“She takes years?” said Rook.
It was past midnight.
They were in the back room of Greaves & Son, all four of them, with the shutters closed and a single lamp burning on the counter among Abel Greaves’s little wooden drawers.
Nell sat on the stairs, as always.
Wren sat at the counter with her teacup in both hands.
Rook leaned against the wall with his arms folded and, for once, no food anywhere near him.
Lucan held out his left hand under the lamp.
It had mostly recovered.
But the skin across the knuckles was still a little looser than the skin of his right hand, a little drier, with fine lines in it that hadn’t been there a week ago.
If you looked closely, there was a single brown spot on the back of his wrist, the size of a lentil.
An old man’s spot.
“A year and two months,” he said.
“About.
That’s what the panel said she got before I pulled away.”
Nobody spoke.
“And the men,” Wren said at last.
“The Bound ones.
Tell me again.”
He told them again.
Everything he had seen in the churchyard and everything he had learned afterward.
Lucan had spent three days and nearly two hundred silver finding out.
He’d paid street-children to follow the men with silver-rimmed eyes and dockers to listen in the gin-shops of Brassmarket.
He’d paid a clerk at the Registry to look up who had been buying Holloway’s small notes ahead of the main auction.
Eleven men.
All former Holloway collectors or their bosses.
All bought for a handful of coins and turned into something that didn’t sleep and didn’t speak and walked behind a small, thin, straw-haired woman like a pack of dogs behind a shepherd.
And one of them, a man called Jasper Pike, had last been seen by his landlady lying in his own bed with three broken ribs and a caved-in face, and had then got up, a day later, and walked out of the door as though nothing was wrong with him at all.
“She can control them,” Wren said slowly, “because she owns their debts.”
“Yes.”
“Only because she owns their debts.”
“As far as I can tell.”
Wren set down her teacup very carefully.
Her magnified eyes had gone sharp and distant behind her spectacles.
Lucan had seen that look before.
It was the look she wore when she was reading a contract and had found the clause that changed everything.
“Then she’s going to be at the Holloway auction,” she said.
“Isn’t she?”
“Every debt Holloway ever owned, going under the hammer at once,” Lucan said.
“Four thousand notes.
Every collector and thug and desperate soul in the lower city who ever borrowed a copper from them.” He nodded.
“For her, it isn’t an auction.
It’s an armoury.”
“Then we’ll have to buy it first,” said Rook.
“We can’t buy all of it.
Not with clean coin.
We don’t have anything like enough.” Lucan rubbed his eyes.
“But we don’t need to buy all of it.
We just need to buy the ones that matter.
The dangerous ones.
Collectors.
Enforcers.
Anyone with a knife and a reason to use it.
If we own their debts, she can’t.”
Wren was already pulling a sheaf of paper toward her.
“I’ll need the full catalogue from the Registry.
All four thousand notes.
And the Holloway files.
Who the borrowers are, what they do.”
“That’ll take weeks.”
“It’ll take three days,” said Wren, “and a great deal of tea.”
“And Varney?” Nell asked quietly from the stairs.
Everyone looked at her.
“Varney owes Holloway nine thousand,” Nell said.
“That’s what you said.
He’s one of the biggest debts on the list.” She looked at Lucan.
“If she buys that one, she owns him.
Doesn’t she?
And everyone who works for him.”
The back room was very quiet.
“Yes,” said Lucan.
“She does.”
The Lower Wards Debt Registry had never seen anything like the Holloway auction.
By the ninth bell on the fourteenth of Frost, the great echoing marble hall was so crowded that the clerks had locked the doors and posted Debt Marshals outside to turn people away.
The queues at the brass grilles had been swept aside.
Rows of hard wooden benches had been dragged in and set out across the black and white tiles, and every one of them was full.
Lucan had never seen so many kinds of people in one room.
There were bankers from the Lamplighters’ Quarter in tall hats and dark frock-coats, sitting in tight little groups and murmuring to each other.
There were moneylenders from the river district, fat men with rings on their fingers and cigars in their mouths.
There were loan sharks from Tallowgate and the mill quarter, thin men with hungry eyes.
There were lawyers and clerks and agents, and a scattering of odd, quiet people who sat alone and said nothing and wrote things down in small notebooks.
And there were, in the gallery that ran around the upper level of the hall, a great many ordinary people.
Mill-workers, dockers, shopkeepers.
They’d come to see who would buy their debts.
Who would own them now.
