by Carmel Rechnitzer
The following is an excerpt from the writings and records of Rory Fisher, a humble bard and chronicler of the City of Five Sails:
Treason’s Greetings; an addendum to The Life and Lies of Constanzo Scarpa: a History of Five Sail’s Most Enigmatic Plutocrat, by Rory Fisher.
Don Constanzo’s life and Fate are (with minor exception) tied to the life and Fates of his Streghe Coterie. While the women of his life have avoided all my attempts at interview, I’ve come to understand that their spells assist in each act of diplomacy and duplicity he has committed. The following tale isn’t an interview, per se, but rather a twist of Fate all its own. A scoundrel and pirate, who I only knew by the moniker Ratón, spent most of the Bleak Winter sheltering in the same inn I’d found for myself. We traded every riddle, dirty limerick and shaggy dog yarn we knew. Once in a while, when I’d gotten him well and truly drunk, he’d tell me an actual truth.
The following monologue is… presumably… one of his truths. I include it in Scarpa’s history to confirm the Don’s relationship with the Streghe. Ratón is also one of the few who warned me Scarpa secretly ran the Red Hand Gang – though it took me three or four years to confirm that as a certainty rather than a “true-enough” style of rumor. So many details correlated over the years that I’m willing to wager Ratón didn’t lie, when he described the following:
Ratón: The greatest thing I ever stole, eh? The right thing to do would be to lie, my fishy-fellow. The right thing to do, is to tell you all about the time I stole the undergarments of the Emperor of Montaigne. Don’t take that to mean I didn’t steal them! I did, and wore them to rags over the years. But rather, the lie is that those intimate silks were the height of my heroic achievements.
No. The greatest thing I ever stole, I stole by way of stealing twice:
One! I stole from Mother Winter. Or rather, her favored children. Deep from the most secret, sacred spaces of the Ussuran district. By the time I escaped the Usskies and Uskovites, I’d been chased by shaman, bear and berserker. An adventure for another time.
The wonderous thing about Mother Winter’s Shears is that they could cut anything and everything. Glass, steel, diamond, magics and sorceries. If you could creatively fit the mouth of the blades around it… snip!
I stole them on behalf of Nicoletta Scarpa, the thankfully departed wife of my old friend and mentor, Constani. Not that he taught me thieving, mind you. He taught me all about right and wrong. I observed the man, simple as that. If any action you take seems in the Scarpa style… then woah, there, horsey! Pull the reins and stop!
His wife – may the angels shit on foul her soul not once, but twice, for each of her many sins! – was a Weaver. A Streghe!
These women who spin Fate work their magics all across the City, but their schemes and webs are thickest within their own district. Each woman busy trapping the other, until an uneasy stalemate is achieved. And my friend Constani – because at the time he was only a modest thug and doting father – wanted a better life for his wife and girls.
But he could not betray his Don – and by Theus, I’m too drunk to remember that last one’s name – because Constani and Nicolleta’s Fates had been sworn, and twisted, and webbed, and intertwined, and ensorcelled, and woven, and magic’d, and sewn, and cursed, and needled –
Here, I interrupted the drunk to let him know his point was taken.
Ratón: not betray their criminal liege and witchy lady. So Constani, back then a friend, begged me to steal these shears he’d heard about. What price could you put on such a thing? I understood there and then, that I would assist in reshaping the whole of the Voddace district – perhaps the whole of Voddace itself – If I stole such an item and gave it to him.
But at the time, Constani was a friend of mine. And what wouldn’t we all do for a friend in need?
Here, he paused, as if to wait for me to confirm he’d done the right thing. As if I could absolve him of such a grave sin as “assisting the rise of the crime lord Don Constanzo Scarpa.” Even back then, with the rumor unconfirmed, I did not like the man or the way he did his public business. I stayed quiet.
