Chapter XVIII: Powerlessness & Gold

“What do you mean ‘she isn’t here’?” Lady Halflance grimaced with anger, probably managing to scare the nurse to within an inch of her life.

“I mean what I mean, there’s no record of anyone named ‘Unity’ staying at this hospital.” The nurse, despite sweating up a storm and glancing around like she was looking for an opportunity to run away, did a very good job of keeping it out of her voice.

Lady Halflance had been running on sheer anger for the last hour, barely restraining herself from screaming at the various nurses, doctors, and other hospital staff who were standing between her and Unity. Or, I guess, as it turned out, between her and where Unity wasn’t.

“Well then perhaps you could tell me where she is?” Lady Halflance said. She was about ready to start foaming at the mouth. I grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away from the nurse for a second. 

“Could you calm the fuck down for two minutes, please?” I looked right up at her, matching the anger in her icy blue eyes with my own anger. “It’s not going to help us find your wife if you get pissed off and strangle someone.”

Lady Halflance took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said to the nurse. “Unity has knowledge of something very important to me. It is urgent that I know anything you might know about where she is now.”

The nurse looked down at her clipboard nervously. “We aren’t exactly in the business of keeping track of our patients’ whereabouts after they’ve left. But… there were police around on the same day it says she was released. And you said she was a drifter…”

“I see,” said Halflance. “And if a girl were to get recruited to a workhouse from around here, which one would she be sent to?”

The nurse looked to the side, humming in thought. “If I had to guess I’d say Gwen’s. Nice place, probably treating her well. I hope you’re able to find your wife, Lady Halflance.” And then she left.

Lady Halflance was deathly pale all the way to the exit, and silent as well. I could tell she was thinking, but honestly I didn’t want to annoy her any further by asking. The steam carriage was still powered on, something about it being a bitch and a half to heat up a steam engine, and we slipped inside in awkward quiet. Lady Halflance took the wheel, seemed almost ready to set off… and then slumped over, defeated.

“You’ve never seen one of Amrinval’s famed workhouses, have you?” she asked.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well then, allow me to tell you a story.” She paused, possibly for effect. “About a decade ago, the city council of Amrinval decided that there were too many vagrants milling around in this city. Their solution was to make sure they had jobs, no matter what.”

“Ugh. Capitalists are the worst, right?” I said.

Lady Halflance, owner and operator of Halflance Ironworks, smirked. “There was a radical thinker, who was rather popular in the city back then, a woman by the name of Nila Khatri. Her thesis was that the greatest benefit a worker derived from her labor was the sense of accomplishment and discipline instilled, as opposed to the money. She was also popular enough that people listened.”

“Oh,” I said, disgustedly. “I know where this is—“

Lady Halflance cut me off, seeming to have forgotten I was even there. “And so it was declared illegal for a person within the city of Amrinval to be homeless or without work. Anyone found to have committed the crime of idleness is sentenced to the workhouses. There they are given food, shelter, and the invaluable gift of work.”

A heavy silence fell over the inside of the steam carriage. Well, I say silence, but the engines were still pretty loud. “That’s slavery. That is the definition of slavery.”

Lady Halflance turned back to the road. “Don’t be silly. It’s just like being a prisoner with a job,” she said bitterly.

“Whatever you say… So you think that’s where Unity is? In one of these workhouses?”

“I’m almost certain of it. Gwen’s Disciplinarian, to be precise. One of the rather nastier ones; we may have trouble getting in.” With that, she put her foot down, sending the steam carriage speeding off.

“I’m almost surprised you don’t like these things, I’d have pinged you as all for industry,” I said. For once, I was being sincere.

“What can I say, Margaret has rubbed off on me somewhat. There’s little I can do, of course, I haven’t been able to get my party to give much of a damn about Amrinval’s politics, but at least my own conscience is assuaged on the matter.” Lady Halflance was half-mumbling, and her voice was dripping with some mixture of facetiousness and hatred at the world.

I leaned my chin onto my hand, watching the steel and brick buildings streak past at a blazing thirty miles per hour. “You know, if you had asked me a year ago, I would have never guessed I’d end up sitting next to a real live politician.”

Lady Halflance didn’t dignify me with a response.

…

 

Gwen’s Disciplinarian Mill was a disgusting, oily building, stout grey brick in a trapezoidal shape. It had all the design creativity of an accounting-firm Powerpoint, if the Powerpoint could give you lung cancer. I could smell the smoke, like tobacco mixed with burning rubber, hovering around it.

Lady Halflance helped me down the step (seriously, was this carriage designed for giants?) and the two of us stared up at the place where Unity would hopefully be found.

“So, what’re the odds that they have a special whipping chamber? Maybe a corpse disposal pit? Any bets?” I’m such a pleasant personality.

“Even odds,” responded Halflance, walking off with gusto. She definitely looked like she was a woman on a mission, with her eyes locked ahead and her black overcoat flapping at her ankles. I stood still for a moment, taken aback by her sheer force of personality, before remembering that I was there for the same reason. I had to break into a jog to catch up with her.

