Vespera

by Anselm Audley

  ‘Many things Iolani may be, Correlio,’ Leonata said, ‘but she’s not a coward.’

  ‘It’s a coward’s way to kill someone,’ Correlio remarked. ‘Blow their ship up.’

  His two companions, one of whom was undoubtedly his wastrel son Jacopo, nodded their assent.

  ‘As opposed to the more honourable way of selling out to their enemies. Yes, isn’t it?’ said Leonata sweetly, and left before Correlio could gather enough of his wits for a reply. Aesonia’s people had been busy, if the mood among the Councillors was anything to go by. She’d definitely swayed a third of them, and if she had any sense she’d have ordered one or two more to keep their true loyalty secret. Would they truly condemn one of their own on the Empire’s say-so?

  ‘Mazera,’ she said, not bothering to keep her voice down. ‘Can we afford Correlio?’

  ‘Just about,’ Mazera said doubtfully, catching on immediately. ‘Question is, would he stay bought, or would the Empire pour more gold at him?’

  Gold which the Empire had apparently limitless supplies of, along with iron and several other metals which had never been common in Thetia. A lot came for sale at Vespera in the end, less so in recent years, but she was fairly sure the Empire was keeping a great deal more for itself.

  Where were Jharissa? Valentine was half-way down the avenue of admirers, it was more than two hours since the masked ball had officially begun, and everyone who mattered should be here by now. Even the three smaller clans allied to Iolani had put in an appearance.

  ‘Flavia, get some fresh air on the balcony and tell me what you see. On second thoughts, find Anthemia. She’s got sharper eyes than any of us.’

  On the balcony, the Emperor Waltz came to a conclusion, and in the sudden silence the Master of Ceremonies rapped his lance three times on the floor.

  A space cleared in the centre of the hall as if by magic, people moving swiftly to the sides to leave room for the dancing, and Valentine stepped out.

  Who would he be dancing with? He wasn’t married yet, something Aesonia would be moving to fix if Raphael was any judge, thirty-eight was unwisely late to leave an heir to the throne unmarried. She must have someone in mind. But in absence of a wife, Valentine would be dancing with the senior female High Thalassarch, which meant . . . Raphael smiled.

  It would do the Emperor’s sense of self-importance good.

  Leonata stepped out on the floor, a colourful contrast to Valentine’s dignity, and more than one person around Raphael suppressed a smile. Had she done this deliberately? Aesonia must be fuming.

  But the Emperor showed no trace of discomfiture as he and Leonata stepped forward and bowed, took up their positions, and the dance began.

  It was an Imbrian waltz, very fast, very skilled, almost designed to catch an unwary dancer off guard – a mad choice of waltz, except that, as quickly became apparent, both Leonata and Valentine could dance beautifully, so much so that they were a genuine joy to watch.

  There was near-silence as the guests watched spellbound, the Emperor and the High Thalassarch handling the steps flawlessly and with panache, until finally the dance ended and the hall broke out in a storm of cheers. The bows they gave one another on finishing seemed genuinely amiable, and then they moved off, Valentine to another partner, Leonata to sit out the next dance. She was, after all, almost twenty years his senior, and Imbrian waltzes were draining.

  ‘Where did he learn to dance like that?’ Raphael said, half to himself, without expecting a reply.

  ‘I taught him, though I say it myself,’ said a voice, and Raphael looked round and, crucially, down. At the old man sitting in a heavy wooden chair, with a single attendant hovering nearby. Rainardo Canteni’s armour hung on him as if he were a stand-pole, and his mask . . . he was wearing his own death-mask, Raphael realised, with a chill.

  ‘This is my last one,’ Rainardo said, matter-of-factly. The skin of his hands was like parchment, so insubstantial it hardly seemed to be there. ‘So I came as a man who should have died many years ago, and spared myself this.’

  He waved at the attendant, who left and came back a moment later with a stool, which he unfolded and placed next to Rainardo before leaving again. The space around him and Raphael was otherwise clear, as they were by the courtyard windows, a long way back from the Emperor and the rapidly filling dance-floor.

  ‘Take a seat, Messer Lion, I have no desire to crick my neck looking up at you.’

