by V. Briceland
“Enchantments I will never be able to perform!” Risa spat out. Each word was bitter on her tongue. She gestured to the olive branch her father had wielded in the ceremony moments before. “Because in all of history, I alone of all the seven cazas, and I alone of all the thirty great families of Cassaforte, have been rejected by the insulas!” With savage satisfaction she noted that her candor had brought about a stunned silence in the workshop. Even Cousin Fredo and Emil, at the other end of the room, gawked at her. “You think I waste my time, Cazarro? Perhaps I do. Thanks to your stupid gods, I have nothing but time to waste.”
Ero held up a hand to stop her from saying anything further. “Do not speak ill of the gods. They watch over you even now!”
“Do they?” Standing up to Ero seemed to electrify her. She felt energy in the air; it seemed to crackle at the ends of her hair. Even as she argued, however, a part of her felt guilty. She should not be contradicting the cazarro of one of Cassaforte’s oldest and most esteemed families. Not her own father. Yet some vicious part of her could not resist dealing a final blow. “You may believe it, but I don’t. The gods have set me adrift. I am at your mercy, Cazarro—I will waste no more time on a craft no one will purchase. If you have some other plan for the hours I spend under your roof, tell me. I cannot make you proud, like your other sons and daughters. But I will make myself of use.”
Ero stared at Risa for a moment. After what seemed an eternity, he returned her bowl. “I’ve a delivery of goods to go to Pascal’s shop this afternoon,” he finally said, his voice as level and cold as hers. “It would do you good to get away from the caza for a few hours.”
Risa lifted the hem of her practical shift and curtseyed. “Fine, Cazarro.”
“Daughter.” The word made Risa stop, mid-turn, to face her father once more. “I am proud of all my children.” There was a stiffness to Ero’s jaw as he ground out the words. “Believe me. Or not, as you choose.”
If she was the girl she had been a week ago, Risa would have believed him. Instead, she bowed without words, turned her back on the man who had sired her, and stalked from the workshop. She wasn’t the girl she had been. She wasn’t sure what kind of girl she was, now. Nor was she certain she cared.
7
—
The Cassafortean lawes of succession, by lawe resting squarely upon the whims of the current ruler, were sorely tested during the fifth centurie after the citie’s founding, when a dying and feverish King Molo declared his young seamstresse to be his heir. Though the decision was quicklie retracted, for two centuries following,
loyalists to the self-declared Queene Poppy, mostlie friends and descendants, fought bitterlie for her line to be instated to the throne.
—Anonymous, A Briefe and Compleat Historie
of the Cassafort Citie
The shop of brownstones was simply called Pascal’s. No other name was necessary. Everyone who was anyone in the city knew that the finest Cassafortean glass from Caza Divetri and the insulas could be found there. The shopkeeper scorned displaying his stock, preferring instead to keep the fragile glassware packed inside snug cases. His showroom often surprised new customers, for it was merely a cramped and dusty space in which wooden boxes seemed stacked at random. But Pascal could, upon request, produce without hesitation any item a person might desire.
“It is indeed a pleasure,” Pascal repeated for the third or fourth time. “A distinct pleasure to have you in my humble establishment.”
Via Dioro stretched west, from the Palace Square to the isle of Caza Dioro. There were many mercantile districts within Cassaforte, but none so exclusive or expensive as Via Dioro. Pascal’s shop sat just a bit away from the noise and bustle of the square itself. Still, when Risa looked to the north and the east, she could easily see the hulk of King Alessandro’s impressive domed residence.
This section of the street was the place to see and be seen. Outside the shop windows bustled members of the Seven and Thirty, some dressed in their finery, others in the robes of their insula. Risa had dressed herself in one of her better, lighter gowns, and spent more than a few moments tying her hair with cords so that it hung in a plait resembling her mother’s. The finery made her itch. Resisting the urge to tug at her tight-wristed sleeves, she smiled at the old shopkeeper. “I trust my father’s workmanship meets your high standards,” she said.
