by Cate Glass
“You’ll be here? With my name and a friendly hand?”
Placidio nodded soberly, and then broke into the brilliant, dashing, world-embracing grin that could illuminate a winter midnight. He would have to bring me back to myself.
I shed the hooded cape and my boots, and unpinned and unbraided my hair. Closing my eyes, I reached deep for magic and let its heat flood my veins. Then I stepped into the corridor and into that other life, so particular and remote. I am beauty itself … my every movement is grace … enticement … promise. My skin is silken and radiant; my eyes gleam and suggest pleasure without boundaries. My tutors crushed the child I was into dust and splinters and rebuilt her into the embodiment of sensuality and strength, obedience and resilience, for what delight is to be found in mastering a weakling? I am able to leave myself entirely open to the one who has chosen me. His desires are my guide and my law, my fulfillment and my truth. Tonight he wishes me to draw a third into our games.
“Use your finest allurements, my beauteous Cataline,” he’d said, “and we shall break this dull soldier’s discipline for our amusement.…”
I crept through the hall and around the corner. He was there, the stalwart my master wished to see naked on his knees, begging for our indulgence. We’d played our spy game all night. My master found it thrilling to sneak around a stranger’s house and take our pleasures where we would and of the sort he most enjoyed. Now something even bolder, he’d told me.
“Ssst, praetorian!” My beckoning was just low enough, he had to break posture to hear.
“What’s that? Damizella?” He had turned round and squinted at me, but did not approach.
I glanced both ways along the hall, then darted toward him on bare feet, my hair teased into a cloud, my disheveled tunic unlaced.
Folded hands on my breasts, I gazed up at him. Tears welled at my command. “Oh please come, good sir. I need help desperately.”
“I mustn’t…” He tried to look away. His gaze flicked back once. Then a second time. “Who are you? By the Night Eternal, you are so—”
“Good segno, I beg you. I’ve been so wicked.” Another flick of his eyes—away and then back to me.
“Wicked? Surely not. I shouldn’t even listen— All right, what is it?” Hooked.
Rejecting the urge to smile, I dipped my head in submission. “I must show you. You’ll be well rewarded. It’s the director asking.”
The man nearly choked. My master had said that title would draw the fellow sure. The director owned this fine house.
I tiptoed lightly back toward the bedchamber, glancing back only once. Though the soldier’s sword remained at his side, his lance stood propped against the wall. Eager curiosity shaped his goodly face.
I beckoned him through the doorway. “I’ve fetched the handsome fellow as you said, Master.”
My master drew him into the shadows in a chokehold and quickly had him bound, blindfolded, and on his knees.
I had closed the door and knelt gracefully. “Shall I remove his garments, Master?”
He cleared his throat. “I think that’s a fine idea. Capo would certainly approve such a play.”
Alarmed, the soldier shook his head, twisting and protesting with squeaks and grunts. He was not so clean as I might like, but he showed fire, which would please my master and make the taking all the sweeter.
When done, I waited for Master to take the lead. It was not my place to initiate. Hands behind his back, he circled the soldier. Then, as the fellow whined and shuddered, Master took my hand and drew me into a shadowed corner. He bent to whisper in my ear. “Well done, Romy.”
As Cataline’s persona vanished, Placidio stepped briskly aside. The blindfolded soldier twisted this way and that as if to discover where we’d gone.
“Did you enjoy that?” I murmured as the world readjusted itself. I pulled on my boots, laced my tunic, and twisted my hair into a knot.
“Part of the job,” whispered Placidio cheerily. “I’ve found a hidey-hole where he can stew. I figure he’s less likely to break free and run for help this way. And we need to be on our way.”
He strode back to our captive, lifted him bodily, and stuffed the struggling man into an empty clothes chest.
Indeed, our window of time was rapidly closing.
“We shall have to play another day,” I said, and kissed the top of the guard’s head. As Placidio pushed it down and closed the lid of the lovely enameled chest, I replaced my cape, hood, and mask.
