Masquerade in Lodi

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Ree’s eyes widened. So did the watchmen’s, though they maintained a properly suspicious stance. In Lodi, Ogial’s was a name to conjure with even if one wasn’t a sorcerer.

  “And this is my colleague and saint of my Order, the Blessed Chio,” Pen went on, moving possessively to the girl’s side as she rose.

  He’d been making headway up to that point, but received a look of narrow disbelief as they took in the details of the alleged saint: a rumpled young female who might have been a bedraggled festival-goer, prostitute, victim of attempted assault sexual or otherwise, or all of them at once. Chio raised her decided chin and cast them a credible look of disdain in turn. But she shifted closer to Penric.

  Ree overcame intense self-consciousness of his stolen garments to offer, “This is my father’s warehouse. Ser Ripol Richelon. I’m his son Ree. This man is Aulie Merin, and he’s a thief. Among other things.”

  And if the watchmen construed that the trio had interrupted a robbery in progress, so much the better. Still unable to rise, Merin clutched at his throat and leaked constricted rasps, like a bladder deflating.

  “He’s bleeding,” Sword-man noted of Merin. “Why can’t he talk?” Not kneeling to help yet; he kept his eye on Penric.

  “Sorcery,” said Penric, truthfully. “Which is also why he can’t walk right now. I did mention he just tried to knife me. You’ll have to fetch a couple of bearers. He’ll recover on his own in a while. Take him to whatever you use for a lockup, and keep him there till someone comes from the Temple or the city tomorrow to make it all official.” The legal part of this mess should now fall into the hands of authorities who were not Penric, so that was a bright spot. Though there would doubtless be testimony required of him later. In writing.

  “When he gets his voice back,” said Ree bitterly, “I promise he’ll use it to lie.”

  “Folks always do, to us,” said Lantern-man. His gimlet gaze around did not specify who, except that it was likely those who were talking. If the watchmen arrested the wrong parties by mistake, would Learned Iserne come to free them?

  She’s a property lawyer, Pen.

  I’ll bet she knows people.

  I’ll bet she does too.

  Pen moved this along in the hopes that assuming his conclusions would overbear further delays. “It’s very late, and I have yet to escort the victim to his home and the saint back to the chapterhouse of our Order.” And what Riesta would have to say about their dawn return Pen didn’t dare guess. “We also need a guard placed on the door till its owner can come arrange repairs. May we leave this in your capable hands?”

  Good flattery there, said Des. Now follow up and bless the crap out of them.

  Pen did so, but thought unshipping his purse and paying in advance for the guard, and a few other details he didn’t inquire into too deeply, did more. When he finished he didn’t have enough left for boat fare back to the Isle of Gulls.

  Borrow it from Iserne, Des suggested. I imagine she’ll be good for it.

  Though by now, he’d have emptied out every last coin just to get Merin safely into a cell. Vastly more efficient and less trouble than, say, chasing the fugitive through Lodi till he pitched into a canal and drowned from the weight of his stolen money belt.

  Less satisfying, though, said Des. Have I mentioned I actually like your overactive imagination?

  Speak for yourself. Bloody-minded demon. Yet the vivid picture of having to pull the rotting bodies of Chio and Ree out of some similar canal, had Merin had his way, drained Pen’s thought of ire. Lodi canals were a deal warmer and less preserving than the chill Martensbridge lake.

  The watchmen still squinted at them all, but the prospect of transferring the entire mess to the hands of the day shift probably did more to sway them than had Pen’s coins and Learned Iserne’s name and direction combined. They divided their tasks, one standing sentry and the other trotting off for reinforcements, and Pen seized the chance to slip his party away before yet more questioners arrived and he’d have to go over it all again.

  Ree’s dismasted leg was still not working right, so Pen heaved him up with his arm over his shoulder. He choked down a whimper.

  Pen tried to herd the saint ahead of them to the ruined door, but at the last moment she darted back and searched out an ornamented hair stick from where it had rolled into a bale. Setting her teeth, she then bent, wrapped her fist around the glass ball of the one still in Merin’s arm, and yanked it back out. Blood spattered on the wooden floor as he jerked and whined. Efficiently, she wiped the wet shank on his gray jacket.

