I hope you've enjoyed the first eight stories of Varonian Nights. The anthology will conclude with chapters Nine, Ten, and Eleven, which I will post once I've finished editing them. The entire series will then also be available for sale as a Kindle edition.
So stay tuned!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Chapter Eight: Rookie (Part Four)
(And now, the exciting conclusion of 'Rookie'...)
One does not simply walk into a Gorgon’s lair, but that is exactly what the three Greenheads did. As Lowtown continued to degenerate into violence there were no additional officers or auxiliaries to spare, so Petracchio, Aemilia, and Stefano were obliged to make the journey into the Southlander ghetto on their own. As acting Captain Aemilia lead the way-- the rookie followed hard on her heels with broadsword in hand, and Stefano brought up the rear, covering his companion’s advance with his bow.
No sooner did they reach the outer perimeter of Queen Cariebasa’s empire of tenements than the first sentries made their presence known. The laconic sniper wasted no time with these lackeys, dispatching them one after another with nary a word, barely pausing to reload before loosing the next silent but deadly quarrel.
The canals were eerily devoid of boat traffic for the pre-dawn hours, as vendors and other Lowtowners with no stake in this fight knew better than to risk straying into the line of battle. The clean briny scent of the rising tide was muddled with smoke this morning, and although the Greenheads could not yet see the flames they knew that the slums were already ablaze.
Was it Cariebasa’s faction that had started the fire, or Esposito’s? At this point it hardly even mattered anymore. All of Lowtown teetered on the precipice, and as if sensing the rookie and his comrades moved carefully through the gloom, fearing lest an errant footfall send the whole lot of them tumbling into the abyss.
Cariebasa was once not merely a Queen, but the first among her kind, a queen of queens and a living goddess to her subjects. Long before she had arrived here in the City, her devotees had been preparing her temple, as if they’d always known that their sovereign would come to live among them in exile. The tenement that stood at the heart of the Southlander ghetto was uncharacteristically splendid, the towering mud-brick walls festooned with brightly colored friezes that artists had risked life and limb to paint. Each corner of the insula had been painted so that it appeared as if the whole building were being supported by the coils of four giant serpents, and each floor of the tenement depicted successive visions of a primordial earth.
At the edifice’s foundation were the Nameless Ones, whose formless, shapeless masses seemed to ooze from the flickering torchlight provided by myriad sconces along the building’s perimeter. Above these squiggling horrors were strange creatures composed of whorls and flailing tentacles, bearing many-chambered shells or segmented armored plates like vast engines of war. Next were the great saurian beasts of the Palmlands, who once roamed all over the Three Continents when Gorgonkind was young and Man little more than the glimmer of a thought in some Creator god’s imagination. As Petracchio, Aemilia, and Stefano approached they could just barely make out the maw of a giant predator in the torchlight, its teeth looming as large as any man. What was it about to seize in its jaws?
Until now the Queen’s domain had been protected by a mixture of hired muscle and other thuggish types that choked Varo’s canals like so much flotsam, but here at the threshold of her temple Cariebasa was guarded by the faithful—a sea of bald pated, purple-clad acolytes wielding an array of halberds that seemed to have been designed by the same artist who had painted the murals above their heads, long serrated blades that curved with an alien logic, as if the weapons were never meant to be wielded by human hands. The zealots stood at the ready, and as the trio approached Aemilia cursed under her breath.
“Hold your fire, Stefano. We’re not getting through that without a siege engine.”
“Wait a minute,” Petracchio said, pointing at the ranks of Gorgon-worshippers. Impossibly, the crowd seemed to part as soon as they saw the Greenheads, with the result that even as the three came to a halt an empty path had appeared to the entrance of the temple.
Stefano shook his head, as if he did not believe his eyes. “Is it a trap?”
“Why bother?” Aemilia responded. “If they wanted us dead at this point, all they’d need to do is overrun us. Looks like the Queen wants to talk.”
The Captain did not even need to consult her comrades before proceeding. They had not come this far simply to turn back, not with the stakes as high as they were. As the trio were swallowed amid the purple-clad zealots they lowered their weapons, not so much as a sign of deference as an admission of futility. From this moment on they were in the hands of the Queen, and they knew it.
The entrance to the tenement temple was choked with offerings for the Gorgon— a dizzying array of fresh fruit and flowers, colorful embroideries, bushels of corn, red beetles, salt, and cacao, gold and silver ornaments, precious stones of every possible variety and cut, cages containing live birds, lizards, and other creatures deemed sacred among Southlanders that squeaked and chattered and roared as they past, as well as the hides and lacquered bones of unknown beasts.
Was that a human ribcage poking out from one of the piles of tribute? Petracchio tried not to think of what lengths Cariebasa’s faithful would go to so as to curry her favor. As the rookie looked at the faces of the zealots he realized that Southlanders only made up a portion of the faithful, and that men and women of all nations were represented among the Queens honor guard, their bald heads making them almost indistinguishable from one another. If he were not currently terrified beyond his capacity to reason he might have made something of this, but it was all that he could do to keep placing one foot in front of another, fighting that innermost voice within the reptilian portion of his brain that kept shouting at him to run away as fast as he could before it was too late.
Half a dozen of the acolytes broke off from the rest of the guard and conducted them—with three leading the way and the other three bringing up the rear-- into the dark entryway of the tenement and up a flight of mud brick steps so well-trodden that the center of the stairs was a grooved channel. Every square inch of the building’s interior had been covered with mosaic tiles which resolved themselves into various zig-zagging shapes and patterns which made the corridor seem to undulate under the weak torchlight, as if the temple itself were a gargantuan scaly beast.
After ascending three full turns of the stairwell Petracchio could smell something that made his heart pound within his chest even more violently than it had been before. The scent was barely palpable but thoroughly alien, something vaguely feminine but unmistakably other, and although the rookie had never in his brief mortal tenure encountered a such a monster a thousand generations of inborn memory told him the name of his terror.
Gorgon.
The purple-clad acolytes had lead the trio onto a landing which opened into a vast chamber. Once the interior of this tenement had been a honeycomb of mud daub, bamboo, and rice paper, demarcating what tiny living space there was available to each family that dwelled within, but now it was the antechamber of the Queen’s temple, where she chose to receive her visitors. Torches flickering in their sconces revealed the base of broad brick columns that there the building’s structural supports, each of them tiled in a similar manner as the walls of the stairwell, their writhing illusory scales disappearing into the inky void above their heads. Here the scent was stronger, and as the rookie glanced at Aemilia and Stefano he noticed that they were also aware of it, as the both gripped their weapons with knuckles so white that they almost gleamed like bone.
“This is most disappointing,” a voice greeted them from the deeper darkness within- a woman’s voice, accompanied by the faint but unmistakable hissing of serpents. “Pray tell, does your Captain now feel that an audience with my august presence is somehow beneath him?”
“Your majesty.” Although the words themselves were formal, Aemilia responded in a manner that suggested no such obseisance. “Captain Venatore is indisposed.”
“Indisposed?” The Queen took so long to pronounce the word that Petracchio thought that perhaps her tongue was also an asp.
“He was shot… by one of your mercenaries, if I’m not mistaken.”
The rookie’s eyes darted over to Aemilia, who smiled faintly. She of course had no such proof of Cariebasa’s involvement in the shooting, but as the voice in the dark sputtered and muttered something incomprehensible the erstwhile Captain knew that her bluff had been successful.
“This is most unfortunate,” the Queen said, attempting to regain her composure.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Careful, ‘Captain’,” Cariebasa’s tongue found its venom once more. “You may have the law on your side, but insolence will only end in sorrow for you and your companions.”
If Aemilia had been moved by this barely-veiled threat, she made no indication of it, nor did Stefano, whereas Petracchio was convinced that he could see the pounding of his own heart in the darkness where the Queen held her audience.
“Nevertheless, the fact remains that an officer of the Varonian shield has been gravely wounded by members of your faction,” Aemilia said. “The Greenheads do not take too kindly to those who would dare murder their officers.”
“Giro,” the medusa’s voice was barely a whisper. “Is he—“
“—his life still hangs in the balance. Only Lord Noh can tell for certain whether he will recover or not. In either case, we have more than the law on our side to haul you out of this temple in irons.”
“So why have you not done so already?” Cariebasa’s tone was equal parts curiosity and calculation.
“Because we are willing to overlook this…” Aemilia paused as she struggled to find the right word. “…accident, if you agree to stand down in this conflict with Damin Esposito.”
“Never!” the Gorgon fumed. “Not until I have utterly destroyed that damned fool. The old man knew better than to meddle in my affairs. Now I will make him pay.”
Aemilia pressed on. “He accuses you of murdering his lieutenant—the Oguntak named Esanga.”
“Of course he does! Do you take me for a fool?”
“So tell me, Your Majesty- did you or did you not kill the Oguntak?”
“What does it matter, Captain?” The Queen’s voice was not much exasperated as resigned. “It was always my fate to play the monster-- I grow weary of pretending otherwise. If it all must come to an end, let it end now. At least I will have the satisfaction of taking Titus Esposito with me.”
“And all of Lowtown with it?” Aemilia asked. “If you do not stop this madness, they will send the Black Legion. Surely you must know this.”
“I do not fear death, Captain. Nor do my followers.”
Aemilia sighed and lowered her head, uncertain as to how to proceed. Petracchio looked at his comrade-- even in the still dark of Cariebasa’s inner sanctum it was as if she could see Lowtown burning all around her and hear the piteous cries of myriad Canalsiders as the drug-addled shock troops of the Black Legion swept from tenement to tenement, killing guilty and innocent alike.
It had been almost twenty years since the Legion was last deployed in the parish of Norollo, but to this day it remained devoid of life, a haunted necropolis at the City’s heart. Unless this stalemate with the Queen was somehow broken, the same disaster would befall the Lowtown slums, scouring away any trace of this foolish conflict and its warring parties. It would be a terrible day of reckoning, Petracchio thought, and suddenly everything made sense.
“Stop!” he shouted, although no one was speaking at the time. Aemilia and Stefano actually jumped a step back, and there was equally-surprised rustling from the impenetrable darkness at the antechamber’s heart. “Don’t you see? This is exactly what they want!”
“Hold your tongue, rookie,” Aemilia hissed. “You’re not helping anything.”
The Queen’s tone was now imperious. “Let the boy speak.”
Petracchio looked at his companions—Stefano nodded as if to encourage him, while Aemilia simply glared. “Who benefits if the Black Legion is deployed?”
“No one benefits,” Aemilia said with an acid tongue. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Wrong,” the rookie responded. “No one in Lowtown benefits.”
Aemilia’s face fell as the meaning of Petracchio’s statement became apparent. She shook her head and whispered. “No. I refuse to believe it.”
“Believe what?” Cariebasa asked from the darkness.
Petracchio at last connected all of the dots. “That someone finds you and Damin Esposito so inconvenient to their plans that they are willing to sacrifice an entire parish to get you out of the way.”
The Gorgon hissed. “Senator Brindisi.”
“Senator Brindisi,” the rookie confirmed. “Who is probably even as we speak calling his fellow Senators out of bed to respond to the crisis here in Lowtown- a crisis that he caused by hiring Francesco Sabatini to kill the Oguntak and frame you for it. Brindisi is more familiar with Lowtown than any other Senator—he would have known that such a provocation would have pushed Old Man Esposito over the edge and started a gang war.
“What he didn’t count on however was Captain Venatore’s special relationship with you, Your Majesty. No sooner had Esanga’s body appeared in the Secundo than the good Captain was having it disappeared by his auxiliaries—gang war averted, right? Only it wasn’t, because before the corpse could be gotten rid of completely the SPQVs showed up on the scene, almost as if they knew exactly where they should be.”
“Sabatini must have tipped them off,” Aemilia said with a bitter expression.
Petracchio nodded gravely. “See, that’s what I thought at first myself. But then Sabatini slipped up and told me where Esanga’s body was supposed to have shown up—right on the Queen’s doorstep, and not drifting with the tides along the Secundo. Not only would Inspector Pomilio and his agents be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they wouldn’t have had any jurisdiction to investigate just another murder in Lowtown.”
“So what are you saying?” It was Stefano who spoke now, as Aemilia had fallen strangely silent.
“What did Pomilio offer you to be his spy, Aemilia?” The rookie squared to face the erstwhile Captain. “Did he promise you Venatore’s command, once you helped destroy him? Or was it a cushy Inspector’s job with the SPQV’s? Or was it just for the money?”
Stefano was the first to answer the accusations. “Now wait a second, rookie! Aemilia is a straight arrow just like me- aren’t you? Aemilia, tell Petrarch that he’s out of his mind here.”
But Aemilia said nothing. By torchlight her comrades could see that there were now tears streaming down her face. An awkward silence fell over the antechamber, although Petracchio swore that he could almost hear the Queen chuckling from the preternatural darkness.
“Aemilia?” Stefano’s voice seemed distant and hollow. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you haven’t been working for them.”
The erstwhile Captain shook her head slowly. “I had to, Stefano. He’s rotten and you know it. You’ve only been here a few days, rookie—tell me that I’m wrong.”
Petracchio did not answer, but Stefano responded with uncharacteristic emotion. “So when were you going to tell me?”
“Oh, Stefano.” The tears fell more freely now. “I’m so sorry.” Aemilia reached out to her lover, but the laconic Greenhead took a step back in defiance.
“Amusing as this tale of love and betrayal may be,” Queen Cariebasa spoke. “I would like to know how you intend to prevent the good Senator from destroying us all.”
The rookie smiled. “I was hoping that someone would ask that.”
---
The plan was devilishly simple. Captain Arturo Serafinelli may have presided over a decidedly quiet parish, but Caecilia was perfectly situated in the shadow of Hightown, such that when the acting Captain of another precinct issued a warrant for the arrest of Senator Brindisi’s son on suspicion of trafficking El Mirad ol’ Cap’n Seraf was immediately able to snatch the playboy at the base of the Punti di Mille Piedi at the conclusion of his all-night revels and deliver him down to Lowtown by a swift launch. No sooner did the boy arrive than the Senator was already suing for peace and offering to cooperate with the SPQVs in exchange for not having his son shipped off to Egg Rock.
With peace having been secured, Cariebasa brought her soldiers back from the brink and made the rare concession of visiting Nocciola in person to beg for peace. So the trio of Greenheads stood and watched from the colonnade of Old Man Esposito’s confraternity lodge while the damin and the veiled Gorgon Queen exchanged pleasantries that passed for threats, or threats that passed for pleasantries— even after almost a week on the Lowtown beat, it was hard for Petracchio to tell which was which.
In the early morning shadows, Aemilia gave Petracchio a wan smile. “You did it, rookie.”
“’Never burn your bridges,’” Petracchio said. “That’s what the Captain told me on the first day.”
Aemilia looked down at the flagstones of the colonnade. “So. Are you going to tell him what I did?”
“Tell him what?” the rookie asked. He gave Stefano a sidelong glance; the laconic sharpshooter nodded.
Aemilia fought back another round of tears. “Thank you.”
“We Greenheads take care of our own.”
The trio digested this for a moment while they watched the negotiations continue within the courtyard. There was a tinkle of laughter from the Queen—was the old damin actually flirting with her now? And was she actually flirting back?
“So Petrarch,” Srefano said. “When this is over Aemilia and I were thinking about going to check up on Venatore. Care to join us?”
The rookie sighed. “Thanks for the invite, but I have one more report to file.”
---
This time Petracchio did not wait. The steps of the SPQV’s Terminalia headquarters were even more crowded this morning than on his previous two visits, but instead of queuing up with the others the rookie simply strode up to the entrance of the building, ignoring the hostile stares and grumbled sounds of protest of those who had camped out all night in order to secure their audience. A functionary in grey attempted to head him off as his crossed the threshold, but Petracchio waved him away with enough menace that the clerk recoiled from him as if he’d been struck. No one else dared accost him as he navigated through the dark, silent corridors; when he at last found Inspector Pomilio’s corner office, it was almost as if the SPQV agent had been expecting his interruption all along.
“Ser Petracchio!” the Inspector greeted the rookie with a broad smile. “Congratulations on solving your first Lowtown murder. You’re the talk of the City right now, son.”
Petracchio allowed himself to smile at this, but only for a moment. “I have come to make my final report, sir.”
Pomilio frowned. “The case is closed, rookie. There’s no need for you to be here. Sorry if the Greenheads didn’t make that clear on your end.”
“This was Rosario’s doing, wasn’t it?”
“Como?” The Inspector tried to control his surprise, but Petracchio could see the flicker behind his eyes even as he looked down at his sheaf of paperwork.
“You heard me. Rosario hired Sabatini to kill the Oguntak. If you follow the money trail I’ll bet it goes straight to Senator Brindisi, but it was Rosario who gave the order. Everyone in the chain was expendable— even you.”
Pomilio glowered over his files. “If you’re implying that I had something to do with Esanga’s murder, you are way out of line, son.”
“You didn’t have to,” the rookie explained, his palms turned outward. “In fact, it makes more sense if you weren’t involved. As soon as the boy turned up in the Secundo, however, you would be. And that’s exactly what Rosario was counting on.”
The Inspector’s jaw fell open as the realization dawned on him. “Venatore.”
“Someone leaves a mess on Giro Venatore’s doorstep so big that even he can’t make it go away. But of course he’ll try, and in doing so give you all the ammunition you need to destroy him. The perfect set-up. It would have worked perfectly, too, if I hadn’t opened my mouth at the crime scene and got stuck reporting to you instead of Aemilia.
“With the Captain out of the game, there’s absolutely nothing to keep Cariebasa and Old Man Esposito from tearing Lowtown asunder, prompting Senator Brindisi to do the only sensible thing remaining: deploy the Black Legion.”
“I’m such a fool,” Pomilio said, his head buried in his hands. “All this time I thought I was following his footsteps, when he was actually dogging mine.”
Petracchio lowered his voice to a whisper. “Who is this person? How can he have so much power?”
“I don’t know. But I fear that you have made yourself a powerful enemy by upsetting his plans.”
The rookie grimaced. “Not bad for my first week on the job, eh?”
---
Petracchio arrived at the nunnery shortly before dark. Although the violence that threatened to consume Lowtown had now abated, the air was still heavy with the stale rank of smoldering wood. Amazingly, one of the tenements had been wholly consumed by fire, however, and both the Queen and Damin Esposito had lent their footsoldiers to assist the efforts of the local bucket brigades to extinguish what flames continued to defy the steady rain which had settled in shortly after noon. The rookie wondered if the Red Legion was here and if his old boss Arlix weren’t at this moment prowling the insulae for signs of smoke and loose silver; he smiled at the thought.
Stefano and Aemilia were long since gone, and it was late enough in the day that Petracchio had to browbeat the sisters to be permitted to enter the shrine. To his surprise, Giro Venatore was not only awake but sitting up when he entered his cell. The Captain’s skin still had a deathly pallor to it, but his grey eyes were as bright as he’d ever seen them.
“So, rookie. I hear you’re a big damned hero. Congratulations.”
Petracchio shrugged at this and stared at the big man’s wound, thinking of whether he’d be upright and talking right now if that repeater bolt had found its intended target. Almost certainly not, he thought. It was almost as if Captain Venatore were tougher than death itself.
“I suppose you can have your pick of assignments now. So what’ll it be? Hightown? The Old Quarter? Maybe a nice office job in the Varony?”
“With all due respect, sir, I’d like to stay on the Lowtown beat.”
“Oho!” The Captain exclaimed so loudly that he provoked a painful coughing fit. “And why would you ever want to do that?”
“Because this is where I belong, Captain.”
Venatore considered this, then smiled. “We’ll make a halfway decent Greenhead out of you yet!”
Petracchio smiled in return, then cleared his throat. “Sir...”
“Out with it, rookie.” The veteran’s slate eyes were locked on those of his junior officer’s, as if he could read the latter’s mind.
“Before I came here I paid the Queen a visit.”
The rookie produced a small black velvet pouch from within the folds of his uniform. The material was as dark as night itself and tied shut with a golden string.
“When you told me that you’d do anything to change what happened to Terzia, I didn’t think at first that you’d meant it literally,” Petracchio said. “Then I realized why you were so eager to protect Cariebasa’s interests.”
He proffered the bag to the Captain, who at first shrank from it. What a strange sight, to see this great fearless slab of a man frightened of anything. “What is it?”
“It’s your wish.” The rookie pushed the dark velvet into Venatore’s hands. “As far as the Queen is concerned, you no longer owe her anything. Capsice?”
The veteran looked at the tiny parcel in his hands. He drew the black velvet up to his face and breathed deeply, as if he were inhaling a long forgotten scent. Giro Venatore whispered something inaudible, then kissed the bag gently before handing it back to the rookie.
“Sir?”
“Not like this,” The Captain shook his head. “What would I say to her? That I made a deal with a monster in order to bring her back? She deserves better than that—I understand now. Thank you, Petrarch. But you can give my wish back to Queen Cariebasa.”
Petracchio gripped the velvet pouch tightly. “Actually Captain, I think I may have a better idea.”
---
Somewhere in Lowtown a ’21 Magliozzi plied the back canals, black lacquer cutting through black waters. Its pilot, a young woman, was not accustomed to being followed, having long since mastered all of the tricks that a gondolier can learn in order to move about the City unmolested, but there was something familiar about her pursuer that gave her pause. With one hand on the punt and another gripping the stock of her hand crossbow, she hailed the mysterious stranger, who drew closer in his own hired fast boat with both of his hands in the air.
“You’re the cop from the Arena,” Evangelina said, easing her finger off the trigger of her bow but not letting go of the weapon.
Petracchio smiled. “And you’re a difficult person to track down.”
The girl looked at the Greenhead with a searching gaze. “That’s why I’m still alive. If you’re going to try and arrest me, I hope for your sake that you’ve brought backup.”
“We tried that once and it ended poorly. No—I’m here to right a wrong.”
Evangelina took her hand off the crossbow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you recognize this?” The rookie held up the black velvet satchel; from her sharp intake of breath Petracchio knew that the girl knew exactly what it was.
“How did you get it?”
“It doesn’t really matter,” the young Greenhead answered. “Do you know what to do with it?”
The girl nodded, dumbfounded.
“Then it’s yours. Catch—“ he said, tossing the pouch across the dark water between them. Evangelina snatched it from the air with expert reflexes; briefly she inspected the bag’s contents, then she looked at Petracchio again with a suspicious gaze.
“Why?”
“Because some good should come from all of this,” Petracchio said.
The girl laughed in a way that was far less mocking than it could have been, but mocking nevertheless. “You must be new around here.”
Petracchio shrugged.
“Hope you don’t live to regret it.” Evangelina said, already shoving off into the night. “Arreviderce, rookie.”
The junior officer watched the ’21 Magliozzi disappear around the corner of the next juncture, then told his oarsman to take him back to the precinct house. He was already late for his shift, and the Lowtown beat waited for no one—not even a big damned hero.
One does not simply walk into a Gorgon’s lair, but that is exactly what the three Greenheads did. As Lowtown continued to degenerate into violence there were no additional officers or auxiliaries to spare, so Petracchio, Aemilia, and Stefano were obliged to make the journey into the Southlander ghetto on their own. As acting Captain Aemilia lead the way-- the rookie followed hard on her heels with broadsword in hand, and Stefano brought up the rear, covering his companion’s advance with his bow.
No sooner did they reach the outer perimeter of Queen Cariebasa’s empire of tenements than the first sentries made their presence known. The laconic sniper wasted no time with these lackeys, dispatching them one after another with nary a word, barely pausing to reload before loosing the next silent but deadly quarrel.
The canals were eerily devoid of boat traffic for the pre-dawn hours, as vendors and other Lowtowners with no stake in this fight knew better than to risk straying into the line of battle. The clean briny scent of the rising tide was muddled with smoke this morning, and although the Greenheads could not yet see the flames they knew that the slums were already ablaze.
Was it Cariebasa’s faction that had started the fire, or Esposito’s? At this point it hardly even mattered anymore. All of Lowtown teetered on the precipice, and as if sensing the rookie and his comrades moved carefully through the gloom, fearing lest an errant footfall send the whole lot of them tumbling into the abyss.
Cariebasa was once not merely a Queen, but the first among her kind, a queen of queens and a living goddess to her subjects. Long before she had arrived here in the City, her devotees had been preparing her temple, as if they’d always known that their sovereign would come to live among them in exile. The tenement that stood at the heart of the Southlander ghetto was uncharacteristically splendid, the towering mud-brick walls festooned with brightly colored friezes that artists had risked life and limb to paint. Each corner of the insula had been painted so that it appeared as if the whole building were being supported by the coils of four giant serpents, and each floor of the tenement depicted successive visions of a primordial earth.
At the edifice’s foundation were the Nameless Ones, whose formless, shapeless masses seemed to ooze from the flickering torchlight provided by myriad sconces along the building’s perimeter. Above these squiggling horrors were strange creatures composed of whorls and flailing tentacles, bearing many-chambered shells or segmented armored plates like vast engines of war. Next were the great saurian beasts of the Palmlands, who once roamed all over the Three Continents when Gorgonkind was young and Man little more than the glimmer of a thought in some Creator god’s imagination. As Petracchio, Aemilia, and Stefano approached they could just barely make out the maw of a giant predator in the torchlight, its teeth looming as large as any man. What was it about to seize in its jaws?
Until now the Queen’s domain had been protected by a mixture of hired muscle and other thuggish types that choked Varo’s canals like so much flotsam, but here at the threshold of her temple Cariebasa was guarded by the faithful—a sea of bald pated, purple-clad acolytes wielding an array of halberds that seemed to have been designed by the same artist who had painted the murals above their heads, long serrated blades that curved with an alien logic, as if the weapons were never meant to be wielded by human hands. The zealots stood at the ready, and as the trio approached Aemilia cursed under her breath.
“Hold your fire, Stefano. We’re not getting through that without a siege engine.”
“Wait a minute,” Petracchio said, pointing at the ranks of Gorgon-worshippers. Impossibly, the crowd seemed to part as soon as they saw the Greenheads, with the result that even as the three came to a halt an empty path had appeared to the entrance of the temple.
Stefano shook his head, as if he did not believe his eyes. “Is it a trap?”
“Why bother?” Aemilia responded. “If they wanted us dead at this point, all they’d need to do is overrun us. Looks like the Queen wants to talk.”
The Captain did not even need to consult her comrades before proceeding. They had not come this far simply to turn back, not with the stakes as high as they were. As the trio were swallowed amid the purple-clad zealots they lowered their weapons, not so much as a sign of deference as an admission of futility. From this moment on they were in the hands of the Queen, and they knew it.
The entrance to the tenement temple was choked with offerings for the Gorgon— a dizzying array of fresh fruit and flowers, colorful embroideries, bushels of corn, red beetles, salt, and cacao, gold and silver ornaments, precious stones of every possible variety and cut, cages containing live birds, lizards, and other creatures deemed sacred among Southlanders that squeaked and chattered and roared as they past, as well as the hides and lacquered bones of unknown beasts.
