“Something no real canal operator would ever use, then.”
“Correct. A real one could get the real thing. So. An independent. And independents tend to live in one place—Foundryside. Or close to it. Which is your domain, unless I’m mistaken.”
“Makes sense. Very clever. But the real question is…why would I help you?” He smiled. “Your Waterwatch experiment seems to have failed. Wouldn’t it be in my interests to make sure it stays that way, and reclaim the waterfront?”
“It has not failed,” said Gregor. “That remains to be seen.”
“I don’t need to see,” said Antonin with a laugh. “So long as the merchant houses run their campos like kings, Tevanne won’t ever have anything resembling a policing system—no matter how excellent you make the Waterwatch. And that will fail too, in time. So, my noble captain, I really just need to wait. And then I’ll find my way back in—won’t I?”
Gregor blinked slowly, but did not react—though Antonin was now needling a sensitive wound of his. He had done a lot of work to build up the Waterwatch, and he did not appreciate hearing it threatened. “I can pay,” he said.
Antonin smirked. “How much?”
“Four hundred and fifty duvots.”
Antonin glanced at his satchel. “Which, I assume, you’ve brought yourself. Because I wouldn’t believe you’d pay if you hadn’t.”
“Yes.”
“So what’s keeping me from putting some steel in your ribs and taking it now?” asked Antonin.
“My last name,” said Gregor.
Antonin sighed. “Ah, yes. Were we to expire the sole progeny of Ofelia Dandolo, I’ve no doubt that all hell would come down on us.”
“Yes.” Gregor tried to swallow his self-disgust. His mother was a direct descendant of the founder of Dandolo Chartered, which made them something akin to royalty in Tevanne—but he thoroughly disdained leveraging his family’s reputation for his own ends. “And I would not give up the money easily. You would have to kill me, Antonin.”
“Yes, yes, the good soldier,” said Antonin. “But not the best strategist.” He smiled wickedly. “You were at the siege of Dantua—weren’t you, Captain?”
Gregor was silent.
“You were,” said Antonin. “I know. They call you the Revenant of Dantua—have you heard that?”
Again, he said nothing.
“And I’m told they called you that,” said Antonin, “because you died there. Or came damn close. They even had a memorial service here in the city for you. Thought you were rotting in a mass grave somewhere in the north.”
“I’ve heard the same,” said Gregor. “They were wrong.”
“So I see. I get a lot of veterans working for me, you know,” said Antonin. “And they tell me so many stories.” He leaned closer. “They told me that when your cohorts were holed up in Dantua, with all your scrived armaments ruined…Why, they say you resorted to eating rats and garbage. And worse things besides.” He grinned wide. “Tell me, Captain Dandolo—how does Tevanni long pig taste?”
There was a long silence.
“I would not know,” said Gregor calmly. “What does this have to do with my proposal?”
“I suppose I’m just a filthy gossip,” said Antonin. “Or maybe I like telling you you’re not as righteous as you act. You killed my profit from the waterfront, brave Captain Dandolo. But no fear, friend—I’ve made up the difference. Any enterprising man must. Would you like to know how?”
“Would this involve our independent thief?”
Antonin stood, ignoring him, and gestured to a set of rickety wooden stalls in the back, with drapes drawn across their entrances. “Come with me, sir. Yes, yes, come on.”
Gregor grudgingly obliged, following him.
“Tough economy, these days,” said Antonin. “Tough market. That’s what the campos talk about all day long, market conditions. We all play the same game. One opportunity dries up, so one must look for another.” He walked over to one stall, grabbed a drape, and pulled it open.
Gregor looked inside. The stall was dark, but he could see a pallet on the floor, and a single burning candle. At the far back was a boy, wearing a short tunic, legs and feet bared. The boy stood when the drape opened. He was maybe thirteen. Maybe.
Gregor looked at the soft pallet on the floor, and then at the boy. Then he understood.