  Rejoining Pen and Ree, she wound her messy braid back up on her head and pinned it crookedly in place. Ree watched this firm gesture with, apparently, great admiration.

  “Good,” she said, collecting Merin’s walking-lantern as well. “Let’s go.”

  I’m not in charge of this parade anymore, am I, Des, Pen thought as they limped after the girl.

  You haven’t been all night. God-touched, if you didn’t notice. I did.

  …Aye.

  * * *

  It was the deadest hour of the night. Even the most determined celebrants had staggered home, and early workers were not yet abroad. The lantern, held aloft by Chio as Pen supported Ree, guttered out of oil before they reached Iserne’s house. The moon served, just high enough for its pale light to angle down between the close buildings.

  Chio glanced over her shoulder. “Your whites make you glow like a ghost.”

  “Ghosts are grayer, usually.”

  “Oh? Not the ones I see.”

  “Maybe the god gets them fresher?”

  Ree’s brow wrinkled at this exchange.

  As they made the last turn, Pen could see a single light still burning on the street, suspended from its chain over Iserne’s door. This was one lamp that wasn’t going to be allowed of run out of oil before dawn, he wagered.

  “Up we go,” he told Ree as they reached the steps, preparing to hoist, but Ree got more power out of his one working leg than Pen expected. His intent face lifted; Pen could feel his body shaking from more than just painful effort.

  Rapid footfalls sounded from inside even as Pen raised his hand to the lion-faced doorknocker. He stepped back hastily before his second tap lest they be bumped back down the steps as the door was flung wide.

  “Ohfivegodsbethankedyou’resafe!” Pen staggered a bit as Iserne fell on them, or rather on Ree. For a moment, she seemed to have four or six arms, not two, as she alternated between hugging her son, and inspecting him for injuries.

  Chio’s smile, as she watched this from the side, was secret, tender, and deeply pleased.

  “What’s wrong with your right arm?” Iserne demanded, taking up Ree’s limp hand. She drew back only a little when she finally thought to ask Pen, “Is he all right now?”

  Pen didn’t think even the wild demon could have impeded this welcome-home. “Yes, thanks to Blessed Chio and our god, he’s all himself again.”

  Iserne exhaled in vast relief.

  “I’m afraid the numbness in his arm and his leg is the doing of my sorcery, but we had to hold”—he probably shouldn’t use the nickname Madboy in front of Ree’s mother—“the demon down for the saint to do her work, and it was, of course, resisting us.”

  “But—what—but come in, come in, all of you.” She drew them into her hallway, casting a last look into the darkness. “Is Ser Merin not with you?”

  “Not anymore,” said Pen. “Long story, which we’ll get to in a bit.”

  “Oh. Good.” She shut the door firmly and shot the bolt. Turning back to them, she said to Ree, “Should you lie down? Should I send for a physician? I made you food.”

  “Learned Penric has some skills as a physician,” Chio put in. “I don’t think we need another tonight.”

  Yes, and how much did she know about that? Another private aspect of himself Pen knew he had not discussed. “Ree’s few days at the Gift of the Sea helped the worst of his exposure and exhaustion. He could hard
ly have been delivered into more expert hands for that. The numbness should pass off in a while.” Duration prudently unspecified.

  “Yes, but what exactly did you do to him?” Iserne’s scowl was more puzzled than angry, fortunately.

  “Let’s just say that learning sorcerous healing also teaches everything one could want to know about sorcerous hurting,” said Pen. “Two sides of one coin.” Which was why sorcerer-physicians were the rarest and most closely overseen of Temple servants. Pen was relieved when Iserne did not follow up with more questions, dismissing Pen and his late craft in favor of her more immediate concerns.

  “Food would be good,” said Ree. “And sitting. Then lie down. I’m so tired. But oh, Mother, I have so much to tell you. It was all such madness, and I’m still reeling.” In truth, as he hung on his rescuer’s shoulder, but only the physical part of that was Pen’s doing. “Is Father back yet?”

  “Not till next week, but I may hurry him with a note.”

  “Good. There are things he’ll need to know, and Uncle Nigus, too.”