Lady Halflance had parked the steam carriage around the side of the building, where you might guess the living quarters were. That portion was the smaller of the two, with darker stone walls. In front of us was a door, as good a place as any to start. Lady Halflance marched right up to it and slammed her fist into it three times, as if she was trying to knock it down. A second later, the door creaked open.

“Hello, Miss, how may I help you?” The voice coming through the door sounded like an old woman, although I couldn’t see much of her with the door only barely cracked open.

“There is a girl here who was recently recruited. Her name is Unity. I wish to speak to her immediately.” The door began to creak shut again, until Lady Halflance grabbed it, looking at the person on the other side. “And you will address me as ‘Lady’.”

The door shut, leaving the two of us standing out in the cold. When the door opened again, I took the handle and opened it all the way. Standing in front of me was an older woman, sixty plus or minus five years if I had to guess. She was bent over, with bony fingers and a prominent nose. She was dressed all in simple black cloth, covering her from ankle to wrist to collar.

“There is a Unity here, but I’m afraid we don’t allow visitors without a proper reason,” she said. She sounded for all the world like a stern grandmother, telling her grandchildren why they couldn’t have more than one cookie at a time. Lady Halflance took it poorly.

“My mother’s corpse, you don’t allow it,” she roared. “You are going to let me see her, or so help me I’m going to truly lose my temper.”

The old woman was taken aback, recoiling into the doorway. “What impudence. Who do you think you are?”

“Sarah Halflance, Count of Leedrether Valley. And who are you to stop me?”

I thrust my arm out in front of Halflance, across her stomach, then pivoted myself between the two of them. “Calm down, calm down, could we please not kill anyone so soon. It is really important that we get to talk to Unity, though. She knows something important.”

“Hmph,” said the old woman. Less grandmother now, more angry librarian. “Well, come back when you have actual business here. Nobility or not, you can’t just snap at our doors like a pack of angry hounds and expect to get anywhere.”

“Well… what would be actual business?” I asked. 

She wrinkled up her brow, narrowing her eyes at me. “Wives, daughters, mothers. Business inspections. People looking to hire for actual jobs.”

“Of course then,” said Lady Halflance. “I’m here to hire someone. And I’ve heard good things about a specific girl living here, a girl by the name of Unity.”

There was a long silence as Halflance and the old woman stared into one another’s faces. They were sizing each other up, figuring out how much it would be worth it to fight rather than let one another past. I could hear the nails of a falt clicking heavily down the street a block behind me.

“No trouble, or you’ll be out on your arse before you know what happened.” The old woman pointed a bony finger accusatorially at Haflance. Halflance nodded, and the two of us were lead inside.

I hadn’t seen anything like it before. And that’s not a compliment. It was cramped, the roof being only barely out of my diminutive reach standing on the tips of my toes. It was dark, lit by flickering oil lamps that cast dark shadows even during the brightness of the afternoon. It was foul, the smell of burning fuel and body sweat permeating the air. It was packed as well, dozens of women ranging from teenagers to people who looked like they were in their fifties, all living in close conditions. The old woman led us down a hallway past at least half a dozen bedrooms, each one of which must have contained at least a dozen beds. The women, who I could only assume were the workers in this workhouse, all looked tired and a bit dirty, with sallow skin and sweat on their faces. As Halflance and I walked past, they followed us with their eyes, looking both curious and envious of these two rich women who showed up in their den of poverty.

The only thing that kept me from shouting at the old woman about the horrid conditions was the knowledge that Unity might be able to help us find Sir Margaret. For all that I enjoyed Selene, for all that this new world made me feel alive… the workhouse pissed me off.

“Unity, there’s someone here to see you!” screeched the old woman. We had arrived at one door that looked the same as all the others, but apparently it was the right one. On the other side of the open doorframe was a bunkroom, six bunk beds sharing three cabinets.

There were a few girls lounging around, maybe three or four. At the sound of the old woman’s voice they all snapped around to look at us. Then what I had thought was a bundle of blankets suddenly sat up. Unity rubbed her eyes, following the others to look at us. She was healthier than last time, barely. The red eyes and pale of sickness had been replaced with bags of exhaustion. Her eyes landed on Halflance first, squinting in confusion. Then she saw me.

“Emma?”

I waved at her, and was about to say something reassuring when the old woman started talking again.

“This lady is here to hire you,” she said, flourishing her hand jerkily at Halflance. “Pack up your things.”

“What?” asked Unity, rapidly looking back and forth between me and Halflance. “Who, who is she? What’s going on?” 

I stepped in, not wanting Unity to freak out too much. “This is Lady Sarah Halflance, she’s my… benefactor? Patron? Let’s go with patron. And she’s here because she wants to—“

“Discuss in private the possibility of bringing you with me as a newly-hired maidservant or footwoman or other such position,” said Halflance, dismissively waving her hand.

“You want to hire, hire me? For a job,” said Unity.

Lady Halflance nodded.

“And you want to pay me with money?”

“No, dear, I’m going to pay you in poultry and spare parts,” Halflance muttered in my direction. “Of course I’ll be paying you, that’s what a job is, isn’t it? But we need to talk first, if you wouldn’t mind, somewhere we won’t be overheard.”