Pascal’s eyes were milky with the clouds that sometimes grow over the eyes of the very old. He took another look at her goods through a thick glass lens. “No question there, my dear. Your father is the most remarkable craftsman I’ve seen. Even more remarkable than his father before him. Fidelity goblets?” He lifted a pair of slender blue glasses up and rotated them in opposition to each other. Risa nodded. They were popular and expensive wedding gifts among the Seven and Thirty. “A perfect set,” said Pascal, placing them in a velvet-lined box. “An admirable feat. They’ll be snapped up immediately, you’ll see. I’ll give you thirty lundri for them.”
“Fifty,” Risa said automatically, knowing that Pascal would sell them for seventy-five lundri.
“Forty,” said Pascal.
“Forty-five,” she countered. It had been a test, she realized after he accepted, but she had been taught to bargain aggressively from a young age. They went through the entire cargo in a similar manner, piece by piece, pricing the stock until at last Risa’s purse was full of gold coins and Pascal had a considerable number of much-used wooden cases filled with Divetri glass.
“Your father will be a happy man,” Pascal said as he removed the lens from his eye. “And I will have a number of very happy customers.”
“If you have a spare moment, there’s one more thing—”
The front door creaked open, bringing the smells of the street into the musty room. “Shopkeeper, please … ” a voice rasped out, barely comprehensible. Risa turned in mid-sentence to see an old man leaning on the door’s handle for dear life, as if he might crumple to the ground without its support. What hair he had was thin and long and clumped with grime. A bruise was fading to yellow on his cheek, and shreds of clothing hung from his skeletal frame. His free hand trembled as he stretched it out, as if begging for alms. “P-please,” he repeated.
“Out!” shouted Pascal, his wrinkled old face twisting into a scowl. “Out with you!” He made shooing motions with his hands, then raised his voice to a roar. “Via Dioro is no place for the likes of scum! If I see your face again, I’ll have the city guards clap you in irons!” The old man cringed away from the door as Pascal kicked it shut. Risa, her ears still ringing, could see him out the window, his head hanging low as he made his way down the street.
“That beggar has been bothering merchants all day,” Pascal explained, his voice returning to normal as his temper ebbed. “I hope he did not upset you, Cazarrina.”
“No, not at all,” Risa said, vaguely disturbed. The beggar had not offended her—Pascal’s behavior had. She too was to blame, however. Not until the old man had been forced from the door had she even realized that a single lundri from the hundreds in her purse would have let him live comfortably for a month.
She might live as a beggar herself someday, dependent forever on the charity of others. Certainly, she would always have a home at Caza Divetri should she want it. Yet without any credentials from an insula or any skills beyond the ordinary to contribute to the Divetri workshops, could she ever be independent? She had to know. “I merely wanted your opinion, shopkeeper, on another piece.”
Pascal crept forward eagerly, his lens at the ready. “Something special, Cazarrina?” From a separate padded sack, Risa produced her own bowl, the one plucked from the furnace shelf just that morning. Though she kept her expression impassive, Risa’s heart beat quickly as she watched the shopkeeper run his hands over its surfaces. The sparse hairs of his eyebrow crunched in a question. “This is painted?”
“No,” she said. “It
is cut and layered glass, fused by heat and slumped into a bowl shape by gravity.”
“Very curious,” he said, returning to his appraisal. “Is it your work?” When she nodded, he gave her a quick glance. “Pretty, but not extraordinary. You could sell it at the open air markets for ten or twelve luni.”
“A few luni!” she exclaimed, outraged. Her bowl was not even worth a full lundri? She would have to craft hundreds to earn as much as a pair of Divetri wedding goblets!
“The workmanship is solid, if unusual,” Pascal said briskly, but not unkindly. “It is free of container enchantments—am I correct?” He clucked, not surprised, when Risa nodded her head. “My customers are looking for enchanted blown glass, the finest I can find. Sell your bowl and collect a few luni for pocket money, child,” he advised, handing back the bowl.
Risa nodded, bowed her head, and stalked out of the shop.