In three breaths, we were opening one of the painted double doors and slipping into an enormous, high-ceilinged bedchamber. Nicely quiet. Lacking maidservants or nannies. A night lamp on a low table laid a dim path across the Paolin carpet. Velvet bed-curtains were tied back, but the mounded bedclothes were still.
Avoiding the lampglow, we crept swiftly to the bedside only to come up short. Where was the bride?
“Who in this household of cretins and sycophants are you two?” The sharp question originated from a window seat half obscured by draperies. If she’d not spoken, we’d never have known she was there. She was sitting sideways, her knees drawn up close.
“We could ask the same,” said Placidio. I remained quiet at his side in the shadows. “We’ve been told the person in this room has value to this household. Is that so?”
“I’d not have phrased it so bluntly, but yes. I do.” She was not at all afraid. Curious, certainly, but steady.
I’d first thought to frighten the girl with Marsilia’s murder and persuade her to come with us, but with the stakes grown larger, Placidio had insisted we maintain our roles as a Cavalieri snatch-crew. There was no time just now for persuasion, and once we revealed that we were not the Cavalieri, there was no going back. Time enough for truth once we reached Perdition’s Brink.
“Why does my value interest a man and his … companion”—she ducked and tilted her head as if to see more clearly—“in the middle of the night in a fortress of philosophists? Is this a seduction? If so, I must inform you that I take no physical interest in men, especially skulkers, cowards, or bombastic bullies. Women, when one can find one with a mind more developed than an olive pit, are much more amiable in all ways.”
I swallowed a veritable knot of words.
Placidio hesitated a moment, as if he, too, were digesting surprises, but he took up smoothly. “My intentions are pure in those intimate regards, damizella. What I would appreciate is permission to approach you with a proposition of a more businesslike nature.”
“Though I am intrigued at your mannerly approach, this is the Hour of the Spirits on the night before my betrothal. Your proposition cannot be entirely honorable.”
“Ah, clever damizella, there is truth in what you say.”
If we weren’t so pressed for time, and Neri wasn’t out there bleeding in a cesspit with the trace of magic on him and sniffers nearby, I could have pulled up a chair and watched this joust continue into morning. Instead, I poked Placidio in the ribs.
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether or not you give me permission,” said Placidio, regretfully. “You are required to accompany my friend and me on a brief journey. The purpose will be explained in due time. Could I provide you a gown—or a cloak—to make you more comfortable traveling in the night?”
“So I’m guessing that the praetorian has been removed from my door. Or bribed to look away. Come as you will.” She did not sit up, stand up, or shrink away.
I recognized the sound of Placidio’s dagger slipping from its leather home. That surprised me. But then this woman had traveled in wild lands for years, and our appearance evoked no fear in her. I drew my own dagger.
“Masks!” she said as we moved into the lampglow. “How dashing! And your companion … a youth? Or a woman? I am intri—”
Placidio jerked and let fly his dagger. It struck the window glass right beside Livia’s head, some ten paces from our position.
With reflexes well matched to my swordmaster’s, Livia rolled from the window seat
to the floor and into a crouch. But Placidio was already airborne and landed square on top of her, one huge paw gripping her fist that held a short, curved blade.
“Assistance, partner mine,” he said, his voice just strained enough to tell me that Livia di Nardo was strong, determined, and very likely had a second weapon threatening his anatomy somewhere I couldn’t see.
I snatched the wicked little dagger, freeing Placidio to wrestle a stiletto from her alter hand. More leather bindings hung at my waist.
She craned her neck to look at us. “Death’s-heads? Truly? I’ve seen naked cannibals lunching on human flesh. Thugs do not frighten me.”
“Your fear is yours to manage, damizella,” said Placidio, snugging her ankles, “but your future is up for bidding. We’ll see who values you, and who can produce the funds to buy you back.”
“You’ll never get out of—”
I crammed the gag in her mouth before she could finish her retort and decide to let fly a scream. Placidio grasped the wriggling girl and laid her on the bed. She was modest enough in a plain chemise and a bedgown of thin wool.
