by V. Briceland
Her mother, who was laughing as she used a tiny spoon to put grape pits on a flat glass plate, held out an arm. “Restrain yourself, my love. We have company.”
Not the prince again, surely. Whirling, Risa found herself facing a large, handsome stranger wearing a silvery helmet. He grinned at her. “Romeldo!” she yelled, as the man’s features resolved into familiarity.
“By Muro, is that little Risa?” her oldest brother exclaimed. “Bare feet and all?”
With sudden self-consciousness, Risa looked down at her uncovered feet and legs. Only when he began to chuckle did she realize he was joking. Relaxed once more, she launched herself at him with a mighty hug, knocking her brow against his ceremonial headdress. “What are you doing here?”
Romeldo had been chosen by the moon god twelve years before, when he was fifteen. Though he still lived at the insula, soon he would be coming back to the caza daily to begin assuming his duties as heir. Risa had only been four years old when he left. She scarcely remembered a time when her brother had not worn the yellow robes of the Children of Muro.
“Why, I’m to scrutinize my brother. And you as well, you imp,” Romeldo answered her. “It would be a neat trick if Mira is the scrutineer for the Penitents, this festival. Is she coming?”
“She will be here, but not to scrutinize.” Ero bit into his toasted bread. “One of the Settecordi family will be performing the ritual.”
“Renaldo Settecordi of the upper Thirty? I know him.”
Ero snapped his fingers. “The very one.”
Romeldo wrinkled his nose at Risa. “We had a rivalry at bocce. Of course, I won. Why are you still here, devil girl? Shouldn’t you be busy dressing in your festival finery, Lady Barefoot Nightgown?”
Risa grinned at her new title. “But I’ve barely seen you!”
“You’ll see plenty of me at the feast. And don’t you dare make me laugh during the ceremony, young miss!” Romeldo winked at her. He reminded Risa of Ero in so many ways, from the long red-brown curls covering his head to his broad shoulders and confident nature. “What news is there of the king?” he asked his mother.
“I’m fashioning a new window for one of his chambers,” Giulia said, sweeping her long dark hair back over her shoulder. “But though I’ve been given the dimensions, I’ve not been allowed in the room to see where it’s to go.”
“It has been over a year since anyone has seen King Alessandro!” Ero shook his head.
“We saw the prince this morning,” Risa told Romeldo. He looked at her with surprise.
“For the blessing. He was not very forthcoming with details of his father’s health.” Giulia sniffed, obviously still put out by their abrupt treatment earlier that morning.
Risa reached up to her brother’s head to adjust the headdress she’d made crooked. Romeldo spared her a friendly grin and fixed it himself before returning to the conversation at hand. “He has ailed for too long! Can no physicians heal him?”
“Not if he refuses to see them,” said Giulia. “Or if the prince refuses to admit them.”
“Now, Giulia.” Ero might have been trying to shush his wife before her speculations grew out of hand, but Risa privately agreed with her mother. The prince did seem shifty. “The Olive Crown has granted Alessandro a long and prosperous life. It may be that he is simply ready to step into Muro’s chariot and join his forefathers on the plains of the ascended. Now, child,” he added to Risa, “run along, lest someone suspect you of trying to sway the opinion of our scrutineer.”
“Only Cousin Fredo would suspect that,” said Risa, not bothering to hide her scorn.
Her father’s smile faded. “Our cousin is a good man. It’s not his fault my uncle’s ill-chosen marriage caused Fredo to be born outside the Seven and Thirty. He is still a competent craftsman and a Divetri, and as such demands your respect.”
Her mother looked at the fruits on her plate. Romeldo averted his eyes to gaze through the pillars at the fountain splashing quietly in the sunlight. With a certainty she dared not speak, Risa knew they did not share her father’s high opinion of nerve-wracked Fredo. Still, she lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she growled, trying to sound as if she actually meant the apology.
