The Demons We See

by Krista D. Ball

  The cardinals glared and grumbled as they left, and one made a snide comment about backwater mages being put in irons. She ignored the comments.

  “You, too, Captain,” Allegra said. “I want to speak to him alone.”

  “I'll be right outside,” Rainier said.

  The doors closed behind them and Allegra shouted, “How could you, Rupert? How could you do this to me?”

  The Holy Father topped up his glass of wine. “You just demanded I make you Arbiter. I have done nothing to you.”

  “You knew what would happen on the road here. You knew those bastards are out there arresting mages for no damned good reason and you knew it! This was all a ploy to get me to accept your damned offer. Damn you, Rupert! Damn you to the abyss!”

  Rupert put down his wine. Puzzlement crossed his faced. “What are you talking about? What is going on?”

  Allegra detailed the circumstances around Mrs. Ansley to a sputtering Rupert. “That is what I’m talking about. The subjugation of mages!”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” Rupert said. He sat down and motioned for her to join him. She refused. “Things are deteriorating daily. That little event by the magistrate will incite more unrest and the news will spread. If we’re lucky, some of the rebels will get to her before she’s shipped off to Almighty knows where. The guards won't make it back in time. She'd already gone.”

  “That’s it, then? That’s the recourse we have? Hope that the criminals help out the innocent? You’ve lost all control!”

  “We all have! Do you think it’s easy for me, surrounded all day by the faithful who believe all mages should be shunned and exiled? Do you think the world stopped getting worse just because you’re off hiding from it?”

  Allegra squared her shoulders. “I am not hiding.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Allegra. We’ve known each other since we were children. Do you honestly think you’re safe? All it will take is one letter from that magistrate when you cross back through his territory and you’ll be the one in irons.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? You, of all people, know that is what I fear most.”

  “Then do something about it,” Rupert urged.

  “And what if I’m found out?”

  “My dear, if something doesn't change soon, no one will be safe, least of all you!” He drew in a breath and said, “Shall I assume you will keep serving as Arbiter, or have you already tired of the position?”

  “You are such an asshole, Rupert.”

  “I am nothing if not practical.”

  “I refuse to work out of Orsini. I will only conduct negotiations at Borro Abbey.”

  “That doesn't come as any great surprise. Agreed, assuming Father Michael will be fine with his Abbey being used as your headquarters.”

  “He will,” Allegra stated with absolute authority. “He likes me.”

  Rupert snorted. “Oh, Allegra. How I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed Rupert. This Francois is an ass.”

  Rupert shrugged, unoffended by the comment. “The Holy Father’s mantle is a heavy one, my dear. I always thought the name change was silly, but now I understand its purpose. It’s so easy to lose one’s self under all of the velvet and rules.”

  “I want a security team,” Allegra stated.

  “Of course. Do you want some of the palace guard?”

  “I'd prefer Captain Rainier and some of his people.”

  Rupert made a pleased sound. “Taken a shine to the captain, have you?”

  “I want someone I can trust,” she said coolly. “I think I can trust him.”

  “You can,” Rupert said seriously. “What else do you need?”

  “Your support.”

  “This was my idea, after all.”

  “No, I want your full support for ending the rebellion. I want you to agree with every word that comes out of my mouth for the duration of the negotiations.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Rupert said. “I've heard the things that come out of your mouth.”

  Allegra pushed herself up from the chair. “Tell Pero I send my regards.”

  “You always ask too much.”

  Allegra whirled on him. “I don’t ask nearly enough. You say you support me, well then support everyone who is like me.”

  Rupert leaned back in his chair. “You’d press to make elementals legal.”

  “You’re damned right I would. I’d drag every single one of these backward idiots into the modern world. So you can help by agreeing when I say elementals are not caused by demonic influence.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You don’t believe it any more than I do!”

  “I know, but…I’ll support you in everything else, but that’s too far. The people would never accept it.”

  “You’re their leader. You are the one who clears the trail for these lunatics to come up with their shameful laws.”

  “Allegra, if I say that, I could start riots.”

  “Rupert, there are already riots. The more people like Mrs. Ansley are mistreated, the bigger the riots will be. Choose which side you want history to remember you standing on, because there is only one right side in this.”

  Rupert looked away. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You’ll put it off.”

  He scowled. “I will openly support everything you say, except on elementals. I’ll keep my peace, though. That’s the best I can promise.”

  “Your silence might be seen as a rejection of my proposals.”

  “Or of quiet acceptance.” He shrugged. “I can’t promise more than that. The Cardinals won't give you full powers in these matters, and you know it. Plus, Allegra, if I’m not careful, there’s going to be a war.”

  Allegra laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “There’s going to be a war regardless. You can’t enslave people forever before they use their chains to strangle you.” Allegra scowled. “I will try to get enough concessions to ease their immediate concerns, but people chafe, Rupert. They chafe until their skin turns raw. Eventually, they won’t care about living or dying because they have already been condemned. Then they will come for us all unless we stop this now.”

  In a quiet voice, Rupert quoted scripture. “Choose carefully when the kind are enraged, for their wrath can alter the course of history.”

