To digest her "Arbiter" potion, Charlotte had spent this time not only acting as a real arbiter on Sushit's streets at night, but also learning about the many complaints ordinary people had about the city's public security system, City Hall, and even the nobility.
Residents of the Old District believed the night watchers only bullied vagrants and pretended not to see real criminals. Textile workers in the Lower Korus District angrily accused the sheriffs of protecting only merchants' interests rather than upholding justice, unless someone was willing to pay enough in fees. Drunks in taverns insisted that none of the sheriff positions were publicly appointed by City Hall; they were sold to the highest bidder instead.
Some of these accusations were groundless, but more were complaints born of genuine injustice. As far as Charlotte knew, more than half of Suhit City's twenty sheriffs had bought their appointment documents outright. As the centers of the financial and textile industries, the Bols District and Lower Korus District had the most developed economies, making their sheriff positions the most sought-after.
Provided his luck wasn't bad, or he had someone backing him, a sheriff in the Bols District needed only two or three years in office to recover what he had spent buying the position, perhaps even earning several times that amount. Then he could retire respectably with a fortune in gold coins, leaving his position to the next public-spirited individual willing to pay out of his own pocket to maintain order in the city.
After learning all this, even Charlotte, who felt little attachment to the city, couldn't help reflecting that it would probably have collapsed long ago if the two great churches hadn't secretly upheld official rule and resolved most hidden troubles, if the various private guilds hadn't established rules intended to