The room swelled up with muttering.
“Are you accusing another merchant house of this act, Founder?” demanded a Morsini representative.
“I accuse no one,” said Ofelia, “for I understand nothing. Could it not have been an accidental effect of some research endeavor?”
The muttering grew louder. “Ridiculous,” someone said.
“Preposterous.”
“Outrageous.”
“If Dandolo Chartered is willing to make such a supposition,” said one of the Michiel deputies, “perhaps the Dandolo hypatus can provide us with some supporting research?”
All eyes turned to look at Orso.
Great, he thought.
He cleared his throat and stood. “I must slightly correct my founder’s testimony,” he said. “There is, in hierophantic history, one obscure legend in which the phenomenon we witnessed possibly appears—the Battle of Armiedes.” He coolly looked around at the gathered crowd. Come on, you bastard, he thought. Break for me. Show yourself. “Such methodologies remain beyond the abilities of Tevanne, of course,” he said. “But if we trust our histories, then it is possible.”
One of the Morsinis sighed, exasperated. “More hierophants, more magicians! What more could we expect from a disciple of Tribuno Candiano?”
The room went silent at that. Everyone stared at the Morsini representative, who slowly grew aware that he had greatly overstepped.
“I, ah, apologize,” he said. He turned toward a part of the room that had hitherto remained quiet. “I misspoke, sirs.”
Everyone slowly turned to look at the portion of the room dominated by Company Candiano representatives. There were far fewer of them than the other houses. Sitting in the founder’s seat was a young man of about thirty, pale and clean-shaven, wearing dark-green robes and an ornate flat cap trimmed with a large emerald. He was an oddity in many ways: for one, he was about a third of the age of the other three founders—and he was not, as everyone knew, an actual founder, or indeed a blood relation to the Candiano family at all.
Orso narrowed his eyes at the young man. For though Orso hated many people in Tevanne, he especially loathed Tomas Ziani, the chief officer of Company Candiano.
Tomas Ziani cleared his throat and stood. “You did not misspeak, sir,” he said. “My predecessor, Tribuno Candiano, brought great ruin to our noble house with his Occidental fascinations.”
Our noble house? thought Orso. You married into it, you little shit!
Tomas nodded at Orso. “An experience that the Dandolo hypatus, of course, is keenly aware of.”
Orso gave him the thinnest of smiles, bowed, and sat.
“It is, of course, preposterous to imagine that any Tevanni merchant house is capable of reproducing any hierophantic effects,” said Tomas Ziani, “let alone one that could have accomplished the blackouts, to say nothing of the moral implications. But I regret to say that Founder Dandolo has not truly cut to the quick of the question—what I think we all want to know is, if we want to find out if any merchant house is behind the blackouts…how shall we institute this authority? What body shall have this oversight? And who shall make up this body?”
The room practically exploded with discontented mutterings.
And with that, Orso thought with a sigh, young Tomas delivers the killing blow to this idiot meeting. For this notion was heresy in Tevanne—the idea of some kind of municipal or governmental authority that could inspect the business of the merchant houses? They would genuinely rather fail and die than submit to that.
Ofelia sighed. A handful of tiny, white moths flitted around her head. “What a waste of time,” she said softly, waving them away.
Orso glanced at Tomas, and found, to his surprise, that the young man was watching him. Specifically, he was looking at Orso’s scarf—very, very hard.
“Maybe not entirely,” he said.
* * *
When the meeting closed, Orso and Ofelia held a brief conference in the cloisters. “To confirm,” she said quietly. “You do not think this is sabotage?”
“No, Founder,” he said.
“Why are you so certain?”
Because I have a grubby thief who says she saw it happen, he thought. But he said, “If it was sabotage, they could have done a hell of a better job. Why target the Commons? Why only glancingly affect the campos?”
Ofelia Dandolo nodded.
“Is there a…reason to suspect sabotage, Founder?” he asked.
She gave him a piercing look. “Let’s just say,” she said reluctantly, “that your recent work on light could attract…attention.”
This was interesting to him. Orso had been fooling around with scrived lights for decades, but it was only at Dandolo Chartered, with its superior lexicon architecture, that he’d started trying to engineer the reverse: scriving something so it absorbed light, rather than emitting it, producing a halo of perpetual shadow, even in the day.
So the suggestion that Ofelia Dandolo might worry about other houses fearing this technology…that was curious.
What exactly, he wondered, is she planning to veil in shadow?
“As in all things,” she said, “I expect your secrecy, Orso. But especially there.”
“Certainly, Founder.”
“Now…if you will excuse me, I’ve a meeting shortly.”
“I as well,” he said. “Good day, Founder.”
He watched her go, then turned and swept out to the hallways around the council building, where the legions of attendants and administrators and servants hovered to assist the throngs of great and noble men within. Among them was Berenice, yawning and rubbing her puffy eyes. “Just four hours?” she said. “That was quick, sir.”
