

*   *   *

We finished painting the next day. The great suspension chains and all the girder work were now a slick, gleaming black. According to Sir William, it wouldn't need repainting for three years or more. Though the links which got the most friction as they edged back and forth over the saddles would need retouching before then, the carriageway would soon be in place and there would be less movement, or so the engineers promised. Sir William was less certain on this point, but he did not object.

“My job is to get it safely up and running,” he observed. “The city and the railway companies will be responsible for long-term maintenance. I'm just thankful we didn't lose any more men in the process. Or girls,” he added, giving me an expansive smile.

We hadn't talked as much this past week, but when we did, he had shown me the same encouragement as before. There was nothing to suggest he had changed his mind, and that meant that once the gang was paid, I would be free of them—and of Morlak—forever. But I had still not voiced my request that Tanish come with me, and it was suddenly clear that I could put the matter off no longer, however difficult it would be. I looked back to the southern tower and watched a figure at the top climbing down from the Tsuvada's rickety platform.

A thin, brown figure with spiked hair.

Sarn.

He was hooking a claw hammer into his belt as he climbed down the tower, not by the ladder at the front but via the girders at the back: a much more difficult and dangerous descent. I frowned, watching him.

“You had something on your mind?” said Sir William.

I turned hurriedly, trying to compose myself.

“Sir William,” I ventured.

“Yes, child,” he said.

“There is something I wanted to discuss with you,” I said, my eyes lowered.

“Certainly, Anglet, what is it? But quickly, mind. I have to pay your coworkers one last time. Walk with me.”

“Yes, sir.” I faltered, following awkwardly in his wake as he led me back toward the office on the city side of the bridge. “The kind offer you made to me before…?” I began.

“Still stands,” he answered. “Mr. Morlak has responded to my terms.”

My heartbeat quickened. I risked an anxious look at him and saw that his face was clouded with distaste.

“A figure has been agreed upon,” he said, “but I don't mind telling you that I would understand why anyone would seek to get out of that fellow's clutches.”

“Exactly, sir,” I said, seizing the moment in a rush of relief, “which is why I wanted to raise the question of Tanish's situation.”

He scowled at that, though more with confusion than anger.

“Tanish? Which one is Tanish?”

“The boy…”

“They're all boys to me, my dear,” he said as we reached the fortified office and stepped inside. He nodded at the guard beside the safe. “Which one?”

“The little one who works with me sometimes.”

“Oh, your young apprentice!” he remarked, pleased by the realization. “You want to take him with you. That does you credit. I value loyalty. I'm not sure what we will find for him to do, young as he is, but…” he hesitated and made a decision, “I have no doubt that we can find a use for the boy. I will finalize the details with the loathsome Mr. Morlak.”

I gazed at him in astonished gratitude.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Your kindness is … You can't imagine how…”

He hushed me genially. “Not at all, not at all. As I said, this is not charity beyond a certain noblesse oblige. It is investment. I have no doubt that you will repay what you choose to call my kindness a thousandfold. Now, to my last inspection of the towers. I want to see how you have protected this particular investment against all the Bar-Selehm rains can throw at it.”

A shadow fell across my back, and I turned to see the foreman, Harkson, considering me.

“Ah!” said Sir William, plucking out his pocket watch and checking it. “It seems to be that time. Mr. Harkson,” he said, offering the foreman the bunch of keys, “if you would do the honors.”

“Certainly, Sir William,” said Harkson, entering the office and setting down his satchel of tools. “Avert your eyes, please, everyone.”

I turned to face the door as the foreman unfastened the locks and rotated the dial of the safe.

“You will need to take some time to say goodbye to all your friends,” said Sir William. “There is a private dormitory for women and children attached to the Vine Street workhouse. It is not ideal, but will prove adequate until we have found you some more permanent quarters.”

I had never been inside the workhouse but knew that it would be a sight better than the weavers' shed on Seventh Street. As to long farewells with my steeplejack friends, that was almost a joke. I would shed no tears over leaving Morlak and his gang.

“Ready, sir,” said Harkson.

We turned back to the foreman, who handed the three cloth bags of coins to Sir William, who, hefting them briefly, dropped them into his backpack and shouldered it. The dense clink of the coins set my mind racing.

I looked back at the safe, but Harkson had already closed and locked it. His eyes met mine and held them.

“Time for my final inspection of the chains,” said Sir William. “This time next week, little Anglet, you may be helping us thread the leader cables for the causeway itself.”

