The Mechanical Crown

Arranging the board

"Your own crotch?" Neal shouted, slamming his palm down on the bar.

"Not this time," Jed said, unphased. "I looked up and saw this awful-looking runt, sitting just over from where I was working."

"What, a dog?"

Jed shook his head. "No, it was a man. A boy, I think. It was hard to tell. He was sat on a bench looking like the saddest creature."

Neal laughed. "He'd probably smelled you as well."

"It was the boy that was the smell. Filthy, he was. Like he'd just crawled out of a pissing trough."

Across the room at a table sat Gatley, who worked deliveries all across the city, though mostly around this district. He had a wife, three sons and one daughter and worked all hours of every day to provide for them. It was back-breaking work and he wasn't looking forward to the stickily warm days of summer, now approaching, but even that wouldn't affect his disposition, which was always reliably jovial and generous.

"A sewer," he said, just loud enough to be heard above the general background noise of the tavern.

Shay waved at him from the bar. "What was that, Gatley?"

Gatley stood, picking up his glass and coming over to join them. "He came from a sewer," he said. "At least, if we're talking about the same lad."

"And how do you know that?"

"I pulled him out of one a couple of hours ago," Gatley said, taking a long drink.

"What were you doing down in the sewers?" Neal leaned in awkwardly close and giggled. "Get lost taking a shortcut?"

"I was on the street, you oaf," Gatley said, grinning and slapping Neal on the back. "Heard a funny noise, found this lad stuck beneath the grate. Got him out, but then the guards started sniffing around."

Jed looked thoughtful and took a sip. "Wearing nothing but rags, barefoot, and head to toe covered in filth? Hair cut back to his scalp?"

Gatley nodded. "Sounds like the same one."

"What was he doing down there?"

Shrugging, Gatley held his glass in front of his mouth then paused. "The way he reacted to the sun, anyone would think he'd been down there his whole life." He took another sip, finished the beer, and slid it across to the barmaid. He shook his head at her suggestion of another, then said his goodbyes and retreated to the exit, retrieving his hat on the way out.

Out on the street he could see the stars shimmering in the sky, while the city's lights glimmered in competition. He wondered where that poor lad had ended up, and whether he'd survive the night in the city.

A district away, Gallen Pent was removing his uniform and hanging it inside his locker. The barracks was quiet this time of night as the shift change had already taken place, the night crew fanning out across the city to patrol and keep people from hurting themselves. Pent had done his part already, walking the streets all day under the sun, working his way through his district. It was a matter of pride, knowing everything that went on in the alleyways and rivers and squares of the docks. Nothing happened without Pent knowing about it. Nothing happened without him allowing it.

"Hello, Gallen," came the voice of Dolan Mags, another officer who walked a similar beat. Pent had no time for Dolan Mags, thinking him to be a simpering, overly compassionate man-child who let his optimism interfere with his duty. He still thought he could bring about change in the district and the wider city, having not yet realised that their job was to stop people killing each other while keeping things exactly as they always had been. Society was only ever two meals away from violence, Pent's father had always said.