Scrabbling through the bed coverings, I found a blanket thin enough to roll her in while yet allowing her to breathe. But first, I pulled out the tincture bottle, stuck my finger in the side of her mouth to pull the gag away, and dribbled three droplets at the back of her cheek.
She bit me. Drew blood. But I held her still and breathless long enough she could not refrain from swallowing. It took the two of us to roll her, but by the time Placidio threw her over his shoulder, she had gone limp.
“Mercy!” he said. “Are you sure we’re supposed to save this one? I think the fainting groom is the one needs rescuing.”
“Beware of women with minds more developed than an olive pit.”
He snorted in good humor. “I’ve already learned that lesson. I hope you can carry one of these two. Honestly, I think the groom is lighter.”
The city bells were ringing again, and in the midst of the clangor rose another noise that erased all good humor and set my hair on end. Howling.
“Fortune’s dam,” I whispered, “let that not be for Neri and Dumond.” Placidio’s gaze met mine through the eyeholes of our masks. For, of course, both of us had used magic, too. My impersonation. His anticipation of danger that had granted him the moment to distract the lady before she could gut him.
“We go separate to Dumond,” he snapped. “Me behind the kitchen buildings; you along the defense wall. And if one—”
“If one of us gets there and the other is not yet, get out and away.”
“Aye, well, give or take a few breaths.”
* * *
Assurance. Placidio would not have let me carry Livia—indeed he’d admitted Livia was the lighter—if he wasn’t certain I could do it. He would have found another way. Carried them both himself. Made a second trip to the villa for one or the other. Something. He was the one who had transformed me from an agile former courtesan, who had developed an unfortunate habit of drinking too much wine to assuage her melancholy, into a confidential agent who could run up the Boar’s Teeth scarp three times in a day and still use strength and good technique to upend a full-grown man. So if he believed I could carry a woman’s dead weight around the peripheries of the Villa Giusti, I could.
Only I thought I might die on the endless route, rough with weeds, stones, and broken masonry, and much too near the guards atop the wall who might spy movements in the murk. The pounding of my heart and the rasp of my breathing must surely be audible to every resident of the infernal fortress.
I leaned against a rectangular wall buttress and pressed the rolled bundle that was Livia di Nardo to the dressed stones to rest my aching shoulders. The northwest tower, lit only by one small watchfire in its guardroom, loomed in the distance ahead of me. In the dark corner beyond it lay the cesspool.
Much too soon for my agonized back, I pulled away and slogged northward again. It was easy to be confident and magnanimous, telling Placidio that he and the others should leave me behind if I didn’t get to them soon enough, but I dearly hoped they wouldn’t. Certain, if I glimpsed Dumond’s blue fire opening the portal, I would throw the troublesome Livia in the midden and charge through the magical gap.
Immediately in front of me a black jumble of small outbuildings that smelled of hay and leather hugged the wall. Not the main stable, but tack sheds and hay stores, likely deserted so late. I chose to go around them, lest a stable hand be sleeping inside. But the moment’s pause quieted the pounding of blood in my ears just enough I could hear a soft, burring moan and quiet clink behind me. A sniffer. Very close.
I staggered into a half-collapsed hay store that stank of horse dung and mold. Sinking to my knees, I unloaded Livia, then burrowed both of us into the fouled, matted heap.
The stinking, stifling dark enfolded me. I held still, fighting to calm my harsh breath and roiling gut. My ears played tricks. Were those whispers or a night breeze … scurrying feet … or soft breathing? Was that hay tickling my cheeks or a rat’s whiskers … or a finger caressing the line of my jaw … my lips … lovely one …
Shivering, tired beyond bearing, aching, frightened, it took an age to decide when to move on. But I dug out the sleeping Livia, hoisted her onto my shoulders yet again, and took up my journey. The yips and howls were far behind now—back toward the main gate and the tower we’d breached to get inside. Please the universe they were not on Placidio’s tail. The guard captain’s reference to Neri living out his life at the end of a chain had iced my blood.
