Chapter 1: Will Work For Chits

Val didn't think Terressa Lavoie was a bad woman - at least not by the standards of Wayfair. Where most of the city's orphans either lived on the streets or as wards of the church (and Val had experienced both - no thank you!), Ms. Lavoie had come up with another way, and she managed to make a tidy living in the process. Val had been partaking of Ms. Lavoie's House for Orphaned Children for two years now.

"Not much longer, Valerie. I'm sure you'll be apprenticed any of these days now," Ms. Lavoie said. Val didn't bother to correct her for the hundredth time: her name was not Valerie.

Terressa Lavoie was a tall woman and broad. You might mistake her for a man if you saw her in the corner of your vision and neglected her bust and skirts - Val had done so on more than one occasion. She was gracefully entering her fifth decade, eyes still steely, her iron-gray hair done up into a tasteful bun, and had long ago cultivated her patrician bearing, lest you think she was an entrepreneur rather than a philanthropist. She'd been promising that Val would be apprenticed 'any day now' for about a year, but it still hadn't happened.

"But when?" Val asked.

"Who can say?" Ms. Lavoie said. "Keep your head up, get your chit, and I'll see you come suppertime. Now get."

With that, she gave Val a nudge and she scampered out to the street, where Pudge was waiting for her.

Val figured she'd been close a few times. The folks she got her chits from seemed to like her and often remarked on how good of a job she did. Unfortunately, disaster always seemed to follow. Usually, it happened just when she was about to get an offer, like the time she helped Reina Glazer, the potter, for two weeks straight. It wasn't anything that Val had done… at least she didn't think it was. The kiln had just exploded and, when Reina got the thing fixed two weeks later, she was understandably reluctant to have Val help out around the place.

That was the third or fourth time something like that had happened. Val was starting to think she was cursed. She wasn't even sure she believed in curses. But, if they were real, then she probably had one.

"Ready to get them chits?" Pudge said.

"Damn right I am," Val said.

The way Ms. Lavoie's orphanage worked was like this: you brought her chits from the vendors around the evencall bell in the evening. If you had a chit, you got to come in, get supper, and sleep inside for the night. It wasn't too hard to get one chit, and Val usually had a spare one in her pocket, just in case. If you had a second chit, you could turn it in at reveille to stay inside for morning lessons and a late morning meal. Otherwise, Ms. Lavoie would turn you out at the risencall bell early in the morning. During the winter or when it was raining, Val preferred to stay inside for as long as possible, though it made it a challenge to pick up two chits when you didn't hit the streets until noon. More often than not, she alternated days in the summer.

When Val teamed up with Pudge, she could get two chits just about any day and sometimes they managed more. Ms. Lavoie sold chits to the merchants for an unspecified price - Val didn't think they were too terribly expensive, or else the merchants of Green Procession wouldn't be so eager to part with them. Each chit was a glazed clay thing that came in two halves; each half only fit with its counterpart, and so half a chit was no good for anybody. When you took a job from somebody, they'd show you the intact chit and give you half. You got the other half when you finished the job. Most folks would give you a chit for about three hours' work.

"I heard there's a man in Resonant Square giving three chits for half a day's work," Pudge said.

"Where'd you hear that?" Val said.

"You know. Same as you, I got my sources."

Val didn't know. Sometimes, she overheard things - she was pretty good at that. She'd just turned twelve, but she looked a year or two younger, so most people thought she was just a kid and ignored her. Pudge was maybe a year younger than her, but he weighed a whole lot more. Not that he was fat, per se… he got his nickname because he had the modest padding that most lordling children had, rather than the gaunt, vaguely hungry look orphans like Val possessed. Between the golden curls of his hair, his extra fat, and the posh accent he could put on, Pudge had passed as a lordling child more than once. And Pudge could afford a little extra padding because he was very clever.

That's probably why they made such a good team - Pudge was very clever but also smart. Val was very smart but also clever. As a team, they would probably do well, even without Ms. Lavoie and her chits putting them up for the night.

