Mortal Rites

by Melissa McShane

  “Isn’t that a little flimsy?” Sienne asked.

  “Yes, but that’s part of the plan,” Alaric said. “If one of them knows more about necromantic practice than he’s willing to admit, he’ll believe we’re hiding a similar interest under our threadbare cover story. It’s a signal that we’re fellow initiates, or something like that.”

  “Clever.” Sienne scraped the last of her porridge from her bowl and stood to take it to the sink. Kalanath came in, his red hair beaded with rain, and she said, “Is it raining, then?”

  “A little,” Kalanath said, running his fingers through his hair. “Not enough to be a trouble.”

  “Then I’m changing my clothes,” Sienne said, and hurried upstairs.

  When she returned, the table had been cleared of dishes, and five stacks of papers lay atop it. Alaric still sat at the head of the table, but now he had a sheet of paper in front of him. He held a stick of charcoal loosely in his fingers. “Here’s the names we know, and their addresses,” he said as Sienne came to his side. She read the list over his shoulder:

  Drusilla Tallavena, The Havens, Fioretti

  Pedreo Giannus, 15 Sunrise Alley, Tagliaveno

  Ivar Scholten, 2 West Gardens, Onofreo

  Uriane Samretto, Gloriosa, Fioretti

  Pauro Murtaviti, 34 Carissima Lane, Fioretti

  “We’ll look the ones in the city up first,” Alaric said. “Onofreo’s not far, but there’s no sense going out of town, or starting a correspondence, if what we want is one of those three.”

  “Do we know where they are?” Kalanath said. “What is ‘The Havens’?”

  “Rich people sometimes name their houses fancy things,” Dianthe said. “It’s stupid, but it can make them easy to find if you know what neighborhood it’s in. Unfortunately it doesn’t narrow the neighborhood down like a street address and a number does.” She prodded the last name with her finger. “I know roughly where this is.”

  “And I am familiar with the residence Gloriosa,” Perrin said. He didn’t look happy about it.

  “Is it going to be a problem?” Alaric said.

  “Unlikely. I am not personally acquainted with the Samretto family, but the Deluccos do business with them. It is possible Mistress Samretto will not wish to admit me into her home. Or she may welcome me with open arms, if she is at odds with my father. It is impossible to say.”

  “It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Alaric said. He picked up one of the piles and shuffled through it. “Pauro Murtaviti’s letters to Penthea focus on necromantic theory. My feeling is that Master Murtaviti is not a practicing necromancer, because there wasn’t any discussion of raising spirits in the letters, but he might just have been extremely careful. He mentions binding rituals a few times, again in the context of theory, so it’s worth pursuing.” He picked up a different pile. “And Uriane Samretto is the one who specifically instructed Penthea in binding rituals. She was definitely a practicing necromancer, and not cautious. Her letters suggest certain books Penthea could use, and it’s possible she owns these books. If we could get her to let us look at them, that might be valuable.”

  “So we should see her first,” Kalanath said.

  “She does sound like the likeliest prospect,” Alaric said. “And I was thinking we could ask Renaldi if he knows The Havens.”

  Dianthe laughed. “Wait, you’re serious? You’re considering going to Denys for help?”

  “No, I was going to send you. Renaldi goes all over his part of Fioretti and I imagine he knows it well. It would save time if we don’t have to go to the records hall and look it up the hard way, or send a letter and risk spooking our target.”

  “I’ll ask him. But I’m telling him it was your idea.”

  Alaric grimaced. “Fine. Whatever makes you happy. But first, let’s tackle Uriane Samretto.”

  5

  The rain fell just heavily enough that Sienne was grateful for her rain cape and her waterproof boots, well-worn from months of travel and very comfortable. For once she walked beside Alaric and marveled at how different the view was when she didn’t have him looming before her. People scuttling along the street, hunched into their cloaks or clutching coats over their heads, veered out of his path as if he were a rock they might otherwise dash themselves upon. Alaric strode along without seeming to notice their behavior.

  “How does that feel?” she asked.

  Alaric looked down at her. “How does what feel?”

