Chapter Five

JUST BEFORE DAWN, the Watch returned from their usual patrols. They gave a general report to Mr Norton who scribbled some notes in his indigo record book. Vince sat at his desk, learning how they all worked.

His mind had been churning all night. When he was in his previous position, he’d never given the Watch much thought. They were to be avoided, yes, but rarely feared. Their numbers waxed and waned like the tide. If there had been a war or a least a serious battle overseas, one could expect the Watch’s numbers to swell soon after as injured soldiers sought out some other way to serve their community.

Vince had been raised in an orphanage as his mother had devoted her life to serving the wealthy family she worked for. When Vince was old enough, she sent for him to join the household staff, working first in the kitchens, then in the stables. He had his eyes opened to a whole new world of wealth and privilege. A world so different from his squalid beginnings.

Vince started his criminal career when he was still a young man, no more than a boy, really. Always big, always brawny, he began working for a local thug and soon found he had both a taste and an aptitude for violence. Over the years, he climbed through the ranks, drawing the best–and the worst–people to his side. Collecting strays, as his late husband had once put it. Those Vince couldn’t bend to his will, he broke and left as a warning to others. For decades, he ruled the underbelly of the island, amassing enormous power and influence. And in doing so, he became a target. The head of a rival gang murdered Vince’s beloved husband, and once Vince had exacted his grim revenge, he sought a way out of the life he’d built.

By that time, he was working with Mr Baxbary Mudge—a wealthy local man with political ambitions. Vince helped him to achieve them, lifting Baxbary Mudge to the role of Fox on Blackrabbit Council. Mudge used Vince as his personal bodyguard and wasn’t averse to wielding Vince’s gangs as a weapon to intimidate his rivals. Vince was content to let him until the day at the winter solstice last year when Mudge went too far.

Mudge used Vince and his gangs in his violent bid to overthrow the entire council. Vince turned on Mudge, on his own people, and helped put an end to the attempted coup. When the dust had settled, Mudge was sent to the gaolhouse and Vince walked away from his life. He spent some time working with his mother at the Wolfe-Chase Asylum before being approached by the head of the council with an offer to run the Watch. The council felt the person best suited to stopping the gangs was the one who’d created them.

To Vince’s eye, the current Watch looked woefully inadequate to take on the gangs. Exeter was young and healthy and looked like he could fight. Ruth—built strong and sturdy—could clearly take care of herself. Frank and Clive, both former soldiers, were around Vince’s age but injured and slow. Their relationship could prove a hindrance. In Vince’s experience, the love-struck were often solely concerned for the well-being of one another, to the detriment of all else. And Clive’s soft features didn’t fill Vince with a lot of confidence in his ferocity on the battlefield. Frank, on the other hand, with his arched eyebrows and thousand-yard stare, might have been a different prospect, once upon a time. However, a musket shot to the hip would slow anyone down.

That left Mr Norton, who never moved from behind his desk until the time came to go home, and Sorcha who appeared to prefer life under pipes. Not exactly a force to be reckoned with, all things considered.

As they were all preparing to leave for home, Sorcha hesitated. “Where will you be living now? You’re not planning to stay in here, I take it?”

“Told there were quarters upstairs.”

“Oh, there are. I don’t know how comfortable they’ll be, mind you. Key’s in Mr Norton’s drawer over there. Door is outside, under the bridge.”

Vince left a lantern on for the prisoners, as well as jugs of water and some bread.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me,” Walter said from his cell. “If I choke on my food, I’ll try to die in a corner so I don’t make too much of a mess. I’d hate to be an inconvenience.”

“Sleeping upstairs,” Vince said. “Need help, just shout.”

“Shout when I’m choking,” Walter said. “I can see why they put you in charge.”

Vince found the door under the arch of Lickbeer Bridge, in the bearded man’s throat, as it were. It took a bit of a shove to get it to open fully, and he ducked into the cramped hallway. Some faint blue flecks of paint at the edges of the dusty, carpetless stairs hinted at a more colourful past. At the top of the staircase, a small landing led to a compact parlour. Crabmeat settled onto a threadbare mat in front of the cold fireplace and started snoring almost instantly.

The grubby parlour window looked out to Lickbeer Bridge and the tiered town beyond. Anyone walking up the steps from the road below could see straight into his quarters, not that Vince minded too much. He was far from shy, although he was still getting used to the idea of no longer needing to work in secret.

Upstairs, he found a room with a squeaking bed covered, like everything else, in a thin layer of dust. Overall, the quarters were grimy, basic, and not very well stocked. He didn’t think it would matter very much. He only planned to stay a short while.

