Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  I rushed him. He released one hand and backhanded me in the face, the bones of his knuckles meeting my cheekbone hard and knocking me to the ground. My vision went white with pain, and then I made out two lights jostling above us by the servants’ wing. Matteo and his wife, Agnola, were rushing down to see what was happening.

  Down the hill, the wagon drew up. In plain view of us all. Giovanni had overshot the meeting point. He had no lamps on the wagon, so thankfully he could not be identified—but the moon was full and it was obvious somebody was there.

  Dana saw him too. She screamed and began to plead in Tartar: “Help me! Help!!”

  The wagon sat motionless a moment, then Giovanni clicked his tongue, slapped the reins, and the horse loped off. Piero stared into the darkness trying to see it. He turned up the rise toward the approaching lanterns. “Matteo, saddle a horse and question that driver,” he called. “He might have seen whoever was helping them.”

  Agnola gasped. “You’re saying this is part of a plot? Are they coming to murder us in our sleep?”

  “I’ll question this bitch,” said Piero. He released Dana and grabbed me. I began to make a great show of trying to tear away from him, but even if I had been trying in earnest, I would have failed to escape those massive hands. I do not know what Piero did for a living, but his hands were very strong.

  When Piero released Dana, she fell to the ground in shock, but only for a moment. Then she rose and, completely naked, ran down the hill toward the road, crying for help in Tartar.

  “Stop, you bitch!” he shouted.

  Agnola was not close enough to stop Dana, and Matteo was running back toward the stable for a horse. If Piero could not contain both myself and Dana, one of us would get away. He had to keep me from fleeing so that he could go after Dana. He would not want me to have a head injury, as that would prevent him from interrogating me, and thus he chose to lame me. I calculated this a fraction of a second before he did, so I was prepared.

  He raised his knee and then stomped on my bare foot with his heavy leather boot. I shrieked and howled with pain. In truth it did not hurt as much as I let on, for the grass and soil gave way a little beneath. But my foot immediately began to swell, and I was sure that at least one toe was broken.

  I collapsed to the ground and made a great display of clutching my foot and wailing. He left me then, and in three strides he had overtaken Dana and dragged her, naked, back up the slope.

  “Shut up and come with me, Tartar bitch,” he yelled at her. He turned to Agnola. “Get her back inside. I’ll make her speak.”

  “Mercy!” I sobbed. “I will tell you whatever you like, only please bind my foot!” And I dissolved into tears and resumed wailing.

  Agnola dragged the terrified girl, and Piero carried me, both of us continuing to howl. I thrashed against his grip, and my clothes ripped in several places. When we were inside, the cook was summoned to take Dana into the kitchen to clean her; Agnola followed them, fuming. The cook, an older woman with a mass of gray curls peeking from under her headscarf, was unhappy about this assignment, and yet seemed resigned to it, as if this were a common chore.

  The great room of the house was large and high-ceilinged, the floor broad terra-cotta tiles, the walls plaster with embossed decorations, and all the chairs and divans of ornate woodwork and stuffed upholstery, with cushions strewn everywhere. There was a tapestry displaying the constellations of the night sky on one wall, and a large Turkish carpet with vivid greens in the weave hanging across from it, and marble sculptures of satyrs to either side of the door, and lutes of several sizes in one corner. There was a censer suspended from a wall bracket near the kitchen, from which burned flowery perfumes. The room felt grand and yet cozy.

  Piero and I were alone in here now and I was still wailing. He glared at me and said, “I will fix your broken foot as soon as you tell me everything.”

  I wailed louder, shrieked, made as if to try to speak, but then collapsed helplessly, pointing to my broken foot. He was handsome but not very smart, for he believed me.

  “Fine! I’ll bind it first and then you’ll tell me everything,” he declared in annoyance, then called toward the kitchen for the cook. He demanded from her hot water, two poultices, and bandages. He made all of these demands in an angry voice, staring at me, sometimes at my face but mostly at my body. I kept sobbing, plotting how I could get back to Dana. The cook returned, scowling, with poultices and bandages. Piero took them and placed one poultice on my face and the other on my swollen foot. The poultices were cold and smelled of cypress and comfrey.