Was that a human ribcage poking out from one of the piles of tribute? Petracchio tried not to think of what lengths Cariebasa’s faithful would go to so as to curry her favor. As the rookie looked at the faces of the zealots he realized that Southlanders only made up a portion of the faithful, and that men and women of all nations were represented among the Queens honor guard, their bald heads making them almost indistinguishable from one another. If he were not currently terrified beyond his capacity to reason he might have made something of this, but it was all that he could do to keep placing one foot in front of another, fighting that innermost voice within the reptilian portion of his brain that kept shouting at him to run away as fast as he could before it was too late.
Half a dozen of the acolytes broke off from the rest of the guard and conducted them—with three leading the way and the other three bringing up the rear-- into the dark entryway of the tenement and up a flight of mud brick steps so well-trodden that the center of the stairs was a grooved channel. Every square inch of the building’s interior had been covered with mosaic tiles which resolved themselves into various zig-zagging shapes and patterns which made the corridor seem to undulate under the weak torchlight, as if the temple itself were a gargantuan scaly beast.
After ascending three full turns of the stairwell Petracchio could smell something that made his heart pound within his chest even more violently than it had been before. The scent was barely palpable but thoroughly alien, something vaguely feminine but unmistakably other, and although the rookie had never in his brief mortal tenure encountered a such a monster a thousand generations of inborn memory told him the name of his terror.
Gorgon.
The purple-clad acolytes had lead the trio onto a landing which opened into a vast chamber. Once the interior of this tenement had been a honeycomb of mud daub, bamboo, and rice paper, demarcating what tiny living space there was available to each family that dwelled within, but now it was the antechamber of the Queen’s temple, where she chose to receive her visitors. Torches flickering in their sconces revealed the base of broad brick columns that there the building’s structural supports, each of them tiled in a similar manner as the walls of the stairwell, their writhing illusory scales disappearing into the inky void above their heads. Here the scent was stronger, and as the rookie glanced at Aemilia and Stefano he noticed that they were also aware of it, as the both gripped their weapons with knuckles so white that they almost gleamed like bone.
“This is most disappointing,” a voice greeted them from the deeper darkness within- a woman’s voice, accompanied by the faint but unmistakable hissing of serpents. “Pray tell, does your Captain now feel that an audience with my august presence is somehow beneath him?”
“Your majesty.” Although the words themselves were formal, Aemilia responded in a manner that suggested no such obseisance. “Captain Venatore is indisposed.”
“Indisposed?” The Queen took so long to pronounce the word that Petracchio thought that perhaps her tongue was also an asp.
“He was shot… by one of your mercenaries, if I’m not mistaken.”
The rookie’s eyes darted over to Aemilia, who smiled faintly. She of course had no such proof of Cariebasa’s involvement in the shooting, but as the voice in the dark sputtered and muttered something incomprehensible the erstwhile Captain knew that her bluff had been successful.
“This is most unfortunate,” the Queen said, attempting to regain her composure.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Careful, ‘Captain’,” Cariebasa’s tongue found its venom once more. “You may have the law on your side, but insolence will only end in sorrow for you and your companions.”
If Aemilia had been moved by this barely-veiled threat, she made no indication of it, nor did Stefano, whereas Petracchio was convinced that he could see the pounding of his own heart in the darkness where the Queen held her audience.
“Nevertheless, the fact remains that an officer of the Varonian shield has been gravely wounded by members of your faction,” Aemilia said. “The Greenheads do not take too kindly to those who would dare murder their officers.”
“Giro,” the medusa’s voice was barely a whisper. “Is he—“
“—his life still hangs in the balance. Only Lord Noh can tell for certain whether he will recover or not. In either case, we have more than the law on our side to haul you out of this temple in irons.”
“So why have you not done so already?” Cariebasa’s tone was equal parts curiosity and calculation.
“Because we are willing to overlook this…” Aemilia paused as she struggled to find the right word. “…accident, if you agree to stand down in this conflict with Damin Esposito.”
“Never!” the Gorgon fumed. “Not until I have utterly destroyed that damned fool. The old man knew better than to meddle in my affairs. Now I will make him pay.”
Aemilia pressed on. “He accuses you of murdering his lieutenant—the Oguntak named Esanga.”
“Of course he does! Do you take me for a fool?”
“So tell me, Your Majesty- did you or did you not kill the Oguntak?”
“What does it matter, Captain?” The Queen’s voice was not much exasperated as resigned. “It was always my fate to play the monster-- I grow weary of pretending otherwise. If it all must come to an end, let it end now. At least I will have the satisfaction of taking Titus Esposito with me.”
“And all of Lowtown with it?” Aemilia asked. “If you do not stop this madness, they will send the Black Legion. Surely you must know this.”
“I do not fear death, Captain. Nor do my followers.”
Aemilia sighed and lowered her head, uncertain as to how to proceed. Petracchio looked at his comrade-- even in the still dark of Cariebasa’s inner sanctum it was as if she could see Lowtown burning all around her and hear the piteous cries of myriad Canalsiders as the drug-addled shock troops of the Black Legion swept from tenement to tenement, killing guilty and innocent alike.
It had been almost twenty years since the Legion was last deployed in the parish of Norollo, but to this day it remained devoid of life, a haunted necropolis at the City’s heart. Unless this stalemate with the Queen was somehow broken, the same disaster would befall the Lowtown slums, scouring away any trace of this foolish conflict and its warring parties. It would be a terrible day of reckoning, Petracchio thought, and suddenly everything made sense.
“Stop!” he shouted, although no one was speaking at the time. Aemilia and Stefano actually jumped a step back, and there was equally-surprised rustling from the impenetrable darkness at the antechamber’s heart. “Don’t you see? This is exactly what they want!”
“Hold your tongue, rookie,” Aemilia hissed. “You’re not helping anything.”
The Queen’s tone was now imperious. “Let the boy speak.”
Petracchio looked at his companions—Stefano nodded as if to encourage him, while Aemilia simply glared. “Who benefits if the Black Legion is deployed?”
“No one benefits,” Aemilia said with an acid tongue. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Wrong,” the rookie responded. “No one in Lowtown benefits.”
Aemilia’s face fell as the meaning of Petracchio’s statement became apparent. She shook her head and whispered. “No. I refuse to believe it.”
“Believe what?” Cariebasa asked from the darkness.
Petracchio at last connected all of the dots. “That someone finds you and Damin Esposito so inconvenient to their plans that they are willing to sacrifice an entire parish to get you out of the way.”
The Gorgon hissed. “Senator Brindisi.”
“Senator Brindisi,” the rookie confirmed. “Who is probably even as we speak calling his fellow Senators out of bed to respond to the crisis here in Lowtown- a crisis that he caused by hiring Francesco Sabatini to kill the Oguntak and frame you for it. Brindisi is more familiar with Lowtown than any other Senator—he would have known that such a provocation would have pushed Old Man Esposito over the edge and started a gang war.
“What he didn’t count on however was Captain Venatore’s special relationship with you, Your Majesty. No sooner had Esanga’s body appeared in the Secundo than the good Captain was having it disappeared by his auxiliaries—gang war averted, right? Only it wasn’t, because before the corpse could be gotten rid of completely the SPQVs showed up on the scene, almost as if they knew exactly where they should be.”
“Sabatini must have tipped them off,” Aemilia said with a bitter expression.
Petracchio nodded gravely. “See, that’s what I thought at first myself. But then Sabatini slipped up and told me where Esanga’s body was supposed to have shown up—right on the Queen’s doorstep, and not drifting with the tides along the Secundo. Not only would Inspector Pomilio and his agents be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they wouldn’t have had any jurisdiction to investigate just another murder in Lowtown.”
“So what are you saying?” It was Stefano who spoke now, as Aemilia had fallen strangely silent.
“What did Pomilio offer you to be his spy, Aemilia?” The rookie squared to face the erstwhile Captain. “Did he promise you Venatore’s command, once you helped destroy him? Or was it a cushy Inspector’s job with the SPQV’s? Or was it just for the money?”
Stefano was the first to answer the accusations. “Now wait a second, rookie! Aemilia is a straight arrow just like me- aren’t you? Aemilia, tell Petrarch that he’s out of his mind here.”
But Aemilia said nothing. By torchlight her comrades could see that there were now tears streaming down her face. An awkward silence fell over the antechamber, although Petracchio swore that he could almost hear the Queen chuckling from the preternatural darkness.
“Aemilia?” Stefano’s voice seemed distant and hollow. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you haven’t been working for them.”
The erstwhile Captain shook her head slowly. “I had to, Stefano. He’s rotten and you know it. You’ve only been here a few days, rookie—tell me that I’m wrong.”
Petracchio did not answer, but Stefano responded with uncharacteristic emotion. “So when were you going to tell me?”
“Oh, Stefano.” The tears fell more freely now. “I’m so sorry.” Aemilia reached out to her lover, but the laconic Greenhead took a step back in defiance.
“Amusing as this tale of love and betrayal may be,” Queen Cariebasa spoke. “I would like to know how you intend to prevent the good Senator from destroying us all.”
The rookie smiled. “I was hoping that someone would ask that.”
---
The plan was devilishly simple. Captain Arturo Serafinelli may have presided over a decidedly quiet parish, but Caecilia was perfectly situated in the shadow of Hightown, such that when the acting Captain of another precinct issued a warrant for the arrest of Senator Brindisi’s son on suspicion of trafficking El Mirad ol’ Cap’n Seraf was immediately able to snatch the playboy at the base of the Punti di Mille Piedi at the conclusion of his all-night revels and deliver him down to Lowtown by a swift launch. No sooner did the boy arrive than the Senator was already suing for peace and offering to cooperate with the SPQVs in exchange for not having his son shipped off to Egg Rock.
With peace having been secured, Cariebasa brought her soldiers back from the brink and made the rare concession of visiting Nocciola in person to beg for peace. So the trio of Greenheads stood and watched from the colonnade of Old Man Esposito’s confraternity lodge while the damin and the veiled Gorgon Queen exchanged pleasantries that passed for threats, or threats that passed for pleasantries— even after almost a week on the Lowtown beat, it was hard for Petracchio to tell which was which.
In the early morning shadows, Aemilia gave Petracchio a wan smile. “You did it, rookie.”
“’Never burn your bridges,’” Petracchio said. “That’s what the Captain told me on the first day.”
Aemilia looked down at the flagstones of the colonnade. “So. Are you going to tell him what I did?”
“Tell him what?” the rookie asked. He gave Stefano a sidelong glance; the laconic sharpshooter nodded.
Aemilia fought back another round of tears. “Thank you.”
“We Greenheads take care of our own.”
The trio digested this for a moment while they watched the negotiations continue within the courtyard. There was a tinkle of laughter from the Queen—was the old damin actually flirting with her now? And was she actually flirting back?
“So Petrarch,” Srefano said. “When this is over Aemilia and I were thinking about going to check up on Venatore. Care to join us?”
The rookie sighed. “Thanks for the invite, but I have one more report to file.”
---
This time Petracchio did not wait. The steps of the SPQV’s Terminalia headquarters were even more crowded this morning than on his previous two visits, but instead of queuing up with the others the rookie simply strode up to the entrance of the building, ignoring the hostile stares and grumbled sounds of protest of those who had camped out all night in order to secure their audience. A functionary in grey attempted to head him off as his crossed the threshold, but Petracchio waved him away with enough menace that the clerk recoiled from him as if he’d been struck. No one else dared accost him as he navigated through the dark, silent corridors; when he at last found Inspector Pomilio’s corner office, it was almost as if the SPQV agent had been expecting his interruption all along.
“Ser Petracchio!” the Inspector greeted the rookie with a broad smile. “Congratulations on solving your first Lowtown murder. You’re the talk of the City right now, son.”
Petracchio allowed himself to smile at this, but only for a moment. “I have come to make my final report, sir.”
Pomilio frowned. “The case is closed, rookie. There’s no need for you to be here. Sorry if the Greenheads didn’t make that clear on your end.”
“This was Rosario’s doing, wasn’t it?”
“Como?” The Inspector tried to control his surprise, but Petracchio could see the flicker behind his eyes even as he looked down at his sheaf of paperwork.
“You heard me. Rosario hired Sabatini to kill the Oguntak. If you follow the money trail I’ll bet it goes straight to Senator Brindisi, but it was Rosario who gave the order. Everyone in the chain was expendable— even you.”
Pomilio glowered over his files. “If you’re implying that I had something to do with Esanga’s murder, you are way out of line, son.”
“You didn’t have to,” the rookie explained, his palms turned outward. “In fact, it makes more sense if you weren’t involved. As soon as the boy turned up in the Secundo, however, you would be. And that’s exactly what Rosario was counting on.”
The Inspector’s jaw fell open as the realization dawned on him. “Venatore.”
“Someone leaves a mess on Giro Venatore’s doorstep so big that even he can’t make it go away. But of course he’ll try, and in doing so give you all the ammunition you need to destroy him. The perfect set-up. It would have worked perfectly, too, if I hadn’t opened my mouth at the crime scene and got stuck reporting to you instead of Aemilia.
“With the Captain out of the game, there’s absolutely nothing to keep Cariebasa and Old Man Esposito from tearing Lowtown asunder, prompting Senator Brindisi to do the only sensible thing remaining: deploy the Black Legion.”
“I’m such a fool,” Pomilio said, his head buried in his hands. “All this time I thought I was following his footsteps, when he was actually dogging mine.”
Petracchio lowered his voice to a whisper. “Who is this person? How can he have so much power?”
“I don’t know. But I fear that you have made yourself a powerful enemy by upsetting his plans.”
The rookie grimaced. “Not bad for my first week on the job, eh?”
---
Petracchio arrived at the nunnery shortly before dark. Although the violence that threatened to consume Lowtown had now abated, the air was still heavy with the stale rank of smoldering wood. Amazingly, one of the tenements had been wholly consumed by fire, however, and both the Queen and Damin Esposito had lent their footsoldiers to assist the efforts of the local bucket brigades to extinguish what flames continued to defy the steady rain which had settled in shortly after noon. The rookie wondered if the Red Legion was here and if his old boss Arlix weren’t at this moment prowling the insulae for signs of smoke and loose silver; he smiled at the thought.
Stefano and Aemilia were long since gone, and it was late enough in the day that Petracchio had to browbeat the sisters to be permitted to enter the shrine. To his surprise, Giro Venatore was not only awake but sitting up when he entered his cell. The Captain’s skin still had a deathly pallor to it, but his grey eyes were as bright as he’d ever seen them.
“So, rookie. I hear you’re a big damned hero. Congratulations.”
Petracchio shrugged at this and stared at the big man’s wound, thinking of whether he’d be upright and talking right now if that repeater bolt had found its intended target. Almost certainly not, he thought. It was almost as if Captain Venatore were tougher than death itself.
“I suppose you can have your pick of assignments now. So what’ll it be? Hightown? The Old Quarter? Maybe a nice office job in the Varony?”
“With all due respect, sir, I’d like to stay on the Lowtown beat.”
“Oho!” The Captain exclaimed so loudly that he provoked a painful coughing fit. “And why would you ever want to do that?”
“Because this is where I belong, Captain.”
Venatore considered this, then smiled. “We’ll make a halfway decent Greenhead out of you yet!”
Petracchio smiled in return, then cleared his throat. “Sir...”
“Out with it, rookie.” The veteran’s slate eyes were locked on those of his junior officer’s, as if he could read the latter’s mind.
“Before I came here I paid the Queen a visit.”
The rookie produced a small black velvet pouch from within the folds of his uniform. The material was as dark as night itself and tied shut with a golden string.
“When you told me that you’d do anything to change what happened to Terzia, I didn’t think at first that you’d meant it literally,” Petracchio said. “Then I realized why you were so eager to protect Cariebasa’s interests.”
He proffered the bag to the Captain, who at first shrank from it. What a strange sight, to see this great fearless slab of a man frightened of anything. “What is it?”
“It’s your wish.” The rookie pushed the dark velvet into Venatore’s hands. “As far as the Queen is concerned, you no longer owe her anything. Capsice?”
The veteran looked at the tiny parcel in his hands. He drew the black velvet up to his face and breathed deeply, as if he were inhaling a long forgotten scent. Giro Venatore whispered something inaudible, then kissed the bag gently before handing it back to the rookie.
“Sir?”
“Not like this,” The Captain shook his head. “What would I say to her? That I made a deal with a monster in order to bring her back? She deserves better than that—I understand now. Thank you, Petrarch. But you can give my wish back to Queen Cariebasa.”
Petracchio gripped the velvet pouch tightly. “Actually Captain, I think I may have a better idea.”
---
Somewhere in Lowtown a ’21 Magliozzi plied the back canals, black lacquer cutting through black waters. Its pilot, a young woman, was not accustomed to being followed, having long since mastered all of the tricks that a gondolier can learn in order to move about the City unmolested, but there was something familiar about her pursuer that gave her pause. With one hand on the punt and another gripping the stock of her hand crossbow, she hailed the mysterious stranger, who drew closer in his own hired fast boat with both of his hands in the air.
“You’re the cop from the Arena,” Evangelina said, easing her finger off the trigger of her bow but not letting go of the weapon.
Petracchio smiled. “And you’re a difficult person to track down.”
The girl looked at the Greenhead with a searching gaze. “That’s why I’m still alive. If you’re going to try and arrest me, I hope for your sake that you’ve brought backup.”
“We tried that once and it ended poorly. No—I’m here to right a wrong.”
Evangelina took her hand off the crossbow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you recognize this?” The rookie held up the black velvet satchel; from her sharp intake of breath Petracchio knew that the girl knew exactly what it was.
“How did you get it?”
“It doesn’t really matter,” the young Greenhead answered. “Do you know what to do with it?”
The girl nodded, dumbfounded.
“Then it’s yours. Catch—“ he said, tossing the pouch across the dark water between them. Evangelina snatched it from the air with expert reflexes; briefly she inspected the bag’s contents, then she looked at Petracchio again with a suspicious gaze.
“Why?”
“Because some good should come from all of this,” Petracchio said.
The girl laughed in a way that was far less mocking than it could have been, but mocking nevertheless. “You must be new around here.”
Petracchio shrugged.
“Hope you don’t live to regret it.” Evangelina said, already shoving off into the night. “Arreviderce, rookie.”
The junior officer watched the ’21 Magliozzi disappear around the corner of the next juncture, then told his oarsman to take him back to the precinct house. He was already late for his shift, and the Lowtown beat waited for no one—not even a big damned hero.
Chapter Eight: Rookie (Part Three)
The next day Petracchio returned to Terminalia to make his second report to Pomilio. This time he had to wait in the sweltering heat of a rare sunny morning, as the SPQV Inspector had several clients whose business was sufficiently important that he could not shrug them off as easily as those of the previous day. The fine weather seemed to have drawn out twice as many petitioners, none of whom had brought any meaningful protection from the sun either, and who would likely end up beet-red by noon if they didn’t secure some shady real estate along the building’s portico.
As the rookie sat on the broad marble steps he wondered how Aemilia was faring. Although Stefano had been able to recover from the girl’s poison in a few hours, his partner had still been comatose when Captain Venatore finally sent everyone home for the night save for himself. The veteran Greenhead would hold vigil over his officer at the shrine they’d brought her to after she’d collapsed—a quiet sanctuary to Aemilia’s namesake saint in her old neighborhood. The Lowtown canalside along which the shrine stood used to be an Old Varonian community, but was now mostly inhabited by Lakers and their distant Skraeling cousins. Neither race had any time for the Church of the One True God and its myriad saints, so when the Greenheads brought Aemilia a dozen nuns had nothing better to do than drop everything and cluck over the headstrong girl now in their care. When at last the mother superior and chief physician announced to Venatore that Aemilia would recover from her head wound, the Captain told Petracchio and Stefano to get some rest.
“What what do I tell the Inspector?” The rookie was still sore that Venatore had not shared the specifics of Sabatini’s interrogation, and wished that he had been close enough to the conversation that it had not been drowned out by the roar of the crowd. That unfamiliar name lingered in his memory, as did mention of Queen Cariebasa. How were they related?
Whatever the connection was, his Captain was still being less than forthcoming about it. “You tell Pomilio that if his beancounters apprehend a girl punting a ’21 Magliozzi that she is wanted for the assault of two Greenheads and that she is to be remanded to our custody. No funny business. Capisce?”
Petracchio baked on the brilliant white marble, feeling his bruised lips crack in the sun. The sutures on his face itched terribly, but he did not scratch them for fear of undoing Stefano’s magical handiwork. Instead he sat and fantasized about splashing his face with a cool draught of water from one of the City’s deep freshwater springs. Briefly he contemplated abandoning his place in the queue to go find some kind of liquid freshmen, cool or otherwise, but given the crush of people waiting and predatory looks with which his fellow clients regarded his spot he’d be lucky if could even get within sight of the SPQV headquarters again this morning, and he knew there’d be Eieron himself to pay if he failed to deliver his report and Venatore’s message.
What was it about that girl, he wondered as a lizard sunned itself warily within a stone’s throw. Don’t let your guard down, friend, Petracchio thought. Bask a little too deeply and you’ll be someone’s breakfast. The rookie shook his head as a knot of Shan-li kids did exactly what he was thinking and tried to spear it with a sharpened cane of bamboo- the lizard exploded into motion, seemingly in half a dozen directions at once, then was gone to continue its sunbathing in a more hospitable location. As the Middle Kindgom children yelled at each other for squandering their opportunity for some free street meat the Greenhead laughed. At least he’d remembered to eat breakfast this time, if nothing else.
Petracchio tried to remember if this Evangelina had been around in the old days, when he and Sabatini had run with Arlix’s gang. He was fairly certain that he would have remembered a girl who looked like she had, as even from the fleeting glimpse that he’d caught of her last night at the Arena he knew that she was a looker. Dangerous, too. Something wasn’t adding up, though. If she were in fact Sabatini’s girlfriend, as his Captain had claimed, then what was she doing wandering around the canals of Lowtown all by herself? Petracchio knew Sabatini well enough to know that any woman of his wouldn’t be allowed to leave a room without a small army of goons in attendance, let alone in the company of some Oguntak lowlife. And what was Queen Cariebasa’s angle in all of this?
The rookie’s ruminations were interrupted by the sound of an SPQ V page shouting out his name- Petracchio scrambled to his feet, shaking off the pins and needles in his legs as she followed the young clerk out of the sunlight and into the cool, dark bowels of the building’s interior. It took a few minutes for Petracchio’s eyes to adjust to the gloom, during which he passed a blur of fine architecture and many faceless men and women dressed in grey. The SQPV headquarters felt less like an outpost of law enforcement than it did a Varonian Counting House, and sure enough at regular intervals the Greenhead caught a glimpse of rooms full of savants whispering their way through never-ending columns of numbers, no doubt checking a certain Great House’s ledgers against their own records for signs of fraud or other financial malfeasance. Petracchio shuddered at the thought of being cooped up in such a chamber for his waking hours, being expected to do nothing but add, subtract, multiple, or divide- having the shit beaten out of him every night on the Lowtown beat seemed to be a dream job in comparison.
“By the Seven, kid—you look like Hell.”
Inspector Pomilio did not mince words as the junior Greenhead entered his office, which lay somewhere deep within the complex. There were no windows to the square room, just bookshelves which extended from floor to ceiling and were filled with leatherbound codices whose contents could not be readily identified from the gold-leaf glyphs stamped into each spine. Pomilio’s desk was a slab of marble piled high with scrolls, tomes, and loose sheets of papyrus, several inkwells of various colored dyes, and a curious machine comprised of numerical dials and polished brass gears.
The SPQV agent noticed that Petracchio was staring at this contraption, which gleamed coldly under the blue-white light of the room’s fungus globes.
“You like that, eh? It’s an ancient Salumar artifact, recovered from one of the Nine Sacred Cities. Don’t even ask me how much money I spent to have it restored—if I had a wife, she would have killed me several times over.”
“What does it do, sir?” Even though Pomilio had spoken to him in his normal speaking voice, the rookie whispered, for fear of violating some obscure SPQV regulation about noise.
The Inspector’s eyes brightened. “It’s a computer. By setting the dials and turning the gears, this machine can do an entire day’s work of a counting house in mere seconds. Let me show you.”
Pomilio fiddled with the contraption as he inputted an array of numbers, then clicked on several gears to pop them in and out place. The rookie blinked in disbelief at the turning mechanism and the totals which flashed in mother of pearl as the Inspector operated the device.
“I don’t understand, sir. If such machines exist, why don’t the Great Houses use them?”
“That is an excellent question, indeed! But think about it—if devices like this do all of the work, then who wields the power?”
Petracchio balked at the question initially, but then it came to him like a bolt from the blue. “The men who make the machines!”
“I knew I liked you for a reason, son. Yes. Every counting house is firmly under the control of its mathemagicians, but a device knows no loyalties. Tell me—what do you know of the Information Wars?”
The rookie blinked, trying to remember his woefully inadequate parochial education. “Umm. I know that House Dandolo won. Right?”
Inspector Pomilio laughed. “That’s more than most of my agents recall. You are correct that House Dandolo was one of the victors, but few people know who the real losers were: the makers of these machines.
“Five hundred years ago the greatest threat ever to the Senate and People of Varo emerged. Enough of these machines had been recovered from the ruins of Old Salumaria that artisans were able to divine their inner workings and replicate their functionality. The Clockmakers’ Guild was born, and its members suddenly found themselves in possession of more computational power than all of the Great Houses combined.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Petracchio asked, fearing that he already knew the answer.
The Inspector stopped turning the crank that powered the machine. “Because this City is in danger again, son, and I need your help to save her.”
“Me?” The rookie laughed out loud at this. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not likely to survive my first week on the Lowtown beat, let alone save a million Canalsiders.”
Pomilio fixed the young Greenhead with a serious expression. “It is not ours to decide what destiny has in store for us, merely to discern it for what it is. Whether we embrace that fate or not—that is our decision.”
“Then explain,” Petracchio said, still unconvinced. “What does any of this have to do with my destiny?”
The Inspector gestured towards the notes piled on his desk. “For several months now the SPQV has been aware of some… irregularities… in the City’s financial affairs. At first it was a minor accounting error in the official ledger of a Great House, perhaps a misreported series of transaction at one of the fori—things like that. Harmless in isolation, easily enough rectified, problem solved. Right?
“Only these inconsistencies, they turned out to be related to one another. How we finally figured this out is a long story that I don’t want to bore you with, but let’s just say that the key to discovering what was going on was to be found in the bond market. A brilliant young mathemagician connected the dots for us and we moved to arrest the parties involved. Case closed… or so we thought.
“Problem was, even though the person we sent to Egg Rock admitted his guilt and even demonstrated how he was able to do what he did, the irregularities continued to appear. Which meant—“
“—which meant that you had a conspiracy on your hands!” Petracchio exclaimed.
