Green Jack Read online

  Chapter 7

  Saffron

  Saffron hated Ritual days with a passion generally reserved for wet boots and protein paste rations.

  Soldiers wearing masks of copper and tin leaves stood at attention. Saffron had her knives, but they had rifles. Not to mention everything else.

  And now she had Argent to deal with.

  He had the pale, faintly waxy complexion of someone who spent too much time underground, and a silver tooth he liked to flash like it was worth something.

  He’d also lent her money she hadn’t paid back yet.

  She tried not to react. Killian would notice. He was standing next to her, waiting patiently for the stupid ceremony to be over. He was always patient. And quiet. But he knew damn well, even before she’d tried to punch him, how she felt about him visiting an Oracle. They never bent a knee to the Numinas. It was their one small rebellion.

  He leaned against a hydro pole, decorated with cheerful green and gold ribbons. More ribbons festooned the bronze statue of Cartimandua, Legata of the Protectorate. It was considerably newer than the figure of the Green Jack behind it, the stubs of burned out candles at his feet. One of the toes of the Green Jack statue was polished to a sheen, touched by countless hands for good luck. Saffron had never understood how a giant bronze toe would help her feed her Oona and so she never bothered. She’d caught Killian touching it once, and she’d teased him until he tried to dunk her in a rain barrel.

  None of it mattered anyway, especially not with Argent moving towards her with that silver grin. He was behind her too quickly, knife tip pressing into her kidney. Various elbows and torsos blocked them from the soldier’s view.

  “Saffron, I’ve missed you.” His voice was gravely and interesting, it was how he managed to talk himself into moderate power in the underground. At least for a Core rat. “Ah, ah. I wouldn’t.”

  Killian’s hand froze on the pommel of the katana poking up behind his shoulder.

  Saffron shifted, her boots cold and wet. “Argent, I don’t have your money,” she said tightly. She couldn’t look at Killian. It was stupid to have been tempted by real paper and watercolour paints and pencils. She should have stuck to the nubs of coal from the fire barrels lining the streets and the plaster of the apartment walls.

  “That’s bad news, love,” Argent said. “Real bad news.”

  “Yet,” Saffron amended. She couldn’t afford Argent drawing attention to her, not with her stolen leaf mask. “I have a lead.” If Jedekiah at the sideshow where she worked could pay her wages this month. Argent’s dagger poked an uncomfortable hole through the back of her jacket. “If you kill me, you’ll never get your money,” she reminded him.

  “But I’ll get a bit of sport and send a warning to the others who owe me a debt.”

  “In the square on a Ritual day?” She asked. “Not likely. Give me two days,” she added. “I’ll give you interest.”

  “Damn right you will. Double.”

  She clenched her jaw over a stream of insults mostly involving his mother and a goat. “Fine.”

  “Two days and twice the credits. I prefer seeds or batteries.” Argent yanked her sleeve up, slashing down on her forearm in three long slices before she could jerk out of his grasp. Pain throbbed and burned as blood oozed out of the cuts. Even if she managed to clean them, the cuts would leave scars, as intended.

  “Three credits, Saffron. This way you won’t forget.” Argent shoved her into Killian. “Cross me again, and your ass is mine to sell.”

  Killian fussed over the cuts as the drums sounded. Soldiers marched down the empty street, led by the standard bearer with his gold-fringed flag. The Directorate symbol was in Ogham, an old language from across the sea based on trees: a straight line bisected with two short parallel lines on the right, like winter branches. Back in school, a teacher had once told Saffron that some of the European cities still existed but since it was unlikely Saffron would ever see a boat, never mind sail on one, she’d stopped paying attention.

  Cartimandua followed on a huge horse. It was fatter than any person Saffron was ever likely to meet. Cartimandua herself was slender and strong, like a sword blade. She wore a leather tunic with a bright red sash better suited to a Roman empress. As the Legata, she was tasked with securing the City and protecting the Green Jacks. Tattooed Numinas from the Cella waited in their ceremonial chitons to read omens or pray, or whatever it was they did up on the dais. Cartimandua faced the crowd with a smile.

  “Great, another speech,” Saffron muttered. A nearby soldier cuffed her on the back of the head. The soldier eyed them both until Killian dropped his gaze to his boots. Saffron simmered.

  “Today we bring justice to three outlaws.” Saffron snorted at the word. There was a reason that the Elysians called the processional way to the square ‘the Corpse Road’ and it had nothing to do with justice. The three prisoners who were brought out in chains would have agreed. The first looked to be about fourteen, scared and sullen. The Directorate were probably thrilled; younger criminals had a better chance at being strong enough survive the process.

  “This boy stands accused of climbing into a tree and breaking some of its branches,” Cartimandua explained, managing to sound both disappointed and deadly. Trees were protected throughout the City, taking so much as an acorn could get you arrested. “But the Directorate is merciful. Instead of execution, we offer him a chance to become sanctified, to wear the leaf mask of a Green Jack. To redress the debt he owes our society.”