Ratón: So I told Constani: “Let’s make a game of it! Three days from now is Winter Solstice. The holiest day of family, friendship and gift giving. I will steal these shears for you, as a gift. In return, as a gift, let me walk away from your home with whatever I am bold enough to steal from you – and you may never chase me.”
He agreed, I think, believing he was about to lose a handful of his wife’s jewelry or his secret stash of rubies. He did not expect that I would steal a child.
Don’t look at me like that, Fishy!
Don’t!
I didn’t steal one of his daughters for any nefarious reason. I’m no child-napper! Well, I suppose you don’t have to modify the word, my dear poet. Kidnapper already includes the word ‘kid,’ does it not?
Here, the conversation fell apart as his drunk mind boggled at linguistics and etymology. It took considerable effort to refocus him. Or rather, a considerable expenditure on some finer wine than he normally had access to.
Ratón: His vile wife – may he join her at the bottom of Hell’s latrines upon his hopefully early and hopefully gruesome death – knew the secret to power was to cut her own strings. But she had been trapped before. Seen the power of true, spidery witch-queen. She wanted her own coterie… one she could weave, and weave, and weave away at.
She made a horrid habit of sweeping through the Voddace district’s Pleasure Quarters, offering solid silver for the unfortunate issue of any noble, wandering Voddace loins that tumbled and tangled therein. And considering the furthest spot of earth upon Theah’s shore from the Island of Fidelity is Voddace, as it were….
It did not take her long to find a helpless woman of the night, overwhelmed with a daughter she did not want, with a noble father who wanted her even less. Nicoletta purchased poor Ravenna Destine, as one might purchase a pedigreed puppy.
The final time I stepped into Constani’s humble home, which was demolished long ago as were all traces of Scarpa’s past… I could suddenly see the evil of Nicoletta’s sorcery. Touching those shears did it, I think.
I caught glimpses of a hundred strings, and mistook them for holiday tinsel at first. But none of them hung from the wreaths or boughs of holly. The fate strings were strung from mother to child. I could see them wrapped around them all. Hanging around Servo’s little shoulders like a cloak. Tied around brave Vissenta’s waist, as if to stop her from running too far away. I saw Nicoletta hold the newborn Sibella, a string hanging from heart to tiny heart.
Not a single string reaching out to Constani, which is the moment I learned to hate him.
He was no fool.
He was no… puppet.
Not a victim of some wily witch.
Not… excusable.
He loved her, plain as day and mundane. Unensorcelled. He cherished what she was, as she was.
He was as big a monster as her.
…
My former friend and mentor.
That’s the man he was.
…
A man who would pay silver for a dirt poor child, and keep her as a maid instead of a daughter. A man who would take a child off the streets only to show her no love. He showed her how to clean the dishes and sweep the floors while the other children played.
…
I don’t… know for fact… that he could see what his wife could do. But he broke my heart, because I knew that he knew. I knew that he didn’t care. I knew he lost no sleep over it. The child would grow and he would benefit from such an arrangement, so he did not give a damn. Didn’t feel an ounce of guilt, about the child who slept on the rug by his fire, with ten silver Fate strings wrapped around her neck like a leash.
…
The conversation died here. In horror and disgust, I was almost ready to let the story go unfinished. Ratón sensed my discomfort, and turned from sour to sweet in an instant.
Ratón: But this is a holiday story! A miracle story! A miracle truth, even. You see, Constani swore to me… or rather, took me at my word when I requested in jest… that my pay would be anything I could steal from his house on the way out.
When the fire burned to cinders and the holy spirit of Theus ushered in the yuletide peace, I grabbed the shears a final time and snip-snap-snippity-snip! cut young Ravenna’s strings. In the dark of the night, I left the shears behind and stole the child-witch.
Constani never chased me. He honored the pact. He had his scissors – was free to cut the binds of fate and seize power over the Vodacce district – free to gain control of all the Streghe. If there was ever any good in that man, however little, I’m afraid it fled his life along with me. With the shears and no handsome Ratón at his side, the man grew into a villain. Theus might judge me for that, when I die. But for now? I am still alive.
