by V. Briceland
“Alas, no.” Risa appeared disappointed in herself. “You can see them in your mind. I am only sharing that image with the others.”
“This is a memory, then?” Nic asked, trying not to sound let down himself. It would have been useful to spy upon their enemies remotely.
“As best as we can estimate, the Comte Dumond and his forces could be anywhere between twelve hours to four days away.” The king leaned back in his chair of command, and turned to his heir.
“We must assume the worst, and act upon it,” Milo replied in answer to the unspoken question.
“Which is why we must immediately send envoys to Vereinigtelände.” The man who spoke had heretofore been silent. He was a coarse-faced man with blunt features that seemed hewn out of stone. Somehow they managed to complement his uniform, which was a highly decorated variation of Camilla Sorranto’s. He struck the table with the side of his fist. “Vereinigtelände would assist us in the event of a siege. They did so during the last Azurite Invasion. Had we settled matters an hour ago, I could have had a party on the road north by now. With a nuncio as esteemed as yourself at its head, to express our deep need,” the man added, with a chair bow to Jacopo.
Jacopo replied in kind. “And I would be more than willing to serve, High Commander Fiernetto.”
“I wouldn’t,” Darcy muttered darkly, beside Nic.
So this was Lorco Fiernetto, High Commander of the King’s Guards. It was a well-known name in the city, as since the coup of three years before he had commanded not only the royal guards, but the naval guards and those of the remote posts as well. The king nodded, acknowledging the commander’s point. “We have no objection to an envoy to Vereinigtelände, Lorco,” said Milo, speaking for the monarch. “Where we differed was in our naval response.”
“There is but one response.” Fiernetto leaned over and thrust the map beneath Milo’s nose, as if proximity might help him better understand. “We send our top naval personnel to Massina using what large craft we have available. Massina would also aid us. It is our only solution.”
“What large craft are left?” Nic found himself asking. He reddened slightly at his boldness, but he knew better than anyone present what he had witnessed the night before. “I mean no presumption, Signor. But with my own eyes I saw six of Cassaforte’s warships destroyed not twelve hours ago.”
“They are all gone.” The high commander refused to meet his eyes. He looked only at Milo and the king. “But there is the Allyria.”
Nic felt as if he’d been knocked to the ground with a single blow. “My Allyria? ”
Darcy’s face looked pinched. Jacopo held up his hand before his mouth, disguising whatever expression hid behind. “After the devastation of last night, we are left with a city of gondolas and the tiniest of fishing craft. Any foreign merchant vessel that escaped the conflagration is long gone. The Allyria has been delivered to us for such a moment as this. It was made to be unsinkable. Loading it with the appropriate personnel and sending it to Massina is the only solution.” Again, Fiernetto refused to look in Nic’s direction.
“It was made to be what?” Nic sounded out of breath when he asked the question. He still felt as if he were staggering in the dark. He couldn’t bear the thought of the Allyria being taken from him. Perhaps it was wrong of him to think so, but that galleon was his. It felt like it was his. The prospect of losing it affected him as deeply as if a physician had suggested removing one of his limbs.
Risa turned to Nic. The image floating above her mirror was a miniature view of the Allyria as Nic had seen it the previous night from the docks, golden and shining, its figurehead pointing at some greater destination in the distance. He found himself a little uncomfortable at how easily the enchantress could slip into his mind like that. “Ianno Piratimare was here to give us the history of the craft, as best he knew,” she explained. “Do you know of Allyria Cassamagi?”
“Oh gods,” muttered the high commander. “More history.”
A shush from Milo silenced him. “I know of the Bridge of Allyria,” Nic said. “And my ship.”
Risa nodded. “Both were named after her. Allyria Cassamagi was an enchantress of exceeding skill. It was she who tied the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn and the horns of Cassaforte together to establish a peaceful coexistence between the ruler and his subjects, among other marvels. Upon her death, many centuries ago, she left instructions to the Piratimare family of how to build a craft that would be unsinkable and virtually indestructible.”
