The people on the street had listened to a wonderful story all night, but they were still in the dark.
They fell into three groups. The first was former Saltfish Gang members like Lame Bob, Dahl, and Little Smo, who knew where Francois had come from.
The second was the people they had rescued—strong, able-bodied people recruited into the Saltfish Gang. They could make a rough guess about Francois's origins.
The third, and largest, group was the residents who had received herbs and food. They knew nothing about Francois's origins, or even about the conflict between the Kingdom and Free City. They would side with whoever treated them well.
The first two groups numbered more than eighty people together, nearly enough for Francois's next objective: using the Saltfish Gang as cover while the Blade of Freedom took control of the street.
First, the Saltfish Gang members took charge of the street and guarded every entrance and exit to stop any ill-intentioned residents from slipping away to inform on them.
Then came the cleanup. With sewage, animal carcasses, and Rat everywhere, the street was a breeding ground for disease.
Francois hired a hundred residents to remove the carcasses and clear the sewage for just a hundred pounds of black Bread. Dahl even complained that ten pounds of Bread would have been enough.
"They'll be our people one day. What good would treating them harshly do?" Francois rebuked Dahl for his hostility toward outsiders. Dahl was delighted instead, convinced Francois was grooming him—
And Francois was. He couldn't do everything alone; he needed people to share the work. Lame Bob was the best choice, while Dahl and Little Smo had potential too.
Francois then went with Dahl to the Market. The sky was overcast, and a bleak, cold wind swept through its