A Conjuring of Assassins, page 13
Beggars Ring life swirled around us, as if we stood on a rocky islet in the Venia at flood. I’d wanted to approach the deepest questions more gradually, but the fear carved on his narrow face drew them out of me. Perhaps my jest was not so offhand.
I spoke low enough no passerby could possibly hear. “You healed overnight from a beating that would have prostrated another man for a month, assuming he survived it at all. Over that same night your ink markings changed color. Your heart was scarce beating, yet you told me your name. You freed yourself of my wire ropes that I believed would hold a sorcerer, yet you found me halfway round a city of a hundred thousand people. What are you, if not a demon—or one who bears the demon taint of magic?”
A long exhale smoothed the furrows on his forehead and a wan smile eased the fear I’d glimpsed in him and felt in myself.
“Please believe me, kyria. I am not one of these magic users who so terrify the world, nor am I of demonkind. I was able to free myself because I’ve lived my life with boats and ropes and knots, and you, gracious rescuer—judged by the appearance of your knots—have not. My melani—the body marks—change color with the body’s heat; it is a facet of the ink my people have used since some boat brought the ink to Lesh from—depending on the taleteller—the Isla Nagra that marks the southern boundary of Ocean or the sky-touching mountains of Lhampur, where I will never venture, as I’ve heard the people live in houses of ice that never melt.” His brow crinkled. “As for the rest—”
“Are ye turned to stone there, girlie?” A woman laden with baskets of straw and what smelled like ordure from the piglets’ pen jerked her head toward the side of the road. A mule cart with a broken axle blocked half the way, leaving no room for her or the child trailing behind her marshaling five geese with a large stick to pass.
“Fortune’s blessing, goodwife,” I said, urging Teo around the corner to a down-sloping portion of the Ring Road. Once clear of the blocked lane, I took up my questioning where we had left off.
“All right, knots and ink. What of your astonishing recovery?”
“That is…” His brow wrinkled, puzzled, as if only now realizing that what he had done was odd. “I can’t explain that, except that my family—my aya, my mother’s mother—taught me to turn inward and stay out of the way to let the body repair itself. You could likely do the same thing if she taught you. And you learned my name … perhaps because I was dying.”
His gaze met mine, thoughtful, wondering. “The wall between life and death is so fragile, thinner than a skim of ocean on a stone. Your voice … your words … found what was left of me. You reminded me of life. I know this all sounds strange, and I wish I could explain it better. I seem to be a bit … muzzy … today.”
He fell silent, shivering a little, and scrubbed at his tangle of dirty hair. No twitch or tic or movement, or lack of one, hinted at dishonesty.
After years of observing the people who surrounded, petitioned, or befriended il Padroné, I believed I knew all the forms of deception. I had enjoyed testing myself behind the painted screen where I sat to observe Sandro’s visitors. When he would come to me afterward, I would point out the liars: This one’s eyebrow twitched when he spoke of his brother’s illness, or that one’s hands never stilled until she claimed her steward cheated. His investigations most often proved me right, even when he had not caught it himself. He came to rely upon my judgment.
This Teo … Any reasonable person must doubt his saying. Either he was a terrifyingly good liar, or he truly could not explain his own mystery. Certain, he could be working some kind of beguilement, magic very like my own, to make him so convincing. Yet his horror when I had accused him of being a demon had been instinctive and truly wrenching. He hadn’t tried to deflect my questions, but to answer.
So many remained. His purposes in Cantagna. The fight that had left him in the river. He’d not yet told me how he’d managed to follow me to Dumond’s. It was tempting to refuse to take another step until he told me all. But my stomach’s reaction to the fine smells coming from several market stalls just ahead of us suggested I stay with a more oblique approach. There would be time for confrontation.
“Lady Fortune’s dam, you must be starving,” I said. “I’m not a generous rescuer at all. I throw insulting questions at you, when I left you with naught but salt-and-ginger tea.”
At some point I had to turn my mind back to the Assassins List. But for now … “We should eat.”
