[R2 Evening] Alliances [Sular, Open?]

knitting

“Gentlemen, I believe I find myself watching one of those great fat lumps of whale viscera rolling in on Hulali’s hand towards us,” said Msrah in a bored voice. God’s be praised but they ought to have known better than to take their supper within the Aratra bubble, perhaps a few minutes away from Chambers at best. The food at Ayoush however, had proved to be a siren call that Msrah had been unable to ignore. After opening last year, it had become a firm favourite among many of the young folk who worked in politics, regardless of their leanings- for who could impose a belief system on rich, dark rum with the hot kick of chilli seeds and cloves? On peppered snails, juicy and firm to the touch sitting in butters that made the mouth water? On spiced beef and merguez in light, flaky patties and on expertly cooked fish. The king of the dinner. It was why he frowned now, having ordered his starter and feeding olives into his mouth. 

It was encouraged practise for the members of The Bull Elephant Party to make appearances in large groups. To exaggerate the strength of the party and so on and so forth. They took on interns from Thul Amat who were paid to wear clothes with the party insignia, walk alongside the Counsellors from one room to the next and do little else. Msrah was all about nurturing good relationships amongst the party, especially the younger members who may well make up his cabinet one day so he followed this practise easy enough. However, the man who approached their table was one of the party’s exceptions. He travelled alone. Or maybe ‘hunted’ alone might be more appropriate a word choice. 

Futo Finfinne Wolayta was a heavy set man, but not quite as grotesque and corpulent as the talk behind his back filled with grand Mugrobi embellishment would lead people to believe. He walked slowly, sweat sticking to his dark forehead so that he shimmered like wet tar. If you didn’t know the man, you might say he looked friendly- rotund and rosy cheeked with tight white curls on his forehead . If you did know the man in his role of Chief Whip of the Bull Elephant party and had ever been unfortunate enough to find yourself on the wrong side of his ire then you would never ever dare to make that mistake. He approached the company, Msrah and a few of his friends from the party. 

 
“You’re against proposing copper subsidies,” said Futo immediately, his eyes trained on Msrah alone as if the rest of his dinnerparty were little more than motes of dust drifting in and out of the low lamplight. 

“Sana'hulali, Futo Finfinne Wolayta, my friend. It is a pleasure and a privilege as always,” said Msrah with a smile showing off the oddly clinical whiteness of his teeth and opening up his arms. It only made Futo suck in sharply and hum. “How well you look sir, how rotund and robust. Like the very brick-work of the Wall of the Sheltering Winds, you seem never to falter, enveloping us all with your strength.” 

 
“Bzhe, ea, ea” snapped Futo in response. “And you good sirs are all pure rays of sunbeams dropped down like little driplets of piss shaken from the cocks of the gods themselves and all of your jeula’s farts smell like rose petals and cinnamon buns. Now you and you and you,” he clicked his fingers curtly “ Fucking Ma'ehau.”

His friends weren’t stupid, they slipped out of their chairs quickly and were probably thanking the gods that Futo wasn’t there for them as they left.

“You’re against proposing copper subsidies to the general assembly” the fat man repeated. 

Futo was not a pleasant man to be around, inducing brain tumours in all he came across. But Msrah’s smile never wavered once, never faltered as he coolly poured a little more wine. It was the same smile he’d cultivated for debates; the butter wouldn’t melt thoughtfulness of a man who would not be baited easily. He wasn’t intimidated by angry whips, Msrah was not some greenhorn junior minister on his first day at the job. 

 
“It is always so nice when you tell me what I do and don’t believe in. Stops me from dangerous things like personal opinions.”

“Personal opinions are for ugly ones,” said Futo gruffly. He dipped into his pocket and brought out a fat cigar which he began lighting. “You’re one of our prettiest ornaments. Picture yourself tied to the front of my boat with your breasts out. You do not to put them back in your lovely little dress until I give you leave to do so. And if I say you must shake them, po’ana. You will shake them for me.”

