by Cate Glass
Abruptly, Placidio glanced up from his map. His sword appeared in his hand as if by conjuring.
The air crackled as in the moments before a lightning strike. I brushed at my face as stray hairs, escaped from my braid, tickled my cheeks and eyelashes.
Footsteps pounded in the distance. Impossible to tell whether they approached from outside the woolhouse or somewhere else …
Dumond leapt to his feet in front of Vashti.
And then Neri charged into the middle of the room, breathing hard … and grinning.
“Job done!” he said. “I’m parched!”
He pounced on the cask of Placidio’s dreadful restorative concoction of salt-and-ginger tea, always available for swordmaster and exhausted students. While he filled a cup, my heart and gut slowly untwisted, weapons were sheathed, and a smiling Vashti tied off another seam. Moments passed with only the sounds of pouring and drinking.
“Enough preening,” said Placidio with a dry edge. “We’ve sufficiently admired your unscathed backside. Now report.”
“Where’s our sketch?” Neri spun around to face us. His grin had vanished, but the glow of accomplishment had not. “I’ve learned a deal.…”
Pride colored his eager report. On the reverse of Placidio’s map of Perdition’s Brink was a tidier drawing of Villa Giusti, the walls, the tower, and the bridge to the Academie. Neri sketched in entrances and exits from the west wing—confirmed as Director Bastianni’s residential wing—and guard posts atop the walls, and he reported what he had observed of the watch schedules.
“There’s no guards to speak of in the house, just ushers scooting hither and yon to open doors and let in maids to tidy when the great folk leave a room. The sentries out on the walls—looked like two for each span—don’t seem too nosy. They only snap to when the captain comes round. By the city bell strikes, I’d say that’s something like twice an hour. You mustn’t assume any spot in the center courtyard is safe, but near the base of the wall it would take a sentry with a spyglass and a torch in hand to take note of you.”
“You arrived back where you started, so I’m assuming sniffers aren’t a problem,” said Placidio.
Neri’s greatest vulnerability when he was on one of his magical excursions was his need to keep his magic active in order to preserve his retreat. Cutting it off once he’d arrived meant he had to fix on a different object of his desire and call up his power a second time when he was ready to leave. A time when he could well be depleted or immobilized.
Did I imagine I saw him swallow hard?
“I kept on the move, never still for more than a blink, even while I was watching the walls. And not a single green slinker did I see in the house. Nor in the outer precincts when I went looking for somewhere could Dumond paint us out. But amidst the outbuildings…”
He hesitated and folded his arms across his chest, excitement and satisfaction faded. “A rectangular blockish building behind the kitchens is certain the barracks; praetorians were in and out every watch change. There are stables built up along the walls behind the barracks, as well as the armorers and such. But another building—one built in a dome shape atop four square walls—is set apart from all the rest across a cobble yard. It’s made of rough and rubble, not smooth-cut stone like the rest. I couldn’t see in, as the only openings are narrow holes high up the walls more than a man’s height. I couldn’t even get close, as there was a deep trough filled with oily water like a sleugh, and it wasn’t just across the entry but around the whole damnable place.”
“A sleugh!” I said. Sleughs were oil-and-water-filled troughs built across doorways, supposedly to prevent demons from entering. Most houses in Cantagna had one. Mine did. I’d never heard of a sleugh surrounding anything, but then the Confraternity encouraged people to think of sorcerers as demons.
Neri continued, “Two different nullifiers dragged their sniffers into that place. They laid a plank over the sleugh. Pulled it up when they came back out without the sniffers. There was a rotten smell about the place, and some noises—mewling, I’d call it, begging without words—that made my skin crawl.” His gaze darted from one to the other of us. “It wasn’t big, but maybe that’s where they keep ’em.”
“Sniffers didn’t detect you while you were scouting? Set up a howling? Your magic was still active.” Placidio’s question snapped like a dry stick.