He stood at the small porthole window set high on the bedroom wall. Too high for most people to look out of but then Vince wasn’t like most people. He yanked the window open an inch or so, enough to let some fresh air in. The sun had not long risen, warming up the stuffy room.

Outside the window, tiles rose and fell where chimneys and gables breached the slate sea stretching out before him. Other people talked of loving the place they came from. Vince had never understood the sentiment. Port Knot had never struck him as the sort of place one loved. More like an animal to be tamed or a rival to be defeated.

He took the blanket from the bed and shook the dust from it. Then he kicked off his boots, lay down, and stared at the cobwebs in the peaked ceiling. Port Knot never fell entirely quiet, especially not in the hour after dawn, when the townsfolk were beginning their day. The copper pipes wrapped around every premises rattled, people on the streets shouted and argued, passing horses neighed, and always some business or other clanged and hammered from sunup to sundown. All of which Vince long ago became used to but still he couldn’t sleep.

He kept thinking about what Sorcha had said about how he’d assumed the Watch ran much the same way the gangs did. On information. Instead, the Watch appeared to just blunder about, hoping to happen upon a crime. That approach wasn’t going to work anymore. Whilst he’d always made sure the gangs were better organised and better equipped than the Watch, something about how the gangs were governed now felt different to him. The divvying up of the town based on skills rather than territory had changed the map entirely. Without proper direction, the Watch would be lost. Without the Watch, he would be lost. With him, Rabbit would be lost.

Sighing, he pulled on his boots and marched downstairs. He donned his tricorne cap and let himself out of his lodgings but not before shaking his head at the snoring Crabmeat. “Some watchdog you are.”

He paced the cobbled roads of Port Knot, making his way to the Tangles, the innermost part of the town. The tall, crooked buildings, shoved together like pilchards in a crate, leaned forward over the roads and almost touched one another as they blocked the sky in places. The roads weaved and twisted like snakes in reeds. Little bridges, the curse of Port Knot, popped up everywhere, providing ample hiding places for pickpockets and cutthroats.

Vince stomped down a set of steps and ducked under the low Slaparse Bridge, with its decoration of playful seals. A glint of metal appeared from the shadows. A small knife, held by a sneering woman, thrusting his way. “Give us yer purse!”

Vince took the woman by the arms and carried her out from under the bridge, into the early morning light. He held his chin up and let her get a good, long look at him.

Her eyes bulged wide. “Vince! I…I didn’t know you were back.”

He set her down and she bolted like a hare from a hunt. He didn’t know her name, didn’t recognise her face, but he didn’t have to. She knew him, who he had been, so her reaction came as no surprise to him. Chasing after her wouldn’t do anyone any good. She wasn’t part of the gangs but just a hungry, desperate woman pushed to breaking point.

No doubt she’d been approached by the gangs at some point, appraised of her usefulness to them. Had she been skilled enough, she’d have been recruited. Which was how he’d organised the gangs, back when he’d been in charge. He’d found people with potential and encouraged them, trained them where necessary. Instilled loyalty where he could, mortal fear where he could not. They, in turn, were encouraged to seek out their own protégés and repeat the process.

Vince would occasionally meet with those lower down in the pecking order to remind them who was ultimately in charge. The system had worked in Port Knot for decades. And now he was faced with the daunting task of closing it all down.

A WOMAN WITH hands intricately painted with patterns in black ink opened the door to the cherry house. “We’ll have no trouble today, Mr Knight.”

“Won’t be any from me, Queenie.” He hung up his cap. The walls of the wide hallway were painted with a deep, comforting red, the doorframes carved from mahogany, the candelabras subdued enough to be inviting. Before him stood three doorways. Carved into the mantle over the first, a cockerel. Over the second, a hen. Over the third, one of each. He chose the cockerel.

The dimly lit room writhed with the bare flesh of twenty, maybe thirty, men engaged in all manner of sensual activities. The flickering candlelight from the copper lanterns made their shadows dance on damask-patterned walls. To his right, one man lay tied to a bed while another dripped hot candle wax onto his bare flesh. To his left, a hefty, hairy-backed gentleman took strikes from a riding crop across his bare behind.

Vince stood while someone half his age approached and began to kiss and caress his chest, stripping the shirt from him. It fell to the floor. Vince ran his hands through the man’s hair while in front of him three more men lay entwined, their breathing heavy, and their voices low. Against one red wall, two men kissed and stroked each other, while against another, a rigid and robust man stood and watched.

The deep shadows and shallow light made it difficult to make out his features clearly but then that was rather the point of this room. Nonetheless, he caught Vince’s eye and began to slowly make his way across the floor towards him. Vince moved away from the younger man and picked his way through the throng of bodies.

