Sketch: Rizzi
from "Our Better Wolves."
These sketches are also, loosely, chapters. As a recap, last week we met Magaritte as she collected her father’s skull from the funerary grove of the Cagne. She had a run-in with a handsy nettle bush, and she thought about the mysteries beneath the city. She then attended a vote for the war budget, where she realized the Vericanti Republic is on the knife’s edge as the Sarks prepare to head to the Western Front.
Rizzi, the Little Jackal, looked over the sorry state of their roulotte, all chipped paint and busted wheels; he looked over their tattery tende and thought about his sagging cot; he thought about their lack of easily available liquor and other distractions on their most recent deployment; and finally, he thought, as an officer of the Scarlet Sarks, Caporale Maggiore of the 3rd Tenda, Rizzi Innominato should and could do something about it.
It was his day off, but he had no problem taking on tasks in the off-hours if it were for the betterment of his comrades, even if they only ever gave him grief—it was his job to take their grief as Capo, and he did it gladly, mostly. They should have suitable provision and service—a proper sutler and maybe some proper prostitutes, especially now that they were heading into a proper war.
Rizzi’s only problem was getting into the city since technically he wasn’t supposed to set foot inside the walls until his ten-year conscription was fulfilled. There was a minor chance some maiali might recognize him. However, he had his own ways in, and his own business in the city tilted the scales for him.
He was, in fact, quite wealthy. He just needed to get down to Dockside.
Rizzi turned from that sorry, dusty scene in the yard and slunk behind the hulking Sede, into a shaded, disused grove. He knew only that there was a statue, behind which was a door into the Necropolis. He carried only a lantern and his rapier, and a few knives, and his last copper.
Now that he thought about it, he needed new clothes as well. The Capitano had conscripted Rizzi out of a jail cell four years ago in only his shirtsleeves and breeches. He had received a uniform, a rapier, a signal tattoo, and a pittance under his contract. He drank and smoked his wages and wore his scarlet leathers all the time. He hadn’t been touched in months.
He wasn’t ungrateful—his contract was more of a sentence, but a better one than he had before. Dying in a foreign field didn’t appeal to him, but he supposed it was better than bleeding out in a gutter or drowning as a murderer before he was twenty-five—the lifespan of a bravi. He had never even thought about how to grow old in Perta, or the possibility that he might die in a bed, unless he were stabbed in one. By his own reckoning, he was twenty-one, now. Not much time left to beat the odds.
Those were the corrections he could make today, his clothes and lack of funds. And some better camp-followers. There was was only one risk: the polizia. There was only one time to do anything: that was now. Damn the maiali, fortune was Rizzi’s today, so he would take the risk.
A cool morning darkness dwelt behind the Sede—the sun was still on the other side of the city. The garden was larger than he thought it would be. The statue would be at the cliff face somewhere behind a maze of rampant shrubberies, Rugarro had told him.
Rizzi spied a treetop in the far corner and aimed for it. The grass and beds had merged into a riotous tangle that swallowed Rizzi nearly waist-high. He scythed a path with his rapier—a bit blasphemous to use his rapier thus, but the Capitano wasn’t here to see so fuck it. He reached a clearing, but no statue in sight.
Wysteria smothered the cliff face and choked out the great oak he had aimed for, its branches dry and brittle sagging under the weight. Pale red hellebore was the only thing blooming in this green and brown grove. It dominated the left side of the garden.
He found a stone bench in a patch of weeds. It was cracked in two, but he could stand on one end to get some height over the brush. Still no statue, but pavers in a weeded pebble path wound toward the cliff. Steadying himself, he saw a strange outcropping of vines at the base of the cliff, partially obscured behind the hellebore.
He hopped down and his bare hands met sharp stings. He thrashed around until he was clear of whatever he’d stumbled into, sucking in air in lieu of a howl.
His hands were covered in an angry rash. A numbness began in his arms and spread to his head. The garden began to spin. He tried to wipe his hands clean on his leather pants, but that only made the rash maddening. A puddle of muddy water was in the path, and he plunged his hands into cooling relief.
He knelt. His hands basked in the mud, and he tried to breathe away the feverish feeling. He remembered what the mago always practiced for these things: He sat upright and breathed. He… didn’t know the rest. There was nothing he could do about it, he growled at himself.
