by Karen Brooks
'Yes, ma'am, I did.' In mockery of Rodbury, Shazet's bow scraped the ground.
'Stop it. It's hard enough feigning interest in reports when I already know the content without having to bear your affectations as well.'
Shazet pretended to be hurt. 'Affectations? Hardly. I value my queen, I respect my queen.'
'So you say; a little too often,' said Zaralina, between tight lips. Then she relaxed. 'Your minions did their job well. Over a quarter of their population, gone.' She smiled. 'Not only will it be easier to find the Estrattore with fewer people, but tragedy loosens tongues. He might have been able to hide before, when everyone was content with their lives and focused inwards on themselves. But let him try and hide now.
'In the climate of fear we've created, it will be impossible. Everyone will notice everything and rumours and accusations will fly. And Waterford will be there to catch them and follow them, right to their source.' She stared out the window, images and portents dancing before her eyes. 'Let your creatures know, I am very pleased with them. Very pleased. It seems the first stage of our plan has worked.'
'Second stage,' corrected Shazet, glancing at the child curled on the bed.
'Ah, you're referring to my little poppet.' With upturned lips, Zaralina ended her reverie. 'My precious little pet.' She slapped her lap. 'Come here, Claudio. Let Aunt Zaralina, your Zia, hold you for a while.' She watched as the boy hesitantly climbed off the bed, one eye on Shazet. Once his feet touched the floor, he darted across the rugs and threw himself into her arms. She laughed as he clung to her neck and buried his face in her long flame-coloured hair. 'Ah, there, my love. Don't be frightened of Shazet. I've told you a hundred times. He won't hurt you.' Not until I tell him to. She stroked the boy's forehead, cooing and placing little kisses upon his brow. When she pulled her face away, a series of tiny ice-white marks remained wherever her lips had touched.
Shazet frowned. 'You keep the boy too docile.'
The queen flicked her hand. 'Nonsense.' She untangled Claudio's hands from her neck and held his chin in her fingers, close to her face. 'Claudio's my squire, and I look after him. Don't I, Claudio?'
Claudio nodded, mesmerised by Zaralina's frost-blue eyes. He tried to snuggle into her again, but she kept him at arm's length. 'Who loves you, Claudio?' she whispered.
'You do,' lisped the child in his thick Serenissian accent.
'Do I love you more than Shazet?'
The boy nodded.
'More than Lord Waterford?'
The boy nodded and began to smile.
'More than your mamma and papa?'
His face darkened. He hesitated. She tightened her hold, her nails pressing into the tender flesh of his jaw. He winced. 'Si– I mean, y– y– yes.'
'How much do I love you?'
'More than the whole of Vista Mare.'
'That's right. And who will always be there for you, loving you and protecting you, no matter what?'
'You will.'
She leaned forward and placed a soft, lingering kiss on his pursed lips. 'That's right!' she whispered and let go, allowing him to fall against her breasts. From beyond the child's little shoulders, she raised her eyes to Shazet. 'And who will always protect me, no matter what?' she whispered.
This time, Claudio pulled away, his hands on her shoulders, his knees on her lap. 'I will,' he said. 'I will. Always. Forever and ever, Amen.'
'Amen.' The queen laughed delightedly. 'Good Claudio, beautiful Claudio.' Zaralina began to stroke his head again and, with her eyes fixed on Shazet, sang a sweet melody. When she'd finished, the child was sound asleep. She rose to her feet and carried him over to the bed.
'You make the child sleep too much.'
'Rubbish,' said the queen, returning to her desk. 'Growing children need sleep. Anyway, he annoys me too much when he's awake, with his churlish behaviour and sulks, never mind that dreadful accent. And this way, I can control his dreams.'
'And of what does he dream?' asked Shazet.
'Of me,' smiled the queen.
Shazet raised his eyebrows.
Zaralina moved to the window. Her barren, windswept world unfolded before her.
'Yes, of me. I am standing by his side on the waterfront at the Doge's palace. The sun is shining; the air is warm and clean. We are welcoming our guests as they arrive by gondola.'
She turned around and, facing Shazet, leant back on the sill. 'And the heads of our enemies watch us with empty eyes from the top of the staves upon which they are impaled.'
Shazet nodded, the semblance of a smile upon his face. He glided closer to her, his body undulating before hers. 'And what of us, Your Majesty, your Mortian allies. Where are we?'
The queen looked deep into his soulless eyes. She licked her lips. 'You're everywhere, my Shazet.' She extended a slender finger and watched his face alter as she penetrated his malleable exterior. He shuddered in ecstasy.
'Everywhere,' she murmured.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Tallow's deliverance
'CAN YOU HEAR THAT, FATHER?' Giaconda leaned out of the felze in the gondola, surprised to see at least fifty people running along the fondamenta.