Fingers wrapped around his wine glass, Msrah took a small sip. “I’ve never made subsidies an issue,” was all he said, drinking a little more wine. “I don’t make a habit of going into this kind of business so close to an election. It bores voters and I need a stronger fight right now. I ran in The Gripe on a strong platform of the social over the economic and I’m no flip flopper” 

“You flip flop when I say you do. You’ll do a bloody backflip if I fancy it. You’re going to make an impassioned speech about it at the end of the week. Spin your social nonsense if you must, I’ll bring some boys down to make sure you’re playing ball. They’ll help. After that there’ll be an interview so you can clog up the pages of The Thul Ka Times with all that slippery fish oil you love talking. Lots of prancing about and making kissy faces in spectrographs, right up your alley. Swing public opinion to our side and when the proposal comes up, you’ll either stall it or have it thrown out.” 

An interview in The Thul Ka Times was not something to be sniffed at. It was a syndicated, city wide paper and not one of the local rags he could only get himself on usually. That kind of exposure would be vital for his political future and even if he did have to make Futo’s issue the key point it would still be his personality and ideals that took centre stage. Frankly he would have been in on Futo’s plans on that platform alone were it not for his father’s voice in his head. Just because a trader came to you with a fair price it didn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to haggle with him for a lower one. 

“What if I’ve already made a deal with the committee? What if I agreed with the pipefitters so we can really talk armament and militia forces?” 

“Then you unmake that deal. Party line is getting into bed with the Crocuses on this one.” He picked up a salt shaker and poured salt across the table. “See this line? Step over it and I will flay you. I will flay you so hard that your juela will feel the ache in her womb and your wife will feel the ache in her womb because even your unborn children will bear the scars. I will take your skin and I will go to the tanneries and have your cock fashioned into a coin purse.” 

“You should have been a poet Futo, your words never fail to capture my imagination” Msrah said dryly. “I still don’t understand how this does us any good.”

“Pipefitters can’t get measures passed through on a Crocus led committee? Idiot. That’s weak. Neither party can keep the other straight. This coalition omnishambles is going to be the best thing that ever happened to us since the plague, you watch.” 

“I still think we want to nurture relationships with the pipefitters. Almost all of our demographics are the same as their's; I can’t risk splitting my votes on such a flimsy issue. If we can’t go big then we have to seriously th-”

“That’s nice,” Futo stopped him by giving him a gentle pat on the cheek. “Thinking will give you wrinkles, my pretty one.” It was a fight not to be a little rattled at this, his dark turquoise eyes narrowed but only minutely. Futo liked it better when he got real visible reactions from people but Msrah refused point blank to give him that satisfaction. “Erses on seats first, Msrah. That’s what higher up wants. And I know more about getting erses on seats than all the shitters in the civic assembly food hall on extra hot curry day.” 

“You know I want something for this, Futo,” he said finally in a low voice. 

“You’re getting to keep your fucking spinal cord, Msrah Mi Mulugeta,” snapped Futo pulling back as though burned. “Yar’aka, you ungrateful little desema. This isn’t the market. We’re not doing tradsies. You do what I say and you thank Hulali that I still think you’re vaguely useful to me. Provided you don’t talk or think or do much more than breathing and batting those lovely long lashes at me.”

“Futo. I know you wouldn’t come here to flirt so brazenly with me outside of work, all guns blazing and that foul mouthed tongue of yours lolling in the air if you weren’t desperate enough to give me exactly what I want. Public opinion. You need it for this one. I can smell it on you.” He grinned now as he revealed the card in his hand. A true smile as opposed to the won he wore among voters and at parties. It was a little more unsettling than the practised one; a fine balance between smug and sinister.

“You think you’re the only party member I can ask who ever got an old dura’s undercarriage moist before?” sniffed Futo. 

“I do,” he said simply. Because he was. The female vote was historically somewhat elusive for the Bull Elephant Party, with it’s old image of a boy’s club sort of affair. They had precious little female members of his own party but women liked him, for whatever reason. That and he was the best candidate on the committee too. Futo needed him. “I want Public Safety. You push me up the ladder on that committee for the next term and I can make more ground with the people in a month then you’ve done this entire campaign. By the next election we could be the third biggest party in the city”

“Hows that then? You intend to blow half of Thul Ka? Mmm, put me down for the first round. Bet you’re a damn sight better at cocksucking than you are at politics.”

But Futo hissed in sharply and drummed his fingers on the table before he pointed his fat finger in Msrah’s face.“Stall the vote and we’ll talk. Have it tossed out of the committee entirely and burned on a funeral pyre and I’ll give you whatever you want and a comfort girl tied up in a pretty pink bow thrown in with it.” With that he slipped off the chair. “Or else flaying. Remember flaying.”