They passed Green Procession, the great verdant marketplace of southern Wayfair, past stalls of vendors with meat searing over open coal pits, past clothiers trailing colorful ribbons of cloth samples over their great, gaudy sleeves, past the letter-writer, who would take your words and turn them into something beautiful and poetic like magic with her great purple quill. In the wintertime, the mercantile guild would drape a great canvas roof to span the procession and trap the heat in, but during the autumn, it was still warm enough to wander about outside without a jacket.

Val still wore her jacket, though, because it had lots of pockets. Rough dungarees and a canvas jacket would see you through just about any weather any time of year.

Resonant Square was a few blocks further north, past the crumbling old church, still gutted and ruined after last year's fire. Maybe they would fix it, or maybe the church would just sell the land to somebody else. It was a cool autumn day with light clouds casting a silver sheen across the whole sky and the smell of damp fallen leaves was heavy in the air from where the cemetery groundskeepers had raked them into piles. Even if the church had burned down, the graves still had to be attended to.

Pudge tugged at Val's sleeve and pointed to just past the cemetery. "Penny said it was in the brick building with the blue awning."

Val hoped they'd see Penny there.

+++++

Penny had left Ms. Lavoie's a few weeks after Val found out about it. Penitence Cozzar was the kind of girl… young woman, really… that Val always dreamed of having as an older sister. She'd never had any brothers or sisters. Not that she knew of. Penny was willowy and pretty with golden brown skin, half a shade darker than Val's, with tawny hair that tumbled in a great mass of curls. She said her father had been a pirate captain and her mother a prostitute of legendary repute. She'd died, Penny said, back when Penny was only five years old during a fight between two of her many paramours. Now Penny apprenticed for the herbalist at Resonant Square, but she always seemed to have one elegant finger on the pulse of the city.

"Is Penny going to be there?" Val asked. She wasn't sure why she asked it..

Pudge shrugged. "She only told me about the place, so probably not."

Val couldn't quite explain why she felt disappointed by that. Penny wasn't exactly a friend, was barely even an orphan anymore, and she only saw her once every few months. Perhaps she reminded Val of the success that orphans could occasionally enjoy - she might even become a real herbalist some day!

Val wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life. She supposed she'd take the first opportunity that presented itself. But opportunities seemed to be scarce and far between, at least where she was concerned.

"I got offered apprenticeship at the printworks," Pudge said.

"Really?" Val couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy, but she tried to suppress it. "You're good enough with your letters, I suppose. You going to take it?"

Pudge shrugged. "Mister Gravelong gave me a week to decide. I'll give it a good think. Be nice not to have to worry about chits anymore, but once you're locked into an apprenticeship you're committed for a lifetime, more or less. Not sure I want to be a printer."

Val would have jumped at the opportunity if she had an offer. But, knowing her, after a week helping in the printworks, the press would likely face a catastrophic failure of some kind and everybody would think it had been her. It wasn't worth worrying about - they probably didn't take girls, in any case.

They approached the brick building with the blue tarp awning. The big brass plate on the front read: Vinzenno Security & Investigation. Val's heart thudded in her chest - it was the office of a bondsman, more commonly known as a bounty hunter. The people who took chits from Ms. Lavoie weren't supposed to make the orphans do anything illegal, but the bondsmen and similar employers often got awfully close.

"You ever met this man before?" Val asked.

Pudge shook his golden locks. He hadn't.

They knocked twice and, when there was no answer, they saw themselves inside. A man and woman in the back room were arguing over something, but they calmed themselves when the two orphans entered. The man was no taller than the woman, who was just above average height, but he was heavily built and wore the chem-cured leather suit of a man used to getting rough - and the nicks and scratches on the suit suggested it wasn't just for show. The woman was rather more bookish, in a green and white dress with smudged reading spectacles dangling over her substantial bosom.

"Look, I told you we'd get somebody," the man said. "And not a moment to spare."

He flashed what was probably an incredibly fake smile… perhaps the vaguely predatory grin with slightly-too-dark eyes and slightly-too-sharp teeth was how his face normally looked. He pulled four intact chits from a purse and set them on the desk. He looked them both up and down - Val in her brown dungarees and worn canvas jacket and Pudge in his slightly-shabby courier getup, complete with cap.

"I assume you two are from Lavoie's?" he asked.

