Hawk and Fisher stood at the front of the crowd and watched interestedly as the fight spilled back and forth across the cobbles. It was fairly amateurish, as fights went, with more pushing and shoving than actual fisticuffs. Hawk was minded to just wander off and let them get on with it. They weren’t causing anyone else any trouble, and the crowd was too busy placing bets to get involved themselves. Besides, a good punch-up helped to take some of the pressure off. But then he saw knives gleaming in some of the posterers’ hands, and he sighed regretfully. Knives changed everything.
He stepped forward into the fight, grabbed the nearest posterer with a knife, and slammed him face first against the nearest wall. There was an echoing meaty thud, and the posterer slid unconscious to the ground. His erstwhile opponent rounded on Hawk, knife at the ready. Fisher knocked him cold with a single punch. Several of the fallen posterers’ friends started forward, only to stop dead as they took in Hawk’s nasty grin and the gleaming axe in his hand. Some turned to run, only to find Fisher had already moved to block their way, sword in hand. The few remaining fights quickly broke up as they realised something was wrong. The watching crowd began booing and catcalling at the Guards. Hawk glared at them, and they shut up. Hawk turned his attention back to the posterers.
“You know the rules,” he said flatly. “No knives. Now, turn out your pockets, the lot of you. Come on, get on with it, or I’ll have Fisher do it for you.”
There was a sudden rush to see who could empty their pockets the quickest. A largish pile of knives, knuckledus ters, and blackjacks formed on the cobbles. There were also a fair number of good-luck charms and trinkets, and one shrunken head on a string. Hawk looked at the posterers disgustedly.
“If you can’t be trusted to play nicely, you won’t be allowed to play at all. Understand? Now, get the hell out of here before I arrest the lot of you for loitering. One group goes North, the other goes South. And if I get any more trouble from any of you today, I’ll send you home to your families in chutney jars. Now, move it!”
The posterers vanished, taking their wounded with them. Only a few crumpled posters scattered across the street remained to show they’d ever been there. Hawk kicked the pile of weapons into the gutter, and they disappeared down a storm drain. He and Fisher took turns glaring at the crowd until it broke up, and then they put away their weapons and continued their patrol.
“That was a nice punch of yours, Isobel.”
“My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.”
“And because you wear a knuckle-duster under your glove.”
Fisher shrugged. “On the whole, I thought we handled that very diplomatically.”
Hawk raised an eyebrow. “Diplomatically?”
“Of course. We didn’t kill anyone, did we?”
Hawk smiled sourly. Fisher sniffed. “Look, Hawk, if we hadn’t stepped in when we did, the odds were that fight would have developed into a full-blown riot. And how many would we have had to kill to stop a riot in its tracks?” Fisher shook her head. “We’ve already had five riots since they announced the date of the election, and that was less than two days ago. Hawk, this city is going to the dogs.”
“How can you tell?” said Hawk, and Fisher snorted with laughter. Hawk smiled too, but there wasn’t much humour in it. “I don’t think that bunch had it in them to riot. It was taking them all their time to work up to a disturbance of the peace. We didn’t
have
to come down on them so hard.”
“Yes, we did.” Fisher gave Hawk a puzzled look. “This is Haven, remember? The most violent and uncivilised city in the Low Kingdoms. The only way we can hope to keep the lid on things here is by being harder than everyone else.”
“I’m not sure I believe that anymore.”
They walked a while in silence.
“This is to do with the Blackstone case, isn’t it?” said Fisher eventually.
“Yeah. That witch Visage might be alive today if she and Dorimant had talked to us in time. But they didn’t trust us. They kept their mouths shut because they were afraid of our reputation. Afraid of what we might do to them. We’ve spent too long in this city, Isobel. I don’t like what it’s done to us.”
Fisher took his arm in hers. “It’s not really that much different here than anywhere else, love. They’re just more open about it in Haven.”
