Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  The two of them quickly decided to pursue the scheme that very night, despite the full moon shedding perhaps too much light for secrecy. Giovanni would bring his horse to a certain spot on the road, just out of sight of the house. Angelo claimed that he knew a Dulcinian sister in Florence (that is myself) who would be able to get into the stable and help Dana escape. Giovanni was so eager to help he did not ask questions. So that is the setup for my DEDE.

  MORTIMER: Great, thanks, Chira. Any other details we should know?

  CHIRA: Only that Dana is Muslim. Presumably she will prefer the convent to slavery, but Angelo did not mention this to the wagoner.

  Exchange of posts between Dr. Roger Blevins and Chira Yasin Lajani, DOer Lover Class, on private ODIN channel

  DAY 1992 (11 JANUARY, YEAR 6)

  From: Roger Blevins

  To: Chira Yasin Lajani

  RE: Ascella 1397 DEDE prep re: Historical Operations Subject Matter Authorities (HOSMAs)

  Chira:

  A reminder that SOP while training with HOSMAs is to receive and develop data and expertise in the context of your assigned DEDE. In this case, due to the nature of the DEDE, please limit your discussions to the most immediate necessities for successful DEDE prep. The HOSMAs you are about to work with have been given similar instructions, especially Lauren Abernathy, who will be your sociocultural historian. For the sake of both time and security, none of the casual chitchat that has become increasingly common between DOers and HOSMAs. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

  Roger Blevins

  Reply from Chira Yasin Lajani:

  Dear Dr. Blevins,

  Understood. May I ask if I have been tagged as a DOer who is given to “chitchat” with Historical Operations Subject Matter Authorities? If so, please give me specific examples so that I may correct my behavior.

  I see that in addition to Lauren Abernathy, I will also be working with Marcello Lombardo to refresh my fourteenth-century Florentine Italian (two-day immersion), Bill Morrow to review unarmed self-defense, and Peter Salvino to learn wilderness tracking/survival skills, which, for the record, I have absolutely no experience with.

  That seems like lots to fit into the abbreviated prep period. I am a quick learner, and some of this is refresher material. However, I confess surprise at the rush. Regardless of how long my DEDE prep takes, we will still be Sending me back to 4 March 1397 Ascella shortly before midnight. Is it possible I could have two or three more days to prepare? I am especially uncertain why I was chosen for this DEDE, as I have no experience with non-urban settings. I hope my record of rigorous research and practice will convince you that I do not ask about these things lightly. Thank you.

  Chira

  From Dr. Roger Blevins:

  You’re really not doing anything except liberating a terrified girl in the middle of the night and hiding her in a wagon. There is no reason to spend resources preparing you to blend into society there when you will not be encountering society there. You won’t even be there in daylight.

  From Chira Yasin Lajani:

  Dear Dr. Blevins,

  Agreed—assuming nothing goes wrong. One of the precepts of DODO is to never assume any such thing. I will, of course, obey orders, but I would like it on the record that I wish there were more prep time allotted. At the very least we should work up a cover story for me if I am discovered. Please note my earlier observation that whenever I am Sent, it will be 4 March 1397 when I arrive.

  Chira

  From Dr. Roger Blevins:

  If you use that argument, nothing would ever be considered urgent in our work. There are reasons for haste. You don’t need to know what they are. If you’re having troubles with your prep, then we’ll need to push it out, but that will of course be noted in your performance file, and future actions might be required as a result. I suggest you put your attention fully into getting ready to head to fourteenth-century Italy. It is certainly one of the nicer DTAPs you’ve been assigned, and this is the easiest DEDE we’ve ever given you.

  From Chira Yasin Lajani:

  Duly noted, sir. Thank you.

  Post by Mortimer Shore on “General” GRIMNIR channel

  DAY 1997 (16 JANUARY, YEAR 6)

  Hi all—Chira just texted me a shot of her Tuscany 1397 DEDE report, which I’m attaching below.

