“Oh, you’re making it my business. Sergeant Werner Holst, Twenty-Fourth Infantry, retired. You dogs are deserters and you’re dishonoring the uniform. That’s my business, all right. All I have to do is send word to Commander Beitel at Fort Blackwood, and his troops will scour this patch of woods until every last one of you is strung up from the trees like you rightly deserve.”
Their captain spread his grubby hands. “Well, then. Maybe that means we shut you up for good, right here and now.”
“Sure. And maybe you die trying. I served here, back when half the lads who wore the Imperial eagle on their shoulders never came home again. Think you’re tough? You wouldn’t have lasted twelve hours on the front lines. But I did last, and now I’m back for more. The five of you might take me down, sure, but I guarantee at least two of you get your skulls split. Who wants to be first? C’mon, step up!”
The closest deserters gave each other a nervous look. Neither one drew his weapon.
“Or,” Werner said, “you lot can get gone. Now. We all go our separate ways, and nobody has to die today.”
The captain held Werner’s gaze for a long, cold minute. Then he blinked.
“You’re lucky we have places to be,” he said, waving toward the door. “C’mon, we’re late as it is.”
The deserters shuffled out in a pack, slinking low, never taking their eyes off Werner until the last one slipped away.
“Well played,” Mari said. Werner just nodded and slung his staff. It took three tries to get it back in its sheath, his hands shaking as pent-up adrenaline ran riot through his veins.
Nessa touched Mari’s shoulder. She smiled brightly, a touch of wonder in her eyes.
“You,” Nessa said, “are going to make an excellent knight.”
Mari shook her head. “It’s what anyone would have done.”
“Let’s just get our supplies and get out of here,” Werner said. “Just in case they find their nerve and decide to double back. This cabin of yours, is it hard to find?”
“Not far at all, but quite secluded, according to the map,” Nessa said.
“Good. We’ll be safer there.”
Nessa nodded sharply. “My thoughts exactly.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“What do you mean, wait?” Simon demanded, standing outside Lodovico’s office door. “I’m Vico’s accountant. I don’t wait to see him, and he doesn’t have meetings I’m not invited to, ever.”
The house guard, poised between Simon and the closed door, ducked his head apologetically.
“I’m sorry, sir, but as I’ve told you, Signore Marchetti gave very specific instructions. No one is to be admitted until the ladies depart.”
“Ladies?” Simon pointed to the door. “Does he have whores in there? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
The guard swallowed. Hard.
“I…wouldn’t call them that, sir. Not where you reckon they might hear.”
“Who are they, then?”
The guard glanced over his shoulder to the closed door and back again.
“I don’t know, sir. They’re…wrong.”
“I’ll just take a look then, shall I?”
Simon sidestepped the guard in one smooth motion, turned the handle, and let himself into Lodovico’s office.
The women, three of them, stood in a triangle before Lodovico’s desk. They wore heavy robes, and thick veils of netted black lace dangled from their wide-brimmed hats. Black silk gloves concealed their hands, but their fingers drew Simon’s sharp eye. Either the gloves were sewn to accommodate exceptionally long fingernails, or their actual fingers were far too long for their hands.
“Sir,” the guard said, bursting in behind him. “I’m sorry, I tried—”
Lodovico leaned back in his chair and waved his fingers toward the door. The burly man, his shock of auburn hair tangled as if he’d recently woken up, looked somewhere between irritated and exhausted.
“It’s fine. We’re finished here anyway. Dismissed.”
The guard made himself scarce as the women turned—each one pivoting in place in perfect synchronicity, keeping their triangle intact—to face Simon.
“Simon Koertig,” said the first. Her voice was a sibilant hiss, drawing out the S in his name.
“Surprised you’d show your face here,” said the second.
“Lo, how the mighty have fallen,” the third said, snickering.
“I don’t know what you”—Simon paused, rethinking his choice of words at the last second—“ladies are talking about.”
“Can’t kill a helpless morsel like Felix Rossini,” the first said, mock pouting.