“Exactly. Our man had been a willing patsy, surrendering himself to draw attention away from the actions of his compatriots. And it even worked for a little while… until the other night.”
“Esanga,” the rookie whispered. “You’re talking about the Oguntak, aren’t you?”
Pomilio smiled. “You are definitely sharper than the average Greenhead, I’ll grant you that. Esanga the Traitor is quite an interesting individual- not your typical Canalside rags to riches story, that’s for sure. One day he’s sifting through shit on a garbage barge, then all of a sudden he’s displaced Yan Liao as the most feared crime lord in the Three Parishes.
“If the story ended here it would not interest us, aside from the obvious El Mirad angle. But the El Mirad is just a means to an end, you see- the obscene amounts of money that Esanga is now making from his illegal drug empire are being diverted along some very curious channels that are most unusual for a two-cyp criminal. Or any criminal, for that matter. Money is going up to Hightown. The Senatorial families’ financial affairs are normally immune to our investigations, but the Council of Eleven granted us access owing to the special circumstances. We found our money trail, and it lead us straight to one of Varo’s most respected Senators.”
“Let me guess,” Petracchio said. “Gaius Brindisi.”
The Inspector’s mouth fell open. Before Pomilio could recover enough to ask him how he knew, the rookie explained:
“Easy. The Senator spends a lot of time in these parts doing charitable works, or so I’ve been told. It’s the perfect cover for any number of illegal activities. That would also explain why his brat of a son thinks he owns the place.”
Pomilio could only nod at this. “The Brindisi family is definitely mixed up in something big. Chances are they don’t even know what they’ve gotten themselves into.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The Inspector stopped fiddling with the Salumar computer and faced the Greenhead head-on, his dark eyes gleaming like obsidian. “Does the name ‘Rosario’ mean anything to you?”
Petracchio cocked an eyebrow. “Should it?”
The SPQV agent didn’t answer him immediately—the rookie felt Pomilio sizing him up again, as he did when they first met the other night along the dirty waters of the Secundo. He suspected that if the Inspector could have dialed his soul into the brass machine on the table between them and turn the crank to divine his truth worth through the mysterious workings of its countless tiny cogs and gears, then he would have in a heartbeat. The junior Greenhead swallowed hard and said nothing until Pomilio replied at last.
“If you are withholding something, Ser Petracchio, then I am obliged to remind you that obstructing the investigation of an SPQV inspector is a serious offense.”
“Thank you for the warning, sir. I’ll keep that firmly in mind.”
There was a flash of impatience in Pomilio’s expression—impatience and anger. “You realize that he’s in the middle of all this, right?”
“Who?” The rookie asked, knowing full well whom the Inspector meant.
Pomilio’s smile was no longer kind. It was the toothy mirthless smile of a predator circling its prey. “Your Captain. All of those denars washing through his precinct, you think he doesn’t get his taste?”
“Venatore’s a bastard, but he’s not dirty.” Petracchio tried to say this in a way that suggested that he himself believed it, but his voice quavered as he did so. He recalled what the Captain had said at the Arena about seeing the light. “He can’t be.”
“Tell you about the girl, did he? Poor little Terzia. Old Giro loves to trot that one out early on to establish his bona fides with the new recruits. I bet he left out the best part, though. Did he happen to mention what he did when he found out that the girl was carrying his child?”
Petracchio’s stomach became leaden. From the Captain’s telling of the story it hadn’t been clear whether Terzia had lived or died; the rookie had assumed the latter. He dreaded what was coming next as the Inspector filled in the rest of the tale:
“So our hero, desperate to restore his credibility with his fellow gang-bangers, tries to force the girl to go to an apothecary to get rid of the baby. She refuses. What Giro does to Terzia makes the beating she took from her brother look like a relaxing trip to a Shan-li bathhouse. Throws the poor girl down a flight of stairs and breaks her neck. The chief magistrate wants to try him for murder, but Venatore’s old man has some pull with the local cittadini and spirits him away into the Marines on a penal regiment assignment instead.
“So when he comes back from Ryzien, Giro is a changed man. Or so he says. He may say he’s playing for our team, but don’t be fooled. A dog is only as good as his options, rookie. And this Lowtown mutt has so many options.”
Petracchio shook his head, attempting to disbelieve everything that he’d just heard. Inspector Pomilio also shook his head, a patronizing look on his face.
“You don’t have to take my word for it. Ask Titus Esposito, if you dare. Ask Queen Cariebasa. You think it’s a coincidence that Lowtown is a haven for monsters? Instead of sending them to Egg Rock, he offers these lowlifes safe harbor. Who knows what kind of banh binh he gets for his trouble, while the rest of us get to pay the interest. But not for much longer.”
Pomilio drew closer to the rookie, so close that he could see the cracks and wrinkles that belied the SPQV agent’s youthful mien. Petracchio recoiled as the Inspector’s sudden tirade reached a furious new intensity, tinged with righteous anger.
“This dead Oguntak, he’s just the beginning of a reckoning that’s long overdue. Make no mistake, boy-- this is the endgame for Giro Venatore. I’m sorry that you’ve come at such an awful juncture, but when I’m through with this investigation the last place you’ll want to be standing is between your Captain and me.
“Got it?”
---
Petracchio couldn’t quite recollect how his meeting with the Inspector had concluded, only that he was relieved beyond measure to be out of Pomilio’s lair, so much so that he didn’t notice that he was being followed until he’d returned to his adopted Lowtown neighborhood. Nocciola was bustling, the midmorning sun almost threatening the customarily staid reserve of this ancient parish within a parish—colorful vendors staked out every available square inch of canalside with their wares as a jabbering tide of black-clad Old Varonian matrons haggled over every last bit of produce, meat, cheese, and bread for sale. Young children ran laughing through the chaos, criss-crossing the footbridges and racing between the merchants’ stalls, while the older boys noodled around on the water in their family’s lacquer or rickety skiffs of their own, trying to impress the young ladies who sat in groups of three or four on the granite quays, giggling amid their adolescent gossip.
The rookie stopped to admire the selection of one of the flower vendors as he picked up the tail. It was the shrine-bearer from the previous morning- the one who had beaten him to a pulp at Damin Esposito’s bidding. How he hadn’t spotted the thug before was a testament to the ogre-like man’s preternatural stealthiness, but now that he had been made the shrine-bearer made no attempt not to be seen. Suddenly he was standing so close to Petracchio that he actually cast a shadow over the junior Greenhead, who blinked up at the man, his hand on the hilt of his broadsword.
“Easy,” the shrine-bearer said in a low voice. “I’m not about to wring your neck on a market day. If I’d wanted to do that, I’d have done it before you left Terminalia- am I right?”
Petracchio was only somewhat reassured by this. “All right. So what do you want with me then?”
“The boss would like to have a word with you.”
The rookie couldn’t help but laugh. “So now he does give a damn about me. Is this a good or a bad thing?”
“Don’t get cocky. It means we’re all in much deeper shit than we thought.”
“Fine,” Petracchio said. “Lead the way.”
The shrine-bearer nodded, then motioned away from the canalside markets towards a cul-de-sac where a cluster of thugs sat on the portico of a confraternity lodge. A veritable Old Varonian institution, the confraternity was filled to bursting with the parish’s elder menfolk, who took advantage of the market day to escape their own households and socialize while their wives and daughters bargained with the vendors. Petracchio recognized a couple of the men outside as fellow shrine-bearers—their animated conversation ceased as soon as they saw him, but they opened their ranks to allow him to pass in their comrades’ care.
The lodge house was dingy, its whitewashed walls long since curdled into a sickly yellow from untold generations of Voordian pipeweed and opium smoke. The two men walked along a hallway featuring a row of busts that stared at them with blank eyes, ancient sons of Nocciola whose names could barely even be read on the tarnished bronze plaques affixed beneath each august visage. They passed several open doorways, where old men sat and played dominos in between long draughts on Salumar water-pipes or drinks from open amphorae of wine—in the distance one could hear a boy singing and the tinkling laughter of courtesans.
Petracchio wondered if he’d made a huge mistake in coming here. If he had made a break for it in the market at least there would have been witnesses if he’d failed to escape the beefy shrine-bearer. But hadn’t those same Canalsiders watched him get thrashed the other morning without so much as raising a finger to assist? No, he was a dead man either way. At least by choosing to go quietly he might actually get some answers before the inevitable end.
The long hallway eventually opened up into a large square internal courtyard whose colonnaded impluvium was a carefully-manicured series of fish ponds. The shrine-bearer lead the Petracchio over a wooden footbridge to a small grassy island, where a lone old man sat sunning himself in a Shan-li wicker chair. At first it seemed as though he was taking a late morning nap, but as the two drew near the old man snapped to attention and spoke:
“Piacere. I am Titus Esposito. Come and sit for a while, eh?”
No sooner had the rookie set foot on the island than attendants sprang from the shadows of the colonnade and set two identical wicker chairs opposite the old man, so Petracchio did as he was told and sat. The shrine-bearer did so as well, the rattan creaking uneasily under the henchman’s massive frame. “Careful there, Mauro.” The old don teased. “I just had that chair recaned!”
The two Canalsiders had a good laugh over this, while Petracchio did his best to look amused as well and not as terrified as he in fact was at that moment. Damin Esposito was a man of slight build—although he had no doubt been wizened by the passage of time, the rookie got the sense that the Gentle Don came out of his mother’s womb this way, all bones and sinew but taut as the string of a crossbow. Esposito had a shock of white hair that ringed his bald and spotted forehead and gathered itself below into a beard that jutted out like the tuft of an old mountain goat; his green eyes were flecked with gold and constantly flicked around the courtyard, taking in everything that they could. When the damin spoke, his Old Varonian accent was unmistakable, yet unlike others of his neighborhood his words were always intelligible, if not painfully clear.
“Would you care for some wine?” Esposito did not wait for an answer, nor did his servants wait for a command—as soon as the damin said the word, an amphora appeared, along with three goblets made of white gold. One servant filled the cups as the other handed them first to Petracchio, then Mauro, and at last to the old man, who gave the bouquet a tentative sniff before taking a sip. The enormous bodyguard on the other hand downed the contents of his goblet in one undignified quaff, proffering the cup to the attendants for a refill.
“I’m afraid we got off to a bad start, you and I.” The Gentle Don made it clear that he did not intend this as an apology, so Petracchio made no attempt to acknowledge it as such. “Retirement is a nasty business, this much I can tell you.”
The rookie sat and stared at Esposito with a frozen smile, deathly afraid to move or speak, clutching his still-full goblet as if it were the only thing keeping him from plunging into a bottomless abyss. The old man frowned.
“That was a joke, boy.”
“Forgive me, Damin, but I don’t quite understand why I’m here right now.”
Esposito’s green eyes stopped wandering long enough to fix the young Greenhead with a gaze that was as searching as it was mocking. “Ah, but I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s Inspector Pomilio’s investigation, isn’t it?” Of course, Petracchio thought. The old man is scared. Whatever understanding Titus Esposito may have had with Captain Venatore didn’t count for a damned thing if the SPQVs had a Greenhead from the Lowtown beat who was actually willing to talk to them. Had the old don known that Pomilio was already on the Oguntak case there’s no way he would have let his bodyguard Mauro rough him up the way he did. That’s why Venatore had come here the day before—not out of any concern for his new recruit’s well-being but to stop Esposito’s mobsters from compounding their stupidity and driving the rookie straight to SPQV headquarters.
The Gentle Don’s lack of an answer was all the confirmation that Petracchio needed. Look, the young Greenhead wanted to say. I have no intention of telling the Inspector anything about whatever you and the Captain are into, so don’t worry. But he also knew that this was the only leverage he had. For the first and possibly the last time during this case, the moment was his. So the rookie mustered his most enigmatic smile and waited for the ancient damin to swallow his pride and break the silence first. Titus Esposito mumbled a curse in Old Varonian, then spoke the four words that the rookie was hoping to hear:
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
The old man slumped in his chair. “Very well. Ask.”
“Tell me about Esanga.”
Esposito sighed and motioned for one of the servants to refill his goblet. “What a damned shame. That boy was one in a million. These Oguntak, they don’t care about tradition at all. They come here with their masks and their blood feuds and may the One True God help you if you think you can make them care about anything else.”
Petracchio nodded. For all intents and purposes he could be sitting in the precinct house, right now listening to his Captain. No wonder these two were thick as thieves. The Gentle Don continued unbidden:
His people called him ‘Esanga the Traitor’- do you know why?”
The rookie shook his head.
“Because when the Southlands went to hell, Esanga stood with the Crusaders. Even after I-town itself gave up on the Crusade and let their own sons and daughters fend for themselves in the godforsaken jungle, even when his own countrymen saw the writing on the wall and disavowed their alliances with the Northerners, he stood with them until the very end.
“Now here was a boy with a sense of honor. I didn’t care where he wore a mask or smeared himself with his own shit, because he believed in something bigger than himself.”
“Is that why the Queen killed him?”
The old damin narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?”
Petracchio fumbled for a response. “I- I- I thought the Captain told you.”
“No,” the Gentle Don said with a tone of voice that was quiet, yet anything but gentle. “In fact, when he came to me yesterday he told me that she had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
The rookie didn’t know what to say to this, fearing that he’d already said far too much. Why hadn’t Giro told him?
Esposito spat. “That reptilian bitch. Ever since she came to Lowtown it hasn’t been the same. There was a time when you could be a proper villain in this City, boy, before the Great Locks vomited up every last bit of savagery from the Southlands. Now the old ways, they don’t count for nothing. Niunte. You follow me?”
The rookie stood mute before the Gentle Don’s fury, which clearly had been building for who knows how long. Esposito did not wait for Petracchio to respond:
“For years Cariebasa has been muscling into my turf, and that fool Captain of yours has done nothing to stop her. ‘Keep the peace, Titus.’ That’s all he tells me. ‘Keep the peace’! What has she ever done to keep the peace? At every juncture I have been the one to stand down, surrendering another block, another parish, giving up another line of business. And for what? I used to run this City, boy, and now look at me. I’ve become a joke. The damin of some shit alley that even Lowtown has forgotten.
“But no more.” Titus Esposito stood up from his cane chair on a whim, waving away the attendants as they sprang to assist him. “If the Queen wants a war, then so be it. I am no longer interested in keeping the peace. Tell your Captain that if he wants peace so badly, then he should tell Cariebasa to go back to the Palmlands where she came from!
“You can also tell Venatore that the next time he comes to my neighborhood he’d better bring a platoon of Marines for a bodyguard. I don’t know what kind of chess game he thinks he’s playing, but I am no one’s pawn. Capisce?”
---
As Mauro lead Petracchio back the way they had come down the long hall of the confraternity hall, he muttered over his shoulder. “You got balls, kid. I’ll give you that. Most people shit themselves when they find they’re face to face with Old Man Esposito, but you stood your ground.”
The rookie said nothing, still reeling from the havoc he had unintentionally loosed during his audience with the damin. Mauro, sensing Petracchio’s angst, stopped halfway amid the neighborhood’s ancestral busts and put a huge meaty paw on the copper’s shoulder.
“You think you fucked things up, but you’re wrong. The damin would never have let this insult go unanswered, no matter how much Venatore tried to smooth things over. The Queen, she crossed the line.”
“’This dead Oguntak, he’s just the beginning of a reckoning that’s long overdue,’” the rookie mumbled to himself, recalling Inspector Pomilio’s parting words.
“What?” Mauro asked.
“Nothing.” Petracchio shook his head. Suddenly he had a thought. “Tell me, Mauro. Did you know Esanga well?”
The bodyguard looked at the young Greenhead for a moment before answering. “I suppose. Most Southlanders keep to themselves, but Esanga was different. He was a good soldier, that one.”
“He ever mention a girl to you?”
“Evangelina.”
Petracchio raised an eyebrow. “You knew her?”
“You don’t forget a girl like that, you know what I’m sayin’?”
The rookie nodded.
“Yeah, Esanga was real sweet on her. Really riled up the Old Man, though.”
“Because she was Sabatini’s girl?”
Mauro snorted at this. “Sabatini! As if he’d know what to do with a tight bit of chiton like that. No, I’m talking about the Queen.”
“What?” Time seemed to stop for a moment as Petracchio tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Fortunately the bodyguard didn’t seem to understand the importance of what he was saying, so not only did he repeat himself, but offered some clarification for good measure.
“The girl, she’s with Cariebasa. You know…” Mauro seemed unable to find the proper words for their liaison, but Petracchio understood nonetheless, although the repercussions of such understanding left him unable to say much in response. The giant Canalsider lead him back out on the portico and into the afternoon shadows; before he left, he offered one final bit of advice.
“Keep your head down, kid. Because things are about to get ugly. Capisce? If I were you, I’d think of a whole different line of work altogether.”
---
Venatore flew into a white-hot rage when Petracchio reported the details of his conversation with Old Man Esposito. As the Captain stormed about his office destroying whatever he could of his spartan furnishings the rookie briefly considered whether he should have brought Stefano in with him as backup, but the veteran Greenhead did not lay a finger on Petracchio, nor did he ever threaten to do so, although at the end of his outburst he leveled a thick calloused finger at the young man. “Any blood that is spilled—this is on you, son.”
The rookie tried not to flinch at Venatore’s stern malediction and swallowed hard. “No, it isn’t.”
A murderous glare across the oak table, the only thing that the Captain had not overturned or smashed at this point. “What did you say?”
“I said it isn’t on me, sir. And you know damned well that it isn’t. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
Venatore said nothing to this, which Petracchio took as tacit confirmation. “What I don’t understand, though, is why.”
“Leave it, rookie.” The Captain’s growl would have been enough to make the junior Greenhead soil his trousers just a couple of days ago, but Petracchio could see through the bluster now.
Before he had a chance to press his question a second time, however, they were interrupted by Aemilia, who entered Venatore’s office without knocking. Her head was still bandaged and she moved with a tentative step, but already the fire had returned to her eyes, as had her slight but unmistakably bemused smile.
“Well, now!” the Captain exclaimed. “Look who’s back from the dead.”
Aemilia surveyed the wreckage of the veteran Greenhead’s office. “What happened here?”
Venatore looked at Petracchio, then back at Aemilia. “Nothing. Just felt like a little Spring cleaning, and our rookie was kind enough to help me. Isn’t that right, Petrarch?”
The Captain had never used Petracchio’s familiar name before, which caught him entirely off-guard. He sighed and nodded his head. “Yup. Cockroaches the size of spiny Aeedian lobsters.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me. Idiot boys and their idiot arguments. Just fill me in on what I’ve missed.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to come back?” There was something in the way that Venatore asked the question that suggested an uncharacteristic amount of tenderness for the Captain—Petracchio noticed that Aemilia placed her hand on her abdomen, if only for the briefest instant before withdrawing it self-consciously.
“I’m fine, Captain.”
Venatore resumed his gruff mien. “Fine. Then find your partner and let’s go and try to stop ourselves a gang war, shall we?”
---
The bloodshed had already begun. No sooner had the Captain and his rookie officially begun their Lowtown beat than they were summoned to the scene of a shooting near the Laker tenements—two Canalsiders lay dead on the cold granite, their blood being washed away by a hard rain even as Venatore and Petracchio approached.
“These are a couple of Esposito’s boys,” the Captain grunted. “I guess the Queen got his message.”
While the auxiliaries secured the crime scene, Petracchio adjusted his rain gear and looked at Venatore. “I didn’t know that Aemilia was carrying.”
The Captain appeared surprised at first at the rookie’s statement, then gave a grim smile. “Yes. I’ve tried putting her on clerical duty ever since I found out, but the girl just won’t listen. She says she’d rather die than proofread my reports.”
Despite all that had transpired that day, Petracchio couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you…?”
“Are you kidding! Aemilia has better taste in men than me, even if they do tend towards the obsessive.”
“Stefano.”
“Give the rookie a prize for his deductive prowess!” Venatore shouted at one of the auxiliaries as he clumsily handled one of the bodies, then turned back to Petracchio. “Officially the Greenheads frown on this sort of thing, but who am I to stand in the way of true love?”
The way that the Captain’s voice caught when he said this gave the junior Greenhead pause, so the two watched the auxiliaries work as the rain fell even harder now on the quay and the obsidian waters of the canal. Finally, Petracchio cleared his throat.
“Pomilio told me some things when I met with him this morning. Things about you.”
“Yeah.” The Captain’s response wasn’t a question, but the acknowledgment of the inevitable.”
“About Terzia.”
Venatore looked away. “There are many things I’ve done in this life that I’m not proud of, rookie. But there’s only one that I would do anything I could to take back.”
“Sir?” Petracchio was waiting for the Captain to elaborate, but when he glanced at the veteran Greenhead he saw his hand on the hilt of his broadword.
“We’ve got company- get down!”
How he had spotted the shooter in the driving rain was anyone’s guess, but no sooner had he shouted than the Captain shoved his junior officer aside. Petracchio felt the first missile whistle just past his ear, while the second hit Venatore square in the chest. As the Captain roared with pain and fell onto the slippery granite the rookie unslung his crossbow and ducked behind one of the dockside pilings just as the third shot twanged, the iron bolt exploding into the stone with a white puff and microscopic shards of rock.
Petracchio peeked around his cover to see the telltale black velvet hood on a gondola whose dark lacquer seemed to merge into the surrounding canal like something out of a dream. His training as a Marine suddenly returned to him as he listened to the clanking of the repeating crossbow’s gears. There was always a split second in between volleys as a fresh set of bolts fell from the hopper and fed into the machine—the rookie waited for the right moment, then popped up from behind the piling and took his best shot. Someone cursed from underneath the hood, and the repeater failed to engage for a second round of firing, at least for the moment. Petracchio dashed back to where his Captain had fallen, and found him attempting to prop himself as he slipped on the oily granite and his own blood.
“Easy, sir.” The rookie saw the iron bolt protruding from his Captain’s torso, having sundered the layers of cured leather and chainmail as if they’d been a costume made of tissue paper. Petracchio had seen worse wounds in the cranberry bogs of Deltaine, to be sure, but never a man who had ever tried to get up after being hit like that.
“Don’t let… the bastards… get away,” Venatore croaked, his words punctuated by shallow agonizing breaths. Petracchio’s eyes darted back to the canal but the lacquer was already long gone, having melted back into the rainy blackness. The auxiliaries were already scrambling towards the two of them to assist their fallen Captain, having abandoned the bodies of Titus Esposito’s footsoldiers on the other side of the pier.
Petracchio gripped his partner’s hand tightly. “We’ll get ‘em, Cap. Don’t you worry about that.”
“Petrarch.” Venatore’s fingers felt cold as stone, and his voice was little more than a hoarse whisper now. “The Queen. Tell the Queen.”
“Tell the Queen what?”
The rookie repeated his question but the Captain only gurgled a few barely audible syllables, then fell silent. One of the auxiliaries, a burly Ashlan Cherin with a mustache so waxy that it defied the rain in a manner that was comically incongruous, sized up the injury as soon as he reached their side. “The precinct apothecary isn’t going to be able to help him with this. Nor are the good sisters at St. Aemilia’s, for that matter.”
Petracchio already knew this from his time in the field. He also knew that of the handful of surgeons in the City who could successfully treat a wound as grevious as this, one of them just so happened to work for an old friend.
---
“You want me to do what?”
Francesco Sabatini stood glowering at the rookie from the steps of his private marina. As soon as he realized what he’d have to do in order to save his Captain’s life, Petracchio flagged down the swiftest-looking piece of lacquer that happened to be cruising by and commandeered the vessel with a raised crossbow. The hapless punk kid did not offer so much as a peep of protest, and it was only about halfway through the race to Orsilia along Varo’s quiet side canals did the Greenhead learn the reason why: the gondola had been stolen on a midnight joyride, a crime to which the boy tearfully confessed on his own volition once he recognized the unmistakable visage of Girolamo Venatore looking up at him from the velvet passenger seat. Petracchio told the kid that if he could deliver the Captain to Sabatini’s alive he’d let him go, but if he failed to do so he’d personally deliver him to Egg Rock—the rookie could swear that he had never seen someone row a boat so hard.
Petracchio stood with one foot in the gondola, the other on the granite quay. Venatore lay sprawled in the boat, one of his arms trailing in the dark water. His body was a lifeless slab, his normally ruddy skin as grey as if he were Cebalese. The mustachioed auxiliary stood and held the lacquer against the tide, the young gondola thief having been heaved overboard as soon as the phosphorescent lamps of Sabatini’s nightclub emerged from the gloom. “You heard me. Get your surgeon- now!”
The damin was apoplectic. “After what he did to me at the Arena? Venatore humiliated me in front of my own men. I say let the bastard die.”
Petracchio stepped fully on the quay. “Please, Cecco. Do this as a favor to me. For Arlix’s sake.”
A couple of neckless musclebound thugs materialized to intercept the Greenhead as he moved towards the foot of the marina steps, but Sabatini called them off with a hiss. “You’ve got a lot of nerve cashing in on his name to help out a lousy copper.”
The rookie held his ground and did not answer. There seemed to Petracchio to follow an eternity of silence that was only broken by a low groan from deep within the gondola. How Venatore was even still alive at this point was a miracle; that he could yet stir sent a shiver down the junior Greenhead’s spine. When his gaze darted back from the Captain, he could see his own fear and wonder reflected in the damin’s eyes. What sort of beast was this man, that Francesco Sabatini was afraid to let him die?
“Bring him in,” he barked to his henchmen, who obeyed without so much as a word. As Petracchio followed them up the stairs, however, Sabatini put a firm hand on his shoulder. “After this we’re through, you and I. Capisce?”
The junior Greenhead nodded as if to agree, whereas in fact both men knew damned well that the two had long since passed that point a long time ago.
Her name was Ingrid. Arlix’s second-in-command, the Skraeling woman had captivated the hearts of many a poor hapless Canalsider before Sabatini and Petracchio fell under the blonde warrior goddess’ spell, but none had fought as fiercely for her affections as these two rookie cutpurses. Although normally aloof and reserved, Ingrid allowed herself to be amused by this rivalry, and despite her boss’ warnings not to, she took every opportunity to encourage their amorous zeal until it was inevitable that one or the other should do something that would be as foolish as it was irrevocable.
As the damin’s personal surgeon-- a butcher from Orsilia who was reputedly as adept at carving Sabatini’s victims into untraceable chunks of meat as he was putting the living back together-- Petracchio waited in one of the nightclub’s rooftop chambers, a penthouse office whose décor was nothing more than a garish and expensive attempt to look tasteful. Heavy velvet curtains enrobed a room filled with lacquered furniture made from Southlander hardwoods, interspersed with pieces of art that had been chosen more for their price than their aesthetic appeal: here was a horrid little square painting on a decorative easel, there was a painted vase big enough for a grown man to hide inside.
“See what sort of things you can buy when you’re not living hand to mouth on a Greenhead’s salary?”
“It’s the hidden costs that always get you, Cecco.”