Teo spread his arms wide with a dramatically mournful expression. “Shamed am I to tell you that my belly is in such a state of collapse that I could be tempted to devour this deliciously warm blanket and suffer the chill. Yet it appears I’ve not even a boot left to trade for a meal.”
It was all I could do not to pat his head and tell him all was well—even as my best blanket slid from his back into the muck.
His face went scarlet, and he snatched up the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders again. “Forgive my foolishness.”
“Forgive me,” I said. “I’ve not even asked if you have friends or family here in Cantagna. I could likely help you find them.”
His grimace was an artist’s rendering of distressed embarrassment. “I know nothing of this Cantagna where we seem to be, and I know not a single body who lives here. My father sent me to a city named Cuarona.”
“South of here. Downriver.” I motioned him to continue as I guided him to Neri’s favorite noodle maker.
“I was to meet a woman, a former servant of my mother’s. She was to help me search for … something … I’ve been sent to find. The search…”
The long pause seemed a search for words that refused to come. He shook his head as if to clear it. Easy to recognize when his mind settled on something he was sure of.
“I carried gold and precious stones to pay my way, but foolishly did not keep them hidden. Not long after I boarded the river barge at a city—Sollebocca—three of the rowers waylaid me and stuffed me belowdecks. They said they would let me live if I led them to the coffers where the valuables in my purse had come from. They refused to believe that those coffers lay halfway across the Sea of Tears, and that half a year would pass before a boat would return for me. Day after wicked day they tried to convince me to tell them a better story. They moved me to another boat, and another, and I’m not sure if I am on the same river where I began. I tried to turn inward … to repair … to stay alive … but they never left off for long enough, one and then the other and then the other…”
He winced at the memory, eyes fixed on his grimy fingers, knotted in front of him as he told the tale. “In the end, they gave up and decided to be rid of me.”
“Your injuries were dreadful,” I said.
I sensed no untruth, and yet there were many things in the world I didn’t know, and far more that I had never experienced. In no event could I imagine such injuries healing overnight even heeding the advice of the divine Mother Gione herself. Placidio was the only person I knew who could manage such a feat … and only with fire and pain and magic. Was it possible a person could work magic without knowing it?
Teo’s distress was soothed by a cup of noodles in tomato-and-garlic broth. I’d thought no one could vanish Goodwife Nocilla’s noodles faster than Neri, but when Teo dipped his bowl in the wash barrel and handed it back to Nocilla, he’d not even lost the thread of his tale.
“I didn’t understand those boatmen,” he said. “I am no child to misestimate the wickedness of the wide world. But in the Isles of Lesh, those who sail and row are the guardians of the waters, indispensible aides to our livelihood, the bridge between our families and friends. They bind us together, know our names, and would never prey on travelers who stupidly expose the contents of their purses. I carried the means to sustain me for half a year, and now I’ve nothing and not a notion of what to do next. So many are depending on me…”
His words trailed away as we walked on toward Lizard’s Alley.
“Your family, you mean?” I prompted.
“Everyone in the Isles. Everyone.”
“Perhaps if we could get you to Cuarona, to your mother’s servant…”
“Those boatmen said no one would ever know what had happened to me.” His fingers tugged at the open neck of his shirt. “They stole the bit of coral I wore on a thread. It was supposed to lead me to the woman, and now I’ve no notion how to find her. I’ve a terrible certainty that I’ve forgotten something about the meeting with her, something I was to ask that would make my course clear.”
“Your ‘course’—your search, you mean.”
“Yes, that.” But he didn’t sound entirely certain. “You will ask, search for what … but I cannot—”
He broke off, his long fingers rubbing his brow so hard I thought he might bring back the faded bruises. Was his head damaged after all?
“It’s no matter for now.”
He sank into a restless quietude as we walked.