'I can indeed,' said Ezzelino, peering out from behind her. 'Appears we don't need Baroque, after all. We've found our boy.'
'Yes, but why are they chasing him? What has he done?' It seemed that everyone they'd met in the quartiere was running after the boy.
Giaconda and Ezzelino withdrew and stared at each other at length. 'What should we do?' said Giaconda.
'We follow them,' said Ezzelino simply and tapped his cane on the roof. 'Follow the rabble, Salzi,' he ordered.
The Maleovellis' boatman shuffled along the deck. 'It's a chase, sir. They're after that ragamuffin boy.'
'We aren't blind, Salzi!' exclaimed Giaconda. 'We can see what it is. Do what you're told. Follow them!' Giaconda slid out of the felze and sat at the other end of the gondola. She shielded her eyes. They were all heading in the same direction – towards the Ponticello di Mille Pietre, the Bridge of a Thousand Stones.
She saw the boy run up the rampart and start to cross. His cap had fallen off and his hair was in his eyes. Halfway across, he suddenly stopped. At first she couldn't see why, but then she saw the enormous horse and his dark rider. 'Father,' she said urgently, beckoning Ezzelino. 'I think you'll want to see this.'
Ezzelino joined her. 'What's a Bond Rider doing here?' he asked in astonishment. 'And with his horse? What do they want with the boy – what do they know?'
There was no reply.
Father and daughter sat, unable to look away as the drama unfolded. Even Salzi stopped rowing, allowing the current to carry them forward. The bridge loomed closer and closer, the sides growing in height, casting shadows on the water, obscuring their view.
They passed beneath the bridge's massive girth just as a commotion started above. They were almost clear when a body plunged over the side. They watched in horror as it fell headfirst into the canal.
Giaconda leapt to her feet. 'Quick! It's the boy. Get him!' she cried above the hollow boom of shod hooves on stone, more screams and cries and the sound of dozens of people fleeing.
Salzi leapt to the oar, manoeuvring it in the forcola so they glided to where the boy had vanished. At first, they couldn't see anything in the dark and murky water.
'The current has taken him,' cursed Ezzelino.
'No, look!' said Giaconda triumphantly, pointing towards one of the stone pillars that supported the bridge. A small body floated face down in the water.
The boatman brought them up alongside the sodden figure. The current had just begun to dislodge him from the weeds at the bridge's base. As he drifted past the gondola, Salzi and Ezzelino dragged him over the side.
They dropped him in the bottom of the boat. The boy lay there, unmoving, lifeless. His hair was plastered to his face, his eyes closed.
'Is he alive?' asked Salzi.
'I don't care what he is – get him out of sight before w
e're exposed,' ordered Ezzelino. 'Put him in the felze, quickly! They'll be looking for him.'
Salzi pulled the unconscious youth across the bottom of the boat and shoved him in the cabin. He pulled the curtains across.
'Now, get back on that oar and get us out into the middle of the canal,' demanded Giaconda behind him, straightening her hair and skirt. 'No-one must realise we have him. No-one. Do you understand? We saw nothing, we heard nothing.'
'Si, Signorina,' said Salzi. He'd been with the Maleovelli family long enough to know not to ask questions.
As the gondola remerged from under the bridge, the sunlight struck the black wood. Ezzelino and Giaconda sat primly in the prow, their eyes fixed ahead. Anyone seeing them would assume that nothing had disturbed the nobiles' passage.
The gondola glided away, turning into one of the thinly populated side canals. It slowly made its way towards the Circolo.
'Do you think he's alive?' muttered Giaconda under her breath, repeating Salzi's earlier question.
'I hope so. Go and see,' demanded Ezzelino.
Crawling along the bottom of the gondola, Giaconda pulled aside the curtain and stuck her head into the felze. The boy lay there, his eyes tightly shut, his face pale. His chest rose and fell in ragged movements.
'He's alive,' called Giaconda over her shoulder.
On hearing a strange voice, the youth's eyes fluttered open. Giaconda gave a little cry and instinctively recoiled. Eyes like mirrors. Just like the legends say.
'Who are you?' said the boy hoarsely and began coughing. Overcoming her initial repugnance, Giaconda gracefully moved beside him and stretched an arm behind his shoulders to help him sit up. The boy coughed some more before vomiting water to one side.
'I'm sorry,' he said, wiping his hand over his mouth. 'Sorry.'
Giaconda's mind was racing. They were right. An Estrattore! All they had to do was play their cards right ... 'It's all right,' she said soothingly, praying the boy couldn't hear the tremor of excitement in her voice. 'Don't worry. It's nothing, only sea water. I think you've swallowed a great deal. That was quite a fall you had there.'
The boy frowned and his amazing eyes glimmered as he recalled recent events. 'I didn't fall. I jumped.' His voice began to break. 'D– Dante is dead. Cane's gone. He tried to take me, so I jumped. I shouldn't have left them ... I shouldn't have left him –'
He began to struggle, trying to sit up on his own, but he was still weak from the run, the near-drowning and the emotion he'd expended. Giaconda held him tight. 'Shush. You're with friends now.' She brushed the hair out of his eyes.