The damin sneered at this, then changed the subject. “Your beloved Captain will live, or so my surgeon tells me. Apparently he has the constitution of an ogre king.”
“Don’t sound too disappointed.”
“Are you kidding? Do you have any idea of how this will raise my stock among the Varonian underworld. ‘Francesco Sabatini is so fearless, he’ll send his own physician to heal your wounds before finishing you off.’”
Petracchio couldn’t help but laugh at this. “You always manage to find an angle, don’t you?”
“That’s why I’m the guy in a position to grant someone like you a favor.”
The rookie narrowed his eyes. “You ever see Arlix?”
Sabatini shook his head. “The old Skrae doesn’t want anything to do with me-- too successful for his tastes, I suppose.”
Petracchio wanted to say something unkind in response to this, but mindful of his situation he thought better of it. “How about Ingrid- she still come around the club like she used to?”
“Not since Evangelina. You know how Ingrid feels about competition.”
“Speaking of competition, did you know about Evangelina’s liaison with Esanga? Or the Queen, for that matter?”
Sabatini’s face hardened. “Is this part of your investigation, Petrarch? I didn’t realize that you Lowtown coppers had jurisdiction here.”
“You’re probably right,” Petracchio shrugged. “But I bet the SPQVs do.”
“What?”
“In case no one told you, this is a joint investigation. So you can either answer my questions, or talk to one of their Inspectors.”
The damin looked indignant. “You don’t think I killed the savage, did you?”
“You tell me,” the rookie said. “As far as I can tell, you have a pretty compelling motive, not to mention a history with this sort of thing.”
Sabatini’s demeanor was now cold and reptilian. “So that’s what this is about. Payback for what I did all those years ago?”
“No—it’s about a murdered man and the gang war that has followed in its wake.”
“Let the Lowtown scum die!” Sabatini’s dark eyes flashed. “You think you’re doing anyone a favor by trying to keep those animals from killing each other? Even your Captain isn’t that naïve.”
Petracchio wanted desperately to come back with a rejoinder as stinging as his old comrade’s words, but what had Sabatini said that wasn’t manifestly true? Less than a week on the beat and already the rookie feared that Lowtown was not a place where anyone made a difference—a sailor could sooner change the tides.
“Trust me, ‘mici,” the damin said. “Queen Cariebasa did everyone in this City a huge favor by setting that worthless Southlander adrift on the Prospero.”
Petracchio’s heart stopped, but he caught himself before he allowed his jaw to fall agape or ask the damin to repeat himself. It was all he could do to finish the conversation without betraying any more than a junior officer’s interest in his Captain or the curdled mixture of nostalgia and bile that befitted an old comrade turned rival. His mind was already floating backwards up the Secundo on an Eieronian tide, sharply turning to the right as it joined the waters of the Prospero.
---
“Sabatini didn’t know the body had been found on the Secundo,” the rookie explained to Aemilia and Stefano as he breathlessly briefed his fellow Greenheads on the situation once he’d returned to the precinct-house, which despite the late hour was buzzing with activity. The gang violence had already intensified in the short while that Petracchio was gone, with the result that Lowtown had rousted the day police rotations from their slumber and pressed as many auxiliaries into action as they could muster on such short notice. With the pikes and shields of the auxiliaries and the heavy riot armor of the regulars, one could almost think the entire City were under siege.
“That explains why he didn’t know the SPQVs were involved. He must have almost stained his velvet robes when I told him.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Aemilia said as Stefano strung and restrung his crossbow for the eleventh time. As the Captain convalesced in the same nunnery that she had, Petracchio noticed how quickly and easily Aemilia fell into the role of commanding officer, as if it were a part that she had been born to play. She considered the rookie’s case as he presented it, then proceeded to demolish it as systematically as Venatore would have, albeit with less profanity. “No cittadini would even think about moving on someone as protected as Sabatini on evidence that weak, even if he did have a plausible motive. Besides, you saw the bite marks.”
Petracchio’s mind was racing. “What if someone put them there to throw the Captain off the scent? I know that he’s been covering for the Queen. So as soon as he saw what to his eyes was incontrovertible proof of her involvement, he’d dispose of the evidence immediately. Which is exactly what he did.”
The erstwhile Captain thought about this. “Go on.”
“Consider also the fact that Esanga’s body was found naked. Tell me, Aemilia- how long have you been on the Lowtown beat?”
“Fourteen years,” she answered almost immediately, without even pausing to think about the question.
“And when’s the last time you found a naked man in the drink?”
Silence.
“Now a woman, yes, I’ll buy it. A prostitute makes a bad decision or a nice girl makes the wrong turn down an alley at night and the predictable happens. But even then to find a body without a stitch of clothing on it is rare. Caecilia might be another world as far as this beat is concerned, but I saw enough shit while I was there to know what seems all kinds of wrong.
“Whoever murdered Esanga stripped the body so that the people who found him wouldn’t miss the bite marks. This much is for certain.”
“But why couldn’t that have been Cariebasa herself?” Aemilia protested. “I know enough about the Queen after fourteen years of keeping her out of trouble. I didn’t always approve, mind you, but it was the Cap’s call. He long since earned his right to lead us off a cliff, and for all I know he was right all along. Less than three days after this boy turns up dead and see how quickly it all goes to shit!
“Queen Cariebasa is proud. If the word Canalside is right that she and this girl Evangelina were lovers, then Esanga’s sudden appearance may have been enough to provoke her to something this stupid. Or have you never crossed the line out of love?”
Petracchio’s ears burned at this, but he said nothing. Aemilia continued:
“All I know is that if we don’t put a stop to the fighting, it’s just a matter of time before the Senate sends the Black Legion down here.”
The rookie’s hair stood on end. The Black Legion! It had never occurred to him that Lowtown was teetering so close to the precipice that this was even an option, but what did the Senate care about a bunch of lowlifes and immigrants fresh off the boat? It was probably only because of Venatore’s tireless efforts that the pitiless and drug-fueled Black Legionnaires hadn’t scoured Lowtown several times over at this point.
Stefano surprised the both of them by looking up from his heavy crossbow and saying, “Why don’t we just ask the Queen what happened?”
The rookie and Aemilia looked at Stefano, then each other. “What would the Captain say?” Petracchio asked.
“No doubt he’d call us a bunch of idiots for even entertaining the thought,” Aemilia replied with a wry smile on her face.
Stefano chuckled, then snapped the well-polished gears of his crossbow back into place with a resounding click. “So when do we go?”
TO BE CONCLUDED!
As the rookie sat on the broad marble steps he wondered how Aemilia was faring. Although Stefano had been able to recover from the girl’s poison in a few hours, his partner had still been comatose when Captain Venatore finally sent everyone home for the night save for himself. The veteran Greenhead would hold vigil over his officer at the shrine they’d brought her to after she’d collapsed—a quiet sanctuary to Aemilia’s namesake saint in her old neighborhood. The Lowtown canalside along which the shrine stood used to be an Old Varonian community, but was now mostly inhabited by Lakers and their distant Skraeling cousins. Neither race had any time for the Church of the One True God and its myriad saints, so when the Greenheads brought Aemilia a dozen nuns had nothing better to do than drop everything and cluck over the headstrong girl now in their care. When at last the mother superior and chief physician announced to Venatore that Aemilia would recover from her head wound, the Captain told Petracchio and Stefano to get some rest.
“What what do I tell the Inspector?” The rookie was still sore that Venatore had not shared the specifics of Sabatini’s interrogation, and wished that he had been close enough to the conversation that it had not been drowned out by the roar of the crowd. That unfamiliar name lingered in his memory, as did mention of Queen Cariebasa. How were they related?
Whatever the connection was, his Captain was still being less than forthcoming about it. “You tell Pomilio that if his beancounters apprehend a girl punting a ’21 Magliozzi that she is wanted for the assault of two Greenheads and that she is to be remanded to our custody. No funny business. Capisce?”
Petracchio baked on the brilliant white marble, feeling his bruised lips crack in the sun. The sutures on his face itched terribly, but he did not scratch them for fear of undoing Stefano’s magical handiwork. Instead he sat and fantasized about splashing his face with a cool draught of water from one of the City’s deep freshwater springs. Briefly he contemplated abandoning his place in the queue to go find some kind of liquid freshmen, cool or otherwise, but given the crush of people waiting and predatory looks with which his fellow clients regarded his spot he’d be lucky if could even get within sight of the SPQV headquarters again this morning, and he knew there’d be Eieron himself to pay if he failed to deliver his report and Venatore’s message.
What was it about that girl, he wondered as a lizard sunned itself warily within a stone’s throw. Don’t let your guard down, friend, Petracchio thought. Bask a little too deeply and you’ll be someone’s breakfast. The rookie shook his head as a knot of Shan-li kids did exactly what he was thinking and tried to spear it with a sharpened cane of bamboo- the lizard exploded into motion, seemingly in half a dozen directions at once, then was gone to continue its sunbathing in a more hospitable location. As the Middle Kindgom children yelled at each other for squandering their opportunity for some free street meat the Greenhead laughed. At least he’d remembered to eat breakfast this time, if nothing else.
Petracchio tried to remember if this Evangelina had been around in the old days, when he and Sabatini had run with Arlix’s gang. He was fairly certain that he would have remembered a girl who looked like she had, as even from the fleeting glimpse that he’d caught of her last night at the Arena he knew that she was a looker. Dangerous, too. Something wasn’t adding up, though. If she were in fact Sabatini’s girlfriend, as his Captain had claimed, then what was she doing wandering around the canals of Lowtown all by herself? Petracchio knew Sabatini well enough to know that any woman of his wouldn’t be allowed to leave a room without a small army of goons in attendance, let alone in the company of some Oguntak lowlife. And what was Queen Cariebasa’s angle in all of this?
The rookie’s ruminations were interrupted by the sound of an SPQ V page shouting out his name- Petracchio scrambled to his feet, shaking off the pins and needles in his legs as she followed the young clerk out of the sunlight and into the cool, dark bowels of the building’s interior. It took a few minutes for Petracchio’s eyes to adjust to the gloom, during which he passed a blur of fine architecture and many faceless men and women dressed in grey. The SQPV headquarters felt less like an outpost of law enforcement than it did a Varonian Counting House, and sure enough at regular intervals the Greenhead caught a glimpse of rooms full of savants whispering their way through never-ending columns of numbers, no doubt checking a certain Great House’s ledgers against their own records for signs of fraud or other financial malfeasance. Petracchio shuddered at the thought of being cooped up in such a chamber for his waking hours, being expected to do nothing but add, subtract, multiple, or divide- having the shit beaten out of him every night on the Lowtown beat seemed to be a dream job in comparison.
“By the Seven, kid—you look like Hell.”
Inspector Pomilio did not mince words as the junior Greenhead entered his office, which lay somewhere deep within the complex. There were no windows to the square room, just bookshelves which extended from floor to ceiling and were filled with leatherbound codices whose contents could not be readily identified from the gold-leaf glyphs stamped into each spine. Pomilio’s desk was a slab of marble piled high with scrolls, tomes, and loose sheets of papyrus, several inkwells of various colored dyes, and a curious machine comprised of numerical dials and polished brass gears.
The SPQV agent noticed that Petracchio was staring at this contraption, which gleamed coldly under the blue-white light of the room’s fungus globes.
“You like that, eh? It’s an ancient Salumar artifact, recovered from one of the Nine Sacred Cities. Don’t even ask me how much money I spent to have it restored—if I had a wife, she would have killed me several times over.”
“What does it do, sir?” Even though Pomilio had spoken to him in his normal speaking voice, the rookie whispered, for fear of violating some obscure SPQV regulation about noise.
The Inspector’s eyes brightened. “It’s a computer. By setting the dials and turning the gears, this machine can do an entire day’s work of a counting house in mere seconds. Let me show you.”
Pomilio fiddled with the contraption as he inputted an array of numbers, then clicked on several gears to pop them in and out place. The rookie blinked in disbelief at the turning mechanism and the totals which flashed in mother of pearl as the Inspector operated the device.
“I don’t understand, sir. If such machines exist, why don’t the Great Houses use them?”
“That is an excellent question, indeed! But think about it—if devices like this do all of the work, then who wields the power?”
Petracchio balked at the question initially, but then it came to him like a bolt from the blue. “The men who make the machines!”
“I knew I liked you for a reason, son. Yes. Every counting house is firmly under the control of its mathemagicians, but a device knows no loyalties. Tell me—what do you know of the Information Wars?”
The rookie blinked, trying to remember his woefully inadequate parochial education. “Umm. I know that House Dandolo won. Right?”
Inspector Pomilio laughed. “That’s more than most of my agents recall. You are correct that House Dandolo was one of the victors, but few people know who the real losers were: the makers of these machines.
“Five hundred years ago the greatest threat ever to the Senate and People of Varo emerged. Enough of these machines had been recovered from the ruins of Old Salumaria that artisans were able to divine their inner workings and replicate their functionality. The Clockmakers’ Guild was born, and its members suddenly found themselves in possession of more computational power than all of the Great Houses combined.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Petracchio asked, fearing that he already knew the answer.
The Inspector stopped turning the crank that powered the machine. “Because this City is in danger again, son, and I need your help to save her.”
“Me?” The rookie laughed out loud at this. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not likely to survive my first week on the Lowtown beat, let alone save a million Canalsiders.”
Pomilio fixed the young Greenhead with a serious expression. “It is not ours to decide what destiny has in store for us, merely to discern it for what it is. Whether we embrace that fate or not—that is our decision.”
“Then explain,” Petracchio said, still unconvinced. “What does any of this have to do with my destiny?”
The Inspector gestured towards the notes piled on his desk. “For several months now the SPQV has been aware of some… irregularities… in the City’s financial affairs. At first it was a minor accounting error in the official ledger of a Great House, perhaps a misreported series of transaction at one of the fori—things like that. Harmless in isolation, easily enough rectified, problem solved. Right?
“Only these inconsistencies, they turned out to be related to one another. How we finally figured this out is a long story that I don’t want to bore you with, but let’s just say that the key to discovering what was going on was to be found in the bond market. A brilliant young mathemagician connected the dots for us and we moved to arrest the parties involved. Case closed… or so we thought.
“Problem was, even though the person we sent to Egg Rock admitted his guilt and even demonstrated how he was able to do what he did, the irregularities continued to appear. Which meant—“
“—which meant that you had a conspiracy on your hands!” Petracchio exclaimed.
“Exactly. Our man had been a willing patsy, surrendering himself to draw attention away from the actions of his compatriots. And it even worked for a little while… until the other night.”
“Esanga,” the rookie whispered. “You’re talking about the Oguntak, aren’t you?”
Pomilio smiled. “You are definitely sharper than the average Greenhead, I’ll grant you that. Esanga the Traitor is quite an interesting individual- not your typical Canalside rags to riches story, that’s for sure. One day he’s sifting through shit on a garbage barge, then all of a sudden he’s displaced Yan Liao as the most feared crime lord in the Three Parishes.
“If the story ended here it would not interest us, aside from the obvious El Mirad angle. But the El Mirad is just a means to an end, you see- the obscene amounts of money that Esanga is now making from his illegal drug empire are being diverted along some very curious channels that are most unusual for a two-cyp criminal. Or any criminal, for that matter. Money is going up to Hightown. The Senatorial families’ financial affairs are normally immune to our investigations, but the Council of Eleven granted us access owing to the special circumstances. We found our money trail, and it lead us straight to one of Varo’s most respected Senators.”
“Let me guess,” Petracchio said. “Gaius Brindisi.”
The Inspector’s mouth fell open. Before Pomilio could recover enough to ask him how he knew, the rookie explained:
“Easy. The Senator spends a lot of time in these parts doing charitable works, or so I’ve been told. It’s the perfect cover for any number of illegal activities. That would also explain why his brat of a son thinks he owns the place.”
Pomilio could only nod at this. “The Brindisi family is definitely mixed up in something big. Chances are they don’t even know what they’ve gotten themselves into.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The Inspector stopped fiddling with the Salumar computer and faced the Greenhead head-on, his dark eyes gleaming like obsidian. “Does the name ‘Rosario’ mean anything to you?”
Petracchio cocked an eyebrow. “Should it?”
The SPQV agent didn’t answer him immediately—the rookie felt Pomilio sizing him up again, as he did when they first met the other night along the dirty waters of the Secundo. He suspected that if the Inspector could have dialed his soul into the brass machine on the table between them and turn the crank to divine his truth worth through the mysterious workings of its countless tiny cogs and gears, then he would have in a heartbeat. The junior Greenhead swallowed hard and said nothing until Pomilio replied at last.
“If you are withholding something, Ser Petracchio, then I am obliged to remind you that obstructing the investigation of an SPQV inspector is a serious offense.”
“Thank you for the warning, sir. I’ll keep that firmly in mind.”
There was a flash of impatience in Pomilio’s expression—impatience and anger. “You realize that he’s in the middle of all this, right?”
“Who?” The rookie asked, knowing full well whom the Inspector meant.
Pomilio’s smile was no longer kind. It was the toothy mirthless smile of a predator circling its prey. “Your Captain. All of those denars washing through his precinct, you think he doesn’t get his taste?”
“Venatore’s a bastard, but he’s not dirty.” Petracchio tried to say this in a way that suggested that he himself believed it, but his voice quavered as he did so. He recalled what the Captain had said at the Arena about seeing the light. “He can’t be.”
“Tell you about the girl, did he? Poor little Terzia. Old Giro loves to trot that one out early on to establish his bona fides with the new recruits. I bet he left out the best part, though. Did he happen to mention what he did when he found out that the girl was carrying his child?”
Petracchio’s stomach became leaden. From the Captain’s telling of the story it hadn’t been clear whether Terzia had lived or died; the rookie had assumed the latter. He dreaded what was coming next as the Inspector filled in the rest of the tale:
“So our hero, desperate to restore his credibility with his fellow gang-bangers, tries to force the girl to go to an apothecary to get rid of the baby. She refuses. What Giro does to Terzia makes the beating she took from her brother look like a relaxing trip to a Shan-li bathhouse. Throws the poor girl down a flight of stairs and breaks her neck. The chief magistrate wants to try him for murder, but Venatore’s old man has some pull with the local cittadini and spirits him away into the Marines on a penal regiment assignment instead.
“So when he comes back from Ryzien, Giro is a changed man. Or so he says. He may say he’s playing for our team, but don’t be fooled. A dog is only as good as his options, rookie. And this Lowtown mutt has so many options.”
Petracchio shook his head, attempting to disbelieve everything that he’d just heard. Inspector Pomilio also shook his head, a patronizing look on his face.
“You don’t have to take my word for it. Ask Titus Esposito, if you dare. Ask Queen Cariebasa. You think it’s a coincidence that Lowtown is a haven for monsters? Instead of sending them to Egg Rock, he offers these lowlifes safe harbor. Who knows what kind of banh binh he gets for his trouble, while the rest of us get to pay the interest. But not for much longer.”
Pomilio drew closer to the rookie, so close that he could see the cracks and wrinkles that belied the SPQV agent’s youthful mien. Petracchio recoiled as the Inspector’s sudden tirade reached a furious new intensity, tinged with righteous anger.
“This dead Oguntak, he’s just the beginning of a reckoning that’s long overdue. Make no mistake, boy-- this is the endgame for Giro Venatore. I’m sorry that you’ve come at such an awful juncture, but when I’m through with this investigation the last place you’ll want to be standing is between your Captain and me.
“Got it?”
---
Petracchio couldn’t quite recollect how his meeting with the Inspector had concluded, only that he was relieved beyond measure to be out of Pomilio’s lair, so much so that he didn’t notice that he was being followed until he’d returned to his adopted Lowtown neighborhood. Nocciola was bustling, the midmorning sun almost threatening the customarily staid reserve of this ancient parish within a parish—colorful vendors staked out every available square inch of canalside with their wares as a jabbering tide of black-clad Old Varonian matrons haggled over every last bit of produce, meat, cheese, and bread for sale. Young children ran laughing through the chaos, criss-crossing the footbridges and racing between the merchants’ stalls, while the older boys noodled around on the water in their family’s lacquer or rickety skiffs of their own, trying to impress the young ladies who sat in groups of three or four on the granite quays, giggling amid their adolescent gossip.
The rookie stopped to admire the selection of one of the flower vendors as he picked up the tail. It was the shrine-bearer from the previous morning- the one who had beaten him to a pulp at Damin Esposito’s bidding. How he hadn’t spotted the thug before was a testament to the ogre-like man’s preternatural stealthiness, but now that he had been made the shrine-bearer made no attempt not to be seen. Suddenly he was standing so close to Petracchio that he actually cast a shadow over the junior Greenhead, who blinked up at the man, his hand on the hilt of his broadsword.
“Easy,” the shrine-bearer said in a low voice. “I’m not about to wring your neck on a market day. If I’d wanted to do that, I’d have done it before you left Terminalia- am I right?”
Petracchio was only somewhat reassured by this. “All right. So what do you want with me then?”
“The boss would like to have a word with you.”
The rookie couldn’t help but laugh. “So now he does give a damn about me. Is this a good or a bad thing?”
“Don’t get cocky. It means we’re all in much deeper shit than we thought.”
“Fine,” Petracchio said. “Lead the way.”
The shrine-bearer nodded, then motioned away from the canalside markets towards a cul-de-sac where a cluster of thugs sat on the portico of a confraternity lodge. A veritable Old Varonian institution, the confraternity was filled to bursting with the parish’s elder menfolk, who took advantage of the market day to escape their own households and socialize while their wives and daughters bargained with the vendors. Petracchio recognized a couple of the men outside as fellow shrine-bearers—their animated conversation ceased as soon as they saw him, but they opened their ranks to allow him to pass in their comrades’ care.
The lodge house was dingy, its whitewashed walls long since curdled into a sickly yellow from untold generations of Voordian pipeweed and opium smoke. The two men walked along a hallway featuring a row of busts that stared at them with blank eyes, ancient sons of Nocciola whose names could barely even be read on the tarnished bronze plaques affixed beneath each august visage. They passed several open doorways, where old men sat and played dominos in between long draughts on Salumar water-pipes or drinks from open amphorae of wine—in the distance one could hear a boy singing and the tinkling laughter of courtesans.
Petracchio wondered if he’d made a huge mistake in coming here. If he had made a break for it in the market at least there would have been witnesses if he’d failed to escape the beefy shrine-bearer. But hadn’t those same Canalsiders watched him get thrashed the other morning without so much as raising a finger to assist? No, he was a dead man either way. At least by choosing to go quietly he might actually get some answers before the inevitable end.
The long hallway eventually opened up into a large square internal courtyard whose colonnaded impluvium was a carefully-manicured series of fish ponds. The shrine-bearer lead the Petracchio over a wooden footbridge to a small grassy island, where a lone old man sat sunning himself in a Shan-li wicker chair. At first it seemed as though he was taking a late morning nap, but as the two drew near the old man snapped to attention and spoke:
“Piacere. I am Titus Esposito. Come and sit for a while, eh?”
No sooner had the rookie set foot on the island than attendants sprang from the shadows of the colonnade and set two identical wicker chairs opposite the old man, so Petracchio did as he was told and sat. The shrine-bearer did so as well, the rattan creaking uneasily under the henchman’s massive frame. “Careful there, Mauro.” The old don teased. “I just had that chair recaned!”
The two Canalsiders had a good laugh over this, while Petracchio did his best to look amused as well and not as terrified as he in fact was at that moment. Damin Esposito was a man of slight build—although he had no doubt been wizened by the passage of time, the rookie got the sense that the Gentle Don came out of his mother’s womb this way, all bones and sinew but taut as the string of a crossbow. Esposito had a shock of white hair that ringed his bald and spotted forehead and gathered itself below into a beard that jutted out like the tuft of an old mountain goat; his green eyes were flecked with gold and constantly flicked around the courtyard, taking in everything that they could. When the damin spoke, his Old Varonian accent was unmistakable, yet unlike others of his neighborhood his words were always intelligible, if not painfully clear.
“Would you care for some wine?” Esposito did not wait for an answer, nor did his servants wait for a command—as soon as the damin said the word, an amphora appeared, along with three goblets made of white gold. One servant filled the cups as the other handed them first to Petracchio, then Mauro, and at last to the old man, who gave the bouquet a tentative sniff before taking a sip. The enormous bodyguard on the other hand downed the contents of his goblet in one undignified quaff, proffering the cup to the attendants for a refill.
“I’m afraid we got off to a bad start, you and I.” The Gentle Don made it clear that he did not intend this as an apology, so Petracchio made no attempt to acknowledge it as such. “Retirement is a nasty business, this much I can tell you.”
The rookie sat and stared at Esposito with a frozen smile, deathly afraid to move or speak, clutching his still-full goblet as if it were the only thing keeping him from plunging into a bottomless abyss. The old man frowned.
“That was a joke, boy.”
“Forgive me, Damin, but I don’t quite understand why I’m here right now.”
Esposito’s green eyes stopped wandering long enough to fix the young Greenhead with a gaze that was as searching as it was mocking. “Ah, but I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s Inspector Pomilio’s investigation, isn’t it?” Of course, Petracchio thought. The old man is scared. Whatever understanding Titus Esposito may have had with Captain Venatore didn’t count for a damned thing if the SPQVs had a Greenhead from the Lowtown beat who was actually willing to talk to them. Had the old don known that Pomilio was already on the Oguntak case there’s no way he would have let his bodyguard Mauro rough him up the way he did. That’s why Venatore had come here the day before—not out of any concern for his new recruit’s well-being but to stop Esposito’s mobsters from compounding their stupidity and driving the rookie straight to SPQV headquarters.
The Gentle Don’s lack of an answer was all the confirmation that Petracchio needed. Look, the young Greenhead wanted to say. I have no intention of telling the Inspector anything about whatever you and the Captain are into, so don’t worry. But he also knew that this was the only leverage he had. For the first and possibly the last time during this case, the moment was his. So the rookie mustered his most enigmatic smile and waited for the ancient damin to swallow his pride and break the silence first. Titus Esposito mumbled a curse in Old Varonian, then spoke the four words that the rookie was hoping to hear:
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
The old man slumped in his chair. “Very well. Ask.”
“Tell me about Esanga.”
Esposito sighed and motioned for one of the servants to refill his goblet. “What a damned shame. That boy was one in a million. These Oguntak, they don’t care about tradition at all. They come here with their masks and their blood feuds and may the One True God help you if you think you can make them care about anything else.”
Petracchio nodded. For all intents and purposes he could be sitting in the precinct house, right now listening to his Captain. No wonder these two were thick as thieves. The Gentle Don continued unbidden:
His people called him ‘Esanga the Traitor’- do you know why?”
The rookie shook his head.
“Because when the Southlands went to hell, Esanga stood with the Crusaders. Even after I-town itself gave up on the Crusade and let their own sons and daughters fend for themselves in the godforsaken jungle, even when his own countrymen saw the writing on the wall and disavowed their alliances with the Northerners, he stood with them until the very end.
