by V. Briceland
Milo continued introducing people around the table, who all seemed to be members of Edmundo’s large family. At last he reached a large man utterly engrossed in his stew. Risa’s blood froze to ice her in veins. Here was one person who would recognize her instantly. “And this is Amo,” he said neutrally. “Camilla’s friend.”
The glass worker automatically reached out one of his colossal hands in greeting while using the other to rip a bite from a heel of bread. It was not until their flesh touched that he actually looked at her. Ceasing to chew, Amo blinked at Risa and her borrowed uniform, then looked at Milo with a scowl on his face, as if about to ask what joke he was trying to play. “Muriella,” Milo repeated. “Of the guard.”
Amo hesitated. After a long pause he nodded, moved over on the bench, and gestured for Risa to sit. Edmundo also rose and issued gentle commands to his daughters; they parted so that Milo could take a place between them. Though they kept their faces turned toward the stage, from across the table Risa caught them both peeking slantwise in his direction. Silly fools, she thought to herself. She looked at their carefully coiled curls harnessed in the back in matching retas; their pale, porcelain complexions; and their jeweled ears. They were not of the Thirty, these girls, yet they aped their fashions.
She startled from her absorbed thoughts, apologizing when she realized Edmundo had spoken to her. “I said, I don’t believe I’ve seen you on duty in the city,” he repeated.
“I—”
“She’s new,” said Milo.
“I’ve seen her,” said Amo at the same time. He and Milo looked at each other, horrified at their contradiction. Amo continued, still chewing his stew. “Stationed in one of the piazzas near the sea wall. Right?” Risa nodded gratefully at him.
“So you’ve seen every guard in the city now, ’Mundo?” Mina wanted to know. “You must have more time on your hands than I!”
Edmundo tut-tutted and shook his head. “These are dreadful times indeed. They’re saying the prince is a madman,” he told Milo, including Risa in the conversation with a nod. “It’s a terrible time to be a guard, lad, I keep telling you. What happens if the prince tells you to start murdering the innocent, like the bad kings of the old times?” While he talked, Edmundo ladled out servings of stew for both of them from a communal container in the center of the table. He tore off portions of bread from a loaf and then pushed the provisions toward the two newcomers.
“We don’t take orders from the prince,” Milo said, gratefully accepting the stew. He began to spoon it into his mouth. “Guards only answer to the man or woman who bears the Olive Crown. The captains only take the prince’s suggestions under advisement.”
“That’s what you say now, but there’s ways of installing new captains who would gladly dance to the beat set by the prince.” Edmundo nodded at the raised platform in the corner near them, where a woman in full skirts pranced to the rhythm of a tall, deep-voiced drum. “Best get out before you’re asked to do something against your nature.”
“Being a guard is my nature,” Milo said. One of the girls—Charla, Risa thought it was—tittered and held several dainty fingers before of her mouth. Milo turned and winked at her as he chewed.
For a moment Risa wrestled with an irrational urge to slap the chit. For the life of her she did not know why, save that she had no patience for useless, frilly, simpering girls who practiced no craft and did nothing more than rehearse their wiggles and giggles in the sole hope of making a good marriage. Instead, she turned her attention to the stew. Though the splintery bowl in which it lay in no way resembled the caza’s fine plates, it smelled delicious. She tasted it eagerly.
“His mother was a guard, you know,” Mina told Risa. “And her mother and father before that. Oh, we all loved Tara. She was like a daughter to me. A real daughter!” Tears glittered in her eyes as she spoke. From her capacious bosom she withdrew a handkerchief and blew her nose into it.
Before she could stop herself, Risa turned from the spectacle of emotion and blurted to Milo, “Your mother was a guard?” She closed her mouth, aware that she was gawking.
“Didn’t you know? Not just any guard,” said Amo, his cheeks bulging with chunks of meat. “She was of the king’s own flank. Bodyguard to the king.”