  Raphael obeyed, wondering why the old man had picked on him. Or was he simply lonely, left in a corner until his friends could fulfil their duties and return to him? Raphael couldn’t imagine Gian leaving his old friend for longer than was necessary.

  ‘Why did you teach Valentine to dance?’ Raphael asked.

  ‘Because a dancer makes a better swordsman, and a swordsman a better dancer. Not that skill with a sword matters, not now. But it trains the mind. Can you fight?’

  ‘No, I’m a terrible swordsman,’ Raphael said, not adding I use poisoned blades.

  ‘Your uncle should have taught you better,’ Rainardo growled.

  How had this old man guessed, when nobody else had?

  ‘Don’t act so surprised. No-one else would dare wear that mask or those colours here.’ The silver death-mask turned to look Raphael straight in the face. ‘You have Ruthelo’s ability, pride and ambition, and you wear them openly. That I can respect, as I respected in him. But if you stay in the Empire’s service, it’ll have you killed. And that would be,’ his voice turned harsh, bitter, ‘a source of genuine regret to me.’

  Raphael stared at the old man, wondering what on earth he meant. Why should Rainardo Canteni care?

  ‘Why?’

  ‘An old man’s whim,’ said Rainardo. ‘Because if your hubris doesn’t get you killed, you might amount to something one day. And then when I die, perhaps I’ll have the scant consolation that I gave Thetia back one tiny fraction of what it lost because of me.’

  He waved an imperious hand, and the attendant reappeared as if by magic.

  ‘Now go. Dance, and do what young men do on such occasions. You owe it to my generation to live and prosper.’

  Raphael bowed as Rainardo sagged back against his chair, breathing heavily, and left the old man to his ghosts.

  ‘What was that about?’ Leonata wondered, watching Raphael weave back into the crowd, his lion mask standing half a head proud of most of the other guests. How in Thetis’s name he imagined he’d make a good intelligencer with that height and temperament and features – but then, that clearly wasn’t his ultimate ambition. It had simply been the best exercise for his abilities all these years.

  ‘Shall I go and find out?’ Flavia asked, back with Anthemia from her fruitless vigil on the balcony. There was no sign of a Jharissa barge yet, and the balcony had a view all the way up to Aetius Bridge. Unless Iolani planned to make the long journey by land, which seemed more trouble than it was worth.

  ‘No,’ Anthemia said decisively, looking down at Flavia. ‘He’s one of the few men in the room who can dance with me. Can he dance?’

  Leonata shrugged, wishing she could see her daughter’s face. Her eyes strayed downwards, saw Anthemia’s fingers tapping against her thigh.

  ‘You’ll just have to find out,’ Flavia said. ‘Of course, if he can’t, he’s too big for you to throw out of a window.’

  ‘I did not throw Jacopo out of a window. He didn’t turn fast enough.’

  ‘It looked like that to me,’ said Leonata mildly. ‘And it certainly looked like it to everyone else.’

  ‘He should have learnt to dance,’ Anthemia said, and Leonata could hear her daughter’s smile. It hadn’t helped relationships between the two clans, of course, and there would be even more bad blood between them when Jacopo came to power. On the other hand, even someone with as little grasp of the realities of life as Anthemia would be able to squash Clan Rozzini if Jacopo led them.

  Anthemia made her way through the guests, who took one look at the woman in a t
igress mask heading their way and made space.

  ‘Why is everything always so complicated?’ Leonata sighed, trying to hide her worry. Raphael was danger, pure and simple. He had so much promise, otherwise she’d never have given him Estarrin assistance, but he didn’t have the power yet to act the way he was doing. He didn’t understand how dangerous his position was, and instead of stepping back he seemed to be deliberately playing with fire.

  And now, entirely unwittingly, he seemed to have ensnared Anthemia. Her daughter was a woman of strong but uncomplicated passions, and she was far out of her depth with Raphael. If only Leonata hadn’t invited him to the dedication! She needed him to feel comfortable with the Estarrin as long as he was co-investigator, and it seemed to have worked. Only instead of the Clan pulling him on to a more level-headed course, he was pulling them into deeper waters.