“Now here was a boy with a sense of honor. I didn’t care where he wore a mask or smeared himself with his own shit, because he believed in something bigger than himself.”
“Is that why the Queen killed him?”
The old damin narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?”
Petracchio fumbled for a response. “I- I- I thought the Captain told you.”
“No,” the Gentle Don said with a tone of voice that was quiet, yet anything but gentle. “In fact, when he came to me yesterday he told me that she had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
The rookie didn’t know what to say to this, fearing that he’d already said far too much. Why hadn’t Giro told him?
Esposito spat. “That reptilian bitch. Ever since she came to Lowtown it hasn’t been the same. There was a time when you could be a proper villain in this City, boy, before the Great Locks vomited up every last bit of savagery from the Southlands. Now the old ways, they don’t count for nothing. Niunte. You follow me?”
The rookie stood mute before the Gentle Don’s fury, which clearly had been building for who knows how long. Esposito did not wait for Petracchio to respond:
“For years Cariebasa has been muscling into my turf, and that fool Captain of yours has done nothing to stop her. ‘Keep the peace, Titus.’ That’s all he tells me. ‘Keep the peace’! What has she ever done to keep the peace? At every juncture I have been the one to stand down, surrendering another block, another parish, giving up another line of business. And for what? I used to run this City, boy, and now look at me. I’ve become a joke. The damin of some shit alley that even Lowtown has forgotten.
“But no more.” Titus Esposito stood up from his cane chair on a whim, waving away the attendants as they sprang to assist him. “If the Queen wants a war, then so be it. I am no longer interested in keeping the peace. Tell your Captain that if he wants peace so badly, then he should tell Cariebasa to go back to the Palmlands where she came from!
“You can also tell Venatore that the next time he comes to my neighborhood he’d better bring a platoon of Marines for a bodyguard. I don’t know what kind of chess game he thinks he’s playing, but I am no one’s pawn. Capisce?”
---
As Mauro lead Petracchio back the way they had come down the long hall of the confraternity hall, he muttered over his shoulder. “You got balls, kid. I’ll give you that. Most people shit themselves when they find they’re face to face with Old Man Esposito, but you stood your ground.”
The rookie said nothing, still reeling from the havoc he had unintentionally loosed during his audience with the damin. Mauro, sensing Petracchio’s angst, stopped halfway amid the neighborhood’s ancestral busts and put a huge meaty paw on the copper’s shoulder.
“You think you fucked things up, but you’re wrong. The damin would never have let this insult go unanswered, no matter how much Venatore tried to smooth things over. The Queen, she crossed the line.”
“’This dead Oguntak, he’s just the beginning of a reckoning that’s long overdue,’” the rookie mumbled to himself, recalling Inspector Pomilio’s parting words.
“What?” Mauro asked.
“Nothing.” Petracchio shook his head. Suddenly he had a thought. “Tell me, Mauro. Did you know Esanga well?”
The bodyguard looked at the young Greenhead for a moment before answering. “I suppose. Most Southlanders keep to themselves, but Esanga was different. He was a good soldier, that one.”
“He ever mention a girl to you?”
“Evangelina.”
Petracchio raised an eyebrow. “You knew her?”
“You don’t forget a girl like that, you know what I’m sayin’?”
The rookie nodded.
“Yeah, Esanga was real sweet on her. Really riled up the Old Man, though.”
“Because she was Sabatini’s girl?”
Mauro snorted at this. “Sabatini! As if he’d know what to do with a tight bit of chiton like that. No, I’m talking about the Queen.”
“What?” Time seemed to stop for a moment as Petracchio tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Fortunately the bodyguard didn’t seem to understand the importance of what he was saying, so not only did he repeat himself, but offered some clarification for good measure.
“The girl, she’s with Cariebasa. You know…” Mauro seemed unable to find the proper words for their liaison, but Petracchio understood nonetheless, although the repercussions of such understanding left him unable to say much in response. The giant Canalsider lead him back out on the portico and into the afternoon shadows; before he left, he offered one final bit of advice.
“Keep your head down, kid. Because things are about to get ugly. Capisce? If I were you, I’d think of a whole different line of work altogether.”
---
Venatore flew into a white-hot rage when Petracchio reported the details of his conversation with Old Man Esposito. As the Captain stormed about his office destroying whatever he could of his spartan furnishings the rookie briefly considered whether he should have brought Stefano in with him as backup, but the veteran Greenhead did not lay a finger on Petracchio, nor did he ever threaten to do so, although at the end of his outburst he leveled a thick calloused finger at the young man. “Any blood that is spilled—this is on you, son.”
The rookie tried not to flinch at Venatore’s stern malediction and swallowed hard. “No, it isn’t.”
A murderous glare across the oak table, the only thing that the Captain had not overturned or smashed at this point. “What did you say?”
“I said it isn’t on me, sir. And you know damned well that it isn’t. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
Venatore said nothing to this, which Petracchio took as tacit confirmation. “What I don’t understand, though, is why.”
“Leave it, rookie.” The Captain’s growl would have been enough to make the junior Greenhead soil his trousers just a couple of days ago, but Petracchio could see through the bluster now.
Before he had a chance to press his question a second time, however, they were interrupted by Aemilia, who entered Venatore’s office without knocking. Her head was still bandaged and she moved with a tentative step, but already the fire had returned to her eyes, as had her slight but unmistakably bemused smile.
“Well, now!” the Captain exclaimed. “Look who’s back from the dead.”
Aemilia surveyed the wreckage of the veteran Greenhead’s office. “What happened here?”
Venatore looked at Petracchio, then back at Aemilia. “Nothing. Just felt like a little Spring cleaning, and our rookie was kind enough to help me. Isn’t that right, Petrarch?”
The Captain had never used Petracchio’s familiar name before, which caught him entirely off-guard. He sighed and nodded his head. “Yup. Cockroaches the size of spiny Aeedian lobsters.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me. Idiot boys and their idiot arguments. Just fill me in on what I’ve missed.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to come back?” There was something in the way that Venatore asked the question that suggested an uncharacteristic amount of tenderness for the Captain—Petracchio noticed that Aemilia placed her hand on her abdomen, if only for the briefest instant before withdrawing it self-consciously.
“I’m fine, Captain.”
Venatore resumed his gruff mien. “Fine. Then find your partner and let’s go and try to stop ourselves a gang war, shall we?”
---
The bloodshed had already begun. No sooner had the Captain and his rookie officially begun their Lowtown beat than they were summoned to the scene of a shooting near the Laker tenements—two Canalsiders lay dead on the cold granite, their blood being washed away by a hard rain even as Venatore and Petracchio approached.
“These are a couple of Esposito’s boys,” the Captain grunted. “I guess the Queen got his message.”
While the auxiliaries secured the crime scene, Petracchio adjusted his rain gear and looked at Venatore. “I didn’t know that Aemilia was carrying.”
The Captain appeared surprised at first at the rookie’s statement, then gave a grim smile. “Yes. I’ve tried putting her on clerical duty ever since I found out, but the girl just won’t listen. She says she’d rather die than proofread my reports.”
Despite all that had transpired that day, Petracchio couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you…?”
“Are you kidding! Aemilia has better taste in men than me, even if they do tend towards the obsessive.”
“Stefano.”
“Give the rookie a prize for his deductive prowess!” Venatore shouted at one of the auxiliaries as he clumsily handled one of the bodies, then turned back to Petracchio. “Officially the Greenheads frown on this sort of thing, but who am I to stand in the way of true love?”
The way that the Captain’s voice caught when he said this gave the junior Greenhead pause, so the two watched the auxiliaries work as the rain fell even harder now on the quay and the obsidian waters of the canal. Finally, Petracchio cleared his throat.
“Pomilio told me some things when I met with him this morning. Things about you.”
“Yeah.” The Captain’s response wasn’t a question, but the acknowledgment of the inevitable.”
“About Terzia.”
Venatore looked away. “There are many things I’ve done in this life that I’m not proud of, rookie. But there’s only one that I would do anything I could to take back.”
“Sir?” Petracchio was waiting for the Captain to elaborate, but when he glanced at the veteran Greenhead he saw his hand on the hilt of his broadword.
“We’ve got company- get down!”
How he had spotted the shooter in the driving rain was anyone’s guess, but no sooner had he shouted than the Captain shoved his junior officer aside. Petracchio felt the first missile whistle just past his ear, while the second hit Venatore square in the chest. As the Captain roared with pain and fell onto the slippery granite the rookie unslung his crossbow and ducked behind one of the dockside pilings just as the third shot twanged, the iron bolt exploding into the stone with a white puff and microscopic shards of rock.
Petracchio peeked around his cover to see the telltale black velvet hood on a gondola whose dark lacquer seemed to merge into the surrounding canal like something out of a dream. His training as a Marine suddenly returned to him as he listened to the clanking of the repeating crossbow’s gears. There was always a split second in between volleys as a fresh set of bolts fell from the hopper and fed into the machine—the rookie waited for the right moment, then popped up from behind the piling and took his best shot. Someone cursed from underneath the hood, and the repeater failed to engage for a second round of firing, at least for the moment. Petracchio dashed back to where his Captain had fallen, and found him attempting to prop himself as he slipped on the oily granite and his own blood.
“Easy, sir.” The rookie saw the iron bolt protruding from his Captain’s torso, having sundered the layers of cured leather and chainmail as if they’d been a costume made of tissue paper. Petracchio had seen worse wounds in the cranberry bogs of Deltaine, to be sure, but never a man who had ever tried to get up after being hit like that.
“Don’t let… the bastards… get away,” Venatore croaked, his words punctuated by shallow agonizing breaths. Petracchio’s eyes darted back to the canal but the lacquer was already long gone, having melted back into the rainy blackness. The auxiliaries were already scrambling towards the two of them to assist their fallen Captain, having abandoned the bodies of Titus Esposito’s footsoldiers on the other side of the pier.
Petracchio gripped his partner’s hand tightly. “We’ll get ‘em, Cap. Don’t you worry about that.”
“Petrarch.” Venatore’s fingers felt cold as stone, and his voice was little more than a hoarse whisper now. “The Queen. Tell the Queen.”
“Tell the Queen what?”
The rookie repeated his question but the Captain only gurgled a few barely audible syllables, then fell silent. One of the auxiliaries, a burly Ashlan Cherin with a mustache so waxy that it defied the rain in a manner that was comically incongruous, sized up the injury as soon as he reached their side. “The precinct apothecary isn’t going to be able to help him with this. Nor are the good sisters at St. Aemilia’s, for that matter.”
Petracchio already knew this from his time in the field. He also knew that of the handful of surgeons in the City who could successfully treat a wound as grevious as this, one of them just so happened to work for an old friend.
---
“You want me to do what?”
Francesco Sabatini stood glowering at the rookie from the steps of his private marina. As soon as he realized what he’d have to do in order to save his Captain’s life, Petracchio flagged down the swiftest-looking piece of lacquer that happened to be cruising by and commandeered the vessel with a raised crossbow. The hapless punk kid did not offer so much as a peep of protest, and it was only about halfway through the race to Orsilia along Varo’s quiet side canals did the Greenhead learn the reason why: the gondola had been stolen on a midnight joyride, a crime to which the boy tearfully confessed on his own volition once he recognized the unmistakable visage of Girolamo Venatore looking up at him from the velvet passenger seat. Petracchio told the kid that if he could deliver the Captain to Sabatini’s alive he’d let him go, but if he failed to do so he’d personally deliver him to Egg Rock—the rookie could swear that he had never seen someone row a boat so hard.
Petracchio stood with one foot in the gondola, the other on the granite quay. Venatore lay sprawled in the boat, one of his arms trailing in the dark water. His body was a lifeless slab, his normally ruddy skin as grey as if he were Cebalese. The mustachioed auxiliary stood and held the lacquer against the tide, the young gondola thief having been heaved overboard as soon as the phosphorescent lamps of Sabatini’s nightclub emerged from the gloom. “You heard me. Get your surgeon- now!”
The damin was apoplectic. “After what he did to me at the Arena? Venatore humiliated me in front of my own men. I say let the bastard die.”
Petracchio stepped fully on the quay. “Please, Cecco. Do this as a favor to me. For Arlix’s sake.”
A couple of neckless musclebound thugs materialized to intercept the Greenhead as he moved towards the foot of the marina steps, but Sabatini called them off with a hiss. “You’ve got a lot of nerve cashing in on his name to help out a lousy copper.”
The rookie held his ground and did not answer. There seemed to Petracchio to follow an eternity of silence that was only broken by a low groan from deep within the gondola. How Venatore was even still alive at this point was a miracle; that he could yet stir sent a shiver down the junior Greenhead’s spine. When his gaze darted back from the Captain, he could see his own fear and wonder reflected in the damin’s eyes. What sort of beast was this man, that Francesco Sabatini was afraid to let him die?
“Bring him in,” he barked to his henchmen, who obeyed without so much as a word. As Petracchio followed them up the stairs, however, Sabatini put a firm hand on his shoulder. “After this we’re through, you and I. Capisce?”
The junior Greenhead nodded as if to agree, whereas in fact both men knew damned well that the two had long since passed that point a long time ago.
Her name was Ingrid. Arlix’s second-in-command, the Skraeling woman had captivated the hearts of many a poor hapless Canalsider before Sabatini and Petracchio fell under the blonde warrior goddess’ spell, but none had fought as fiercely for her affections as these two rookie cutpurses. Although normally aloof and reserved, Ingrid allowed herself to be amused by this rivalry, and despite her boss’ warnings not to, she took every opportunity to encourage their amorous zeal until it was inevitable that one or the other should do something that would be as foolish as it was irrevocable.
As the damin’s personal surgeon-- a butcher from Orsilia who was reputedly as adept at carving Sabatini’s victims into untraceable chunks of meat as he was putting the living back together-- Petracchio waited in one of the nightclub’s rooftop chambers, a penthouse office whose décor was nothing more than a garish and expensive attempt to look tasteful. Heavy velvet curtains enrobed a room filled with lacquered furniture made from Southlander hardwoods, interspersed with pieces of art that had been chosen more for their price than their aesthetic appeal: here was a horrid little square painting on a decorative easel, there was a painted vase big enough for a grown man to hide inside.
“See what sort of things you can buy when you’re not living hand to mouth on a Greenhead’s salary?”
“It’s the hidden costs that always get you, Cecco.”
The damin sneered at this, then changed the subject. “Your beloved Captain will live, or so my surgeon tells me. Apparently he has the constitution of an ogre king.”
“Don’t sound too disappointed.”
“Are you kidding? Do you have any idea of how this will raise my stock among the Varonian underworld. ‘Francesco Sabatini is so fearless, he’ll send his own physician to heal your wounds before finishing you off.’”
Petracchio couldn’t help but laugh at this. “You always manage to find an angle, don’t you?”
“That’s why I’m the guy in a position to grant someone like you a favor.”
The rookie narrowed his eyes. “You ever see Arlix?”
Sabatini shook his head. “The old Skrae doesn’t want anything to do with me-- too successful for his tastes, I suppose.”
Petracchio wanted to say something unkind in response to this, but mindful of his situation he thought better of it. “How about Ingrid- she still come around the club like she used to?”
“Not since Evangelina. You know how Ingrid feels about competition.”
“Speaking of competition, did you know about Evangelina’s liaison with Esanga? Or the Queen, for that matter?”
Sabatini’s face hardened. “Is this part of your investigation, Petrarch? I didn’t realize that you Lowtown coppers had jurisdiction here.”
“You’re probably right,” Petracchio shrugged. “But I bet the SPQVs do.”
“What?”
“In case no one told you, this is a joint investigation. So you can either answer my questions, or talk to one of their Inspectors.”
The damin looked indignant. “You don’t think I killed the savage, did you?”
“You tell me,” the rookie said. “As far as I can tell, you have a pretty compelling motive, not to mention a history with this sort of thing.”
Sabatini’s demeanor was now cold and reptilian. “So that’s what this is about. Payback for what I did all those years ago?”
“No—it’s about a murdered man and the gang war that has followed in its wake.”
“Let the Lowtown scum die!” Sabatini’s dark eyes flashed. “You think you’re doing anyone a favor by trying to keep those animals from killing each other? Even your Captain isn’t that naïve.”
Petracchio wanted desperately to come back with a rejoinder as stinging as his old comrade’s words, but what had Sabatini said that wasn’t manifestly true? Less than a week on the beat and already the rookie feared that Lowtown was not a place where anyone made a difference—a sailor could sooner change the tides.
“Trust me, ‘mici,” the damin said. “Queen Cariebasa did everyone in this City a huge favor by setting that worthless Southlander adrift on the Prospero.”
Petracchio’s heart stopped, but he caught himself before he allowed his jaw to fall agape or ask the damin to repeat himself. It was all he could do to finish the conversation without betraying any more than a junior officer’s interest in his Captain or the curdled mixture of nostalgia and bile that befitted an old comrade turned rival. His mind was already floating backwards up the Secundo on an Eieronian tide, sharply turning to the right as it joined the waters of the Prospero.
---
“Sabatini didn’t know the body had been found on the Secundo,” the rookie explained to Aemilia and Stefano as he breathlessly briefed his fellow Greenheads on the situation once he’d returned to the precinct-house, which despite the late hour was buzzing with activity. The gang violence had already intensified in the short while that Petracchio was gone, with the result that Lowtown had rousted the day police rotations from their slumber and pressed as many auxiliaries into action as they could muster on such short notice. With the pikes and shields of the auxiliaries and the heavy riot armor of the regulars, one could almost think the entire City were under siege.
“That explains why he didn’t know the SPQVs were involved. He must have almost stained his velvet robes when I told him.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Aemilia said as Stefano strung and restrung his crossbow for the eleventh time. As the Captain convalesced in the same nunnery that she had, Petracchio noticed how quickly and easily Aemilia fell into the role of commanding officer, as if it were a part that she had been born to play. She considered the rookie’s case as he presented it, then proceeded to demolish it as systematically as Venatore would have, albeit with less profanity. “No cittadini would even think about moving on someone as protected as Sabatini on evidence that weak, even if he did have a plausible motive. Besides, you saw the bite marks.”
Petracchio’s mind was racing. “What if someone put them there to throw the Captain off the scent? I know that he’s been covering for the Queen. So as soon as he saw what to his eyes was incontrovertible proof of her involvement, he’d dispose of the evidence immediately. Which is exactly what he did.”
The erstwhile Captain thought about this. “Go on.”
“Consider also the fact that Esanga’s body was found naked. Tell me, Aemilia- how long have you been on the Lowtown beat?”
“Fourteen years,” she answered almost immediately, without even pausing to think about the question.
“And when’s the last time you found a naked man in the drink?”
Silence.
“Now a woman, yes, I’ll buy it. A prostitute makes a bad decision or a nice girl makes the wrong turn down an alley at night and the predictable happens. But even then to find a body without a stitch of clothing on it is rare. Caecilia might be another world as far as this beat is concerned, but I saw enough shit while I was there to know what seems all kinds of wrong.
“Whoever murdered Esanga stripped the body so that the people who found him wouldn’t miss the bite marks. This much is for certain.”
“But why couldn’t that have been Cariebasa herself?” Aemilia protested. “I know enough about the Queen after fourteen years of keeping her out of trouble. I didn’t always approve, mind you, but it was the Cap’s call. He long since earned his right to lead us off a cliff, and for all I know he was right all along. Less than three days after this boy turns up dead and see how quickly it all goes to shit!
“Queen Cariebasa is proud. If the word Canalside is right that she and this girl Evangelina were lovers, then Esanga’s sudden appearance may have been enough to provoke her to something this stupid. Or have you never crossed the line out of love?”
Petracchio’s ears burned at this, but he said nothing. Aemilia continued:
“All I know is that if we don’t put a stop to the fighting, it’s just a matter of time before the Senate sends the Black Legion down here.”
The rookie’s hair stood on end. The Black Legion! It had never occurred to him that Lowtown was teetering so close to the precipice that this was even an option, but what did the Senate care about a bunch of lowlifes and immigrants fresh off the boat? It was probably only because of Venatore’s tireless efforts that the pitiless and drug-fueled Black Legionnaires hadn’t scoured Lowtown several times over at this point.
Stefano surprised the both of them by looking up from his heavy crossbow and saying, “Why don’t we just ask the Queen what happened?”
The rookie and Aemilia looked at Stefano, then each other. “What would the Captain say?” Petracchio asked.
“No doubt he’d call us a bunch of idiots for even entertaining the thought,” Aemilia replied with a wry smile on her face.
Stefano chuckled, then snapped the well-polished gears of his crossbow back into place with a resounding click. “So when do we go?”
TO BE CONCLUDED!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Chapter Eight: Rookie (Part Two)
Petracchio had a scant hour of sleep before it was time to leave for Terminalia. Stefano and Aemilia had warned him to set out early, for the SPQV headquarters would gather large crowds before dawn. As the only manifestation of authority in the parish, the SPQVs were routinely mobbed by suppliants bringing every conceivable matter to their judgment. Here the Greenheads were accorded no special privileges, so it was entirely possible that he would have to wait all morning just to file his report. The rookie paused at the washbasin just long enough to splash some water on his face, then left his tiny apartment before the cloudy skies had fully brightened. He hadn’t expected anyone to be Canalside, so it was quite a surprise when he stumbled down his rickety steps into a full-blown processional to a saint he’d never even heard of.
When Petracchio had secured a room in an Old Varonian neighborhood, he thought little of his choice, but when he told Captain Venatore where he was living the veteran chuckled. “That’s Damin Esposito’s place.”
Titus Esposito was a legendary figure from the Varonian criminal underworld, a boss whose domain had touched almost every one of the City’s ninety-odd parishes at its height. What had made him truly famous was not his empire, however, but the fact that he was one of the few mobsters who had ever successfully retired. If Petracchio had ever had cause to speculate as to where the “Gentle Damin” had ended up, never in a million years would he have guessed that it would be some tiny alley sandwiched between the crumbling tenements of Lowtown, but as it turned out this is where Esposito had started.
“Nocciola,” locals called it, the last vestige one of the original parishes that had been subsumed by a never-ebbing tide of immigrants from the four corners of the Three Continents. Most Canalsiders had simply allowed themselves to be displaced and resettled elsewhere in the City, but some dug in and continued to go about their business as if nothing had happened.
Nocciola was a neighborhood seemingly untouched by time, an impression that was reinforced by its myriad festival days celebrated only along this particular stretch of canal. Petracchio had to force his way against the flow of elbow-to elbow traffic moving in the opposite direction towards one of several shrines- men, women, and children were all dressed in Old Varonian drabs, as if for a funeral, although the portable altars that some of the burlier menfolk carried on their shoulders were adorned with brightly-colored flowers. The rookie struggled to make out the words of the processional hymn, but the dialect was parochial and ancient and defied his attempts to understand it. Despite their clean-shaven faces and sacred demeanors the altar bearers to a man looked like the kind of neckless thugs who would just soon kill a man as blink.
“At least you won’t get robbed,” Venatore had joked with him. Nevertheless, Petracchio made a mental note not to give any of his neighbors offense as long as he lived in their midst, as cop or no cop he had a hunch that they wouldn’t hesitate to express their violent displeasure.
After he had successfully cleared the neighborhood celebration, a light rain began to fall- Petracchio pulled his dark green hood over his head and picked his way through a cluster of insulae and its inhabitants as they readied for another hard day of work. Lowtown was surprisingly easy place to get lost, as not only are the massive tenements all similar in appearance, but they effectively blot out any other potential landmarks that might guide someone see king his way. The rookie was certain that he’d doubled back on his route several times as a result before he found the track of a canal that he knew intersected with the Secundo and followed that to the boundary with Terminalia.
As the rain started to fall a little harder now he crossed this administrative no man’s land at the nearest bridge and cut a path through a sea of floating wharves and warehouses in various states of business, trying not to draw too many curses from the longshoremen whenever he interrupted their work to pass them by. The young Greenhead knew that he was already running later than he should be and quickened his pace, hoping that the weather would deter at least some of the crowds that he anticipated when he got to the where he was going.
Alas, even in what was now driving rain the Terminalia headquarters was overrun with humanity, such that it appeared at first glance to be more like another Lowtown tenement than the farthest-flung outpost of the SPQV. Petracchio swore aloud as he looked at the hundreds of petitioners camped out on the steps of the square marble edifice that rose above and stood out from the utilitarian commercial real estate over which it held sway. From the makeshift awnings and sputtering cooking fires of the local food vendors it was apparent that most of the Canalsiders had spent the night on the cold marble in hopes of securing an early appointment with the magistrates within, and the rookie’s heart sank while he contemplated spending every last minute of his off-duty hours sitting and waiting with everyone else, chilled and soaked to the bone.
After several heated interactions with swindled merchants and aggrieved artisans who were zealously guarding their positions Petracchio located the tail end of the queue. No sooner did he start shuffling towards the foot of the marble steps, however, than Petracchio felt a tapping on his shoulder. He whirled about to see Inspector Pomilio, holding a parasol in one hand and a greasy sausage wrapped in flatbread in the other, which he proffered to the Greenhead with a smile.
“Hungry?”
Even though he was in fact starving, having forsaken breakfast to come here to Terminalia, the rookie shook his head; Pomilio shrugged. “More for me, then. I had a feeling I’d find you out here. Giro’s got you in the doghouse already, doesn’t he?”
Now it was time for Petracchio to shrug, however slightly, as although this is exactly what had happened he wasn’t keen on giving the SPQV such an easy point.
“I admire your loyalty, rookie. Less than a day on the force and you’re already willing to take a crossbow bolt for your Cap. We don’t encourage that kind of thinking in our agency, mind you. Blind devotion can lead to some pretty questionable behavior, capisce?”
Sensing that this was some kind of test, Petracchio made no answer. The two stood silent in the rain for almost a full minute before the Inspector spoke again: “Well, if you’re not going to eat at the very least hold the umbrella so I can!”
The rookie laughed and took the handle of the ungainly parasol. Imported from the Southlands, Canalsiders as a rule eschewed umbrellas as proof against the omnipresent Varonian rains, opting instead for cheap waterproof togs or slick Ferrari drag. That Pomilio was susceptible to such an exotic indulgence seemed further proof to the junior Greenhead officer that he was not to be trusted, although as the Inspector hungrily munched his sausage sandwich he did have to admit that it looked and smelled delicious. Pomilio kept talking through mouthful after mouthful of his standing breakfast:
“I’m not going to pretend that listening to petitioners from sunrise to sunset is my idea of a good time, but at least we get some decent food carts haunting our office. Think about it—who’s going to sell week-old horsemeat to the SPQV?”
Petracchio couldn’t help but crack a smile at this, because it was true. It was only with the SPQV’s chop that vendors could ply their oleaginous wares, so at the very least they’d better make sure that they didn’t give Inspector Pomilio and his ilk indigestion. The rookie found the veteran agent equally engaging and off-putting. Although he was happy to be talking to someone more amicable and much less brusque than Captain Venatore, he was nevertheless wary of the angle. Surely he didn’t make ingratiating small talk with every Greenhead he crossed paths with?