He was a Sark now, and before that he was Bravi dell’Opale. Rizzi, the Little Jackal, didn’t cry and he didn’t stop until his enemies were dead, and he was paid. Shrubberies be damned, he needed to get his gold and that was that.
He’d dropped the lantern by the bench. He’d fish it out, but he wanted to find the door before bothering. He picked himself up, flinging mud from his hands. At least his fingers were fine, he thought, as he rubbed his fingertips and palms together to get the feeling back.
The path crunched beneath his boots. He came to the odd bundle of wysteria at the cliff, and sure enough, peaking out was a stone eye, staring at him. Wysteria bound the statue’s outstretched hands and dew still beaded on the leaves like a green cosmos. There was a recess behind the statue. He stripped away the dead vine to uncover carved stone. It seemed door-shaped enough, and the gaping wolf’s jaw at the center held a deep cavity.
Rizzi, you idiot, and he shoved his hand into the wolf’s mouth. It was cool and deep, which was nice on his new skin rash, until the coolness crawled and pricked at his skin with stalking legs. His fingers met a slimy membrane. He gagged. He pushed through, found a stone handle and pulled. It didn’t budge.
Legs began to crawl out of the hole, up his arm. All sorts of nasty things tumbled out. Things with legs, things with wings, things that hated the light of day and made mucus-moist nests in the dark. He didn’t want to know what they were, so he shut his eyes. He stood up right like a fucking man and breathed. He pushed the lever—a click deep in the stone—and the door cracked inward several inches.
He yanked his hand from the wolf, fled all the way back to the puddle, flinging insects and worms everywhere, then plunged his hands back into the mud. The pain didn’t matter as he scraped the slime from his skin.
He slumped on the path, reevaluating his purpose. That had to be the worst of it, he thought. The rest was just his city. The city he’d known all his life. It wouldn’t hurt him. It couldn’t hurt him anymore than it already had. There was only love.
He fished out the lantern, making a mental note to come back and burn this garden. He could put in a formal request. He held his breath as his inflamed hand delved into a pocket for his trench lighter. The lantern lit, he shouldered the stone door open and headed into the dark beneath the Second Mount.
Beyond the door was an atrium, roughly chiseled. Three passages splayed before him. Both the passages to the left seemed to run straight, one along the cliff face, and the other deeper into the city. To his right, however, was a stair. He was a smart boy, so he took the path up.
The steps were narrow and uneven, carved straight from the rock and winding every which way. Churning water wandered in and out of hearing though he never saw a source. He didn’t go far before reaching a landing, a four-way.
He knew the Second Mount well enough, and he knew that the undercity on this side began in a deep trough between the Second and the Fourth Mounts. He assumed those further left would take him into the Necropolis, and so right must take him—
“Way too long. That took you way too long.” A woman said from a shadowed hall before him—Adina’s voice with a touch of ridicule. She stepped into his light and held up her own, a bluish castlight in a stone. Her scarlet pants showed black in the light, and her white blouse a bright blue. Her eyes were dark pits of judgment and pity. She looked him up and down, particularly marmish today. He was suddenly aware that he was a red-handed, muddy mess. “There’s a passage behind the tapestries in the officer’s hall. Where exactly were you going, Capo?”
He grinned for her. He was happy to tell her, and she should know better than to try to shame him. That never worked, he was proud to say—he was the black sheep and everyone liked him that way. “I’ve decided we need a better class of camp-follower.”
“With all the same venereal diseases as you? Your sex pox is showing again.”
His hand flinched to his lower lip, but nothing was there. “That’s handled.”
She smirked. “Even with all the mago behind him, the Curador couldn’t cleanse your diseased corpus.”
Rizzi had had a little sister once, and she had had the same gall and wit. She was only eight and he twelve, but she could gut him as good as any bravi. It was the only reason he mostly tolerated Adina. “Did you want something, Capo?”
“When the Capitano notices you gone?” She was going to call him an idiot soon.
“It’s my leave, whatever. Tell him I rode out to the vineyards.”
“Then you owe me an expensive bottle of red.”
“Done.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, knowing he didn’t have money. He hadn’t told her about his stash, and he did have a habit of borrowing.
“You’re taking your sword? It’s bad enough you’ll be in the city.”
“It’s been years. Those old maiali probably died of heart attacks. They couldn’t catch the Little Jackal anyways.”
