Wandering Star (The Quintana Trilogy Book 1)

by Michael Wallace

  “We’ve had many a good night, you and I,” she told Torre loudly. “Remember the year of the earthquake? Find me later. If you can throw down your cane and raise your staff one more time, I’ll give you another memory.”

  Laughter rolled up and down the line. Torre grumbled good-naturedly and soon pressed inside, accompanied by Daniel, Naila Roja, and Salvatore.

  Lady Mercado spotted Carbón. “Ah, here’s another I’d like to bed. But quickly this time, not like last year—you kept me so busy that most of my would-be lovers went home disappointed.”

  More laughter at this, together with good-natured ribbing, directed toward Mercado and Carbón alike.

  “For God’s sake, leave some for the rest of us, Mercado!” a woman cried from further back.

  “Not a chance!” she replied.

  Mercado kissed Carbón on the mouth, and her tongue pressed at his lips. He felt no arousal or disgust, only a strange curiosity. When she’d released him, she leaned in to whisper in his ear.

  “That should cover you for one more year, but you might be careful about your girl, here. She wants a bit of you tonight.”

  “We’ll see,” he said loudly, and affected a laugh. “You wore me out last year.”

  Mercado’s chancellor had been standing to one side, tall and thin and drawn up with his lips pinched together as if he’d swallowed something bitter. Now, he cleared his throat dramatically.

  “My lady, I really must insist. This is too much.”

  A sloppy looking young man with a bottle in hand had been quietly following Carbón in the line, and looking at him more carefully, it was obvious he was from the dumbre. He was barefoot, as if he’d lost his footwear already, but he’d probably taken it off to disguise its poor condition. His clothes, while clean, were patched and double patched at the knees and elbows, the hems frayed.

  Mercado looked him over. There was the barest flicker of doubt in her eyes. The Forty was well represented at the party, from what Carbón could see, and there were a good number from the Thousand, as well. The dumbre? Not so much.

  “Today we are all old and young and rich and poor,” Mercado said at last. “Welcome to my banquet table. Eat and drink and enjoy the feast of the flesh, if you wish. But remember,” she added, and a wire drew taut across her voice, “dawn will arrive before you know it.”

  The young man had been watching her with a goofy, inebriated smile, clearly expecting to be turned away, but to have a good story to tell of his attempt. Now, his grin spread until it nearly burst from his face, and he lifted his bottle with a cheer before tossing back a swig and moving inside. He hadn’t been expecting this, that was for sure. Wait until next year, Carbón thought, when forty cousins and siblings traipsed up from the lower terraces to see if the young man’s wild stories were true. But that would be Lady Mercado’s problem, not his.

  The manor sprawled across the grounds ahead of him, two marble wings spreading from the main three-story building, which rose with an elegant pitched roof to overlook a courtyard with fountains and statuary. Gardens climbed the wall behind in a series of steps that led to a final rocky ledge, above which lay the damp, windswept plateau.

  In a city carved into the side of the hill, clinging to every nook and promontory from the edge of the plateau halfway to the bottom of the Rift, Mercado’s estate was the most notable of the Quinta for its profligacy, its disdain for the premium the rest of the city paid for every square inch and foot of land.

  Dozens of men and women wandered among the statues and hedges and clogged the wide cobbled walkway splitting the front gardens as it led to a stone staircase and a massive front porch, itself crowded with more guests. Small bands of musicians mingled among the groups, their instruments and painted faces gleaming in the reflected light of a hundred gas lamps.

  Carbón scanned the crowd. “Did you see where Salvatore went?”

  Iliana didn’t answer. Instead, she was watching him with a curious expression. “What was that Mercado whispered to you just then?”

  He remembered the black apple cider. How heightened were her senses? Had she overheard, or was she just curious? Never mind—he wasn’t responsible for Iliana’s curiosity, any more than for Mercado’s guest list. He only cared that his chancellor keep her mouth shut . . . about this and a whole host of other things.