“A pleasure as always, Futo.”

The fat man hobbled away and Msrah smiled to himself as he flagged down the waiter for some more wine and hopefully some dinner finally. A spread in the Thul Ka times and the prospect of a better committee had turned today into his birthday, unfortunately though that meant dealing with other party politicians who were a damn sight trickier than constituents ever could be.

Sular

From somewhere in the back of the restaurant, in a booth of dark wood carved with faintly obscene figures enjoying themselves in the most earthly ways imaginable, Faraji Negash Berhanu dined in convivial conspiracy with four other members of the Crocus. They spoke softly, laughed privately, and occasionally brooded over a roasted date or a dish of fiery braised peppers. Wine, foreign wine carried into the city by foreign traders, filled their glasses. Spiced crayfish and fruit filled their bellies. Schemes and stratagems filled their heads. By immemorial custom the Crocus, when dining in groups in public, formed small cabals like the cells of some nefarious enterprise. This had given them something of a reputation for being canny, crafty, and subtle, and the party did all it could to encourage that image.  Whether it did them much good now, whether it bought them a single vote, was the subject of wide and even acrimonious debate.  

Votes. That was the topic which the little bouquet of Crocuses could not avoid, and for all the civil talk about food and the forthcoming Festival of the Flood, they kept returning with weary regularity to the subject. It oppressed their evening and interfered with their digestion. It gave the small woman sitting across from Faraji a splitting headache and yet she, like the others, never strayed far from the matter. They were seven votes down.

“Who do we have in our pocket?” asked the woman with the headache, trying to summon up a list of names.

“I think I can get Dereje and Mulu to back us, if we give them a concession on education. Not much of a concession mind you, just a little cut here or there to placate them. Allow them to save face. They still owe me favors.” Faraji called to mind the two unpleasant councilors from Slowwater who he had helped out of bribery scandal a year before. They were fools, dense, crass, stupid fools, but those were the best kind; easy to manipulate and too stupid to solve their own problems.

He tried to think of other favors he was owed or favors he could call in, other names he could bootstrap into his growing potential majority when fortune handed him another potential ally. He smiled slyly to himself and drained his glass of wine.  He poured himself another and watched the most delicious political theater he’d seen in months.

With mingled disgust and admiration he watched as the Chief Whip of the Elephants berated Msrah. It was a fine flow of petty, obscene threats that would have done credit to the more enterprising class of guttersnipe. A thoroughly disreputable means of keeping the party in line, but it appeared to be moderately effective. It would never have done for the Crocus. Far to obvious.

After the Whip and departed, Faraji excused himself from his collegues and slid silently like an eel into a chair at Msrah’s table.  He smiled. “Vulgarity becomes you, old friend, and your party. But you’d be a fool to accept the interview the the Times. Oh they’ll eat your words up with a spoon. And then their readers will eat you alive.”    

knitting

Oh but they were all such slippery little creatures, slinking in and out of the shadows. It made him almost miss Futo and his braying. Say what you liked about the man, he was good at getting his point across, “Well, you know, we have come to cherish a certain kind of directness. The frills and frippery of most political dealings grow somewhat tiresome in these urgent times of action. At it’s core it simply serves as a barrier between us and the common man. And The Bull Elephant Party is, above all else, for the common man.” He sat back, dark eyes firmly fixed on Faraji, that winning smile back across his face as he sat back. “Ayah, dear friend. Hulali’s blessings on you and your family. Louam is in good health I hope? And your child?” After years among constituents, he had amassed a good head for names and for knowing the number of children a man had, his occupation and such. These little social details went some way, he’d found. Personal touches for a personable politician. “Pe’a you must drink with me, I think.” 

He made no mention of The Times interview and serpentine whisperings to undermine him. If the other man wished to elucidate him on dealings with the press and public, on how to address them, how to run and win a successful election campaign then Msrah would listen with some amusement. It was no secret that the man in front of him had stepped into his own councillorship undemocratically. As slippery as the rest of his dealings. Exposure didn’t frighten the man one whit. Exposure was his ticket to bigger and better things.

If there was a point to this conversation behind subtle undermining, then Msrah could not see it. Faraji was like the rest of them; setting upon politicians like prey and always with a certain angle in mind. “We ought to get together for another game of racquetball soon. I fear my arm is becoming woefully unpractised.” He did not flatter himself that this interaction was for the pleasure of his company alone only steeped his fingers together and tilted his head.

