The man in the nightgown was trying to shove his door closed, yelling angrily at the people assembled outside. “It’s my home, not yours, and I’ve no room for the likes of you!” he said, pushing with all his might against the two hefty Shiners standing outside. “Get off with ye!”
Aylen saw the commotion on his way north, cursed under his breath and headed straight over. The Corkstown refugees noticed him coming, stepped aside to clear him a path.
The man in the nightgown was so intent on closing his door, he didn’t see Aylen until he was right on the front steps.
“What’s all this about?” he asked, and the homeowner quieted instantly.
“Mr…Mr Aylen!” he gasped, and stepped back immediately. “I didn’t—”
“You said something about having no room, Mr…?” asked Aylen.
“Patton, sir. William Patton.”
“This is a sizable home, Mr Patton. I find it hard to believe you don’t have a room or two to spare.”
“It’s not that I—”
Aylen turned ‘round, counting the soot-stained refugees. “Four, five, six… Three to a space, that’s two rooms. How many do you have?”
Patton was acutely aware of the Shiners flanking Aylen. His voice quietened. “Three, Mr Aylen, sir. But my daughters…” An idea came to him: “Ah! But we’ve a cellar! Nice and dry, and it would fit six quite comfortably.”
Aylen patted his cheek and smiled. “You’re a saint, sir. A saint.” He turned back and called to the refugees: “Go on in, folks, and get warm! Mr Patton here has graciously offered you shelter!”
As the Corkstown family ushered in, Aylen pointed up the stairs. “That’s right! Straight up! Two to a room!”
Patton’s eyes widened. “Two to—?”
“You and your family will take the cellar,” Aylen said, rage barely contained. “And if I hear even a hint you treated these poor people ill, sir, this house will be theirs forevermore. Do you understand me?”
Patton nodded faintly. “Y-yes, Mr Aylen. Of course. There’ll be no trouble.”
“Good,” said Aylen.
He took the two Shiners aside, pointed back at the crowd of stranded families milling about miserably in the dead of night. “Get them sorted,” he said. “Don’t ask, just make it happen. I can’t have…”
He trailed off at the sight of five redcoats coming his way, carrying their bayoneted rifles like they expected trouble. They marched sharply, stopping in formation all around him, with the fifth, an officer, staying at a good distance to give him the excuse to yell:
“Peter Aylen, you have been summoned.”
The corner of Aylen’s mouth turned up in a grimace, and then he did as he was told.
No one had had much sleep this night, but the British soldiers at either end of Sapper’s Bridge seemed especially on edge as Aylen crossed. They alternated between a vacant gaze and sudden jolts of energy, like they expected the Irish to come leaping out of the darkness without warning.
Past the bridge’s torches, Aylen could see what he was walking into. As they followed the road around the cemetery and frozen swampland, he could see Barracks Hill was positively buzzing with commotion. He’d never seen the soldiers so active, in all his years in Bytown. It was like they were mobilizing for war.
They arrived at the thick wooden gates, which stayed closed despite his escort.
“Peter Aylen to see Captain Bowen,” called the officer, but still the gates stayed closed.
“Peter Aylen to see Captain Bowen!” one of the guards shouted back up the hill, which got repeated and repeated and repeated all the way to the buildings up near the northern point. Aylen laughed bitterly, rolling his eyes at the production.
Off to the west, he could see the lights in Uppertown twinkling in the darkness. That, too, told him everything he needed to know.
The gates finally opened—not after orders came back, of course; it was all a matter of timing—and he was led up the hill to the Captain’s cottage, perched near the cliff’s edge, overlooking the river.
The officer knocked on the door and waited like he knew damn well an answer would be long in coming.
“Come!” called Bowen, and the officer opened the door and brought Aylen in. The soldiers stayed outside, probably chuckling to themselves at the show they’d put on.
Aylen took off his mitts in the stuffy, warm air of the cottage, as Bowen leaned back in his chair, puffing away on his pipe. He hadn’t washed up at all since his time in Corkstown, but looked very much like he’d spent the time deciding exactly what kind of furious he was going to be.
“Ah, Aylen, good,” he said, then nodded to his officer to leave.
“I enjoyed your little act,” said Aylen. “Shows Lowertown who’s in charge.”
“It’s no act, Aylen. I am in charge.”
Aylen laughed, loudly, and pointed west. “No, they’re in charge. You’re their lapdog. And since they’re all up at this hour, I have to assume they want their lapdog to draw blood.”
Bowen grinned, puffed at his pipe a little longer, just to make Aylen agitated.
“Martial law,” he said. “Effective immediately.”
“Martial l—”
“You Catholics have been at each other’s throats for so long, you forget what civilization looks like. Uppertown doesn’t care one whit if you eat each other alive. All that was asked was that you do it quietly. But if you’re going to be setting the town ablaze—”
“This was McClintock’s men—”
“At Catholic bidding,” said Bowen. “They did the deed, but you lit the match. No, I’m sorry, but your rights are being curtailed.”
“Curtailed how?” asked Aylen, bracing for what he knew would be an unpleasant answer.
“Curfew, for one. No one outside past sundown.”
“That will strangle the taverns. Strangle commerce—”
“For your own good,” said Bowen. “A sober Catholic is a calm Catholic.” Aylen was about to protest when Bowen cut him off with: “Second, in addition to Sapper’s Bridge, travel on the eastern and southern bridges will be limited to certified lumbermen only.”