Risa looked from Amo to Milo, astounded. For days she had envisioned Milo’s mother as a jolly old lady who puttered around her family’s kitchens. That she was of the king’s own flank meant that she had been one of the most deadly and powerful fighters in all Cassaforte—small wonder she had been gifted with a Catarrean book on swordcraft! “But … ”
“Oh, Tara was the best of the best,” Edmundo told her. “Moved like a mountain cat on the prowl when she had to, and pounced just as sweetly. Four times decorated with awards for bravery! Four times! More than any other of the king’s flank.”
Milo was refusing to meet her eyes. He steadily consumed his meal as she stared at him. “You’ll be decorated one day, Milo,” said Charla, tittering once more. “I’m sure you’re just as brave.”
“I’m sure you’re braver!” said Missa, crowding in more closely and grasping Milo’s upper arm. “You’re ever so strong.” She gave his bicep a squeeze.
Risa stared at the girls with loathing.
Just then, applause broke out among the crowd. In the flurry of raised and clapping hands, Risa for a moment lost sight of Milo’s face. When she saw it again, he was looking at her as he took a drink from his flagon. Did she think differently of him, she wondered, now that she knew more about him? How could she say he seemed more important, now that she knew his mother had been one of the most respected guards in the country? He was just Milo. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, sometimes smiling Milo. He was impossible not to like, no matter who had given him birth.
“It’s Ricard you’ll be after, isn’t it?” murmured Amo in her ear as the applause began to die. She nodded, and he pointed in the direction of the stage. Ricard was already on it, holding out his hand to help up Tania up beside him. His costume was considerably more refined than the scrapbag he had worn the past two days. Although just as colorful, the fabrics seemed to be richer and the cut more fashionable. Tania also seemed to be wearing new clothes, which flattered her shining, curly hair. “He’ll be up next,” Amo continued. “You’d best stop him before he starts. The crowds here get ugly if the entertainers don’t follow through.”
Risa looked across the table. Milo had already gotten to his feet. As he began to shift toward the stage, both Charla and Missa grabbed him by his hands. “You’ve only just come!” said one.
“Oh Milo, you can’t leave now!” said the other.
The tinny sound of Ricard’s lute quieted the crowd. Risa watched as he inclined in a slight bow, his fingers never leaving his instrument. Behind him, Tania tapped out a beat on the tambour as he began to sing.
A shrill cry of woe sounds into the still night.
The city lies quiet in dread.
And high in the palace, a king in his robes
Lies quiet and still: He is dead.
“Missa, I can’t stay,” Milo told her. He tried to disentangle his arm from the girl’s clutch, but she held him in an iron clasp.
Risa stood up and walked around the table. She had noticed that some of the people in the taverna were already humming along to the tune. Although she had only just heard it herself that morning, it was so simple and memorable that she cursed to realize she could have sung it herself.
A thunder as hoofbeats pound over the bridge—
Its echoes sound over the water.
“Let go of him. We’ve city business to attend to,” she snapped at Missa. She was very surprised at how the girl instantly obeyed her, even seeming slightly contrite. At that moment she would have admitted that there was a certain seductive power to the uniform of a city guard. Milo, in the meantime, had sprinted aw
ay from the table to the stage.
“Oh father, don’t leave me!” resounds a soft cry—
The cry of the glass maker’s—
Whatever cry the glass maker’s daughter had planned to make thereafter went unheard, for—in one athletic motion—Milo covered Ricard’s mouth with one hand and pulled him off the stage in another. The poet’s lute strings jangled in alarm.
Tania turned to find herself alone on the stage; she continued to beat her tambour absently as she watched the guard haul Ricard through the taverna. The poet’s feet barely touched the floor. When Tania finally leapt down to follow, Risa grabbed her arm and pulled. Tania’s eyes widened in alarm at the sight of Risa’s uniform, but when she saw who was hauling her away, they nearly popped out of their sockets.
The crowd was already protesting. Some people yelled and shook their fists. Others had risen to their feet, yelling loudly in her direction. “This is official business!” Risa cried loudly, but she knew she could barely be heard over the ruckus. “This is official business of the crown!”
