An Illusion of Thieves (Chimera)

by Cate Glass

  His scowl dissolved into a wry skepticism. “Except perhaps to someone who didn’t know enough to notice? Like its rightful owner? Perhaps you think to use what secrets you know of me, counting your silence as payment for some nefarious scheme. That won’t work.”

  He shoved the statue toward me. “I know enough to keep our secrets balanced, Romy of Lizard’s Alley.”

  I raised my palm to stay him.

  “You saved our lives, Segno Dumond. Never will I presume on the extraordinary circumstance of that rescue. And I’ll never betray your confidence, never set foot in this lane again, if you say. But before you refuse, know that I offer silver as payment. I’m familiar with what the Nicosi or Padinino workshops would charge for such a copy, but I prefer to keep this more private—and benefit an artisan who has proved himself discreet.”

  I raised a finger to my lips to postpone his response.

  “I swear that our intent is to return the original to its rightful owner—as near as we can tell—and deliver the copy to those who most deceitfully deprived its rightful owner of his possession. A scheme, yes, but not so nefarious. And I offer quick payment.”

  After a long, silent assessment of both Neri and me, Dumond glanced at the statue in his hand. “When would you need it done?”

  My relief set my knees quivering, even as I braced for his next reaction.

  “Day after tomorrow by the Hour of Contemplation.” The eve of the duc of Riccia’s birthday. Most of three days and two nights.

  The deadline was brutal for such complex work. But I had to get the original to Sandro in a public fashion no later than the birthday morning. Neri had to get the finished copy in place so it could be found before the birthday feast, and he needed night’s cover for his venture to Palazzo Fermi. And Dumond could not release either the true or false statue before he’d completed the finishing details, which took fine chisels, chemicals, heat, exacting care, and time.

  He blew a long, thoughtful exhale. “That, damizella, will cost extra.”

  13

  DAY 1—HOUR OF BUSINESS

  As the city came to life with the graying sky, Neri and I joined the flow of servants and tradesmen heading up through the rings. We had left Dumond with the statue and six silver coins—half of his payment plus enough for a bribe to get him daytime access to one of his Asylum Ring workshops. We had also set an evening appointment to decide on the flaw we would introduce to expose Boscetti’s statue as a counterfeit when the time came.

  I felt almost naked as we walked out. Worry hollowed my stomach, well beyond the risks of our plan. Only five silver solets remained in Sandro’s purse—exactly enough to pay Dumond. Until Neri or I got paid again, the coppers in our pockets had to feed us. Unless I found more clients or Fesci gave Neri more hours of work, we’d not be able to pay Placidio for the next month.

  But of course, if we didn’t make this plan work, we wouldn’t be needing any more sword training or meals either one. Thus, for the moment, we needed to reconnoiter Neri’s route to place the false statue.

  “This way.” I hurried through the bustling spice market, where cooks and householders already crowded around colorful, aromatic displays of mounded powders, pods, and leaves. Neri’s feet slowed as we threaded the noodle market, where a copper solet could buy a fistful of fresh noodles ready to dunk in one of the bubbling kettles of sweet fish sauce, lemon thyme broth, or thick garlic tomato soup.

  “After,” I said. “We need to get in and out of the Via Mortua in the Merchant Ring before the coffinmakers open their shops.”

  Neri halted and glanced uneasily at the charcoal sky. “Coffinmakers? Why? It’s bad luck to—”

  “You need a good route in and out of Palazzo Fermi,” I said, speaking low as I dragged him through the Market Ring’s upper gates. “There are still wardens on the alert at the Cambio Gate. If someone spots you inside Palazzo Fermi and raises an alarm, you won’t get through. Not with traces of magic on you. And you certainly don’t want anyone to see you vanish through a city wall.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Too many sniffers about town already.”

  “So I’m showing you a less public way between the Merchant Ring and the Heights.”

  We sped through the Merchant Ring, across the Piazza Cambio where Naldo di Savilli had paid for his treachery, past guildhalls, townhouses, and prosperous shopkeepers washing their stoops or drinking tiny cups of coffee with neighboring tradesmen. Well around the eastern side of the Ring we rounded a corner into a dim, quiet, clean alley called Via Mortua.