Sular

“Spare me your polished flatteries Msrah. Do you even mean them, or is it entirely mechanical now? Besides, you waste your effort; I’m still not voting for you.” He eased himself more into the chair and looked into the far-too-handsome face of his friend. It really was astonishing and it wore the look of false genuine concern like an old and favored garment.  Faraji, whose face had nothing really to recommend it in either great beauty, warm sincerity, or hideous deformity was somewhat envious. His was not a memorable face, and the best he could muster in a striking political expression was a look of sort of knowing subtlety. It fit his style of politics, but those were the politics of the back room and the legislative chamber. Good for governing and wrangling votes but ill-suited to turning out the vote.

And votes were why he was here now, he made no attempt to hide it, but he’d buy his votes with sound advice to a friend. Or what he thought was sound advice. “And you should listen to me when I tell you not to talk to the Times. This is free advice from your frilled and fripperied friend, and free advice is seldom cheap.”  

He called for the waiter and ordered a bottle of some dark, dry, and above all Bastian wine. There was something pleasing in drinking the fruits of foreign trade in front of his deeply nativist friend.  “The Times is not your paper Msrah, and no one reads the Times in the Gripe. I can probably produce the circulation figures for you if you’ll give me time. Point is, an interview in the Times will make you look like Futo’s paid mouthpiece and do you no good with your own voters. They might even hate you a little for it, think you’ve sold out to Nutmeg Hill and all that. Go ahead and give Futo his vote, but do it on your terms, or rather mine. Better to be indebted to an old friend than to some putrid old gas-bag who’s not seen his cock this century.” The wine arrived with glasses and Faraji poured expertly.  “I think I can smooth things over in your committee. I’ve some favors I can call in. It’s wonderful what a seat in Rules will do for you.”

knitting

Hulali deliver him from debts to friends and back room deals and favours, thought Msrah grimly as he listened to Faraji. The man in front of him was incredibly good at ensuring that he had some new, pliable backroom counsellor safely in the back of his pocket at all times, some elusive, intangible threat of a ‘favour’ always hanging unspoken in the air. It was not how one approached things at the trader’s market, at the spice bazaars. There goods were exchanged for solid goods, held in hand, ready to be given. One did not buy a bushel of figs for a price that would be set at a later date, once all the figs had been eaten and one had quite forgotten their worth to begin with. 

But then again, this policy of dealings did indicate that Faraji had the stones to pull off this circulation he was promising and Msrah didn’t doubt that he could make proposed copper subsidies float neatly away for him. A shaky alliance formed between the two of them could serve to prove dividends. For Msrah. He was still failing to come up with any such benefit that Faraji would squeeze out of him like a ripe lemon.

It was his biggest weakness, this. That Msrah could react, he could spin news and use present circumstance to his advantage. But he could not predict moves, could not make accurate guesses to the hands of cards others around him were due to play. He suspected Faraji was banking on that very fact. And it put him at a disadvantage. 

“Bastian wine,” Msrah noted as it was poured, and lifted it up to look at it a little. "There is a wine seller I know well. One of my constituents, a dura. His brother keeps a vineyard in Holaga- the phosphor in the soil there makes the ground very fertile, gives the grapes a rich note of spices and an earthy texture. Every day he pulls his cart several miles to the Windward Market and has carved out a comfortable enough home for himself but he is worried. Worried about the oncoming flood, worried about the rush of these rufugees with their strange, bland tastes and their dangerous bander wolf desperation.”

 Msrah took a sip from his glass and smiled once more. The wine was a fine choice, dry and deep and wonderfully aged. In all honesty, the one time he had tried the old dura’s wine it had been slightly bitter and even a little mealy on the palette. Votes, though, were more delicious than anything and Bastians who made wonderful wine did not vote in Thul'Ka  

“Futo is a deeply unpleasant elephant scrotum of a man who’s great fat stomach is matched only by his interminable ego, but the Bull Elephant Party looks after its own. This is known. This is an assured fact. You, on the other hand, my friend, have no such allegiances. You drink Bastian wine and your countrymen lose trade,” here Msrah allowed himself a small chuckle. “If we are to continue, I will need to feel secure that your terms will be at least as...palatable as Futo’s to me. After all, it will be no such wrench to secure Crocus votes on this one. Hardly any work at all, for one so clever as you, and I will not make a deal unless it is equitable. If you can give me those assurances then we shall drink and talk and make merry together for a good long while to come.” 