“Except they already did, you idiot. And it’s only been four years.” Her look turned stern as if she had authority to command him anymore. She had been his capo in the 4th Tenda, till he ranked up. Now he was a capo and he didn’t need to do a damn thing she said. “They’ll drop you in a water cage, no trial. Give it over.”
“What? No. The old maiali might be rotting, but the bravi won’t be.”
“The bravi can catch the Little Jackal where the polizia can’t?”
“Damn right they could.” And that would be worse than a water cage if he was caught outside his old territories, especially if the Oscuri got him. Adina was a smith’s daughter from the Fourth Mount, her mother was a governess. She could be forgiven for not knowing the bravi and how vulnerable he was without a sword.
“Then why go? What are you really doing?” That shrewd look.
“It’s not your business.”
She regarded him for a moment before deciding. “Fine. We can’t help you if you get caught.” She paused again, as if waiting for a response. He wasn’t going to give her that. “Idiot,” she sighed. “Take this path, bear left till you see a stair on the right. You’ll hit the Lower Warrens soon enough. If you smell a battlefield, you’ve gone too far.
“Good fortune,” Adina said as she headed back down to the Sede. He unhooked and held out his rapier to her as she passed. He had plenty of knives tucked away.
The cold dark smelled like spilled entrails and shit, the stench like a wall of shadow before his lantern. He’d smelled battlefields before and it was never pleasant, but this was an onslaught, and no natural stench. Every step came with a mounting terror, until finally even he, the Little Jackal, realized his error and turned back.
He found the stair he’d missed and made his way up and up until the dark was shot through with shafts of light; and then air, the trickle of drains; and then the full light of late morning. He was on the Fourth Mount, just outside the Mercato de Cenzao.
First stop, the Pelo. The dingy front was the same chipped blue and greasy windows. The door still needed an upward push. Skylights rained down day onto the sparse patronage at the bar—old faces he recognized with names he didn’t know—and into the den below the main bar. Even before joining the Sarks, this was an excellent place to do business. Trafolto at the casks this morning.
“Trafolto!” Rizzi announced himself.
The barkeep looked over and gave him a blank look, like a death mask with that scar crosswise on his face, which dawned to a slight, familiar smile. “You haven’t been here in some time, young man.” He slid an ale to the sun-worn fisherman at the end, then came to speak to Rizzi. He noticed the uniform. “Ah, I see.”
“Yeah. I’m a Capo, now.” He said it with pride because Capo was an elected position in the Sarks.
“Ah, that’s good.” He turned to a cask with a half-pint, poured it. “On the house then.”
“Thank you, always a friend to the Sarks.” Rizzi toasted the barkeep. “Hey, have any merchants come in, looking to travel?”
“Don’t think so. But they’d register at the Sede if they did.”
“Oh, yeah. What about Sufo Donato?”
“Who?”
“Tall, young guy, wooden teeth.”
“Oh, that Sufo. No. He got nabbed a few months ago, pulling scarab dye from a warehouse and running it over to La Bocca. You’ll probably see him on the front soon enough.”
Sounded like Sufo ran afoul of a High Family feud. “Damn, they don’t let us have anything, right?”
“That’s right,” he said, but nonplussed. Nobody liked the Families, not even the Families. For everyone else, they were just a part of the Pertani furniture. The parts you always stubbed your toe on.
“Well, I’ll go see who else is around.” He took his free ale to the back of the bar and looked down over the den. The circular tables were empty, the chairs not even taken down. That was right, everyone was away at war.
Rizzi downed his ale at the depressing sight then turned to go. He had other prospects.
Then there at the greasy window, a hulking, mustachioed figure in dress uniform, passing… no, stopping. The Capitano.
Rizzi ducked down behind the end of the bar. The old fisherman leaned over. “Ho, there.”
“Is he coming in?”
“Huh? Nay.” The old man paused for a moment. “Movin’ along.”
Rizzi sighed. The Capitano had some big meeting today all the way at the top. He’d have dragged Rizzi back to the Sede and beat him while he was in the stocks if Rizzi had ruined his day. Or just dragged him back to the polizia to have it done faster.
No, he wouldn’t. Capitano liked him—he didn’t object to his election to Capo—and Rizzi was too valuable in the field. His heart unknotted and his gut unclenched. He breathed.
The old fisherman chuckled. Rizzi stood. A line of wolf-tail tattoos stretched across the old man’s leather-stretched clavicle, his contracts. He was a very old man of the Cagne.