“Was it,” said Orso, rushing past her. He walked through the crowd of people dressed in white and yellow—Dandolo Chartered colors—and moved on to the red and blue crowd—Morsini House—and then the purple and gold crowd—which was, of course, Michiel Body Corporate.
“Ah,” said Berenice. “Where are we going, sir?”
“You are going somewhere to sleep,” said Orso. “You’ll need it tonight.”
“And when will you sleep, sir?”
“When do I ever sleep, Berenice?”
“Ah. I see, sir.”
He stopped at the crowd of people dressed in dark green and black—Company Candiano colors. This crowd was much smaller, and much less refined. The effects of the Candiano bankruptcy still lingered, it seemed.
“Uh…what would you be planning to do here, sir?” asked Berenice with a touch of anxiety.
“Ask questions,” he said. He peered through the crowd. At first he wasn’t sure she’d be there and thought himself absurd for even imagining it. But then he saw her: one woman, standing apart from the group, her posture tall and noble.
Orso stared at her, and instantly regretted this idea. The woman wore a bewilderingly complicated dress, with puffs on her upper sleeves and her hair twisted up in an intricate brooch that was covered in pearls and ribbons. Her face was painted white, with the now-fashionable painted blue bar across her eyes.
“My God,” said Orso quietly. “She went in for all that aristocratic fluffery. I can’t believe it.”
Berenice glanced at the woman. Her eyes grew wide, and she stared at Orso in naked terror. “Don’t, sir.”
He flapped a hand at her. “Go home, Berenice.”
“Don’t…Don’t go talk to her. That would be deeply unwise.”
He understood her fear perfectly: the idea of approaching the daughter of the founder of a competing merchant house was mad. Especially if she was also the wife of the chief officer of that same house. But Orso had built a career on bad choices. “Enough,” he said.
“It would be outrageously inappropriate for you to approach her,” she said, “whatever your…”
He looked at her. “Whatever my what?”
Berenice glared at him. “Whatever your history with her, sir.”
“My own affairs,” said Orso, “are just that—my own. And unless you want to get tangled up in them, I suggest you leave now, Berenice.”
She looked at him for a moment longer. Then, sighing, she walked away.
Orso watched her go. He swallowed and tried to compose himself. Am I doing this for good reason, he wondered, or just to talk to her? He decided not to dither on it anymore. He pivoted on his heel and marched up to the woman.
“That dress,” he said, “looks absurd on you.”
The woman did a double take, her mouth open in outrage. Then she saw him, and the surprise evaporated from her face. “Ah. Of course. Good afternoon, Orso.” She glanced around nervously. Many of the Candiano Company servants were either staring or trying hard not to stare. “This is…very inappropriate, you know.”
“I guess I forget what ‘appropriate’ means these days, Estelle.”
“My experience, Orso, suggests you never knew in the first place.”
He grinned. “Does it? It is good to see you, Estelle. Even if you are stuffed into the back halls like a damned valet.”
She smiled back, or at least tried to. It was not the smile he was familiar with. When he’d known her years ago, Estelle Candiano’s eyes had been bright and alive, and her gaze had been sharper than a stiletto. Now there was something…dull to them.
She looked tired. Even though she was still twelve years his junior, Estelle now looked old.
She gestured ahead, and they moved out of earshot from the rest of the group. “Was it you who killed the meeting?” she asked. “Four hours is a little short, yes?”
“Not I. That would have been your husband.”
“Ah. What did Tomas say?”
“Some rather disparaging things about your father.”
“I see.” An awkward pause. “Were they true things, though?”
“Well, yes. But they still pissed me off.”
“Why? I thought you hated him. When you left Company Candiano, Orso, there was a lot of bad blood between you and my father.”
“Bad blood,” he said, “is still blood. How is Tribuno these days?”
“Still dying,” Estelle said curtly. “And still mad. So. About as bad as one can get.”
“I…see,” he said quietly.
She peered at him. “My God,” she said. “My God! Could that be pity crossing the once-handsome face of the infamous Orso Ignacio? Could it be regret? Could it be sorrow? I’d never have believed it!”
“Stop.”
“I never saw this tenderness when you were with us, Orso.”
“That isn’t true,” said Orso sharply.
“I…apologize. I meant tenderness for him.”
“That isn’t true, either.” Orso thought carefully about what to say. “Your father was and probably still is the most brilliant scriver in all the history of Tevanne. He practically built this damned city. A lot of his designs are still keeping everything standing. That means something, even if the man himself changed a lot.”
“Changed…” she said. “Is that the word for it? To watch him decay…To watch him rot, and corrupt himself, chasing after these Occidental vanities, spending hundreds of thousands of duvots on decadent fantasy…I am not sure I’d just call that change. We still haven’t recovered, you know.” She glanced at the crowd behind her. “Look at us. Just a handful of servants, dressed like clerks. We used to practically own the council. We’d walk through these halls like gods and angels. How far we’ve fallen.”