He tipped his head then, to his friend and wondered how it should have been if they were on the same party. They could have made quite the formidable pair. Alas, ideology was a hard thing to reconcille.But since they were giving advice, Msrah supposed he ought to give his own set of hats and shills. Nothing more than a gesture of good faith, naturally. Not at all with other incentives on his mind. 

“You’ll be making your plans for Turgamhrit, I daresay. I might suggest spending it in your district, in the sunshine, and not in dark rooms trying to convert favours into constituents. I hear Crocuses bloom poorly away from sunlight, my friend . You are already elected...(so to speak) and the term is not over until the last vote is counted. It is said that one does not sow seeds in Roalis lest the floods come to wash them away, Faraji, rather one must nurture the vines that he has grown and inherited. Be active in the community celebrations and be sure to bring your family whenever you do. Be seen always, above all else, and make it clear to the other candidates that you are friend, neighbour, father and leader and that they are all fighting you on your home turf.” 

Sular

It may not have been the method of trade of the small merchants and marketers, but the manner of deal Faraji proposed was as old as the caravanserai of the city and as respected. It was merely an investment in futures, in this case vote futures rather that spice or date futures, but the principle was essentially the same. Fortunes had been made and lost all through the history of the city on deals of this kind where the intangible was exchanged for some future gain. It was a manner of deal comfortable to Faraji who, unlike his friend, preferred to play the long game in politics. That was his own grate failing in politics, seeing the dunes and losing sight of the grains of sand.

Faraji plotted and schemes and played sides against each other, backing seemingly irrelevant measures or voting against what appeared to be his own interests. In this way he moved the pieces around the political board, accruing debts and promises like some avid collector. Storing them away against the day he would need them.  He would need all the favors he could muster if he were to maintain his seat. Above all he needed lessons in how to relate to the voters, how to be seen to be the man of the moment, the man of ideas. He had no more notion of how to appear in that guise than he knew how to fly to the moon. To the man across the table, such things were all second nature. It was a set of skills Faraji lacked and desperately needed to learn.

He sipped his wine thoughtfully and considered and listed to the little story of the vintiner and his worthy brother. It was told well and with genuine feeling. Did Msrah believe a word of it? Faraji doubt it, but he’d come to doubt any story from the mouth of a councilor, old friend or no. “The trade is Bastian wine is good, and they buy as much they sell. Perhaps this dura of yours should contact brokers for his wine and sell both at home and abroad, this increasing the quantity of trade and bringing wealth to himself and to his city. Besides, if his wine is good, then the fools in Bastia will buy at twice the price for the joy of drinking something ‘exotic’.”

“As to votes,” he said and lowered his voice, “securing enough will surely be possible, but I’d prefer a broad coalition of support. It shows the right civic spirit. Very important in times such as these, wouldn’t you agree?  As to Futo, I’d not trust him to look out for you any farther than I could throw the man. Ambitious, has been for years, and tends to forget the names of the men he steps on to gain status. Whatever happened to Naoed Obi Tesfa? One of your rising stars I recall. Much talked up by Futo of course. The Whip’s golden boy for a time. Such a shame about that little affair with the secretary. And come to think of it,” he leaned in and smile a cold reptilian smile, “it was Futo’s secretary too. Interesting how that works out, isn’t it?”

He took a long luxuriant drink of his wine. “What I want from you is simple Msrah, and I think you’ll like this debt.  You vote our way on the copper, but you do so under protest. Make the Whip look weak and caught off guard. We can hang our troubles on him if the vote fails. Then, in repayment for your service, I’ll see about getting you a nice plum of a committee seat. I need a good rival, someone to keep me on my toes, prevent me from going too far astray in my thinking. Futo can’t be that man, he hasn’t enough brain, nor can any Crocus, but you could be.  Now, what committee do you fancy?”

knitting

As Faraji countered his argument about Bastian wine with talk of trade and solutions, Msrah had to suppress a grin and fight not to interject. He’d missed the point. Msrah didn’t give a fuck about some old dura and his terrible wine, he didn’t give a fuck about helping him and expanding his poxy business and facts about import. The only point of the story was the man himself. Msrah knew him. Msrah could rattle off his story at a moment’s notice, along with stories of the fisherwife, the rag and bone man, the labourer and the veteran. And when the time came for his campaign, should he have need of them, he would bundle these people in to stand behind him. People who would say –and actually mean it- yes, I am for Msrah Mi Mulugeta. It was on this slip that Msrah did not doubt that his friends own campaign may not go as well as he’d hope. 