A loud laugh cut through the clamor. It was the proprietress, standing up on one of the benches around Edmundo’s table. “And that’s what happens,” she cried out, “if you dare sing out of tune at Mina’s!”
Everyone laughed. Like a double-moon low tide, the room’s tension ebbed away. The bosomy taverna owner snapped her fingers and the harpist climbed back onto the stage and began to play.
Ricard and Milo were already arguing outside. In the light pouring from the taverna’s open front door, it was plain to see their flushed and furious faces. “You’re asking the impossible!” Ricard shouted. Spit flew from his mouth.
“What in the world is going on?” Tania wanted to know. “Honestly, Milo. I am the last person to deny anyone a fit of drama, but usually I prefer to know the script in advance!” She stood with her hands on her hips in an attitude of confrontation.
“He wants us to stop singing the new ballad!” Ricard told her in a passion.
“What? I love that song! It’s wonderful!”
“It’s my pinnacle!” Ricard agreed.
“It’s dangerous,” Milo said. “Every time you sing it, you’re putting Risa in peril.”
They looked at Risa. “You know,” Tania said at last, “crimson really suits you. It brings out your eyes.”
“You aren’t getting it,” Milo said, frustration coloring his voice.
“What Milo means,” said a quiet and friendly voice, “is that that precious song of yours, love, brings quite a lot of attention to someone who very likely doesn’t need the publicity at the moment.” Mina had appeared from nowhere. She stood with her arms around both Tania and Ricard, smiling from one to the other. “She’s probably an ordinary girl—like Muriella, here—who just wants to go about her work without having her name sung around the city. You’d hate that if you were in her place, wouldn’t you, my dear?”
The plump woman was looking right at her. Risa nodded and caught Mina’s conspiratorial smile. She knew. She had known all along, somehow. Risa nodded in agreement and gratitude. “There. You see?” said Mina.
“It’s my best song! People actually like it!” Ricard was still arguing.
Risa felt compelled to speak. “It’s a good song. If you can write a song that good, the next one will be even better. Please, Ricard.”
“It’s dangerous to sing it,” Milo said in a gentler tone, inspired by Risa’s own. “The prince might be trying to find out who blows the horn at the remaining cazas. Anyone out there with an eye to advancing their families might try to harm them. Someone has already attacked Risa.” Tania gasped as the meaning of Milo’s words sunk in.
“The gods know, there are enough people in this taverna who’d sell their mother’s wigs for a luni!” said Mina with a mock shudder. “Listen to Milo, lad.”
Ricard looked from Milo to Risa and back again, his bottom lip pouting outward. Even Tania looked grim. “Do you really think I can write an even better song?” he said at last.
Risa reached out and took Ricard’s free hand. “I know you could. But please. Until this is all over … just stop. I beg of you.”
“How many places did you perform it today?” Milo wanted to know.
Ricard and Tania looked guiltily at each other. “It’s hard to say,” Tania said at last. “We started at Caza Divetri and just worked our way from square to square.”
“And all the tavernas,” Ricard said. He looked slightly ill.
Tania nodded slowly, looking equally disturbed. “We performed it maybe forty—”
“Maybe fifty times?”
The little group stood there in silence at the news. “That’s not so bad,” Mina said at last. “Is it? Small groups of people at each one … ”
“Not small groups.” Tania had a pained look on her face. “Some of them were largish.”
“Well, at least it’s not as if it’s being sold as a broadside!” Mina said cheerfully. Then, at the sight of Ricard’s panicked face, she shook her head. “Ricard, lad, you didn’t!”
Ricard nodded. “Dimarco the printer bought it. He’s using the same woodcut he used for ‘The Pirate’s Lass’ and had begun typesetting it when we left.”
“Well stop him!” said Mina.
“He’ll want money. I can’t just ask him not to. He paid me a whole lundri for it! A whole lundri, Milo!”