“Not even when he’s unarmed and alone,” said the second.
The third put her gloved hands to her chest. “He can drown an old man in a bathtub like an expert, though. Our hero.”
Simon clenched one of his hands into a fist at his side.
“Costantini? That ‘old man’ had eight armed and alert guards. I killed all of them.”
“Exactly,” hissed the first woman. “And if we had taken that job, we wouldn’t have had to. His guards would have found Costantini dead in the morning, hours after we’d come and gone right under their noses.”
“And to think we used to see you as worthy competition,” the third said.
Behind his desk, Lodovico lifted a half-empty glass of wine. “Ladies? Please? I invited you to chat, not to antagonize my accountant. I think our business is concluded for now, yes?”
“You know our price,” the first told him. “When you are prepared to pay, come to our home.”
As one, they strode toward the door. Simon found himself standing off to one side, out of their path. He hadn’t consciously gotten out of their way so much as he’d been mentally pushed.
Alone, Simon turned to Lodovico with a look of sheer disgust on his face.
“The Sisterhood of the Noose? Really?”
“They’re a fallback,” Lodovico said, “in case things get too far out of control. So far so good—Basilio Grimaldi’s survival notwithstanding—but I’m hedging my bets. Speaking of Basilio…?”
“The last of the failed assassins is dead. Found him hiding in the slums in Lerautia. Does Weiss know we eliminated one of his own men?”
“If we didn’t, he would have. The Dustmen aren’t forgiving of failure.”
“So there was no need to send me to tie up loose ends,” Simon said. “Your pet mercenaries would have done it on their own. Was that the idea? Get me out of town while you cozy up with the Sisterhood?”
Lodovico slouched back in his chair and sipped his wine.
“Simon, how long have we known each other?”
“Since your father hired mine. We’ve known each other more years than we haven’t.”
“And in all that time,” Lodovico said, “have I ever betrayed you? Lied to you? Cut you out of the picture?”
“Not…that I am aware of.”
“To be honest, you’ve given me some reason for concern of late. But you know that. There’s no need to belabor the past.”
Lodovico’s gaze drifted down to the powder-blue carpet. Even now, a pair of dark splash stains, like the aftermath of spilled wine, muted the color near Simon’s feet. Blood was a stubborn thing.
“I sent you,” Lodovico said, “because I wanted to be certain this mess was cleaned up properly. At this point in the game, arousing Basilio Grimaldi’s wrath is a complication I do not need. As for the Sisterhood, they’re my avenue of last resort. If the next stages don’t go perfectly to plan, they’ll ensure that no one escapes justice—no matter what happens to me.”
“I could have done that for you.”
“And I am grateful, but I need you focused on Basilio. Before, he needed to be killed for principle’s sake. Now it’s a matter of self-defense. The longer he lives, the more likely he is to figure out who sent those assassins.”
“I have a question,” Simon replied.
He paced in front of the desk, fo
rmulating his request, while Lodovico watched with strained patience.
“I have a way,” Simon told him, “to guarantee Basilio’s death. Tomorrow, in fact.”
“At his daughter’s wedding? Appropriate. Go on.”
“During, or immediately after. The point is, there may be a tiny bit of additional damage. I know you said you wanted Felix Rossini left alone—”
Lodovico sighed. He contemplated his wineglass.
“The more I think about it…” he let his thought trail off. “Did I tell you I ran into him at a party? It was just a few days after he returned from Winter’s Reach.”
“The Feast of Saint Scarpa?”
“One and the same. Funny, that feast’s where I met him the first time, years ago. He may wear the same name and the same face, but he’s not the same man. There’s something inside of him, dark and squirming in his guts. I’m not sure if he even knows it.”
“Well, after what he’d been through—”
“That’s not it, though. It’s that place. Winter’s Reach changes people, Simon. It’s cursed.”
“I certainly don’t feel any different.”
Lodovico watched him over the rim of his wineglass, favoring Simon with an indulgent smile.