  “Thank you,” I gasped between sobs.

  “Now stop screaming. This is to bring down the swelling, and then I will bind it to stabilize it.” I must have looked surprised, for he added gruffly, “I was in love with our barber surgeon’s daughter and used all excuses to spend time in his surgery, so I learned things.”

  “I’m grateful,” I whined.

  “Shut up and tell me what you’re up to here.”

  I have never been Sent without a cover story before. In the moment, I had to improvise, so I considered the very little bit I had been told about this family, their friends, and their enemies. I had almost nothing to go on, except the family business. “I was hired by the Corsinis to kidnap the girl from here.” He looked confounded. I shifted my weight to get comfortable and saw his eyes flicker toward a sliver of my exposed buttocks. So I shifted farther to expose more buttock. “She is not really Tartan.”

  “Of course she is Tartan,” he said. Again his eyes darted away from mine—this time to my exposed left nipple. “Matteo bought her off a boat that had just arrived from the Black Sea.”

  “Bartolomeo Corsini has estates by the Black Sea, and Dana is the daughter of his estate manager. Corsini has even today killed the sailor who sold her to your kinsman.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Corsini is no friend of ours, but he’s just a liar and a cheat, not a murderous lunatic.” His gaze twitched to my buttock again, then back to my face. “Why does he not just tell Matteo who she is?”

  “He fears you would hold her hostage for ten times the amount you paid for her. It was much more economical to hire me to steal her back.”

  “I can almost believe that story, except the part about hiring you.”

  I shrugged. “They have me on retainer,” I said. “They figured they might as well use me.”

  He snorted. “You are not on retainer as a thief. You can’t even run without falling over. You should be on retainer for fucking. Nobody puts someone like you in the picture unless she is supposed to fuck somebody as part of the plan,” he said matter-of-factly. “I hope you’re supposed to fuck me, because I certainly want to fuck you.”

  “How would my fucking anyone help to steal a slave?” I said.

  “I think you’re supposed to distract me with your fucking, while she runs away,” he said, pleased with himself. (Men are very good at imagining situations in which I am supposed to be having sex with them.)

  “Then the best way to prevent her running away is not to fuck me,” I pointed out. I used a teasing voice that I intended to confuse him.

  He gave me a derisive look. “There is a much better way to keep her from running away.”

  He took the poultices off my foot and face and set them down sopping on the terra-cotta tiles, out of my reach. Then he headed for the kitchen. “Where are you going?” I called. “Will you not bind my foot?”

  “I will bind all of you when I get back,” he said. “And do whatever else I like with you too.” As he disappeared around the corner toward the kitchen, he casually pulled a large knife from a sheath on his belt.

  Horrified, I leapt up and tried to run after him, but the poultice made the floor slippery and I fell on my ass. Before I could rise again, hysterical shrieks erupted from the kitchen. They reached a crescendo and then softened into sobs.

  Piero returned with calm, deliberate footfalls. I screamed when I saw him and fell on my ass again: a b
rilliant splatter of red dashed from his left temple diagonally across his body to his right hip. “Now she cannot run away,” he said matter-of-factly, wiping the blade on his stocking. He set the knife on the top of a cabinet in the corner and then walked toward me, where I remained sprawled on the floor, howling.

  “Shh-shh,” he said. “You’ll injure yourself more. Let me pick you up.”

  Seeing my wild-eyed fear, he paused, smiled, and said, “Oh, you do not like the blood. I understand.” And then very casually, he removed his clothes. He was a well-made man and he knew it. He was preening now.

  “Here is what will happen,” he said. “I will bind your foot. We will fuck each other. I will get one of Agnola’s gowns for you and find you a crutch to walk with, and you will go to the Corsinis and tell them they will never get their girl. They should have been honest and come to us directly.”

  I will skip to my return: it took a long while to get back to KCW Lucia’s, even with the aid of the crutch, because my foot was in excruciating pain. Lucia was exceedingly pleased to receive Agnola’s very fine bright blue gown. She Homed me, and when I was through with the decontamination process, my foot and face were seen to by Dr. Srinavasan. As you will see in my records, the foot suffers from a serious bone bruise and one toe is broken. I will need to stay off it for a couple of days and then wear a walking boot for one week. My face will take longer to heal, but Dr. Srinavasan believes I do not have a concussion.

