by Greg Keyes
“Just be ready to play your part, and all will go perfectly.”
“That’s just it. My men won’t arrive for another month.”
“We don’t need your men, Praifec. Only your word. Do I have it?”
“You have it.”
They left then, the praifec on foot, the other man in a narrowboat. Leoff held Mery still, shivering to the bone, only partially from the cold.
“I told you,” Mery said softly.
“It’s not going to happen, Mery,” Leoff promised. “They aren’t going to kill you. Come on.”
“If we go to the castle, they’ll find me.”
“I know. We’re not going to the castle.”
They took one of the narrowboats and went the direction the other man had not. By morning, they had reached a small, cheerful-looking town called Plinse. There Leoff carefully obtained directions to the vicinity of Meolwis. He also bought a cloak to hide Mery’s dress, and from there the two of them followed Leokwigh Road north. They reached Meolwis near sundown and stayed in an abandoned house. The next day, they went west along the dike of Saint Thon’s Graf, and within a bell had come upon a malend.
Hiding Mery below the birm, Leoff went to the door and rapped on it.
To his great relief, Gilmer was the one who answered it, his eyes bugging in gnomish surprise.
“It’s good to see you well,” the little man said, after they’d embraced. “I heard about the trouble at Her Ladyship’s. Almost caught some of it myself. I guess you must have heeded my advice.”
“I was still there,” Leoff said. “Someone helped me escape.”
“One of the young ladies, eh?”
Leoff smiled. “I need a favor, Gilmer.”
“You’ve just to ask.”
“This isn’t an easy favor, and it’s dangerous. Let me explain it before you say yes.”
He called Mery in and related everything that had happened, including what the two of them had heard that night.
“Who do you think it was?” Gilmer asked. “Besides the praifec? Who were the other two?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“One of them was Prince Robert,” Mery said.
Gilmer looked at her. “Prince Robert’s dead, lass.”
“It was him,” the girl insisted.
Gilmer made a long, low whistle. “This aens’t good. Not one bit good.” He slapped his knees. “But you’ve done the right thing. There’s nothing you can do back there. The royals will settle that mess and that’s that. But the praifec—well, they go that way sometimes.”
“I can’t let anything happen to Mery,” Leoff said.
“No, of course you can’t,” Gilmer replied. He tousled the girl’s hair. “I don’t care if the fratrex Prismo himself has come up from z’Irbina, there’s no little girl getting killed while I’m around. No, you two will stay here. When this all blows over, we can reckon what to do.”
“Gilmer, I need you to keep Mery safe—that much is true. But I’ve got to go back.”
Gilmer shook a finger at him. “That’s crazy,” he said. “You think you’ll stop a palace coup all by yourself? Or that anyone would be grateful to you even if you did? You were the guest of honor at that party. Even if the queen wins, she’s going to think you a traitor. Learn your lesson, son—stay away.”
“I can’t. The queen needs to be warned.” He squared his shoulders. “Besides, I have a commission to finish and a concert to perform.”
PART IV
ROADMARKS
The Year 2,223 of Everon
The Month of Decmen
Ponto, the fifth mode, invokes Saint Diuvo, Saint Flenz, Saint Thunor, Saint Rooster. It evokes the passionate new love, the raucous banquet, the freely flowing wine. It provokes delight, giddy joy, lust.
Sesto, the sixth mode, invokes Saint Erren, Saint Anne, Saint Fiendeseve, Saint Adlainn. It evokes the ache one will not wish away, the quiet sadness after physical love, unrequited longing. It provokes erotic sadness.
—FROM THE CODEX HARMONIUM OF ELGIN WIDSEL
CHAPTER ONE
FRIENDSHIPS
ANNE PULLED A COMB through her salt-knotted hair and watched the gulls on the strand fight over the scraps of fish and more dubious once-living things. The birds weren’t the only scavengers; twenty or thirty people—mostly children—were also searching the sand for treasure from the waves.