  ‘I’m afraid it gets worse,’ Flavia said. ‘One of Aesonia’s acolytes is watching him, and from her expression I suspect her interest isn’t strictly professional.’

  Flavia pointed over to where a copper-haired Exile priestess in a dark sea-green robe and a nymph’s half-mask stood at the edge of the hall, one hand rubbing absently against her chin, not looking at all pleased as Anthemia accosted Raphael for the next dance. Accosted was the right word, there really wasn’t any other way to put it. Much as she loved her daughter, tact wasn’t Anthemia’s strong point.

  What order did the Exile belong to? Those colours were new to Leonata, and she thought she knew all the Exile orders. She’d certainly searched hard enough for those which didn’t get involved in politics. The priestess looked round, as if aware of the scrutiny, but Leonata held her gaze, meeting the priestess’s for a second before the other woman broke it off, and returned to watching the guests. Her eyes closed briefly, for a second, long enough to be noticeable, then she turned away.

  Leonata felt a shiver run down her spine.

  ‘Find out who she is and what those robes mean,’ she ordered Flavia.

  ‘Urgently?’

  ‘By tomorrow.’

  The dance was beginning – this one was a quickstep, thankfully, not another Imbrian waltz. The faster dances were always earlier in the evening; later on the two quartets would be replaced by a larger ensemble, and the dances would be older airs and sarabandes.

  ‘Her interest in Raphael may not be entirely professional,’ Leonata said, ‘but it isn’t entirely personal either.’

  The tigress mask suited Anthemia.

  It was like dancing with a whirlwind, Raphael realised within about a second of the dance beginning, and adjusted accordingly, hoping that two years off the dance floor wouldn’t show too much.

  He knew how to dance, it was part of any proper Thetian education, and Silvanos and Odeinath between them had given him one, albeit somewhat unorthodox and far more wide-ranging than was traditional. He’d never hold a room spellbound the way Valentine apparently could, but he had the advantage of height and an intelligencer’s sense for people nearby.

  All of which barely equipped him to keep up with the whirlwind, and to lead someone who was not only stronger, but spent half her waking life working underwater, where more effort was required to accomplish any simple task. She moved with the assurance of someone who knew exactly what her muscles could do, and the strength to use them. But it was a court dance, so he had to lead.

  It was exhilarating, and exhausting, trying to match that power and work with it, even though she was a better dancer. For the duration of the dance he even stopped thinking about who was where, and who he needed to be watching. He slipped back into the instinctive patterns of steps and turns, free for a few brief moments of the politics and the shadow over the evening.

  Then, too soon, the dance was over, and Raphael stood slightly breathless to bow to his partner, aware suddenly of how many eyes were on the two of them, and what a pair they had been for those few brief moments.

  ‘Another?’ Anthemia asked.

  ‘Later,’ Raphael said, remembering just in time to keep his voice low and unrecognisable. ‘I wouldn’t survive another now.’

  The tigress regarded him, and he wondered if that had been the wrong thing to say. He couldn’t explain why not, because the weakness in his lungs was too dangerous to let even an ally know, and he was surrounded by others here.

  ‘Where did you learn to dance, on a shipyard?’ Raphael asked, moving a little away from the circle of those who’d been watching.

  ‘I didn’t go to Aruwe until I was sixteen,’ Anthemia said. ‘I had plenty of time to learn before that. Besides, do you think all we do is build ships? That we never celebrate, or dance, or feast?’

  Plenty of time to learn before that. ‘Sixteen?’ he asked. ‘That young?’ Anthemia must be about his own age, but her naïvete made it hard to judge. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, perhaps? Which meant Aruwe had been her entire world for twelve years.

  She gave an amused laugh. ‘That was old. Corsina and lot of the older shipwrights were only ten or eleven.’

  Why would they . . . He did a quick mental calculation on an estimate of Corsina’s age. Now that was interesting.

  ‘Is that normal?’ he asked.

  ‘No, those were odd times,’ she said casually, piquing his interest still further. ‘Fifteen or sixteen is normal.’

  ‘And you stay there . . .’