  First, though, let me put this out there, given we’re all already freaked about Tristan’s situation: Oda-sensei has been gone a week, and we were all expecting him to be back by now, even though nobody’s said so. Just a reminder I think Tristan would issue here: there is no typical DEDE length. It really does not mean anything that Frank isn’t back yet.

  But it is weirdly quiet around here (that Frank, what a loudmouth, lol) and that must be unsettling for Rebecca most of all, but she’s a badass Yankee who is keeping her chin up (go, Rebecca). Personally I’d love Oda-sensei to get his venerable butt back here to help me jury-rig some kind of network failure—the sensors outside aren’t sufficiently secure, if it goes down it could all go south. I could also use a little help keeping up with CERT warnings and patches on this crazy quilt of software we have—I just don’t have enough hands to keep typing and searching and doing everything else too. But we should all be pretty safe as long as none of us ever leave the house.

  My guess is Oda-sensei stumbled across some cabal of Yukawa-style philosophers anticipating the discovery of mesons and just lost track of time. Admit it, Rebecca, you can totally see that happening, amirite?

  Back to business, here’s Chira’s report.

  AFTER ACTION REPORT

  DOER: Chira Yasin Lajani

  THEATER: CLASSIFIED

  OPERATION: CLASSIFIED

  DEDE: CLASSIFIED

  DTAP: 4 March 1397, Ascella, Commune of Florence

  STRAND: 2

  Note: This is the second Strand on which I have reported this DEDE. My first DEDE report seems to have been corrupted and/or deleted.

  MUON Cassandra Sent me at 16:53 from ODEC #3 on Day 1996 (15 January, Year 6).

  Per the report of the Forerunner who goes by Angelo, I arrived very close to the abode of an older KCW named Lucia, who was expecting me. She took me in and gave me the loan of her extra linen shift and petticoat, and even loaned me her bodice (in case I was discovered, I would need a semblance of respectable dress). My hair and shoulders she covered in a headscarf that sat on me like a medieval wimple. She also very kindly gave me some bread and Pecorino cheese, and then directed me down a sheep path.

  The moon was full but still it was difficult to see much along the twisted route. There are streams throughout the hills, and the undergrowth is dense in the isolated regions that are too steep and stony for agriculture.

  Recalling Angelo’s map, I traveled downslope to a stream and followed it until it went underground. Keeping the polestar to my left, I found the road to the estate. (Since my DEDEs have always been in urban areas, I was very relieved to find it successfully.)

  I knew some things from Angelo’s notes. The domestic building was constructed as three sides of a square. The central wing was for the family. Then servants’ quarters and the kitchen to one side (nearer the main road), and across from that, beyond the courtyard, was the wing for storage and stabling. This estate was small, converted from a working villa rustica to a holiday home. The large courtyard had been repurposed into an elaborate garden with tons of statues (some pornographic) and topiary. The statues were all new, but some had digits or noses broken off to create the impression of antique objects. In the center was a marble fountain engraved with satyrs and nymphs. The water was bubbling, but without much pressure.

  This estate was along the road to the Porta Romana of Firenze (Florence). Angelo had mapped out the bend in the road where we were to rendezvous with Giovanni. The drive from courtyard to road was sloped . . . and, thanks to the new owner, was now lined with twelve marble statues representing the figures of the zodiac. The city walls lay some few curved and hilly miles distant, past vi
neyards, orchards, and wheat fields.

  Each wing of the house was about thirty paces long and ten wide, according to Angelo’s notes. It possessed somber elegance, despite its rustic construction, and its newly glazed windows attested to the wealth of the owners. Matteo was a successful wool merchant, and he had married Agnola Battista, the youngest daughter of a Florentine noble who’d been disenfranchised from political power. They had come out to their rural estate to escape the growing raucousness of Carnevale. And possibly also to receive their new slave where they would not be taxed on their purchase.

