Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1)

by Craig Schaefer

  Mari checked his pulse. She’d only intended to choke him out, not crush his trachea, but she wasn’t sure how much damage she’d done. She felt a weak throbbing under her fingertips. Good.

  The crowd wasn’t sure if they loved her or hated her. Nobody liked seeing a hometown hero lose, but they’d gotten the violence they came for. Under a shower of mingled catcalls and jeers, Mari walked through the side door without a word and left the arena behind.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mari stood on the snowy, dark street outside Veruca’s mansion. Orange lights burned behind frost-glazed windows.

  This should have been the easy part. Most of the people they hunted had prison bars or a noose waiting for them at the end of the line. Dante Uccello, on the other hand, had friends, warmth, and money in his immediate future.

  Of course, Mari thought, that assumes everyone keeps their hands above the table.

  She knocked on the front door.

  Mari expected a servant to answer or maybe one of Veruca’s guards. Instead, the door swung open and she found herself looking up at the man in the bear mask. Her stomach clenched.

  “Veruca,” she said, refusing to make eye contact.

  He stood aside and gestured for her to come in. The mayor lived more comfortably than most of her subjects. Mari wondered if, back in the Reach’s prison-colony days, this had been the warden’s house. Candle sconces lit the hallway, casting shifting shadows across green-and-silver-striped wallpaper. A carpeted runner lined the floorboards, stretching off into the dark. The masked man walked deeper into the house, and Mari followed. He raised one muscular arm, showing ornate knot-work tattoos in winter blue as his sleeve slid back, and pointed to a closed door at the end of the hall.

  A strange thumping sound accompanied by the rhythmic creaking of wood echoed from behind Veruca’s door. Mari knocked.

  “Enter!” Veruca called out, sounding breathless.

  The nearly naked man stretched out on the mayor’s desk was a bit of a surprise. He wore bits and pieces of his armor, the rest of it strewn across the burgundy carpet. With layered skirts hiked up around her hips, Veruca rode him hard and fast, dragging her fingernails down his chest fiercely enough to leave scarlet welts.

  “Close,” she hissed, “the door, Renault.”

  Mari closed the door. She stood awkwardly at the edge of the room.

  “What are you looking at?” Veruca said. “You want to get in here and make this a proper threesome?”

  The man clenched her waist, bucking his hips to meet her rocking, his grunts growing more labored and hoarse.

  Mari shook her head. “No.”

  “Good,” Veruca said, slapping the man’s chest. “I’m not into girls, and he’s going to be useless in about ten seconds.”

  It only took him five. The mayor sighed as the man let out a strangled gasp, his entire body going rigid and then sagging limply against the desk. She slid off him, smoothed her skirts, and patted his shoulder.

  “Well, that did absolutely nothing for me, so great job. Back to work, stud.”

  Red-faced, the guard gathered up the fallen scraps of clothing and armor, dressing as quickly as he could.

  “I’m here for Uccello,” Mari said.

  “Why are you in such a hurry? We should have a drink, get caught up on old times.”

  “Uccello,” she said.

  The guard slipped past her, mouthing an apology. Mari shut the door behind him.

  “You seem uncomfortable all of a sudden,” Veruca said, languidly stretching her arms above her head. “What, you’ve never seen a cock before? You’re blushing like a schoolgirl.”

  “Uccello. Please.”

  Veruca leaned close, craning her neck, making an exaggerated study of Mari’s face.

  “Are you…? You are! Oh fuck me sideways, the dreaded Mari Renault is a virgin. All the time I’ve known you, how did I never twig to that? Don’t you worry, Auntie Veruca’s going to fix you up proper. One of my boys, he’s hung like a baby carrot and likes to cuddle, but that’s what you want for your very first time. Once you’re broken in good and proper, I’ll throw you a real party. Honestly, it’ll be my pleasure. No need to thank me.”

  “Veruca,” Mari said, taking a deep breath, “we had an agreement. I lived up to my end, and I played your little game. Now give me Dante Uccello.”