“Didn’t hear any hunting noises.” He returned to the tea cask and spoke over his shoulder. “Didn’t see any hunting parties out, neither. Maybe they just believe sorcerers can’t get inside the walls. Because … why would we?”
“You didn’t answer the question,” I said. “Did a sniffer detect you? One in the yard, maybe?” Neri was skilled at dodging unpleasant details. “You were running.”
“Maybe there was one there at the end caught a whiff of me. Pointed my way as I crossed the courtyard. But I didn’t hear a howl. Honest. And he couldn’t have seen me vanish. That fountain pumps a lot of water.”
“But you didn’t think it worthwhile to mention?” said Placidio, smoldering. “If they’ve detected magic in the yard, it’s more risky for all of us.”
“Just wanted to get to the useful bits first,” said Neri. “Wouldn’t have let us go in without saying. But we’re going in, no matter, right?”
“Tell us everything,” I said. “Then we’ll tell you how I found the bookbinder murdered and why any hint of sorcery could put them on the alert.”
Neri lost color for a moment, then returned to his map, more sober. “They’ve a cesspool out near the northwest tower. It drains through pipes stuck through the walls and washes down the steeps. Nobody was out there, and the guards atop the walls hustle past that corner as the stink’s so foul. There’s other refuse littered about in the shadow of that tower, as well—bricks and wood, and broken stone like it might be the ruins of older buildings. And, Dumond, it’s dark as the Night Eternal out there. If you were to have a canvas propped over you to mask your light, I’m sure you could find a decent bit of wall to paint us a hole.”
“In the cesspool? Under a canvas?” Dumond was near choking. “By the Great Anvil, boy, couldn’t you find me a venue a bit less pleasant to spend an hour?”
“Not in the cesspool. More like beside it. Truth be told, it’s the only likely spot. And if we go in over the bridge, they’ll assume we’ll go out the same way. I figured it would be clever, you know, to work in such a place where fine folk would stay away.” Neri’s shoulders lifted as if to shift that particular burden to Dumond.
“Clever, indeed so.” Vashti pressed two fingers to her mouth, but they could not hide her smile. “Perhaps the spring in this new hiding place may not stay so sweet, Basha, after you’ve spent the night in a cesspool!”
Dumond was a tidy man. Though he worked in a foundry and made his home in an alley, his workshop, house, and children were always meticulously clean. Vashti forever teased that if Dumond were a better cook, he would make someone a fine housekeeper.
“Where will we find the husband-to-be?” asked Placidio. The rough edge to his words promised that Neri would hear more of his incomplete reporting when there was time to emphasize the lesson.
Neri pointed out details on the sketch. Scurrying servants and a buzz of conversation had led him to believe that Director Bastianni’s chambers lay about halfway down the upper floor of western wing and the four Bastianni sons’ accommodations were those farthest from the main house.
“Servants come and go by a stair at that farthest end past the sons’ bedchambers,” he said. “It goes all the way down to cellars and a decent way out of the house. If you can keep the fellow quiet, we can manage this easy.”
Easy was not my estimate of what he’d told us; we still had to get in through the bridge, past guards and at least one sniffer. And then there was Livia.
“Did you get any notion of where Livia’s sleeping?” I said.
“There was way too many servants busying around to stay long,” he said. “But some of ’
em were back and forth from the north end of that upper passage, closer to the main house. Lots of rooms there.”
“We’ve decided we must take her, too.”
“Cripes! Taking them both will stretch us. Keeping them both will be worse.”
No one contradicted him.
“Come,” said Vashti, rising from the straw with red and black garments draped over her arms and shoulders. “Time for last alterations if any be needful.”
Vashti had brushed our student gowns, and all we had to do was make sure they hid the black hooded capes of the Skull Knights underneath. Placidio and Dumond’s guises were a bit more difficult. Neither could pass for a student, so they had to wear philosophist red to enter the Academie so late in the night—and the style had to be well-finished to pass muster.
