by V. Briceland
“Then the city owes you a debt of gratitude this evening.” Nic grinned at the words. His pleasure was short-lived, for Esparsa made a gesture that sent two guards to Nic’s side. They clasped his hands behind his back. He felt ropes digging into his wrists. “However, I regret to inform you that we have been searching for you for some time, Signor Drake,” Esparsa continued. In a more assertive voice, loud enough to be heard over the restless crowd, he announced, “By the authority of King Alessandro the Wise, I hereby arrest you. The charges are as follows: the forgery of artwork; the dissemination of stolen materials; the scavenging of Caza Portello in the days after its fall three years prior; intimidation; failure to pay taxes …”
As the list of charges went on and on, a bewildered Nic found himself surrounded by crimson and being dragged away. Such was his hero’s welcome
It is said of the pirate Fireclops that he endured nine years in a Gallina prison without complaint. What is usually not noted is that he preferred his incarceration to having to face the two mistresses, three wives, five assassins, and countless creditors waiting outside the prison gates for his release.
—Alejandro Franco, A Life at Sea
To say that Nic suffered during his incarceration was something of an exaggeration. As far as prison cells went, his was most cozy. The bed was clean and its linens fresh. The compartment itself was at least as large as the captain’s quarters aboard the Tears of Korfu had been, and the prospect of the Via Dioro was most pleasant. He had a writing desk equipped with a quill, powdered ink, and an abundance of smooth writing paper. The guards who brought him his breakfast had been personable. One of them had even stopped in the doorway, bowed, and thanked him for saving her uncle, who had lost his shrimping boat at sea the night before. Had this been his home, Nic could have done very well in the space. It was far more comfortable than any place he’d ever lived.
However, the prospect of spending months, if not years, within the room’s four walls did not sit well with Nic. He spent a restless and mostly sleepless night pacing the room, listening to the rain and staring out of the window at the thunderheads over the sea. He didn’t know where Darcy had been taken or what had happened to the crew. Separated from the people he knew, he could have been dressed in silks and housed in the most elaborate chambers of any of the cazas and he would have been as miserable.
Thus it was with much relief that sometime after his midday meal, Captain Esparsa himself unlocked Nic’s cell, saluted, and told Nic that his presence had been requested. Where, and before whom, the man would not reveal. Nic found himself surrounded by a cohort of guards and escorted from the guards’ headquarters across Palace Square in the direction of Cassaforte’s single biggest structure. All he could do was gulp, stare up through the pouring rain at the massive dome crowning the royal house, and hope for the best.
He sat in a parlor of sorts for some minutes, watched by two guards at two of the room’s three gilded doorways. The marble floors, the intricate windows of leaded glass covered with rain droplets, the rich carpets imported from Yemeni, the display case of Catarre curiosities that dated back four hundred years—it was all lost on Nic in his nervousness. For all he knew about Cassaforte and its laws, he might have been facing his sentence and execution that very day. After what seemed like a year of waiting, the unguarded double doors opened and a girl slipped out.
She was a very pretty young woman of perhaps eighteen or nineteen years, with fair skin and hair that had been gathered into a netlike reta cap that hung over her neck. Her dress was very plain. Judging by the work apron that covered her unadorned gown, Nic might have pegged her for a servant. When he noticed that she was looking at him, Nic struggled to his feet, as was the custom. “Good day,” he said, a great deal of nervousness in his voice.
“Good day,” she echoed. For a moment she leaned against the closed doors, frankly regarding him. Her eyes were still lively when she wrinkled her snubbed nose and remarked, “What a curious getup you have on. You’re that Drake fellow, aren’t you?”
“Yes. No.” Immediately Nic felt self-conscious about the pirate costume he wore. It was fairly dirty from the night before and although he was relatively fresh according to the benchmarks of the sea, by the rarefied standards of any palace servant, he must have looked and smelled like the worst of beggars. “I pretended to be. I called myself the Drake, at sea. But I’m not the same Drake that the guards want for forgery and … um.” The young woman had a curious ability to make him quite uncomfortable. It felt as if her eyes pierced through him to see things that no one else could see. Some sort of energy shimmered around her when she moved in his direction, as if she crackled with invisible sparks after shuffling across a wool carpet on a very cold day.