Had Pascal’s eyes been sharper and unclouded, he might have noticed the tears beginning to stream down Risa’s face as he followed her into the street. Nor was he aware, as he helped her into the cart and handed her reins made warm by the perfumed hides of the mule team, that she drove away with a face streaked red and white, and a head hung low.
One person saw, however. He stood at the foot of the Bridge of Allyria, watching her cart’s slow approach. Risa noticed him as the mules pulled the cart up the bridge’s gentle slant over the River Canal. The boy was staring at her—gaping at her, really. He looked no more than sixteen or seventeen. His sun-browned skin seemed all the more tan against his city guard’s uniform—a crimson tunic, trimmed with gold braid, that reached to his thighs; dark red leggings; and a round red cap pulled over his head. From its sides spilled wavy blond hair. Unlike the palace guards with their long, heavy capes, the boy’s cape was short and more functional.
His nose wrinkled slightly as she passed. She felt resentment at his bold stare, quickly followed by mortification at how awful she must look in his green eyes. He was going to have quite a story to take back to his comrades that night, she realized. The story of how one of the Seven and Thirty was sobbing on the streets would be all over the city by tomorrow.
Determined not to reveal how badly he embarrassed her, Risa straightened her back and neck and turned her head away from the young guard. Sniffing down the last of her self-pity, she snapped the reins and urged the mules forward.
Only when the cart had reached the bridge’s peak did she look back, her eyes dazzled from the slantwise rays of the early evening sun. The guard still watched her. His eyes caught hers; he grinned and saluted. He was mocking her, obviously. Probably he was already making up the lies he’d be telling the other guards over supper that night. She pressed her lips together in annoyance and once more snapped the reins.
The Bridge of Allyria was one of Cassaforte’s oldest, built by the first cazarro of Caza Portello. Like all of Portello’s bridges, it spanned the broad canal with a graceful swoop. By this time of day, the traditional dinner hour for most, a good many people in Cassaforte had already made their way home to house and family. The bridge was nearly empty of traffic. A single gondola sliced through the water as its owner punted south, leaving the canal waters bobbing in its wake. Gulls croaked in the reddening sky above.
It had been near this spot, Risa remembered, that her parents had seen each other for the first time. Her mother’s sister had been staying for an extended visit with the Allecaris, a family of the Thirty who lived here, and had decided to lengthen her stay by another few days. As was the custom among Cassaforte’s best families, Giulia had brought a hospitality offering of food and wine to the Allecari housekeeper so that the family would not be put out by the expense of a long visit. While at the house, Giulia had looked out from an upstairs window and glimpsed Ero for the first time. So very handsome she found him, she would say as she told the tale, that she felt an odd desire to attract his attention. She obeyed the compulsion and opened the window to call out a greeting before he passed. Ero had looked up, smiled, and greeted her. They were united within six months, as if fated to meet and marry.
Had Giulia never said a word, Risa considered with a shiver, there would be no Petro, no Romeldo. No Vesta or Mira. No Risa. Then again, the last would have been least missed.
Her cart clattered off the bridge. Then, over the sound of the wheels against pavement, Risa heard a muffled cry to her left. When she turned her head, she saw three youths clustered around a single figure, an elderly man. One youth lifted his knee abruptly into the man’s stomach. When he returned his foot to the ground, he stomped hard on the man’s toes. Another boy struck the man on the back of the head. Even from a distance, Risa could hear their victim’s anguish. It was the old man she had seen just a few minutes before at Pascal’s—the beggar.
Drive on, said a voice inside her head. There’s danger here. She instantly thought of the hundreds of lundri hidden in the floorboards of the wagon. Fear prompted her to spur the mules on, lest the treasure be risked. It was only an old beggar, part of her reasoned. If he belonged to anyone, he wouldn’t have to wander and ask for luni. No one would care if he were injured. It would be easy just to pretend she hadn’t seen, and take the cart over the bridge.
