Chapter Six: Bondsgirl, Witch Hunter, & Orphan

Crouching at the top of the Caravel Lane Hostel, Val looked out over the muddy little courtyard toward the twist of shanties and warrens she was supposed to be watching. She was excited and nervous in equal measure. If this Viana Forsooth was a real witch, that meant she had magical powers.

Val had only ever seen three sorts of magic before. The sort of alchemy where healing potions were made, which was plenty impressive. The sort of magic that wasn't really magic, like the stage magicians performed. And the little gouts of fire and flame-dancing tricks that street pyromancers performed. Val wondered which kind Viana did.

Val thought up little games to keep herself occupied. She counted the number of animals wandering around the courtyard. The answer was seven: three dogs, three goats, and one very sneaky cat. She tried to imagine the lives of the people wandering out from the Gage's Den back exit. Most of them looked like street urchins aged up twenty years, but some of them looked like anybody you might see shopping along the Green Procession or even in the posher shops just past Resonant Square. The slim young man briskly walking out the back, for instance…

Oh.

That wasn't a slim, young man at all. That was a woman dressed up a lot like Val was. Her dark hair had enough volume that she couldn't quite hide it in a page's cap.

Without quite realizing it, Val pulled her whistle up and gave it a good blow. It was a lot louder than she expected and it left her ears ringing. A second later, the woman started running and then Ette burst out the back, immediately followed by two significantly larger men. He spun to face one of them and clocked him in the jaw. The man dropped like a sack of potatoes - the bondsman had a heck of a right hook. The knuckle dusters probably didn't hurt either.

Then the woman whipped around and did something with her hands. The ground trembled and gouts of steam whipped up all around Ette. As that happened, Val felt a strange whisper buzzing in the back of her head, almost like hearing a voice, but she definitely felt it. She saw the flash of something alchemical within the cloud as Ette did something to dispel it, but Viana had changed direction to evade him. Now she was heading toward Val.

Val pondered what to do. Ette had given her a knife with a blade a bit longer than her palm, but she didn't really know how to use it beyond 'poke repeatedly'. She doubted it would do much good against a witch who could make the earth tremble and call forth gouts of mist. Val bet that, if she wasn't put on the spot, she could do a lot worse than that. Now she was really close, about to pass right by the Caraval Lane Hostel where Val was crouched. Should she do something?

"Hey!" Val shouted, and she peered over the roof at the woman.

Surprise flashed across the woman's face, followed by the flash of magic in her eyes. Val wondered whether she should blow the whistle twice because she was pretty sure she was about to get witchcraft cast on her. Instead she grabbed a loose brick and hurled it down. Just as the strange whisper rose at the base of Val's mind, the brick glanced off of Viana's head with a little pik sound and the sensation stopped.

Ette sprinted up a moment later, gasping when he saw Viana and then looking roofward to spot Val.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Fine," Val said.

"What did you do?"

"Got her attention and then tossed a brick at her."

Ette chuckled. "That's one way to do it. I think you've got a knack for this work."

Just as Viana started to stir, Ette tied a sleep-cloth around her face that knocked her out again. He'd let Val sniff the stuff earlier - a single whiff made her head swim and her knees go funny. A few whiffs would knock anybody out. He bound the unconscious woman, hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and gestured for Val to climb back down.

"Let's make ourselves scarce before those brothers of her wake up. One's got two shillings on his head, but we're in no shape to transport two prisoners."

They made it half-way to the precinct when they were accosted - but not by Viana's brothers. They were four red- and blue-clad brother-knights of the Penitent Order. They spotted Ette and Val and wandered up to them, surrounding the two of them (three if you counted the witch) in a way that made Val want to duck under the nearest one and make for the alleyways. Which, given her last encounter with brother-knights in an alleyway, might not go so well. She held her ground.

"Please let me pass, gentlemen. I'm an acting officer of the law," Ette said. Val could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

"And who've you got this time? A sister? An abbess?" the leader of the group asked. He gave Ette a push with his gauntleted hand, hard enough that it nearly knocked the top-heavy bondsman off balance.

Ette carefully set the unconscious Viana down and unbuttoned her sleeve, rolling it up to reveal a network of intricate tattoos. "She's a witch, brother. I've got her bond papers and I'm taking her to justice. Please let my nephew and me pass."

The brother-knight crouched to Val's face level, which she didn't care for at all. "Did you know your uncle kidnapped a bishop and sold him to the heathens? He's fucking swine and he's going to pay, in this life or the next…"

"I heard he buggered a bunch of little kids," Val said. "He deserved to get bagged. Let us go."

The brother-knight snorted sour breath in Val's face and visibly considered doing something, but people were already gathering around to watch events unfold. His fellow knight mumbled that they didn't want to cause a scene, that there would be time aplenty to make Ette pay for what he'd done. The head knight gritted his teeth and poked a stubby finger against Ette's leather.

"To. Be. Continued," he snarled. With a gesture, he motioned the other knights away and they marched off westward toward Burrowing Rounds.