A sigh escaped from Ero’s lips. “When you were born, I thought I would have my little girl forever.” He gave her an impulsive hug that squeezed the breath from her. “Today is the day I lose you, little lionkit. You’ll forget all about us once you’re gone, I warrant.”
All her excitement of the last week and all the anticipation for her new life could never erase the knowledge that she was leaving her parents. “You’ll never lose me,” she promised in a whisper. Moisture began to wick at the corners of her eyes. “Not ever. I’ll make you proud, I swear. I’ll always be a Divetri.”
5
—
The savages of the desert sands south of the sea have their Madrasahs, the Vereinigteländer their guilds, the people of Cassaforte their insulas, and civilized countries their collegium and universitas, yet these all occupy themselves with one purpose: the betterment and education of otherwise idle youth.
—Celestine du Barbaray, Traditions &
Vagaries of the Azure Coast: A Guide for
the Hardy Traveler
Gondolas, flagged and flowered, congested the high-walled canals. Standing in the shaded garden room, Risa could see, dancing on the water, the decorated iron ferri that projected up from their sterns. By this hour there were so many people thronging the courtyard that scores of servants and well-wishers were forced to observe from the bobbing gondolas.
It was fortunate the garden room was elevated a few steps above the courtyard. Risa and her brother would have been unable to see the ceremony otherwise. Between them and the courtyard’s center stood hundreds of elaborately coiffed women in their summer finery and men wearing brocade and velvet caps. Risa’s memory of the last Scrutiny, years before, was little more than a blur of excitement and a vague memory of sitting on a window ledge and trying to see past all those colorful hats. The notion that she and Petro were now to be the center of attention turned her stomach to butterflies. Had her older brother and sisters felt the same way, peering through the window on their special day? Her father? Generations of Divetris before her had occupied this garden room on ceremony days, Risa realized. No doubt they had felt the very same pangs as she did. As comforting a thought as that should have been, it didn’t at all quell her nervous excitement.
Petro was already standing on tiptoe, and would have climbed on a chair to see better had Risa not restrained him. Though none of the crowd knew they were in the garden room, she did not wish to run the risk of anyone spotting them before the appropriate moment.
“Your tunic is undone,” she said, kneeling down to fix it.
“It isn’t. I hooked every other button!” Petro replied. “No one will notice if the rest aren’t done.”
She finished fastening the rest of his buttons and smoothed down the plain black tunic. “I noticed,” she said. “You look very handsome, though.” She gathered back Petro’s curls where they spilled from under his black cap. She was clad in black herself—in a gown, no less. Her aversion to gowns was well known in the caza; she preferred to work and play in simple leggings and a loose over-tunic. Her hair was usually restrained only for hot glass work, when she kept it collected in a net-like reta that fit snugly over the back of her head.
But today, her mane was woven with ribbons and taped into a complex coil at the back of her neck. When she had glimpsed her reflection in a mirror, an hour before, she’d barely recognized herself. Even with her snubbed nose and the slightly protruding upper lip she fancied made her look duck-like, when richly dressed and arrayed she looked almost like the subject of a Buonochio painting. This realization had actually made her look twice, pleased with the effect.
Petro’s attent
ion, however, was fixed upon two priests facing each other. Their arms were now raised to the sky, where the sun blazed at its highest point. “This is the day,” Romeldo was intoning, “on which the chariot of Muro comes to rest in the Stable of Silver, before he again undertakes his journey of six years.” Romeldo had lowered the faceplate of his helmet for this portion of the ceremony, and the mask of Muro, the god of the larger moon, smiled fixedly at the crowd.
Like Romeldo, Renaldo Settecordi wore a helmet that covered his face. Its faceplate had been molded in the familiar smiling face of Lena, the goddess of the smaller moon. “This is the day on which the chariot of Lena comes to rest in the Stable of Gold,” he echoed Romeldo, “before she again undertakes her journey of six years.”