Yet the day was warm, and she glided rather than shuffled to his side. “Your name is Niccolo Dattore,” she announced. Nic was so surprised that he could barely nod. “Captain Esparsa means well. But even he eventually had to concede that you looked too young to have been involved in the trafficking of stolen art for well over a dozen years. Unless,” she added, with a quirk of her lips that made her tilt-tipped nose appear quite charming, “you were an exceptionally talented infant.”
Just then one of the double doors opened again. A man stepped out, shaking his head. “How frustrating,” he said upon spying the girl. The robes he wore were expensive but not elaborate, Nic could tell. Signor Arturo would have given anything for his Hero to have worn them in the role of the ne’er-do-well son of a noble family, or as one of the many princes he played who were always disguising themselves as commoners. “They talk and talk and never decide upon anything.”
“Precisely,” replied the servant girl. She seemed glad to share the man’s opinion. “Which is why I detest these meetings. Action over debate. That’s what I advocate.”
“Yes, and—oh. Hello.” Only then did the nobleman appear to notice that Nic was in the room as well. He reached out and vigorously pumped Nic’s hand.
“Cazarro.” A mysterious smile danced across the girl’s lips. “This is the young man you were discussing. You might have seen him last night upon your docks.”
“Eh?”
“Cazarro Ianno Piratimare,” said the girl, enunciating each word as if the man were slightly deaf, or perhaps merely excited. “May I present to you the young man calling himself the Drake. His name is Niccolo Dattore. He is the clever captain of the Allyria, the ship that saved so many last night.”
“Was.” Nic had only just gotten over his fear of lifetime incarceration. Now he was so intimidated to be in the presence of the cazarro of Piratimare that he froze. The fellow’s face was covered with care lines. His nose was large and red, and his eyes darted up and down Nic’s narrow frame almost greedily, but he seemed like a kind man. Luckily, the cazarro seemed to be as speechless as he. “I was captain of the Allyria.”
“Are,” said the young woman firmly. Nic looked at her. For the first time since he had been arrested, he could feel a flicker of hope. Had she overheard something?
“But dear boy … oh my goodness, you are a boy, aren’t you?” The cazarro gaped again. “Do you know what the Allyria is?”
“I am not certain that any of us know what the Allyria truly is,” commented the girl. It struck Nic as an unusually intelligent observation.
“Well, no, of course not. You shouldn’t have been able to … it’s impossible for you to have … unless, of course, you …”
Nic could stand it no longer. “It was very pleasant to meet you,” he said with a bow. As he hoped, the formality silenced the man. Cazarro he might have been, and Nic intended to pay him the respect his family was due. Yet Nic was not required by any law to listen to anything he or any other Piratimare might have had to say. Nor did he want to hear. Not now, and not for a long time to come.
Luckily, the doors opened once again. The head of a young man thrust out. Nic saw nothing of h
im beyond a shock of blond hair and clear green eyes. “Listen, are you coming back in?”
The girl crossed her arms. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“In fact, I very much would,” said the young man. He was much the girl’s age, outstripping Nic by only a very few years. “I despise these meetings as much as you.”
“Ah,” said the girl. She kicked at the hem of her dress as she marched back over to the doors. “But it’s your job, and not mine.”
“I could order you …”
“But you wouldn’t.” She leaned forward and gave the fellow an affectionate kiss on the lips. Nic wasn’t sure where to look. Glancing at the servant couple seemed to violate their intimacy, while peeping at Ianno Piratimare seemed risky. The man was too liable to open his mouth and blurt out whatever he was thinking or suspecting. Nic merely cleared his throat and stared at the floor.
“No, I wouldn’t.” The blond-headed young man reached up a finger and chucked his sweetheart on the nose. “But I might if you don’t get back in here.” Without further ado, the head disappeared.