  ‘Forever,’ Anthemia said, and he couldn’t tell if she was being entirely serious. ‘Most of us don’t retire, or retire to another part of the shipyard if we do. Why would we want to leave?’

  Why would we want to leave? Raphael couldn’t imagine wanting to stay bound to the same closed, isolated world for an entire lifetime. How could they? But clearly Anthemia did, and clearly it was normal. It was the life the shipwrights knew.

  And it was a life safe from outside intrusion, and unwelcome questions.

  ‘I can show you how to breathe properly,’ Anthemia said, after a moment. ‘I have your word for a dance later?’

  ‘You have my word,’ Raphael said. If there still was dancing later.

  ‘Surely the woman can’t simply have disappeared?’ Valentine said, glad to be rid of his mask for a moment, and away from the attentions of everybody and their uncle. Talking of which, where was Raphael? The man was supposed to be working for him, but he hadn’t been in evidence this evening at all.

  ‘The lookouts have reported no Jharissa barge,’ said Gian, running one hand through his thinning hair. The room was dark, lit only by the lights of Vespera through the windows, but it was the closest private space to the hall, and a welcome refuge for a few moments.

  ‘If I were seeking to upstage this, I wouldn’t come in an official barge,’ said Silvanos. ‘Their allies, Clan Alecel, are very close, they could be coming from there. I have people watching, but we’d barely have a warning.’

  ‘Unless they don’t mean to come,’ Valentine said, a new, dreadful set of possibilities racing through his mind. ‘What if they simply mean to strike tonight?’

  ‘We have men on every gate and troops quartered in the other courts,’ Gian said. ‘What could they do?’

  ‘A pulse cannon on the hillside above the City,’ Valentine said grimly. ‘Impossible for an invader, but for a clan with buildings all over the island? Perhaps not so difficult.’

  ‘No-one could get a pulse cannon up those slopes,’ said Gian. ‘They’re too steep.’

  ‘Not a conventional pulse cannon,’ Valentine said.

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ Silvanos said flatly. Alone of the three of them, he’d kept his mask on, and he was simply a dark patch against a darker background. ‘Their entire position depends on keeping the goodwill of the Council and the other clans.’

  ‘Destroy this palace tonight, and the Council ceases to exist,’ Valentine said. ‘They could kill every Thalassarch, Mercantarch, ambassador and clan dignitary in a single strike. Everyone except Aventine and the other two princes. Gian, find my mother. I want mages in the courtyard, and me
n watching every hillside someone could hit us from.’

  Thetis, how could he be so blind?

  Gian jammed his mask on and hurried away, leaving Valentine alone with Silvanos.

  ‘I hope to heaven you’re right,’ Valentine said, running a hand through his hair before he put the mask on.

  ‘So do I,’ Silvanos said.

  ‘You’re well disguised,’ said a soft voice at Raphael’s shoulder as he leaned against the loggia door, getting what he could of air and quiet while still keeping his eyes on the room. There weren’t many people out on the broad loggia overlooking the sea, despite its breathtaking view, because no-one of any importance wanted to miss what was going on inside.

  ‘You aren’t,’ he said, wondering how Thais had found him. None of Aesonia’s acolytes had been allowed their own costume; all had come in versions of their own Exile robes, as water nymphs, and modest ones at that. More traditional portrayals of water nymphs from the Heroic Age, in statuary and painting, tended to leave little to the imagination. Thais’s dress was split up the arms, but otherwise resembled her Exile robes exactly; her mask was a token rather than a disguise.

  Which meant, he reflected, that Aesonia would have other spies about, more cleverly disguised. She wanted her acolytes to be seen. Odd, for someone who almost certainly wanted to encourage careless talk – except, perhaps, with the acolytes so visible, guests would assume they’d be safe when they couldn’t see an acolyte.

  ‘What sort of compliment is that?’ Thais asked sternly.

  ‘Well, you were implying I’m well disguised as a lion because I naturally lack leonine qualities.’

  ‘Lions are lazy creatures. All they do is fight other lions and make a great deal of noise. So, you see, it was a compliment.’ The mask didn’t hide her smile at all.