By the side of a statue of Priapus, they stood face to face, the stranger and him. Vince stroked the smiling man’s face, his round cheeks, his smartly pointed beard. He leaned in and they kissed, passionately, deeply, forcefully, even. Given the stranger’s bearing and stature—broad in the beam and strong with it—Vince saw no reason to hold back, no reason to play gently. They found a space on a pile of cushions where they lay and made love while all around them the room throbbed with unbridled libidos.

Port Knot used to have four such cherry houses. Though they often formed part of brothels, it was not necessary to purchase any partners for one’s time there. They were simply a place for consenting townsfolk to indulge themselves, away from prying—or innocent—eyes. Two of the houses had been closed due to mismanagement and the third had been levelled in the hurricane of the previous year. Now, only this one remained.

A man of large appetites and few inhibitions, Vince had been known to frequent them often. He sometimes favoured the mixed room, where everyone, regardless of gender, could mingle but that night he felt glad to have chosen the gentleman’s lounge.

He and the smiling man never exchanged a single word in their time together. Afterwards, they lay on the cushions and the man traced the lines of one of Vince’s many tattoos with his finger. His breath warm against Vince’s skin, his embrace tight and comforting. Enough to make Vince forget…for a while. Tempted to remain a good deal longer, Vince nonetheless kissed him one last time, dressed, and left.

After a couple of hours spent in the dim light of the cherry house, the bright morning sun stung like a wasp. He ducked into a nearby Entry, grateful for the shade. Two men followed him. Then two more. All with daggers.

“Keep walking,” one of them said.

In the confined space of the Entry, Vince didn’t fancy his chances of escaping unstabbed so he complied. He walked along, still feeling the strangers kiss upon his lips and wishing he’d stayed in his warm, strong arms. Upon emerging from one Entry into an open square, he stopped in his tracks.

The square sat at the back of several tall, beige dwellings, overlooked by only a few thin windows. Vince knew from experience no one who happened to look out of them would interfere.

Before him, a well-dressed woman with wide, brown eyes, dressed in an amber overcoat, stood and stared. She wore her black hair in tight, locking braids that fell about her shoulders. More people appeared from the other Entries off the square, all brandishing coshs, or clubs, or daggers. He recognised almost every one of the faces. One woman raised her hands and flashed two frogblades at him. They were designed to slash pockets but they could open flesh just as easily.

“Celeste,” Vince said. “Fancy seeing you here. Head of the Clockbreakers, I take it?”

Celeste bowed a little. “Who else but the finest thief in all the Pell Isles?”

“See Merlin hiding back there. Flowers, too. Knew I’d come this way?”

“This is the only cherry house left in town.”

Vince suddenly felt very exposed. “Know me so well.”

“I know how you think.” Celeste pulled a curved dagger from her belt.

“Not that that’s saying much,” Merlin said. A woman of no more than twenty years, she wore a coat embroidered with stars and crescent moons.

Flowers moved silently around him. A lithe young man with no hair, not even eyebrows, and a crown of daisies tattooed round his head. His bare arms bore inked roses and lilies. He twirled a knife around in his hand. It danced effortlessly across his brown skin, like a swallow in flight.

Vince raised his fists and dropped his stance, ready to fight for his life. He plotted who to attack first, who needed to be put down quickly, who could safely be held off until later. Celeste bared her perfect teeth, a smile or a snarl, he didn’t know. Vince spun his head around, trying to count everyone encircling him. A task made much more difficult thanks to his blind left eye. He hadn’t been in many scraps since it had been injured. His fight against Littletar’s Pennymen had proven how much it encumbered him.

“Relax,” Celeste said. “This is just a friendly chat.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Merlin said. “Although we could. And I really do want to.”

“Not without losing a few limbs in the process,” Vince said, raising his fists higher. “Volunteers?”

Flowers stopped and rubbed his thumb across his forefingers.

“Considering it, are you?” Vince asked. “Come on, then.”

Flowers laughed as Celeste pointed her dagger at Vince’s face. “We know what you’re up to, old man,” she said. “The new Watch Commander. How very exciting. What a promotion. But you’d do well to stay out of our way. I don’t care what you do to the other gangs but you know my lot. You know our faces. You know our names. So stay away from us, and we’ll stay away from you. Understand? Show us the same professional courtesy we’ve shown you today.”

“Brave words,” Vince said. “Eyes can’t lie to me though. Scared. Nervous. Twitchy.”

Celeste licked her teeth and pretended not to care. “And, if you’d be so kind, we’d like Walter returned to us with a minimum of fuss. He made a mistake, and he needs to be punished by us, not by you.” She nodded at her people and they dispersed, vanishing through the Entries once again until Vince stood alone in the square.

In the distance, a clock tower chimed.