  “I have a meal laid out in the dining room. Please join us, Learned, Blessed.” Her attempt to curtsey and beckon them on simultaneously resulted in a sort of hand-waving bob. Pen helped the halting Ree through the indicated archway off the entry hall—his left leg was getting more movement now, good. Chio set the spent lantern and their masks on a side table and followed.

  Iserne had not been jesting. Enough fare for ten people was scattered across the Richelon family’s dining table. The array was very miscellaneous, everything an invading army of one woman could possibly forage from a kitchen after midnight when she could not rest: ends of cold meat, cheeses, fruit and dried fruit, boiled eggs, cabbage salad, nuts, fresh-baked bread and cakes, custards, jam tarts, restoring herb tea, wines and water.

  “So much food,” muttered Pen. “How many people was she expecting?”

  “I believe it was a prayer,” Chio murmured from his other side.

  Aye, Des agreed.

  As Pen helped Ree into a chair, Iserne scurried to fetch a hand basin and towel, which, along with a sliver of fine white soap, she presented first to Chio, then Pen, then her son. Chio, who’d seated herself on Ree’s right, helped his half-working hands with the washup.

  Ree lifted his good hand toward the darkening bruise on her cheek. “Did I do that? I’m so sorry, Blessed Chio.”

  She didn’t flinch. Shrugging off his apology, she said, “I know it wasn’t really you. Anyway, it was Merin’s fault for shoving me at you like that. He should have been praying, not cursing.”

  Iserne seized the chair on Ree’s other side, leaving Pen to take the place across. “What’s this tale?”

  Ree’s and Chio’s tumbling joint account of the confrontation in the warehouse was understandably both garbled and horrifying, Ree’s part not least because, famished, he kept trying to talk with his mouth full. Clarity was not much improved by them working backward, leapfrog fashion, from each of their vantages through the chaotic events of the evening leading up to it. Pen judged Ree was severely editing his hectic experiences spent under his ascendant demon for his mother’s ears. He did awkwardly confess about the fellow he’d robbed for the clothing he still wore, drawing in Penric to give what he hoped were soothing reassurances.

  “Wait,” said Iserne, holding up her hands. “Go back to the beginning. You’re saying Merin threw you from your ship? It wasn’t an accident?”

  Her teeth set as Ree disgorged a longer tale of his accusation of Merin and how it had come about, with a lot of names and details of merchant accounts and accounting that Pen did not follow but Iserne evidently did. It was clear Ree was regaining his wits, if not his composure.

  “Embezzling. Well, I’m not surprised,” she said.

  “You’re not? I was blindsided,” said Ree.

  “Plainly, someone should have told you, but Merin was your Uncle Nigus’s man and problem, and so Ripol kept out of it. Nigus suspected sticky fingers back when Merin worked for him, but the losses all had other explanations—sly, I gathered—so he didn’t think he could prove it in a law court. He solved his problem by recommending Merin on to one of his more bitter rivals. Which I thought as nearly dubious as the original thefts, but I wasn’t consulted.”

  “I’d wondered why you didn’t like him flattering Lonniel. I’d thought it was because he was too poor.”

  She sniffed. “Ripol was that poor when we first married. And a difficult time we had of it, but he met our challenges by working harder. Not by wasting all his cleverness taking dishonest shortcuts.” She went on more intently, “But what happened after you were thrown into the water?”

  Ree looked away, the fatigue underlying his sunburned features growing more marked. “I was so angry, I didn’t even think to be frightened at first, till my cries went unheard and the ship sailed out of sight. I could guess which way was east by the moon, as long as it was above the horizon, and by the stars a little. And the sun when dawn came. I didn’t think I could make it, but I swam toward the coast as best I could. Slower and slower as I grew tired. Finally it was all I could do to stay afloat. I thought, well, I thought about a lot of things. Things I should have done, and shouldn’t have, and all the things I was never going to get to do.”

  Iserne’s hand pressed her lips, and she didn’t interrupt. Chio listened with grave interest, head bent toward him.