  “You’re not the only one who thinks it bad luck to visit a coffinmaker when the sun is low. So the shops here don’t open before half-morn and they close by midafternoon, which means this lane…”

  “… is deserted early and late.”

  “Via Mortua also happens to end at the Merchant Ring’s upper wall”—the high wall that separated all of the lower city from the Heights.

  Neri’s shoulders hunched as we traversed the pocket of silence in the midst of the city noise. Past the last closed shop, we trod a narrow path through a maze of old brick and stone rubble. When the mortared stones of the massive wall barred our way, we pulled away a flimsy sheet of rotted planking, exposing a solid rectangle of blackened oak.

  “Certain people wish to move between the Merchant Ring and the Heights without notice on occasion,” I said. “One of those people showed me a number of private doorways with tricky mechanical locks that only those who’ve been shown how can open.”

  “The Shadow Lord,” he murmured. “You walked out with him like—”

  “Like ordinary friends,” I said. “I was neither chained to his bed nor kept in a cage, and he was never ashamed to be seen in my company. Nor I in his.”

  Even after he married. He could not compromise the standing of his future children, thus it became necessary for the little wife to accompany him to formal family gatherings and official functions of the Sestorale. But I had been his chosen companion whenever custom allowed choosing.

  The lock had not been changed. The door opened to a short, dim tunnel through the thick wall. We pulled the door closed behind us, using a thin rope to pull the sheet of planking up behind it. Twenty steps took us to another lock, this time on a grate at the upper end of the tunnel, and we soon walked out of an alley into the quiet immensity of the Piazza Livello—the heart of Cantagna.

  Before us and on every side, the grandeur of Cantagna’s wealth rose in a magnificence of towers and spires, sculpted facades, and sprawling palaces. A gushing fountain centered the piazza, a monumental bronze of Atladu’s Leviathan drowning the kingdom of Sysaline on the day it washed Dragonis out of the sky.

  Behind the fountain stood the Palazzo Segnori—the same venue Neri and I visited for his Quarter Day parole reports. The palazzo’s pillared loggia stretched left and right, and above it the harmonious rows of windows, like bright eyes ever open to the world. The loggia was mostly deserted so early of a morning, only a few sleepy clerks making their way through the great doors.

  A Gardia warden rode by slowly, eyeing us. Neri ducked his head and I dipped a knee, then we scurried across the piazza, rousing waves of annoyed pigeons. Around a corner we entered the network of alleys that serviced the great houses of the district. Three turns and we arrived at Palazzo Fermi.

  Unlike Sandro’s family, who had grown their modest home in the Merchant Ring to magnificence by absorbing those nearby, the Fermi had torn down five elegant houses in the southeast quarter of the Heights a few years ago, and built themselves a sprawling new palace, appointed with every luxury wealth could commandeer. Neri and I crouched in an ancient olive grove that stood awkwardly in the middle of the lane behind the newest wing; it was considered bad luck to cut down Lady Virtue’s favored tree.

  “The receiving room where Gilliette threw her fainting fit is on the third level of this wing.” I pointed to a row of dark windows that ended at a rounded tower. “It’s something like the fifth window past that tower toward t
he front of the house; its balcony overlooks a small garden. An alcove opens off of the inner corner of the receiving chamber. They use it for a flower room—creating bouquets to decorate Lucrezia di Fermi’s chambers. The last time I was there, a life-sized marble sculpture depicting the Five Graces screened the flower room door. That’s where the statue needs to go, as if someone picked the thing up and set it aside while they were tending Gilliette. Leave it sticking out a bit. They have urns of flowers around the sculpture, so you could tip one over as if someone bumped it to reveal the bronze. Does that make sense?”

  “Aye. As long as I can imagine the place well enough to get there.”

  “I can certainly describe the receiving room, but will that be enough? Between here and there are the stable yard, a guarded wall, the courtyard beyond, and a long passage flanked by butteries and candle and linen rooms. A servant’s stair can take you up. Do you need me to describe them all? I’ve walked the way, but I’m not sure I can remember everything.”

