Читать книгу The Grand Dark онлайн | страница 19

Largo had grown up with his parents in a decaying mansion by the canal. His father had a wagon and a sick horse that he’d probably bought under the table from an army stable. Father rode the wagon all over Lower Proszawa looking for scrap to sell and, like Largo, making the occasional delivery. Largo’s mother panhandled and picked pockets in the street markets around the Green. Largo had been a pale, scrawny child, and his parents had been very protective of him. Maybe too much, he thought now. He was always cautious and nervous around confrontations. Even his encounter with the scabby man, as well as he’d handled it, left him feeling slightly ill, which was humiliating.

Because no one had been home during the day to take care of him, Largo went with his father on his rounds. His mother worried about taking a small boy to some districts even more dangerous than Haxan Green—kidnappings were frequent and children were often sold off to fishing ships along the bay or pimps in the city. To protect the boy during his rounds, his father put him in a wooden crate up front in the wagon. It was through the air holes in the side of the crate that Largo first learned Lower Proszawa’s winding streets and alleys.

Later, he would become an expert while running from gangs wielding chains and knives or bullocks looking for his parents. Of course, he’d never admitted any of this to Remy. It was too embarassing. Besides, she talked as little about her family as Largo did about his, and it made him wonder if she had secrets too.

On his way back to the office, Largo was delayed by a caravan of double-decker party Autobuses. The city’s merrymakers always grew more boisterous in the days before the anniversary of the end of the Great War. Buses and street parties were some of the few places where the upper and lower classes mingled easily because each had the same goal—a gleeful obliteration.

When Largo returned to the courier office, Herr Branca was waiting for him.

“And how was your first foray into new territories?”