  “Being the one everyone gets out of the way of.”

  “Do they?” His eyebrows went up. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You are rather like a ship breaking the waves,” Perrin, on Alaric’s other side, pointed out.

  “Really?” Alaric focused on a couple coming toward them, holding hands. The man tugged the woman to one side when they were a few feet in front of Alaric, glancing up at the big man with something like awe in his eyes. Sienne giggled. Alaric reddened. “I don’t see what I can do about it,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean to make you self-conscious. I think it’s…endearing,” Sienne said.

  He smiled. “Well, if that’s what you think, then I won’t let it bother me.”

  “We are grateful to bask in your reflected impressiveness,” Perrin said with a grin.

  “You’re welcome.”

  There weren’t many pedestrians to step out of Alaric’s way, and even fewer horses. A carriage or two passed them, sending up splashes of water that prompted Alaric to trade places with Sienne so she wasn’t walking on the street side of the pavement. Even that little, casual gesture made her feel like she was flying. How had she not noticed, all these weeks, that he never stopped looking out for her? And yet he never tried to protect her from herself, or stop her doing things “for her own good.” So that was what love looked like. It was better than she’d ever dreamed.

  Perrin led them across the Sancorus Bridge, past the palace on its isle in the middle of the Vochus River, and into a gated enclave where private guards examined them closely, but didn’t call for them to stop. “Security is rather lax,” he murmured, “though as we are the beneficiaries of that laxity, I hesitate to draw attention to it.”

  “Maybe we don’t look disreputable enough,” Dianthe said. “Or maybe we look like the hired help, and they have orders not to interfere with the servants. I know I’d be angry if the guards kept stopping and delaying my cleaning people.” Her normally dark blonde hair was currently chestnut like Sienne’s, her face was plumper, and her eyes were bright blue. Sienne had opted for small shift changes rather than the full-body confusion imitate, reasoning that anyone looking for the woman on the wanted posters, which she still hadn’t seen, would be fooled just as well by the little things, and it took less of her magical resources and lasted longer. Hearing Dianthe’s voice coming out of a stranger’s face still gave Sienne goose pimples, as if she’d contributed to her friend’s disappearance.

  The houses within the enclave sprawled rather than rising high the way the houses in Master Tersus’s neighborhood did. Stone and glass and wrought iron gave the impression of houses hewn from a mountainside rather than built, their roofs of colored slate tiles the only mark of individuality among them. At the moment, those roofs were dull with rain, but they would be bright and cheerful when true summer came. Gardens surrounded each house, the property lines defined by evergreen hedges that rose no more than four feet high. Despite the gate guards’ lack of initiative, the residents clearly counted on them to keep out undesirables.

  It took five minutes of walking to reach the Samretto home, during which time Sienne assessed the architectural qualities of each residence they passed. She’d grown up dividing her time between the ducal palace in Beneddo and her parents’ estate in the country some ten miles north of the city, both of which were over a hundred years old. New construction like this, the kind that tried to pass itself off as old, didn’t impress her, but the gardens were lovely. One of them had an ivy-twined gazebo Sienne almost wished she c
ould sit in, drinking a glass of wine and enjoying the sights and smells of her garden. So long as someone else tended it. She didn’t so much have a black thumb as an entire black fist when it came to gardening.

  The Samretto home looked just like all the others, though its roof was greenish-gray slate and its garden looked rawer than its neighbors, as if it had been planted more recently. She followed Perrin up the path, careful not to slip on the round stones that were slick with rain, and waited beside Dianthe as he struck the door with the heavy brass knocker. Alaric stood at the back of their little group, next to Kalanath, on the grounds that this was not the kind of conversation where they needed to intimidate someone. Yet.

  Presently the door opened, and an elderly woman in a long-skirted black dress peered out. “Yes?”

  “Good morning,” Perrin said with a bow. “We desire to speak with Mistress Uriane Samretto. Is she in?”

  “Mistress Uriane?” The woman sounded surprised. “Mistress Uriane has been dead these five years.”