  “Can’t. I sold him.”

  Mari blinked.

  “You what?”

  Veruca shrugged, wandering across the office, smart enough to stay out of reach. She paused under an oil portrait of herself, larger than life and framed in hammered copper.

  “Sold him. About an hour ago. Well, gave him away, really. I sent Dante to deliver a tribute of gold to Captain Zhou along with a sealed envelope. The letter inside the envelope said ‘And also, please keep this one as a slave, with my compliments.’”

  “We had a deal, Veruca.”

  She looked wounded. “Which I lived up to. My exact words were that I’d stand aside and let you take Uccello, with my blessings. I never said I’d give him to you, or ensure he was somewhere you could easily get at him. Just that I wouldn’t stop you.”

  “Zhou,” Mari said, “the man you wanted me to kill. The one I would have had to take care of if I’d lost the fight.”

  “And now you’ll probably have to deal with him anyway, given that Dante’s locked up on his ship. Funny how that turned out, isn’t it?”

  Mari seethed, glaring daggers at Veruca. Her hand edged toward the baton on her belt, then pulled away as she counted under her breath and shoved the anger down into the dark pit in her stomach. Veruca shook her head.

  “You’re upset,” she said, seeming almost contrite.

  Mari didn’t say a word. Veruca leaned back against her desk, splaying her palms on the polished wood.

  “I rule a city that cannot be ruled,” Veruca said. “Every hour of every day, a sword hangs over my head, suspended by the thinnest of strings. There are wolves at the door, and if I show the slightest weakness, the tiniest crack in my armor, they’ll tear me to pieces. Do you know what it’s like to live under that kind of pressure?”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Mari asked. Veruca pushed away from the desk and sauntered toward her.

  “Because I think you understand. Holding onto the reins in this town means using every resource I have. Bread and circuses, fear and discipline, the occasional show of gleeful violence to prove I know how to kick a little ass. That’s what I do: find resources and use them. I’m a leader.”

  “You’re a tyrant.”

  “You say that like it matters. The truth is these savages want a dictator. They take comfort in knowing there’s a person at the top who has all the answers, someone who’s ruthless enough to protect this city against all comers. A leader. You, though? You aren’t a leader. You’re what every leader needs.”

  Mari stared at her, silent. Veruca closed the gap between them.

  “Do you know what I think, Mari? I think you’re a purebred war dog. I think you’re happy that way, because you don’t know any other way to live. You’re a weapon. Finely forged and built for speed.” She reached out and trailed the tip of her index finger along Mari’s stony jaw. “I can’t see a weapon like that and not want to wield it against my enemies. It’s just how I am.”

  “You’re reprehensible,” Mari said.

  Veruca’s hand slid down to Mari’s shoulder. She leaned close enough that the tips of their noses brushed.

  “And you,” Veruca whispered before taking a step back, “were the finest of the Coffin Boys.”

  “That was another life. I’m not…like that anymore. I’m a better person now.”

  “You’re a survivor. Just like me. We could be good for each other, you know. Come work for me. Not in the rank and file, no. Be my enforcer. My right hand. My very own hunting dog. Maybe I’d keep you on a leash. I think you’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m going to get Uccello,” Mari sai
d. “And then I’m leaving.”

  “You’ll be back. When you realize there is nowhere else in this world that suits you, that you need the Reach, you’ll be back. For now, I suppose there’s only thing left to say.”

  Mari glared. Veruca moved up against her, intimate as a lover, brushing her lips against Mari’s earlobe.

  “Good doggy,” she whispered. “Go fetch.”

  A knock echoed at the door. Veruca stepped away from Mari, turned, and opened it. The giant in the bear mask stood outside, grimly silent.

  “Bear,” Veruca said.

  “Mayor,” he replied. “We need to talk. When…that leaves.”

  “I’m leaving now,” Mari said. “Oh, Veruca? While you’re feeling smug about tricking me, there’s something you should know. That man you almost killed really was Felix Rossini, of the Banco Rossini. He was here to make you a deal for the use of your alum mines. He would have poured gold into your pocket for doing absolutely nothing. So that’s a nice opportunity you just squandered.”

