their faces, thought better of it, and hurried after the parade. The crowd, meantime, showed its traditional appreciation of free speech by pelting the singers with rotten fruit and horse droppings. Hawk watched the banner holders disappear down the street with fixed smiles and gritted teeth, and wondered where the Conservatives had found enough idiots and would-be suicides to enter the Northside in the first place.
Nice banners, though.
'I'll be glad when this election nonsense is over,' said Fisher as they started on their way again. 'I haven't worked this hard in years. I don't think I've ever seen so many drunks and fights and street-corner rabble-rousers in my life. Or so many rigged games of chance, for that matter.'
'Anyone in this city stupid enough to play Find the Lady with a perfect stranger deserves everything that happens to him,' said Hawk unfeelingly. 'And when you get right down to it, things aren't that bad, actually. You're bound to get some fights during an election, but there's hardly anyone here wearing a sword or a knife. You know, Isobel, I'm almost enjoying myself. It's all <em>so fascinating</em>. I'd heard all the stories about past elections, but I never really believed them till now. This is democracy in action. The people deciding their own future.'
Fisher sniffed disdainfully. 'It'll all end in tears. The people can vote till they're blue in the face, but at the end of the day the same old faces will still be in power, and things will go on just as they always have done. Nothing ever really changes, Hawk. You should know that.'
'It's different here,' said Hawk stubbornly. 'The Reform Cause has never been stronger. There's a real chance they could end up dominating the Haven Council this time, if they can just swing a few marginal Seats.'
Fisher looked at him. 'You've been studying up on this, haven't you?'
'Of course; it's important.'
'No, it isn't. Not to us. Come tomorrow, the same thieves and pimps and loan sharks will still be doing business as usual in the Northside, no matter who wins your precious election. There'll still be sweatshops and protection rackets and back-alley murders. This is Haven's dumping ground, where the lowest of the low end up because they can't sink any further. Let the Council have its election. They'll still need us to clean up the mess afterwards.'
Hawk looked at her. 'You sound tired, lass.'
Fisher shrugged quickly. 'It's just been a bad day, that's all.'
'Isobel;'
'Forget it, Hawk.' Fisher shot him a sudden smile. 'At least we'll never want for work, while the Northside still stands.'
Hawk and Fisher turned down Martyrs' Alley, and made their way out onto the Harbourside Promenade. The market stalls quickly disappeared, replaced by elegant shop-fronts with porticoed doors and fancy scrollwork round the windows, and an altogether better class of customers. The Promenade had been 'discovered' by the Quality, and its fortunes had prospered accordingly. Of late it had become quite the done thing for the minor aristocracy to take the air on the Promenade, and enjoy a little fashionable slumming. There were goods for sale on the edge of the Northside to tempt even the most jaded palates, and it did no harm to a gentleman's reputation to be able to drop the odd roguish hint of secret dealings and watch the ladies blush prettily at the breath of scandal. Not that a gentleman ever went into the Northside alone, of course. Each member of the Quality had his own retinue of bodyguards, and they were always careful to be safely out of the Northside before dark.
But during the daylight hours the Promenade was an acknowledged meeting place for the more adventurous members of the Quality, and as such it attracted all kinds of well-dressed parasites and hangers-on. Scandalmongers did a busy trade in all the latest gossip, and confidence tricksters strolled elegantly down the Promenade, eyeing the Quality in much the same way as a cruising shark might observe a passing shoal of minnows. Hawk and Fisher knew most of them by sight, but made no move to interfere. If people were foolish enough to throw away good money on wild-sounding schemes, that was their business and nothing to do with the Guards. Hawk and Fisher were just there to keep an eye on things, and see that no one stepped out of line.
For their part, the Quality ignored Hawk and Fisher. Guards were supposed to know their place, and Hawk and Fisher were notorious throughout Haven for not having the faintest idea of what their place was. In the past, members of the Quality who'd tried to put them in their place had been openly laughed at and, on occasion, severely manhandled. Which was perhaps yet another reason why Hawk and Fisher had spent the past five years patrolling the worst section of Haven.
The sun shone brightly over the Promenade, and the Quality blossomed under its warmth like so many eccentrically colored flowers. Youngsters wearing party colors hawked the latest editions of the Haven newspapers, carrying yet more details of candidates' backgrounds, foul-ups, and rumored sexual preferences. A boys' brigade of pipes and drums made its way along the Promenade, following a gorgeously colored Conservative banner. The Conservatives believed in starting them young. Hawk stopped for a while to enjoy the music, but Fisher soon grew bored, so they moved off again. They left the bustling Promenade behind them, and made their way through the elegant houses and well-guarded establishments of Cheape Side, where the lower merchant classes held sway. They'd been attracted to the edge of the Northside by cheap property prices, and were slowly making their mark on the area.
The streets were reasonably clean, and the passersby were soberly dressed. The houses stood back from the street itself, protected by high stone walls and iron railings. And a fair sprinkling of armed guards, of course. The real Northside wasn't that far away. This was usually a quiet, even reserved area, but not even the merchant classes were immune to election fever. Everywhere you looked there were posters and broadsheet singers, and street-corner orators explaining how to cure all Haven's ills without raising property taxes.
Hawk and Fisher stopped suddenly as the sound of a gong resonated loudly in their heads. The sound died quickly away, to be replaced by the dry, acid voice of the Guard communications sorcerer:
<em>Captains Hawk and Fisher, you are to report immediately to Reform candidate James Adamant, at his campaign headquarters in Market Faire. You have been assigned to protect him and his staff for the duration of the election.</em>
A map showing the headquarters' location burned briefly in their minds, and then it and the disembodied voice were gone. Hawk shook his head gingerly. 'I wish he wouldn't use that bloody gong; it goes right through me.'
'They could do without the sorcerer entirely, as far as I'm concerned,' said Fisher feelingly. 'I don't like the idea of magic-users having access to my mind.'
'It's just part of the job, lass.'
'What was wrong with the old system of runners with messages?'
Hawk grinned. 'We got too good at avoiding them.'
Fisher had to smile. They made their way unhurriedly through Cheape Side and on into the maze of interconnecting alleyways popularly referred to as The Shambles. It was one of the oldest parts of the city, constantly due for renovation but somehow always overlooked when the budget came round. It had a certain faded charm, if you could ignore the cripples and beggars who lined the filthy streets. The Shambles was no poorer than anywhere else in the Northside, but it was perhaps more open about it. Shadowy figures disappeared silently into inconspicuous doorways as Hawk and Fisher approached.
'Adamant,' said Fisher thoughtfully. 'I know that name.'
'You ought to,' said Hawk. 'A rising young star of the Reform Cause, by all accounts. He's contesting the High Steppes district, against a hardline Conservative Councilor.
He might just take it. Councilor Hardcastle isn't what you'd call popular.'
Fisher sniffed, unimpressed. 'If Adamant's so important, how did he end up with us as his bodyguards?'
Hawk grunted unhappily. The last time he and Fisher had worked as bodyguards, everything had gone wrong. Councilor Blackstone had been murdered, despite their protection, and so had six other people. Important people. Hawk and Fisher had caught the killer eventually, but that hadn't been enough to save their reputation. They'd been in the doghouse with their superiors ever since. Not that Hawk or Fisher gave a damn. They blamed themselves more than their superiors ever could. They'd liked Blackstone.
'Well,' said Fisher finally, 'you've always said you wanted a chance to study an election close-up, to see how it worked. It looks like you've got your chance after all.'
'Yeah,' said Hawk. 'Wait till you see Adamant in action, Isobel; he'll make a believer out of you.'
