“No talking!” shouted a nearby soldier. He approached with one hand on his sheathed rapier, and Orso bowed his head, cowed. When the soldier finally turned his back on them, Orso looked at Gregor. His face had barely moved.
“Gregor?” asked Orso quietly.
“I…remember,” whispered Gregor. His eyes were blank and crazed. “I remember, I remember, I remember…”
He broke himself, thought Orso. Damn it…Gregor’s gone somewhere in his head, and I can’t call him ba—
“So…exactly who in the hell are you?” asked a gruff voice.
Orso looked up and saw the Michiel captain standing over them, his small, puffy eyes darting back and forth between their faces.
Orso wondered what to say. Before he could speak, the captain said, “My boys here tell me they found you hacking up Dandolo soldiers in the halls…so I highly doubt you’re with those thieves. So—who are you?”
Orso thought as fast as he could. “Saboteurs,” he said.
The captain took his pipe out of his teeth. “What’s that? Here to sabotage…what? Us?”
“N-No,” said Orso. “The Dandolos.”
“Ohh?” said the captain appraisingly. “And why’s that?”
“We knew what they were doing here. A…A power grab. Trying to steal bits of the lexicons of this place. We had to stop them.”
“And…again, why’s that?”
Orso had an idea. “Because…I am Orso Ignacio. And this is Gregor Dandolo.”
The captain blinked. “You lot…You’re the Foundryside people, are you?”
“Yes.” Orso waited, hoping this worked—perhaps the enemy of an enemy might be a friend.
“And you’re here to piss in Ofelia Dandolo’s wine?” The captain looked at Gregor. “In his mother’s wine? Is that it?”
“Yes.”
The captain looked at them, his small eyes half-hidden behind their heavy lids. “I see,” he said quietly.
Orso waited, hoping that perhaps, just once, the night could go their way.
“You think that impresses me?” demanded the captain. “That it makes me warm to you, that you were here trying to sabotage the people who stole this shithole from us?”
“I…I would think that it mi—”
The captain spat on the ground. “You prissy little shitlings are the very reason my house is in the woeful state that it is! Did you know that?”
“W-What?” said Orso, surprised.
“Slaves rebelling left and right? Scrivers starting their own houses in the Commons?”
“Ah…”
The captain pulled out his rapier and pointed it at Orso. “It’s heresy! It’s madness! It goes against everything that Tevanne has ever stood for! And it’s all your fault. It’s all your doing, every bit of it!”
Orso glanced at the number of bodies being stacked in the atrium. He wanted to mention how another thing that had once been considered madness and heresy had been the idea of two merchant houses going to war in Tevanne. No one had ever thought to attempt such a thing, given that the foundry lexicons that made the campos run were so unstable. It was like tossing lit matches around in a granary mill.
“I told our house officers not to wait,” continued the captain, looking out at the atrium around them. “The second you all went and set up your bastard little shop, I told them to wade right into the Commons and burn you all out. Can’t let the Commoners start handling scrived rigs. They’d get ideas. Start thinking they were above their stations.”
“We…are not precisely Commoners, though,” said Orso. “We—”
“Yes, yes, yes, you’re Lamplanders,” said the captain with a sneer. “Talk about thinking above your station…Scrivers think just because they’ve read a book or two they know everything in the world. I always knew they’d start questioning their betters. Trying to tear down all the founders have given us. What ingratitude!”
The captain ranted on—apparently he’d been writing this speech in his head for some time—but Orso just watched as this aged, scarred man, a man who’d shed and spilled blood in God only knew how many battles, passionately defended the campo elites: people who had never known a tenth of the hardship and pains that he had, and never would.
And as he listened to the captain speak, Orso felt something deeply unpleasant spool into his belly: doubt.
He doubted for the very first time whether the merchant houses could really be overthrown—if Tevanne really could be restored, or remade, or at least changed, just a little. What change could possibly be accomplished in the face of such thoughtless, ignorant conviction?
There was a silence as the captain’s rant tapered to an end. He turned around and studied them, his eyes cold and distant. “I knew it would always come to this,” he said. He pointed his rapier at Orso. “Haul this one to the center of the atrium, boys.”
“W-What?” said Orso, startled.
The soldiers picked him up by the arms and dragged him away. The captain called to his men to bring a table and some rope, and they did so.
“I don’t…Stop…Stop, please…” said Orso.
They ignored him. The soldiers brought the wooden table over, and the captain shoved Orso down so his head was bent to its surface. Then they held him down and tied his head and body so he was laid flat against the wood.
“What are you doing?” asked Orso weakly. “What…What are you doing to m—”
“You know who this is?” shouted the captain. “This here is Orso Ignacio, lads! He’s the man who caused all the trouble our city has seen! He’s the man who’s ducked the loop and laughed at us all!”
The soldiers clapped and jeered at him. Orso realized what the captain was about to do. “No! No!” he cried.
Goddamn it, Orso thought as he struggled against his bonds. I probably designed the scrumming sword in your hand! And now you’re going to kill me with it, you oaf!
“Now let’s see if the founder of Foundryside can scheme his way out of this one,” said the captain, walking close, “with his head separated from his body!”
The soldiers cheered, and the captain lifted the sword high.
* * *
—
Berenice almost screamed in horror as the captain raised the sword. Sancia sat frozen, unable to think. She wanted to jump down there and attack…but if she did, they’d surely kill her too.