“What could it bring out of you?” he asked. “You made peace with your darkness years ago, no? You wear it like a tailored coat. Felix, though…a man like that, to a place like that, is raw clay.”
“So what are you saying, exactly?”
Lodovico set his glass down. “I’m saying I don’t want Felix coming after me. He knows you—by sight, if not by name. If he connects you with me…”
Silence.
“Vico?”
Lodovico snapped out of his thoughts. He rapped his knuckles on the desktop.
“Kill them all. Basilio, Felix, and Basilio’s daughter as well, just to be certain she doesn’t come back for revenge down the line. Clean house. I’m risking too much to suffer loose ends.”
Simon took a long, deep breath. As he let it out again, he shivered with pleasure.
* * *
The dockside dive was all smoke and sea salt, clamor and the endless reel of a lyre played wild and off-key. The crowd was just drunk enough to love it, tossing dirty coppers at the player’s feet as he danced on the beer-sticky floorboards like a headless chicken.
Simon wasn’t so easily distracted. He only had eyes for his new drinking companion, a man with white whiskers longer than a catfish’s. They’d had a serendipitous meeting in the gardens of the Cathedral of Flowering Grace. Well, serendipitous for the old man, anyway. It had taken careful planning on Simon’s part, playing the role of a drifter looking for local work. They talked under the shadow of looming stone gargoyles, and eventually adjourned to the warm comforts of the Satyr’s Thicket. The pub’s namesake, painted on the dusty clapboards behind the bar, leered in his goat-legged pursuit of a naked woodland nymph.
“I’ll tell you,” the old man said, swirling the ale in his tankard for emphasis and leaning against the bar, “they say we’re a free people, but that and two coppers’ll buy you another mug of swill. The governor gives a sharp look and everybody jumps like he’s the emperor himself. A damned Murgardt, lording it over us like he’s got any right to breathe Mirenzei air.”
Simon lifted his own tankard, touching it to his lips and pantomiming a swallow. Didn’t pay to get tipsy on a job. “I hear you.”
“Like tomorrow, this damned wedding that’s got us all working double hours—and without double pay, mind you. Damn Grimaldi family’s best pals with our esteemed governor, so they get the white-glove treatment. The whole cathedral, a triumphal procession, whatever they want. Who do they think they are, anyway?”
“Wealth opens doors.”
“Pah.” The old man tossed back a swig of cheap ale. “I been the cathedral groundskeeper for forty years. You think that’d be worth something. I coulda been a merchant, or a nobleman.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” Simon murmured into his tankard.
“What’s that? Didn’t hear ya.”
“So, this wedding. It’s an all-day affair? Lots of guests coming?”
“Probably half the damn city. Ceremony’s at nine bells, then a big parade from the cathedral to the governor’s mansion for a feast. Not that I’m invited.”
Simon touched his finger to his chin, pretending to concentrate. “Hmm. From the cathedral to the mansion. So they’ll take…”
“The Triumphal Ribbon,” the groundskeeper helpfully finished his thought. “Street winds all the way from one end of the heights to the other. About halfway along the route, they’ve got the old Ducal Arch all decorated with vines and posies. Took a whole day of work, and it’ll all get torn down day after tomorrow, all for giving a couple of rich fops their moment of marital bliss. What a waste.”
It’ll all get torn down, Simon thought, a smile playing on his lips. Not the precise words I would have chosen, but close enough. Mirenze will remember Felix’s wedding day for decades to come.
All because of me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Seven-Fingered Men broke camp at dawn, tearing down tents and readying the wagons as small cooking fires warmed up last night’s meat for a quick breakfast. A grizzled bandit hauled Renata and Hedy out into the cold, keeping them leashed by their shackles. Renata craned her neck, looking for any sign of Marco.
The big man sauntered by, biting into a charred mutton leg that looked like more gristle than meat. He barely gave them a sidelong glance, but he paused when Renata spoke up.
“You could do better than that.”
Marco scowled. “Better than what?”
