He grinned up at her over her bush and she grinned back.

“Still need to get me a cushion,” she muttered.

Questions

“Can you hear me in there?” bellowed Vick, at the top of her lungs. Felt like all she’d done since the People’s Army arrived in Adua was shout. Her throat was raw from it. In the new Union, you got nothing done talking quietly.

A faint voice echoed from beyond the monstrous, studded doors in the towering, spike-topped wall of that fortress of a bank. “I can hear you.”

“I’m Inquisitor—” She ground her teeth. “I’m Chief Inspector Teufel! I have a warrant signed by Commissioner Pike to search any and all branches of the Banking House of Valint and Balk.” She held the document high, though how the hell anyone was supposed to tell whether it was genuine or not, she’d no idea. Everything had to be printed now, but they’d smashed all the good presses the day the Agriont fell so the warrant was all smudged, the seal was a blob and the signature a blur. “It’d be a lot easier to have this conversation if you opened the door!” And her voice died away entirely on the last word.

“I don’t have the authority to open the door, Inspector.”

A curious crowd was gathering in front of the bank. These days, crowds built up at the slightest provocation. Risinau insisted they be allowed to. They had to promote the national conversation, he said. They had to politicise the masses, he said. Risinau said a lot, but as far as Vick could tell none of it ever meant anything. The masses were far too politicised for her taste already.

“Who does have the authority?” she barked. A question people were often asking, in the new Union.

She had to strain to hear the reply. “The manager.”

“So where’s he?”

A pause. “Not here.”

Vick was out of patience. She’d a lot less patience than she used to, one way or another. “Get the cannon,” she snapped.

There was an excited murmur from the onlookers as the Practicals gathered around the wagon. They were calling them Constables now, but you could still see the tan lines on their faces where their masks used to sit. Vick planted her hands on her hips and tapped one finger impatiently as she watched them strain at the spokes of its wheels, spit flying from their clenched teeth as it ground ever so slowly over the cobbles. When she wasn’t shouting, she was tapping her finger impatiently.

Tallow watched the whole business while blowing into his cupped hands with his usual air of hangdog resignation. “So… we’re not the Inquisition any more?”

She was damn glad he was alive but she didn’t let a trace of it show. Only growled back as impatiently as ever. “Commissioner Pike felt the name gave the wrong signals.”

“Six centuries of torture, exile and hangings, you mean?”

“I daresay. But someone still needs to keep folk in line.” One of the Constables slipped and fell, the wagon rocking back alarmingly. “Even if the line’s turned blurry as hell.”