“An asset to the country, not a toy.” For the first time, Lorco Fiernetto looked directly at Nic. “To be commandeered in times of dire need, such as this.”
Risa continued, unperturbed. “The family lost these instructions and did not discover them until three hundred years ago. Though they thought it folly, at the advice of Caza Cassamagi they built the ship and it was put into service, only to be lost on its first voyage. The Piratimares assumed that Allyria’s instructions had been faulty, or their execution of them, and that the boat had indeed sunk with its crew.”
“Only it had not,” said Milo. He looked at Nic. “We now think it must have been taken by pirates. And as Allyria intended, the ship became non-functional in their hands.”
“Cursed,” Nic whispered.
Milo nodded. “Ianno was very firm on the fact that only someone of pure Piratimare blood should have been able to reclaim the ship.”
He seemed about to say more on the subject. Risa, who had witnessed Nic’s discomfort in the presence of the cazarro earlier, smoothly broke in. “But somehow you managed anyway, Niccolo Dattore. And for that we are grateful.”
Nic had pressed his lips together tightly while Milo spoke, but now he looked at the Divetri girl with appreciation. He cleared the lump that had gathered in his throat and said, “But Massina is in the opposite direction of where you want to go. The Allyria needs to go into battle. Not to retreat.”
“I have thirty years of tactical experience in these matters,” said Fiernetto. “What have you? Two weeks?”
Nic would not have been summoned to this roundtable of war if his opinion had not been wanted, he realized. He found himself unafraid to give it. “I know that ship,” he countered. “I know what she was made to do.”
“Boy.” The high commander sounded as angry as the rain without, beating against the chamber windows. “What good will one galleon do against sixteen or more ships of war? The Allyria has no cannonados.”
Nic refused to be provoked by being addressed as boy. Instead, he turned his attention to Risa. “Isn’t there some sorcery you could perform? Your powers are wondrous.”
“You flatter me well, Captain,” she replied. Nic was a little surprised she addressed him as such. “Like a sponge I have wrung dry my brain this morning, trying to think of some way that I can lend aid, but I am dry.”
“Couldn’t you … I don’t know. Repair the damaged vessels with your enchantments?” She shook her head. “Enchant what small craft we have to become mighty warships?”
For a moment, when she paused, he had hope. But then Risa demurred once more. “I have the knowledge to make something appear more of what it actually is than before.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s all about the object’s natural function and is difficult to explain. I could make a gondola appear to be a warship, but it would still only be a gondola. It would not hold more than two or three people, nor could it do the things a warship could do.”
“That’s still a good idea, though.” Milo snapped his fingers. “Perhaps if we stationed some old gondolas around the city’s perimeter and made them appear as warships, it would at least make the Comte Dumond think twice before attacking.”
“Yes, we can do that. Thank you, Captain,” said Risa, smiling at Nic.
“But it is not a solution,” Fiernetto reminded them all. “One craft, no matter how ensor
celled, cannot meet an entire armada.”
“In The Admiral’s Secret Daughter, or, The Mermaid’s Revenge, the entire fleet of Atlantia is poised to strike Hero’s country, but he takes his fleet to meet them so that they minimize their chances of Atlantia gaining even a single foothold,” said Darcy.
Nic was not the only one who gave her a baffled gaze, but when he remembered how much time Darcy had spent among the actors, listening to their gossip, he understood. “It’s a drama in five acts,” he explained. “The Arturos made very good receipts with it.”
“The point,” said Darcy, “is that the city would be at a disadvantage, should the armada reach us.”
“And now we are taking strategic tips from minor dramatists,” Lorco Fiernetto grunted with impatience. “Delightful.”