  Veruca shook her head, confused. “What alum mines?”

  “In the mountains. He told me about the old records, from when the Reach was a prison. They’ve been left dormant for decades now.”

  Mari’s gaze flicked toward Bear. The fingers of the witch’s left hand did a strange, twitching jerk, like a puppeteer making a marionette dance. Veruca rubbed at her temple, wincing, and shook her head again.

  “If we had mines here, they wouldn’t be dormant. Believe me, I could use the money. Your little friend was mistaken.”

  “Right,” Mari said slowly. “He must have been.”

  “Good luck out there,” Veruca said. “Come back soon.”

  Bear led Mari out.

  Please don’t talk to me, she thought on their way to the front door. Please just don’t—

  “So,” he rumbled, his hand pausing on the doorknob. “Renault.”

  She tensed, waiting for the inevitable.

  “Hunt any witches lately?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Bear turned to face Mari, standing between her and the door.

  “Really?” he said. “Because I hear you’re good at it.”

  “I didn’t come here for a fight,” she said.

  He crossed his beefy arms. “No. You don’t like fair fights, do you? You like ambushing thirteen-year-old girls and knocking them out cold.”

  She grimaced. Shook her head.

  “I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have taken that job. I didn’t realize how it would end. If I could go back and do it all again—”

  “You mean you didn’t realize she’d get a twenty-minute trial followed by, oh, forty minutes of being slowly roasted to death? A trial where she was bound and gagged, I hear. Wasn’t allowed to speak a single word in her own defense.”

  “No,” she said firmly, “I didn’t. If I’d known how panicked those people were, how desperate they were, I’d never have left a prisoner in their hands. I made a mistake—”

  “She was innocent,” he said.

  The words died in her mouth. She stared up at him, frozen.

  “The girl was innocent,” he repeated. “Well, not completely. I mean, she did steal Squirrel’s mask. Had no idea what she’d found, I imagine. Some kind of curio she could peddle for a handful of silver. If only she could have known, hmm? That she’d be tortured to death for it.”

  Mari’s mouth opened and closed, wordless. Bear tilted his head.

  “Oh. But look at you, Renault. You already knew it in your heart, didn’t you? You just never had confirmation before. There was always the chance, the tiny chance, that your hands were clean. But now you know for sure.”

  He leaned in close. His pale blue eyes burned like stars behind his bone mask.

  “You are a murderer, Renault. You murdered an innocent child. They did the burning, but you’re the one who lit the torches.”

  He stood up straight.

  “So in case you’re worried about retaliation,” he said, “don’t be, because you’ve never actually harmed a member of my coven. As for Squirrel, well, she left town two days before you even started looking for her. Shall I give her your regards?”

  Mari’s hands clenched at her sides. Her short nails dug into the meat of her palms, hard enough to leave little ragged half-moon welts.

  Bear stood aside. He held open the front door for her, gesturing out into the frozen night.

  “Have a safe trip back, Renault. And…happy hunting.”

  Mari held her back straight and her chin high as she walked away. She made it as far as the end of the street. Out of sight, alone in the snow, she slumped against the wall of a crumbling stone house and buried her face in her hands.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  By tradition, the College of Cardinals convened in the cavernous underhalls beneath the papal estate. Corridors hived off from the great council auditorium and led to smaller conference rooms, meeting nooks, and baths, all appointed in a gala of ivory, marble, and gold leaf.

  Cardinal Accorsi commandeered one of the smaller, more intimate parlors, well off the beaten path. He’d been surprised when Amadeo came to him, requesting a meeting, but there was an urgency in the priest’s voice he couldn’t deny. Now, as they sat on two divans with a full pot of tea going cold on the table between them, Marcello knew he’d been right to hear him out.

  “That’s a strong accusation to make,” Marcello said evenly. He sat back, keeping a watchful eye on his companion. Every irregular breath, every twitch at the corner of Amadeo’s eye, Marcello filed and cataloged with the skill of a lifetime spent reading people’s motives. So far, everything the priest had said came across as sincere.