"Looks like you're in trouble with the Pale Order, too," Val said.

Ette ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "Yeah, looks that way. Come on, let's get this bounty to the precinct before that lot decides to circle back."

+++++

That was the first case that Val helped Ette worked, but it wasn't the last. Most of the time, he went out alone, and sometimes he called associates or had associates call him if they were bagging multiple bounties. But, whenever he just needed a lookout, that was Val's job. After a few goes, he even let Val climb up through an open window so she could unlock the back door of the house.

She shimmied up the gutter and scampered across the ledge with Ette cringing and whispering at her to be more careful even though he knew she was an excellent climber. Then she crept through the house with people sleeping in it and down to the basement, where she found the back door and let Ette in. He had her wait outside and emerged two minutes later dragging a big, unconscious man with sleep-cloth bound to his mouth. He closed the back door as quiet as could be and everybody else in the house slept right through it.

Then Val unrolled the sledge and helped Ette set it up. For bounties who might be too heavy to carry, as this man probably was, Ette had a sledge that he could drag them along with. Otherwise, he'd have to hire a coach, which would cut into his profits.

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"It's important to pinch your pence, because you never know when you'll need them," Ette said. "Another few years of this and me and Ginn can afford that seaside house and leave Wayfair behind."

"What about me?" Val asked.

"You?" Ette chuckled. "Oh, I don't mind spending a few shillings on you. That's different. That's an investment in the future."

That wasn't what Val had been getting at. She'd wondered whether there'd be a spot for her in that idyllic country house, or whether she'd be expected to take over Ette's business. Either one would have suited her fine, but she was terrified that she didn't fit into either plan. What if she was just an orphan charity case to them and they just cast her aside when they felt that they'd been generous enough? Or, worse yet, what if Ginn was wrong and the curse was real.

"You said you were with Reina Glazer for two weeks when her kiln split wide open? And you were with Alstus for two weeks when half of the animals escaped?" Ginn said.

"Right… almost like a curse," Val reiterated.

"Well you've been here two weeks and two days," Ginn said, and she checked the days off on the calendar to prove it. "No disaster yet. Do you think we might be in the clear?"

"Maybe," Val said. She wanted to think it was possible.

During the days when the wasn't out with Ette, which was about two days out of three, Val helped out in the office. There was a lot to do, from keeping the books to doing background research on potential bounties. Sometimes, this required going out and asking people on the street, which Ginn mostly did herself. Other times, you could just read through the files of who was related to who and figure out how the criminals ticked. About half the time, Val figured out the connection without Ginn pointing it out.

Alchemy was another thing that Ginn did - something that, apparently, most people couldn't do since you needed the Gift. But Ginn had it, and so she could take the herbs and extracts they procured from Beatriz Hornswall, or else grew in their little rooftop herb garden, prepare them with her little benchtop kit, and have them ready for use. That's what Ette had used to banish the witch's magical mist - one of the phials of dispelling agent that Ginn had prepared for her.

"Do I have the Gift?" Val asked.

"Too early to say," Ginn said. She slid a rack of fresh-filled phials over for Val to stopper up. "It doesn't come until your first blood, and then it comes all at once if you've got it. Looking as you do and being so sharp, I'm guessing there's a good chance, but there's no way to tell until you've got your period."

Val sighed. Like most things, then, it would have to wait until she was older. Though that answer lead to the obvious follow-up question. "What about boys?"

"For them it's not all at once. It comes over two or three months, and usually a year later than the girls. That's my understanding, but I'm no expert. What I know, I learned from Oestel Bonnikin, who taught the children at my temple…"

"Didn't know you were religious," Val said. Ginn couldn't but have helped to pick up the cool tone.

"I'm not," Ginn insisted. "Not in that way. Certainly not like those Pale Order cretins. What do you know about the old gods?"

Val finished stoppering the vials and set them aside. She furrowed her brow in thought and recounted everything she knew, which turned out to be quite a lot. Astrid Lavoie had told them stories, and then Val had read through the whole book that those stories had come from because they contained plenty of exciting adventures. She told her about the quest for the Gotchalis, about the winged warrior women who would swoop out of the sky to smite the unworthy, and about how Hurgald had been elevated upon a winged horse right up to Sturmhalle.

"I reckon that's more than nine out of ten grown-ups knows," Ginn said eventually. "I grew up worshiping them, though we're not supposed to talk about it anymore. It's not illegal, but nobody will do business with you if they find out, so we've got to keep it very hush-hush."

"You believe in the old gods, then?" Val asked.

Ginn sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose where her pince-nez glasses had left little red marks. "Honestly, I don't know. Some days I do and others I don't, depending on my mood. I've seen precious few miracles in my lifetime, none of which I can say for certain is the work of the gods." She looked at Val for a long and slightly awkward moment, her brow trembling as she debated whether to say what she said next.