  Sienne’s heart sank. “I am sorry to hear that,” Perrin said, sounding genuinely regretful. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Would you like to speak to Master Samretto?” The woman held the door open wider. “He does so love visitors.”

  Perrin didn’t hesitate. “That would be most kind, yes.” He glanced back and made a “follow me” gesture with his eyebrows, then walked through the door.

  Sienne cast a glance at Alaric, whose expression was neutral. What did Perrin think they could achieve in talking to the woman’s widower?

  She followed Perrin into the small entry and wiped her feet on the mat just inside. Two doors to the left and right were closed, and a hallway led deeper into the house. The room smelled of floor polish and mildew, as if someone had started cleaning at the bottom and hadn’t made it as far as the corners of the ceiling. Two flower arrangements in alabaster vases flanked the front door, but they were either long dead or intentionally dried out. Sienne had never seen the point in dried flowers; they lacked scent and color. So much better to use live flowers, or better yet, leave the flowers uncut and appreciate them in their natural habitat.

  The old woman gestured to them to wait and disappeared down the hall, moving in the halting way of someone whose joints pained her. Alaric took a few steps after her, then turned on Perrin. “What are we supposed to say to this old man?”

  “I had not thought that far, frankly,” Perrin said. “It is unlikely Master Samretto can tell us anything of his late wife’s necromantic pursuits, even if he was aware of them. But if she had a library, and he has not gotten rid of it, he might permit us to look through it.”

  “Good point. It’s worth asking, anyway.”

  Alaric stepped back as the old woman made her slow, careful way down the hall toward them. “Master Samretto will be happy to speak with you. If you’ll follow me?”

  Perrin took the lead, with Sienne close behind him matching the woman’s short, limping stride. She hoped she didn’t look like she was trying to mock her. But the woman didn’t look back. Sienne had plenty of time to observe the paintings on the walls, which were mostly still life oils done by the same hand. The one exception was a landscape done by the artist Penaco Muretti, whose signature and style Sienne recognized. It was of far higher quality than the rest. How had a Muretti ended up in this narrow, dark hall where no one would ever see it? It was a mystery, and one that didn’t let her draw any conclusions about the owner.

  There were no doors along the hallway, just one at its far end that had no latch and never had done as far as Sienne could tell. The old woman pushed it open, and it swung freely on its hinges. “Master Samretto, your guests,” she said.

  A wave of heat struck Sienne in the face as she entered, starting her sweating under her arms and beneath her hair. A fire too large for the small fireplace burned hot and bright, and even though Sienne was sure a lot of the heat was sucked up the chimney, there was more than enough left over to turn the room into a furnace. Two windows that might have been opened to give some relief were shuttered tight, with drapes drawn over them so the fire was the only light in the room. A couple of bookcases flanked the fireplace, and a high-backed armchair and footstool were drawn up so near the flames any sitter would have his feet roasted.

  In the armchair sat a frail old man, with pale parchment-like skin over thin bones like a starving wisp. His thick white hair seemed too heavy for his head, which nodded on a skinny neck that should not have been able to support it. Smoked glass lenses the size of coffee cups covered his eyes, which were buried in wrinkles. Sienne thought he was asleep until he turned his head and smiled at them, causing a cascade of wrinkles like ripples on the surface of a still lake. “Welcome, welcome,” he said, his voice as thin as his bones. “No one’s come asking about Uriane for years. Sit, please—there are chairs—”

  Sienne looked around. There was another armchair in the corner, placed facing the wall as if it were being punished, and a couple of ladderback chairs more suited to a kitchen than a drawing room. She pulled one of these forward and sat. Perrin took the armchair and turned it around. Dianthe and Kalanath sat on more of the kitchen chairs. Alaric, left without a seat, took up a watchful stance just inside the door.

  “There, that’s better. My, aren’t you big. Ansorjan?” The old man looked Alaric up and down. Alaric nodded once. “They seem to grow them larger every year. And—but where are my manners? I’m Myles Samretto.”

  “Perrin Delucco,” Perrin said, bowing in his seat. “These are my companions Alaric, Dianthe, Sienne, and Kalanath.”