  Neri blew a long exhale. “I’ve never done such a big place,” he said softly. “Going through one wall is easy. But each one after takes a bit more out of me, just having to think about it so hard and want it so hard. I’ve never tried breaching more’n three or four for a fetch, so the further I can just walk or climb or sneak without magic, the better. It’ll leave me some to get out with.”

  No fear trembled his words. How did he come to be so brave?

  “Good. When we get home, I’ll draw the best map I can and describe the reception chamber for you. The sculpture of Five Graces, I recall exactly.” Sandro had called it dross, and I had memorized its appearance so I might recognize dross next time I saw it.

  Neri nodded. “That ought to do me.”

  We retraced our route through the alleys and across the awakening Piazza Livello to the gate and the tunnel to the Via Mortua. I had just finished drilling Neri on the latch—the order of undoing and resetting was critical—when we heard voices in the lane.

  Neri quietly replaced the rotted planking against the door, and we crept through the rubble. The city bells rang the Hour of Business. Though Via Mortua itself yet lay in shadow, the angled sunbeams had already reached the street beyond its end. The arriving coffinmakers would be suspicious of anyone sneaking out of their ill-favored street before the shadows had dispersed, and we could not afford to be stopped, questioned, noted. Nor did I want the passage through the wall discovered. The Gardia would seal it were they told.

  I turned the frayed lining of my cloak outwards, wrenched away the ribbon that tied my braid, and mussed my hair into a tangled cloud. As when I walked out with Sandro, I donned the skin of the person I wanted to be. I needed to do it well.

  Neri whispered, “What are you d—?”

  “Shhh,” I said, gushing as noisily as the Piazza Livello fountain. “They’re sleeping now.”

  Reliving the wine-soaked blur of my worst hours of the past year, I hung my arm around Neri’s neck and urged him toward the three men who looked our way as they opened the shutters on their shops.

  “There’s naught like bedding with ghosties to set me right, Cousin Bertie,” I slurred. “None to paw under me skirts; none to steal my sweet little bota.”

  I pulled out the wineskin that lived in my inner pocket—emptied less often since I’d been working with Placidio—and dangled it in my brother’s shocked face. My fingers pinched his chin to be alert.

  “Love’s lorn lordly, heart’s trembled thornly,” I warbled, thick-tongued. “’Twas kindly you’ve come to drag me home, love, though it’s a deal too early. Too bright out there. Erf … me gut’s churning like Mam’s butter paddle.”

  The boy’s grip firmed and dragged me, staggering, toward the street. “Come on, then, you sotted cow. Puke on me and next time yer mam tells me fetch you, I’m dumping ye in the river.” He tipped his hat to the coffinmakers. “Lady Fortune preserve ye gentlefolk from drunkard cousins!”

  Disgusted murmurs and a blur of sober grays and blacks from the corner of my eye marked the pinchy gawkers. Two females had joined the men. Clever Bertie shoved me into the sunlit street and around the corner.

  “Keep her out!” a woman yelled after us. “Don’t like swillpots nesting here!”

  “I’ll drown ’er sure,” Bertie bellowed sourly over his shoulder.

  I stumbled onward, retching, singing, moaning, throwing myself on Cousin Bertie, trusting his hand on my collar to guide me through the waking streets. He tried to steer me around passersby, but a man shoved me to the cobbles when my flailing arm touched him. Cursing broadly, Bertie dragged me up and shoved me forward before taking hold again. I kept on singing.

  “None’s followed,” he whispered after a while. “And none’s looking at you.”

  I rubbed my arm, bruised on the cobbles. Kept walking. Words to the song wouldn’t come no more. Couldn’t think of the next verse.

  He gave my cheek a light slap. “Romy, are you all right?”

  “Stop that!” I batted his hand away and straightened up. “Of course I’m all right.”

  Though indeed dropping the playacting felt something like crawling out of a hole. I tied my hair into a tail as we walked, flipped my cloak to hide the ragged lining, and bundled it about me to quiet a shiver of nerves. “You took up my ruse very well.”