The girl sighed. “Good day, Ianno. I suppose I’m to be tortured some more,” she said to the cazarro of Piratimare. To Nic’s surprise, she lay both of her hands upon his own left arm and began escorting him to the double doors. “Spending my days under Ferrer’s watchful eye isn’t enough, apparently. Now I’m to be talked to death in high meetings of state as well. Come along,” she added, as she pulled Nic from the parlor into the chamber beyond.
Whenever the Arturos had portrayed a scene set in a palace, or in the estate of the Seven and Thirty or some foreign noble, they had always relied upon little pieces of glass, cut small and applied thickly, to indicate jewels. Anyone seeing any of the Arturos’ potboilers would have come away with the impression that every surface in a royal home was encrusted with jewels. The cups, the plates, the chairs, and the costumes all glittered after the Signora and Pulcinella had been at them with the pot of horse glue.
Absolutely nothing in the inner chamber into which Nic was pulled was covered with diamonds, rubies, or even semi-precious stones. He could tell, however, that the spare and impeccably dressed room was the most lavish outlay of wealth he’d ever seen. From the massive tapestries adorning the far wall, to the Buonochio paintings hanging high above, to the gold-lined mural of skies and stars upon the chamber’s ceiling—it was almost too much for a single pair of eyes to appreciate. Several figures sat around the single longest table Nic had ever seen. Like the abandoned Legnoli costume trunk, the table obviously had been carved in one piece from a single mighty blackwood tree in the royal forest. Only the tree that had been felled for this purpose was far, far larger.
Nic was so amazed at the opulence that at first he utterly failed to notice Darcy standing up from the table and making her way around it. She tripped over to meet him, and Nic wondered how he ever could have been dazzled by anything else. Her hair had been washed and brushed and shone more brilliantly than cut glass in the glare of the brightest footlight. Her blue eyes sparkled brighter than sapphires. Most impressively, the dress she wore suited her so well that Nic failed to remember that she had spent most of the last two weeks in boy’s breeches. “By Muro’s foal,” he gasped, his hands stretching out to take hers. “You’re … glamorous.”
“Yes, I know.” Maxl’s voice was proud. He, too, had come around the table to meet Nic, though Nic’s eyes had only been on Darcy. “The Colombos, they make Maxl clean up to see king. ‘Maxl,’ they say, ‘you are stinking like seaweed. You cannot stink so much before the king.’ I say, I am sorry, but how did I know I am stinking of seaweed? Everything on the sea is stinking of seaweed. Yes? So I had a bath,” he said with pride. “It is making me glamorous indeed, no?”
Nic had to grin. The former pirate had cleaned up admirably. His long hair had been washed and braided so that it fell in a long rope down his back. Instead of the primary paint the color of a child’s wooden toy, someone had found him blueing of a more subtle shade, like the deep morning sky. He had applied it only to the forehead, above the eyes, and to the cheeks. In the expensive clothing that someone had loaned him for the occasion, Maxl looked as if he belonged more among the damas and ritters of his own country than the crew of the Allyria. “Yes, Maxl. You look particularly glamorous today. That’s indeed what I meant. You look all right,” he added to Darcy, shrugging.
“And now you’re the one stinking of seaweed,” she joked back.
He probably did. Nic wasn’t so overwhelmed by Darcy’s sudden transformation that he completely neglected to hear what Maxl said. “And we’re to see the king?”
In answer to his question, Darcy’s eyes darted from their end of the table down its full length, to the room’s other side. Nic heard a man clearing his throat. When he turned, he saw a tableau of people surrounding an oversized chair in which was seated an elderly man with long hair of the purest white. It flowed down the back and sides of his head and mingled with his snowy beard. Though he wore only the plainest of robes and Nic had never seen him in person before, it was perfectly obvious who he was. Wasn’t his face on every luni and lundri that had passed through his hands? “Oh gods,” he yelped as he fell instantly to one knee. The motion managed to make him vanish completely beneath the table’s edge. “I beg your most humble pardon, Majesty. I am a stupid … stupid … clod.”
“Oh, rise, rise,” said the king in a jovial voice. He did not sound strong, nor give the impression of strength. Given that he had been on his deathbed a mere three years before, however, it was remarkable that King Alessandro was alive at all. “It pains every joint in my old carcass to see you contorted down there. Besides, who cares to look at an old man like me when there’s a pretty girl about. Eh, Milo?”