  I request that on the next Strand, if there is to be one once I have recovered from my injury, I am briefed on an appropriate cover story in case I am discovered again. I am heartbroken and devastated by my failure to free Dana.

  Text exchange between burner phone and Mortimer Shore, posted on “Chira” GRIMNIR channel

  DAY 2038 (26 FEBRUARY, YEAR 6)

  BURNER PHONE: This time I was able to take a photo of the DEDE report before submitting it to DODO, so I just sent that. Once again, I lied.

  MORTIMER: What really happened?

  BURNER PHONE: Too long to text. Will call.

  FREYA’S TRANSCRIPT OF

  MORTIMER SHORE’S PHONE CONVERSATION WITH CHIRA YASIN LAJANI

  DAY 2038 (26 FEBRUARY, YEAR 6)

  (lightly edited by Mortimer Shore to remove his interjections)

  Here is what really happened.

  All of the beginning is as I told DODO. I arrived at the estate, and coaxed Dana out of the stable, and helped her to wash in the fountain. However, in this Strand, the fountain had run out of air pressure and wasn’t running at all, although there was water in the basin. Dana climbed in and tried to splash as quietly as possible. In the still cold air, her efforts sounded incredibly loud to both of us. It took her much longer, but she managed. Shivering like mad, she clambered out again with my help. Her feet touched the ground, and I could feel her shudder from the cold. I rubbed her arms to try to warm her up, until she was ready to head down the hill.

  That is when the door opened. Piero came outside. We cowered behind the fountain, where he couldn’t see us, but also, we couldn’t see him.

  After a moment of quiet, we heard a sound of hissing water and realized he came out here only to relieve himself. So we should be safe if he would just go back inside—we were running late, and on this Strand, as usual, the understanding with Giovanni was that he must not wait more than a few moments.

  Down the slope, I heard what struck my ears as the wagon approaching. Piero also heard the sound and crossed to the edge of the garden to look down the drive. “Hello?” he cried out, peering into the moonlight.

  The sound was definitely a wagon. “Hello?” Piero called out again, waving an arm. The wagon didn’t even pause—Giovanni, or whoever it was, continued past the drive at the same slow trot. Piero shrugged and then headed back inside. I adjusted my position at the fountain so that I could see him.

  He opened the door and was about to step inside, when suddenly a loud sneeze escaped Dana. Horrified, she clapped her hands over her face, but he had heard her. He paused. He turned around and gazed out, but he was backlit in the doorway, so I couldn’t see where he was looking. “Hello?” he called again, in a more warning tone. Dana held her breath. I kept my breathing light and quiet. Piero stepped back into the yard. “Hello?” he called again. He began to walk toward the road. Under my unspoken direction, Dana retreated around the fountain so that the base of it was always between him and us.

  He got to the edge of the garden, peered down toward the road again, but saw nothing. The wagon was out of sight. Piero began to stroll counterclockwise around the periphery of the garden, glancing about with curiosity. When he came close enough that we might be seen, we withdrew again, so that we retreated at the same rate he circumambulated, and the fountain base remained between us. Once he had done a full revolution, he shook his head and went back into the house.

  I counted to five after he closed the door, then took Dana’s hand and rushed directly across the garden, across the rocky drainage space, and down the drive to the road.

  “He came and went,” said Dana, distraught.

  “Maybe not, I think he saw Piero and just kept going. I hope he has turned the wagon around up the hill and will come past here again on his way back to the city. Come, let us dress you.”

  Hurriedly, I removed all my clothes, gave Lucia’s linen shift to Dana, and then put the rest of the clothes back on myself. At a glance, I appeared to be dressed, only with something subtly not quite right. But we would remain in moonlight.

  After a few moments, we heard a horse’s hooves tapping out a lively trot, and then around the far corner, the wagon came into view. Dana jumped up and down, waving her arms. “That’s him!” she said excitedly.

  “Dana, hush,” I said.

  “That’s him!” she repeated, whispering.

  “The moon is so round it is almost square,” the wagoner said as he reined in the horse.

