Seven Mouths

The first person to refuse them was a woman who had given her wedding day to the harbour six months earlier.

“No,” she said. “Not another thing.”

Iona stood in the doorway of the ward meeting room with a tuning book under her arm.

“We’re not asking the same people to pay again.”

“Then why are you standing in our street?”

It was a fair question. Iona looked at the faces behind her: workers whose houses took the first water, whose wages had never stretched to buying somebody else’s recollection. She had come to them first because she knew they would understand the problem. That did not make them the right people to bear it.

She put the book down.

“We need ringers. Carpenters. People who know where the old drains are. We need help getting households out of the buildings over the Ninth Quay overflow. We need people to carry the plans into the other wards.”

“And who gives the memories?”

“People who’ve been able not to.”

The woman folded her arms.

“Start there, then.”

So they did.

By midday, copies of the old maintenance record had reached all six wards and the harbour watch. Tarin’s name was on every page, beside the name of the master ordered to certify a failure he had not found. Iona’s diagrams showed what they proposed to restore and what they did not know.

She refused to remove the uncertainty from the notice.

“If people are going to risk something,” she told the printer, “they’re entitled to know what it is.”

Glass Hill’s meeting was held in a schoolroom with dry windows and a stove large enough to heat Iona’s whole shop. Tarin’s sister, Nessa, had arranged it. She wore dark spectacles on a chain and resembled him most when displeased.

“You have a gift,” she told her brother, “for telling me things after you’ve made them difficult.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sure you do.”

But she gave Iona the room.

The questions were sensible, suspicious and sometimes selfish. Would the ward’s private seals continue working? Would small contributions actually be sufficient? Why should a house that had already paid for a substitute be asked to give more?

“Because the person you paid has already lost something,” Iona said. “And because the present system is failing whether you approve of our proposal or not.”

A man in a fur-lined coat asked whether this was an accusation.

“It’s a description.”

Nessa took off her spectacles and cleaned them, hiding what might have been a smile.

They demonstrated a small model using empty soundglass and tuned metal rings. It did not prove the city would survive. Iona said so. It showed how seven answering notes divided a strain that crushed a single unsupported channel.

Then Sela stood beside the model and told them what the old watches had involved: the tiredness, the arguments, the shared meals, the bell that once acquired a family of birds in its housing and had to be cleaned for three days.

The system became, for a few minutes, something people had actually done instead of something in a drawing.

Four adults volunteered before the meeting ended. Others wanted time to think. Iona wrote down every condition they asked about and refused to promise anything she could not offer.

In the street afterwards, Tarin bought hot bread from a cart. He handed her half and kept the paper wrapped around her end until she had a firm grip.

“Your mother was better than both of us,” he said.

“She usually is.”

“Does she know?”

“She’s never shown the slightest uncertainty.”

They ate walking towards the harbour. Below them, crews were beginning to move the first clapper up the steps of South Tower. The retired bell master had come out with his old instruments and a great deal of advice. Kes was allowing the advice while reserving the right to complain about its delivery.

Tarin stopped at the corner.

Two Gate officers waited beside a closed carriage. One of them held a sealed document. The other looked young enough to still believe a uniform settled most questions.

“Warden Ash,” the first said. “Magistrate Vey requests your presence.”

“And mine?” Iona asked.

The officer checked the paper, although he already knew.

“Mistress Venn is also invited.”

“That’s a pleasant word.”

Tarin handed her the remaining bread.

“We don’t have to go without telling the others.”

“No,” she said. “We don’t.”

She went back to the school and told Nessa exactly where they were being taken. When she returned, Tarin had not moved towards the carriage.

For some reason, his waiting mattered more to her than the fact that he had thought to suggest it.