  Myles Samretto’s eyes gleamed beyond the dark glasses, and the wrinkles deepened. Sienne held her breath, certain they were about to be kicked out because of Perrin’s surname. But instead, he said, “An Omeiran! I welcome you to home mine,” he added in halting Meiric.

  “Thank you,” Kalanath said in the same language. “It’s an honor to speak with someone so graced with years. The heat’s quite comfortable.”

  “Not everyone appreciates it,” Samretto said, “but I spent many years in Omeira when I was young and grew to love the desert and its dry heat. But you didn’t come to talk about me. This is about Uriane’s avocation, isn’t it?”

  “Her…avocation?” Perrin said.

  Samretto nodded at Perrin, but addressed himself to Kalanath. “The necromancy. I never could persuade her to give it up. She never would have hurt anyone, you know, none of this raising the dead business. She simply felt more at home with dead people than with living ones, with the exception of myself, thank Kitane. And she was good at it, too…”

  His words trailed off, and his head drooped. Perrin opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then made a face at Kalanath that said clearly He likes you, you talk to him. Kalanath shook his head. Perrin glowered at him, his lips tightening. Kalanath rolled his eyes and said, “You are not afraid to admit it?”

  Samretto’s head came up with a jerk. “Admit what?”

  “That your wife did necromancy.”

  “Oh, that. Well, she’s been dead five years, so who’s to be hurt by the admission? And, as I said, she never hurt anyone. Helped people, really. Someone’s beloved auntie dies unexpectedly, and grieving relatives want a last word with her—well, how is that anything but a blessing?”

  Sienne could see Perrin’s face from where she sat, and his expression said clearly that he wouldn’t call summoning a ghost from its eternal rest just to chat about old times a blessing. But he kept his peace. Kalanath said, “She was good at it?”

  “The best. Ghosts she summoned stayed longer than other necromancers were capable of maintaining.”

  “How did she do it? With a binding ritual?”

  Samretto shrugged. “I never understood the details. I’m sure it was in her books.”

  “Master Samretto—”

  “Please, call me Myles.”

  “Myles,” Kalanath began again, “we wished to speak to Mistress Samretto because she used to
write to a woman named Penthea Lepporo. Another necromancer. It is a difficult thing to explain, but it is that we hoped to look at some of Mistress Samretto’s books that Penthea Lepporo knew of. Do you have these books?”

  “Oh, goodness, no,” Samretto said. “I sold off her library so the government wouldn’t confiscate it. They don’t like private citizens owning necromantic texts, and when Lidia—that was my wife’s, well, I suppose you could call her a partner in necromancy—when Lidia and Uriane fought just before Uriane’s death, I was sure Lidia would inform on her to the government. They weren’t my books, but you know how the law is about conjugal property. I couldn’t take the chance that they’d decide I was complicit.”

  Weren’t you? Sienne thought.

  “I don’t suppose you know who bought the books?” Perrin said.

  “They were anonymous purchasers, for the most part. Her friend Annegret Loewen bought a few, for old times’ sake, and that nice young man, Pauro something, I sold him a couple when he came looking for books he’d loaned her.”

  “Not Pauro Murtaviti?” Alaric said.

  “Goodness, I forgot you were there. It’s rather like having a mountain speak to you, isn’t it? It might have been Murtaviti. I’ve never been good with names.” The old man stretched. “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee, or water? I’m afraid I don’t keep spirits readily to hand.”

  Perrin caught Alaric’s eye. “No, thank you. We should be going. We appreciate your help.”

  “So soon?” Samretto struggled to sit up more fully. “Must you?”

  “I will come another time,” Kalanath said in Meiric. “I’d like to have someone I can talk to about my country. If you don’t mind.”

  The old man’s face creased in a smile. “That I would like,” he said. “If it be not much trouble.”

  “Not at all,” Kalanath said, offering Samretto his hand with the palm flat toward him. Samretto, still beaming, raised his own gnarled hand to press his palm against Kalanath’s.