“Ciao-io, old soldato,” Rizzi said, and with a flourish downed his empty mug. He laid down his last copper, good for a pint for the old man.
It was an absolute delight to the old man. “Hey, Trafollo.” He raised his copper for service.
Rizzi waited for a moment at the door, lifted and pushed, peaked out. No Capitano in sight.
He stepped into the alley and headed toward the Sea. He got to a white plaster terrace but stopped at the corner. Breathed. He peaked around, looking for where the old man might have gone.
Unless the Capitano shimmied down the drainpipe in his whites and medals, there was no way to the left. To the right were the Passages, then the undercity. Rizzi squinted and sure enough, a white leather jacket and cape disappeared into the dark. Rizzi certainly couldn’t go in there. That territory was Bravi Oscuro.
The respectable ones guarded the Families, but they got up to so much worse in the buried places of the city. What was the old man up to?
His own business. File that away for Adina.
Rizzi swung his leg over the terrace and scooted down the pipe to the next level, then headed north.
In the Brick Gardens, the shops huddled close. Crowned with flowers and trees, the shopkeeps’ gardens and houses rose behind. They were built in all shades of brick like appendages, expanded and stacked and patched over generations until the district seemed like one immense, terraced garden of flowering order.
Rizzi followed the lane to the back courtyard of the Palazzo del Tramonto. The bordello’s back garden was sunk below the street, so Rizzi scaled the flowered trellis and dropped down to the cobblestones.
Lime trees, roses, and a fig tree twisting toward the iron balconies hung with baskets. Effulgent was the word that came to Rizzi, the word the Bastard would use.
He stepped toward the servant’s door, which swung open before he took a second step. A girl, maybe twelve, looked at him like an imbecile… like he was an imbecile.
“Is the Bastard free?”
She rolled her eyes and closed the door. She probably needed to drag the Bastard out of some lethargy. Rizzi busied himself circling the whirlpool of Krinathi jewels swirled among the cobblestones. He’d waited like this on the Bastard since he was a boy.
The Bastard Kevin appeared at a first story balcony and called down to him. “Rizzi No-name survived the Mortal Lists.” He leaned on the railing and narrowed his eyes, a cat ready to pounce. “The gods are fools.”
Kevin was as handsome as ever, exotic. Rizzi was hard already.
His features and skin were swarthy like the Vericanti—his father was of the Ardinghi family, but his mother, a Padrona of the Palazzo del Tramonto, was a woman from the south. His eyes were blue and white like the chop of the ocean, his hair the color of black cherries. Even his name was exotic, Kevin; and bold, the Bastard. He traded on his Ardinghi bloodline, as did many bastards in the trade, to the chagrin of the High Families.
It started as regular visits whenever Rizzi was flush, then the house hired him for protection. The Bastard, always studious, entertained him and taught him things about the world he had yet to see. He wouldn’t charge Rizzi on special occasions.
This was a special occasion. Rizzi started for the fig tree. “I’m coming up.”
“I wouldn’t,” he said casually, a passing playfulness. “That tree’s got a rot in it.”
Of course he opens with an insult. “You’re so clever. I love you.”
“Yes, you do. And no, whatever that is on your hands, you’re not bringing it in here.”
“I don’t need my hands. Hands are for swords and scepters.”
Kevin feigned boredom. “So, the Cagne got you after all. That was the rumor.” Denying Rizzi poetry after teaching it to him was how the Bastard Kevin liked to play.
That was fine. Rizzi had some time. “I’m a capo already.”
“Who died?”
“A couple people.”
“Convenient.”
“That’s not funny.”
That gave the Bastard pause. “You can climb up for a kiss.”
Rizzi scrambled up. The branch was sturdy enough to stand, so Kevin leaned down and Rizzi stretched up till their lips met and then their tongues. When they broke, Rizzi began to scrabble over the rail.
“No. Down.” Kevin rapped Rizzi’s knuckles with a closed fan, then wiped it on his sleeve. “I said you’re not coming in with whatever that is.”
“It’s from some stupid bush.” That got a doubtful look. “You could put a salve on it for me.” But Rizzi had to accept it. The balcony was a status symbol the Bastard didn’t have before. They were strict about these things with the managers.
Rizzi craned to see inside. The Bastard’s suite was opulent. Hints of cardamom incense wafted from the curtained doors. “You moved up too?”