  Allegra’s laugh was mocking. “I am not kind. Make your announcements. I will begin preparations immediately. And Rupert?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I can act with full authority, correct, to correct any injustice I see?”

  Rupert narrowed his eyes. “Like what?”

  “Like how I’m going to have the magistrate arrested on my return trip. I want his property confiscated and sold to support…I’ll think of something.”

  “You can’t do that,” Rupert said.

  “Yes, I can. I am the Cathedral’s representative, am I not? I speak with the Cathedral’s authority. The last Arbiter did whatever he pleased. Surely I can when Cathedral law is violated willfully in the name of greed.” Allegra lifted her chin. “That is my price.”

  Rupert’s words were clipped when he said, “I shall have my secretary deliver the necessary seals to you later today.”

  She inclined her head and turned to walk away.

  “What happened to friendship?” Rupert asked.

  She didn’t turn around. “Friendship is no longer enough when my kind are fighting in the streets for their very lives.”

  “I will protect you,” Rupert said.

  Allegra looked over her shoulder and gave her oldest friend in the world a sad smile. “I know you would try, right up until they slapped the iron shackles on my wrists and ankles. Then, no holy edict from you would come and I would die. And that guilt would destroy you. So hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Then Allegra walked out, knowing her life had just changed forever. And, she sil
ently prayed to an Almighty she didn’t believe in, just in case he did exist, that he would watch over her.

  Chapter 9

  Stanton leaned against the open door of Allegra’s temporary office and smirked. She was writing, and by the snarl on her face, it was a furiously-toned letter. He could hear the quill tip scratching against the paper even from the doorway.

  “I know you’re there.” She didn’t look up from her page. When he didn’t answer, she said, “You are welcome to sit, provided you have a sense of adventure.”

  Stanton strolled across the worn, burgundy carpet and eased himself into one of the chairs across from her oversized desk, and risked toppling over when he shifted his weight.

  “What the…”

  “One of the legs is wobbly,” Allegra said. When Stanton rose to sit in the other chair, she said, “Don’t bother. That one is worse.”

  He lowered himself back down, careful to brace himself this time. “Is this the clerk’s way to punish you, or is this your way to punish anyone who visits you?”

  She flipped her sheet of paper ninety degrees and continued writing, now across her previous lines. “The head clerk is Rafe Gotto, my third cousin on my mother’s side. He proposed marriage when I was seventeen.”

  “I can imagine your response.”

  She paused in her frenzied writing, just long enough to flash him a wicked smile. Then she put her head back down and kept writing. “It appears he still harbors some ill will over my youthful reaction.”

  Stanton shifted to find a comfortable spot. Instead, he found a stray splinter that poked his ass. He winced and stood as carefully as possible, in the desperate hope that he’d not ripped the seat out of his best trousers. “If you won’t be insulted, I will stand.”

  “I considered asking Nadira to burn the chairs.”

  Stanton walked over to the fireplace and mused, “The garbage heap is too good for them.”

  She snorted and stopped writing. She put her quill down, folded her hands in front of her, and smiled up at him. “So, what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  “Boredom.”

  Allegra chuckled. She had a rather infectious smile that Stanton loved to see. There was a twinkle in her that signaled the intelligence behind her coy court manners. “I assume no word from Lex and Dodd?”

  “No, but that’s no surprise. They’ll have to find where Mrs. Ansley was taken. I suspect we won’t hear for another day.” He rested a fist on his hip and look about the room. “Your office is shabbier than I’d expected.”

  The Contessa heaved a frustrated sigh. “This is only until I can move back to Borro. I’ve already written to the bishop. I suppose I’ll have to give up my little cottage for one of the estate suites.”

  “You do hold an important position now, Your Ladyship.”

  “Let’s hope that will last.”

  He examined the room. It really was shabby. What was once a bright yellow papered wall was now a faded, dirty pattern with peeling corners. The rug was threadbare; the barracks had a nicer rug than the one now protecting Allegra’s wooden floor. Her desk was too large for her. The Contessa wasn’t a tall woman, and she’d been given a chair that fit her frame and a desk that didn’t; she looked like a child behind her father’s desk as opposed to a great figure of authority.

  He was taking dinner with Pero tomorrow; he’d mention this insult to him. While Pero held no official title within the Cathedral, he wasn’t without power. After all, he was the Holy Father’s husband.

  Mindful that he was staring about her room and not speaking, he asked, “When do you speak before the cardinals?”

  “Three days from now. The abolitionists delayed voting on my measures until more of their block could arrive from the countryside.”

  Stanton absently nodded while he ran his fingers across the mantle, leaving paths in the dust. He didn’t know what this room had been previously used for, but they hadn’t even bothered to send in the maids to clean before moving the Contessa in. He glanced at her and saw her looking at him, a wry smile on her face.

  “When are the maids coming to clean?”

  She shrugged. “I think they’re waiting to see if the cardinals haul me off to the dungeons.”

  “There are no dungeons in the palace, Your Ladyship.”