To this day, I remain the only living man to quit the Red Hand Gang. I knew nothing of raising a child, of course. With nowhere else to turn, I hung my hat at Padre Anibal’s door. Even back then, Padre and Madre raised every orphan they could find a way to feed, Theus bless their souls.
Never tell my dear friend Anibal who taught all his children to thieve, Fishy. I’m certain he’s figured it out, but please don’t, just in case he remains naive. I taught the kids to steal, so there would always be more food to give. Always another loaf of bread, the way there’s always another new orphan.
To this day, the Cat’s Paw ‘gang’ steals to feed the needy.
I’m proud of them.
Heaven bless them, Fishy.
They understand the spirit of Yuletide better than any priest.
Thieving is the best thing I ever did for this world, Fishy. I’ll die a happy man with no sins to confess. Theus will meet me at His Gilded Gates and I will offer my god a shit-eating grin of pride.
Fishy, I’m going to bring young Ravenna to this inn, one day.
She’s still scared to love, I’m afraid. Still afraid to find a bond or tie herself to any man or woman. Afraid to end up wrapped in string again. Even keeps a distance from the other children, from her street siblings. Won’t join the Cat’s Paw.
Tell her love stories, when she comes by. Recite her love poetry. Not just romance – stories of fatherly and motherly love. Of brotherly and sisterly love.
Teach her not to fear a knot or two, Fishy.
Any man who helps Ravenna also spits in Don Constanzo’s villainous face and earns Theus’s blessing.
His story ended here, and he quickly passed out warm and drunk at our table. I’ve not chanced across Ravenna so far, I’m afraid. But the rest of Padre Anibal’s children confirmed the truth of his tale – or at the very least lie in unison along with him. I include this story, choose to believe it. I encourage you, dear reader, to believe it yourself. Ratón is a rotten thief, but that still made him a better man than four fifths of this wretched City I currently call home.
The following is an excerpt from the writings and records of Rory Fisher, a humble bard and chronicler of the City of Five Sails:
Treason’s Greetings; an addendum to The Life and Lies of Constanzo Scarpa: a History of Five Sail’s Most Enigmatic Plutocrat, by Rory Fisher.
Don Constanzo’s life and Fate are (with minor exception) tied to the life and Fates of his Streghe Coterie. While the women of his life have avoided all my attempts at interview, I’ve come to understand that their spells assist in each act of diplomacy and duplicity he has committed. The following tale isn’t an interview, per se, but rather a twist of Fate all its own. A scoundrel and pirate, who I only knew by the moniker Ratón, spent most of the Bleak Winter sheltering in the same inn I’d found for myself. We traded every riddle, dirty limerick and shaggy dog yarn we knew. Once in a while, when I’d gotten him well and truly drunk, he’d tell me an actual truth.
The following monologue is… presumably… one of his truths. I include it in Scarpa’s history to confirm the Don’s relationship with the Streghe. Ratón is also one of the few who warned me Scarpa secretly ran the Red Hand Gang – though it took me three or four years to confirm that as a certainty rather than a “true-enough” style of rumor. So many details correlated over the years that I’m willing to wager Ratón didn’t lie, when he described the following:
Ratón: The greatest thing I ever stole, eh? The right thing to do would be to lie, my fishy-fellow. The right thing to do, is to tell you all about the time I stole the undergarments of the Emperor of Montaigne. Don’t take that to mean I didn’t steal them! I did, and wore them to rags over the years. But rather, the lie is that those intimate silks were the height of my heroic achievements.
No. The greatest thing I ever stole, I stole by way of stealing twice:
One! I stole from Mother Winter. Or rather, her favored children. Deep from the most secret, sacred spaces of the Ussuran district. By the time I escaped the Usskies and Uskovites, I’d been chased by shaman, bear and berserker. An adventure for another time.