Yet there was a piteousness to the man’s wordless cry that tugged at her heart. As badly off as he might be, no one deserved to be beaten by idle boys looking to harass someone weaker than themselves. Earlier, hadn’t she wished she’d helped him when she had the opportunity? It seemed that she was being given a second chance—she would not so easily forgive her own inaction this time.
Risa abruptly banked the cart to the left. When the mules refused to move any faster, she brought them to a halt by the canal wall and hopped down. “Help!” she bellowed as loudly as possible, hoping the canal waters would carry her cry to the far end of the bridge, where people still lingered. “Help me, please!”
The youths startled at her approach. They might not have recognized her face, but they recognized her as a member of the Seven and Thirty by her fine manner of dress. She continued yelling as she ran, growing confident as she frightened them. One of the boys immediately broke into flight, sprinting down the canal street as fast as his legs could take him. The other two seemed to panic at his desertion. The taller quickly followed the first. The third was left holding the beggar. With a mighty shove, he pushed the elderly man away as he ran.
The vagabond fell backward against the low canal wall. As Risa watched, he lost his footing and toppled over. A moment later, she heard a loud splash.
When she reached the spot where the man had stood, she peered over the edge, horrified. In the waters of the River Canal below, she saw hands clawing at the surface, looking for something to clutch onto. Wildly she looked around. Near where she had left the cart she spotted identical sets of footholds built into opposite sides of the canal wall—the nearest ladder down, and it was too far away. There was no help for it. She lifted her skirts, bent her knees, and jumped down into the canal, more than twenty feet below.
Dark water flooded her mouth and nose, its mossy, foul taste causing her to choke. Risa blinked rapidly to clear her eyes. A hand, weak and listless, still flailed above the water not six feet away from her. Her skirts were hopelessly tangled around her legs, making it difficult for her to swim, but she thrashed toward it.
When her hand captured his, the beggar’s strength seemed to return. He clutched her wrist with such force that it seemed as if her bones might break. In his desperation, he suddenly yanked her down under the water. She was caught by surprise. Her lungs burned as they breathed in water.
With force, she yanked her wrist free of the man’s grasp and surfaced, coughing so deeply that her body wracked in pain. As the water drained from her eyes, she felt someone jump into the water quite close to her. A mighty splash soaked her face, and she bobbed up and down in the wake of the impact.
“Don’t strug
gle,” she heard someone yelling. She was about to protest that she wasn’t struggling at all when the water drained from her eyes once more. The boy who’d just dived in with her was already grappling with the beggar, addressing him while his red-clad arms attempted to keep the old man’s head above the surface. “Grab his other hand,” he told her.
She seized it as it flailed, nearly clouting the boy in the head. “Calm down!” she sputtered in the beggar’s ear. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
There must have been something soothing about her voice, raspy with canal water as it was, for the old man’s struggles lessened. “We’ve got to get him out,” the boy said, shaking a length of his own hair from his face. His green eyes blinked open. “Can you swim? I don’t have to save you, too?”
“I can manage. Take him toward the bridge,” Risa suggested, beginning to kick out as best she could in that direction. “There’s a foothold there.”
Their progress was slow, thanks to the beggar’s protestations and Risa’s heavy, waterlogged gown. She was utterly exhausted by the time they reached the canal wall.
“I’ll drag, you push,” suggested the boy. He did not seem in the least winded. As Risa watched him pull himself out of the water with one of the handholds, she realized she hadn’t even considered how, by herself, she would have gotten the old man up the stone ladder. It would have been simply too difficult to do on her own.
The boy in the red uniform managed to grab hold of the beggar’s coarse coverings and haul him up to the first stone projection. Instinct took over. The old man’s legs struggled for a hold, and his hands scrabbled against the notched gaps between the wall stones. Risa helped his feet move upward from step to step as the boy provided support from above. It was awkward work. Risa was nearly as wet from two sets of clothing dripping down on her as she had been in the canal itself. Eventually she felt a pair of hands helping her over the canal wall. She stumbled onto the street. The mule cart still stood only a few feet away, she noted with relief.