“That.” Renata nodded at his mutton. “Twenty bandits and not a damn one of you knows how to cook. What’s the point of leading this gang if you eat worse than a Mirenzei beggar?”
“So you’re sayin’ we should kidnap a cook.”
Renata lifted her chin. “I’m saying you’ve already kidnapped two. I’ve spent half my life in the kitchens of the Hen and Caber, and my apprentice knows her way around a kettle as well.”
“Point bein’?”
“The point being,” Renata said, “you should make use of that. Let us cook for you.”
The bandit holding their chains snickered, and Marco rolled his eyes.
“Oh, sure,” Marco said, “let a couple of witches prepare my food. That makes all kinds of sense.”
“You won’t be eating alone. We’ll have the same, from the same batch we make for you. If we poison you, we die first.”
Marco put one hand on his hip and tore off another bite of mutton, talking as he chewed. “And why would you wanna do that? If you’re trying to get on my good side, forget it. I haven’t got one.”
“Have you seen the slop you feed us?” Renata demanded. “Back home, my dogs ate better. It’s simple: by feeding you, we feed ourselves. We all get decent meals and everybody wins.”
The bandit chief gave her a bleary-eyed stare, his gaze slipping from Renata to Hedy and back again. She could hear the rusted gears in his brain struggling to turn, the sprockets slipping.
“Yeah,” he said, “guess that makes sense. Yeah, all right. You’ll get your chance tonight. But it’d better be good. And no funny business.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Renata told him.
They spent another long day marching behind a slow-rolling wagon, but this time there were no ambushes, no sudden flash of violence to break the tedium. Just the road and the long wait for nightfall.
“You really think we can pull this off?” Hedy whispered as they trudged side by side.
“I think we have a chance, which is more than we had before. Just remember everything I told you. We’ll only get one shot at this.”
The band found a clearing to make camp an hour after sunset. Renata and Hedy went largely ignored as the bandits staked tents and built fires; the men had either decided they were harmless, or they’d just gotten used to their presence
. Good, Renata thought. The less you pay attention, the more we can get away with.
Renata guessed, from the contents of one open wagon, that the bandits had raided a farm just before capturing them. Produce and wrapped meats piled high in back, half of it already rotten and wilting, and they’d clearly eaten the freshest of the lot first. She wouldn’t have served what remained to her worst customers.
One-Eye waved an irritated hand at the wagon. “There. Boss says you’re supposed to cook his dinner. Figure it out.”
“Just him?” Renata said, eyes wide with feigned surprise. “But…I thought we were cooking for the entire camp. What about the rest of you?”
“Boss gets what the boss wants. Ain’t for me to ask.” One-Eye glared at her. “Wouldn’t want anything you cooked anyway. Probably make my guts fall out my arsehole or something.”
Renata held up her manacled wrists. “Can’t cook with these on.”
“Sure you can. Plenty of give in that chain.”
She wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. Besides, she needed him angry at Marco, not at her.
“We’ll need supplies. Utensils.”
One-Eye nodded toward a fire smoldering just outside Marco’s oversized tent. “Right over there. And I’ll be watching you two, every step of the way. Don’t go thinking you can pocket a knife without me knowing.”
Renata led Hedy to the wagon, getting a little distance. One-Eye hung back, his scarred-up arms crossed, frown etched on his face.
“Okay,” she murmured to Hedy, “this is what we have to work with. Remember, it’s got to taste good and smell great. Any ideas?”
Hedy’s chains rattled as she pulled over a knapsack perched on the wagon’s lip. “Some cloves of garlic in here. They look edible. A little salt, but no peppers. We don’t have a lot of spices to work with.”
“No shortage of alcohol, though. Maybe we cook something in a red wine sauce?”
“Cheap wine.” Hedy wrinkled her nose. “Wait—beer! Is there any chicken left?”
Renata found what she needed, wrapped inside stained parchment paper. The chicken legs weren’t the freshest, and she’d have balked if her own butcher had tried to push them on her, but they hadn’t turned bad yet.
The Instruments of Control (The Revanche Cycle Book 2) Page 14