Farther down the shore, the battered hulk of the Della Puchia was dry-docked in scaffolding, and beyond that lay the huddle of whitewashed cottages that was the Gallean village of Duvré.
It was hard to remember any particulars about the storm. The bells of vicious thunder, snapping spars, and plunging waves all blurred together into a single long terror. It had left them adrift and sinking with only a single makeshift sail and the good fortune to be within sight of shore. They had followed the coast for nearly a day before finding the fishing village and the anchorage it offered.
A cold wind was coming off the sea, but the clouds were gone. The only remaining signs of the storm were its wreckage.
The comb snagged, and she yanked at her hair in frustration, wishing for a bath, but the village didn’t have an inn, as such, just a small tavern. Besides, their money was all but gone. Cazio had the last of it and was trying to buy horses and supplies. Captain Malconio had figured it would be a week before the ship was ready to sail again, and she had no intention of waiting that long.
According to its inhabitants—at least as best as any of Malconio’s men could understand them—Duvré was about ten leagues south of Paldh. They had planned to go by land to Eslen anyway, so they had decided that they might as well get started.
With a sigh, she rose and started back toward the village, to make sure Cazio was doing what he was supposed to be doing, and not playing nip with Austra someplace. The brief solitude had been nice, but it was time to get going.
She found him in the tavern, of course, along with z’Acatto, Malconio, Austra, and a crowd of locals. It was close and smoky inside and smelled overwhelmingly of the dried cod that hung everywhere from the rafters. The two long tables were pitted and polished by use, and the floor—like the walls—was built of a sort of plaster made of ground-up seashells.
Malconio was speaking—something about the wonders of a city named Shavan—and a wizened little man with no more than three or four teeth was making a running translation in Gallean. Children in red and umber tunics of rough wool and women with their hair wrapped up in black cotton scarves all leaned in, laughing sometimes and commenting among themselves. They glanced at her when she entered, but quickly returned their attention to Malconio.
Anne put her hands on her hips and tried to catch Cazio’s eye, but he either hadn’t seen her or was ignoring her in favor of Austra, who—with him—was quaffing wine from a ceramic jug.
Z’Acatto was slumped with his head on the table.
Impatiently, Anne pushed through the crowd and got Cazio’s attention by patting his shoulder.
“Yes, casnara?” he asked, looking up at her. Austra turned her head away, feigning interest in Malconio’s story, which just rolled right along.
“I thought you were buying supplies and horses.”
Cazio nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said. He patted the shoulder of a stout, middle-aged man with a sunburnt face and startling green eyes. “This is Tungale MapeGovan. I’m doing business with him.”
The man—who seemed well on his way to being thoroughly drunk—smiled up at Anne.
“Hinne allan,” he commented, scratching his belly.
“Well, can’t you hurry it up?” she asked, ignoring the disgusting fellow.
“They don’t seem to do things in a hurry here,” Cazio remarked. “My kind of people, really.”
“Cazio.”
“Also, we don’t have enough money,” he said.
“You’ve money for wine, it seems.”
Cazio took another swig. “No,” he said, “we’re earning tha
t with stories.”
“Well, how much do we need?” she asked, exasperated.
He set the jug back on the table. “He wants twice what we have for an ass and four days’ provisions.”
“An ass?”
“No one around here has a horse—even if they did, we could never afford it.”
“Well, one ass hardly seems worth the trouble,” Anne said. “Just buy the food.”
“If you want to carry it on your back,” Cazio remarked, “I’ll settle that right now.”
“If I have to, I will. We can’t wait here any longer.”
Someone tugged lightly on her hair. She gasped and discovered Tungale fondling it.
“Stop that,” she said, brushing his hand away.
“Ol panné?” he asked.
Cazio glanced at the translator, but he was still busy with Malconio’s tale.
“She’s not for sale,” Cazio answered, shaking his head.
That was a little too much.