  “My favorite constellations are triangles,” I said hurriedly, and began to haul Dana into the wagon before we exchanged the rest of the code.

  “Good evening, Giovanni,” I hissed at him in whispered Italian, and signaled for him to make haste. He slapped the reins and the horse began to trot again. “There has been a change of plans, and she will not be going to the nunnery after all, but rather to a family within the city walls who are Dulcinian sympathizers. Will you take us there?”

  I was inventing on the spot. I acknowledge that I was disobeying both DODO and Rogue-DODO. I did not care. I cared about Dana.

  Of course he wanted to know who the family was in the city. “I do not remember the family name,” I said. “I know only that they have a butcher shop by the Ponte Vecchio, on the Oltrarno side.” (At that time the bridge was only fifty years old, but it was already being called the Old Bridge.)

  I could see his surprise in the moonlight. “That is the Moschardi family,” he said. “They’re Dulcinites?”

  “A Dulcinite family spoke well of them,” I dissembled. “In any case, I know they will be kind to her.” I did not know this, of course. That there even was a butcher on the Oltrarno side of the bridge was a guess. A sensible guess, but a guess.

  The wagoner removed his heavy wool mantle and handed it back to me. Dana was shivering and trying not to sob. She made a muffled sound that was half laughter, half sobbing and blew him a kiss.

  We hurried through the cool night air, along this twisty, hilly road, past the farmland and vineyards and orchards, all glowing like a monochrome print in the moonlight. Dana curled up into a little ball beside me. She allowed herself to weep, lowering her guard for the first time. Then she slept a little, her head lolling against my shoulder with the jostling of the wagon.

  We reached the Porta Romana hours before dawn, after a final steep descent (that would have been steeper if we had aimed for the nearer gate, which was a little to the east of it). That is the massive stone gate to the south. It is as big as anything I saw in the Constantinople DTAP and has a humungous door made of
wood reinforced with iron, including sharp iron nibs in a dense grid covering every surface. There is a portcullis before the actual gate and another just behind it, and a small portage door within the gate.

  Giovanni jumped out and pounded on the port door. After a moment, a watchman came out, holding up a lantern. He looked annoyed. If we had been on foot, he might have just let us through without paying the toll and gone back to bed. But a wagon would require raising the portcullises and opening the gate—and summoning both an inspector and a toll-taker. That would take time and energy.

  “You can just wait here until sunup,” he told Giovanni in a surly voice.

  “No, I can’t,” Giovanni said. “I have wheat for the hospital, they need to make bread for the patients. I am already later than usual.”

  “Than usual? I’ve never seen you before.”

  “I usually come in from the west,” said Giovanni. “I apologize if I have disturbed your nap. In the name of the good Lord in Heaven, please do your fucking job.”

  The watchman harrumphed and disappeared back inside without another word. We waited in silence. It was so cold and still, it felt as if the night would last forever. On the road we had taken to get here, far behind us, I saw lanterns swinging from carriages. Other travelers, merchants, and shippers were arriving at the gate. I tucked the cloak around Dana so that she was not visible at all.

  After an interminable delay, the port door opened again and a new man in a blue uniform stepped through holding a horn lantern.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” said Giovanni in a respectful voice. “On behalf of the hospital inmates, I thank you for your promptness.”

  The inspector ignored him and began to slowly circle the cart of the wagon, poking and prodding at casks and boxes. He occasionally opened something to examine in the dim light of his lantern. He looked as bored about his job as a typical TSA worker, but moved much more slowly. He paid absolutely no attention to me or to Dana.

  While he was lethargically examining Giovanni’s bags of wheat flour, a larger wagon pulled up behind us, pulled by two draft horses snorting in unison. A few moments later, I heard another wagon pull up behind that one. The inspector asked Giovanni some questions, which Giovanni answered with short, even responses: he was going to deliver wheat to the hospital; from there he had a few other deliveries before departing the city for Bologna; from Bologna he would head to Ravenna. He lived in Ravenna. No, he had never been as far north as Milan. Dana was practically wrapped around me by now, clinging to me for warmth. I whispered to her, explaining the delay and telling her to stay still and keep her head down.