  “This place is crawling with cabalists,” he said in a low voice. “Not only Salvatore, but half the Luminoso, most likely. There’s a reason she whispered.”

  “I’m whispering now, and so are you. And there’s plenty of noise—nobody is going to overhear us, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  As if to underscore her point, a trio of jongleurs—mandolin, flute, spiral horn—approached, tooting and strumming as the mandolin player sang. It was a bawdy number about a woman who was fishing for bats one night and snared a handsome young man with wings instead. She told the flying boy to make love to her or she wouldn’t release him, which he did, but at the cost of turning her into a bat.

  They were good musicians. Carbón nodded at Iliana when they’d finished, and she dropped a silver escudo into the flautist’s overturned cap.

  “I’m not much one for Fool’s Day,” Carbón said when the musicians had moved on. “What Mercado whispered has nothing to do with you.”

  “She’s very devout. She believes what she says about the division of the terraces. If I’m spotted leaving . . . if the cabalists tell her . . .”

  “Tonight it won’t matter. There’s a young man from the dumbre drunk and wandering through her gardens right now.”

  “That’s true.” Iliana shook her head in mock disgust. “What was she thinking? That boy is going to tell half the dumbre what happened tonight.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  They’d danced around whether or not Iliana had heard what Mercado whispered. Carbón was beginning to think she hadn’t.

  He still didn’t see Salvatore, but the Guardian of Secrets was another one who wouldn’t get caught up in the craziness of the evening. Too much for the villain to do, and one of those things was keeping an eye on Carbón. He’d better do something about that.

  “Give me your hand.”

  He passed off a small brass key, which she pocketed discreetly.

  “Not quite as dramatic as what the watchman gave me,” she said. “What’s it for?”

  “Go around back and take the stairs down from the lower balcony. There’s a walled garden, and beyond that a small orchard, also walled. On the far side of the orchard, you’ll see a door set in the wall. It’s partially overgrown with ivy, but you can get through.”

  “Why do you have a key to Mercado’s garden wall?”

  “It’s a key into my estate. Go through and you’ll find yourself in my gardens. Do you know the uppermost part of the property? That’s directly on the other side of Mercado’s orchard.”

  “You mean behind your mermaid fountain? How will I get through? You can’t even see the wall—it’s covered in thorny vines.”

  “Not anymore. I had the gardeners trim it back.”

  “That’s a lot of effort just to get me off the Mercado estate. Why didn’t I stay at the manor and leave from there?”

  “Because I needed you to be seen at the banquet. And now I need you to be seen leaving it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She was growing suspicious, probably on several levels.

  “And why is there a gate between the Mercado and Carbón estates anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, growing impatient, knowing there were eyes watching him and anxious to see her off. “An escape route during invasion? A door for lovers? It’s some old thing that doesn’t matter at the moment. The door is there, and you will use it.”

  Carbón still didn’t see Salvatore among the crowd, which didn’t mean he wasn’t somewhere about. He did, however, spot Lord Torre. The old man had reached the end of the paved walkway and was picking his way up the staircase to the house. Cane in his l
eft hand, railing in his right, he levered his way up one step at a time. No sign of the man’s son or daughter-in-law, who’d apparently wandered off to entertain themselves elsewhere, which was perfect for Carbón’s plans.

  “There’s Torre. I want to talk to him before it gets too late. You’ve got everything you need?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Good. Wait a little while, give your presence a chance to cool.”

  “Understood.”

  “And don’t drink any more before you go. In fact, it would probably do you well to get something to eat—not too much—and give it thirty minutes or so to let the effects of the black apple work through your system.”

  “All right.”

  “And for God’s sake, stay safe down there.”

  “Is that your primary motivation?” A bit of heat touched her voice. “To keep me safe? Is that why you’ve got me slinking out of the party and sneaking through your own estate?” She raised a hand. “No, don’t say anything. I know the answer.”