They sat in silence, leaning on the gallery rail, looking down at the bidders on the benches below like condemned prisoners watching the hangman sharpen his knife.
Lucan sat near the front, on the end of a bench, in his best coat with a starched collar and a silver pin in his cravat.
Mr.
Lucan Aurel Thorne, apothecary, of Hob’s Cross.
Beside him sat Wren in her scorched grey robe, with a stack of paper in her lap three inches thick, every note in the Holloway catalogue annotated in her tiny, precise handwriting.
Behind him, Rook stood against the wall in his ridiculous naval uniform, his arms folded, looking at everyone in the room one at a time.
Lucan’s eyes moved across the crowd.
Above every head, the faint gold words.
Owes: 300 silver (Holloway).
Is owed: nothing.
A weaver in the gallery, clutching her shawl.
Owes: 40,000 silver (various).
Is owed: 220,000 silver.
A fat banker on the front bench.
Owes: nothing.
Is owed: 61 lives.
BOUND (Fennick, Isolde) — by oath.
Lucan’s eyes stopped.
The man was sitting alone at the end of the second bench, three rows ahead, with a single slim folder on his knees.
Grey hair, grey suit, grey face.
So utterly ordinary that it was difficult to look at him for long.
Lucan had to force his eyes to stay on him.
They kept trying to slide away.
BOUND by oath.
Not by debt.
By something else.
Something old.
Lady Fennick’s man.
“Coyle,” Wren murmured, without looking up from her papers.
She’d seen where his eyes had gone.
“Lady Fennick’s man of business.
Her spy, mostly.
He’s been in the Registry every day this week, reading the Holloway files.”
“What’s he here for?”
“Varga’s quarter-share in Holloway.
It’s being sold separately, at the end.
And I’d imagine certain specific notes.” Wren turned a page.
“Varga kept files on everyone who owed Holloway money.
Their secrets.
Their weaknesses.
Lady Fennick will want those.”
Lucan kept looking.
His eyes moved along the benches, up into the gallery, along the rail.
Silver.
She was standing at the gallery rail in her shabby grey dress and black shawl, with her straw-coloured hair pinned up, looking down at him across the whole length of the hall.
Tamsin Marsh.
She wasn’t hiding.
She was simply standing there, perfectly still among the crowd, and her eyes were fixed on his face.
Above her head, in silver: [ ACCOUNT HOLDER.
] Is owed: 1 life (Tobin Marsh) — by Lucan Marr.
And scattered through the crowd below her, on the benches and against the walls, at least six men with silver words above their heads.
BOUND (Marsh, Tamsin).
Six men with dull, empty faces and eyes rimmed with dirty silver like old coins, holding bidding paddles in their laps.
She lifted one hand from the rail and gave him a tiny, polite wave.
The auction started at the tenth bell exactly.
The auctioneer was a Crown Court official in a black robe and white wig who stood at a high lectern at the front of the hall and read the lots out in a voice like a rusty hinge.
He took them in batches at first.
Small notes.
Ten silver, twenty silver, fifty.
A hundred notes at a time, sold as a block to whoever bid highest, and the bankers and moneylenders snapped them up for a few silver each, pennies on the pound, scribbling the lot numbers in their ledgers.
Lucan let them go.
These were the weavers and the dockers.
The people in the gallery.
He couldn’t save them all.
Not today.
But every so often Wren’s finger would tap a line on her paper, and he would lift his paddle.
“Lot four hundred and twelve,” said the auctioneer.
“Assorted notes, Tallowgate and Wicker Row.
Forty notes.
Face value two thousand two hundred silver.”
Wren tapped.
Four collectors.
Two enforcers for the Wicker Row gang.
One man who has killed at least three people in debt disputes.
Lucan bid.
One of Tamsin’s Bound men bid against him.
They went up together, ten silver at a time, while the bankers on the front benches turned to stare.
Thirty silver.
Fifty.
Ninety.
A hundred and forty.
The Bound man bid with the dead, mechanical regularity of a clock, lifting his paddle the instant Lucan lowered his.
A hundred and eighty.
At two hundred and twenty, the Bound man stopped.
His paddle stayed in his lap.
His face didn’t change at all.
“Sold.
Lot four hundred and twelve, to Mr.
Thorne.”
Lucan glanced up at the gallery.
Tamsin was writing something in a small notebook.
She didn’t look at him.
It went on like that all morning.
Lot after lot.