  It sounded merciful in theory but Core rats didn’t suddenly become saints. And no one was likely to cast a statue of him in bonze to touch for good luck. A leaf mask was brought out on an embroidered pillow by a Seedsinger, wearing a chiton the dark brown of fertile earth. The mask was a knotwork of leaves in every shade of green. Already, the birch tree in the left corner of the square was suddenly growing yellow catkins, even though it had been raining for weeks now, without a ray of real sunshine.

  The Seedsinger pressed the mask to the boy’s face, fastening it tightly around his head. He stood stiff and silent for a long breathless moment. The crowd fell quiet, waiting.

  The leaf mask wilted, draping uselessly from his eyebrows. The boy made a strange animal sound. A little girl near Saffron began to sing a lullaby to herself, even though Elysian lullabies were not known to be gentle or comforting.

  The boy hung uselessly from the post, an offering rejected.

  The next two outlaws were scavengers like Saffron, caught with illegally collected herbs. The leaf mask refused them both. Cartimandua was furious. A leaf mask without a host would die within hours. There would be one less Green Jack in the world.

  Elysians were seized from the crowd and dragged up to the dais. Soldiers made a barricade of themselves along the alleys and sidewalks as canisters filled with sedatives were loaded into riot guns. If the crowd resisted, they’d be dropped like stones into a lake. Saffron thought the only thing worse than being forced to wear a leaf mask, was being dragged unconscious to the same end.

  But an old woman suddenly stepped towards the pile of bodies, and the mask accepted her. Her rheumy eyes were cold and unafraid. She spat at Cartimandua’s feet. “I hope you starve.”

  Cartimandua’s expression was so bland and unruffled it sent shivers up Saffron’s back. The old woman couldn’t be touched now that she was Green Jill, not even after insulting the Legata. But her rebellion would be short-lived. It didn’t take a Numina to know she wouldn’t be able to sustain the mask for long

  “There’ll be another Ritual day by the end of the week,” someone muttered.

  Saffron pushed through the crowds the very second the soldiers removed the street barriers. “I’ll see you later,” she told Killian. “I have to find Jedekiah.” She didn’t wait for a reply, only jogged away, shoving other Elysians out of her way when they were too slow.

  The Lucky Cat Traveling Sideshow hadn’t traveled in years. When the Wall went up, Jedekiah had already trav
eled for nearly a decade before setting up in Elysium City and getting trapped there. He remembered a time when you could walk down to the lake and watch the litter float against the piers. That was before fresh water became scarce and the guards shot anyone within a mile of the shore. Just ask Saffron’s father who’d died trying when she was only two. There were no tokens or passes to be bought to reach the lake, they didn’t exist. Even Society were forbidden access. Jedekiah didn’t much care, as long as he had his sideshow.

  Saffron practically knew what he’d been eating the first time the power flickered and folk hurled themselves at the outer Walls. She knew every detail because Jedekiah had been telling her the story once a week for the last two years. Part of the reason he’d hired her, she was sure, was because she listened to him prattle on. His own daughter Dahlia ignored him. If Saffron stayed because of Jedekiah, she thought about quitting nearly as often because Dahlia.

  She was thinking about it now.

  “Give me the cash box,” Dahlia demanded, the moment Saffron ducked into the ticket booth. She let the light glint off her brass knuckles. Saffron had never seen her without them and she knew the rose and thorn pattern intimately.

  “Bite me.” Even if she didn’t need to get paid to buy off Argent, she wouldn’t give Dahlia the mud off her boots.

  “Before I break your fingers, you little gutter rat.” Dahlia knew how much Saffron liked to draw; she’d watched her paint the little ticket booth with red and white stripes and leaping black cats. She’d also painted the signs for the Tattooed Lady, the Snake House, Iago the Strongman, as well as the few windows that remained in the strip mall behind them.

  “My girls,” Jedekiah said, coming up to the booth, wearing his usual faded top hat. There was a small ceramic frog tucked into the red ribbon tonight. “What’s the trouble?”

  “She wants the cash box,” Saffron said. It was always ‘she’. Just saying Dahlia’s name set her teeth on edge.

  “Well now,” Jedekiah smiled so that the beads in his beard flashed. “What’s the harm, eh?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Jed, you need that money. You work hard for it.”

  “Sideshow’s not work, love, it’s a lifestyle.”

  “You heard him,” Dahlia said, right before she punched Saffron in the face, brass knuckles clipping her jaw. She fell back against the wall, rapping her head to add insult to injury. She lunged dizzily at Dahlia but Jedekiah intercepted her, grabbing her around the waist. Dahlia grabbed a fistful of coins, which was the most they ever had, and strode away, whistling.

  Saffron spat blood on the ground. The inside of her cheek was raw and throbbed where her teeth had slammed together. She poked at her teeth to make sure none were loose, while revenge boiled inside her veins.

  “Don’t quit. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  Saffron stared at him. “Jedekiah.”

  He flushed, looking away. He handed her the flask of whiskey he kept in his pocket. She swished a mouthful and spat it out, cheek burning clean. “Jed, I needed to get paid tonight.”