The crowd gasped as the two priests thrust their ceremonial staffs to the sky. With an immense bang, which prompted Petro to cover his ears, sparkling fire shot from them and exploded over the crowd. Above the courtyard, visible despite the blinding midday sun, two spheres of golden fire hovered one above the other. The sparks formed constellations, surrounding them. Within an instant the glittering sparkles disappeared, though their brightness still lingered on Risa’s eyes. Tiny particles of soot drifted onto the crowd. The shock of the sudden sound faded, but from across the city Risa still heard the retorts from other courtyards. It reminded her that in every household of the Seven and Thirty where lived a child between the ages of eleven and sixteen, the Scrutiny was even now taking place. She and Petro would be meeting the chosen others that night, in one or the other of the insulas.
Relieved laughter rippled through the crowd. A smattering of applause for the fireworks sounded from the gondolas, echoing between the canal walls. Risa considered wiping her sweaty palms on her gown, but decided against it. Why in the names of both moons did ritual dictate she had to wear a black gown at noon on a warm summer’s day? It would be worse when they stepped into the sun.
With the hems of their long robes drifting around their feet, the two masked and helmeted figures—the Child and the Penitent—turned in the direction of the rest of her family, who stood the head of the courtyard,
“Who submits their children for the scrutiny of Lena?”
“Who submits their children for the scrutiny of Muro?”
“I—Ero, Cazarro of Divetri—ask that my children undergo the scrutiny of Muro. May he look into their hearts and choose them, should it be his will.” Risa’s heart raced as her father stood and spoke the words. Like the scrutineers, he wore a long and old-fashioned houppelande that stretched to his ankles. The turban of woven multicolored silks that enveloped his head made his beard look all the more stark against his face.
Equally beautiful was her mother as she stepped forward. Giulia’s hair, shining in the sun like ebony captured in silk cords, cascaded down the back of her patterned green gown. Sleeves of royal blue, embroidered with metallic thread, accented the gold circlet around her brow, from the center of which hung a single opal. “I, Giulia, Cazarra of Divetri, ask that my children undergo the scrutiny of Lena. May she look into their hearts and choose them, should she so will.”
The two priests bowed first to her parents, and then to each other. Risa’s breath quickened as her mother and father returned to their seats. Behind them stood her sisters: Vesta, wearing the robes of the Children, clasped her mother’s shoulder in excitement, while Mira stood to the side, smiling as serenely as the goddess in whose name she had been chosen. Risa could not see Romeldo’s face through his mask, but of course he too was present. Over the pounding of her heart, it struck Risa that they were together as a family—all the Divetris. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen all her siblings at once.
In a cluster nearby were the chief craftsmen: friendly Mattio, smiling as broadly as if she and Petro were his own children; Cousin Fredo, the tip of his finger rubbing tabbaco da fiuto into his gums, his surcoat piously arrayed with religious medallions; Emil, still dressed in his work clothes and squinting at the crowds in a bewildered manner. All the craftsmen and servants were part of the extended Divetri family as well—she was glad they were there for the proudest moment of her life.
“Once every six years, when the chariots of the gods come to rest, we their representatives travel through the houses of the Seven and Thirty to bestow their promised blessings upon the children therein.” Renaldo Settecordi’s voice, strong and clear, could have carried through the babble of any crowd; before this silent assembly, it seemed to thunder. “By the light of day, they shall be scrutinized. Tonight, bathed in the light of the moons, they shall be received into the company of the insulas, to continue their education and training.”
Romeldo’s voice, lighter yet equally as penetrating, could probably be heard from one end of the upper bridge to the other. “Let the children come forth. Let them be seen and judged.” He removed his helmet and shook out his curls, while Renaldo did the same.
“Don’t be afraid.” Risa squeezed Petro’s hand, aware of the irony that she’d never been so frightened in her life.
When the priests strode toward the garden room doors, the crowd parted silently. Risa pulled her brother back a few steps just as they reached the doors and pushed them open. The children stood there for a moment, framed in the entryway. Hundreds of eyes stared in their direction. Even as the priests strode back to the courtyard’s center, chanting, the crowd’s full attention lay upon the two Divetris.