“Of course.”
Kevin was in love with this place. It angered his father that he made money off the name and that was a delight to Kevin, but he genuinely enjoyed being here with the books and luxury. It was his home. He wouldn’t be easily tempted from this place, but he did like to make deals. “I have an offer.”
“Probably not.”
“Come to the Front, bring some friends along. Some maids and stableboys, too.” Their horsemaster didn’t really like followers around the horses though. “You’ll make plenty.”
“Not off you, I’m sure.”
“You wouldn’t charge me.”
“I couldn’t afford the curador visits. It would be a loss.”
“Please.”
That got a laugh from him. Kevin kissed him again. “Don’t die and come back when your contract is up. I’ll see you at the parade, assuming you get out of the city.”
Rizzi began to swing down, then tried one last thing. “You wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of red? And I could use a good shirt. Maybe some pants? You can have my last copper.”
The sun climbed; the day warmed. Psalms of the Sext came down from Temples, washing the streets and the wretched of Perta in holy timbres and a hot sun. These did not stop for noon-day prayers. Somewhere in the city, a new clock struck the vulgar hour, and workers flooded the muddy streets of the Opale.
Rizzi was back home, a bottle tucked under his arm along with a bundle of cast-offs from the Bastard, and a solid fondle. He was focused: there was nothing left for him but the gold. There were also plenty of people he could talk to in the Opale: plenty of small vendors, connected friends. But he had to keep low. When the masses of the Opale thronged the streets, so too did the maiali.
Rizzi stuck to the alleys, up and down stairs, through tenement piazzas. Quiet but for screaming brats, and mothers, and cooing as well. The men were at work and the younger children ventured out to the lanes.
He came to the gate behind the Bar dell'Anima. It was locked. It had never been locked before. The day grew more frustrating, but it was just a quick jaunt to the alley opposite and there were no gates that way—or there hadn’t been.
He peaked out from the alley. Just a couple of maiali harassing a man over his street sausages. Rizzi skittered across the lane, dodging shoulders, breathing deep the wafts of cooking meats and street food. He snagged a polpette as he passed a cart. He angled away from the polizia and finally into the safety of the opposite alley, unseen.
He went to the back, taking little meaty bites so he could savor it. The Sarks had picked up a cook, Cook, in the Dominion. He could make Vericanti dishes, but he clearly didn’t understand them. He never chopped the shallots or onions small enough, he would pack meatballs too tight, so a dish like a polpette would just—
A door kicked him in the face. Rizzi tumbled over buckets and mops. A bearded man in white stepped out. The Capitano had found him.
No, it was just old Terzo, one of the cooks at Ginocchia d'Ape. He tossed a bunch of dirty dish water then looked down. “Rizzi. The old hells and the new have opened back up.” He offered his hand and hoisted Rizzi to his feet, giving him heavy smacks on the shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Everybody knows my business.”
“When did you ever keep it quiet?” There were plenty of things they didn’t know. “The maiali weren’t happy losing you. And, honestly,” He said, craning his neck back through the door, searching. “Grato isn’t happy with you either. You might want to get out of here.”
“Grato loves me.”
“Not anymore.”
“Terzo!” a voice called from within. But it was too late, Grato was already at the door. “Who’s out here?”
Grato dipped his head out. He’d managed to grow a bit of beard over his jolly cheeks. He held a butcher knife, and dark blood caked his whites. He finally looked like the bruiser he was, but for those bright happy eyes. They became immediately unhappy, seeing Rizzi. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Who’s out here?” a woman’s voice. Vala stepped out. “Rizzi!” Genuine enthusiasm in her voice.
Rizzi grinned up to her before facing Grato, grinless. “What did I do?”
“Don’t kill him out here,” Terzo said as he dragged Vala through the door.
Grato stood on the stairs and leaned down to get in Rizzi’s face. His breath still smelled like chocolate. In a low voice, “I piss needles twice a year because of you.”
“That’s not my fault. I’m always careful.” Rizzi matched his whisper, adding some incredulity. It wasn’t that difficult to get rid of, but Grato was never good at taking care of himself. It’s why he was so clingy.
Grato only gave him a look. “Get the fuck out. Don’t even come here when your contract is up. Your ass will be right back in jail, then you can get dunked.”
