Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

Orso Ignacio listened as the captain’s footfalls faded. Then he and Berenice turned to look at each other.

“Sir…” said Berenice.

Orso shook his head and lifted a finger to his lips. He pointed at the various hallways and doors leading out of the lexicon chamber, then pointed to his ears: Could be people listening.

She nodded. “Workshop?” she asked.

“Workshop,” he said.

They exited the lexicon chamber, called a carriage, and rode back to the Hypatus Department of the inner Dandolo enclaves, a sprawling, rambling structure that somewhat resembled a university. Orso and Berenice walked in, then silently climbed the stairs to Orso’s workshop. The thick, heavy wooden door felt Orso coming, and began opening. He’d scrived it to sense his blood — a deviously difficult trick — but he was impatient, and shoved it open the rest of the way.

He waited for the door to shut after him. Then he exploded.

“Shit. Shit! Shit! ” he screamed.

“Ah,” said Berenice. “Yes. I agree, sir.”

“I…I thought the goddamn thing had been destroyed !” cried Orso. “Along with the rest of the goddamn waterfront! But…It was stolen? Again? I’ve been robbed again ?”

“It would seem so, sir,” said Berenice.

“But how ? We kept it between us, Berenice! We only discussed it in this room! How did someone find out again ?”

“That is concerning, sir,” said Berenice.

“Concerning! It’s a hell of a lot more than conce—”

“True, sir. But the larger question is…” She glanced at him, anxious. “What happens if Captain Dandolo does as he suggested, and catches this thief tonight — and they still have the item in their possession?”

Orso went pale. “Then when he brings the thief back…Ofelia will find out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She’ll find out that I paid for another expedition, another artifact.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And…and she’ll find out how I paid for it! And how much .” Orso grabbed the sides of his head. “Oh, God! All the thousands of duvots I took, all that money I took, all that money I arranged in the ledgers just right!”

She nodded. “That is my concern, sir.”

“Shit,” said Orso, pacing. “Shit! Shit! We have to…We have to…” He looked at her. “You have to follow him.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Follow him!” said Orso. “You have to follow him, Berenice!”

“ Me , sir?”

“Yes!” He ran to a cabinet and grabbed a small box. “He can’t have left yet. Gregor Dandolo walks all over the campo, like an idiot! Ofelia complains about it all the time! Grab a carriage, go to the southern gates, wait for him, and follow him! And…” He fumbled with the box, frantic, and snatched something out of it. “Take this.”

He shoved what appeared to be a small, scrived strip of tin into her hands, with small tabs at the top and the bottom. “A twinned plate, sir?” she asked.

“Yes!” he said. “I’ll keep its pair. Ah, let’s see — snap off the top tab if Gregor catches the thief. Snap off the bottom if he doesn’t. And snap off both if he catches them and they still have the artifact! If the thief gets away, follow them if you can, and find out where they are. Whatever you do, the same thing will happen to my plate, so I’ll know exactly what’s happened.”

“And you will stay here and do what, exactly, sir?”

“There are favors I can call in,” said Orso. “Debts people owe me, so that I can maybe cover up my own debts to the goddamn company! If Gregor Dandolo comes back here with that key, I need to make it look like I put just a toe out of line, not my whole damn body and thirty thousand scrumming duvots of Dandolo Chartered money!”

“And you plan to arrange all that in…” She glanced out the open workshop window at the Michiel clock tower. “Eight hours?”

“Yes!” he said. “But it would certainly be nice if Gregor Dandolo didn’t bring the thief back here, so then I’d never have to do this at all!”

“I hesitate to say this, sir,” she said. “But I’m surprised that you aren’t asking me to interfere with the captain’s efforts, and make sure the thief gets away. Then Ofelia would never know.”

He paused. “Gets away? Gets away ? Berenice — that key could change everything, everything we know about scriving. There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do to get it. If I’ve got to let Ofelia Dandolo cane me raw, so be it! I just don’t want her tossing me in the campo prison and keeping it for herself! And…” His face slowly twisted into an expression of pure, murderous rage. “And I certainly wouldn’t mind getting ahold of that damned thief — who has humiliated me not once, but twice— and seeing them dismembered right in front of my scrumming nose , either.”

asked Clef.

Seated on the edge of a Michiel rooftop, just downwind from the foundries, Sancia tried to shrug, and found she didn’t have the spirit.

said Clef.

Sancia thought about it.

She pointed north.

really big one?>

She sighed.

She laughed lowly. no one— has ever broken into the Mountain. You couldn’t break into that place even if you had the wand of Crasedes himself. I hear weird rumors about the Mountain — that it’s haunted or…well. Something worse.>

Clef paused.

Sancia lay on the roof, staring up at the sky. She thought about Sark, about her apartment — which, as barren as it was, now seemed like a paradise to her.

she said.

He thought about it. His voice grew soft, and a singsong cadence crept into it.

Sancia listened to his voice, her eyelids growing heavy.

She was glad to have him here. He was a friend when she had none.

he whispered.

She slept.

Sancia did not dream anymore, after the operation. Yet sometimes when she slept her memories returned to her, like bones bubbling up from the depths of a tar pit.

There on the roof, Sancia slept, and remembered.

She remembered the hot sun of the plantations, the bite and slash of the sugarcane leaves. She remembered the taste of old bread and the swarms of stinging flies and the tiny, hard cots in the shoddy huts.

She remembered the smell of shit and urine, festering in an open pit mere yards from where they slept. The sound of whimpering and weeping at night. The panicked cries from the woods as the guards hauled away a woman, or sometimes a man, and did as they pleased with them.