“For sale?” she shouted.
Malconio stopped in midsentence, and the table erupted in laughter.
“Ne, ne,” Tungale said. “Sé venné se panné?”
“What’s he saying?” Anne demanded.
The translator smiled broadly, emphasizing his mostly toothless condition. “He wants to know how much your hair costs.”
“My hair?”
“Sé venné se?” he asked Tungale.
“Té,” Tungale replied.
“Yes,” the translator said. “Your hair. How much?”
Anne felt her face burning.
“Her hair isn’t—,” Cazio began, but Anne put a hand on his arm.
“The ass and food for a nineday,” she said.
Austra turned at that. “Anne, no.”
“It’s only hair, Austra,” Anne replied. She nodded at the translator. “Tell him.”
Despite her brave words, she had to work hard to keep from crying when they sheared it off, with everyone in the room whooping and laughing as if they were watching a troupe perform its antics. She kept the tears in, though, and resisted the temptation to rub the stubble that remained on her scalp.
“There,” she said, got up from her chair, and nearly bolted outside. There she did tear up a bit, not so much from the loss of her hair as from the humiliation.
She heard footsteps behind her.
“Leave me alone,” she said without turning.
“I just thought you might want this.”
She looked back, a little surprised to find that it was Malconio. He was holding one of the black scarves the women of the village wore. She stared at it for a moment.
“You know,” he said, “you could have asked me for the money. I’ll have to sell off some goods here anyway to get the ship repaired. Cazio’s too proud, but you could have asked.”
She shook her head. “I can’t ask you for anything, Captain. Some of your men died because of me, and your ship was wrecked. I owe you too much already.”
“That’s true, in its way,” Malconio said. “But sailors die and ships are wrecked. There is such a thing as fate, and it’s a waste of time to wish you hadn’t done something. Better to learn from your mistakes and move on. I don’t hold any grudge against you, Anne. I took you as a passenger because my brother asked me to, and despite what I said earlier, I do have some idea what to expect from my brother and his—situations.
“Do you know how hard it must have been for him to come to me? But he did, which tells me something about you. That you dragged him away from the Tero Mefio says even more. The Cazio I knew never did much for anyone but himself. If he’s improved, how can I let him show me up?”
Anne managed a little smile at that. “You do love him, don’t you?”
Malconio smiled. “He’s my brother.”
He proffered the scarf, and she took it. “Thank you,” she said. “One day I will be able to repay you.”
“The only payment I ask is that you watch out for my little brother,” Malconio said.
“I’ll do my best.”
Malconio smiled, but the smile quickly vanished as he lifted his head and his eyes focused behind her. “There they are,” he sighed. “I should have known they wouldn’t sink.”
Anne followed his gaze. There, where sea and sky met, she saw sails.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
“They aren’t coming this way,” Malconio said after a moment. “They’re probably looking for a deeper port—she’s missing a mast, you see?”
Anne didn’t, but she nodded. Malconio was right, though—the ship wasn’t sailing toward land, but parallel to it.
“If they see your ship—,” she began, but Malconio shook his head.
“It’s not likely at that range, not with the Della Puchia in dry-dock and without masts. But even if she did, she couldn’t come in—not through those reefs we passed. Her keel’s too deep.” He turned to Anne. “Still, I would go if I were you, and quickly. If they have seen the Puchia, they’ll send men back over land as soon as they find a harbor with deeper water. You could have all the time in the world, but on the other hand, you might have only a day.”
“What if they do come here?” Anne asked. “They’ll kill you.”
“No,” Malconio said. “I’m not fated to die on land. Get the others and make a start. You’ve still got a few bells before sundown.”
Cazio found his brother with his ship.
Malconio scowled when he saw him. “Are you still here? Didn’t Anne tell you we saw the ship?”
“Yes,” Cazio said. “I just—” He fumbled off, suddenly unsure what he wanted to say.