Abandoning any pretense that she was Muriella of the guard, Risa said urgently, “I’ve a bag of lundri from the glass I sold for my father. I’ll give you as many as you need to buy every copy of that broadside back from this printer.” Her mind was filled with a nightmarish vision of how many long sheets of paper that might be. Broadsides of the most popular songs and ballads circulated widely throughout the city. Thousands of people collected them; even Giulia had a score of pretty verses pressed between two boards in her chambers. If even one of those broadsides made its way into the hands of one of the Thirty, they could easily show it to the prince.
“And a lundri for the effort,” said the poet with such haste that Risa suspected he had been calculating the request while she spoke.
“Ricard!” Tania appeared disgusted with her mercenary brother.
“Done,” said Risa before he could change his mind. She fumbled for the sack of coins hidden inside her tunic.
Ricard grinned as he bit into one of the coins to test its purity. Satisfied, he pocketed them. “All right then, Cazarra. Your every wish shall be obeyed! Come, sister, and let us away on our mission of mercy!” Strumming his lute as he sauntered into the shadows, Ricard beckoned for his sister to follow.
Tania lingered for a moment, and took Risa’s hands. “I’m sorry,” she said, and then kissed both of her cheeks. “I’ll make certain he takes care of it, though.”
“That’s all right,” Risa said in reassurance, and then let her go.
“Mission of mercy,” Milo said with a grumble. “The only mercy is that he didn’t ask for more than a single lundri for all the trouble he’s caused.”
“You children,” clucked Mina. She brushed off her apron and turned to return to her den of light and music. “Don’t underestimate the power of gold. Some men will do anything for it!”
24
—
When the house is on fire, why not warm your hands?
—A common Cassafortean saying
The candles that illuminated the upper hallway of the residence had guttered long before. The only lights came from the moons’ reflection off the canals and from the distant torches burning in Piazza Divetri. At first Risa was surprised how quiet the hallway seemed. Then she remembered that she was the only inhabitant of this wing of the house, which was reserved for Divetri children.
“Do you think Camilla is asleep?” she asked Milo, who crept along the stone floor ahead of her.<
br />
“If I know Camilla, no. Not while she’s on duty,” he whispered back. “Not even as tired as she is.” It must have been three hours past midnight. Risa could not even imagine remaining awake so late after tramping over the city all day.
“You watch,” Milo whispered as he turned the door handle to her chambers. “She’ll still be awake.” He stepped into the room.
Several things happened at once, it seemed. First came a rushing noise, followed by a massive grunt in a female register. Risa felt bodies tumble by her and slam into the hallway wall opposite her door. In the near-dark she saw shadows twisting against each other and heard the rumbles as Milo and his unknown assailant struggled. Snarling like wild animals, the bodies tumbled back into her chambers.
There were tinder stones in one of the niches, Risa remembered through her panic. The darkness felt like a blanket, masking her tentative movements away from the melee. She had to find them, to create some light—the thought of an assailant in the dark was nearly unbearable to her. She had thought the tinders were in the candle alcove nearest to her own room, but when her fingers fumbled along the shallow shelf, she found nothing save a stub of wax.
From within her room came a clatter, the sound of something wooden falling and skittering across the floor. She caught her breath at the noise. Her glass bowl was in that room, sitting on a table. One jolt would be all it took to send it crashing. It was the only connection she had, no matter how shaky, to her parents.
With desperate hands she felt along the wall. The glass edges and corners of the rough mosaic nipped at her skin. But the tinders were there, in the next niche, two flat Cassamagi-honed flints. She heard something else fall to the floor of her room—not glass. But there was no guarantee her bowl would not be next.
She rushed back to the room. “Illuminisi!” she commanded as she struck the flints. Light flared from the rounder of the stones; a single flame burned around one edge. The two figures grappled with each other near her balcony, too far away for her to see what was happening. The stone’s enchantment flared, then died. “Illuminisi!” she commanded, striking them again as she moved closer.