He beamed at me and moved out into the hot afternoon, leaving me momentarily alone with Harkson, who was still watching me, his head cocked slightly on one side. I looked down and followed Sir William out before the foreman could say anything, and the dragoon came with us, shouldering his rifle.

The workers had already cleared off the catwalk, gathering at the dock-side end to rinse the oil, grease, and paint off their hands and faces before assembling in their lines to be paid.

“Run along, little Anglet,” said Sir William. “I will meet you on the other side after the inspection and we will set about the next phase of your life.”

I blinked, thinking fast.

“Maybe I should come with you,” I said.

“This is about engineering and business,” Harkson cut in. “I think we can manage without the expertise of a Lani painter.”

He said it smilingly, but when I turned to him there was a pointed steadiness to his gaze which I did not like.

“I can point out what we've done,” I said. “These last two days we finished that whole southeast quadrant but I'm not sure you will be able to see…”

“I think we can manage, thank you, Anglet,” said Sir William.

“But sir, I really think it would be helpful if I…”

He turned to me then, and his easy, open face was suddenly stern, and though his lip shaped a kind of smile there was no mirth in his eyes.

“Miss Sutonga,” he said. “While I value your work ethic, Mr. Harkson speaks with my authority. If you are to work for me you will need not to question the wisdom of your betters. Do I make myself clear?”

The change in his manner was so unexpected that I did not know what to say. I flushed, speechless in my humiliation, and looked down.

“I asked you a question, Miss Sutonga,” he repeated, his voice quite cool.

I did not look up.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He frowned, as if my reaction didn't satisfy him enough. “If you are to rise above the rest of your kind, you should give some thought to the natural hierarchy of the world. As flowers are superior to weeds and the eagle has more native majesty than the crow or the vulture, so the peoples of the world are links in a greater chain of command. I don't make much of this normally, but I expect to see this basic reality mirrored in the behavior of all my employees.” Then, as suddenly as it came, his sternness passed and his genteel voice returned. “Now, be a good girl and wait here with the others.”

For a moment I stood humbled, baffled by what he had said about the
natural hierarchy.
He strode off to the main tower, the briefcase swinging slightly in one hand. Harkson and the dragoon followed, the former shooting me a blank, hard-eyed look over his shoulder. For a second I was alone on the catwalk, the air blowing hot and thick about me, muffling me like a dank blanket. I watched them, the soldier standing guard at the foot of the ladder as first Sir William, then—several rungs below—Harkson climbed hand over hand up the southern tower. Sir William was agile for a big man, scaling the ladder, the pack on his back as before.

My gaze followed the line of the ladder up to the scaffolding platform from which I had seen Sarn making his hurried and furtive descent only a few minutes before. The memory of the handful of rusty steel washers slipping between my fingers hit me. Suddenly, caught by certainty as if by a storm wind whipping up off the brown currents of the Kalihm, I began to run.

I shouted as I did so, but Sir William was already too high. Only the dragoon sentry saw me pounding toward him along the quavering planks of the makeshift bridge. His face tightened with confusion. Then alarm. He unslung the rifle on his shoulder and brought it cautiously round across his chest, bracing himself for what I was going to do next.

“Stop him!” I called. “Tell them to come down!”

But Sir William still edged his way up the ladder, though he seemed to have slowed a little, and Harkson was gaining on him.

“Stop them! The platform isn't safe!”

The dragoon squinted, caught between skepticism and alarm and not knowing what to do about it. “What are you talking about? Stay back!”

“Get out of the way!” I demanded, trying to elbow past him onto the ladder.

“I'll do no such thing,” said the soldier. He looked pale and young. His eyes were full of fear and a stupidity that he thought was decision. “Shut your mouth and go away.”

He wasn't to be reasoned with. I had no doubt that he would fire if he felt threatened. I cut hard to the left, sidestepping him as he set to protect the foot of the ladder, and in his momentary hesitation, I flung myself at the girders which framed the side of the tower and began to climb.

I was above his head before he realized what I was doing. I scrambled up the girder, quickly overtaking the speed of the men on the ladder.

“You get down here right now!” roared the dragoon. I went higher, working my way around the side and then the back of the tower as I climbed, fingers snatching the bolted steel edges, boots kicking precisely onto each ledge. Glancing backward, I saw him prime his rifle as he scuttled around the catwalk, calling for help and craning his neck up to see where I had gone. I was thirty feet, forty feet up and rising. I was halfway up when the first shot rang out.