“Actually, Commander, there’s much to be learned from the stage,” Nic said, leaping to Darcy’s defense. “Cassaforte would be in far worse shape had I not spent many months learning from the Arturos. You should be thanking them, not spitting upon them.” He drew a deep breath and declared, “I know it is better to take the enemy by surprise than to allow them to do the same. I know a bold gesture is better than a weak deed. And most of all, as the lady said, I know it is wiser to meet the enemy at sea than to wait until we are besieged.” Nic remembered how the Drake would have kept his considerable cool in a similar situation, and drew upon it. “I have no doubt that Allyria Cassamagi would have wanted her countrymen to meet the threat head-on, rather than retreat like cowards.”
No comment could have been more calculated to make an enemy of Lorco Fiernetto than that. The man lunged out of his chair, spittle flying from his mouth. “Take that back, boy! I’m no coward!”
The uproar that followed was so intense that Camilla Sorranto reached for her sword, ready to act if necessary. A single voice cut through the commotion. “Gentlemen. Ladies.” The king sounded wearier than ever. He had endured the talk long enough. For a moment, as the dispute settled, he whispered into Milo’s ear. Milo nodded, then replied back, his eyes glancing at Nic. The king leaned forward and spoke. “High Commander. Prepare your envoy to Vereinigtelände, with our nuncio as its head.” Jacopo folded his hands and bowed, acquiescing to the king’s command. “And Lorco. I will tell Caza Piratimare to grant access to their docks, where the Allyria still rests, beginning tomorrow at sunrise, so that you may send your people to Massina. That is our decision.”
Nic felt deflated. The high commander rose from his chair with an expression of triumph, and passed from the room with a series of bows to everyone save Nic. It was hateful to think that he had won. From across the table, Darcy attempted to engage him with her sympathetic eyes. He found he couldn’t meet them.
“Dattore,” said Milo. “A word before you go.”
Nic stood taller than the heir when he approached. He was so tall, in fact, that Milo had to pull him down to whisper in his ear, shaking his hand as he did so. “His Majesty has given that idiot Lorco access to the Piratimare docks tomorrow morning. It is his wish, however, that the Allyria remain with its true captain.” When Milo let go of his hand, Nic found that he had left something hard and round behind. Nic’s eyes widened as he uncurled his fingers and saw that Milo had given him a gold coin of sorts. No, it wasn’t a coin, he realized, but a medallion, much like those worn by Milo’s older sister, or the high commander himself. Only those acting on the king’s behalf could bear such medals. Nic almost trembled from the honor.
Risa Divetri had assumed his other side. “There is a stone stair on the outside of the sea wall by the lower Piratimare bridge,” she murmured into his ear. “Many of Piratimare’s hired laborers find it faster to follow it to the bottom and take the path skirting around the island’s edge, than to traipse through the caza grounds to the docks.”
Were they really trusting him in this matter? Nic’s eyes searched for the king. Camilla Sorranto was escorting him from the room but the ancient ruler turned long enough to smile in Nic’s direction. “Thank you,” was all he could say, so emotional he was. Milo nodded. Risa laid a hand on his shoulder.
Then they were gone, trailing after Alessandro and vanishing from the room. Once they had left, Darcy came to his side. “What did they give you?” she asked, wonder on her face.
Nic uncurled his fingers once more and showed her the medallion. “A second chance.”
Often I hold my head in my hands upon hearing the youth in our tutelage discuss the so-called “proper” way to solve a problem. So consumed with propriety, these young people! It is a wonder that any of them ever understand that sometimes a conundrum requires the most improper and unlikely of solutions.
—Arnoldo Piratimare, Elder of the Insula of the
Children of Muro, in a letter to Gina Catarre,
Elder of the Insula of the Penitents of Lena
The armada from Pays d’Azur lay but five leagues southwest of Cassaforte—scarcely a two-and-a-half-hour sail. It was through a curtain of rain that Nic first saw the formation, silhouetted against the black sky by cascades of lightning. Blots on the horizon, they were, a dozen and more. All were pointed in the direction of Cassaforte. Nic rang the bell and shouted for the sails to be taken in. The storms that had roiled the waters since the night before showed no signs of stopping. Whether or not the Allyria was unsinkable, the waters tossed it like a house cat with a toy. Nic, however, stood firm.