Wren tapping, Lucan bidding, a Bound man bidding against him.
Sometimes Lucan won.
Sometimes he didn’t.
Tamsin seemed to know as well as Wren did which notes mattered.
Every collector, every enforcer, every man in the lower city with a knife and a debt to Holloway, she wanted.
And every time Lucan bid for one, she bid against him, and pushed the price up, and up, and then let him have it.
It took him until midday to understand what she was doing.
“She’s draining us,” he murmured to Wren.
Wren’s pencil stopped.
“She doesn’t care about winning these,” Lucan said.
“She’s pushing the price up on everything I want so I’ll spend my clean coin.
Then she’ll let me have them.
She’s making me pay twice what they’re worth.” He looked at the running tally in the corner of his vision.
“How much have we got left?”
Wren was quiet for a moment.
“Two thousand eight hundred and ten.”
They had started the day with four thousand nine hundred.
“Varney’s lot hasn’t come up yet,” Lucan said.
“No.”
“It’s nine thousand four hundred face.”
“Secured on three properties,” Wren said.
“The bidding will start at a fifth of face.
Probably more, given the properties.
Two thousand at least.” She took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.
“We should have it.
Just.”
Lucan looked up at the gallery again.
Tamsin Marsh was looking down at him.
She’d stopped writing.
There was a very small smile on her face.
Coyle came to him during the noon recess.
Lucan was standing alone at the end of the hall by one of the tall windows, drinking a cup of the Registry’s terrible coffee, when the grey man appeared at his elbow.
Lucan hadn’t seen him approach.
One moment there was empty air beside him; the next, there was a grey suit and a grey face and a polite grey voice.
“Mr.
Thorne.
Forgive me.
I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” A hand, dry and cool.
“Coyle.
I have the honour to manage certain affairs on behalf of Lady Isolde Fennick.”
“Mr.
Coyle.”
“You’ve had a busy morning.”
“I like a bargain.”
“Evidently.” Coyle’s pale eyes moved over him, unhurried.
“A great many of the notes you’ve bought this morning belong to very unpleasant men.
Collectors.
Enforcers.
Men of violence.” He paused politely.
“An odd choice of investment, for an apothecary.”
“I’m a generous man.
I believe in second chances.”
“How very admirable.” Coyle smiled.
It didn’t reach his eyes.
Nothing did.
“Lady Fennick has heard a great deal about your remarkable restoratives, Mr.
Thorne.
Remarkable.
There’s a young woman on Velvet Row whose broken jaw healed overnight.
With new teeth.” He tilted his head.
“Her ladyship takes a great interest in the medical welfare of her workers.
Especially after the recent tragedy at Pit Nine.
She would very much like to discuss a supply arrangement.
Perhaps you would do her the honour of dining with her?
At the mansion?”
Lucan held the coffee cup very steady.
Above Coyle’s head, the gold letters glowed.
Is owed: 61 lives.
BOUND (Fennick, Isolde) — by oath.
“I’d be delighted,” he said.
“Excellent.
I’ll send a card.” Coyle bowed slightly.
“Oh.
One more thing, Mr.
Thorne.
A small curiosity.” He reached into his folder and took out a single sheet of paper, and held it up just long enough for Lucan to read it.
It was a copy of a Registry record.
Redemption, under Section Seven: Harlow, Nell.
Paid by: Brask, Ottilie.
“The late Mrs.
Brask.
Of Needle Lane.
Pawnbroker.
Murdered.
You knew her, I believe?”
“I bought a great many things from her shop.”
“I’m sure you did.” Coyle put the paper away.
“Enjoy the rest of the auction, Mr.
Thorne.”
And he was gone.
One moment he was there; the next, the space beside Lucan was empty, and Lucan’s eyes couldn’t find him anywhere in the crowd.
“Lot one thousand and six,” the auctioneer said at the second bell after noon.
“A single note.
Face value nine thousand four hundred silver.
Debtor: Varney, Saul, publican, of the Hanged Bishop, Wicker Row.
Secured on properties at Needle Lane, Tallow Street and Wicker Row.
Bidding will start at one thousand eight hundred silver.”
The hall went quiet.
Everybody in the lower city knew who Saul Varney was.
The bankers on the front benches looked at each other.
The moneylenders from the river district shifted in their seats.
Nobody wanted to own Saul Varney’s debt.
Owning Saul Varney’s debt meant trying to collect it, and everybody knew what had happened to the last man who tried to collect anything from Saul Varney.