  He winced. “You’re a good girl, Saffron.” No one else ever called her that, nor were they likely to. “We’ll make more money. There’ll be a line-up tonight, you’ll see.”

  There had never once been a line-up.

  And there never would be. They were an antique novelty. They couldn’t come close to competing with the glittering assortment of entertainment in the Rings. All they had were rats trained to re-enact the Lake Wars, a ferret dressed as Johnnie with apple leaves in his collar, a woman covered in tattoos, a short man, a boy who ate snakes, a topless tarot card reader, and a collection of Green Jack marionettes. Still she’d take the cheap faded plywood signs and tricks over the glossy beauty and bright lights of the Rings any day. Even for the pennies Jedekiah paid her, when he could afford to pay her at all.

  And now she had nothing to pay Argent back with; she couldn’t even head down to the black market, it wouldn’t open again until long past midnight. If it opened at all, some weeks you just never knew, especially with curfew.

  She stayed to work her shift, on the off chance the patrons would tip her. She wiped away the doodle she’d drawn with a nub of charcoal on the table: bare winter trees, and a man with leaves for hair and hunger-sharp ribs reaching out to her. Something about it made her stomach clench.

  She’d only sold eleven tickets by the time she had step into the ring. So much for Jedekiah’s line-up.

  The main tent was painted with more stripes and the circular amphitheatre was piled with sand. Well, lightly sprinkled. Bathsheba had already swallowed two swords and breathed fire and Allegra and Marcus Aurelius walked the tightropes strung overhead.

  Saffron was meant to bow or curtsy or something equally stupid, but she refused. Just as she’d refused to be the apprentice, standing against a board painted with the Wheel of the Fortune tarot card to let Iago throw knives at her. As the Strongman, he was used to lifting people, trailers, trucks, whatever was on hand; he’d once lifted a lion cage, much to the lion’s dismay. Standing still while a girl in a frilly skirt threw knives at his head irked him. But Saffron was better at being irked and she’d threatened to quit, leaving her half-completed painted signs and banners behind.

  The tent smelled like stale popcorn and wet dog. Jedekiah’s pride and joy was his herd of Yorkie terriers. There were seventeen at last count and he dressed them up and let them loose in the ring. Last week he’d made them all gladiator costumes. Saffron skirted a discarded and well-chewed miniature Roman-style leather breastplate as Iago bulged his muscles. A painted lion chased a bull and a winged woman around the spokes of a faded wheel around him.

  Saffron lifted her fist dagger, letting the torchlight dance over the blade. She tossed an apple into the air, spearing it into the open mouth of the lion painted next to Iago’s left eye. The apple wasn’t even real, mostly protein paste and gluten, but it was satisfyingly red. There was a smattering of applause. The next three knives bristled out of the board like a deadly halo around Iago’s head.

  There were worst jobs in the City, even if you counted having to deal with Dahlia. She could be stuck riding the buses out to the Enclave to clean houses or pull rickshaws, or sent down into the sewers to make sure the pipes were sealed shut. Instead, she got to throw knives at people without being carted off by the Protectorate.

  Usually.

  The audience began to whisper. Saffron turned her head just in time to see Protectorate soldiers push into the tent. She glanced to the side but there was nowhere to run. The dagger in her hand was all too tempting but there were too many of them. If they were here about the leaf mask, she was already dead.

  “You!” A soldier barked at Saffron. “Who’s in charge around here?”

  “I just sell the tickets.” She only barely stopped herself from asking him snidely if he’d like to buy one. She wasn’t sure where Jedekiah was but she wouldn’t have told them even if she knew.

  “We’re here about the Green Jack.”

  Her mouth was suddenly so dry she could barely speak. She hoped her swollen jaw from Dahlia’s punch would excuse it. “We have sword-swallowers and bearded ladies,” she said. “And knife-girls. That’s it.”

  “We’ll see. Put that dagger down.” He motioned to the others. “Search everything.”

  They weren’t here for her. Her knees wobbled faintly with relief. When Saffron shifted, his gaze snapped back to her. “No one moves.”

  She could hear Allegra protesting the search and her curse when she was tossed into a puddle. Jasper begged them to be careful with the reptile house. Every barked order and scuff of steel-toed boot felt like a slap. After what felt like hours, the guards gathered to report their findings. “It’s clear.”

  “Sorenson got bit.”

  “Snake?”

  Sorenson wrapped a bandana around his bleeding hand. “No, the dammed tarot reader.”

  The leader handed Saffron a stack of printed notices.
There was a sketch of a Green Jack and bold underline font: Reward for capture. Do your duty to Elysium City!

  “There’s a bounty set on the Jack,” he said. If only she could turn the mask in herself and collect the reward. But she knew better. The Directorate would never let her go. She’d be hanged on a Festival day, just like the others. “Make sure to tell your customers tomorrow,” he grimaced at the parking lot. “If you even get any.”

  Saffron didn’t fully breathe until the Protectorate unit was down the street and harassing the tavern. “Are they gone?” Jasper poked his head into the tent.

  Saffron tossed the bounty posters aside. “For now.”