Once the carriage turned into the Arosa Old Quarter of the Lower City, it slowed noticeably.
The roads here were far narrower than in the Middle City. Water left by the last rain still sat trapped in the cracks between the flagstones, and under the afternoon sun the damp of it turned upward mixed with the smell of the drains, close enough to make breathing difficult.
The houses on either side crowded up against one another, greyish-brown plaster peeling away in sheets. Nearly every window stood open, with shirts washed pale hung outside to dry. Someone had simply run a worn-out awning cloth from a second-floor window to the wall opposite, holding off the noon glare with some difficulty.
What lined the street most thickly was not shops but the kind of small tavern that could not be bothered to wipe its own sign clean.
Their wooden doors stood wide open on a few tables gone black with soaked-in drink. Even in daylight, the places along the wall were taken by a fair number of casual labourers with no work and by local thugs, all of them holding cloudy grey ale.
Grey ale was a cheap beer brewed from cheap rye, leftover malt and bitterleaf.
It was low in price and not especially strong, and it was what the ordinary people and the wage-earning class of Castibury usually chose for everyday drinking.
In summer grey ale was generally cut with cool water, and the better sort of establishment would drop a couple of chips of ice into the wooden cup. The taste was still sour and bitter, but it was safer than the raw water sold in the alleys, and plenty of people would rather eat one less piece of black bread in a day than go without a cup after work.
The sour, fermented smell of it drifted out through the open doors and mixed with sweat, hot soup and the sewer.
People drank grey ale in the Middle City too, of course, though mostly near the workshops, or in the cheap eating houses that weren't particular about much. Genuinely respectable people preferred wine brought up from the south, or something else again.
A few workers in vests crouched resting at the foot of a wall, their clothes stuck to their backs with sweat. Day labourers with sacks over their shoulders squeezed past the carriage, bare arms coated in dust. A good many more sat in the shade outside the taverns, fanning themselves with stiff pieces of card while they slowly worked their watered grey ale into their mouths.
House Rosenfeld's carriage was altogether too conspicuous here.
Viola had covered the silver crest in advance, but the glossy black body and the brass-rimmed wheels still drew plenty of eyes.
Greed, envy, and, once they had got a look at Elaine or at Viola, other and darker thoughts.
Those eyes followed the pair of them all the way down from the carriage. Looking at the dereliction around her, Elaine realised this was the first time she had ever set foot in Castibury's Lower City.
She had only ever heard that the place was chaotic and filthy. Today was the first time she had actually come.
Still... registration or not, it was as well that Viola had explained beforehand why they had to come all the way down to Arosa in the Lower City to do it, or Elaine would honestly have suspected this unremarkable little chit of planning to sell her.
Viola had explained that oversight in the Lower City was rather looser, and that with House Rosenfeld's influence she could apply a small amount of manoeuvring, which would make it easier for Elaine to obtain a legal identity.
Elaine did, after all, currently look like a small loli who couldn't harm a fly.
She pulled her hood lower and followed Viola into the old grey-white building on the corner. A wooden board hung at the entrance, split by the sun, with the words "Temporary Population Registry" just about still legible on it.
Plainly a government office. The Judgment Tribunal's mark hung above it as well, proof that the Tribunal was responsible for the place.
Inside, though, it was noisier than the street.
Women with children in their arms, workers holding old employment certificates, men with faces flushed from drink, all crammed in together.
Someone was leaning on the counter arguing. Someone else was quarrelling over who had queued first, red in the face and thick in the neck. The registrar did not even lift her head, only waved impatiently at people to stand back.
Any change in a person's circumstances — moving house, or a change of work that meant going elsewhere — had to be reported in advance.
To the people at the top, a policy like this could presumably keep all sorts of potential dangers and crimes under effective control. Given the state of the infrastructure in Castibury's Lower City, however, carrying it out in full was likely to prove somewhat difficult.