“All right copper, you’re here to make your report. So report.”
The rookie talked while Pomilio demolished what remained of his breakfast: “The swimmer was an Oguntak named Esanga.”
The SPQV agent almost choked when he heard the name. “So you’ve heard of him.”
“Who hasn’t! Esanga was responsible for moving most of the El Mirad in the City south of the Hill.” Pomilio wiped his greasy hands with the sandwich wrapper. “So your hunch about this not being a tribal thing was spot on. Bravo. But how did you I.D. him so quickly?”
“The mask again.”
The Inspector narrowed his eyes. “How so? Hundreds of young Southlanders wear those plain white masks.”
Was this another test? Petracchio swallowed hard. “Maybe, but this one had been broken in half and mended.”
Pomilio nodded. “That’s Esanga all right. Can’t believe I missed that detail last night.”
“We all did, sir. It wasn’t until afterwards that I remembered. And Esanga wasn’t a Lowtowner. It didn’t make sense for his body to show up in the Secundo like that.”
“Good detective work, kid. So any idea how he ended up as naked as Ogumi made him?”
Petracchio looked away sharply. “Still drawing a blank on that.”
It seemed unlikely that Pomilio believed the lie, but nonetheless he did not press Petracchio on it as they stood in the rain. The SPQV sucked on a bit of gristle lodged between his teeth, as if to emphasize the fact that he wasn’t going to call the Greenhead on his bullshit answer, then sighed. “Well, you’ve got more than us then. So let’s call this Advantage Greenheads. But it’s a tournament, not just a match-- capisce, rookie?”
Petracchio nodded. “I get it.”
“All right then,” the Inspector smiled. “We’ll see what we can find out on our end-- foul some canals and see what comes up for air. I’ll expect another report tomorrow- same time, same place."
Pomilio didn’t wait for the Greenhead to acknowledge his directive, but strode away with a sudden burst of energy up the marble scala. At first the massed petitioners began to hurl insults and threats at him, but when they got a better look at his grey velvet robes and silver medallion of office they parted like a drop of oil in a bowl of water.
The rookie watched Pomilio ascend the stairs until he was out of sight, adjusted his hood against the now-steady rain, and started back towards the looming gloom of Lowtown. As we walked he tried not to think of what he hadn’t told the SQPV agent. For no sooner had the Inspector and his two subordinates exited last night’s crime scene than Petracchio had noticed something unusual on the dead Oguntak’s body: two circular puncture wounds on his left thigh. He pointed out his observation to Aemilia, who responded with a barely-swallowed curse.
“What the Seven is that?” Petracchio asked. “It looks like…”
“Never mind what it looks like!” The rookie’s best guess was cut off by Venatore’s booming voice. Petracchio started as he saw the veteran Greenhead approaching almost as quickly as he’d left, this time with a handful of Lakers in tow. One of the ruddy-faced giants was none other than Seamus, the roustabout whom the veteran Greenhead had knocked about earlier that evening- the Laker refused to make eye contact with Petracchio, but set himself to the Captain’s instructions silently behind his black eye and swollen lower lip.
The Lakers were carrying a length of rope, a string of fishing weights, and enough canvas to rig out a small far trader. As they converged on the waterlogged corpse they muscled the rookie and his fellow Greenheads aside, provoking a sullen note of protest from Aemilia. Her accusation was matter-of-fact:
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
Venatore said nothing but this, save to match glare for glare. Aemilia was no so easily discouraged, however. Even as the roustabouts began to wrap the Oguntak and make the sailcloth fast with the ropes, she opened her mouth to press Venatore again, but the Captain turned his back on her and barked at the Lakers. “Do a proper job with those knots, boys, or I’ll make your lives even more miserable than they already are.”
Petracchio was at a loss. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on here?”
More silence from the Captain, who did not even seem to acknowledge the rookie’s question. For his part, Stefano just shook his head. Aemilia sighed and took Petracchio by the elbow. Still only steps away from the other Greenheads and the men who were now fastening the leaden fishing weights to the wrapped and tied bundle, Aemilia spoke to the junior Greenhead in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Surely you’ve heard of Queen Cariebasa.”
Petracchio’s heart stopped for an instant. The Gorgon Queen! Of course he’d been aware of the fact that Cariebasa lived here amid the slums of Lowtown, where the Southlander immigrants worshipped her a living goddess, but despite this fact it had never occurred to the rookie that he might actually cross paths with her in the course of doing his job.
The City had more than its share of gods and monsters, but Varo was so vast that most Canalsiders could go from the cradle to the grave without rubbing shoulders with anyone more famous than their local cittadini. Maybe you’d catch a glimpse of the Ogre King as his barge sailed up the Grand Canal or have the good fortune to sit in the same eating palace as a retired hockey star, but even these minor brushes with celebrity were rare indeed in a city of a million souls.
This was different, however. As Petracchio recovered from his shock he made sense of the evidence that he had briefly noted- evidence that was about to be spirited away to the bottom of the Great Sea. “Why?” he asked Aemilia. “Didn’t you just say—“
Captain Venatore cut him off with a booming voice. “—that’ll be quite enough from you tonight, rookie! When you make your report to Pomilio, you will mention none of this. Capisce?”
The junior greenhead stood dumbfounded as he watched the Laker roustabouts finish their work and hoist the Oguntak’s lifeless body over their shoulders. Where would they dump him, Petracchio wondered- the Bay of Skulls, where myriad anonymous corpses fed the sharks and crabs, or someplace more remote? Before the rookie could ponder this question further, however, the Captain materialized directly in front of him and broke his reverie by jabbing him in the chest with an index finger as big as a sausage.
“I said do you understand?”
Although chided, Petracchio did his best to cling to what remained of his pride and met Venatore’s gaze head on. “Yes, sir.”
The Captain grinned. “That’s more like it, son. We’ll make a proper Greenhead of you yet!”
With several hours to spare before his second night of rounds with Venatore, Petracchio thought he might actually succeed in stealing a couple hours’ siesta, but those dreams were dashed as soon as he reached the cul-de-sac of Nocciola to find a beefy Canalsider sitting on the stoop of his tenement. “Piacere,” he said with a rough mumble.
The rookie looked at the Varonian tough and recognized him immediately as one of the shrine-bearers from earlier that morning. Built like a orangutan from the Middle Kingdoms, some tailor had nevertheless managed to squeeze him into a rather expensive cut of Ferrari drag, which repelled the rain as he sat as if by magic.
“You’re the new kid on the force, right?”
Petracchio cocked an eyebrow. After twenty-four hours of tiptoeing around his new Captain and the SPQVs, the rookie was feeling tired and reckless. “Let me guess. Your boss would like to meet me?”
The beefy thug chuckled in a mirthless tone that sobered up Petracchio immediately. “You think the old man gives a damn about you? Sorry, paesan. But I do need you to deliver a message to your boss.”
“Why can’t you tell him yourself?”
“Because it doesn’t work that way.”
Before the rookie had a chance to ask exactly what the shrine-bearer had meant by that, he felt something blunt and heavy land on the back of his neck. A blow like this should have crumpled a man of Petracchio’s stature, but the split second before the club connected the junior Greenhead spotted the sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and started accordingly. Howling in pain, he whirled to face his assailant, only to be rewarded with a punch to his kidney from another Canalsider who had also been closing in while the big-necked lug had been distracting him. This time Petracchio did go down, falling to his knees as the shrine bearer rose from the stoop.
“Tell Venatore he’s playing with fire,” the beefy thug said. “And if he’s not careful, all of Lowtown will burn. You got that?”
Barely able to breathe, let alone speak, the rookie groaned and nodded. The shrine bearer smiled broadly. “Bene.” He then kicked Petracchio square in the teeth, and all went dark.
---
“Great shades of Zeferelli! What happened to you, rookie?”
Petracchio was aware that all eyes in the precinct house were on him and the purplish mask of flesh he was currently wearing as a mask. He wasn’t sure if he’d come to a minute or an hour after the thugs had worked him over, but it was clear that they’d continued their beating even after he’d collapsed unconscious, such that everything on his body now either ached or simply oozed. The rookie managed to clamber back up to his apartment by himself, as his landlords dared not be seen helping him, where he lay on his bare floor until just before sunset, coughing in pain as his wept in silence.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he thought to himself as he watched dust motes dance in the sunbeam that his tiny window permitted. While Petracchio knew that the Lowtown beat would be a challenge, he never imagined that in just the space of a day he’d run afoul of the SQPVs, the kingpin of organized crime, and his commanding officer. If these were commonplace occurrences he wondered how anyone even survived the first week. Gently the rookie probed his ribs, sensing that the big shrine bearing thug had succeeded in fracturing one or two of them as certainly as he’d broken one of his teeth with his heavy boots.
The junior Greenhead closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as his battered chest would permit while he considered his options. If he didn’t get up right now, before the sun went down, he might as well not bother. No doubt Captain Venatore would just shake his head and cluck something to the effect that he knew it all along, that the rookie from Caecilia didn’t have what it took to run with the big dogs of Lowtown. Maybe the crusty old bastard was right, and Petracchio didn’t belong here, but he would be damned if he were about to give his new the Captain the satisfaction of being right.
Pain coursed through his entire body as he rolled over and slowly stood up, steadying himself with one hand on the frame of his bed and the another on the chest of drawers that was the only other piece of furniture in his cramped room. With what remained of the day’s light he examined himself in a small mirror of polished bronze and cleaned up the cuts on his face as best he could, turning the brown water in his washbasin bright pink when he was finished. Satisfied that his wounds were simply ugly and not necessarily serious, he adjusted his broadsword and headed back down to the canalside of Nocciola, knowing full well that even though no one looked the rookie in the eye they watched him carefully nevertheless.
Petracchio walked with a deliberate confidence-- even though every such stride caused him agony in a million different places, he dared not betray so much as a hint of weakness to this neighborhood, so as to say to them: Yes, you can beat me down, but if you want to stop me altogether you’re just going to have to kill me. When he finally made it to the precinct house he maintained the same defiant bearing, for whatever message he’d intended to telegraph to the good Canalsiders of Nocciola went double for his new Captain and Lowtown’s boys in green. Truth be told, the rookie felt that it was worth every excruciating moment just to see Venatore’s jaw drop.
He contorted his broken face into a smile. “Fell down some stairs.”
The Captain snorted. “A couple of times, from the looks of it.”
“Well, you know those Old Varonian stoops.”
Venatore narrowed his eyes. “Indeed I do.” While he continued to affect an air of good-humored ribbing, the Captain quickly looked around the common room, then fixed his gaze squarely back on Petracchio with an expression that all but screamed: Don’t say another word- not here.
“Why don’t you see if Stevie-boy can’t stitch up your face? I’d rather you not bleed all over Lowtown tonight.”
“Sure thing, Cap.”
Stefano’s father had been a tailor, as had his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and who knows for how many generations before that. Naturally the assumption had been that Stefano would take up the family trade when he came of age, but despite his skill with a needle and thread the boy had other plans. “I ran away from home,” he explained to Petracchio as he sutured one of the more ragged cuts on his face with a deft hand. The rookie grunted, trying not to shift in his seat while Stefano’s needle wove its healing magic, stitch by painful stitch.
“Why?”
Stefano laughed. “Why does anyone do the stupid things they do? I was a little bastard who thought my father was worse than the Ogre King himself. Then I left the City and learned the hard way how good I’d had it all along.
“By the time I came to my senses, though, the family business had folded and my father had drunk himself to death. So I joined the Marines. Did you know that tailors make some of the best sharpshooters?”
Petracchio shook his head before he remembered that his fellow officer was trying to stick a needle into his face. Stefano jerked the point away from the rookie’s eye and clicked his tongue irritatedly. “Hold still. Yes, it’s not just the steady hand, but the patience. You could spend days sitting in the same blind waiting for that one perfect shot. The moment you get bored and let your mind wander, that’s when your target inevitably wanders into your scope.”
Stefano finished his sutures at last. Putting down his needle and catgut thread, he held the junior Greenhead’s head by the temples and peered closely at his handiwork. “That should suffice. Just don’t go falling into any canals until those cuts heal, because the Lowtown apothecary doesn’t have anything strong enough to ward off an infection like that.”
Petracchio laughed, feeling a twinge of soreness somewhere in his chest as he did so. “I’ll ask the Captain not to toss me into the Secundo again then. Grazie.”
“Niunte, ‘michi.”
The rookie’s gaze wandered over to the wall, where Stefano’s oversized crossbow was propped carefully on its stock. He noticed for the first time the brass eyepiece mounted to the frame and the complicated set of knobs and dials which accompanied the optics. Stefano noticed his interest and brightened himself as he picked up the weapon and proffered it to Petracchio.
“You like? It took months to get those lenses ground to spec. The sight is one of a kind.”
Petracchio handled the crossbow with a gentle reverence. His marksmanship had always been fair to middling, but he’d been able to handle a broadsword better than most of his fellow Marines. Sharpshooters were equally revered and reviled by those on the front line, but the rookie had had nothing but admiration for those eagle-eyed comrades who dealt swift and silent death from a distance.
“What’s the range on this thing?” he asked Stefano in a voice tinged with a childlike wonder.
“Always ten yards further than the bad guys think,” a voice boomed through the makeshift infirmary, causing Petracchio to start and almost bobble the crossbow, which Stefano retrieved quickly with all the jealousy of a proud new mother. Captain Venatore stood in the doorway. “It’s a damned shame that we didn’t have Stefano back in Ryzien- we could have just sat on the poop deck and drank Salumar brandy while he picked off insurgents one by one. You all in one piece again, rookie?”
The junior Greenhead nodded.
“Good. Because I have a surprise for you tonight. The Blues are in town.”
---
Locals like to joke that Lowtown only has two buildings among its countless tenements and crumbling insulae that aren’t in constant danger of collapsing at any given moment- the Precinct House and the Arena. The former is due to its fortress-like construction, as the headquarters for Lowtown’s Greenheads had once been the stronghold of an Old Varonian baron who lorded over the isles that had comprised the southern half of the City before parish after parish was slowly but irreversibly filled in so that the only water between the ancient rocks were the narrow canals. The Arena, however, was built exactly for the purpose that it currently served- as a venue of cheap spectacle for Varo’s hardest luck cases.
Many centuries ago it bore witness to countless gladiatorial matches when the City was young and its thirst for raw bloodsport easily slaked. Over the years however the Varonians refined their entertainment so that even though the violence was a constant presence its expression was ever more sophisticated. Pit-fighting yielded to Salumar ballgames, Three Man from the Great Lakes, then finally the sport of hockey. While rare is the idle pastime that the City does not clasp to its bosom with great zeal, Varonians took to this curious game imported from the frozen lakes of the Voordian Peaks as if they had conceived of it themselves, and within the space of a generation every parish had at least one hockey rink, much to the delight of ice merchants from the Tiglarnan highlands.
Depending on whom you asked, the Arena’s mammoth capacity was either a boon or a blessing. The rich turned their noses up at the terraces that rose in concentric levels above their luxury boxes, whereas those who flooded those cheap seats night after night were their most enthusiastic partisans. The open-aired structure required some serious machinations against the ever present rain, so through the upper decks of the Arena ran a sprawling system of cables and pulleys that held aloft a million square feet of oiled sailcloth, and on windy days the groaning of this rigging rivaled the bloodthirsty cries of the hockey fanatics.
Tonight however the sails were furled, as the rains which had lingered through most of the day had at last tapered off, although the granite underfoot was still slick as Captain Venatore and his rookie officer pushed their way through the crowds milling about the Arena’s several broad arched entrances in search of nonexistent tickets for a game that had sold out weeks in advance.
“Any match between United and the Blues is going to be a hot item,” Venatore muttered as he used a cudgel to gently but firmly keep would-be spectators from choking off the canalside entirely. “But with your boys playing the way they’ve been playing this year, every Blues game is its own disaster waiting to happen. Surely you heard about what happened up in Stabientia.”
Petracchio nodded, though at this point there probably wasn’t a soul in Varo who hadn’t heard about the riot between fans of the Blues and those of the Orangemen visiting from Orsilia. The Captain gave a slow-moving drunkard a hard shove and continued:
“Not that I like to slag on my fellow Greenheads, but Stabientia should never have let the situation get as out of hand as it did in the first place. Your team starts winning, though, and you start feeling a little punchy along with the rest of your fellow Canalsiders. Look at me, rookie- I bleed hockey. You don’t think I don’t understand?
“But if you don’t keep these jokers on a short leash, it’ll come back to haunt you. Big time. Take this group of good for nothings, for example.”
Ventatore gesticulated to a group of young Varonian boys passing an amphora of wine back and forth between them while making drunkenly clumsy overtures to female passersby who lacked the good sense to avoid the Arena at night and anyone else who strayed into their field of general derision. The Captain strode right up to the loudest of the youths, who sported a maroon robe and a pair of Marine combat boots that had clearly never seen an honest day’s march. The boy had close-cropped black hair that was already streaked with white despite his young age and a mouthful of teeth in worse shape than most of the hockey crusaders who were able to do battle in the Arena.
As the Greenhead drew near the other young toughs hooted and jeered.
Captain Venatore sized up the lot of them with one eye and scanned the crowd for additional troublemakers with the other. “Good evening, boys. Nice night to see the Blues bleed red all over United ice, wouldn’t you say?”
The lead youth mumbled something and his companions muttered their assent, but Venatore continued to draw near, sniffing the air as he did so. “Have you been drinking, son? You don’t look old enough to me.”
The kid in the maroon robes looked at the Captain with an expression of boozy indifference. “I’m sorry, officer. Is there a certain age that you’re supposed to be? Because nobody told me.”
“Cute,” Venatore said. “So you’re a poet now, are you?”
Petracchio could sense the growing menace in his commanding officer’s voice, but even if they did as well the gang of toughs ignored it. The rookie braced himself for another ugly scene and wondered how many teeth the punk in maroon would be left with at the end of this conversation.
Venatore’s nose twitched again, then his eyes narrowed. “Say, aren’t you Brindisi’s kid?”
The boy went white as a sheet, and even his friends had suddenly stopped tittering as they had all along up until this point. “Y-yes, sir.”
“Well that would explain why you’re not afraid of the law, wouldn’t it?” The Captain turned his head slightly as he explained to Petracchio. “A Senator’s son, slumming it in Lowtown like he’s some kind of gangster.”
The rookie took a closer look at the young tough in maroon. Under several layers of carefully contrived artifice he now saw the imperious jaw of the boy’s father, the unmistakable streak of white in his youthful sideburns. Senator Brindisi was one of the junior members of Varo’s senior legislative body, and as a result was still obliged to show his face around the City; still Petracchio marveled that Venatore was able to pick out the resemblance so quickly. The Captain turned back towards the kid:
“It would also explain why you’re dumb as a post, son. No disrespect to your old man, but he doesn’t understand Lowtown worth a damn. Every time he visits he brings physicians, grammar teachers, and all other manners of busybodies from the four corners of the Three Continents- not to mention his good for nothing do-gooder wife. If it even possible, she’s worse than he is- she wants to save us from ourselves. As if being a Lowtowner were some kind of curable disease.
“But if that were true, then why are you here then- hmm? All dressed up like you’re about to go throw down with the Delts or the Taciti. You think I don’t know about these dirty canals just because I wear the green?”
Venatore leapt forward and seized the boy’s hand as he rolled up his own sleeve with his other. There on the Captain’s forearm was a series of brands: a sequence of bars and dots that identified Giro as a member of one of Lowtown’s myriad gangs. Petracchio hadn’t seen enough of these markings to know which combination signified which crew, but from the way that the Senator’s son recoiled and tried to escape the Captain’s grip it was a fair guess that he immediately recognized the brandings.
As the young tough wrenched this way and that in vain hopes of extricating himself Venatore seemed to loom over the kid like an avatar of some ancient forgotten god.
“I grew up here, boy. Born and bred in the insulae. Killed my first man at twelve, and it only got worse from there. If I hadn’t seen the light and changed my ways I’d be stringing you and your wannabe gang right now up like so much Shan-li streetmeat. Capisce?”
Terrified, the young tough could only gulp his assent.
“Good,” the Captain said, letting go of the boy. “Now get the Hells out of my parish. All of you.”
Only several steps away did the maroon-clad poseur regain some measure of his equilibrium. “Y-you aren’t going to tell my father, are you?”
Venatore snorted at this as if this were one of the funniest things he’d heard in ages. “Are you kidding me? That’ll just send the whole lot of them down here again on a new damned fool crusade. But if I ever see you or any of your friends hanging ‘round here again I’ll hogtie and carry the lot of you back up the Rock. Am I clear?”
The group of young toughs dispersed into the night like small fry in the presence of a shark, causing the Captain to laugh out loud. He reached down to pick up the hastily-abandoned amphora and gave it a tentative sniff before taking a quaff. “Not bad. Have a taste, rookie.”
Petracchio barely had time to react as his commanding officer casually tossed the large earthenware vessel at him. He caught it on the bobble, sloshing some of the red liquid onto the granite.
“Careful now, that’s probably Senator Brindisi’s private reserve!” As the rookie stole a mouthful of wine, the Captain scuffed at the spill with the heel of his boot and spat. “Kids. They grow up hearing all about the gangs of Lowtown and come here in droves, like the fucking Southlanders on the ferries but in reverse. Most of the shit that gets out of hand down here is the result of these idiots trying to prove themselves.”
Petracchio reflexively touched his swollen eye and Venatore sighed. “All right, I said most of it. Some of our problems are of our own making, I’m not too proud to admit. You want to tell me what happened now?”
The two Greenheads nursed the amphora of wine—which was a rare vintage indeed—and the junior officer narrated the events that transpired on his stoop while Venatore listened with an impassive yet attentive expression on his face. When Petracchio finished the Captain thought for a few minutes before speaking.
“I was hoping that finding that Oguntak floating in the Secundo didn’t mean we were in for a full-blown shitstorm, but hope’s for suckers. I’m sorry that Old Man Esposito decided to take this out on you, though.”
“Take what out?” Petracchio groaned. “I still don’t understand what’s going on.”
“That savage boy wasn’t just some drug pusher that got lucky. He was part of Esposito’s organization.”
The rookie lowered the amphora and fixed Venatore with a hard stare. “How do you know this?”
The Captain met Petracchio’s gaze and did not so much as flinch. “Because I asked him, that’s how! You think I’m going to let him beat one of my men senseless without some kind of reckoning?”
The junior Greenhead said nothing because that’s exactly what he’d thought, and both of them knew it. Venatore sighed a second time, as exasperated as he was disappointed. “Look here, rookie. I know you think I’m dirty as a turd, but Lowtown is not like other—“
“—not like other parishes.” Petracchio cut off his Captain with a ferocity that surprised even himself. “Yes, you’ve told me this ten thousand times over the past twenty-four hours. And you know what? I’m even willing to believe you if you answer me just one thing- right here and right now.”
Captain Venatore looked at his new rookie with a raised eyebrow. “And that is…?”
“What made you see the light?”
“Como?”
“When you were setting that Brinidisi kid straight you said you ran with the Lowtown gangs until you saw the light. Tell me what happened.”
“Fair enough, rookie.” Venatore took the amphora back from Petracchio and drank deep, sucking down what remained of the wine, then flinging the lees into the black waters of the nearby canal. “I was part of the Delts. And if you think they’re hellraisers now you should have seen us some thirty years ago. Even the Gentle Don knew better than to fuck with our crew. We claimed all of the tenements between the Secundo and the Porphyry Gate and may the One True God help you if you challenged us. We lived like kings- we took whatever we wanted and didn’t give two shits about anything but our own here and now.
“Then she came into my life. Her name was Terzia and she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on. It was here at the Arena where I first met her- I was roughhousing with some of my fellow Delts and literally ran right into her, spilling her wine all over her dress.”
“Oh, how mad she was!” The Captain smiled at the memory. “Although my boys made themselves scarce as soon as she started with the tongue-lashing, I stayed and took it as best I could. It’s not that I’d never been yelled at like that by a woman before—my mother screamed herself into an early grave on my account—but for some reason I had been struck dumb by this young lady, and she with me. If I need to tell you what happened next, then you’re quite beyond my help, rookie.”
Although Petracchio laughed at this, Venatore’s mirth had faded. “She never told me that her older brother ran with the Taciti. Someone must have seen us together that night and dropped a cyp on us. My own boys thrashed me to within an inch of my life when I got back to the insulae that night, but what the Taciti did to her…” The Captain look away and shook his head.
“That was it for me. I’m no saint, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be just another monster. I may not have been able to do anything to save poor Terzia, but everything I do along these filthy canals is for her. Capisce?”
Petracchio nodded.
“Good. Now let’s get some answers. I think I know just where to look.”
The ancient sandstone of the Arena rang with countless footfalls as ten of thousands of Canalsiders poured over its wide concourses and up and down the stairs of each terrace, and even though the match had not started, the cheers of so many blue or red-clad hockey fanatics already amount to a dull omnipresent roar. The Captain and his rookie threaded their way through the knots of pushcart food vendors and wine queues, forsaking the ramparts of the home team for the quarter of the venue that had been cordoned off for the visiting Blues. Two dozen Greenhead auxiliaries held the line between the red and blue jerseys, truncheons in hand and riot shields raised; Venatore gave the cops a mock salute as they opened their ranks to allow him and Petracchio to pass into Stabientia’s territory.
The most fanatical of the Blues were singing one of their traditional fight songs in an attempt to rouse the remainder of their ranks, such that Venatore needed to shout to his partner as they pressed through the heaving mass of rowdy drunkenness. “Remember my friend Fouad and his brother the ‘used’ lacquer dealer? Something about that ’21 Magliozzi he was bragging about being able to get ahold of rang a bell. Turns out our midnight swimmer had been seen tooling around the canals of Lowtown in just such a gondola.
“This is where things get interesting- the owner of this vintage piece of lacquer is a woman who goes by the name of Evangelina. We don’t know much about her, except that she’s supposed to be the girlfriend of one Francesco Sabatini.”
Petracchio felt his heart leap to his throat. Sabatini wasn’t just another thug from the Varonian underworld, and from the way that Captain Venatore looked at his junior officer he seemed to know this already. “Captain Seraf told me that you and Sabatini used to work for the same crew, back in the day. Is that right, son?”
The rookie gulped and nodded, uncertain of what would come next. While he had been candid with his former Captain about his past, he had not expected that Serafinelli would have necessarily shared this information with other Greenheads. But what had he said, the other day? ‘This may be the end of line here, but I’m still a copper. And coppers talk.’ What sort of punishment had he merited by withholding this information? Petracchio tensed as he prepared for his commanding officer’s wrath, only to be surprised as Venatore clapped him on the shoulder and laughed.