“You wouldn’t.” There were certain things you didn’t do in the Opale. Maybe Rizzi deserved a beating, but not the polizia. “Even when you left me in that alley with those Oscuri, I didn’t hold it against you.”
“Get the fuck out.”
There was no urgency to prayer nor business on the Collana Verdi. Lovers napped in the shade. Winding paths separated paisley-shaped lawns, each featuring a lone tree, blooming bush, or trellised vine. The Cristallo Reale, the public gardens, glimmered atop its wide marble steps, overlooking the Mare del’Ore with the satisfaction of a conqueror.
There was that deep, abiding blankness in Rizzi. The one he could never shake no matter how much he latched onto the world: the soft greene, the sparkling sea, the smokestacks churning out industry and masts rolling beyond. His skin itched all over now. It was winter but somehow warm. He removed his jacket and sloughed along the shaded paths toward the Dockside stairs.
The Collana and the Cristallo were meant to impress the merchants, foreign and domestic, the Bastard had taught him. To Rizzi it had just been a place to pick pockets and busk—he even mastered the busk and walk gambit here. Then it got dangerous, and he was getting too old for that kind of stuff anyways. He didn’t know it then, but he was already leaving Dockside behind. Once he took up with the Bravi dell’Opale, his work took him more and more uphill. He wasn’t one to look back.
He came to the stairs, trying to lighten his mood with the thought of a squishy sack of gold in one hand and a hard cock in the other.
The Dockside he knew wasn’t there anymore.
What was once a jumble of roofs along a promenade to the quay had been remade in white brick and green terracotta roof tiles. Now, it was gridded out with two wide avenues east and west and a bunch of smaller streets between.
The whole city was changed. Was it still Perta without that sooty cancer growing and crawling over itself for over a thousand years?
There was, at least, still the old clock tower in the central square. It looked polished and shining on its plinth. Had they fixed it too?
The streets were mostly empty. One thing hadn’t changed: they were still Guild down here—they took any excuse for a break. They marked the Sext with long lunches and a riposo. Even the traveling merchants knew there was no business in the noon hour.
He dipped into the side streets, which now had clear lines of sight to the Quays. He slid his jacket back on. He was exposed, trapped, having to check corners all the time. He caught glimpses of maiali sitting outside their stations, so he walked doubly casual crossing the street.
Why did they do this? Natural catastrophe? Did the Families get their claws into the docks?
He stuck to plan and went west. Maybe the stockhouse still stood in those jumbled edges, but he knew it didn’t.
The place was nicer, though, he had to admit. He was in a residential quarter. The backways didn’t smell like rotting wood and sodden humanity anymore. There were apartment buildings, four and five stories tall in place of the lopsided, sinking shanties and tenements. Dockside had never been so far from the muck of the city. Small fountains of running water dotted little squares every few blocks—Dockside had running water now.
A few elderly shucked peas on their stoops, or chatted over the riposo. One still had her wooden case of soaps and cigarettes open for business should any simply happen by while she napped with other women enjoying hot jejaris nearby. He could smell it from the street.
Still, Rizzi was left wondering where all the residents went. There was no way all the destitute of Dockside could cram themselves into these orderly blocks. No way they’d let themselves be imprisoned by rent-traps. Maybe the gods were finally done with Rizzi’s people and wiped them out.
The squalid brats still respected no religion, however, and ran rampant during the prayer hour. At least there was that sign of life. How did they get so dirty, not a single muddy lane in sight?
He stopped to ask a gang of urchins gathered at a fountain. “What happened around here?”
They looked at him like he was stupid. They didn’t respect the uniform down here either. The biggest boy—maybe twelve, pug-nosed, shaved head but still bug-infested—spoke up. “What do you mean, what happened?”
Rizzi gestured to their surroundings.
But once the leader spoke, it was a deluge. “Where’s your sword?” “What’s wrong with your hands?” “Give us that wine.”
“It was a big sorcer’ battle.” An eight-year-old finally wheezed an answer. “Where have you been? Suckin’ on your mom’s tit?”
The Sarks had gotten news like that, now that Rizzi thought about it. When somebody says they wiped out the Docks, you don’t think it was an entire demolition job. Anyways, this little shit was giving him lip. He jabbed his finger into the boy’s chest and dropped his last copper into his jacket pocket. “I’ve been killin’ kids.”
“You what?” The leader pulled a knife, pulling the other behind.