When the king nudged the blond youth beside him knowingly, Nic’s heart sank. It was the young man whose head he had seen only a few moments before. “That’s Milo Sorranto,” he murmured to Darcy.
“Yes,” she said.
“Milo Sorranto, the named heir to the throne.”
“Yes,” she repeated. She had been around the titled all her life. She wouldn’t understand his confusion. “Then that’s …” The girl in the apron sat beside the heir. Their eyes met once more. Nic hazarded a fatal guess. “Risa Divetri?”
“Of course.” Darcy inspected him closely and hissed, “What’s the matter with you?”
He wanted to cover his burning face. “I thought they were servants,” he explained, mortified when her eyes flew wide.
As was the custom in Cassaforte, the king could name anyone as successor to the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn, ignoring his own offspring if he so chose. Milo Sorranto had been named heir to the throne mere weeks ago. The king’s only son, Prince Berto, had been banished to the distant island of Portoneferro after his role in the kidnapping of the seven cazarri and the attempted coup against his father. He had died by his own hand only a month after his imprisonment. The coup had largely been stopped by Risa Divetri, who for a few days had valiantly assumed the title of Cazarra of Divetri and kept her household from ruin. Milo Sorranto had been instrumental in aiding her, as had his sister, Camilla. And there was Camilla to the rear of Alessandro, dressed in the crimson of the royal guards, her breast decorated with the medals that declared her the king’s personal bodyguard. Her hair was as blond as her brother’s, and her eyes the same shade of green. “Well, they’re definitely not servants,” Darcy whispered back, yanking him down toward the table’s far end.
“I beg your pardon as well, signorina,” Nic stammered as he approached. “I did not know you were Risa the Enchantress.”
The Divetri girl’s lips quirked. “Is that what they’re calling me now?” she asked. “I suppose it could be worse. Risa the Snooty I shouldn’t care for. Risa the Appalling, I’d like even less.”
“How would you care for Risa of the Incredibly Lo
ud Mouth?” Milo asked with a friendly jeer.
In reply, Risa stared at the heir for a moment. Her lips worked silently. Suddenly Milo’s hair appeared to catch fire, blazing with a red-blue flame. Darcy and Maxl both startled and began to fly to the heir’s side. Jacopo, who had been sitting close to the heir near the table’s head, pushed back his chair to distance himself. Milo himself sighed, appearing unconcerned. “She’s doing the fire illusion again, is she?” he asked, waving Maxl and Darcy away. “Really, Risa. It was amusing only the first dozen times.”
The flames went out, leaving Milo unharmed. “Children,” said the king reproachfully. “We do have serious matters before us.”
“I’m very sorry.” Risa crossed her arms and flounced into a chair. They seemed to have a great deal of familiarity between them, the king and Risa.
Jacopo seemed still shaken by the unexpected display of sorcery from the Divetri girl. He pulled his chair close to the table once more, pointed to a map of the Azure Sea that lay before the king, and spoke. “We have been telling King Alessandro of the threat that is Pays d’Azur, Niccolo. We have convinced them of the threat from their ships of war.”
“Very grave, indeed.” The king appeared wearied as he turned his attention once more to the situation at hand. Nic wondered if the banter between the heir and Risa Divetri might not have been for his benefit, a deliberate display to lighten his heart. Alessandro appeared very frail as he pulled the map closer. His hand trembled. “Never in my lifetime has Cassaforte faced a greater threat.”
Nic noticed that Risa appeared to be staring at him. In front of the place where she sat to the king’s left lay a square of mirrored glass. As the monarch talked, she had traced several signs over its surface. Now, hovering inches over its surface emerged an image, floating in the air like a rainbow. And like a rainbow, Nic had no doubt that if he attempted to touch it, it would prove as elusive. “That’s them,” he said, pointing to the oval-shaped illusion. In its center he could see the warships of Pays d’Azur, dark and ominous on the water. “You can see where they are?”