Brutus Weaver Chapter 8 – Part 1
The Upper City hadn’t changed much in the years since Brutus had been all but exiled from it. The fountains were still shiny enough to scare the birds and the cobblestones were careful done up to look rustic and old when they were replaced every six months like clockwork. Where the Under City always strove to downplay how poor its citizens were, the Upper City did the opposite, creating visions of opulence at every turn. There were no merchants or peddlers of any kind – they had been relegated entirely to the Merchant Quarter decades before and had not returned to the Upper City since – they were occasionally allowed in to see a rich patron or to deal an item upon invitation, but they could not solicit sales in the Upper City or they risked being jailed. Brutus could still remember the first merchant he had jailed when he was a recruit – it was a teenage boy just barely starting his career. He had gotten a cartload of Ice Pears from the North and had assumed the delicacies would sell better among the royals in the Upper City. He hadn’t talked to more than two men and women before he was spotted and arrested. His eyes had been as wide as saucers, scared out of his skull that the stories about the Dungeons were true. Brutus had just shaken his head – he had never seen the dungeons and to be frank wasn’t sure if the rumors were true or not, but he didn’t want to give the boy false hope.
The fact that someone like Sarina’s father had made it in the Upper City was shocking enough. Brutus had seen it a few times of course –a rich merchant is often capable of wooing the last daughter of some rich noble or another merely because of the extra resources and the time to devote. If you have enough money, even royalty will look the other way from your workman’s hands. The merchants rarely fit in though when they arrived. He wondered if McConnell had managed to fit in with the Willemshire elite. He doubted it, but then again, he didn’t want to risk finding out by running into the man. He was in the Upper City for one reason alone. He needed to talk to Sarina.
Brutus tried his hardest to keep from limping too stiffly. The story may have worked on the gate guards but if he pushed his luck, he would soon enough be face to face with a Constable or worse, a Guard Captain. Either would likely find his story wanting and boot him from the city – or worse, they might recognize him and give him a first hand chance to see what the dungeons were really like.
So, he immediately slunk between two narrow row houses. The Upper City was designed similar to how the entirety of Willemshire was laid out, in concentric rings. In the middle was the palace where the King and his family lived along with a few dozen advisers, servants and the occasional outside family member in the King’s good grace. Directly around the King’s Palace were the homes of the highest dignitaries in the land – the Dukes, Earls, and Counts that didn’t have anything to see to outside the city. Most of them did not considering their lack of land but even if they had, they would probably find a good reason to stay in the city and remain busy, if only to stay appraised of the local goings on.
Outside royalty were the homes of especially rich relatives, elevated merchants, and just about anyone that claimed royal lineage but couldn’t claim it but with the coins in their purse. This was a vast majority of the Upper City and their homes were not much nicer than the buildings in the Merchant Quarter. Squared together into long, three story rows, the homes had a short, two span yard in the front with a black steel gate blockading the sidewalk from the entrance. Each gate had a keylock on it to keep out anyone that did not belong. The houses would stretch about a full block back from the street, in a narrow jut to the middle of the double block. Houses were often three to four times as long as they were wide and were stacked upon each other one after another, wrapping around the avenue and toward the royal palace in spiraling circle.
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