I was educated enough to know that not every society developed in lockstep with Cantagna. Mechanical clocks would seem like magic to some outside our borders—as they had seemed like magic to us until a century ago, when a Paolin trader brought one to Varela. Each of the nine great cities of the Costa Drago was different from the other, and I could well imagine an island state could be as different from Cantagna as Paolin. Yet, human behavior had its similarities. What family would send a son so ill-prepared into a land he didn’t know, to people he’d never met?
We rounded the corner into Lizard’s Alley. “You had no companions on your journey?”
He shook his head, a mortal sadness weighing the air around him. “I had to come. There are duties both here and at home that only I can— There are so few of us left.”
“So few, you say. Did the plague reach the Isles?”
“No. Not disease. Just time. We do not increase as we need.”
The sun was sliding westward. While I unlatched my door and set out a flask of wine and two cups on the table, Teo stepped into the alley to shake out my blanket.
He’d left the house tidy. The ropes I’d used to bind him with were coiled neatly and set beside the tea flask. No breaks, no ragged ends, no burn marks testified against his tale of knots. The rags I’d used to dry him and blot his seeping blood were folded and stacked with the remnants of his garments.
“I’ll wash this,” he said, rolling up the blanket, leaving the great damp muck stain on the outside. “And the bloody towels and garments as well. Though as with everything, I must beg you tell me where and how to accomplish it. We’re a long way from the sea, I think.”
He was not asking if it was far. His wistful declaration said he knew. His tale of his islands’ boatmen had spoken clearly of his home and how he missed it. How different it must be to live with the sea on every side of you, pervading everything you saw, everything you felt, smelled, tasted.
“Aye. It’s four long days’ walking to the shores at Tramonti,” I said, nudging the cup of wine toward him. “We’ll take care of the washing later.
“I think you dreamed of the sea in those first hours in my house.” Drifting … healing … a watchful peace … green fronds teasing the skin. Home. Certainly not my home, not since my parents had brought us to Cantagna where my demon magic could be better hidden than in their village by the sea.
Teo took a swallow and then set the cup down, his mouth working oddly, as if he’d bitten into a bitter nettle. “Have you some of the drink you gave me before? It is more what I’m accustomed to.”
“The salt-and-ginger tea instead of wine?” I blurted. “Honestly?”
No one in the world could actually enjoy Placidio’s restorative potion. Certain, no citizen of the Costa Drago or its island neighbors would prefer it to our land’s lifeblood.
“You must be a lunatic as well as just generally odd.”
Teo grimaced charmingly. “I hate to burden you.”
“It’s no burden. Empty your cup into mine and refill it from the cask just there. We’ve no shortage.”
I pointed to the cask sitting beside our larder chest. Neri, a devoted disciple in all things Placidio, had taught himself to make the wretched brew.
“My brother finds it useful when he’s worked hard in the heat.” I did too, though I didn’t care to admit it.
“Your brother,” he said as he filled his cup. He downed the salty draught in one long gulp. “I wasn’t sure … the clothes … not a husband?”
“No husband. Though my brother is eight years the younger, he believes it his job to protect me.”
“Then he is likely not too happy about me.”
I chose not to inform him that I could take care of myself. “I hope he has no reason to be worried.”
“Indeed not,” he said, earnest as ever. “I wish I could prove my sincere gratitude.”
“It will be enough to see you safely on your way. You’ll need work to earn your passage home, I’m thinking. Or at least as far as Cuarona or Sollebocca. Our city employs laborers to dig, haul, or lay pipe or brick for our new coliseum.”
“Aye, that makes good sense. Earn my passage. And my livelihood.” A sheen of rose brushed his fair complexion. “I need clothes I’ve not stolen from your brother’s things, and food that you or some other kind soul has not paid for. I can do without a roof, and I don’t wish to take a bed that belongs to someone else. Yes, I’d very much like to go home, though I need to—” His brow creased with effort.
“Find something, you said.”
His hand acknowledged the point, though his attention had wandered elsewhere. “It’s so strange,” he said after a moment. “You asked how I followed you to the cooper’s yard this afternoon. I sit here trying to answer and what my mind tells me is that I was not following you at all.”