The wonderous thing about Mother Winter’s Shears is that they could cut anything and everything. Glass, steel, diamond, magics and sorceries. If you could creatively fit the mouth of the blades around it… snip!
I stole them on behalf of Nicoletta Scarpa, the thankfully departed wife of my old friend and mentor, Constani. Not that he taught me thieving, mind you. He taught me all about right and wrong. I observed the man, simple as that. If any action you take seems in the Scarpa style… then woah, there, horsey! Pull the reins and stop!
His wife – may the angels shit on foul her soul not once, but twice, for each of her many sins! – was a Weaver. A Streghe!
These women who spin Fate work their magics all across the City, but their schemes and webs are thickest within their own district. Each woman busy trapping the other, until an uneasy stalemate is achieved. And my friend Constani – because at the time he was only a modest thug and doting father – wanted a better life for his wife and girls.
But he could not betray his Don – and by Theus, I’m too drunk to remember that last one’s name – because Constani and Nicolleta’s Fates had been sworn, and twisted, and webbed, and intertwined, and ensorcelled, and woven, and magic’d, and sewn, and cursed, and needled –
Here, I interrupted the drunk to let him know his point was taken.
Ratón: not betray their criminal liege and witchy lady. So Constani, back then a friend, begged me to steal these shears he’d heard about. What price could you put on such a thing? I understood there and then, that I would assist in reshaping the whole of the Voddace district – perhaps the whole of Voddace itself – If I stole such an item and gave it to him.
But at the time, Constani was a friend of mine. And what wouldn’t we all do for a friend in need?
Here, he paused, as if to wait for me to confirm he’d done the right thing. As if I could absolve him of such a grave sin as “assisting the rise of the crime lord Don Constanzo Scarpa.” Even back then, with the rumor unconfirmed, I did not like the man or the way he did his public business. I stayed quiet.
Ratón: So I told Constani: “Let’s make a game of it! Three days from now is Winter Solstice. The holiest day of family, friendship and gift giving. I will steal these shears for you, as a gift. In return, as a gift, let me walk away from your home with whatever I am bold enough to steal from you – and you may never chase me.”
He agreed, I think, believing he was about to lose a handful of his wife’s jewelry or his secret stash of rubies. He did not expect that I would steal a child.
Don’t look at me like that, Fishy!
Don’t!
I didn’t steal one of his daughters for any nefarious reason. I’m no child-napper! Well, I suppose you don’t have to modify the word, my dear poet. Kidnapper already includes the word ‘kid,’ does it not?
Here, the conversation fell apart as his drunk mind boggled at linguistics and etymology. It took considerable effort to refocus him. Or rather, a considerable expenditure on some finer wine than he normally had access to.
Ratón: His vile wife – may he join her at the bottom of Hell’s latrines upon his hopefully early and hopefully gruesome death – knew the secret to power was to cut her own strings. But she had been trapped before. Seen the power of true, spidery witch-queen. She wanted her own coterie… one she could weave, and weave, and weave away at.
She made a horrid habit of sweeping through the Voddace district’s Pleasure Quarters, offering solid silver for the unfortunate issue of any noble, wandering Voddace loins that tumbled and tangled therein. And considering the furthest spot of earth upon Theah’s shore from the Island of Fidelity is Voddace, as it were….
It did not take her long to find a helpless woman of the night, overwhelmed with a daughter she did not want, with a noble father who wanted her even less. Nicoletta purchased poor Ravenna Destine, as one might purchase a pedigreed puppy.
The final time I stepped into Constani’s humble home, which was demolished long ago as were all traces of Scarpa’s past… I could suddenly see the evil of Nicoletta’s sorcery. Touching those shears did it, I think.
I caught glimpses of a hundred strings, and mistook them for holiday tinsel at first. But none of them hung from the wreaths or boughs of holly. The fate strings were strung from mother to child. I could see them wrapped around them all. Hanging around Servo’s little shoulders like a cloak. Tied around brave Vissenta’s waist, as if to stop her from running too far away. I saw Nicoletta hold the newborn Sibella, a string hanging from heart to tiny heart.