"I still pray," she said. "Every night. I've got a little shrine in the bedroom, and I light my candles and pray. After Galvan was born, I was ecstatic. Obviously, I was. But after a year or so passed, I decided I wanted a daughter, too, and I prayed for one every night for years. I took to pregnancy with Ette's seed seven more times, and each time I miscarried early on, and eventually I just gave up.

"I didn't pray for a year or more after that, but old habits die hard. I never prayed for a child again, and I've been taking moonsmire ever since because I'm not sure I could bear another loss. Then… I don't know. On a lark I prayed for a daughter again… I don't know what I was even thinking, except that it's been so lonely with Galvan apprenticed to his uncle now. I prayed, and then the next day you came through our door, and now here you are…"

Val was at a loss for what to say. Part of her wanted to say that she was nobody's daughter, not since her mother died six years ago. But she knew that would break Ginn's heart and she didn't want to do that. Neither did she want to affirm the superstitions of a woman she'd known for less than three weeks. But she also knew that she couldn't say nothing. Yet there might be a middle path…

"I like it here," she said eventually. "I'm glad I ended up here, and maybe it was the gods and maybe it wasn't. But I hope I can make you happy."

Ginn watched Val for a long minute - Val couldn't tell whether she was very happy or very sad, because tears were dribbling down her cheeks but it also looked like she was smiling. She wiped her face dry and then pulled Val close. As usual, she seemed to have a poor grasp of how far her chest protruded because Val found herself mashed against soft bosom. She ran her fingers through Val's hair and the two of them just sat there for a moment before she sighed and put some distance between them.

"Now… Lots left to do. I'll show you how to extract oils from our leaves…"

+++++

Val missed her several friends back at Mrs. Lavoie's - Pudge most of all, obviously, but she had a dozen or so casual friends she sometimes jobbed with. Used to job with. She hoped they all found places to stay like she had - hopefully, without getting a five-crown price on their heads. At least the Penitent Order seemed to have cooled their forge when it came to looking for her. She'd gone to ground and they'd come to accept that.

She still saw Penny at the herbalist's, though she was always dressed as Clyve when she went there because she wasn't supposed to be seen in public. The first time, she'd walked in and milled about for thirty minutes before Penny gave her a good, long look and realized that it was her.

"Hell's bells, I didn't recognize you at all! With that cap, you look like a boy! Well, almost…"

"Almost? What's off?" Val checked to make sure no hair was dangling out from under her cap.

"Your face is… well, I suppose some boys have soft faces. Mostly, you're just too clean."

"That's fair."

After that first visit as Clyve, she stopped by every other day or so, and if Mrs. Hornswall suspected anything was afoot, it was only that Clyve had a crush on Penny, which was an understandable sentiment. She would stop in, mill around with Penny for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then return with whatever herbs and extracts Ginn had ordered.

This went on for a few visits. Val got the impression that Ginn didn't stop by the herbalist's quite so much but was breaking her orders into smaller parts because she could tell that Val looked forward to it. Ginn was observant like that. Ette, too. In their line of work, it was dangerous not to be observant. Frankly, it was a major liability for anybody in Wayfair not to be observant. It was just that kind of city.

Penny was observant, too. One afternoon, Val was only two steps inside the shop when Penny pulled her aside, concern playing across her delicate features.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Wh- what?" Val pulled away from her.

"A pair of brother-knights from the Resplendent Order came in the other day asking after you… asking after you, not 'Valerie Jade', you understand? And they asked who you were always picking up packages for and, since Mrs. Hornswall was right there, I had to tell them. So I told them that you were getting the packages for the Vinzennos…"

So far that didn't sound so bad, and Val said as much. The Penitent Order already knew that Clyve was working for Ette since they cornered the pair of them on their way back from the Burrowing Rounds. Surely, Penny knew that this wasn't so bad…

"You're right. But they asked me a lot of questions and I got flustered and Mrs. Hornswall kept on telling me I had to answer all of their questions, as if I didn't know that! So, then they asked me if there was anything strange about the Vinzenno boy, anything, and I didn't know what to say. I meant to say something that would give them nothing pie but make it look like I was trying my best to give them information, and so I told them that lots of people have violet eyes…"

"What…" suddenly Val felt numb. "Penny… why did you do that?"

"Hell's bells, Val, I don't know… maybe they did mind magic on me or maybe I'm just dumb, all right? But now I'm pretty sure they know about you and they know you're with the Vinzennos now… I'm really sorry, but you've got to get away…"

Val was in tears. She tried to wipe them away, little bits of yellowy tincture making little stains on her sleeves. Pretty soon, her eyes would be back to violet again. "What do I do?"

"You've got to get out of here. Get out of the neighborhood. Lay low for a while. Here… I've got three shillings saved up…"

Val smacked Penny's hand as hard as she could, sending the three shillings skittering across the floor. "You ruined my life!"

Val dashed out of the shop and down the square, tears still streaming down her cheeks, her eyes now definitely back to violet. She couldn't go back to the Vinzennos, not with the whole Penitent Order after her. Once again, just like that, she was an orphan.