“Good-byes are bad luck,” Malconio grumbled. “Implies that you don’t expect to see each other again. And I’m sure to see you again, right, little brother?”
Cazio felt something bitter suck in his lungs. “I’m sorry about your ship,” he said.
“Well, we’ll talk about that again when you’ve made your fortune,” Malconio said. “Meanwhile, you let me worry about it. It is my ship, after all.”
“You’re making fun of me,” Cazio said.
“No,” Malconio replied. “No, I’m not. You have a destiny, fratrillo, I can feel it in my bones. And it’s your own—not mine, not our father’s, not our revered forefathers’. It’s yours. I’m just glad somebody finally got you out looking for it. And when you’ve found it, I expect you to come to my house in Turanate and tell me about it.”
“I’d like to see it,” Cazio said.
Malconio smiled. “Go on,” he said. “Azdei, until I see you next.”
Cazio clasped his brother’s hand, then trudged back up from the strand to where the others waited.
There was only one road out of Duvré, and it was really no more than a narrow track. Cazio led the way, leading their newly purchased donkey, sparing one glance back at his brother’s ship before they entered the trees above the village. He saw Malconio, a tiny figure, working with his men.
Then he turned his eyes to the road ahead of him.
The forest soon gave way to rolling fields of wheat. They saw a few distant houses, but no village even the size of Duvré. Dusk found him building a campfire beneath an apple tree so ancient its lower limbs had drooped to the ground.
Anne hadn’t said much since she lost her hair. Cazio had never seen a woman without hair and he didn’t like the look. It was better when she wrapped the scarf on her head.
He tried to start a conversation with her once or twice, but her answers were terse and didn’t go anywhere.
Austra was quiet, too. He gathered the two girls had had some sort of fight on the ship, and both were still sulking about it. He wondered if the fight had been over him. Austra was taking very well to his attentions; if Anne was jealous, she wasn’t showing him, but she could be taking it out on Austra.
Which left z’Acatto, who had grumbled drunkenly at having been roused from his stupor, but who by the time they started setting up camp was getting pretty garrulo
us. When Cazio drew Caspator and began a few exercises, the old man grunted, came to his feet, and drew his own blade.
“I saw you attack with the z’ostato the other day,” he said.
“I did,” Cazio said.
“That’s a foolish attack,” z’Acatto said. “I never taught you that.”
“No,” Cazio agreed. “It was something one of Estenio’s students tried on me.”
“Uh-huh. Did it work?”
Cazio grinned. “No. I replied with the pero perfo and let him impale himself.”
“Of course. Once your feet leave the ground, you can no longer change direction. You sacrifice all your maneuverability.”
“Yes.”
Z’Acatto made a few passes in the air. “Then why did you do it?” he asked.
Cazio thought back, trying to remember. “The knight almost had Anne,” he said, after a moment. “I might have reached him with a lunge, but my point would not have pierced his armor and the force of the blow wouldn’t have been enough to stop him. But with the whole weight of my body behind my tip, I was able to topple him. I think I crushed his windpipe through his gorget, too, but since he was a devil of some sort, that didn’t matter.”
Z’Acatto nodded. “I never taught you the z’ostato, because it is a foolish move when fencing with rapiers. It is not so foolish when fighting an armored man with a heavy sword.”
Cazio tried to hide his astonishment. “Are you saying I was right to use it?”
“You were right to use it, but you did not use it correctly. Your form was poor.”
“It worked,” Cazio protested.
Z’Acatto wagged a finger at him. “What was the first thing I told you about the art of dessrata?”
Cazio sighed and leaned on his sword. “That dessrata isn’t about speed or strength, but about doing things correctly,” he said.
“Exactly!” z’Acatto cried, flourishing his weapon. “Sometimes speed and strength may allow you to succeed despite poor form, don’t get me wrong. But one day you will not have that speed and strength, either because you are wounded, or sick—or old, like me. Better to prepare for it.”