  Allegra snorted, a sound that was oddly feminine on her. “What is Toll Gate Prison?”

  “That is above ground,” Stanton said with mock outrage. “How dare you suggest an aboveground prison is a dungeon?”

  “How could I ever make such a horrendous mistake? Oh, this is why I have big, handsome men around to tell me what to think.”

  Stanton grew quiet. “Handsome, huh?”

  Allegra rolled her eyes in reply. She picked up her teacup, a pretty little rosebud set that he recognized from the Holy Father’s private breakfast room. He inwardly grinned at that. She noticed him staring at the cup and said, “Yes, Rupert gave it to me. I think it was his way of letting all of the inner circle of cardinals know I had his support. Of course, now they will just be craftier with their backstabbing.”

  “Not all of the cardinals are bad.”

  “The ones who aren’t generally are the ones who never say anything in opposition of those who are.” She sipped at her tea as she walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window. She didn’t push back the sheer fabric that draped from the ceiling for muted privacy. “Do they scream as loud for mage rights as their counterparts do for enslavement? Do they fight for the rights of the poor? Do they offer up their political ambitions to do what is right?”

  “If they can remain moderate…”

  “Yes, yes. They must remain moderates until in power to affect real change. Only, they are moderates for so long, thinking of their own power for so long, that they cannot see what is right if it threw a tea cup at them. All they see is how to compromise and that will never change with more power.”

  Stanton walked over to join her, taking a moment to run his hand along the back of his trousers. No holes. “Compromise isn’t all bad.”

  “Compromise is what got Mrs. Ansley arrested.”

  ****

  Allegra sipped at her tea in an attempt to quell her sting of anger. She was in a bad mood today, though she was often foul when at the Cathedral. “The letter I was writing? It was to the wife of the Duke of Montfort, about Mrs. Ansley and the entire mess. I’d already written the Duke, and his patronizing reply arrived this morning.”

  “I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard he is assured of himself.”

  Allegra barked out a little laugh. “That’s diplomatic. His reply was nothing more than a collection of my dear lady and may I comfort you and all of that court rot. What a…a…” Words and insults failed her.

  “Shall I ask Dodd for an appropriate vulgarity?”

  “I might require it if he replies to my scolding.”

  Allegra leaned against the window’s frame, as much as the stiff back and her over-tightened corset would allow. “I believe I was a rash fool to accept this position.”

  “This is the time of fools,” Rainier said.

  Allegra looked into his dark eyes and sighed. She was not used to making such close friends with a non-mage. Perhaps she was lonely. Perhaps she needed to find herself a nice, young mage who would like to enjoy a more experienced woman’s bed for a weekend of nights.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  “Finding a lover,” Allegra said frankly and sipped her tea.

  Rainier choked when he gulped. She sipped more tea.

  “Well, I do hear there are some junior cardinals who love dark-haired beauties.”

  “I said lover, not a murder victim.”

  Rainier laughed and it was a huge sound, all the way from his belly. “You are impossible!”

  “You say it like it’s a bad thing, my dear Captain.”

  Allegra let out a long sigh. She was worried. Tomorrow, she would face th
e cardinals, where they would vote on her proposals. Speaking of compromise.

  “I wish I could be there tomorrow. For support.”

  Allegra looked at him. She believed him. What’s more, she wished he could be there, too. “Might we have tea when I’m done?”

  “I’d like that. My office or yours?”

  “Mine, though I recommend you bring a chair.”

  ****

  Allegra sat in the holy chambers across from the innermost circle of the Cathedral cardinals and awaited Francois’s arrival. His tardiness reduced her to idle chatter with the cardinals and she was running out of topics and fake smiles.

  “Did you have a pleasant journey here, Your Ladyship?” Cardinal Devonshire asked. She was a frail, elderly woman with high cheekbones and wide eyes that announced she had been quite the beauty in her youth. She was also a moderate and rumored to be, if not an abolitionist, then a sympathizer to the cause.

  Allegra gave the elderly woman the most genuine smile she could muster, forcing all of the sarcasm and anger out of her voice. “It was horrid, Your Grace. I was assaulted, ambushed, and accosted.”

  Cardinal Vanida made a contemplative sound. He was a withered, arrogant, weasel of a man whom Allegra had hated since childhood. He narrowed his heavily hooded eyes until they were slits and said, “Then perhaps you were too hasty in accepting this vital position. We require an individual with significant experience, mental fortitude, and intelligence to bring a firm hand to this witches’ rebellion.”

  “Mage rebellion,” Allegra corrected him. She smeared jam on her slice of cake and took a bite. “The pastries are always excellent here.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Vanida asked.

  “Hmm?” Allegra asked through a mouthful of cake.

  “You interrupted me.” Vanida didn’t hide the contempt in his voice. “Now, as for this witch rebellion—”

  “We are called mages, not witches, Your Grace. As for who is needed in this position, perhaps we need someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in keeping mages enslaved.” She gave the Cardinal another fake smile before turning away. To Cardinal Devonshire, Allegra asked, “More wine, Your Grace?”