“You take away my waterfront work,” said Antonin merrily, “so I expand my enterprise into a new market. But this market is so much more profitable than the waterfront. High margins, low capital. I just needed the nudge to give it a go.” He stepped closer to Gregor. The scent of his rotting teeth was overwhelming. “So, Captain Dandolo…I don’t need a single duvot of your damned money.”
Gregor turned to look at Antonin, his fists trembling.
“Welcome back to Tevanne,” said Antonin. “The only law in the Commons is might, and success. Those who win are the ones who make the rules. Perhaps an elite child such as yourself forgot.” He grinned, his greasy teeth glimmering. “Now. Get the hell out of my taverna.”
* * *
Gregor Dandolo walked out of the Perch and Lark in a daze. He retrieved Whip from the toothless thug at the door, ignoring the other guards as they cackled at him.
“Fruitful meeting?” asked the toothless heavy. “Did he give you a handful of minutes in the stalls? Was there any pull left when you pushed?”
Gregor walked away without a word, buckling Whip back to his belt. He walked a bit down the alley, and stopped.
He thought for a moment.
He took a breath, and thought some more.
Gregor Dandolo did his utmost to follow the laws: both the laws of the city, and his own moral laws of the universe. But more and more these days, one seemed to disagree with the other.
He took off his Waterwatch sash, folded it up, and carefully placed it on a nearby windowsill. Then he took Whip off his belt, and began the process of securely buckling its many leather straps to his forearm. Then he turned and marched back toward the taverna.
The toothless heavy saw him coming and squared himself. Then he cawed out a laugh, and whooped. “Look here, lads! We’ve got one who thinks he ca—”
But he never finished his sentence. Because then Gregor used Whip.
* * *
Gregor had made sure that when he’d had Whip commissioned, all of its sigils were carefully concealed, so no one who looked at it would know it was altered in any way. With the sole exception of the straps for buckling it to your wrist, it mostly looked like an ordinary truncheon—with a shaft of about three and a half feet, and a ridged, four-pound steel head at the end—but in truth, it was much more than that.
For when Gregor pressed a button on Whip and snapped it forward, the four-pound head would detach and fly forward, connected to the shaft of the truncheon by a thin but strong metal cable. The truncheon’s head had been scrived to believe that, when it was detached from the shaft, it was actually falling straight down toward the earth, and so was simply obeying gravity—unaware that it was actually flying in whatever direction Gregor had tossed it. It would smash into anything in its path before Gregor clicked a small lever on the side of Whip’s handle, at which point Whip’s head would remember how gravity actually worked, the cable would start rapidly retracting, and the head would come zipping back to the shaft with tremendous speed.
This is what Gregor did as he approached the taverna. He was so familiar with Whip that he almost didn’t have to think while he was doing it: he just made the motion, and then the toothless heavy was lying on the ground, screaming through a bloody, ravaged mouth.
He hit the lever, and the straps tugged against his forearm as Whip’s head came hurtling back to Gregor with a soft, rabid zzzzip. His arm shook as it connected with the shaft, but his attention was fixed on the thug on his right, a short, pockmarked man with a black-bladed machete, who looked down at his fallen comrade, looked up at Gregor, and screamed and sprinted at him.
Gregor, still marching down the alley, flicked Whip forward again, aiming for the man’s legs. The head of the truncheon connected soundly with his kneecap, and the man fell to the ground, howling in pain. Gregor retracted Whip, and as he passed him he brought the truncheon down sharply on the man’s forearm, either bruising or breaking his radius or ulna, which made him howl quite a bit louder.
There were two left, one on each side of the taverna door. One had the espringal, though he looked shocked when he pulled the trigger and nothing happened—ignorant, of course, that he’d prepared it wrong. Before he could do anything else, Gregor hurled Whip forward, and the dense, heavy head of the weapon went crashing into the guard’s right hand, smashing his fingers. He dropped the weapon, cursing and screaming.
This left the fourth and final guard, who had picked up a battered steel shield and a small spear. The guard crouched low and advanced on Gregor down the alley, hiding almost all of his body behind the shield.