He couldn’t be smug for long, the flicker of a frown forming in a second before he could catch it and rearrange his poker face. What Faraji said was right, of course. Futo was ruthless. Nobody laughed in his face as he went talking about flaying and other vulgarity because they believed he could back it up. Perhaps he would not go so far as to actually fashion a man’s cock into a coin purse, but he was unscrupulous about doing the political equivalent to a man’s career. Msrah had no real loyalty to much of the old guard- these bullish men who clung to their old ideas and couldn’t see that it was new blood that would bring the party its greatest successes. 

In a petty way he was also sick and tired of Futo undermining him. Dismissing his ideas and calling him a boat ornament. It was one thing for the other parties to underestimate him, it had done him well in his career up til now. But he was approaching a position at this juncture where he wanted to carve himself out as a serious political threat and if his own party couldn’t get that message then how could he expect the rest of the assembly to? 

“Put me on,” he began immediately but then paused. With Futo, he would have put the pressure on for a place in Public Safety. Up the ladder and with serious issues to talk about. A realistic goal given that Arfadi Kilando was the chair of this committee and with Futo whispering in his ear he could have easily found favour there. He’d be a fool to take that role at the chief whips expense though and more than that he wanted to test how much sway Faraji really had. Two committees aside from Public Safety came to mind at once, Education and Labor or Foreign Affairs. One would secure him votes, the other gravitas in his own party. "Education and Labor." Every member of his party would be trying to get on Foreign Affairs come next term and he had no wish to be one of the writhing masses. On foreign affairs he'd be preaching to the converted anyway. If you were concerned about immgration you came to the Elephants. Simple as that.

It was the others, the dura in the districts who traditionally voted pipefitters he wanted and to do that their other platforms needed to be stronger.Anti immigration, anti foreign reliance was still the key but they had to be pro something. Pro Mugroba begins in the home had a nice ring to it. And only a fool would argue that in his home country.

Another smile as Msrah regarded Faraji. "I don't make a habit of liking debts at all, my friend. It's a question of interest," Futo's maneuver to use their third party votes to pit Crocuses against Pipefitters was a clever one and Faraji was trying to divert it back to the Bulls by gathering a wider civic vote and playing on Msrah's own singular ambitions and his ego with flattery. It was a good ploy.He'd picked his target well. Msrah was not ignorant, just without scruples or much party loyalty to the Bulls in it's current state. If this was what it took for him to become party leader then so be it. "Interest accrued in this instance by the Bull Elephants I do not doubt," he said with a tilt of his head and another sip of his drink. I know what you're up to. "This takes more than a good placement, friend. Not with what you propose and some other debt you have in mind. Do not short change me, po'axa. I want Education and Labor and I don't want to be slipped in at the side at the beginning of next term either.I want to engineer a more public appointment. I want the committee to come to me."

It may well have sounded like a minute detail to Faraji but itmade all the difference to Msrah. Political back fighting in the dark was nothing. What happened in the light was everything. 

Sular

“Education?” Faraji considered this exacting care, rolling it over and over in his mind like a jeweler inspecting a seemingly perfect stone.  More than half his constituency were students and scholars and he had no wish to upset them. Failing to get elected would put him the in the difficult and uncomfortable position of having all sorts of political debts he could not repay. Still, as he thought it over, he saw not alarming flaws, and Msrah was, if nothing else, a loyal man of the city. The city, after all, voted for him to remain in power. “I think I can manage a nod in that direction. A nod and a votes, if all goes well. But don’t get too greedy Msrah, I cannot make them love you. You’ll have to do that all on your own. I can, however, make it worth their while to praise your smiling face.”

What Msrah wanted with a seat on the education committee, Faraji could not tell. it seemed harmless enough, and that alone made him deeply suspicious. Still, it was a fair bargain, without any apparent pitfalls.  He would keep a close eye on his friend, watch his votes and read the minutes of the committee with especial care. There was no point in taking any unnecessary risks.