It had been the Allyria that had brought him here. It had been Nic at the ship’s wheel, calling out orders, but he could no more have forecast where on the pitching waters of the Azure Sea the foreign warships would be, than he could have predicted where to find a pin in a roll of hay. No, it was as if the ship’s feminine figurehead had led the way. The craft had known its purpose and winged him to this spot, speaking to him through the very wood beneath his feet and under his hand. Captain Delguardino’s tricorne had been soaked through long before, but it kept enough of its shape so that he could see Risa Divetri watching him. She, too, would stop from time to time to place her hands on the quarterdeck rail, or upon the ship’s wheel itself, not seeming to care that she was soaked.
“You feel it too,” he had said, the very first time she put her hand on the wheel.
She had looked at him with surprise. “You can sense the energies?”
His response had been simple. “They sing to me.”
She had barraged him with questions after that. What did they feel like for him? How did they sing? Did he feel energies in other objects, or just the Allyria? Although she seemed disappointed that he only felt the ship’s pulses and no other, she was impressed that he could at least sense those. “They bear the pattern of Allyria Cassamagi’s enchantments,” she explained. “Very similar to the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn. If only I could understand them better!” Since then he’d been extremely conscious of her scrutiny. Every time the Allyria’s song changed and he made adjustments to the course, she had pressed her hands to the deck and listened, with both glistening water and a faraway expression painting her face.
“Extinguish the stern lanterns!” he cried. One of the three large lamps was already dark, its flame drowned by the torrents descending from the sky. Qiandro rushed to douse the others. “Black out the captain’s quarters! Ladies and gentlemen, from this moment on, I don’t want to see a single spark of light visible aboard this vessel. Not a lit pipe, not a lantern, not a spark from a flint. Am I clear?”
“Aye!” shouted the crew.
That Risa Divetri should be aboard the Allyria was still something of a shock. Under cover of dark, Nic had taken the path along the sea wall that Risa had recommended. He was not surprised, upon reaching the pier where the Allyria had been docked, at finding the ship’s crew there. He had dispatched Darcy earlier in the evening to assemble them, if they would go. All of Macaque’s men had greeted him eagerly with thumps upon the back and Cassaforte-style handclasps. Maxl ha
d changed into a looser-fitting outfit, but still boasted the dandified face-painting of that morning. With both hands, he bestowed upon Nic the shivarsta that the guards had confiscated from him the night before. Nic had gladly returned it to his side. It didn’t sing, like the Allyria, but it had been with him the entire journey and he would not part with it now.
“Thank you, friend,” said Nic.
Before he knew it, he’d found himself clasped in one of Maxl’s enthusiastic bear hugs, and kissed upon the cheeks. “We are all with you,” he assured Nic.
“I’m glad to hear it!” Nic sputtered, trying to get away so he could breathe once again.
By “all,” Maxl had included the Arturos and their troupe. That was no surprise, either. They had received the most rapturous applause in all their lives the night before, and to a person they hungered for more. Signor Arturo had hugged Nic as well, and the Signora had buried his face so deeply into her expansive bosom as she wrapped her arms around him that he thought he might never surface. No, what had left Nic stupefied was when three figures on the dock, almost indistinguishable from the night itself, removed the hoods from their heads and turned to greet him. “Cazarrina,” Nic had said at the sight of Risa. “Highness,” he had said to Milo.
The last of the three was bent and frail and tottered forth with a cane in his hand. To the king, Nic had said nothing until he fell to one knee. “Majesty,” he had whispered, conscious that around him all his crew were doing the same. “It is good of you to come see us off.”
“Oh, that’s what I’m doing, is it?” King Alessandro had indicated for Nic to rise. “I rather thought I’d have a bit of a ride on this miraculous vessel.” Using his hood to keep the rain from his head, he looked up at the Allyria and to himself, whispered her name. “Most miraculous indeed. Oh, rise, please rise,” he had huffed. To Milo, he added, “It’s the most annoying part of being king, all the bowing. You’ll learn soon enough.”