Hawk sighed slowly. “Maybe you’re right. If we had arrested those posterers, I don’t know where we could have put them. The gaols are crammed full to bursting as it is.”
“And there’s still more than half a day to go before they vote.” Fisher shook her head slowly. “I don’t know why they don’t just have a civil war and be done with it.”
Hawk smiled. “About forty years ago they did. The Reformers won that one, and the result was universal suffrage throughout the Low Kingdoms. These days, the lead-up to the elections acts as a safety valve. People are allowed to go a little crazy for a while. They get to let off some steam, and the city avoids the buildup of pressures that leads to civil wars. After the voting’s over, the winners declare a general amnesty, everyone goes back to work, and things get back to normal again.”
“Crazy,” said Fisher. “Absolutely bloody crazy.”
Hawk grinned. “That’s Haven for you.”
They walked on in companionable silence, pausing now and then to intimidate some would-be pickpocket, or caution a drunk who was getting too loud. The crowds bustled around them, singing and laughing and generally making the most of their semiofficial holiday. The air was full of the smell of spiced food and wine and burning catherine wheels. A band came marching down the street towards them, waving brightly colored banners and singing loudly the praises of Conservatism. Hawk and Fisher stood back to let them go by. A burly man wearing chain mail approached them, carrying a bludgeon in one hand and a collecting tin in the other. He took one look at their faces, thought better of it, and hurried after the parade. The crowd, meantime, showed its traditional appreciation of free speech by pelting the singers with rotten fruit and horse droppings. Hawk watched the banner holders disappear down the street with fixed smiles and gritted teeth, and wondered where the Conservatives had found enough idiots and would-be suicides to enter the Northside in the first place.
Nice banners, though.
“I’ll be glad when this election nonsense is over,” said Fisher as they started on their way again. “I haven’t worked this hard in years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many drunks and fights and street-corner rabble-rousers in my life. Or so many rigged games of chance, for that matter.”
“Anyone in this city stupid enough to play Find the Lady with a perfect stranger deserves everything that happens to him,” said Hawk unfeelingly. “And when you get right down to it, things aren’t that bad, actually. You’re bound to get some fights during an election, but there’s hardly anyone here wearing a sword or a knife. You know, Isobel, I’m almost enjoying myself. It’s all so
fascinating.
I’d heard all the stories about past elections, but I never really believed them till now. This is democracy in action. The people deciding their own future.”
Fisher sniffed disdainfully. “It’ll all end in tears. The people can vote till they’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day the same old faces will still be in power, and things will go on just as they always have done. Nothing ever really changes, Hawk. You should know that.”
“It’s different here,” said Hawk stubbornly. “The Reform Cause has never been stronger. There’s a real chance they could end up dominating the Haven Council this time, if they can just swing a few marginal Seats.”
Fisher looked at him. “You’ve been studying up on this, haven’t you?”
“Of course; it’s important.”
“No, it isn’t. Not to us. Come tomorrow, the same thieves and pimps and loan sharks will still be doing business as usual in the Northside, no matter who wins your precious election. There’ll still be sweatshops and protection rackets and back-alley murders. This is Haven’s dumping ground, where the lowest of the low end up because they can’t sink any further. Let the Council have its election. They’ll still need us to clean up the mess afterwards.”
Hawk looked at her. “You sound tired, lass.”
Fisher shrugged quickly. “It’s just been a bad day, that’s all.”
“Isobel ...”
“Forget it, Hawk.” Fisher shot him a sudden smile. “At least we’ll never want for work, while the Northside still stands.”
Hawk and Fisher turned down Martyrs’ Alley, and made their way out onto the Harbourside Promenade. The market stalls quickly disappeared, replaced by elegant shopfronts with porticoed doors and fancy scrollwork round the windows, and an altogether better class of customers. The Promenade had been “discovered” by the Quality, and its fortunes had prospered accordingly. Of late it had become quite the done thing for the minor aristocracy to take the air on the Promenade, and enjoy a little fashionable slumming. There were goods for sale on the edge of the Northside to tempt even the most jaded palates, and it did no harm to a gentleman’s reputation to be able to drop the odd roguish hint of secret dealings and watch the ladies blush prettily at the breath of scandal. Not that a gentleman ever went into the Northside alone, of course. Each member of the Quality had his own retinue of bodyguards, and they were always careful to be safely out of the Northside before dark.