“I’ll have to be elected of course,” he said, casually waving his hand as though shooing a fly. And now he came it it, the real reason behind all this plotting and scheming and promises of a better committee. “Your candidates in Hluun, I need you to reign them in. They’ll not win in any event, your support is not strong enough, but they might siphon enough votes as to put me in real danger. Think of it as a reallocation of resources. I think I can do the same with several of the Crocus candidates in the Gripe and Carptown. Why we even bother to waste our time in those places is beyond me. Might as well throw money into the river for all the good it does us. I suppose it looks like we care about the dura.” He took a another luxuriant drink of wine. “Don’t get me wrong Msrah, I wish every citizen of the city a good and prosperous life, but I don’t see the point in the Crocus courting the laborers and the fisherfolk. Their merchants and traders are a different matter, but they already vote for us. Shared interests and all. As for the rest, I leave them to you and the Pipefitters.” It was no simple bargain he proposed, and it would take coordination, but it would save both parties’ seats. In the long run, that would me more valuable than any surprise victory in some unlikely district of the city.    

Faraji had grown tired of the Pipefitter alliance. It may have bought the Crocus three more years in power, but it had cost them support among the more conservative merchants and the constant infighting was a hinderance to more effective governance. A new alliance, even with the reactionaries among the Elephants, might prove more profitable.      

knitting

"Such a deal is easily made" Msrah conceded at Faraji's request, but not so easily implemented. People tended to take his advice when it came to garnering votes, so he could use that to his advantage, Msrah imagined . If he told the individual candidates that it would be beneficial to them then likely they would listen. Msrah similarly agreed that wasting money on campaigns and posters in Hluun and such was filtering away resources from the dura neighbourhoods were they stood to make gains enough to become on of the majority parties. As if his contemporaries didn't believe dura votes were real votes or some nonsense like that.

An alliance with the Crocus party was a strange proposal. Msrah had wanted to chase the pipefitters but the more he thought about it now, the more he realised that the Crocuses and Bulls could fill in the places where the other was lacking. All the same, Faraji had to be re elected. Msrah took it for granted that he would be of course, in all liklihood his opponents wouldn't try that hard this year but still...it was now in his best interest that the other man would be too.

"Tell me about your posters, friend," he said leaning forwards.

Sular

Posters. It was a subject that should have been near and dear to his heart, but he only rolled his eyes with expansive weariness at the word.  “Would you believe it? My printer has let me down.” It was the most diplomatic  spin he could put on the situation, but it had the essential core of truth.  Bulo and Co. had indeed let him down. They had done so through the dramatic and astonishing means of completely collapsing under the weight their financial obligations and in the face of the continuing crises with the currency. Three days ago he had gone to them to check on the proofs of his campaign posters only to find the shop in a wild state of chaos with very serious men with very serious documents hauling away the presses with the greatest expediency.   Bulo had been very apologetic of course, regrets had been showered upon him like flower petals on a victor in the races, but it amounted to nothing but sweetly fragrant wind.  He had no posters now beyond his first drafts, and was unsure about engaging a new printer at this late date.  

His fellows in the Crocus had been very sorry to hear of this sudden collapse, and the head of the election committee had even offered Faraji more of the party’s general election posters. These he had taken and gladly, but even he could see that the generic posters claiming that ‘A vote for the Crocus is a vote for Prosperity’ had little hope of providing him with a real and personal connection to his voters.   

“I still have my original proofs, thankfully but it will take time to line up another printer able to produce what I need. They were good posters too. Or would have been at any rate. You wouldn't happen to know a good printer who works fast, would you?”

knitting

"Alas, no," Msrah confessed and when he spoke it was without a whiff of spin on misdirection. There didn't have to be, he rather enjoyed this truth and thought it permissible to let it out. "I only use printers with ties to The Gripe. Find it best to make all elements of my campaign a local sort of affair, spread around party money in my home district even more. And they're small businesses who require a lot of notice." He suspected that his posters tended not to be of quite the highest quality as some of the other party candidates but it never did any harm. There was something a little rugged around the edges that always went down well with the dura.That local flavor was had to catch with sleeker, glossier posters. And besides...his visage usually got away with lesser quality print, A perk of being, by all accounts, quite photogenic. 