  “Thought you’d cracked your head or something,” said Neri as we stopped at a Market Ring stall and splurged on a deliciously warm hollowed bun, filled with buttered noodles and garlic. “You didn’t even look—swear to the Unseeable, if I’d been the one standing there, I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

  “Good. I didn’t want anyone prowling around to see what a respectable law scribe and a tavern doorward were doing in the back of that alley. Didn’t think the person who showed me the passage would appreciate that. No one will remember another drunk.”

  Neri devoured his portion without taking a breath. I let the steam warm my chilly hands and the savory noodles soothe my unsettled stomach as we headed homeward, talking of what to do next. So many pieces had to fit to make this plan work.

  “Should I even go with Placidio today?” Neri asked. The swordmaster would be at our house at the half-morn anthem.

  “Go ahead. I’ll make a sketch of the palazzo receiving room, and we’ll go over it later until you have all you need. But first I’ve got to figure out how I’m to get the real statue into Sand—il Padroné’s—hands in front of witnesses. I’ve an idea, but there are difficulties—”

  “You can’t do it. He’ll know you, less’n maybe you went as a drunk.” Neri glanced at me doubtfully. “I suppose I could learn enough to pretend I was a messenger from the one who has the statue.”

  “Neither would do much to make anyone believe the messenger is a reputable purveyor of antiquities. The witnesses must be able to attest that il Padroné didn’t steal it from Boscetti. Besides, you’ll need to be about your own mission, so I’ve got to do it. I know a bit about disguises.”

  Changing hair, bleaching or blackening it and using Moon House powders and potions, kohl, rouge, or henna could alter a woman’s appearance dramatically. Enough, surely.

  Neri, still skeptical, wiped his fingers on his tunic. “If you’re the one who delivers the statue, then who’s to be the reliable witness?”

  “Il Padroné sits on the Sestorale Commission on Public Artworks. I’m thinking that one Vincenzio di Guelfi, an adventurer of modest family from … let us say … the Independency of Varela, will send a letter to the commission today informing them of a new cache of antiquities he’s found. He has heard of the commission’s interest in pre-classical bronzes—il Padroné sent inquiries to a variety of knowledgeable people last year—and will be in Cantagna on the day after tomorrow in the evening with several samples of his find, including one extraordinary bronze. He is seeking a stipend to further his exploration and would be happy to appear before an evening session of the commission. Certain, he can provide references from reliable historians.”


  “But who—? Oh. You think to play this Guelfi.”

  Neri halted just past the Beggars Ring gate and raked me with an appraising glance. “Romy, aren’t you a bit … womanly … to play a man? Unless your disguise can flatten your chest and give you a beard. And what reliable historians would write you a recommendation?”

  A fraught mix of panic and laughter bade me shove him aside and hurry on down the lane through a mob of desperate men and women waving their arms to get the attention of barkers hiring laborers for the day. Neri elbowed through the press and caught up with me. “’Twasn’t an insult, Romy.”

  “None taken. I was thinking more of playing Vincenzio’s wife or partner … sister, I think. I’ve more experience at sistering. I’ll say he’s sick and sent me in his stead. So, yes, the disguise is troublesome, but I can’t involve anyone else. And I’ll write the references, of course. I know what names they’ll believe.”

  But what disguise could hide me from Sandro’s scrutiny if I was the one doing all the talking? That was the problem that would require extra thinking.

  “The statue will distract il Padroné, fascinate him,” I said, reassuring myself. “The members of the commission will be excellent witnesses. Several of them will be able to recognize the design of the bronze and its true antiquity.”

  The historians Piero and Beatrice di Mesca headed the commission. They were loyal to the Gallanos family, but not beholden to Sandro, and they had impeccable credentials when it came to antiquities.

  “Sandro will accept their judgment. He doesn’t trust Boscetti or Fermi; he’ll see the attempt to blame a theft on his bodyguard and my former maidservant as their attempt to discredit him. When they show up to the duc’s birthday feast with the counterfeit, he’ll have them in his fist.”

  Assuming I could persuade the commission to meet Vincenzio di Guelfi.

  Assuming I could carry off the disguise.