Dispatch from a Colored Room

The Greaves & Mail

Here's what frustrates a girl with a taste for well-cut fabric. You've all read this script in one form or another, the one where some lazy writer uses a Wormhome Alley suit as a signifier for wealth and taste. You and I all roll our eyes at it by now, because we know the costumer will make a "Wormhome Alley suit" out of any old thing that fits—but the writers keep doing it because it works. It works because the audience hears "Wormhome Alley" and thinks "good suit, wealth and taste," even though they manifestly can't tell a Wormhome Alley suit from an unwanted castoff in a costume closet. And they *can't* tell because there's a tradition in Wormhome Alley: No window displays, and no browsing unless you put up cash. Enter Eldberc's or the Cuirasserie and you'll be confronted by a very nice man about eight times your size, politely requesting a security deposit of about a hundred shekels. If you make a purchase, it's deducted from your price, otherwise it's deducted from your wallet.

There have been many times, over the years, when a hundred shekels has been a large multiple of my net worth. But not when I worked for Aimée Leblanc. And a hundred-shekel fee for browsing privileges means you don't have to worry about casual run-ins; the people you see in a Wormhome Alley tailor's are there to do business. So when I drop my tithe into the big man's purse to follow the well-dressed genie from Dawnroad into the Greaves & Mail, I'm reasonably confident we won't be interrupted. 

It's not a big shop, and the cravat nook can only really fit one person comfortably, so he notices when I follow him in. His suit for the day is some buttery fabric I can't even identify, a red so dark you'd have thought it was brown but for the way it picks up the highlights in his hair. He's wearing some subtle attar, a sweet scent that burns my nose. "Mlle Pelerine," he says. "What an unexpected pleasure. Do you shop here often?"

"Not these days," I say. "Too much mail to go through."

"Ah, well," he says. "You know, no one's taking any actual property from your mistress. The whole negotiation is over votes. She can sit back and watch the cash roll in from her thirty-three percent whenever she likes, and the mail will stop."

"She wants her votes," I say. "She deserves a say in the company's future. Which you people are squandering, by the way. It's a press, not a money-laundering operation for bored Aerestan capitalists with artistic pretensions. When was the last time Greyking sold a book worth reading?"

"When was the last time Aimée Leblanc read a book worth reading?" he asks. "Would she know one if you broke her nose with it?"

"You leave that to me," I say. "Did you know one of Greyking's board members has been investigated five times for indecency toward minors?"

I can see his back stiffen up a little, see his fingers dig a bit deeper into the silk of the royal blue cravat. "Dawnroad Bank has excellent in-house counsel, Mlle Pelerine, as you know—"

"Oh, he's not a Dawnroad executive."

He looks at me.

"He's the board's most recent addition. I went down to the sixth and checked."

This is true, by the way; I've spared you the details of the trip because they're boring. After Sim's reaction to Elias, it was the obvious thing to do. The gendarmerie down in Elias' neighborhood were happy enough to talk about it; they seemed shocked that no one had ever asked. Apparently the order had come down from above: These sorts of cases are always word against word, they aren't winnable even if the accusations are true.

Here's another interesting thing: The families had all moved away. 

No one moves away from that bit of the sixth, bandits and barons. Moving costs. Moving means you spend a few days or weeks without work, between finding your new home, packing up your old one, and actually executing the transfer. You all know how hard it is to make that happen—and you’re tycoons compared to the Leblancs and their neighbors, and you live close to the rail besides. Moving is for people who don't live hand to mouth, unless you can walk your possessions from the old place to the new. 

"Now," I say, "what I'm wondering is how many Greaves & Mail cravats can you afford on your savings? Because when the broadsheets hear that there's a pederast on Dawnroad's board, and it gets around that you knew this and told no one—"

"If we're talking about the same person," the genie says, "which I'm not certain we are, he's a very sick man. Not responsible for his actions. Of which, in any case, there's no proof." He recites these platitudes mechanically, his eyes elsewhere. The words fall from his mouth and clatter on the ground, hollow as rat-sucked eggs; I could swear I hear the last one crack. "And even if he has committed any crimes, which strikes me as monumentally unlikely, it doesn't change his right to your mistress' company." This he says with a touch more spine.

"Imagine the broadsheets," I say with some glee. "'Dawnroad Bank funds intellectual property suit on behalf of pederast.' Subhead: 'Victims' families paid for silence'—"

"We didn't pay anyone for silence."

I'm decently sure he's not lying. This isn't too shocking on second thought—Dawnroad had no interest in Elias Charbon until a few weeks back, and the gendarmes described a pattern over years. I'm the last person to rule out a long con, but he's most likely telling the truth. "Then who?"

"I'm not going to accuse somebody of covering up an action that probably never even happened."

"Assuming it did. Speculate."

He folds the cravat into a strip, then takes a yellow one from the rack. "He's military. They take care of their own, and a lot of them end up in the gendarmerie after an honorable discharge. Someone high up probably took pity on him."

"Do they pay gendarmes enough to relocate five families out of their savings?"

"Maybe they took up a collection for him, I don't know. 'S'Horn, what's it to you?" 

"This person is a problem for me. I'd like to know who his friends are."

The genie spreads his hands in a gesture of powerlessness. I note with abstracted admiration how beautifully the suit accommodates the expansive motion, and resolve to get very rich immediately. "Are we done here?" he asks.

"We're done here," I say. "Of course, if you don't want to see me again, you can get rid of me any time you like."

"And how would I do that?"

"Get your bosses out of Greyking."

"Believe me, I'd like nothing better," he says. "But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."