It was sloppy, his thumb on the spine. When Rizzi was his age, he’d already been taught that much—never enough food to go around, but plenty of hard men to show you knifework.
Rizzi was a capo, training was his duty. He reached into his jacket, winced as his rash brushed the leather, then brandished a knife and rapped the boys thumb with the butt. The boy flinched. “Tuck that thumb before you lose it. And you should’ve stuck me the second my hand went to my jacket.”
The boy adjusted his grip and was about to stab Rizzi for the lesson.
“Hey, you mother-shites!” a man’s voice called. Rizzi turned. Two maiali approached.
“The scopate,” the leader blurted, and the boys scattered.
“Officer, he’s a murderer,” one yelled back. Another cackled, “Nonce tried to touch me.”
Rizzi ran too. But this wasn’t a place you could get lost in anymore. When he was young, he could dodge and weave through streets, up balconies and over roofs. He knew the safe havens and choice cubbies to hide in. He lived his first twelve years like that till he found a place in the Bravi dell’Opale, then from cutpurse to sword-carrying brother of the Opale, in just two short years. He had killed a man by fifteen; killed the wrong man at seventeen.
He barreled through a warehouse district, breathless, but the maiali never changed, they were out of shape. They’d given up after just a couple blocks. He took some random turns, then hid himself behind some crates in a side alley, looking out at the street, protected and unseen.
The hour struck from the clock tower. They’d fixed it, Rizzi thought far away. He was near where, he supposed, the stockhouse should be—the humps of the old alleys and streets still lay beneath the new cobblestones. He wondered if that curved hump was Pistillo Alley, the view of the clock tower seemed right, so maybe this alley was that rotting tenement where his sister had died of consumption. He hid in that room with her body for a week because he couldn’t stop crying. When he finally came out, he was no longer afraid of death.
He slid out of the alley, safe. The warehouses and shops here were all white-washed, green terracotta roof tiles, like sea glass. For a moment, Rizzi was proud—that clay was special from Jama. A fun trip. But that pride was quickly ridden down by the deepening fear that his gold was long gone; and that there were many eyes waking from the riposo. He needed to be quick.
The new cobblestone streets dead-ended at the old stone paths. The buildings were a hodgepodge of old and new. He went several twistings till many of the buildings had been spared.
The stockhouse came into view, it looked intact to Rizzi. The same dirty old brick still ran right up to the street. He could hear sheep inside. The front office looked the same, a shabby wood façade that still bore the family name, Cifelli’s. The windows to the upstairs apartment were open and Rizzi could smell seared meat. Maybe he should see Nico and the old man.
As he rounded the corner, however, he found the whole backside rebuilt, as if it had been shorn clean off—brick, mortar, sheep and his gold. He wanted to cry. He didn’t.
Look at that, the old street around it was blackened with a directional blast. Sorcerers. He looked back at the way he came with all those new buildings. Damn sorcerers.
Rizzi was a Sark, now. He didn’t give up so easy. Maybe, just maybe, Nico found the gold, a little sack in the wreckage of his father’s business, and rather than tempt the gods, he just put it back when they rebuilt. Or maybe he was smart and put it to the renovations and Rizzi would be fine with that. Nico and his pops would put it to far better use than Rizzi could.
He went to the back corner, kicked at the fourth brick up—no give. Third, fifth, sixth—nothing. He sat down in the shade of the back loading dock.
The heavy steel door scraped open, and Nico was standing over him. He wore overalls over a clean undershirt. His hair was slicked back, and he was freshly shaven. His jaw seemed harder. Everything else about his face softer, but more openly the same. “Rizzi, I thought that was you.”
“Yeah. I’m back, but I have to get back to the Sede.” Rizzi got up as if to leave.
“Rizzi Ophois is a capo?” Nico bent down and ran his thumb over the chevron and wolf’s head on Rizzi’s epaulets.
“Yeah.” Nico always noticed these things and was the only one who still used Rizzi’s family name or knew he even had one. Rizzi was born of a jackal as far as anyone else knew. There was no one left but Rizzi who remembered the Ophois. And why would they? If their name had been carved into Dockside somewhere, it would have been blasted by those sorcerers. He shed the name a long time ago. But hearing it again from Nico’s mouth in this place on such a bright day made Rizzi’s chest ache. Six more years.
“Hells’ buckets, you’re hands.”