But during the daylight hours the Promenade was an acknowledged meeting place for the more adventurous members of the Quality, and as such it attracted all kinds of well-dressed parasites and hangers-on. Scandalmongers did a busy trade in all the latest gossip, and confidence tricksters strolled elegantly down the Promenade, eyeing the Quality in much the same way as a cruising shark might observe a passing shoal of minnows. Hawk and Fisher knew most of them by sight, but made no move to interfere. If people were foolish enough to throw away good money on wild-sounding schemes, that was their business and nothing to do with the Guards. Hawk and Fisher were just there to keep an eye on things, and see that no one stepped out of line.
For their part, the Quality ignored Hawk and Fisher. Guards were supposed to know their place, and Hawk and Fisher were notorious throughout Haven for not having the faintest idea of what their place was. In the past, members of the Quality who’d tried to put them in their place had been openly laughed at and, on occasion, severely manhandled. Which was perhaps yet another reason why Hawk and Fisher had spent the past five years patrolling the worst section of Haven.
The sun shone brightly over the Promenade, and the Quality blossomed under its warmth like so many eccentrically colored flowers. Youngsters wearing party colors hawked the latest editions of the Haven newspapers, carrying yet more details of candidates’ backgrounds, foul-ups, and rumoured sexual preferences. A boys’ brigade of pipes and drums made its way along the Promenade, following a gorgeously colored Conservative banner. The Conservatives believed in starting them young. Hawk stopped for a while to enjoy the music, but Fisher soon grew bored, so they moved off again. They left the bustling Promenade behind them, and made their way through the elegant houses and well-guarded establishments of Cheape Side, where the lower merchant classes held sway. They’d been attracted to the edge of the Northside by cheap property prices, and were slowly making their mark on the area.
The streets were reasonably clean, and the passersby were soberly dressed. The houses stood back from the street itself, protected by high stone walls and iron railings. And a fair sprinkling of armed guards, of course. The real Northside wasn’t that far away. This was usually a quiet, even reserved area, but not even the merchant classes were immune to election fever. Everywhere you looked there were posters and broadsheet singers, and street-corner orators explaining how to cure all Haven’s ills without raising property taxes.
Hawk and Fisher stopped suddenly as the sound of a gong resonated loudly in their heads. The sound died quickly away, to be replaced by the dry, acid voice of the Guard communications sorcerer:
Captains Hawk and Fisher, you are to report immediately to Reform candidate James Adamant, at his campaign headquarters in Market Faire. You have been assigned to protect him and his staff for the duration of the election.
A map showing the headquarters’ location burned briefly in their minds, and then it and the disembodied voice were gone. Hawk shook his head gingerly. “I wish he wouldn’t use that bloody gong; it goes right through me.”
“They could do without the sorcerer entirely, as far as I’m concerned,” said Fisher feelingly. “I don’t like the idea of magic-users having access to my mind.”
“It’s just part of the job, lass.”
“What was wrong with the old system of runners with messages?”
Hawk grinned. “We got too good at avoiding them.”
Fisher had to smile. They made their way unhurriedly through Cheape Side and on into the maze of interconnecting alleyways popularly referred to as The Shambles. It was one of the oldest parts of the city, constantly due for renovation but somehow always overlooked when the budget came round. It had a certain faded charm, if you could ignore the cripples and beggars who lined the filthy streets. The Shambles was no poorer than anywhere else in the Northside, but it was perhaps more open about it. Shadowy figures disappeared silently into inconspicuous doorways as Hawk and Fisher approached.