While the men grumbled, Vashti fussed, and Neri gorged himself on the contents of the supper basket Vashti had brought to the woolhouse, I wandered over to the leather bolster where Neri had reappeared. I ran my fingers over the bolster and the hard-packed dirt and straw floor on every side of it, curious if I could detect any sign of my brother’s passage.
Reaching for magic, I held out my spread hands as the sniffer had done the previous day on my way to Coopers Lane. Then I knelt and lowered my face to the ground, closing my eyes, blocking out the chatter from the others, and tilting my head from side to side as the sniffer in the bridge alcove had done. I sensed nothing.
Our mystical friend Teo had spoken of turning inward. He could slow his own heart and make his breathing scarce detectable, getting out of the way so his body could heal, as he put it. He was in that state when he’d first told me his name—our first connection—and again when I shared his dream of a magnificent city of art and learning, threatened by cracks that leaked molten rock. Was his method something others could learn? Maybe sniffers were taught to get out of the way so their inborn reservoir of power could enable them to follow traces of magic.
One breath … pause … another … pause. Slow. Even. Focus. Such a long, fraught day it had been. I sat on my heels and cupped my hands, letting them rest on my knees. Breathe. Focus. Drift …
The murals depicted sweeping vistas of hill and meadow. Young trees nestled in the soft folds of the land, colors and shape deepened by the steep angles of orange-red sunset. The grass rippled as if pleasured by the light. At the horizon, great Ocean itself peeped between hillocks. Even so distant I felt its thunderous power and smelled the faint hint of salt in the breeze. I checked my imaginings … this was paint on stone walls … immense walls that surrounded me.
“Do my artworks please, lovely one?” The woman’s voice, so close behind, brushed me like the breeze. Her fingers stroked and twined my hair, firm and sure as ever pleasured me best.
“They’re magnificent,” I said. “Living art. Is it magic?”
Laughter, the music of innocence, turned me around. She was not behind me but high on a scaffold, painting a deep forest—ancient, virginal trees kissed by moonlight. The light flowed from her brushes as she added more leaves.…
“Lady scribe, we’re ready to go. Sleep must wait.”
Dirt and straw ground into my cheek. I lay on the floor of our woolhouse training ground. Placidio crouched beside me, cinder-gray eyes picking at my thoughts, reflecting a bit of worry and a bit of puzzlement. “Are you all right?”
My hand flew to my hair, half loose from my braid, my scalp still tingling from … what?
“Ready? Yes, of course. Has it gone winter while you two dressed?”
Shivering, I pushed up from the ground, snatching up my hands gingerly. They felt as if they lay in a pile of feathers. The sensation faded as I got to my feet.
Neri stood by the door, poised like an owl ready to pounce on a distracted mouse. The lantern was dimmed. Vashti and Dumond held each others’ hands, bringing them first to her forehead, then his.
“My swordmaster taught me to nap at any opportunity,” I said. “I’m quite refreshed. Onward.”
Our plans could not wait; I could not afford to distract my partners. But these were not ordinary dreams. When we had a moment to breathe, I had to tell them.
9
SEVEN HOURS UNTIL THE GIUNTURA
JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT
Assurance was the touchstone of any deception. Our earlier Chimera ventures had proved the point. If you act as if you belong in the role you play, others have far less reason to doubt. Assurance—conviction—played an enormous part in the efficacy of my impersonation magic as well. In effect, I created my role in so deeply believable a fashion that I succumbed to the deception too. But tonight it was Placidio and Dumond who carried the weight of our plan.
As they swept up the steps of the Philosophic Academie in the quiet hours of the night in red robes and face-shadowing toques, stated their names and business, and motioned for the two praetorians to unlock the doors, the soldiers found no reason to doubt the rightness of the command. I, the female student who trailed behind, arms loaded with pages and scrolls, likely did not even register on the two guards’ senses.
“Stupid girl!” announced Placidio, after I had conveniently tripped and scattered my burden all over the floor tiles. I had also conveniently observed that no one else occupied the Academie rotunda at such an hour. “Step inside here, praetorians, and help this chit clean up her mess. We’ve urgent preparations to make for this morning’s rites and cannot wait for her to bumble about. Director Bastianni will have her head!”
