Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

Which gave Gregor an idea.

Keeping his shield up, he backed away. The guard with the ax charged at him — but before he could bring the ax down, Gregor flicked Whip at the slats at his feet.

The head of the truncheon punched through the wooden slats like they were water reeds. Before the guard could even realize what had happened, he’d put his foot in the gaping hole that Whip had created. Then he slipped, crashed down, and as he did, the entire floor collapsed underneath him.

Gregor leapt back as the wooden slats gave way. When the creaking stopped, he retracted Whip and peeked over the edge of the hole, wrinkling his nose. He couldn’t see the guard in the muddy darkness below — but he knew that the taverna latrines emptied into the filthy space under the building.

Gregor took stock of the situation. The taverna was now mostly empty except for the moaning guards — and the large, fat man trying to hide behind a chair.

Gregor grinned, stood up straight, and marched over. “ Antonin di Nove! ” he called.

Antonin shrieked in terror as Gregor approached.

“How did you like my experiment?” Gregor asked. “You said that might makes right in the Commons.” He ripped the chair away, and Antonin quailed in the corner. “But might is so often illusory, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you anything you want!” shrieked Antonin. “Anything!”

“I want the thief,” said Gregor.

“Ask…ask Sark!” said Antonin.

“Who?”

“An independent! Former canal man! He’s a fence, he sets up jobs and I’m almost positive he did the waterfront!”

“And why would that be?” asked Gregor.

“Because only a damned canal man would think of trying to use a damned sailing rig!”

Gregor nodded. “I see. So. This Sark. Where would he reside?”

“The Greens! Selvo Building! Third floor!”

“Greens,” said Gregor quietly. “Selvo. Third floor. Sark.”

“R-right!” said Antonin. Face quivering, he cringed and looked up at Gregor. “So. Will you…Will you let me go?”

“I was always going to let you go, Antonin,” said Gregor, sheathing Whip. “This is Tevanne. We have no prisons, no courts. And I am not going to kill you. I try hard not to do that anymore.”

Antonin sighed with relief.

“But,” said Gregor, clenching a fist and cracking his knuckles, “I do not like you. I do not like what you do here, Antonin. And I will show you how much I dislike it, using the only language men like you understand.”

His eyes shot wide. “N-no!”

Gregor raised his fist. “Yes.”

Gregor turned, shaking his hand, and walked back to the rickety stalls with the drapes. He pulled them aside, one by one.

Four girls, two boys. None of them older than seventeen.

“Come on, then,” said Gregor gently to them. “Come on.”

He led the children down the hallway, across the battered, broken taverna, and down the stairs to the alley, where the three guards were still whimpering. The children watched as Gregor searched the body of the unconscious, toothless guard for his fifty duvots.

“Now what?” asked a boy.

“You have nowhere else to go, I assume?” said Gregor.

The line of children stared at him. This question, clearly, was preposterous.

He wondered what to do. He wished there were some charity or home he could send them to. But the Commons, of course, had no such thing.

He nodded, and pulled out his satchel. “Here. This is five hundred duvots. You lot could put this to far better use than Antonin ever could. If we divide it evenly, we ca—”

But he never finished, because then one of the youngest girls snatched the satchel out of his hand and ran for it.

In a blink of an eye, all the other children were chasing her, screaming threats: “ Pietra, if you think you’re keeping all that, we’ll cut your damned throat! ”

“ Try and catch me, you worthless stripers! ” the girl howled back.

Gregor watched, stunned, as the children ran away. He started after them, about to shout at them to stop, when he remembered he had other things to do tonight.

He sighed deeply, listened to the fading sounds of these bickering children, so monstrously abused. He liked to imagine he was accustomed to such horrors, but sometimes the futility of it all overwhelmed him. No matter how I try, Tevanne remains Tevanne.

Then he walked down the alley to where he’d hung up his Waterwatch sash. He unfolded it, then slid it back over his head. As he adjusted it, he noticed a splotch of blood on his shoulder. Frowning, he licked a finger and rubbed it clean.

His shield arm hurt. A lot. And it was likely he’d made a good deal of enemies tonight. But it was wisest to move before word could spread.

Now , thought Gregor, on to this Sark.

Sancia sat on her building’s rooftop and stared out at the crooked Foundryside streets below. She came up here only occasionally, usually to make sure she wasn’t being watched. And tonight, she needed to be sure, since tonight was her night to meet Sark at the fishery and tell him they needed to get the hell out of Tevanne.

She wondered how she’d explain Clef to him. Despite all the Scrappers had told her, she still didn’t know much about him — about what he really was, or could do, or why. And Clef had not spoken to her since that night. She almost wondered if she’d imagined their conversations.

She looked out at the city. All of Tevanne was smeared with starlit smoke and steam, a ghostly cityscape sinking into the fog. The huge white campo walls surfaced among the ramble of the Commons like the bones of a beached whale. Behind them stood the towers of the campos, which glowed with soft, colorful luminescence. Among them was the Michiel clock tower, its face a bright, cheery pink, and beyond that was the Mountain of the Candianos, the biggest structure in all of Tevanne, a huge dome that reminded her of a fat, swollen tick, sitting in the center of the Candiano campo.

She felt lonely, and small. Sancia had always been alone. But feeling lonely was different from just being alone.

Sancia sat up.

He sounded sullen.

There was a pause.

remember that sensation, that feeling of cool wine on a hot day.>

and not knowing it. Of having things built into you by someone else, things you can’t resist obeying or doing. Like when you put me in that lock in that door, I just…started. Instantly. And it felt good . It felt so good, kid.>

They sat in silence.

he said quietly.

Clef sighed.

She moved from Foundryside to Old Ditch, and then on to the Greens, which earned its name due to a curious fungus that merrily feasted on all the wood in this neighborhood, turning it a dull lime color. The Greens ran along the Anafesto, one of the main shipping channels, and the area had once been the thriving heart of Tevanne’s fishing industry. But then the merchant houses had built up a surplus of scrived ships for the wars, and they’d started to use them to fish instead, which drove everyone else out of business, since they were about a hundred times more efficient. The Greens looked a lot like Foundryside — lots of rookeries, lots of low-slung slums and shops — but rather than being constrained by the campo walls, all the housing came to a sharp stop at the decaying industrial ramble running beside the channel.