“I’d be a fine example to judge you for your prior misdeeds, wouldn’t I? Listen to me, and listen to me good: your past is a foreign country, rookie. Forget what the storytellers say- a hero in my ledger-book is someone who knows from first-hand experience how easy it is to do the wrong thing and chooses the right thing anyway. Capisce?”
“Yes, sir.” Petracchio tried not to let his voice choke up when he said this, though it was clear that he was grateful for his boss’ words.
The Captain continued: “Good. Then I don’t want to know about who you were and what you did, because as soon as you put that green helmet on your head it didn’t matter . What I need to know, though, is that I can rely on you. Tell me something, rookie- if the trail leads all the way back to Sabatini, is this going to present a problem?”
The junior Greenhead smiled grimly. “No, sir. Not in a slightest.”
Francesco Sabatini held court at the center of the visiting bleachers like a Korumani emperor, surrounded by concentric rings of azure-shirted Blues fanatics and neckless goons dressed all in black. As Captain Venatore and his junior Greenhead approached the outer perimeter of Sabatini’s domain the senior officer gave the Ogrish bruiser who intercepted them a shit-eating grin and a flash of his badge.
“We just want to ask your boss a few questions- that okay with you, Tiny?”
The ogre looked at Venatore like something he’d stepped on outside of the Arena, but allowed the two to pass without a word. The Captain chuckled and the rookie quietly exhaled.
“The bastard has nowhere to run here, and he knows it. If we had tried his nightclub he’d have every right to keep us waiting on his doorstep, and never mind that it’s significantly out of our jurisdiction to boot. Here he can make himself as comfortable as he likes, but he’s still on our turf.”
Petracchio now understood why Venatore had been so keen on taking tonight’s police detail at the Arena. He tried not to shrink under the murderous stares of Sabatini’s crew, who even though the match had started did not allow themselves to be distracted from protecting their damin. Or was there something more to it? Petracchio noticed some hurried movement as the Greenheads approached- the flash of silver and the quick staccato of a woman’s heels on the granite bleachers.
“Relax, rookie- she’s not going anywhere.” Venatore whispered through a smile. “I’ve got Aemilia and Stefano staking out her lacquer. Now let’s see what Damin Francesco has to say for himself…
“Buona sera, Signore. Nice night to watch the Blues’ winning streak come to an end, wouldn’t you say?”
Francesco Sabatini remained seated, the velvet folds of his dark purple robe as unruffled as his oleaginous and jet black hair. The damin looked at the two Greenheads with a bemused expression that amateurs often confused with good humor before hard experience taught them otherwise.
“Don’t bet on it, copper. The Blues are going all the way this year- wouldn’t you agree, Petrarch?”
The rookie tried to affect as flat a tone as he could muster. “Hello, Francesco.”
Sabatini gave Petracchio a mock wince as he stared at his face. “I see police work suits you just about as well as working for Arlix did.”
Petracchio knew that his old compatriot was trying to rattle him, but after his conversation with Venatore he felt fortified for this encounter. “It’s a day’s work. Honest or dishonest, you should try it sometime.”
The damin’s lip curled, but before he could answer the insult in turn Captain Venatore interrupted him:
“If it’s a dick-swinging contest you want, I’m afraid both of you lost when you walked into Lowtown. So enough of that already- I want you to tell me what you know about Esanga the Traitor.”
Sabatini looked at Venatore with a blank expression. “And who, pray tell, is that?”
The Captain just laughed at this, then suddenly brought his boot down squarely on the damin’s softly-shod foot with such force that it could have split stone. As Sabatini yelped in pain and his bodyguards scrambled, the veteran Greenhead grabbed a fistful of purple velvet in one hand and held a knife to the man’s throat. “Right, then. Unless you want the closest shave of your life, I suggest you tell your boys to stand down. Capsice?”
Francesco Sabatini cocked his head ever so slightly to signal his assent, and the thugs in black who had encircled them took a step back. “Keep an eye on them, rookie. If anyone so much as coughs, put a crossbow bolt in their forehead.”
Petracchio nodded, his service-issued bow already leveled at Sabatini’s men, although he couldn’t help but remember how his Captain had warned him how unreliable the weapon actually was. Still, it was the threat of using it that mattered right now- the rookie just hoped that no one would put it to the test.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Captain.” Sabatini growled from under Venatore’s knife.
“So I’ve been told. Now, let’s try this one more time. Esanga. Talk.”
The match had now begun in earnest, which meant that save for this small knot of conflict all other eyes were now on the ice and Petracchio could barely make out the conversation between Venatore and Sabatini.over the roar of the crowd. Still, the rookie heard the damin utter a name that was unfamiliar to him, then another that he couldn’t possibly mistake for another. The Captain nodded at Sabatini’s sudden candor, withdrawing his knife and relaxing his grip on the underworld boss.
As luck would have it, one of the thugs in black interpreted this action as the perfect opportunity to do something stupid and lunged towards the Captain. Venatore whirled, slicing one of the man’s fingers off with a flash of Cebalese steel, but another of the neckless bodyguards took advantage of the sudden chaos and approached from behind the veteran Greenhead. Petracchio aimed his crossbow and pulled the trigger, only to have the weapon jerk uncontrollably in his hands as the tension wire snapped and flew into another goon’s face, causing him to double over in a bloodied mess.
Then the rookie felt thick fists and heavily-shod feet pummeling his already bruised body—the crush of blows swallowed him in an undifferentiated mass of moving limbs and flashes of agony. He could no longer see his Captain, or Sabatini for that matter, and Petracchio struggled in vain to drop his crossbow and draw his broadsword before giving up on the action and simply wielding the broken weapon as a makeshift club. The heavy stock of the bow proved surprisingly effective against his opponents, and with each swing he managed to push Sabatini’s bodyguards further and further away until at last he was able to catch sight of Venatore again. The Captain was pinned between a couple of Cebalese toughs while the ogre whom they had first breezed past struck him repeatedly with his oversized fists. Each blow landed with a meaty slap and sickening crunch that Petracchio could hear even over the cacophony of the fight and the general din of the hockey game. Sabatini was nowhere to be found now, the rookie noticed.
It would be just a matter of seconds before the auxiliaries holding the line between the Reds and the Blues would get word of the fight and rush to their aid, but Petracchio knew in his gut that even that was too much time to wait. He needed to think of something, or both he and his new Captain would be dead.
Inspiration came in the form of a song. Almost before he could walk, the junior Greenhead had learned all of Stabientia’s fight songs, courtesy of his father and uncles, who lived and died by the Blues and took great delight in leading the cheers of the faithful. In time Petracchio had joined their ranks, and his booming baritone soon became a regular feature of any home game. There were one or two songs, however, that even the most diehard of Blues fanatics dared not sing these days- these were the fight songs of old, when spectators came to a match as armed as their team and all the more willing to spill the blood of their enemies. Just humming a few bars could get you in trouble with the local constables, lest the ancient melodies stir up a murderous atmosphere.
The rookie chose one of the worst songs of all, a battle cry that his relatives would sing after the last keg had been tapped back in Mack the Greevy’s clubhouse at the foot of Stabientia’s terraced Hill. It was a blood-boiling rhyme questioning the lineage of the Blues’ opponents in general and calling out other teams in particular. Petracchio skipped right to the verse about Lowtown United fans, which began with a string of Old Varonian expletives that he bellowed at the top of his lungs so loudly that even the ogre lowered his fist in surprise, giving the Captain the opportunity to wriggle free of the Cebalese muscle holding his arms. With a swift jab of the pommel of his broadsword he broke the jaw of one, then brought the blade around to connect with the other’s upper thigh, causing the thug to collapse into a puddle of his own dark blood.
Venatore grabbed his junior officer’s arm and shouted: “We need to get out of here- pronto!” The rookie needed no encouragement. For not only had the ogre collected its wits and was moving to engage the two Greenheads, but Petracchio’s fight song had begun to spread through the knot of embattled Blues fans like sparks through dry kindling. If they were lucky, the auxiliaries would smother the potential riot before it exploded into something uncontrollable, but given the passions on hand at the Arena this evening it was anyone’s guess as to what would happen next.
The Captain and Petracchio fell back just as the auxiliaries charged the visitors’ bleachers, cutting off Sabatini’s ogre behind a wall of truncheons and full-body riot shields; when the two had finally reached the relative safety of the concourse, Venatore spat out a fragment of broken tooth and scowled at the fracas unfolding in the stands through a bloodied brow.
“That was a damned fool thing you did there, rookie. Stupid but brilliant. In all my years I never thought I’d be so happy to hear that accursed song! Just promise me that you will never, ever sing it again in my presence.”
Petracchio grinned. “Gladly, sir.”
“All in one piece, are you?”
The rookie tried not to think of what else might be broken, fractured, or contused at this point. “I think so, Cap.”
“Right, then—let’s go see what Stefano and Aemilia have for us.” Captain Venatore began to lumber towards the nearest ramp back down the outer perimeter of the Arena, but stopped once he noticed that Petracchio was not following him.
“Sir.”
“What is it, rookie?”
“Your conversation with Sabatini.”
Venatore scowled and spit out another fragment of tooth.
“What did he tell you, exactly?”
“Nothing I didn’t already suspect. Satisfied?”
Petracchio had always considered himself an excellent judge of when a person was being less than truthful with him, but his new Captain was proving difficult to read. The rookie wondered if he was really that perceptive after all, or whether he had simply been enjoying the luxury of a world where making such determinations was an easy thing. He nodded to Venatore and fell in behind him on the way to the private enclosed marina that served as a parking lot for the more well-heeled spectators’ lacquer.
Gondoliers lounged idly next to their gently bobbing skiffs, either drinking Salumar coffee or taking long drags of Voordian weed from their long clay pipes. As the Greenheads approached, they collectively shrunk away with lowered voices and eyes averted; after a few more steps the Captain and Petracchio realized why- on one of the quays lay Stefano, his gangly limbs sprawled and twitching.
Venatore cursed and looked around. “Where the Hells is Aemilia?”
“Sir,” a voice gasped from the dark waters of the marina. Aemilia was dog-paddling back towards the moorings, and the Captain snatched a punt from one of the taciturn gondoliers to help fish her out of the drink. As she dripped oily canal water onto the pavement, she made her report.
“The girl got the drop on us. Hit Stefano with some kind of paralytic dart from a hand crossbow, then bull-rushed me into the water. I managed to hang on to the till of her Magliozzi ‘til she gave me a rap on the head.”
It was at this moment that Venatore and Petracchio realized that Aemilia’s scalp was sticky and still oozing dark blood. The Greenhead seemed somewhat unsteady on her feet all of a sudden, and as she staggered her comrades propped her up. She looked at her Captain with a glazed expression, then mumbled: “Sorry, sir.”
Before Venatore had the opportunity to complain, Aemilia was no longer conscious.
TO BE CONTINUED...
When Petracchio had secured a room in an Old Varonian neighborhood, he thought little of his choice, but when he told Captain Venatore where he was living the veteran chuckled. “That’s Damin Esposito’s place.”
Titus Esposito was a legendary figure from the Varonian criminal underworld, a boss whose domain had touched almost every one of the City’s ninety-odd parishes at its height. What had made him truly famous was not his empire, however, but the fact that he was one of the few mobsters who had ever successfully retired. If Petracchio had ever had cause to speculate as to where the “Gentle Damin” had ended up, never in a million years would he have guessed that it would be some tiny alley sandwiched between the crumbling tenements of Lowtown, but as it turned out this is where Esposito had started.
“Nocciola,” locals called it, the last vestige one of the original parishes that had been subsumed by a never-ebbing tide of immigrants from the four corners of the Three Continents. Most Canalsiders had simply allowed themselves to be displaced and resettled elsewhere in the City, but some dug in and continued to go about their business as if nothing had happened.
Nocciola was a neighborhood seemingly untouched by time, an impression that was reinforced by its myriad festival days celebrated only along this particular stretch of canal. Petracchio had to force his way against the flow of elbow-to elbow traffic moving in the opposite direction towards one of several shrines- men, women, and children were all dressed in Old Varonian drabs, as if for a funeral, although the portable altars that some of the burlier menfolk carried on their shoulders were adorned with brightly-colored flowers. The rookie struggled to make out the words of the processional hymn, but the dialect was parochial and ancient and defied his attempts to understand it. Despite their clean-shaven faces and sacred demeanors the altar bearers to a man looked like the kind of neckless thugs who would just soon kill a man as blink.
“At least you won’t get robbed,” Venatore had joked with him. Nevertheless, Petracchio made a mental note not to give any of his neighbors offense as long as he lived in their midst, as cop or no cop he had a hunch that they wouldn’t hesitate to express their violent displeasure.
After he had successfully cleared the neighborhood celebration, a light rain began to fall- Petracchio pulled his dark green hood over his head and picked his way through a cluster of insulae and its inhabitants as they readied for another hard day of work. Lowtown was surprisingly easy place to get lost, as not only are the massive tenements all similar in appearance, but they effectively blot out any other potential landmarks that might guide someone see king his way. The rookie was certain that he’d doubled back on his route several times as a result before he found the track of a canal that he knew intersected with the Secundo and followed that to the boundary with Terminalia.
As the rain started to fall a little harder now he crossed this administrative no man’s land at the nearest bridge and cut a path through a sea of floating wharves and warehouses in various states of business, trying not to draw too many curses from the longshoremen whenever he interrupted their work to pass them by. The young Greenhead knew that he was already running later than he should be and quickened his pace, hoping that the weather would deter at least some of the crowds that he anticipated when he got to the where he was going.
Alas, even in what was now driving rain the Terminalia headquarters was overrun with humanity, such that it appeared at first glance to be more like another Lowtown tenement than the farthest-flung outpost of the SPQV. Petracchio swore aloud as he looked at the hundreds of petitioners camped out on the steps of the square marble edifice that rose above and stood out from the utilitarian commercial real estate over which it held sway. From the makeshift awnings and sputtering cooking fires of the local food vendors it was apparent that most of the Canalsiders had spent the night on the cold marble in hopes of securing an early appointment with the magistrates within, and the rookie’s heart sank while he contemplated spending every last minute of his off-duty hours sitting and waiting with everyone else, chilled and soaked to the bone.
After several heated interactions with swindled merchants and aggrieved artisans who were zealously guarding their positions Petracchio located the tail end of the queue. No sooner did he start shuffling towards the foot of the marble steps, however, than Petracchio felt a tapping on his shoulder. He whirled about to see Inspector Pomilio, holding a parasol in one hand and a greasy sausage wrapped in flatbread in the other, which he proffered to the Greenhead with a smile.
“Hungry?”
Even though he was in fact starving, having forsaken breakfast to come here to Terminalia, the rookie shook his head; Pomilio shrugged. “More for me, then. I had a feeling I’d find you out here. Giro’s got you in the doghouse already, doesn’t he?”
Now it was time for Petracchio to shrug, however slightly, as although this is exactly what had happened he wasn’t keen on giving the SPQV such an easy point.
“I admire your loyalty, rookie. Less than a day on the force and you’re already willing to take a crossbow bolt for your Cap. We don’t encourage that kind of thinking in our agency, mind you. Blind devotion can lead to some pretty questionable behavior, capisce?”
Sensing that this was some kind of test, Petracchio made no answer. The two stood silent in the rain for almost a full minute before the Inspector spoke again: “Well, if you’re not going to eat at the very least hold the umbrella so I can!”
The rookie laughed and took the handle of the ungainly parasol. Imported from the Southlands, Canalsiders as a rule eschewed umbrellas as proof against the omnipresent Varonian rains, opting instead for cheap waterproof togs or slick Ferrari drag. That Pomilio was susceptible to such an exotic indulgence seemed further proof to the junior Greenhead officer that he was not to be trusted, although as the Inspector hungrily munched his sausage sandwich he did have to admit that it looked and smelled delicious. Pomilio kept talking through mouthful after mouthful of his standing breakfast:
“I’m not going to pretend that listening to petitioners from sunrise to sunset is my idea of a good time, but at least we get some decent food carts haunting our office. Think about it—who’s going to sell week-old horsemeat to the SPQV?”
Petracchio couldn’t help but crack a smile at this, because it was true. It was only with the SPQV’s chop that vendors could ply their oleaginous wares, so at the very least they’d better make sure that they didn’t give Inspector Pomilio and his ilk indigestion. The rookie found the veteran agent equally engaging and off-putting. Although he was happy to be talking to someone more amicable and much less brusque than Captain Venatore, he was nevertheless wary of the angle. Surely he didn’t make ingratiating small talk with every Greenhead he crossed paths with?
“All right copper, you’re here to make your report. So report.”
The rookie talked while Pomilio demolished what remained of his breakfast: “The swimmer was an Oguntak named Esanga.”
The SPQV agent almost choked when he heard the name. “So you’ve heard of him.”
“Who hasn’t! Esanga was responsible for moving most of the El Mirad in the City south of the Hill.” Pomilio wiped his greasy hands with the sandwich wrapper. “So your hunch about this not being a tribal thing was spot on. Bravo. But how did you I.D. him so quickly?”
“The mask again.”
The Inspector narrowed his eyes. “How so? Hundreds of young Southlanders wear those plain white masks.”
Was this another test? Petracchio swallowed hard. “Maybe, but this one had been broken in half and mended.”
Pomilio nodded. “That’s Esanga all right. Can’t believe I missed that detail last night.”
“We all did, sir. It wasn’t until afterwards that I remembered. And Esanga wasn’t a Lowtowner. It didn’t make sense for his body to show up in the Secundo like that.”
“Good detective work, kid. So any idea how he ended up as naked as Ogumi made him?”
Petracchio looked away sharply. “Still drawing a blank on that.”
It seemed unlikely that Pomilio believed the lie, but nonetheless he did not press Petracchio on it as they stood in the rain. The SPQV sucked on a bit of gristle lodged between his teeth, as if to emphasize the fact that he wasn’t going to call the Greenhead on his bullshit answer, then sighed. “Well, you’ve got more than us then. So let’s call this Advantage Greenheads. But it’s a tournament, not just a match-- capisce, rookie?”
Petracchio nodded. “I get it.”
“All right then,” the Inspector smiled. “We’ll see what we can find out on our end-- foul some canals and see what comes up for air. I’ll expect another report tomorrow- same time, same place."
Pomilio didn’t wait for the Greenhead to acknowledge his directive, but strode away with a sudden burst of energy up the marble scala. At first the massed petitioners began to hurl insults and threats at him, but when they got a better look at his grey velvet robes and silver medallion of office they parted like a drop of oil in a bowl of water.
The rookie watched Pomilio ascend the stairs until he was out of sight, adjusted his hood against the now-steady rain, and started back towards the looming gloom of Lowtown. As we walked he tried not to think of what he hadn’t told the SQPV agent. For no sooner had the Inspector and his two subordinates exited last night’s crime scene than Petracchio had noticed something unusual on the dead Oguntak’s body: two circular puncture wounds on his left thigh. He pointed out his observation to Aemilia, who responded with a barely-swallowed curse.
“What the Seven is that?” Petracchio asked. “It looks like…”
“Never mind what it looks like!” The rookie’s best guess was cut off by Venatore’s booming voice. Petracchio started as he saw the veteran Greenhead approaching almost as quickly as he’d left, this time with a handful of Lakers in tow. One of the ruddy-faced giants was none other than Seamus, the roustabout whom the veteran Greenhead had knocked about earlier that evening- the Laker refused to make eye contact with Petracchio, but set himself to the Captain’s instructions silently behind his black eye and swollen lower lip.
The Lakers were carrying a length of rope, a string of fishing weights, and enough canvas to rig out a small far trader. As they converged on the waterlogged corpse they muscled the rookie and his fellow Greenheads aside, provoking a sullen note of protest from Aemilia. Her accusation was matter-of-fact:
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
Venatore said nothing but this, save to match glare for glare. Aemilia was no so easily discouraged, however. Even as the roustabouts began to wrap the Oguntak and make the sailcloth fast with the ropes, she opened her mouth to press Venatore again, but the Captain turned his back on her and barked at the Lakers. “Do a proper job with those knots, boys, or I’ll make your lives even more miserable than they already are.”
Petracchio was at a loss. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on here?”
More silence from the Captain, who did not even seem to acknowledge the rookie’s question. For his part, Stefano just shook his head. Aemilia sighed and took Petracchio by the elbow. Still only steps away from the other Greenheads and the men who were now fastening the leaden fishing weights to the wrapped and tied bundle, Aemilia spoke to the junior Greenhead in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Surely you’ve heard of Queen Cariebasa.”
Petracchio’s heart stopped for an instant. The Gorgon Queen! Of course he’d been aware of the fact that Cariebasa lived here amid the slums of Lowtown, where the Southlander immigrants worshipped her a living goddess, but despite this fact it had never occurred to the rookie that he might actually cross paths with her in the course of doing his job.
The City had more than its share of gods and monsters, but Varo was so vast that most Canalsiders could go from the cradle to the grave without rubbing shoulders with anyone more famous than their local cittadini. Maybe you’d catch a glimpse of the Ogre King as his barge sailed up the Grand Canal or have the good fortune to sit in the same eating palace as a retired hockey star, but even these minor brushes with celebrity were rare indeed in a city of a million souls.
This was different, however. As Petracchio recovered from his shock he made sense of the evidence that he had briefly noted- evidence that was about to be spirited away to the bottom of the Great Sea. “Why?” he asked Aemilia. “Didn’t you just say—“
Captain Venatore cut him off with a booming voice. “—that’ll be quite enough from you tonight, rookie! When you make your report to Pomilio, you will mention none of this. Capisce?”
The junior greenhead stood dumbfounded as he watched the Laker roustabouts finish their work and hoist the Oguntak’s lifeless body over their shoulders. Where would they dump him, Petracchio wondered- the Bay of Skulls, where myriad anonymous corpses fed the sharks and crabs, or someplace more remote? Before the rookie could ponder this question further, however, the Captain materialized directly in front of him and broke his reverie by jabbing him in the chest with an index finger as big as a sausage.
“I said do you understand?”
Although chided, Petracchio did his best to cling to what remained of his pride and met Venatore’s gaze head on. “Yes, sir.”
The Captain grinned. “That’s more like it, son. We’ll make a proper Greenhead of you yet!”
With several hours to spare before his second night of rounds with Venatore, Petracchio thought he might actually succeed in stealing a couple hours’ siesta, but those dreams were dashed as soon as he reached the cul-de-sac of Nocciola to find a beefy Canalsider sitting on the stoop of his tenement. “Piacere,” he said with a rough mumble.
The rookie looked at the Varonian tough and recognized him immediately as one of the shrine-bearers from earlier that morning. Built like a orangutan from the Middle Kingdoms, some tailor had nevertheless managed to squeeze him into a rather expensive cut of Ferrari drag, which repelled the rain as he sat as if by magic.
“You’re the new kid on the force, right?”
Petracchio cocked an eyebrow. After twenty-four hours of tiptoeing around his new Captain and the SPQVs, the rookie was feeling tired and reckless. “Let me guess. Your boss would like to meet me?”
The beefy thug chuckled in a mirthless tone that sobered up Petracchio immediately. “You think the old man gives a damn about you? Sorry, paesan. But I do need you to deliver a message to your boss.”
“Why can’t you tell him yourself?”
“Because it doesn’t work that way.”
Before the rookie had a chance to ask exactly what the shrine-bearer had meant by that, he felt something blunt and heavy land on the back of his neck. A blow like this should have crumpled a man of Petracchio’s stature, but the split second before the club connected the junior Greenhead spotted the sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and started accordingly. Howling in pain, he whirled to face his assailant, only to be rewarded with a punch to his kidney from another Canalsider who had also been closing in while the big-necked lug had been distracting him. This time Petracchio did go down, falling to his knees as the shrine bearer rose from the stoop.
“Tell Venatore he’s playing with fire,” the beefy thug said. “And if he’s not careful, all of Lowtown will burn. You got that?”
Barely able to breathe, let alone speak, the rookie groaned and nodded. The shrine bearer smiled broadly. “Bene.” He then kicked Petracchio square in the teeth, and all went dark.
---
“Great shades of Zeferelli! What happened to you, rookie?”
Petracchio was aware that all eyes in the precinct house were on him and the purplish mask of flesh he was currently wearing as a mask. He wasn’t sure if he’d come to a minute or an hour after the thugs had worked him over, but it was clear that they’d continued their beating even after he’d collapsed unconscious, such that everything on his body now either ached or simply oozed. The rookie managed to clamber back up to his apartment by himself, as his landlords dared not be seen helping him, where he lay on his bare floor until just before sunset, coughing in pain as his wept in silence.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he thought to himself as he watched dust motes dance in the sunbeam that his tiny window permitted. While Petracchio knew that the Lowtown beat would be a challenge, he never imagined that in just the space of a day he’d run afoul of the SQPVs, the kingpin of organized crime, and his commanding officer. If these were commonplace occurrences he wondered how anyone even survived the first week. Gently the rookie probed his ribs, sensing that the big shrine bearing thug had succeeded in fracturing one or two of them as certainly as he’d broken one of his teeth with his heavy boots.
The junior Greenhead closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as his battered chest would permit while he considered his options. If he didn’t get up right now, before the sun went down, he might as well not bother. No doubt Captain Venatore would just shake his head and cluck something to the effect that he knew it all along, that the rookie from Caecilia didn’t have what it took to run with the big dogs of Lowtown. Maybe the crusty old bastard was right, and Petracchio didn’t belong here, but he would be damned if he were about to give his new the Captain the satisfaction of being right.
Pain coursed through his entire body as he rolled over and slowly stood up, steadying himself with one hand on the frame of his bed and the another on the chest of drawers that was the only other piece of furniture in his cramped room. With what remained of the day’s light he examined himself in a small mirror of polished bronze and cleaned up the cuts on his face as best he could, turning the brown water in his washbasin bright pink when he was finished. Satisfied that his wounds were simply ugly and not necessarily serious, he adjusted his broadsword and headed back down to the canalside of Nocciola, knowing full well that even though no one looked the rookie in the eye they watched him carefully nevertheless.
Petracchio walked with a deliberate confidence-- even though every such stride caused him agony in a million different places, he dared not betray so much as a hint of weakness to this neighborhood, so as to say to them: Yes, you can beat me down, but if you want to stop me altogether you’re just going to have to kill me. When he finally made it to the precinct house he maintained the same defiant bearing, for whatever message he’d intended to telegraph to the good Canalsiders of Nocciola went double for his new Captain and Lowtown’s boys in green. Truth be told, the rookie felt that it was worth every excruciating moment just to see Venatore’s jaw drop.
He contorted his broken face into a smile. “Fell down some stairs.”
The Captain snorted. “A couple of times, from the looks of it.”
“Well, you know those Old Varonian stoops.”
Venatore narrowed his eyes. “Indeed I do.” While he continued to affect an air of good-humored ribbing, the Captain quickly looked around the common room, then fixed his gaze squarely back on Petracchio with an expression that all but screamed: Don’t say another word- not here.
