Kinken money had started the service, but it was kept running by locals. When the Mayor said the city could not provide for the needy, alternative structures arose. To shame New Crobuzon’s rulers or out of despair, various groupings provided social programs. They were inadequate and oversubscribed, and one spawned another as the sects competed.

In Spit Hearth they were run by the churches: care of the old and the orphaned and poor was in the hands of hierophants, monks and nuns. With their ersatz hospitals and kitchens, apostate and zealot sects built up trust that a thousand years of preaching would not have gained them. Seeing that, the New Quill party had started its own human-only relief in Sunter, to complement its street-fighting. The insurrectionists, who would be arrested instantly they went public, could not follow.

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.