  I knew that the girl, Dana, was tonight being kept in an extra silage room in the stable. The stable walls were thick enough to hold in the animal heat of the horses, and there was straw and a blanket for her to sleep on. This was her first night here, and she needed to be washed and properly dressed before Agnola would let her inside.

  I would have to reach the stable by sneaking across the garden-courtyard. But I needed to know what the residents were doing first, before I sprang Dana. So I crept over to the central wing. I smelled woodsmoke, and there was amber light flickering from the windows of the great room. I crouched below one window to listen to whatever might be happening within.

  From this position, I heard the conversation that follows between the merchant Matteo del Dolce and his wife, Agnola. Resting upstairs was Agnola’s visiting cousin, Piero Lapi. All of this I knew from the Forerunner and also from my first Strand. (As I said, the report from my first Strand seems to have vanished.)

  Matteo and Agnola were seated by the window closest to the door. I was able to overhear their conversation because the glazing in this window had been removed. There was now a heavy curtain drawn across the window, which muted the voices but did not prevent me from eavesdropping.

  “That is an expensive insurance policy,” Agnola was saying as I drew near enough to hear.

  “But we must have it,” said Matteo. “She has small hips. If she dies in childbirth we have lost our labors. What we’ll get for renting her as a wet nurse will pay for the insurance within a month, and then the rest is pure profit, because the family renting her will also feed her. Before that, she can work for you while she is pregnant.”

  “Well,” said Agnola, “I would prefer to have her ugly and pregnant if she will be living under our roof—”

  “She is ugly whether she is pregnant or not,” said Matteo with a laugh. “Her hair is the texture of moss.”

  “She has fine features and good breasts,” said Agnola sharply. “Do not tell me you did not notice. Even when she hunched over, with mud on her face, I can tell—she is the kind of pretty that you like.”

  “She doesn’t have to be pretty to get pregnant, that is my meaning,” her husband said. “She only has to be fertile. The captain of the ship said she was on her flux at the new moon, and the moon is about full now so she will be fertile this week.”

  “I have considered this, and I do not want you to be the one to do it,” said Agnola.

  “What?” Matteo sounded shocked. “But, my lamb, we discussed this and—”

  “I do not want you to acknowledge the child and jeopardize our own children’s—”

  “Agnola, of course I will not acknowledge it.” Matteo’s tone was almost impatient. “We have already agreed to all of this, at every step of the way we have been in harmony. I will not acknowledge any bastard; this is only so we will have a wet nurse to rent out. I have three perfect children of my own and I adore every one of them. I have no need for bastards. We can kill it off, if you like, once it’s weaned.”

  “You cannot know how you will feel when you see your own flesh reborn, even to that hideous Tartar,” she argued. “I did not take you for sentimental until Catarina was born. You cannot know how you will respond to another child of your flesh, and I do not want that around the house.”

  I heard him sigh. “You worry too much, Agnola, my little bird. Fine, then, I will not distress you. We’ll find someone else to get her with child. But it must also be somebody who will not care about a bastard.”

  “My cousin Piero is upstairs,” Agnola said, so quickly that Matteo laughed. “He stared at her as the wagon drew up today, and he is the one who commented on her breasts. He would take her in a moment. He would probably fuck her tonight if we asked him to.”

  “I love to hear you speak like that,” said Matteo. “Come sit on my lap and say it again. I want to slide my hands up between your thighs and part them while you are talking about your cousin fucking the slave girl.”

  “This is why you mustn’t fuck her yourself, Matteo my love,” said Agnola, her voice moving from her side of the window toward his. I heard a creaking of leather as she settled onto his lap. “You make everything romantic. Oh!” And then a giggle and muffled sounds as they began to grope each other.

