"So there’s no wages: people are hungry. There’s the war, and ex-militia telling what it’s really like, and there are Tesh attacks. We feel like we ain’t safe at all and the city ain’t keeping us… And we hear that someone’s gone to find the Iron Council." Judah’s face moved to hear it.

"There are Tesh attacks?" Cutter said. The man nodded.

"Yes. Manifestations. And you know, the government’s saying it’s going to sort out the Tesh, going to end the war, but it’s chaos, and no one knows if they’re doing what they say. There’s another demonstration to Parliament to demand protection, and there’s them in the crowd yelling for more than that, giving out their leaflets. Caucus people, I think. But out come the men-o’-war, and the shunn, and the militia come down on us.

"And someone starts saying there’s a handlinger at the front. And people started fighting.

"I wasn’t there-I heard about it, is all. There was dead all over the streets. And when people got the militia on the run… All over the city come up barricades. Time for us to do what we needed, on our own. We didn’t need the militia. Keep them out.

"It was after that we heard the Mayor was dead."

Delegates from all the districts had gathered in a collective, called and recalled in excitement and panic as the downtowners realised there was no suffrage lottery, that each of them had direct power. After some days the anti-Parliament had curtailed that rude democracy; but only, they swore, because they were in a double war. Most in the Collective were eager to negotiate with Tesh, not caring who controlled what in the seas south.

"Why are you here?" the Councillors asked.

The New Crobuzoners looked down and up again and said that the fierceness of the fighting had driven them away, that there were many exiles. They had been walking for weeks, trying to find the Iron Council.

They were not Caucusers nor collectivists, Cutter thought, only people who had found they were part of a dissident town-within-a-town and under fire, who had run with their possessions in their barrows. They had sought the Council not with a theory or politics, but with the awe of religious petitioners. Cutter disdained them. But Judah was all joy.

"It’s happened, it’s happening," Judah said. His voice was thick. "The rising, the second Contumancy, we’ve done it. Because of what we did. The Iron Council… it was an inspiration… When they heard we were coming…"

Ann-Hari was staring at him. He seemed to wear a halation in the last of the light. He spoke as if he were reading a poem. "We made this thing years ago and it laid its tracks through history, left its marks. And then we did this to New Crobuzon."