Red Seas Under Red Skies: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Book Two (Gentleman Bastards 2)

With their handful of silver volani (converted from Camorri solons at an extortionate rate by the first mate of the Golden Gain, who’d argued that it was still preferable to the numismatic mugging they’d receive from the town’s moneychangers), he and Locke secured a third-floor room at the Silver Lantern, a sagging old inn on the waterfront.

Jean immediately set about procuring a source of income. If Camorr’s underworld had been a deep lake, Vel Virazzo’s was a stagnant pond. He had little trouble sussing out the major dockside gangs and the relationships between them. There was little organization in Vel Virazzo, and no boss-of-bosses to screw things up. A few nights of drinking in all the right dives and he knew exactly who to approach.

They called themselves the Brass Coves, and they skulked about in an abandoned tannery down on the city’s eastern docks, where the sea lapped against the pilings of rotting piers that had seen no legitimate use in twenty years. By night, they were an active crew of sneak-thieves, muggers and coat-charmers. By day, they slept, diced and drank away most of their profits. Jean kicked in their door (though it hung loosely in its frame, and wasn’t locked) at the second hour of the afternoon on a bright, sunny day.

There were an even dozen of them in the old tannery, young men between the ages of fifteen and twenty-odd. Standard membership for a local-trouble sort of gang. Those that weren’t awake were slapped back to consciousness by their associates as Jean strolled into the centre of the tannery floor.

‘Good afternoon!’ He gave a slight bow, from the neck, then spread his arms wide. ‘Who’s the biggest, meanest motherfucker here? Who’s the best bruiser in the Brass Coves?’

After a few seconds of silence and surprised stares, a relatively stocky young man with a crooked nose and a shaved head leapt down onto the dusty floor from an open staircase. The boy walked up to Jean and smirked.

‘You’re lookin’ at him.’

Jean nodded, smiled, then whipped both of his arms around so that his cupped hands cracked against both of the boy’s ears. He staggered, and Jean took a firm hold of his head, lacing his fingers tightly behind the rear arch of his skull. He pulled the tough’s head sharply downward and fed him a knee - once, twice, three times. As the boy’s face met Jean’s kneecap for the last time, Jean let go, and the tough sprawled backwards on the tannery floor, senseless as a side of cold, salted meat.

‘Wrong,’ said Jean, not even breathing heavily. ‘I’m the meanest motherfucker here. I’m the biggest bruiser in the Brass Coves.’

‘You ain’t in the Brass Coves, arsehole,’ shouted another boy, who nonetheless had a look of awed disquiet on his face.

‘Let’s kill this piece of shit!’

A third boy, wearing a tattered four-cornered cap and a set of handmade necklaces threaded with small bones, darted toward Jean with a stiletto drawn back in his right hand. When the thrust came, Jean stepped back, caught the boy by the wrist and yanked him forward into a backfist from his other hand. While the boy spat blood and tried to blink tears of pain from his eyes, Jean kicked him in the groin, then swept his legs out from under him. The boy’s stiletto appeared in Jean’s left hand as if by magic, and he twirled it slowly.

‘Surely you boys can do simple sums,’ he said. ‘One plus one equals don’t fuck with me.’

The boy who’d charged at him with the knife sobbed, then threw up.

‘Let’s talk taxes.’ Jean walked around the periphery of the tannery floor, kicking over a few empty wine bottles; there were dozens of them scattered around. ‘Looks like you boys pull in enough coin to eat and drink; that’s good. I’ll have forty per cent of it, cold metal. I don’t want goods. You’ll pay your taxes every other day, starting today. Cough up your purses and turn out your pockets.’

‘Fuck that!’

Jean stalked toward the boy who’d spoken; the youth was standing against the far wall of the tannery with his arms crossed. ‘Don’t like it? Hit me, then.’

‘Uh . . .’

‘You don’t think that’s fair? You mug people for a living, right? Make a fist, son.’

‘Uh . . .’

Jean grabbed him, spun him around, took hold of him by his neck and by the top of his breeches and rammed him head-first into the thick wood of the tannery’s outer wall several times. The boy hit the ground with a thud when Jean let go; he was unable to fight back when Jean patted down his tunic and came up with a small leather purse.

‘Added penalty,’ said Jean, ‘for damaging the wall of my tannery with your head.’ He emptied the purse into his own, then tossed it back down beside the boy. ‘Now, all of you get down here and line up. Line up! Four-tenths isn’t much. Be honest: you can guess what I’ll do if I find out that you’re not.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ The first boy to approach Jean with coins in his hand offered up the question along with the money.

‘You can call me—’

As Jean began to speak, the boy conjured a dagger in his other hand, dropped the coins and lunged. The bigger man shoved the boy’s extended arm to the outside, bent nearly in half, and slammed his right shoulder into the boy’s stomach. He then lifted the boy effortlessly on his shoulder and dropped him over his back, so that the boy struck the floor of the tannery nearly face-first. He ended up writhing in pain beside the last Cove who’d pulled a blade on Jean.

‘Callas. Tavrin Callas, actually.’ Jean smiled. ‘That was a good thought, coming at me while I was talking. That at least I can respect.’ Jean shuffled backwards several paces to block the door. ‘But it seems to me that the subtle philosophical concept I’m attempting to descant upon may be going over your heads. Do I really have to kick all your arses before you take the hint?’

There was a chorus of mutterings and a healthy number of boys shook their heads, however reluctantly.

‘Good.’ The extortion went smoothly after that; Jean wound up with a satisfying collection of coins, surely enough to keep him and Locke ensconced at their inn for another week. ‘I’m off, then. Rest easy and work well tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow, at the second hour of the afternoon. We can start talking about how things are going to be now that I’m the new boss of the Brass Coves.’