Iron Council - China Mieville [32]
They followed Kinken money instead—it came, they heard, from Francine 2, the khepri crime-queen. It was not unknown for the captains of illicit industry to subsidise such charities: in Bonetown Mr. Motley was reputed to keep local loyalty with his own goodwill trusts. But wherever the money came from, the Griss Fell Retreat was run by locals, and the Caucus tried carefully to be known to be involved.
With a few Caucusists from various tendencies working together alongside the unaffiliated, it could be fractious. The activists had to whisper their tea-break debates.
Ori spooned broth into bowls. He recognised the faces of many of the outcasts; he knew some of their names. Many were Remade. A woman whose eyes had been taken in punishment, her face a skin seal from nose to hairline, shuffled past holding the rag-coat of her companion. Mostly human but not all, there were other races too, on hard times. An ancient cactus-man, his spines withered and brittle. Men and women scarred. There were some whose minds were gone, who sang hymns or yammered nonsense words, or asked questions that made no sense. “Are you a doubler?” a lank-haired oldster asked everyone who passed, the ancient remains of some accent still audible. “Are you a doubler? Are you excessive? Are you proscribed? Are you a doubler, son?”
“Ori. Come for absolution?” Ladia was the full-timer on duty. She teased all the volunteers that they came only to unload guilt. She was not stupid—she knew their allegiances. When Ori took a break, she joined him and poured liquor in his tea. He knew their conversation could not be heard over the table manners of the starving.
“You’re like Toro,” he told her. “You’re the only ones doing anything, making changes here, now.”
“I knew it. I knew you was here because you felt guilty,” she said. She made it light. “Doing your bit.”
He finished his shift, and kept his patience. Ori muttered to those momentarily in his care. Some smiled and spoke back to him; some cussed him with alcohol or very-tea on their breath. “Are you excessive? Are you proscribed? Are you a doubler?” the insistent old man said to him. Ori took his bowl away.
“You are,” the old man said. “You are a doubler. You’re a doubler, you little terror.” The man smiled like a saint and was pointing at Ori’s midriff, where his shirt had fallen forward and exposed his belt, and tucked into it a folded copy of Runagate Rampant, Double-R.
Ori tucked his shirt back in, careful not to be furtive. He washed the bowls at the pump (the man chuckling and pulling at his beard, and saying you are, you doubler at Ori’s back). He did another round of the room, made it slow, offering last dabs of bread, and came back to the laughing man.
“I am,” he said, conversational and quiet. “I’m a doubler, but it’s best you keep that down, mate. I’d rather not everyone knows, understand? Keep it secret, eh?”
“Oh yes.” The man’s manner changed quite suddenly. The cunning of madness came over him, and he lowered his voice. “Oh yes, we can do that, isn’t it? Good people them doublers. You doublers. And them excessive, and free and proscribed.”
The Excess Faction, the Free Union, the League of the Proscribed—it was not just Runagate Rampant; the old man was itemising groups in the Caucus.
“Good people but blather,” he said and snapped his hand open and shut like a talkative mouth. “All a bit blatheration.” Ori smiled and nodded. “They like talking. And you know, that’s all right, talking’s good. Ain’t always . . . blather.”
“Who’s the old boy?” Ori said to Ladia.
“Spiral Jacobs,” she said. “Poor old mad sod. Has he found someone to talk to? Has he decided he likes you, Ori? Decided you’re proscribed, or free, a doubler?” Ori stared at her, could not tell if she knew what she was saying. “Has