A smile winning smile as he leaned back, "I've never known a poster to make or break a campaign though. Better to get out there. A living poster....and you can speak slogans, so that's something." Unlike the Pipefitters and the Bulls, the Crocuses had stopped trying to drum up voters and turning out support with the same voracity for some years now. They were an institution so they had forgotten what scrabbling and begging and demanding looked like. Busy to play their tricky long game as if they would be in power for time immemorial. Msrah called it complacency. "It's why I like Turgamhrit so much." 

Sular

Of course Msrah only used the printers in The Gripe. It was good for his image and the man polished it like fine old family silver.  Faraji, by contrast, preferred to stand on his record and his ability to work within the Assembly. It lacked the romantic appeal of Msrah’s methods but it had the advantage of leveraging Faraji’s strengths. Those at least he could speak too and even feel passion about. A passion for committees and policy debates, however, was not always what the voters wanted to hear. “I may not lose on account of the lack of posters, and I do have my feelers out on that front, never fear, but I do like to do things the right way.”

Procedure and tradition were of great importance to the Crocus, for they liked to do things thoroughly and without any unnecessary enthusiasm. One could never be sure if one was taking the wise course if one took no time to think. If that made the Crocus seem complacent, then so be it. It was not so much complacency as it was strategy and caution. Governance, real governance, was not a matter to be decided upon in the heat of the moment. It was something the other parties in the city would do well to learn, if they wanted to govern for more than a single term. Faraji doubted they would learn the lesson gladly. Like his former students, the parties would have to struggle and grow confused before they could come to wisdom. He was not sure it was a lesson he truly wanted them to learn in any event.

He turned his glass in his hands, watching the wine swirl and slosh against the sides. He thought of the flood waters rising and of all the holidays of Turgamhrit. He would have prefered if there were to be fewer of them, fewer opportunities for him to make an ass of himself in addressing festive crowds, boring them into a stupor with his plans for slightly adjusted taxes, for the further expansion of the cable-ways, and above all the grand plan to mint a local currency, free of the vagaries of the Anaxi coinage. It was perhaps his strongest impulse towards nativism, but being tied to a foreign currency had never been a sound plan and it hurt the trade of the city and of all Mugroba, made them seem less than they were. It was an old plan, and old dream, but the times now seemed to cry out for it. If only he could instill in his voters the same passions that rose in himself when he thought on the matter.

“Tell me, Msrah, can you make a crowd fall in love with monetary policy?”   

knitting

Msrah considered the question, leaning backwards in his chair. "I daresay one could make men fall in love with anything if it were put to them in the right way. Monetary policy is an easy one so long as you remind the crowd that this is the real solid thing that they hold in their hands day to day, the means by which they feed their children, secure their homes, steer themselves along Hulali's great river of life." 

A freshly minted currency was, naturally, a topic of which the Bull Elephant Party was greatly interested in. How could they not be? The idea of money for mugroba, spent by the people without foreign dignitaries printed over the metal was one that had deep ties to national pride. Why should they have to rely on a foreign bank at all, never mind one that was, at this very moment cast into such turmoil. Mugroba on the other hand was stable and powerful. Mugroba could sustain it's own currency and it was a sign of poor national pride that they did not. 

"It sounds simple, I know. But one does forget this, people are already in love with money, but it's the kind of money they know. Hats and shills and goods- future projections, specific examples that they can really draw from their own experience and feel tangibly. Yes," he nodded his head and smiled. "Yes, I could do it." 

Sular

Faraji had some doubts about this. Monetary policy was notoriously dry and convoluted and worse yet, in Mugroba is was largely theoretical. And then, in a flash, the answer came to him, the solution. His constituents were students and Amati, and there was nothing the learned loved more than showing off their knowledge. An idea formed in his mind and he saw himself standing not before a great crowd in some public square as was traditional, but behind the podium in the smaller lecture hall in the Ink Building in Thul’Amat, addressing not voters but students.   His duty now not to convince them to vote for the Crocus but to come and learn and be enlightened. It played well to him, it leveraged the interests of his constituency, and it drew from his own background and strengths. Had he not been an Amati himself? Had he not lectured countless times on obscure and narrow subjects?  He would treat all of Hluun as his students, playing on their love of knowledge and their desire for wisdom. It might work.

He raised his glass to his glass to his friend whose words had given him the plan. “To currency and the love of money. May it serve us both.”