  I pulled away from the window, fearing I would be ill into the closest potted rosebush. I continued creeping along the wall in the direction of the storage wing and made note of a large rosemary bush at the near corner of the garden. The winters are mild enough that the leaves were on the rosemary bushes still in early spring, and I stripped off three branches’ worth of them so that they filled my clenched fist. The first Strand had taught me the usefulness of the rosemary. I crushed it to release the piney odor and rubbed the needles on my face, not minding the sting. It was better than what was about to hit my nostrils. I tucked an extra sprig into my wimple.

  I crossed to the storage-wing door, which hung on hinges made of leather looped tightly over metal. I unbolted the door and carefully pulled it open, then slipped inside and glanced around with the little ambient light from the moonlit courtyard, before pulling closed the door again.

  I was now in the first silage room. To the right was the door to the stalls. I knew from the first Strand there were two stalls, one on each side of a walkway. Beyond them was another door, and behind that door was Dana.

  The silage room smelled mostly of grain and hay, but the scent of horse permeated the whole wing. In the perfect darkness, I walked carefully to the stalls.

  One of the horses was still awake. I could hear it teething the lip of its wooden feed trough. The air was heavy with the musty aroma of horse breath. I walked four long strides to the door holding Dana. I knew the poor frightened girl was in there with a thin blanket over her, huddled on some straw, trying to escape the horror of her situation in the numbness of sleep. The door was closed with an elaborate knot lashing the handle to a metal loop on the wall. During the first Strand, it had taken me an alarmingly long time to undo this, but now I understood the shape of the knot and this time I was able to release it within ten heartbeats, although I could not see my fingers. Unless she were deep asleep, she would hear the door start to open, so now I assumed that she was planning some way to knock me down or attack me, in an effort to escape.

  I had no light. I knew that Agnola would soon be coming out here, to wash the girl clean for Cousin Piero. I pushed the door one inch open and immediately it slammed closed again. I heard her raspy intake of breath as she prepared to shriek.

  “Dana,” I said urgently through the door. In Kazan Tatar, I continued. “I am here to help you, Dana.”

  No response at all, for seven heartbeats. I once again pushed the door open, the width of my thumb.

  “Dana,” I tried again urgently. “I am your friend. I will help you escape.”

  Another pause. Then a scratchy voice in the dark: “But what are you really?”

  “I will save you from the people holding you captive. Please trust me. We have little time. Let me help you.” I opened the door as wide as the fingers of my outstretched hand. A horrid smell oozed out. I reached in farther, palm up and fingers gently outstretched.

  I felt her teeth close around the meat of my thumb and then she bit. Hard.

  “Hey!” I hissed.

  She released the bite but grabbed my pinkie finger and began to bend it backward toward my wrist. I dropped my whole arm lower th
an her grasp (I am not trained beyond beginner self-defense, so I do not know the term for this), and then with a twist I was able to wrap my hand around her wrist.

  “Don’t hurt me!” she said, her voice rising in pitch and decibel.

  “Sh-sh-sh,” I coaxed, and stayed still a moment with my hand closed firmly around her wrist. “Do you see I am not hurting you? If they hear your voice, they will come running. I must get you out of here quickly, child. I will open the door wider and you step out.”

  I winced at the smell as the door opened. I pulled gently, and she came out of the room.

  “If I release you, will you trust me and not run away?”

  “Yes,” she said, but sounded unconvincing.

  “I will just stand here with you until you are ready to trust me,” I said, which was a feint on my part because we had to get down to the road by a certain time. To prevent Giovanni from endangering his life, DOer Angelo had been very strict about how long he should linger if we were not already at the meeting point.

  She took a few nervous breaths.

  “I am here from Giovanni,” I said. “He was distressed about leaving you here with these people. He did not realize you were to be a slave. He is a good man and has made a plan to come and rescue you.”

  Another moment of silence. Then she said, “I will go with you.” I released her wrist and held out my hand for her to take, although it was still too dark to see.

  Her hand was slippery in mine, because it was smeared with a thin coat of her excrement. That was the horrible smell. She was determined to be physically repulsive to the men. She had already guessed what they were planning.