  #

  Thiego leaned back from the book he was reading and propped his eyeglasses on top of his head with one hand while turning down the lamp with the other to conserve oil. He glanced at Kara, who stood with her arms crossed, chewing on her lower lip. Her eyes were dark and gleaming in the dim light of the library vault. Shadows collected in the stone vaults overhead.

  He tapped his finger on the passage she’d drawn his attention to. “I wish we’d found this information two weeks ago—Salvatore has already set off for his observation somewhere up top. What’s it doing in this book, anyway? This book isn’t about celestial movements.”

  “That’s probably why nobody noticed it before,” Kara said.

  The book in question was a volume pulled from an old vault recently discovered beneath the temple, wrapped in oiled skins on the outside and some other substance like waxy leaves hammered together into a single sheet beneath it. The book concerned the prediction of weather over Quintana, the plateau, and the Rift, but the information had little to do with the current climate, which was cooler and drier than the book described. Yet this section on making celestial observations through cloud cover had a casual mention that had drawn the young woman’s attention, and she’d passed it to Thiego to read.

  “How long would it take to run the calculations?” she asked.

  He considered. The mathematics were complex, with formulas they’d have to dig out of other volumes of lore left by the ancients. Run the calculations, double-check . . .

  “Three or four days, if it’s just the two of us and we spend every waking minute. If we brought in other geometers to help with the research, we might save a day or two. Either way, too late. We’ll have to wait until the next time there’s a conjunction in the heavens.”

  “That could be years from now. You should find the Guardian of Secrets and tell him.”

  Thiego squirmed at the thought of disturbing Salvatore while he was making celestial observations. The man would fix him with a cold stare that would melt the younger man’s guts. Thiego would find himself thinking of all the ways the masters of the Luminoso punished those whose efforts displeased them. Not to mention that it would mean ascending to the Quinta Terrace to find him. Today may be the Festival of Fools, but he felt uncomfortable enough among the Forty, let alone interacting with the lords of the city, and had not intended to participate in the festivities up top.

  “What good would that do?” he said. “It would only tell Salvatore that his observations are pointless right when he’s got his eye pressed to the glass.”

  “But you don’t know that,” Kara said. “There’s a possibility.”

  “One would have to know where to look, and we just determined that you can’t do that in time to make a difference.”

  “Did we?” Kara pointed to the floor and raised her eyebrows significantly. He followed her gaze.

  There, beneath the flagstones, lay the lower reaches of the temple. Somewhere down there was the marbled interior of the Holy Vault, and somewhere within that a lead-lined chamber containing rows of artifacts. Thiego suddenly remembered the object he’d recovered after Lord Torre’s demonstration of the Great Span. After delivering the mentabacus to the archivists who maintained the rich store of artifacts in the vault, he’d never expected to see it again. Perhaps in some distant time, the masters who made such determinations would bring it out to run calculations, but that was not his concern.

  “It’s . . . not a bad idea,” he admitted. He remembered the urchin who touched it to her skull and immediately collapsed. “If the master is brave enough to use it.” Thiego nodded, growing more confident. “We’ll send a runner to fetch him while we hunt down the missing formulas.”

  “No time for that,” she said. “Salvatore won’t want to leave his equipment, and by the time he comes down, retrieves the mentabacus, and attempts to make a connection with the artifact, the moment may very well have passed. What we need to do is find some help, write down on paper what the master will need, and then run the artifact up to Salvatore to see if we can get both it and the artifact into his hands in time to affect his observations.”

  “Send me, you mean.”

  “You found the damn thing. You’re the only one who has touched it.”

  Well, not the only one. But the only one who’d touched it and remained unharmed. That was true enough.

  Thiego sighed. “Right. You find the formulas. I’ll speak to the archivists and see if they’ll surrender the mentabacus. And then, I suppose, I’ll talk to the Guardian of Secrets.”