Viola brought Elaine up to the counter. The somewhat stout middle-aged woman behind it was frowning, apparently worrying over something.
"Leave your papers. Queue at the back."
Viola had only just handed the paper across when the woman's eyes landed on the corner of the silver crest showing at her breast.
She froze, and the impatience vanished off her face at once.
"Rosenfeld... you're the young lady of House Rosenfeld?"
Viola's displeased expression switched over immediately, and she produced a thoroughly confident smile, as if to say the woman in front of her knew how to read a situation after all.
The woman got hurriedly to her feet, smiling with exceptional warmth.
"Whatever brought you here in person, my lady? It's so hot outside. Had I known, I'd have had a room made ready in advance."
As she spoke she pushed the pile of papers beside her out of the way. The people queuing behind them looked unhappy, and not one of them dared make a sound.
"I'd like to arrange a temporary registration for her." Viola drew Elaine forward a little.
The woman took the papers, full of assurances at first, but the further down she read the tighter her brow drew.
"Eh... that is, Miss Rosenfeld, this young lady's records are... all blank? Is there a birth certificate?"
Document wallet it might be called, but there was almost nothing about Elaine inside it. Most of it was application forms.
"The orphanage she was in has closed down. The birth certificate and everything else is gone."
"Um... Miss Rosenfeld, there's nothing at all?"
With some basic paperwork one could still work a back door. With absolutely nothing, matters became difficult.
Viola fell silent, and the woman pushed the papers back with an awkward look.
"Miss Rosenfeld, it isn't that I'm unwilling to help. She hasn't so much as a basic record, and there's no proving she existed in the past at all. You... you know the Judgment Tribunal's rules, my lady. I... it isn't easy for me either."
Viola frowned.
"Not even with my surety?"
The woman smiled apologetically at once.
"Your surety is certainly worth something, my lady. It's only that we still need at least one certification record from a local institution, or we truly don't dare send this identity up the chain."
A local institution's certification record was simply a proof that a person had genuinely lived somewhere. A relief house, a workshop, a church or a long-term employer could all issue one. With a witness seal, the registry could go on to fill in a name, an address and a temporary identity; without it, not even a guarantor's signature would take effect.
The woman hesitated for a while, then, as though something had just come back to her, pulled the wallet she had pushed away back in front of her again.
"If the only thing missing is the local certification, it isn't entirely hopeless."
The somewhat heavy woman knew perfectly well who Viola was. Low-level government worker though she was, she had naturally heard of her.
Viola looked up. The woman leaned slightly forward, and a deliberate friendliness came into her already oily smile.
"Didn't House Rosenfeld once fund several relief organisations here in Arosa? I remember you came with your family once when you were small. Though a great lady such as yourself has surely long forgotten me."
Viola looked at her for several seconds with plainly not the faintest recollection.
The woman was not embarrassed by it. She only smiled more attentively and dug a yellowed form out of a drawer stuffed with old paper, its edges already gone fuzzy, half a dark red seal stamped across it.
"The Red Vein Relief Society has been certifying the unregistered lately. They hold standing filing rights, the paperwork is quick, and they don't ask too many questions about the past. Submit to one basic examination and you'll have your witness seal."
When the words Red Vein Relief Society landed, the noisy crowd beside them actually went quiet for a moment.
A woman with a child in her arms glanced down at the baby without thinking. A man sitting against the wall touched the old bandage on his wrist, and the irritation on his face eased a little.
There were several so-called relief societies in the Arosa district. In the beginning they really had relieved the poor and those who had met with misfortune, but as time went on they relieved the poor less and less, until they looked more like organisations that were charitable in name only.
The Red Vein Relief Society was an exception, of course. From the day it was founded, its aim had been to help every poor person there was. Even if you weren't ill you could go to the tents it put up and ask for a meal.
And a relief society as close to the common people as that was naturally willing to issue the poor and undocumented a witness seal that could prove who they were.