Well-attuned to the directives of their superiors, the two praetorians did as ordered, though increasingly anxious as I let even more scraps fly.
“We need to get back to our posts, Excellency.”
“Hmmph, I suppose.” Placidio waved a dismissal and went on to lambaste me for my clumsiness. The guards retreated to their posts and locked the door behind us.
I quickly reclaimed my pages. My habit of collecting scraps of used parchment from every junk seller in the Beggars Ring—a scribe always had need for a place to test a new pen, new ink, or a questionable wording—had been fortunate for our ruse.
“One obstacle cleared,” said Placidio.
We sped up the split stair and into the corridor under the lion’s head. As we made the zigzag turn onto the footbridge and spotted the two praetorians on post in the shadowed gateway arch, Dumond berated me. “Come girl, speed your steps, or we’ll send you to wake Director Bastianni and explain how you miscopied the Order of the Rite. Tano was a fool to trust you.”
“Please, masters, I’ll do whatever’s necessary,” I said, loud enough for the guards to hear. “There’s hours yet, and it’s all a matter of the corrected anointing and adding the extra pledges. I’ve the proper documents to validate every change. No need to wake anyone.”
“A minor confusion of steps is not so minor when it could invalidate his son’s betrothal,” Placidio said. “By Reason’s Light, you’ll be fortunate to escape with mere expulsion.”
“Who goes there?” The sharp query came from one of the praetorians.
Placidio spun around and walked backward for a moment. “Two swords,” he whispered. “A third person—the sniffer?—on the ground but moving. I’ll take the leftmost.”
Then he waved his arm majestically to beckon us onward, reversed himself, and bellowed, “Advocate Uglino and Advocate Sensi with the damnedest fool of an anziana this Academie has ever produced. One who wakes her tutors in the midwatches to inform them that she has bungled the single most important duty she has even been assigned and that we must take her to the Villa Giusti to make things right before it is discovered and someone finds reason to chuck her over the wall.”
I shifted the pages to my left arm. My right hand unsheathed my dagger, masking it under the drooping sheaf.
“I thought I had seen everything.…” Placidio’s diatribe continued without cease, as did our steady march into the alcove. By the time we crossed into the dark little tunnel, I had identified the shadowed outline of the guard on the righ
t.
“Wait! Hold on there,” he said.
Three more steps and I threw the sheaf of scraps into his puzzled face. As he spluttered and fumbled, I blocked his sword with my dagger, backed him to the wall, and pressed my hastily drawn main gauche to his throat.
Two massive thuds on my left and a toppling body told me that Placidio had taken care of one guard. A moment later he relieved me of my own burden and laid him out beside his fellow.
“Bindo?” A knocking from inside the iron-banded door accompanied the query. “What’s doing?”
Growls and choking moans came from the squirming sniffer Dumond had pinned to the floor. A rag jammed into the silk-covered mouth kept the sniffer’s noise to a minimum while I administered Vashti’s mysenthe tincture to the guards—a few drops inside their cheeks.
Daughter of a mysenthe trader, Vashti knew exactly how to concoct a potion strong enough to keep the recipient in a silent stupor for several hours, while using little enough of the vile mysenthe that it would not drive the recipient into the devilish hunger.
While Placidio held the sniffer’s wrists and feet, Dumond yanked the rag aside and slit a hole in the stretched silk mouth covering.
“Swallow this,” he said quietly, holding the dropper where the captive could see it, “and you may have a few hours of peace.”
But the growling sniffer writhed and twisted, until we had to force the drops into him and hold his mouth shut until he calmed and fell limp. It seemed a cruelty upon cruelty.
“He chose,” whispered Dumond. “Don’t forget that.”
He pulled out his paints, wiped the door’s surface, and began his work.
“Bindo?” A louder rap on the door. “Status?”
Placidio coughed loudly and growled. “Post silence, praetorian. Snag time.”