Chapter 51: Song of the Nightingale (1/2)

Enter!” Lucian's voice bellowed, and Cassowary opened the door. Following him in was a nervous-looking, middle-aged man with a balding head and noticeable paunch.

“Cassowary,” Lucian said, his forehead creasing into a frown. Elven features weren’t well-suited to malevolence, but Lucian made it work.

“I take it,” Lucian said, “that you’re showing your face here because you have what I asked for.”

”Yes, sir, Mr Lucian,” Cassowary said quickly. ”This man is a bookmaker here in the pits and has been for some years. He knows all about the girl.”

The middle-aged man visibly gulped as Lucian looked him up and down.

“Name?” Lucian demanded.

“Hubert, sir. They call me Bert the Bookie.”

“Not your name, imbecile. The fighter, Nightingale.”

“Sorry, sir. Her name’s Sophie, sir. Sophie Wexler.”

“You just heard Cassowary tell me you knew everything about her which, for your sake, I very much hope is true. Tell me everything, Bert the Bookie.”

”Everything, sir, yes, sir,” Hubert said. ”She wasn't born local but came over with her father, when she was real little, like. This was at the time of the monster surge before last. I remember that's when it was because her father was part of this merchant group. The head of their muscle. Seems they hadn't been doing so well and gambled big on a sailing run during the surge. There’s a reason no-one sails during a surge, though, and they lost everything. Only a handful made it in on some dinghies, including the girl and her old man. She couldn’t have been more than two or three years old.”

“He took a little girl out to sea during a monster surge?” Cassowary asked. “What a prick.”

“Shut up,” Lucian said to Cassowary, then returned his gaze to Hubert. “You, keep talking.”

“Well, the merchant group was done,” Hubert continued. “No ships, not even the money for passage back after the surge was over. The girl’s old man went to work for Silva. Not Cole Silva who’s in charge now, obviously. His old dad. Good man, too. Tough, but fair, you know?”

“Get on with it.”

“Sorry, sir. So, the girl’s old man could fight, like, proper fight, and catches the old man’s attention. Does well under Silva Senior for a lot of years, until there’s a problem. Silva Junior takes an interest in the girl.”

“Hardly a surprise,” Lucian said. “He has eyes.”

”She is a looker, sir. But she didn't want any part of Silva the younger, and none could blame her. He'd left more than a few professional women in no state to undertake their profession, if you catch my drift. Old man Silva, he knows what his son is, and likes the girl's father. So he tells his son that it's hands-off.”

“I bet he took that well,” Lucian said.

“About how you’d expect, sir, yes. He did as he was told, but didn’t make things pleasant for the girl. Got to the point that her father decided to get her out. He just didn’t go about it a good way.”

“Oh?”

“The father takes out a loan from Silva the senior. A hefty one. Tries to start up his own trade expedition, but even without a monster surge, the man ain’t got no luck with the sea.”

“Monster attack?”

“Pirates. Was quite the excitement, from what I hear; father and daughter fighting pirates back to back. Managed to fight them off, too, but the father didn’t last long after, and neither did the ship. For the second time in her life the girl arrives at the city in a dinghy, and this time she’s got no father and a shipload of inherited debt. She would have been sixteen, seventeen back then. She had an essence her old man had bought, which had just made the debt all the bigger.”

“That was when she started pit fighting,” Cassowary contributed.

“Shut up, Cassowary,” Lucian barked. “Carry on, Bert.”

“Now, I knew the father and daughter going back to when her father was muscle here in the Fortress,” Hubert said. “He was a hard man. No essences, but I’d seen him put down people who had one, even two. He never fought in the pits himself, but the fighters showed him nothing but respect. His girl, as it turns out, was even better. Run up walls, fly through the damn air like a bird.”

“Nightingale,” Lucian said.

“That’s right,” Hubert said. “She had a good run. Took some beatings early on, but she learned fast. Add that to the way she looks and she got some attention.”

“She fights for Silva?” Lucian asked.

”She did back then, for Silva the elder,” Hubert said. ”He looked out for her, kept his son off her back, which Silva Junior did not care for. But the old man took a real shine to the girl. Eventually, she gave up the ring, found some other way to pay the old man back. High-end thieving was what I heard. She had a friend who made the plans and the tools, she did the second-storey work.”

“Then why is she back in the pits?” Lucian asked. “And who does she fight for, now?”

”That goes back to when Old Man Silva died,” Hubert said. “There was talk old man Silva wasn't going to pass the mantle down to his son,” Hubert said. ”Too impulsive, too beholden to his own appetites. Word is, the old man was going to step back and pass it to one of the old-guard before he passed. Someone who’d respect the old man’s treatment of the girl.”

“But he didn’t pass it on to anyone else,” Lucian said.

“No, he didn’t,” Hubert agreed. “Couple of months ago, the old man went in his sleep. There were rumours, of course, but nothing came of them. Since the old man hadn’t said otherwise, the son stepped in. Damn near the first thing he did was go after the girl. As far as I know, she’d almost cleared the old debt, but now it’s in the hands of Silva Junior. He made plenty clear the only payment he’ll take. She and her friend have a skill-set, though, and made themselves scarce. Found their way to another of the Big Three, Clarissa Ventress. Cut a deal to protect them from Silva.”

“So Ventress is making her fight again?” Lucian asked.