  “The dolphin was the strangest part,” Ree went on, “coming up under me in the dawn just when I couldn’t swim anymore. I’d never been so close to one before, let alone touched it. Its skin was all slick, cool and firm like wet leather. Except lumpy—I think now the bumps must have been tumors, because some were broken open and infected, and there was a memory of pain, later. Not easy to hang onto, but I swear it waited for me like a good horse. We must have moved slowly toward Adria all that long day. Then it died, and sank from under me, and I thought I had gone mad from fear at last. I can scarcely remember the fishermen, I was so confused by then. We should find them to thank them.”

  “Oh yes,” said Iserne fervently.

  “The people from the hospice may be able to identify them for you,” Pen suggested. “If someone takes back that concussed fellow’s clothes and purse, you could ask then. He’s owed thanks of a sort, too, I think.”

  “Does he know what he owes to you?” Chio asked Pen in curiosity.

  All right, it could have been his life, if the rats had been quicker and hungrier, or if Madboy had bashed him harder. Pen waved this away. “He owes me nothing. All in a Bastard’s Eve work.” Pen’s holiday, hah.

  Ree looked perturbed at this reminder, and altogether too grateful to his mother when she said, “I’ll take on that task tomorrow.”

  “You’re likely the person best suited to make sure there are no repercussions,” Pen agreed. “There’s going to be enough of a legal tangle with Merin.” Pen was glad his Temple duties ended with the demon and the saint, the machineries of justice being the prerogative of the city and a very different god than his own.

  A feminine voice, sleepy and miffed, sounded from the archway. “You’re having a feast? And you didn’t wake me up?” Then a gasp. “Ree!”

  Pen looked up, and Ree twisted around in his chair, to see Lonniel pick up the skirts of her nightdress and pelt the few steps to her brother’s side. Iserne had to lean away as she grabbed him in an excited hug and ran her anxious fingers through his hair in a sisterly echo of his mother’s earlier greeting. “How is your head?”

  “My head? Much better than it was, now I’m alone in it again.”

  “It’s not broken after all?” she said as her searching fingers found neither lumps nor clotted blood.

  “No, that was the other fellow, but Learned Penric says he’ll get better.”

  “What?” They blinked at each other in mirrored confusion.

  Penric explained to Ree, “We stopped here earlier, after we first encountered Iserne and Merin searching for you in the hospice. Merin
didn’t want to mention your near-drowning or the demon, which he’d just found out about himself—Bastard’s teeth, that must have come as a shock. Nor tell the truth, for obvious reasons. So he told your sisters that after your ship moored in Lodi you’d run off due to being hit on the head in an unloading accident.”

  “Son of a bitch,” growled Ree. “Whyever did he come here in the first place?”

  “To bring the news to your mother of your loss overboard sailing up to the last stop in Trigonie,” said Chio. “He claimed he was sent to do so, on account of you two being cabinmates and him knowing your family, but I’ll bet he volunteered, to make sure only the right things were said.”

  Ree’s jaw dropped at this outrageousness, echoed by Iserne’s affronted huff.

  Chio mused on, “You have to admire his nerve, in a way. To face his murder victim’s mother and tell all those smooth lies. I knew he was sweating about it, but I didn’t realize why.”

  “What?” shrieked Lonniel.

  Her mother, not willing to give up her place, sent her around the table to sit next to Penric as Ree began his tale once more. Wide-eyed, she worked her way through two fruit tarts and a pile of pistachios as he brought his synopsis up from his fall into the sea to the mortal fight in their father’s warehouse.

  He paused and cleared his throat. “If you were sweet on Merin, I’m sorry.”

  She made a wry face. “Not especially? He made sheep’s-eyes at me, but so do the other young fellows who work for Father and Uncle. I knew he was angry and resentful of anyone with more luck than himself, which to hear him tell it seemed to be most people. I never dreamed he’d take it so far.”

  “To be fair,” said Pen, seminary debate-habits lingering, “I don’t think he’d ever planned murder. His main aim seemed to be theft. But when Ree caught him out, things went from bad to worse, each rash impulse struggling to fix the one before it.” Pen contemplated this. “Ending with trying to stab a saint, which strikes me as epically stupid.” He frowned at Chio. “Though the god could not have protected you from a blade, you know.”