“Just a bush I got into.”
He chuckled at that. No one ever believed Rizzi—no reason why they should—but Nico never held it against him. “I’ll get something for it.”
He came back with a bucket of brownish goo with an inner shimmer. “Kills and scrubs anything on the livestock.” He handed Rizzi a clean brush. “Let it sit a minute then rinse it.” He pointed at the shiny spigot by the door.
“Why’d you come all the way down here? Your exile and all.” He sat down as Rizzi took the brush and tested the goo, then slathered it over his right hand.
“It’s not an exile.” His conscription wasn’t a permanent state. He would be back for good in six years. “You didn’t happen to find some gold in the wreckage?”
“No.” He chuckled. “But we didn’t do all the clean-up. You hid gold here?”
“Nothing to do with you and no one else knows.” There were a couple letters already in Rizzi’s file with the Cagne. One was to Nico, telling him of the gold. Now that he knew, Nico probably already suspected where it was from—Rizzi Innominato had made the papers once. He wouldn’t bring it up. “I would’ve told you eventually.”
“Sorry. It was chaos here for a couple days. People were digging out while we were digging in. And work crews came in to help clean up and rebuild.”
“A couple days?” What happened?”
“It was at night. Usmarro was nightwatch; heard crackling and explosions but by then, everyone was awake. We could see it from the Brickyards.” Nico’s voice was far away. He lived in the Brick Gardens now.
“The clock tower sparked lightning. It was insane.” The fire and lightning were still in his eyes, staring at the blackened cobbles. “Tore everything up all the way to Perdito Street. Fires everywhere. Then there was a running street battle, they said—ten mages or more, or maybe just two. Nobody was sure what was going on, only that they were in the way. Fucking sorcerers.
“Buildings exploded at random. Green vapors in the streets, choking people. One thousand, seven hundred and thirty-three bodies. No one knew how to count the people in ashes. Bucket Brigade couldn’t keep up, died trying. The Mago Polizia showed up late as usual.
“Whoever they were, they blasted each other in the end. Not sure why.
“It took a day to get through to here. But we got off lucky. Usmarro hauled when it got close. Pins were only half full. Insurance covered it.”
“How’d it all get rebuilt so fast?” It was deep mystery to Rizzi, the Guilds and landlords laying down arms.
“The Conchessa wrangled all the property owners, the Guilds, all the feuds, and we rebuilt it in a year with the Sovrano’s backing. He shamed the Families into pitching in. Different layout, but everybody got their property back, those who lived. Even the squatters could stay if they worked. We rebuilt within a year.”
“Good. It all looks good. It’s not dirty anymore.”
“Yeah. That’s about all that’s changed. Except the kids, don’t cross the kids. Urchins Guild moved in.” Good for them. The Sarks had used their services in the Dominion. “How was your contract?”
“Six more years.”
“You can afford good wine?” That conspiratorial smile.
“A gift from the Bastard.”
“What’s it like out there?”
“We went overland into the Oběť, then boats to Jama, as far east as the Dominion. Those roof tiles.” He pointed to the roofs and then himself, beaming with pride.
Nico laughed. “People are already having to patch them. But we got them cheap, I guess.”
“It’s not my claypit, not my kiln. I just got it onto the boats, safe.”
“It was very safe when it came in.”
“The Scarlet Sarks get the job done. There was a forvalaka, it’s a sorcerous vampire werepanther, in the Oběť. We killed it.”
“How?”
“Strategy, wizardry, alchemy, and a big javelin. I shit in my hands.” They both laughed.
“What did you kill in Jama?”
“Cocks, everywhere.” More laughter. Nico knew how Rizzi was and didn’t hold it against him. “Is your dad still running things?”
“Less so. I’m married, so he says it’s time. I think he’s taking his pension back to Umbriazza, where his people are from. We’re all—me, Forrizzia and dad, in the Brickyards now, it’s an old family place of hers. They’re tailors. I dress nicer at home. Usmarro lets the rooms here.”
There was a lot Rizzi wanted to say, to ask, but none of it would come to mind. They just lay there in him like dogs, content and not willing to heel. This was always the way it had been with Nico. Easy at a distance.
“You can rinse that. The smell will wear off eventually. Usmarro is cooking. If you give it a while, the maiali thin out after the Nonce bells. There’s a new stair that takes you right up to the Nord Passaggio.”