Val and Pudge both nodded, but Pudge added: "We want three chits each for the job."

"You don't even know the job yet," the man said.

Pudge shrugged. "And I guess we'll never find out. Come on, Val, there's other jobs at the Green Procession…"

"I've only got the four chits."

"I bet you got coin, though," Pudge said. Chits would get you into Ms. Lavoie's, but an orphan could spend coin just like anybody else.

The man glanced to his partner, who nodded and fished two shillings from the pockets of her dress. Val eyed the coins greedily - for a shilling, she could buy new shoes that would keep her feet dry all winter, depending on how much it snowed. Plus, her current ones were starting to get a bit tight.

Pudge went for the coins, but the man's hand shot out and grabbed the boy's wrist so fast that both Pudge and Val had to gasp. Val was pretty fast, but she wasn't that fast. The man tutted them with his finger and, very deliberately, picked up one shilling and four half-chits.

"Half now and half when the job's done, my young friend. The name's Ettebono Vinzenno."

Val almost giggled, because that was the name of a famous pirate, Ettebono "Ice-seer" Vinzenno, so named because he had one eye that was a strange, cloudy blue all over, that was said to see the future. Ettebono could see her fighting to contain her amusement.

"My grandfather," he clarified.

"The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree if you ask me," the woman said. "I'm Ginn." She left it at that - no last name, no relation to Ettebono.

Ginn and Ette filled them in on the specifics of their job. Val reasoned that that's what they'd been arguing about before. Ette (or Mr. Vinzenno, which is what he wanted them to call him) was insistent on doing the job alone if they couldn't find any help, but Ginn apparently had some sort of veto power and insisted that he would do no such thing. It was a moot point, though, now that Val and Pudge were there.

Ette laid a map on the table and a sheet of crinkly clear cellulose on top of that to trace out an intersection. This was the street that the Bishop of West Wayfair would be traveling with his retinue in an hour's time, after his benediction at the St. Gaspard Abbey. The bishop had been up to some very bad things and, though he was beyond the reach of the municipal authorities in Wayfair, he had a warrant out for his arrest from the Duke of Aurilicht right across the border, just two hours' ride outside of the city. Ette just needed to get to the bishop and make off with him without any of his retinue following.

"I've never kidnapped somebody before," Val said. "I don't think I could. We're not supposed to do illegal stuff anyhow."

Ette chuckled. "No, girl. I just need a distraction. If the bishop's men chase after you for a bit, I'll be able to make off with him before anybody sees where I've gone. Return here when it's done and Ginn will give you the rest of your pay. Easy, right? Now… let's talk distractions…"

It was probably the most dangerous thing that Val had ever done for chits. They weren't supposed to do anything illegal, and there was an awful lot about the plan that sounded awfully close to illegal. They wouldn't actually be kidnapping a bishop. And bringing a criminal to Aurilicht wasn't even illegal, in of itself, if the Wayfair authorities didn't catch you before you made the border. They just needed to peel off 'three or four' guards. Everybody else would be a church functionary.

"Fathers and brothers. Don't worry about them. They couldn't tell their arse from their elbow, most of them. The pike-bearers in red and blue are the ones you'll want to distract. They'll think you've got the bishop's censer and will run after you. Run down this alleyway here and I'll make off with the bishop in the opposite direction. I've got a cloth that will knock him out, and he's a skinny bastard, so I can carry him without too much issue. Think you can do that?"

"We're not supposed to steal anything - that's against Ms. Lavoie's rules," Val said.

"You won't have stolen anything," Ginn said. She retrieved a wooden sphere about the size of a streetball. It had been painted with gold and pearlescent lacquer and featured a cheap glass crystal vaguely shaped like the pale circle. It wouldn't fool anybody from less than ten feet away. "Give them just enough of a glimpse to think you've got it and then make off down the alleyway. Wait thirty minutes wherever you like to make sure you aren't followed and then make back for here."

"How will you know if we've done it?" Pudge asked. Val elbowed him - that's not the sort of thing you asked the person with your chits.

"I'll know," Ginn said. "But just so we're all honest, we'll shake on it. Deal?"