His features that had already taken on as many aspects as the sky in spring shifted yet again, as if his wandering thoughts had led him to a new and devastating understanding. “I’ve come to the wrong place.”
“You said that already.” I was wholly confused.
“Not just different than Cuarona, but this thing I’ve come here to—” Again he shook his head as if to clear it. “When I reached the shore where you found me, I felt as if I’d reached my destination, no matter the boatmen’s interference. But certain, as I came back to myself this morning, I knew it was not here either”—he looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time—“and I had to look farther. So I went seeking, but it was not in that place where you found me, even though I had felt such certainty take me there.”
His gaze met mine. And again I saw the traces of fear dim his brightness. “None of this makes sense, does it? To me it doesn’t.”
“None at all.” But it brought me to think of Placidio’s marvelous healing magic that could not repair bones. “You suffered a terrible beating. Perhaps your grandmother’s remedy can heal bruises quickly, but takes longer to ease the other damage…”
“You think my head is not yet working properly,” he said in resignation. “I’ll not argue that. The truth is so close, but I cannot reach it.”
One more thing. I could delay no longer. “What are these melani? I’ve seen nothing like them save in artworks from other times.”
“Memories,” he said. “We add them throughout the years to remind ourselves—and others—of joys and sorrows, of stories, of people and beliefs and lessons learned.”
His pleasure shone through his skin. You’d think that skin transparent, the way his every emotion was so apparent. Perhaps that was what made it so difficult to disbelieve him.
“Some, like the marks on my feet, are foolishness. I do love swimming fast or running or rowing fast. Dancing, too. Some marks are more meaningful.”
He pushed up his sleeve and showed me a simple outline inked over his left wrist.
“A comb,” I said, squinting in the flickering torchlight.
“That is for my aya, because she was ever the strongest, wisest, noblest member of my family. On the day she died, I had the inkmaster put that here, where my lifeblood pulses, so that she would be with me every moment. She holds us together.”
“As a comb holds strands of hair together.”
“Yes.”
He fell into a deep silence after that. A distance came between us, as if he’d forgotten I was there. Perhaps he was lost in mourning or in prayers to his gods.
“What of the mark over your heart?” I said after a little, when he took another sip of the tea. “The triangle made of three curves—inward, outward, sinuous. I’ve seen it somewhere before, but never heard a good explanation.”
He laid his palm over his heart and smiled through the glisten of tears. “That is the mark of my family.”
I didn’t push to discover a history behind the symbol or mention I’d seen it on luck charms found in a sea cave. I didn’t trust him enough as yet to hint that this one particular symbol carried meaning for me or that magic had anything to do with it.
Implausible as it all seemed, his responses felt genuine. The longing when he spoke of his home and family. The frustration and worry when he spoke of his duty and failure.
Chiming bells announced another hour gone.
“I need to sleep,” I said. “I’ve important business tomorrow morning and will likely be away for most of the day. But I’ll see you in the evening.”
I emptied my waist pocket on the table. One silver solet and a dozen coppers. I pushed them toward Teo. “These are for you.”
His eyes and mouth opened in astonishment.
“I’m not usually such an easy mark, but I seem to believe everything you say no matter how odd. Consider the money a loan until you can get work. You can continue to sleep on my bed. I’ll take my brother’s while he stays with friends. Tomorrow while I’m gone, you can eat whatever we have on the shelf or in that chest, and use my paper and ink to write letters if you need. Tell your correspondents to send replies to Box 1, L’Scrittóre on Beggars Ring Road, Cantagna. Go round the corner to the Duck’s Bone tavern, and Fesci the taverner will tell you how to find a post messenger to carry your letter to a barge or to Cuarona if you can recall more of your mother’s servant. Fesci’s food and ale are cheap, if not the best. She can also tell you where to buy decent clothes. Tell her you’re Romy’s and Neri’s cousin from Varela; we wouldn’t want word of a survivor from the Isles of Lesh to get about, just in case your attackers should hear of it. Beyond those tasks, let your head heal. I’ll be wanting more answers when I get home.”