Lucan lifted his paddle.
“One thousand eight hundred.
Mr.
Thorne.”
Across the hall, a Bound man lifted his.
“One thousand nine hundred.”
Lucan lifted his again.
“Two thousand.”
They went up in hundreds.
Two thousand two hundred.
Two thousand four hundred.
Two thousand six hundred.
The hall was silent now.
Even the gallery had gone quiet.
Everyone was watching: the young apothecary in his starched collar, and the big, dead-faced, silver-eyed man on the other side of the room, raising their paddles in turn like two men taking turns to swing an axe.
“Two thousand seven hundred,” said the auctioneer.
Lucan had two thousand eight hundred and ten.
He raised his paddle.
“Two thousand eight hundred.
Mr.
Thorne.”
He held his breath.
The Bound man lifted his paddle with the same dead regularity as before.
“Two thousand nine hundred.”
Wren’s hand closed on Lucan’s sleeve.
He didn’t need to look at her.
He knew the number.
He looked up at the gallery.
Tamsin Marsh stood at the rail with her hands folded in front of her, looking down at him.
She wasn’t smiling now.
Her face was perfectly still and perfectly serious, and very pale.
Her eyes held his.
He could mint ten thousand silver in the time it took to blink.
A hundred thousand.
A million.
And none of it, not a single coin, would pass the brass lens of the clerk who would take payment for this lot.
Every coin he’d ever made out of the air was worth nothing here.
Less than nothing.
The Exchequer does not create value.
“Two thousand nine hundred silver,” said the auctioneer.
“Going once.”
Lucan’s hand stayed on his knee.
“Going twice.”
Tamsin Marsh, very slowly, lifted one finger from the gallery rail and touched it to her lips.
“Sold.
Lot one thousand and six.
To—” The auctioneer squinted at his list.
“Mr.
Pike.
On behalf of a client.”
The hall let out its breath.
Noise rushed back in: murmuring, paper rustling, the scrape of benches.
[ NOTICE: A note held by Saul Varney has been ACQUIRED by a hostile Account.
]
Lucan stood up.
“Corpse,” said Rook quietly behind him.
He hadn’t called Lucan that once before.
It was Ottilie’s word.
“What do we do?”
“Varney,” Lucan said.
“Now.”
They took a cab.
It was the fastest thing they could find, a battered black hansom with a sweating horse.
Rook paid the driver triple to go at a gallop, and the cab tore through the narrow lanes of Tallowgate, swaying and clattering, scattering pedestrians and pigeons and costermongers’ barrows.
Lucan sat inside and stared at nothing.
Bind.
He kept seeing the word on Tamsin’s silver panel.
Any person whose debt you hold may be Bound.
A Bound debtor obeys you in all things.
He wondered how long it took.
Whether she had to touch them.
Whether she had to be near.
Whether she could do it from the gallery rail of the Lower Wards Registry, with one finger touched to her lips.
They stopped outside the Hanged Bishop at a quarter past three.
The pub looked exactly the same as it always did: a low, dark, smoke-stained building on the corner of Wicker Row, with a sign over the door showing a bishop in a noose and a mitre, his tongue sticking out.
Two of Varney’s men stood at the door, smoking.
They looked at Lucan and Rook as they climbed out of the cab, and something moved behind their eyes that Lucan didn’t like.
But they stood aside and let them in.
The back room was dark and smoky as always.
The fire was burning.
The long table had been laid for supper.
And at the head of it, in his brown tweed suit and green waistcoat and round wire spectacles, sat Saul Varney, eating oysters.
He looked up as they came in.
He set down an oyster shell.
He dabbed his lips carefully with his napkin.
Then he smiled, his mild, pleasant schoolmaster’s smile.
“Mr.
Thorne,” he said.
“How good of you to come so quickly.
Do sit down.”
Lucan didn’t sit.
He looked at Varney.
Above the small, neat man’s head, where the gold letters had always hung before, there was new writing now.
It wasn’t gold.
It was silver.
Owes: 9,400 silver (Marsh, Tamsin).
BOUND.
And behind his round wire spectacles, Saul Varney’s mild brown eyes had a thin dull rim of silver around them, like the edge of a coin that had been passed through too many hands.
“I’m afraid,” Varney said gently, “that there’s been a change in my circumstances.”
Behind Lucan, the door of the back room closed.
A key turned in the lock.