“Of, of course. Maybe, maybe outside?” Unity was hyperventilating a little bit. She stood dumbstruck for a second, then remembered what had just happened and stepped towards the cluster standing in the doorway.

Just as we turned around, Lady Halflance trying to remember the way back to the exit, the sound of screaming echoed through the workhouse. I wheeled around, looking for the source of the screaming, hand brushing against the revolver at my side. I regretted looking almost immediately.

She was being carried in by two of her compatriots, a girl no older than twenty, pale and scrawny with curly blonde hair. Her left hand, curled up against her chest, was nothing but a mass of red, without any obvious fingers that I could see. I winced, averting my gaze as quickly as I could. Flashes of memory jolted to the surface, the pale face of Regan Leyrender, the smell of antiseptic. For a second I thought that I might lose my lunch, until I forced the thoughts back down.

“Someone get a rag!” shrieked the old woman, not moving to help. She turned to me, muttering, “Clumsy girl. I knew she would slip up around the machines sooner or later.” Then she was off, coordinating the people trying to treat the wound.

Lady Halflance, out of concern for my health or otherwise, hurried me towards the exit. As I left, I gave one last glance back at the old woman. If I were someone who could kill with a look, she would have dropped dead on the spot.

The area around the outside of the workhouse was just as abandoned as when we initially arrived. This was good, because it meant less chance of eavesdroppers.

“So, Unity,” said Lady Halflance, breaking the silence. “You’re the one Emma was able to rescue from Nemesis?”

“Hmm?” said Unity. “Oh, yes. That was…” She absentmindedly scratched at the back of her neck, around the metal studs still emerging from the reddened skin.

“Excellent,” said Lady Halflance. “I need you to tell me everything you know about Nemesis, about how she’s been acquiring people for her experiments, anything at all that you know.”

Unity’s face fell in an instant. “Oh. So this isn’t about hiring me at all, is it? Makes sense, I suppose.”

“No, not originally,” said Halflance. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to hire you. We could always use more help around the manor. Tell me what you know.”

“I already told, told Emma everything. I’m sorry,” said Unity.

“We found another piece of evidence about Nemesis’s lab,” I explained. “We think she’s working somewhere in the old ruins, buried under the city. The green stone down there is why you remember that green color.”

For a moment, another expression flashed over Unity’s face. Recognition, perhaps? Then she shook her head no.

“Fuck,” mumbled Halflance. “Fuck! I knew this was a waste of time. Damn it all, Margaret can’t afford to have us wandering around hunting for Lacivitas.”

“Who is Margaret?” asked Unity, morosely.

I glanced to Lady Halflance. She didn’t answer, so I did.“Halflance’s wife. Nemesis… took her.”

“Nemesis has your wife?” asked Unity. Halflance nodded, stone-faced. Unity bit her lip, staring ahead. Even I, master of reading the room that I am, was able to tell that there was something eating her up inside. “You have to keep this a secret. If any of this gets out, a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

“I can’t guarantee total secrecy. But I can keep it between myself and a few people I can trust.” Lady Halflance glanced to me.

“You, me, Rook, Charcharias,” I counted out each person. “I trust all of them, and they’re all who need to know.”

“I lied before. We weren’t in an alleyway when Nemesis caught us. Before I got caught, I used to live in this camp, camp underground, where all the girls who didn’t want to get sent to the workhouses would hide.”

“I see. That’s definitely a secret you’d want to keep,” I said.

“People had been vanishing for a while, in ones, ones or twos, all underground. We thought for a while that the police must have been sending patrols down there. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than the truth.”

“And let me guess, you and a few others were going out to gather food for the others when you got cornered, just like that. And then to the lab with you…” I didn’t want to imagine what that must have been like. Not only stuck on the outskirts of society, struggling to survive, but then attacked by those horrifying machines.

“Thank you dear,” said Halflance. “Go get your things, you’re coming with me.” 

Unity nodded, then dashed off. I waited a moment for her to be out of earshot. “Don’t you think it’s a bit unfair? You pull her out of this because she was of value to you, but you’re still leaving dozens of other women in that hellhole. You have so much power, and yet…”

“I have less power than you think I do. Oh sure, I could hire everyone there, at the cost of nearly bankrupting myself, but then what? It just gets filled back up again. I have barely over four million dinars to my name, I’m not an Edsel who can just throw money at everything until it all goes away.”

“It’s just so…pointless. You’re taking her from one place where she has to work until she drops, and putting her in another one,” I hissed.

“But here she’ll be paid. Maybe even enough to move away and pursue her own goals. Besides, I doubt she’s going to lose any limbs working as a personal assistant.” Lady Halflance smirked wryly.

I had to admit she was right. That was always the thing about Halflance; she was upper-class scum of the highest caliber… and yet she always seemed to be doing the right thing.

Unity came back after a couple of minutes, armed with a small bag full of items. We returned to the steam carriage, still idling by the street corner, and returned to Halflance Manor. There was work to be done.