Another step. And another.
Never had I thought the scent of excrement could be enticing, but on this wretched journey, the first wafting tendrils raised my spirits.
“Ssst. Sister witch.”
I warned my feet to take another step. Surely it was my fear of being late that roused imaginings of Neri’s whisper.
“Almost there. Can’t share the load, but I’ll guide you in.” An icy hand touched my arm, then gripped hard as I stumbled—startled out of my exhausted fog of night and fear.
Great Ocean, his face shone like a moon in the dark. Not a splotch of color in it.
“You should be in bed,” I croaked softly, touching his cheek just to be sure he was real.
“You’re the one feels fevered,” he said. “Gods’ balls, your skin’s like burning paper.”
His hold was reassuring, but his feet dragged worse than mine.
“You’ve no blood left in you, and you’ve no business out here.…”
“Got to get you out first. Swordmaster told me you were coming this route.”
My mind took hold of the situation. “So he’s there but not gone? Not taken you through? I’ll kill him!”
The moon face crinkled as if I were a lunatic. “Went through almost an hour since. Took his bundle of groom off to fetch the cart and horses. He’s bringing them up for us. We convinced him that was better than going back into the villa for you. We knew you’d make it through.”
Impossible. And the sniffers … My mind refused to grasp this. “Dumond wouldn’t dare leave the portal open so long. Live magic…”
“Dumond’s painted a second exit for us. Once he shut the first behind Placidio, he ran around the whole cursed villa painting little bird-sized holes, opening them, then shutting them to cut off the magic. Chalked the sigil of the Skull Knights at each spot. Said he did about twenty. Now he’s just waiting for you. It’s been near two hours that the swordmaster left you at the cellar door.”
“That can’t be right. I had to hole up in a hay store, but not for so long.…”
“We figured you might have had to go to ground. But we didn’t hear any hullaballoo saying you’d been caught, and he figured you’d show up when it was safe enough.”
Two hours. Even with the seeming eternity of drudgery, two hours could not possibly have passed. I wasn’t a snail. Placidio had given me the shorter route, and yes, Livia was a weight across my shoulders, but I’d carried
heavy loads through the streets of Cantagna.
Neri and I kept silent and breathed shallow as we passed beneath the northwest tower and into the full aura of the cesspool. Moments later, blessed Dumond’s strong arms relieved me of Livia and laid her beside a painted piece of wall the size of a trapdoor. A surge of blue fire and he crawled through his portal, dragging Livia after him. Between us, we helped Neri scoot through on his backside. Then me. A cacophony of sniffer howls surged in our direction. Blue fire blazing, Dumond slammed his door. I imagined green bodies slamming against the bare masonry in search of sorcerers who weren’t there.
Dumond carried Livia, and Neri and I supported each other as we climbed a short, rough berm and dodged through an abandoned fullers’ manufactury, refuse heaps, and other remnants of the past to a pitch-dark lane. A shaded lantern hung above a waiting cart.
“Atladu’s holy, blessed balls, lady scribe,” said Placidio, helping Dumond shift Livia into the cart. “Where in this confounded universe have you been?”
“Walking…”
It took my last spoonful of strength to climb into the cart beside the bundled captives and a collapsed Neri. Dumond took the reins of the two cart horses, while Placidio mounted the third beast. I brushed away straw that prickled my back, neck, and arms.
“… a hay store … I stopped to hide … Maybe I fell asleep.”
“How could you fall asleep?”
The cart lurched forward, leaving Placidio’s startled question unanswered.
But it roused a fleeting memory that glanced across my mind’s horizon—of smoking ruins, collapsed houses, decaying corpses … and a man’s deep, melodious voice …
Come, my lovely one, he’d said, his warm fingers stroking my cheek. That voice … it had shivered my bones, enfolded me in his pleasure, his admiration, his understanding. Walk with me awhile. Leave off your burdens.…