Aylen’s eyes narrowed. “Certified,” he growled.
“Anyone found outside Lowertown without the proper documentation will be—”
“There’s no such thing as documentation for—”
“There is now,” said Bowen, slapping a piece of paper on the table. A hastily-written document, marked with a seal, declaring the owner was certified as a lumberman, and working for the Wright company.
Aylen snatched the paper up, tore it in half, and threw it to the ground. Bowen looked amused at the outburst.
“Believe me, there are more where that came from. And curiously, the one thing they all have in common…is that none are issued to you.”
“That’ll cost me a fortune!” Aylen said. “My workers will be—”
“Free to work for anyone else they choose,” said Bowen. “If anyone will have them, of course.”
“This is illegal,” said Aylen, barely holding his fury in check.
“In a state of martial law, sir, the definition of legal and illegal becomes somewhat hard to discern.” Bowen scratched his chin absentmindedly, like he was deep in thought. “What we need is clarity. A path out of the muck.”
Aylen watched him cautiously. “A path how?”
“The issue for the good citizens of Uppertown isn’t so much that there is strife across the canal. It’s that they can’t identify the cause of it. They can’t point and say, ‘Ah yes, that’s the problem’ because you’re all so…interchangeable. They need a target for their unease. A someone to hang.”
Aylen’s face betrayed no emotion, but his right hand slowly moved to his belt, where he kept one of his subtler knives. There was no way he could fight his way out of Barracks Hill, but if he was going to die, he was going to take the fool Bowen with him.
“I can see you’re confused,” smiled Bowen. “It’s been a long night, I suppose.”
“If you kill me—”
“If I kill you, the Shiners fall apart within a fortnight,” said Bowen. “Without you, they’re a disconnected mob of near-starving criminals, looking for a target to their frustrations. Without you, Lowertown goes from a lawless wasteland to absolute anarchy, putting my men in harm’s way for little gain.”
He leaned forward, scowling. “I fought for this position, Aylen, because it was easy. A comfortable cottage overlooking a forgotten military project, with no conflicts in sight and wealthy benefactors to ease me into retirement when I’m done. I’ll never afford a stone house, but I’ll never lead a charge, either. That is the life I set out for myself, and I will not have that stolen from me. Not by you, and not by a lack of you.”
Aylen’s mind was working furiously. “You need a scapegoat…”
“One you won’t need to hunt for, please,” said Bowen. “The sooner this is resolved, the sooner I can withdraw my men and get back to ignoring you all.”
Aylen’s hand drifted away from his knife. “And that’s it? If I find you someone to blame, you’ll leave me be?”
“Well…” said Bowen, with a smile. “You did raise an excellent point earlier that I think bears investigation. About losing a fortune.”
Aylen slammed his fists down on the table, ready to tear Bowen to pieces. “If you think you can extort me, you are—”
“Extortion is such a filthy word,” said Bowen, not flinching in the slightest. “Think of it as a business transaction. Instead of paying an agent to acquire documentation for each and every one of your workers, you can simply pay me to let your men pass without interruption. Papers are lost or damaged, after all. This simplifies things.”
“Simplifies,” Aylen spat.
“I want a stone house,” said Bowen. “And an inheritance for my children. You can agree to this now and we part as allies, or I can take the same amount from you in other ways, and make you my utmost priority for years to come.”
Aylen eased up off the table, clasped his hands behind his back. “Two percent,” he said.
“Ten,” said Bowen. “And access to your books.”
“I have no books,” said Aylen. “And two percent.”
“Then I’ll just make up my own numbers, I suppose. Whatever I like.”
“Five,” said Aylen. “And this covers all my endeavours, on and off the water.”
Bowen smiled. “Seven. And you bring me the one responsible for Corkstown. Alive, for a hanging. Anything less, anything else, and your life will become immeasurably unpleasant.”
Sisk was waiting for him near the eastern end of Sapper’s Bridge, milling about near the soldiers posted there, an odd grin on his face. He started walking backward as Aylen approached, matching his pace so they could talk.
“Mounting a rescue mission to save me?” Aylen asked, drily.
“Thought about it,” said Sisk. “Felt like too much work.”
“Well snap out of your stupor,” said Aylen. “Your night’s not done yet.”
“Whatever it is, it can wait ‘til the morning, ‘cause I’m—”
Aylen grabbed Sisk’s collar and jerked him forward, only to find a knife pressed against his throat. The soldiers did nothing but watch; the nearby Shiners kept a careful distance. Aylen didn’t betray a hint of fear.
“This is your fault,” he snarled. “You killed the constable, then you failed to kill his widow, and were so sloppy cleaning up after yourself that McClintock’s men sowed even more chaos, and now…” He wanted to scream, but instead lowered his voice to a whisper. “And now I’m stuck feeding Bowen, else he’ll shut us all down.”
Sisk lowered his knife, shocked by the revelation. “The bastard grew courage…”
“And it will only get worse,” said Aylen, letting Sisk go. “Once he has a taste, he’ll want more.”
Sisk glanced up the hill at the military camp, flipped his knife around in his hand a few times. “That’s a challenge, even for me.”
“No, not him,” said Aylen. “Not yet, anyway. For now, we play his game and put an end to this Kelly business. Uppertown wants a villain to blame for Corkstown, and we need to give one to them.”
Sisk grinned. “As luck would have it, I know exactly where to find one.”