  “I’m not making an accusation,” Amadeo said, “just telling you what I’ve uncovered. If you have a rational explanation, believe me, I’d love to hear it. I’d be so happy to be wrong right now.”

  The steel trap of Marcello’s mind turned slowly. Considering, weighing, discarding, and sorting every piece of evidence into neat little bins. Outside, leaden footsteps clunked on the marble as one of the visiting knights made his hourly patrol.

  Suddenly, Marcello jumped to his feet and yanked open the parlor door. The knight—a younger man, towheaded and not quite filling out his armor—froze, startled.

  “You there,” the cardinal said. “Settle a bet for us, would you?”

  “We’re…not allowed to gamble, sir,” the knight said.

  “No, no, nothing sinful, just a dispute between friends. One of your colleagues was telling us that a handful of you graduated together from the Seminary of the Scroll in Stourgardt, is that right?”

  The knight started to nod, then caught himself. “It’s in Kohn, sir.”

  Marcello slapped his forehead. “Of course! Sorry. You see, I was only there once, about four years ago on a speaking tour. We were just talking about good old Father Gruenewald. Did he ever stop wearing that terrible wig? The big fluffy one that didn’t even match his eyebrows?”

  The knight relaxed, his expression mirroring Marcello’s friendly smile. “No, sir, still wearing it.”

  “Ah, that poor man. I suppose nobody ever told him how it looked. Let’s hope you and I have better friends in our old age, eh?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Marcello waved and shut the door. When he turned back to Amadeo, his smile had vanished.

  “I knew Gruenewald,” he said. “Not intimately, but well enough to know he was a brother of the Eastern tradition. They cut their hair in a tonsure as a mark of their ordination. No wigs. Also, my first little slip about the location of the seminary: I mentioned Stourgardt since that’s where his alleged chapterhouse is. You would think he’d find that worthy of comment, if in fact he remembered where he was supposed to hail from.”

  “You see?” Amadeo said.

  “I see an effect, but we’re lacking a cause. Was it Carlo and Lodovico’s intent to deprive the estate of its proper guard? To place impostors under their control? Or both? Let
’s assume both. This is about control.”

  “Or violence.”

  “Violence is control,” Marcello said. “They’re here for the succession hearings, then. They’ll be poised to flex their muscle if we offer a challenge against Carlo’s claim to the papacy. How much they’re willing to flex—and how far they’re willing to go—is the real question.”

  Amadeo knotted his fingers together in his lap, anxiously eying the closed door. “How far do you think?”

  “I may have a way to determine that. Leave it to me. For now, go back to your duties. I’ll contact you when I need you. And…Amadeo? You made the right choice, coming to me with this. Your loyalty will not be forgotten.”

  * * *

  As he prowled the halls of the estate alone, Marcello tried not to feel insulted. Instead of trying diplomacy, you bring the makings of a coup? Seriously, Carlo. For shame. Of course, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail…

  But how far would Carlo and his wealthy patron push if they didn’t get their way? Intimidation was one thing—Marcello could rally the cardinals and spin that back against them with the grace of a ballerina—but all bets were off if they had murder on their minds.

  By the time he reached the council auditorium, he’d worked out a plan to test their resolve.

  Six flights of velvet-cushioned seats curled around a white Verinian marble podium, all illuminated under a great crystal chandelier. Each concentric circle of seats rose up above the ones before it, like some baroque artist’s dream of a filigreed soup bowl. The College was between sessions, so only a few green-sashed cardinals and their aides lingered in the chamber.

  “Cardinal?” called out a doughy young man in an aide’s white cassock, “Sir! Cardinal, sir?”

  Marcello flashed a smile and walked over to greet him.

  “Goffredo,” he said and clasped the young man’s arms. The smile disappeared as soon as Marcello pulled him to the side, out of earshot. “Not in public, son. We’ve talked about this.”