  Chapter Nine

  Daniel and Naila abandoned Torre the instant they had made their greetings to Lady Mercado. No doubt Daniel was anxious to take new lovers, as he seemed to be any other night of the year, as well, with the difference that tonight would be easier than most. Torre clenched his teeth, thinking of what a wastrel his son had become.

  Probably Naila had similar things in mind, although knowing her, she’d be satisfying her appetite for gossip first. Torre’s daughter-in-law would make a good cabalist. It was a wonder that Salvatore hadn’t yet recruited her for the Luminoso.

  Don’t be so sure he hasn’t.

  Torre didn’t mind being left alone. He was annoyed with the both of them, and was on the lookout for his nephew, curious as to how Pedro would behave at his first Festival of Fools since reaching his majority. He was planning to come, so far as Torre knew, although the temptation to spend time with his younger friends, some of whom were still sixteen and seventeen years old, must be pulling at him, too. This wasn’t the only party in the upper terraces, after all. Only the best.

  The other men and women on the balconies and in the gardens had shed their cloaks and bared their arms to enjoy the warm evening, but not Torre. It would take more warmth than this to shake the chill that followed him everywhere these days. Seeping into his bones, making his joints ache. Only in the baths did he ever feel warm, or first thing in the morning, heaped with blankets.

  Torre had no appetite, and didn’t trust himself to drink, but thinking about being warm reminded him of Mercado’s baths, which sounded like just the thing for his aching bones. Later in the evening they’d be given over to hedonism, but they should be quiet enough now while people were still eating. Possibly even deserted, if he was lucky.

  He reached the stairs that led to Mercado’s front door, and was suddenly wishing he had his son around after all, at least until he got to the top. When had these stairs grown so steep and treacherous? He grabbed the rail with one hand, put the cane in the other, and worked his way slowly higher. People were watching him, whispering, no doubt about how feeble he looked, and a shameful flush rose to his face.

  A strong hand took his arm. He looked, expecting to see Daniel, coming to rescue him after all, but it wasn’t his thoughtless son, it was Lord Carbón.

  “The weather is nice,” Carbón said.

  “If you say so.”

  “Go ahead, you can admit it.�
� Carbón’s tone was good-natured. “Remember last year? Once people started shooting fireworks, the downpour never let up. And it’s warm tonight, too.”

  Torre felt unreasonably bristly. He was grateful for Carbón’s steadying hand, but resentful at the same time to be lectured by this young man.

  “Where are you going?” Carbón asked. “To get something to eat? Some wine?”

  “To the baths. I’m cold.”

  “That’s just where I was going.”

  “Liar,” Torre said.

  He tried to maintain his irritation, but it was hard to do with Carbón helping him climb the stairs. Carbón leaned in, like they were just conversing, even as he supported much of the older man’s weight with a strong hand on his arm.

  He’s covering you. Hiding your weakness. Don’t be a stubborn old ass, be grateful.

  “No, really,” Carbón said. “Well, it’s a bit early, but I always take advantage of Lady Mercado’s baths when I can, and was most definitely planning to visit later.”

  Torre stopped to catch his breath and gave Carbón a look. “Not with an old man, you weren’t. Where’s that pretty young thing who follows you everywhere?”

  “Iliana? Looking for another pretty young thing, no doubt.”

  Torre grunted. “Don’t patronize me, Carbón. If she’s not with you, it’s because you’ve set her on some task. You’re not here to get drunk and eat yourself into a stupor. In fact, last year—my final year of enjoying this banquet, it would appear—I didn’t see you at all.”

  “I went home when it started to rain.”

  “You went home because you didn’t want to be here—the rain was an excuse. As for tonight, you’re not here for the same reason as everyone else.”

  “You’re right, I’m not. I came to talk to you. I need your advice, friend.”

  Torre turned, surprised at the warmth in his counterpart’s voice. Carbón was decades younger than he was, only in his late twenties, and Torre had dismissed him as young and callow. Carbón was even younger than Daniel, after all, who was most definitely not of a mature turn of mind, no matter how much his father tried to instill it in him.