Dirty Work, Part 9 of 9

DIRTY WORK

EPILOGUE 

Two junior under-ministers of the Aurac Ministry of Finance, identifiable by their blue tunics and red breeches, pushed a cart into the stockyard behind the Royal Treasury. It was loaded with full sacks, each one stenciled “20# JORKE END QUALITY DIRT AAA RATED”. After positioning the cart against the loading dock, the two junior under-ministers got to work unloading the sacks.

They made a neat pyramid upon the dock, then the taller one pulled a cord next to the door. Somewhere inside the building, they could hear a bell jangling in time with the yanks on the cord. Having completed their assignment, the pair climbed from the loading dock and pushed the cart away.

A short time later, an intermediate under-minister of the Ministry of Finance, identifiable by his red tunic and blue breeches, opened the door. “Ah!” he said. “Finally, a new shipment!” He turned back inside the building. “Phileus!” he called out. “Burtram! Come help me!” The two other intermediate under-ministers joined him on the loading dock and together they made short work of the fifteen sacks of dirt that had been delivered, moving them from the dock to an interior room.

This room had a wide window at knee-height that overlooked a tangled stream gorge, and the sacks were stacked nearby. Along the back wall, flanked by a stout door on either side, a hopper descended from the ceiling. The intermediate under-minister who had first opened the door took up a position at the hopper. “Phileus, let’s begin.”

Phileus, a gray fox, took the first sack off the stack, slit it open along its top, cutting through the cording that had sealed it in the first place, and then he and Burtram dumped the contents out the window. Completing that, they turned the empty sack over to the first man, who fitted it against the hopper and pulled a lever. A clinking stream of coins cascaded from the hopper to fill the sack. This continued for a few more sacks in silence except for the faint sound of Phileus’s knife cutting through the sacks, the whisper of the dirt tumbling into the gorge, and the jangle of the coins.

“Josip, why do we do it like this?” Phileus as he handed over another sack. “Why does the Ministry buy sacks of dirt? Why not just buy the sacks?” “Beats me,” Josip said. “All I know is that these are the best sacks in the kingdom, and they come filled with dirt. Who can explain why the peasants do what they do?”