Risa suddenly panicked. What was she doing here? She loved the caza! Why did she have to leave? Why had she thought the ceremony would be exciting? It was exactly as she’d pictured it for years, but never once had she imagined how insistently her heart would be pounding, or how timid she’d become at this last moment. Only Petro’s tug caused her feet to stumble into motion. She remembered herself. Though her jaw trembled with fear, she gathered the skirts of her gown with her free hand and walked through the doors.
Smells assailed her nostrils. A hundred perfumes barely concealed the heavy, rank odors of sweat and garlic from the crowd. There was the musk of hair pomades, the sharpness of clove powder that sweetened the breath. Brother and sister pushed through the aroma, taking step after step across the terra-cotta tiles until at last they were in the clear space at the courtyard’s center. Everyone smiled at them. Risa knew that no matter what direction she turned, she would see face after smiling face for as far as the eye could see. She kept her eyes straight ahead until at last she and Petro reached their goal.
Renaldo Settecordi swept his arms in a dramatic gesture to keep the crowd at a distance. “Lena, luminous light of the heavens,” he cried, raising his arms upward but keeping his face low. “Through my prayer I beseech you to grant me sight, so that I might know your will for these children.” After a moment he raised his head and approached on slow-moving feet.
Suppressing a gasp, Risa immediately noticed his eyes. A film covered his pupils, giving him the appearance of an elderly man afflicted with cataracts. Still, he moved with purpose and deliberation in their direction. He placed one hand atop the other and held them inches above Petro’s head. Her younger brother stared solemnly at the ground, his face a pasty white. Although she was trying not to gawk, Risa glanced up again at the priest. His lips moved in prayer for a few moments as he shut his eyelids. He fell silent.
It was as if he had heard an answer that was audible only to his ears. His eyes opened once more to look down upon her brother. They were no longer distant and alien, but very much unclouded and his own. With cupped fingers he lifted Petro’s chin, and then kissed his hands in the traditional manner as he murmured a prayer. “Bless you, child,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. The smile he wore, however, was genuine. He seemed to gaze upon her brother with affection. Risa would have been willing to wager the entire caza and her family’s fortune that Petro had been chosen by the Penitents of Lena.
The priest’s eyes glazed again as he moved in fr
ont of Risa. She lowered her head and tried not to think of the mass of people focusing all their attention upon her. On the top of her scalp she felt heat from the Penitent’s palms as they hovered inches above. Just as he had with Petro, he murmured a private prayer to the goddess.
“Bless you, child,” he said, raising up her chin at last. Though his smile was kind as he kissed her hands and murmured the prayer of blessing, his face wore an expression different than it had for her brother. Oh Petro, she thought to herself, suddenly understanding. You’ve been chosen by the goddess and I’ll be chosen by the god. I won’t be able to go with you.
Once the Penitent had stepped back, Romeldo swung out his arms and lowered his head. “Muro, giver of joy, I beseech you to bring me wisdom, so that I may choose wisely for you.”
His eyes as unfamiliar and clouded as Renaldo’s had been, Romeldo prayed over Petro. “Bless you, child,” he finished. His expression was fond as he kissed his younger brother’s fingers, but it held no special joy.
Risa was now all the more certain that she and Petro would find themselves, at the end of the day, in different new homes. She would return to the Insula of the Children of Muro with her brother. Perhaps tomorrow she would find herself working side by side with Vesta, who was only four years her senior. At the very last moment, as Romeldo’s crossed palms hovered over her, she remembered she was supposed to be humbly looking downward. She jerked her neck toward the ground.
She waited for what seemed a very long time. “Bless you, child,” she heard at last.
Risa looked up into her older brother’s eyes, surprised at what she saw. He was puzzled. For a long moment he held her chin, his brows furrowed as if he didn’t recognize her. Then he stepped backward.