“Why don’t you see if Stevie-boy can’t stitch up your face? I’d rather you not bleed all over Lowtown tonight.”
“Sure thing, Cap.”
Stefano’s father had been a tailor, as had his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and who knows for how many generations before that. Naturally the assumption had been that Stefano would take up the family trade when he came of age, but despite his skill with a needle and thread the boy had other plans. “I ran away from home,” he explained to Petracchio as he sutured one of the more ragged cuts on his face with a deft hand. The rookie grunted, trying not to shift in his seat while Stefano’s needle wove its healing magic, stitch by painful stitch.
“Why?”
Stefano laughed. “Why does anyone do the stupid things they do? I was a little bastard who thought my father was worse than the Ogre King himself. Then I left the City and learned the hard way how good I’d had it all along.
“By the time I came to my senses, though, the family business had folded and my father had drunk himself to death. So I joined the Marines. Did you know that tailors make some of the best sharpshooters?”
Petracchio shook his head before he remembered that his fellow officer was trying to stick a needle into his face. Stefano jerked the point away from the rookie’s eye and clicked his tongue irritatedly. “Hold still. Yes, it’s not just the steady hand, but the patience. You could spend days sitting in the same blind waiting for that one perfect shot. The moment you get bored and let your mind wander, that’s when your target inevitably wanders into your scope.”
Stefano finished his sutures at last. Putting down his needle and catgut thread, he held the junior Greenhead’s head by the temples and peered closely at his handiwork. “That should suffice. Just don’t go falling into any canals until those cuts heal, because the Lowtown apothecary doesn’t have anything strong enough to ward off an infection like that.”
Petracchio laughed, feeling a twinge of soreness somewhere in his chest as he did so. “I’ll ask the Captain not to toss me into the Secundo again then. Grazie.”
“Niunte, ‘michi.”
The rookie’s gaze wandered over to the wall, where Stefano’s oversized crossbow was propped carefully on its stock. He noticed for the first time the brass eyepiece mounted to the frame and the complicated set of knobs and dials which accompanied the optics. Stefano noticed his interest and brightened himself as he picked up the weapon and proffered it to Petracchio.
“You like? It took months to get those lenses ground to spec. The sight is one of a kind.”
Petracchio handled the crossbow with a gentle reverence. His marksmanship had always been fair to middling, but he’d been able to handle a broadsword better than most of his fellow Marines. Sharpshooters were equally revered and reviled by those on the front line, but the rookie had had nothing but admiration for those eagle-eyed comrades who dealt swift and silent death from a distance.
“What’s the range on this thing?” he asked Stefano in a voice tinged with a childlike wonder.
“Always ten yards further than the bad guys think,” a voice boomed through the makeshift infirmary, causing Petracchio to start and almost bobble the crossbow, which Stefano retrieved quickly with all the jealousy of a proud new mother. Captain Venatore stood in the doorway. “It’s a damned shame that we didn’t have Stefano back in Ryzien- we could have just sat on the poop deck and drank Salumar brandy while he picked off insurgents one by one. You all in one piece again, rookie?”
The junior Greenhead nodded.
“Good. Because I have a surprise for you tonight. The Blues are in town.”
---
Locals like to joke that Lowtown only has two buildings among its countless tenements and crumbling insulae that aren’t in constant danger of collapsing at any given moment- the Precinct House and the Arena. The former is due to its fortress-like construction, as the headquarters for Lowtown’s Greenheads had once been the stronghold of an Old Varonian baron who lorded over the isles that had comprised the southern half of the City before parish after parish was slowly but irreversibly filled in so that the only water between the ancient rocks were the narrow canals. The Arena, however, was built exactly for the purpose that it currently served- as a venue of cheap spectacle for Varo’s hardest luck cases.
Many centuries ago it bore witness to countless gladiatorial matches when the City was young and its thirst for raw bloodsport easily slaked. Over the years however the Varonians refined their entertainment so that even though the violence was a constant presence its expression was ever more sophisticated. Pit-fighting yielded to Salumar ballgames, Three Man from the Great Lakes, then finally the sport of hockey. While rare is the idle pastime that the City does not clasp to its bosom with great zeal, Varonians took to this curious game imported from the frozen lakes of the Voordian Peaks as if they had conceived of it themselves, and within the space of a generation every parish had at least one hockey rink, much to the delight of ice merchants from the Tiglarnan highlands.
Depending on whom you asked, the Arena’s mammoth capacity was either a boon or a blessing. The rich turned their noses up at the terraces that rose in concentric levels above their luxury boxes, whereas those who flooded those cheap seats night after night were their most enthusiastic partisans. The open-aired structure required some serious machinations against the ever present rain, so through the upper decks of the Arena ran a sprawling system of cables and pulleys that held aloft a million square feet of oiled sailcloth, and on windy days the groaning of this rigging rivaled the bloodthirsty cries of the hockey fanatics.
Tonight however the sails were furled, as the rains which had lingered through most of the day had at last tapered off, although the granite underfoot was still slick as Captain Venatore and his rookie officer pushed their way through the crowds milling about the Arena’s several broad arched entrances in search of nonexistent tickets for a game that had sold out weeks in advance.
“Any match between United and the Blues is going to be a hot item,” Venatore muttered as he used a cudgel to gently but firmly keep would-be spectators from choking off the canalside entirely. “But with your boys playing the way they’ve been playing this year, every Blues game is its own disaster waiting to happen. Surely you heard about what happened up in Stabientia.”
Petracchio nodded, though at this point there probably wasn’t a soul in Varo who hadn’t heard about the riot between fans of the Blues and those of the Orangemen visiting from Orsilia. The Captain gave a slow-moving drunkard a hard shove and continued:
“Not that I like to slag on my fellow Greenheads, but Stabientia should never have let the situation get as out of hand as it did in the first place. Your team starts winning, though, and you start feeling a little punchy along with the rest of your fellow Canalsiders. Look at me, rookie- I bleed hockey. You don’t think I don’t understand?
“But if you don’t keep these jokers on a short leash, it’ll come back to haunt you. Big time. Take this group of good for nothings, for example.”
Ventatore gesticulated to a group of young Varonian boys passing an amphora of wine back and forth between them while making drunkenly clumsy overtures to female passersby who lacked the good sense to avoid the Arena at night and anyone else who strayed into their field of general derision. The Captain strode right up to the loudest of the youths, who sported a maroon robe and a pair of Marine combat boots that had clearly never seen an honest day’s march. The boy had close-cropped black hair that was already streaked with white despite his young age and a mouthful of teeth in worse shape than most of the hockey crusaders who were able to do battle in the Arena.
As the Greenhead drew near the other young toughs hooted and jeered.
Captain Venatore sized up the lot of them with one eye and scanned the crowd for additional troublemakers with the other. “Good evening, boys. Nice night to see the Blues bleed red all over United ice, wouldn’t you say?”
The lead youth mumbled something and his companions muttered their assent, but Venatore continued to draw near, sniffing the air as he did so. “Have you been drinking, son? You don’t look old enough to me.”
The kid in the maroon robes looked at the Captain with an expression of boozy indifference. “I’m sorry, officer. Is there a certain age that you’re supposed to be? Because nobody told me.”
“Cute,” Venatore said. “So you’re a poet now, are you?”
Petracchio could sense the growing menace in his commanding officer’s voice, but even if they did as well the gang of toughs ignored it. The rookie braced himself for another ugly scene and wondered how many teeth the punk in maroon would be left with at the end of this conversation.
Venatore’s nose twitched again, then his eyes narrowed. “Say, aren’t you Brindisi’s kid?”
The boy went white as a sheet, and even his friends had suddenly stopped tittering as they had all along up until this point. “Y-yes, sir.”
“Well that would explain why you’re not afraid of the law, wouldn’t it?” The Captain turned his head slightly as he explained to Petracchio. “A Senator’s son, slumming it in Lowtown like he’s some kind of gangster.”
The rookie took a closer look at the young tough in maroon. Under several layers of carefully contrived artifice he now saw the imperious jaw of the boy’s father, the unmistakable streak of white in his youthful sideburns. Senator Brindisi was one of the junior members of Varo’s senior legislative body, and as a result was still obliged to show his face around the City; still Petracchio marveled that Venatore was able to pick out the resemblance so quickly. The Captain turned back towards the kid:
“It would also explain why you’re dumb as a post, son. No disrespect to your old man, but he doesn’t understand Lowtown worth a damn. Every time he visits he brings physicians, grammar teachers, and all other manners of busybodies from the four corners of the Three Continents- not to mention his good for nothing do-gooder wife. If it even possible, she’s worse than he is- she wants to save us from ourselves. As if being a Lowtowner were some kind of curable disease.
“But if that were true, then why are you here then- hmm? All dressed up like you’re about to go throw down with the Delts or the Taciti. You think I don’t know about these dirty canals just because I wear the green?”
Venatore leapt forward and seized the boy’s hand as he rolled up his own sleeve with his other. There on the Captain’s forearm was a series of brands: a sequence of bars and dots that identified Giro as a member of one of Lowtown’s myriad gangs. Petracchio hadn’t seen enough of these markings to know which combination signified which crew, but from the way that the Senator’s son recoiled and tried to escape the Captain’s grip it was a fair guess that he immediately recognized the brandings.
As the young tough wrenched this way and that in vain hopes of extricating himself Venatore seemed to loom over the kid like an avatar of some ancient forgotten god.
“I grew up here, boy. Born and bred in the insulae. Killed my first man at twelve, and it only got worse from there. If I hadn’t seen the light and changed my ways I’d be stringing you and your wannabe gang right now up like so much Shan-li streetmeat. Capisce?”
Terrified, the young tough could only gulp his assent.
“Good,” the Captain said, letting go of the boy. “Now get the Hells out of my parish. All of you.”
Only several steps away did the maroon-clad poseur regain some measure of his equilibrium. “Y-you aren’t going to tell my father, are you?”
Venatore snorted at this as if this were one of the funniest things he’d heard in ages. “Are you kidding me? That’ll just send the whole lot of them down here again on a new damned fool crusade. But if I ever see you or any of your friends hanging ‘round here again I’ll hogtie and carry the lot of you back up the Rock. Am I clear?”
The group of young toughs dispersed into the night like small fry in the presence of a shark, causing the Captain to laugh out loud. He reached down to pick up the hastily-abandoned amphora and gave it a tentative sniff before taking a quaff. “Not bad. Have a taste, rookie.”
Petracchio barely had time to react as his commanding officer casually tossed the large earthenware vessel at him. He caught it on the bobble, sloshing some of the red liquid onto the granite.
“Careful now, that’s probably Senator Brindisi’s private reserve!” As the rookie stole a mouthful of wine, the Captain scuffed at the spill with the heel of his boot and spat. “Kids. They grow up hearing all about the gangs of Lowtown and come here in droves, like the fucking Southlanders on the ferries but in reverse. Most of the shit that gets out of hand down here is the result of these idiots trying to prove themselves.”
Petracchio reflexively touched his swollen eye and Venatore sighed. “All right, I said most of it. Some of our problems are of our own making, I’m not too proud to admit. You want to tell me what happened now?”
The two Greenheads nursed the amphora of wine—which was a rare vintage indeed—and the junior officer narrated the events that transpired on his stoop while Venatore listened with an impassive yet attentive expression on his face. When Petracchio finished the Captain thought for a few minutes before speaking.
“I was hoping that finding that Oguntak floating in the Secundo didn’t mean we were in for a full-blown shitstorm, but hope’s for suckers. I’m sorry that Old Man Esposito decided to take this out on you, though.”
“Take what out?” Petracchio groaned. “I still don’t understand what’s going on.”
“That savage boy wasn’t just some drug pusher that got lucky. He was part of Esposito’s organization.”
The rookie lowered the amphora and fixed Venatore with a hard stare. “How do you know this?”
The Captain met Petracchio’s gaze and did not so much as flinch. “Because I asked him, that’s how! You think I’m going to let him beat one of my men senseless without some kind of reckoning?”
The junior Greenhead said nothing because that’s exactly what he’d thought, and both of them knew it. Venatore sighed a second time, as exasperated as he was disappointed. “Look here, rookie. I know you think I’m dirty as a turd, but Lowtown is not like other—“
“—not like other parishes.” Petracchio cut off his Captain with a ferocity that surprised even himself. “Yes, you’ve told me this ten thousand times over the past twenty-four hours. And you know what? I’m even willing to believe you if you answer me just one thing- right here and right now.”
Captain Venatore looked at his new rookie with a raised eyebrow. “And that is…?”
“What made you see the light?”
“Como?”
“When you were setting that Brinidisi kid straight you said you ran with the Lowtown gangs until you saw the light. Tell me what happened.”
“Fair enough, rookie.” Venatore took the amphora back from Petracchio and drank deep, sucking down what remained of the wine, then flinging the lees into the black waters of the nearby canal. “I was part of the Delts. And if you think they’re hellraisers now you should have seen us some thirty years ago. Even the Gentle Don knew better than to fuck with our crew. We claimed all of the tenements between the Secundo and the Porphyry Gate and may the One True God help you if you challenged us. We lived like kings- we took whatever we wanted and didn’t give two shits about anything but our own here and now.
“Then she came into my life. Her name was Terzia and she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on. It was here at the Arena where I first met her- I was roughhousing with some of my fellow Delts and literally ran right into her, spilling her wine all over her dress.”
“Oh, how mad she was!” The Captain smiled at the memory. “Although my boys made themselves scarce as soon as she started with the tongue-lashing, I stayed and took it as best I could. It’s not that I’d never been yelled at like that by a woman before—my mother screamed herself into an early grave on my account—but for some reason I had been struck dumb by this young lady, and she with me. If I need to tell you what happened next, then you’re quite beyond my help, rookie.”
Although Petracchio laughed at this, Venatore’s mirth had faded. “She never told me that her older brother ran with the Taciti. Someone must have seen us together that night and dropped a cyp on us. My own boys thrashed me to within an inch of my life when I got back to the insulae that night, but what the Taciti did to her…” The Captain look away and shook his head.
“That was it for me. I’m no saint, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be just another monster. I may not have been able to do anything to save poor Terzia, but everything I do along these filthy canals is for her. Capisce?”
Petracchio nodded.
“Good. Now let’s get some answers. I think I know just where to look.”
The ancient sandstone of the Arena rang with countless footfalls as ten of thousands of Canalsiders poured over its wide concourses and up and down the stairs of each terrace, and even though the match had not started, the cheers of so many blue or red-clad hockey fanatics already amount to a dull omnipresent roar. The Captain and his rookie threaded their way through the knots of pushcart food vendors and wine queues, forsaking the ramparts of the home team for the quarter of the venue that had been cordoned off for the visiting Blues. Two dozen Greenhead auxiliaries held the line between the red and blue jerseys, truncheons in hand and riot shields raised; Venatore gave the cops a mock salute as they opened their ranks to allow him and Petracchio to pass into Stabientia’s territory.
The most fanatical of the Blues were singing one of their traditional fight songs in an attempt to rouse the remainder of their ranks, such that Venatore needed to shout to his partner as they pressed through the heaving mass of rowdy drunkenness. “Remember my friend Fouad and his brother the ‘used’ lacquer dealer? Something about that ’21 Magliozzi he was bragging about being able to get ahold of rang a bell. Turns out our midnight swimmer had been seen tooling around the canals of Lowtown in just such a gondola.
“This is where things get interesting- the owner of this vintage piece of lacquer is a woman who goes by the name of Evangelina. We don’t know much about her, except that she’s supposed to be the girlfriend of one Francesco Sabatini.”
Petracchio felt his heart leap to his throat. Sabatini wasn’t just another thug from the Varonian underworld, and from the way that Captain Venatore looked at his junior officer he seemed to know this already. “Captain Seraf told me that you and Sabatini used to work for the same crew, back in the day. Is that right, son?”
The rookie gulped and nodded, uncertain of what would come next. While he had been candid with his former Captain about his past, he had not expected that Serafinelli would have necessarily shared this information with other Greenheads. But what had he said, the other day? ‘This may be the end of line here, but I’m still a copper. And coppers talk.’ What sort of punishment had he merited by withholding this information? Petracchio tensed as he prepared for his commanding officer’s wrath, only to be surprised as Venatore clapped him on the shoulder and laughed.
“I’d be a fine example to judge you for your prior misdeeds, wouldn’t I? Listen to me, and listen to me good: your past is a foreign country, rookie. Forget what the storytellers say- a hero in my ledger-book is someone who knows from first-hand experience how easy it is to do the wrong thing and chooses the right thing anyway. Capisce?”
“Yes, sir.” Petracchio tried not to let his voice choke up when he said this, though it was clear that he was grateful for his boss’ words.
The Captain continued: “Good. Then I don’t want to know about who you were and what you did, because as soon as you put that green helmet on your head it didn’t matter . What I need to know, though, is that I can rely on you. Tell me something, rookie- if the trail leads all the way back to Sabatini, is this going to present a problem?”
The junior Greenhead smiled grimly. “No, sir. Not in a slightest.”
Francesco Sabatini held court at the center of the visiting bleachers like a Korumani emperor, surrounded by concentric rings of azure-shirted Blues fanatics and neckless goons dressed all in black. As Captain Venatore and his junior Greenhead approached the outer perimeter of Sabatini’s domain the senior officer gave the Ogrish bruiser who intercepted them a shit-eating grin and a flash of his badge.
“We just want to ask your boss a few questions- that okay with you, Tiny?”
The ogre looked at Venatore like something he’d stepped on outside of the Arena, but allowed the two to pass without a word. The Captain chuckled and the rookie quietly exhaled.
“The bastard has nowhere to run here, and he knows it. If we had tried his nightclub he’d have every right to keep us waiting on his doorstep, and never mind that it’s significantly out of our jurisdiction to boot. Here he can make himself as comfortable as he likes, but he’s still on our turf.”
Petracchio now understood why Venatore had been so keen on taking tonight’s police detail at the Arena. He tried not to shrink under the murderous stares of Sabatini’s crew, who even though the match had started did not allow themselves to be distracted from protecting their damin. Or was there something more to it? Petracchio noticed some hurried movement as the Greenheads approached- the flash of silver and the quick staccato of a woman’s heels on the granite bleachers.
“Relax, rookie- she’s not going anywhere.” Venatore whispered through a smile. “I’ve got Aemilia and Stefano staking out her lacquer. Now let’s see what Damin Francesco has to say for himself…
“Buona sera, Signore. Nice night to watch the Blues’ winning streak come to an end, wouldn’t you say?”
Francesco Sabatini remained seated, the velvet folds of his dark purple robe as unruffled as his oleaginous and jet black hair. The damin looked at the two Greenheads with a bemused expression that amateurs often confused with good humor before hard experience taught them otherwise.
“Don’t bet on it, copper. The Blues are going all the way this year- wouldn’t you agree, Petrarch?”
The rookie tried to affect as flat a tone as he could muster. “Hello, Francesco.”
Sabatini gave Petracchio a mock wince as he stared at his face. “I see police work suits you just about as well as working for Arlix did.”
Petracchio knew that his old compatriot was trying to rattle him, but after his conversation with Venatore he felt fortified for this encounter. “It’s a day’s work. Honest or dishonest, you should try it sometime.”
The damin’s lip curled, but before he could answer the insult in turn Captain Venatore interrupted him:
“If it’s a dick-swinging contest you want, I’m afraid both of you lost when you walked into Lowtown. So enough of that already- I want you to tell me what you know about Esanga the Traitor.”
Sabatini looked at Venatore with a blank expression. “And who, pray tell, is that?”
The Captain just laughed at this, then suddenly brought his boot down squarely on the damin’s softly-shod foot with such force that it could have split stone. As Sabatini yelped in pain and his bodyguards scrambled, the veteran Greenhead grabbed a fistful of purple velvet in one hand and held a knife to the man’s throat. “Right, then. Unless you want the closest shave of your life, I suggest you tell your boys to stand down. Capsice?”
Francesco Sabatini cocked his head ever so slightly to signal his assent, and the thugs in black who had encircled them took a step back. “Keep an eye on them, rookie. If anyone so much as coughs, put a crossbow bolt in their forehead.”
Petracchio nodded, his service-issued bow already leveled at Sabatini’s men, although he couldn’t help but remember how his Captain had warned him how unreliable the weapon actually was. Still, it was the threat of using it that mattered right now- the rookie just hoped that no one would put it to the test.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Captain.” Sabatini growled from under Venatore’s knife.
“So I’ve been told. Now, let’s try this one more time. Esanga. Talk.”
The match had now begun in earnest, which meant that save for this small knot of conflict all other eyes were now on the ice and Petracchio could barely make out the conversation between Venatore and Sabatini.over the roar of the crowd. Still, the rookie heard the damin utter a name that was unfamiliar to him, then another that he couldn’t possibly mistake for another. The Captain nodded at Sabatini’s sudden candor, withdrawing his knife and relaxing his grip on the underworld boss.
As luck would have it, one of the thugs in black interpreted this action as the perfect opportunity to do something stupid and lunged towards the Captain. Venatore whirled, slicing one of the man’s fingers off with a flash of Cebalese steel, but another of the neckless bodyguards took advantage of the sudden chaos and approached from behind the veteran Greenhead. Petracchio aimed his crossbow and pulled the trigger, only to have the weapon jerk uncontrollably in his hands as the tension wire snapped and flew into another goon’s face, causing him to double over in a bloodied mess.
Then the rookie felt thick fists and heavily-shod feet pummeling his already bruised body—the crush of blows swallowed him in an undifferentiated mass of moving limbs and flashes of agony. He could no longer see his Captain, or Sabatini for that matter, and Petracchio struggled in vain to drop his crossbow and draw his broadsword before giving up on the action and simply wielding the broken weapon as a makeshift club. The heavy stock of the bow proved surprisingly effective against his opponents, and with each swing he managed to push Sabatini’s bodyguards further and further away until at last he was able to catch sight of Venatore again. The Captain was pinned between a couple of Cebalese toughs while the ogre whom they had first breezed past struck him repeatedly with his oversized fists. Each blow landed with a meaty slap and sickening crunch that Petracchio could hear even over the cacophony of the fight and the general din of the hockey game. Sabatini was nowhere to be found now, the rookie noticed.
It would be just a matter of seconds before the auxiliaries holding the line between the Reds and the Blues would get word of the fight and rush to their aid, but Petracchio knew in his gut that even that was too much time to wait. He needed to think of something, or both he and his new Captain would be dead.
Inspiration came in the form of a song. Almost before he could walk, the junior Greenhead had learned all of Stabientia’s fight songs, courtesy of his father and uncles, who lived and died by the Blues and took great delight in leading the cheers of the faithful. In time Petracchio had joined their ranks, and his booming baritone soon became a regular feature of any home game. There were one or two songs, however, that even the most diehard of Blues fanatics dared not sing these days- these were the fight songs of old, when spectators came to a match as armed as their team and all the more willing to spill the blood of their enemies. Just humming a few bars could get you in trouble with the local constables, lest the ancient melodies stir up a murderous atmosphere.
The rookie chose one of the worst songs of all, a battle cry that his relatives would sing after the last keg had been tapped back in Mack the Greevy’s clubhouse at the foot of Stabientia’s terraced Hill. It was a blood-boiling rhyme questioning the lineage of the Blues’ opponents in general and calling out other teams in particular. Petracchio skipped right to the verse about Lowtown United fans, which began with a string of Old Varonian expletives that he bellowed at the top of his lungs so loudly that even the ogre lowered his fist in surprise, giving the Captain the opportunity to wriggle free of the Cebalese muscle holding his arms. With a swift jab of the pommel of his broadsword he broke the jaw of one, then brought the blade around to connect with the other’s upper thigh, causing the thug to collapse into a puddle of his own dark blood.
Venatore grabbed his junior officer’s arm and shouted: “We need to get out of here- pronto!” The rookie needed no encouragement. For not only had the ogre collected its wits and was moving to engage the two Greenheads, but Petracchio’s fight song had begun to spread through the knot of embattled Blues fans like sparks through dry kindling. If they were lucky, the auxiliaries would smother the potential riot before it exploded into something uncontrollable, but given the passions on hand at the Arena this evening it was anyone’s guess as to what would happen next.
The Captain and Petracchio fell back just as the auxiliaries charged the visitors’ bleachers, cutting off Sabatini’s ogre behind a wall of truncheons and full-body riot shields; when the two had finally reached the relative safety of the concourse, Venatore spat out a fragment of broken tooth and scowled at the fracas unfolding in the stands through a bloodied brow.
“That was a damned fool thing you did there, rookie. Stupid but brilliant. In all my years I never thought I’d be so happy to hear that accursed song! Just promise me that you will never, ever sing it again in my presence.”
Petracchio grinned. “Gladly, sir.”
“All in one piece, are you?”
The rookie tried not to think of what else might be broken, fractured, or contused at this point. “I think so, Cap.”
“Right, then—let’s go see what Stefano and Aemilia have for us.” Captain Venatore began to lumber towards the nearest ramp back down the outer perimeter of the Arena, but stopped once he noticed that Petracchio was not following him.
“Sir.”
“What is it, rookie?”
“Your conversation with Sabatini.”
Venatore scowled and spit out another fragment of tooth.
“What did he tell you, exactly?”
“Nothing I didn’t already suspect. Satisfied?”
Petracchio had always considered himself an excellent judge of when a person was being less than truthful with him, but his new Captain was proving difficult to read. The rookie wondered if he was really that perceptive after all, or whether he had simply been enjoying the luxury of a world where making such determinations was an easy thing. He nodded to Venatore and fell in behind him on the way to the private enclosed marina that served as a parking lot for the more well-heeled spectators’ lacquer.
Gondoliers lounged idly next to their gently bobbing skiffs, either drinking Salumar coffee or taking long drags of Voordian weed from their long clay pipes. As the Greenheads approached, they collectively shrunk away with lowered voices and eyes averted; after a few more steps the Captain and Petracchio realized why- on one of the quays lay Stefano, his gangly limbs sprawled and twitching.
Venatore cursed and looked around. “Where the Hells is Aemilia?”
“Sir,” a voice gasped from the dark waters of the marina. Aemilia was dog-paddling back towards the moorings, and the Captain snatched a punt from one of the taciturn gondoliers to help fish her out of the drink. As she dripped oily canal water onto the pavement, she made her report.
“The girl got the drop on us. Hit Stefano with some kind of paralytic dart from a hand crossbow, then bull-rushed me into the water. I managed to hang on to the till of her Magliozzi ‘til she gave me a rap on the head.”
It was at this moment that Venatore and Petracchio realized that Aemilia’s scalp was sticky and still oozing dark blood. The Greenhead seemed somewhat unsteady on her feet all of a sudden, and as she staggered her comrades propped her up. She looked at her Captain with a glazed expression, then mumbled: “Sorry, sir.”
Before Venatore had the opportunity to complain, Aemilia was no longer conscious.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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