“I know. And you’re not scriving anymore. Are you?”
Estelle seemed to deflate. “N…no. How did you know?”
“Because you were a damn clever scriver back when I knew you.”
They exchanged a look, and both understood there were unspoken words there—Even if your father never recognized it. For though Tribuno Candiano had been a wildly brilliant man, he’d been supremely disinterested in his daughter, and had made it well known that he’d have preferred a son.
And perhaps that was why he’d treated her as he had. For when Tribuno Candiano’s Occidental obsessions had bankrupted his merchant house, he’d essentially auctioned off his daughter’s hand in marriage to pay off his debts—and young Tomas Ziani, scion of the outrageously wealthy Ziani family, had been only too keen to buy the rights.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“If Tomas was letting you work,” said Orso, “you’d have turned Company Candiano around, I bet. You were good. Damned good.”
“That’s not the place of a chief officer’s wife, though.”
“No. Seems like an officer’s wife’s place is here, waiting in the halls, and being seen waiting in the halls, meek and obedient.”
She glared at him. “Why did you come talk to me, Orso? Just to dig your fingers in old wounds?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He took a breath. “Listen, Estelle…there’s some shit going on.”
“Are you sure you can talk about this? Or will Ofelia Dandolo have your balls braised for it?”
“She probably would,” he said, “but I’m going to say it anyway. Regarding your father’s materials…His Occidental collection, I mean, all that stuff he bought. Are those still at Company Candiano? Or were those auctioned away?”
“Why?” she demanded.
He remembered how Tomas Ziani had looked at him, smirking. “Just curious.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “All of that is under Tomas’s control now. I’m nowhere close to management, Orso.”
He thought about this. Tomas Ziani was sinfully rich, and had a reputation as a cunning merchant—but a scriver he wasn’t. When it came to sigils, he probably couldn’t tell his ass from a hole in the ground. The idea of him making something as powerful as the listening rig or the gravity plates was laughable.
But Tomas had resources, and ambition. What he couldn’t make himself, he could perhaps buy.
And he might still have access, thought Orso, to the smartest scriver in all of Tevanne.
“Does Tomas ever see Tribuno?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” said Estelle, now deeply suspicious.
“Does he talk to him? And, if so, what about?”
“This is now thoroughly out of line,” she said. “What’s going on, Orso?”
“I told you. There’s some shit going on in the city. Estelle…If Tomas was going to…to make a play at me, to come at me—you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”
“What do you mean, come at you?”
Orso pulled down the edge of his scarf with a finger and allowed her a glimpse of his bruised neck.
Her eyes opened wide. “My God, Orso…Who…who did that to you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. So. If Tomas was going to make a play like this for me—would you warn me?”
“Do…do you really think Tomas could have done that?”
“I’ve had some civilized and proper people try to kill me over the years. Do you know anything, Estelle? And, again, if you did—would you tell me?”
She stared at him, and a mixture of expressions passed over her face: surprise, anger, resentment, then sadness. “Do I owe you that?”
“I think so,” said Orso. “I never asked you for much.”
She was silent for a long while. “That’s not true,” she said. “You…you did ask me to marry you. But after that…no, you never asked me for anything else again.”
They stood in the hallway, surrounded by servants, not knowing what to say.
Estelle blinked rapidly. “If I thought Tomas was a threat to you, I would tell you, Orso.”
“Even if it betrayed Candiano interests t
o do so?”
“Even if it did that.”
“Thank you.” He bowed deeply to her. “I…I appreciate your time, Lady Ziani.” He turned and walked away.
He kept his head level and his arms stiff as he moved. Once he was about a few hundred feet down the hall, he ducked beside a column and watched the Company Candiano crowd.
He could tell when Tomas Ziani and the others emerged—the servants all sat up straight, keenly aware that their masters were now here. But not Estelle. She stood seemingly frozen, staring into space. And when her husband came and took her hand and led her away, she barely seemed to notice.
17
Sancia was still asleep when there was a knock at the door. “Sun is setting,” Gregor’s voice said. “Our chariot shall be here soon.”
Sancia groaned, hauled herself off the sheetless bed, and staggered downstairs. All the injuries and scrapes from the past two days felt like they’d grown until her whole body was a bruise. When she saw Gregor she realized he must feel the same way: he was standing crooked, so as to not put pressure on his back, and he had his bandaged arm pulled close to his chest.
After a while, the front door opened and Berenice walked in. She looked at the two of them. “Good God,” she said. “I’ve seen cheerier faces in a mausoleum. Come on. The carriage is ready. I’ll warn you, though—he’s in a foul mood.”
“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who has good moods,” said Sancia, following her.
“Then this is a worse mood,” said Berenice.
She drove them back to the hypatus department just as the sun slipped behind the clouds.
She tried not to let her concern show in her face.
Foundryside: A Novel (The Founders Trilogy) Page 25