Not a single string reaching out to Constani, which is the moment I learned to hate him.
He was no fool.
He was no… puppet.
Not a victim of some wily witch.
Not… excusable.
He loved her, plain as day and mundane. Unensorcelled. He cherished what she was, as she was.
He was as big a monster as her.
…
My former friend and mentor.
That’s the man he was.
…
A man who would pay silver for a dirt poor child, and keep her as a maid instead of a daughter. A man who would take a child off the streets only to show her no love. He showed her how to clean the dishes and sweep the floors while the other children played.
…
I don’t… know for fact… that he could see what his wife could do. But he broke my heart, because I knew that he knew. I knew that he didn’t care. I knew he lost no sleep over it. The child would grow and he would benefit from such an arrangement, so he did not give a damn. Didn’t feel an ounce of guilt, about the child who slept on the rug by his fire, with ten silver Fate strings wrapped around her neck like a leash.
…
The conversation died here. In horror and disgust, I was almost ready to let the story go unfinished. Ratón sensed my discomfort, and turned from sour to sweet in an instant.
Ratón: But this is a holiday story! A miracle story! A miracle truth, even. You see, Constani swore to me… or rather, took me at my word when I requested in jest… that my pay would be anything I could steal from his house on the way out.
When the fire burned to cinders and the holy spirit of Theus ushered in the yuletide peace, I grabbed the shears a final time and snip-snap-snippity-snip! cut young Ravenna’s strings. In the dark of the night, I left the shears behind and stole the child-witch.
Constani never chased me. He honored the pact. He had his scissors – was free to cut the binds of fate and seize power over the Vodacce district – free to gain control of all the Streghe. If there was ever any good in that man, however little, I’m afraid it fled his life along with me. With the shears and no handsome Ratón at his side, the man grew into a villain. Theus might judge me for that, when I die. But for now? I am still alive.
To this day, I remain the only living man to quit the Red Hand Gang. I knew nothing of raising a child, of course. With nowhere else to turn, I hung my hat at Padre Anibal’s door. Even back then, Padre and Madre raised every orphan they could find a way to feed, Theus bless their souls.
Never tell my dear friend Anibal who taught all his children to thieve, Fishy. I’m certain he’s figured it out, but please don’t, just in case he remains naive. I taught the kids to steal, so there would always be more food to give. Always another loaf of bread, the way there’s always another new orphan.
To this day, the Cat’s Paw ‘gang’ steals to feed the needy.
I’m proud of them.
Heaven bless them, Fishy.
They understand the spirit of Yuletide better than any priest.
Thieving is the best thing I ever did for this world, Fishy. I’ll die a happy man with no sins to confess. Theus will meet me at His Gilded Gates and I will offer my god a shit-eating grin of pride.
Fishy, I’m going to bring young Ravenna to this inn, one day.
She’s still scared to love, I’m afraid. Still afraid to find a bond or tie herself to any man or woman. Afraid to end up wrapped in string again. Even keeps a distance from the other children, from her street siblings. Won’t join the Cat’s Paw.
Tell her love stories, when she comes by. Recite her love poetry. Not just romance – stories of fatherly and motherly love. Of brotherly and sisterly love.
Teach her not to fear a knot or two, Fishy.
Any man who helps Ravenna also spits in Don Constanzo’s villainous face and earns Theus’s blessing.
His story ended here, and he quickly passed out warm and drunk at our table. I’ve not chanced across Ravenna so far, I’m afraid. But the rest of Padre Anibal’s children confirmed the truth of his tale – or at the very least lie in unison along with him. I include this story, choose to believe it. I encourage you, dear reader, to believe it yourself. Ratón is a rotten thief, but that still made him a better man than four fifths of this wretched City I currently call home.