Exhausted, the boy fell back on the cushions. 'Thank you,' he said, looking at Giaconda. Then he closed his eyes.
Giaconda slowly removed her arm and stared at him. She'd been able to see herself so clearly within that mercurial gaze. It was unsettling. She was afraid that if she looked for too long, she would not like what she saw.
The strange boy might feign sleep, but he was not yet ready to lose himself in the world of dreams. Neither was she ready to let him. She wanted some answers, now, while he was still vulnerable. 'That's my pleasure,' she said, glancing over her shoulder at her father.
The boy moved slightly and his eyes flew open again.
'I think I've hurt my arm,' he whispered and made a strange noise that was half laugh, half despair.
Giaconda made noises of sympathy and gently stroked his arm. It was hot beneath the wet sleeve.
Beyond the entrance to the felze, Ezzelino watched them, the smoke from his pipe rising into the pinkening sky. Giaconda glanced back at him. He signalled for her to keep talking.
'I am being very rude,' said Giaconda. 'My name is Giaconda Maleovelli, and the man you can see out there is my father, Ezzelino. We're from the Eighth Casa of Nobiles' Rise. Casa Maleovelli.'
The boy leaned heavily to one side, clearly favouring his injured arm, and pushed himself up so his face was almost level with Giaconda's. 'My name is Tallow,' he said.
Giaconda nodded solemnly, working hard to keep the triumph she felt rising within her from her features. 'Where are you from?' she asked, searching for a candle. They were coming to a narrower part of the canal where the sun didn't reach.
The boy named Tallow laughed at the question. It turned into a hoarse cough. 'Nowhere.'
Giaconda paused and nodded. 'Is that so? What is it you do then, Tallow from nowhere?'
'I was once a candlemaker, lately a chandler, and now I am nothing – a nothing from nowhere.'
'And who do you call family?'
Tallow's lips began to tremble. 'No-one,' he said in a voice that was barely audible. Giaconda couldn't tear her eyes away from the emotions that played across the boy's unusual face. She could see the pain, the exhaustion, and the confusion as clearly as if they'd been verbally expressed. The boy gave one great, long exhalation and then sat unmoving.
Giaconda waited.
'I call no-one family anymore,' said Tallow finally.
Giaconda controlled her urge to smile. 'Why do you say that?' she asked, keeping her voice steady. 'What has happened to you, Tallow, to make someone so young so cynical? Tell me. I promise you, I am good at keeping secrets.'
Tallow hesitated. Giaconda could sense the boy weighing his options. To speak or remain silent? Giaconda forgot to breathe. So much hung in the balance.
Without any preliminaries, Tallow began to talk. He spoke about his master, Pillar the candlemaker, and his mother Quinn and her terrible death; about the Bond Rider, Katina, who had abandoned him months earlier; he told Giaconda about Pillar's decision to throw him out. He even told her about how he'd sought out Dante, and how good it had been with his family. And then he told Giaconda what happened on the bridge: how the horse had ridden down Dante and Cane and deliberately killed them.
Giaconda repressed the feelings of triumph that rose within her. All this loss and tragedy had made the boy both weak and vulnerable – in other words, exactly how Giaconda needed him. As her father always said, fragile people are pliable people. How pliable was about to be tested; but Tallow's despair was palpable and with his natural defences all but gone, Giaconda could not have been happier.
The entire time Tallow spoke, not once did he mention his talent. When Giaconda asked why he was being chased, he'd quickly told her that his candles were sought; that for some reason, people thought they cured the sickness. So, the boy wasn't completely broken. Not yet.
His eyelids fluttered and he stifled a yawn. He was so white, the dark shadows that cradled his eyes defined them sharply. His head wobbled on his neck and his limbs quivered. It was apparent he needed sleep – to heal and to forget.
Forget about the dog, about the dead boy.
It was obvious he blamed himself.
'That's not true.' Giaconda beamed at Tallow. The boy started. 'You are not nothing. Even I can see that,' Giaconda glanced at her father who, having drawn closer to the felze, nodded. She caught his eye and gave a slight inclination of her head. It was time to risk everything. She hoped her reading of the boy had been correct. 'I can see it in your eyes.'
The boy swiftly raised his hands to his face. His fingers rested just under his lower lashes, pointing towards the one thing he could not hide: eyes that had no whites, just a huge black pupil drowning in a sea of silver. He looked at Giaconda wildly, around the little felze, and beyond her to the canal outside. Then his shoulders slumped. Giaconda went to offer comfort when the boy drew himself upright and shook his head defiantly. She paused, uncertain. He looked straight at Giaconda and gave her a deadly grin.