Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,27

the waterfront, Sancia. Or at least a lot of it. I have no doubt that some powerful people are looking for you right now. And if they find out who you are…no ship’s captain in Tevanne is going to take you anywhere. Not for all the cane wine and roses on this earth.”

7

Captain Gregor Dandolo of the Tevanni Waterwatch held his head high as he walked through the throngs of Foundryside. He did not really know another way to walk: his posture was, at all times, absolutely pristine, back arched and shoulders thrown back. Between this, his large size, and his Waterwatch sash, everyone in the Commons tended to get out of his way. They didn’t know what he was here for, but they wanted no part of it.

Gregor knew it was odd to feel so jaunty. He was a thoroughly disgraced man, having allowed nearly half the waterfront to burn down under his watch, and he was now facing suspension from the Waterwatch, if not outright expulsion.

Yet this was a situation that Gregor was quite comfortable with: a wrong had been done, and he intended to set it right. As quickly and as efficiently as possible.

A musty wine-bar door opened on his right up ahead, and a soused woman with smeared face paint staggered out onto the creaky wooden walkway in front of him.

He stopped, bowed, and extended an arm. “After you, ma’am.”

The drunken woman stared at him like he was mad. “After what?”

“Ah. You, ma’am. After you.”

“Oh. I see.” She blinked drunkenly, but did not move.

Gregor, realizing she had no idea what the phrase meant, sighed slightly. “You may walk ahead of me,” he said gently.

“Oh. Oh! Well, then. Thanks to you.”

“Certainly, ma’am.” Again, he bowed.

She tottered ahead of him. Gregor walked up beside her, and the wooden walkway bent slightly under his sizeable bulk, which made her stumble. “Pardon me,” he said, “but I had a question.”

She looked him over. “I’m off duty,” she said. “Least till I find someplace quiet to spew up a bit and dab my nose.”

“I see. But no. I wanted to ask—would the taverna the Perch and Lark be somewhere nearby?”

She gaped at him. “The Perch and Lark?”

“Indeed, ma’am.”

“You want to go there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well. S’up thataway.” She pointed down a filthy alley.

He bowed once more. “Excellent. Thank you so much. Good evening to you.”

“Wait,” she said. “A fine man such as y’self won’t want to go there! That place is a damn snake pit! Antonin’s boys will chew you up and spit you out soon as look at you!”

“Thank you!” sang Gregor, and he strode off into the evening mist.

It had been three days since the waterfront fiasco. Three days since all of Gregor’s efforts to make a decent, functional, law-abiding civilian police force—the first of its kind in Tevanne—had quite literally gone up in smoke. There’d been a lot of finger pointing and accusations in that handful of days since, but only Gregor had had a mind to actually do some investigating.

What he’d found was that his initial instincts on the night of the fiasco had been correct: there had been a bad actor on the premises, they had indeed targeted the safes of the Waterwatch, and they’d even successfully stolen something. Specifically, a small, bland box from safe 23D had gone missing. How they’d managed to do that, Gregor couldn’t imagine—every safe was outfitted with a Miranda Brass tumbler lock, and Gregor himself changed the combinations on a fixed schedule. They must have been a master safe cracker to pull it off.

But a theft and a fire, on the same night? That was no coincidence. Whoever had done one had also done the other.

Gregor had checked the Waterwatch logs regarding the box, hoping that the owner might suggest the identity of the thief. But that had been a dead end—the owner’s name had been submitted just as “Berenice,” nothing more, with no contact information included. He could find nothing more about this Berenice, either.

But he was well acquainted with the criminal element in Tevanne. If he could find nothing about the box’s owner, then he would start making headway on potential thieves. And this evening, here in the south end of Foundryside, he could get started.

He stopped at one thoroughfare, squinting through the mist, which turned mottled colors from the lanterns hanging overhead. Then he saw his destination.

The sign hanging above the taverna door read THE PERCH AND LARK. He didn’t really need to see the sign, however—the