A Conjuring of Assassins, page 16
I glanced up, but saw nothing but shrugs, even from Placidio.
“All that’s left is a list of his earlier postings. Before he was sent here, he held ambassadorial rank in Cuarona, but he resigned his post after little more than a year. He called Cuarona a corrupt and undisciplined society run by rabble.”
“Now that’s odd,” said Dumond. “If any independency suffers from rule by the rabble, it’s Mercediare.”
The longing for a return to the days of the Rossignoli kings yet lingered in older Mercediaran Houses. Cantagna was not so different in that regard. Il Padroné believed that elevation of mind and just application of law would create prosperity and peace for all citizens of Cantagna, thus bringing glory to the city and House Gallanos. Yet more than half of our governing council, the Sestorale, believed this enlightened vision impinged upon the rightful privileges of their own long-established Houses. That kept our city a gnarled mess of plots and intrigues.
“I know someone who might be able to shed light on Egerik’s time in Cuarona,” I said. I’d met Cuarona’s local wool-guild commissioner on several occasions. She was an intelligent, interesting woman.
I ran my finger down the page. “Here’s one earlier posting of interest. Eight years ago, he served as a trade liaison in Argento, but the Argentians sent him home before a year was out. And this: There were certain whispers at the time of a salacious scandal involving several wealthy Mercediaran exiles, all of whom died within months of Egerik’s departure.”
I could well imagine what kind of scandal. Knowing we would be sold to members of the privileged classes, our Moon House tutors had taught us how to accept the depraved with grace.
“Old scandals, strict secrecy in his household, a dead wife. Neri could be right about the blackmail,” said Dumond.
“And a man who seizes opportunity without scruple could very well have mutable loyalty,” said Placidio, halfway to sitting. Vashti stuffed two cushions behind him, unable to hide a smile.
“And he’s superstitious enough it gets noticed by the Shadow Lord’s spies,” I said. “I’d say Egerik is a more interesting person than one would imagine. So I’m thinking…”
Neri looked up from another bowl of soup he’d fetched from the kitchen, the glint of the hunt in his black eyes. “We need to get into his house.”
Instinct told me there was substance here with Egerik, who spoke loyalty, but had demonstrated a certain suppleness of conscience. And secrets. And oddities that might be exploited to learn more.
“Whatever game Cinque has planned is going to occur three days from now,” I said. “We must get some idea what Egerik plans to do when the prisoner is turned over. We know that Rossi isn’t afraid of that event. Maybe his certainty has nothing to do with the Assassins List, maybe it does. But the only way for us to know for certain is what Neri said—get into Egerik’s house. Spy it out—and its owner as well.”
“Egerik isn’t going to sit for an interview,” said Dumond.
“No.” The more I thought of it the clearer it became. “We have to insert ourselves into their gaming, whether they are partners or opponents. So how do we do that? I could apply to be a servant. But that could take longer than we have.”
“And you’d be alone,” said Placidio. “Better it’s two of us inside. Another day or two … I’m good for that.”
“Mystical practices,” said Vashti, brow narrowed in thought. “Whether this ambassador conspires with the prisoner to betray his tyrant Protector or is subject to extortion, this is a fraught time. A man who relies on auguries will seek assurances.”
“It might seem a bit coincidental for a fortuneteller to show up at his door,” I said.
“Romy,” said Neri, tapping his spoon on the empty soup bowl. “That girl at the market, the cloth merchant’s daughter you imitated for your practicing, didn’t you say she carried a needle bag?”
“Ascoltaré needles, yes,” I said. “And every other word she spoke invoked her divine mistress. She believes she is Lady Fortune’s chosen voice.”
Espe, Lady Fortune, and her sister Aea, Lady Virtue—the twin daughters of Gione and Atladu—were the only divinities left to supervise the human world. Unfortunately, the Twins could not intervene directly in worldly affairs. Believers said Lady Virtue would whisper wisdom in the ears of the righteous. Her sister, Lady Fortune, gave us guidance through augury and divination, whether palmistry, cards, crystals, omens, portents … or the Needles of the Nine Mysteries.
“Baldassar and Monette shall come to life again,” said Placidio. “The ambassador dresses well, you said. Expensive tastes. Very particular. So a cloth merchant tantalizes him with … what? Lhampuri brocades? Paolin silks?”
“Cloth-of-gold,” said Dumond. “Any man on the rise in public office would jump for cloth of gold at a good price. Happens I’ve got a sample. False, not real, though there’s still enough gold filament in it to show. A weaver wanted me to draw brass wire for her to substitute for the gold threads in her cloth. Showed me how the fakery was done. Before I could tell her I didn’t want to get crossways with the Weavers Guild, she got herself caught—by the Weavers Guild.”
“Monette could distract the ambassador from his business,” I said, “first with herself … and then with her soothsaying. If she could intrigue him, we might learn a lot. And her papa could observe the goings on—mayhap the preparations for a prisoner exchange. If naught else, we could find something for Neri to fix on so he could sneak in and hunt for Rossi once he’s in the house.”
“Certain, I could do that.” Neri looked ready to go right then.
“You can forge me a set of the needles, Dumond?”
“Aye. I can cast them so you can detect which is which, and weighted, so you can make them fall as you will.”
“And I can show you how to manipulate them,” said Vashti. “My auntie taught me finger tricks for merchant faires. Good for catching a few coins a day. But I do not know the arts of soothsaying.”
“Maybe I’ll have the real Monette cast her needles for me,” I said.
In the space of an hour we had a plan. Dumond and I had drawn diagrams of nine slim, wrist-to-fingertip lengths of bronze, embossed with the traditional symbols of the Nine Mysteries of Lady Fortune: Mysticism, Presence, Power, Substance, Relationship, Reason, Judgment, Jeopardy, and Order. Practitioners of the Nine Mysteries cast the needles onto a flat surface, then used the needles’ positioning, their relationships with respect to each other, and the symbolic meanings of each needle to interpret Lady Fortune’s message.
While Dumond retreated to his workshop to prepare models and molds, Neri hurried off to make his apologies to Fesci yet again and work his shift at the Duck’s Bone. He promised to return later so he and Dumond could become familiar with the maps. A finger pointed at the now perhaps-really-sleeping Placidio spoke my brother’s true intent. Vashti winked and nodded.
I worked with Vashti a while, deciding what Damizella Monette and her father should wear if the ambassador agreed to see them. She would need time to find what pieces she could in rag shops and markets and to sew the rest. Then I took Mantegna’s letter and set out for home.
Once there I would dispatch an application for Baldassar di Fabroni, Cloth Merchant, and his daughter Monette to present their exceptional wares to the noble Egerik di Sinterolla, Ambassador of Mercediare, along with some forged letters of recommendation. I’d consider how best to approach my acquaintance from Cuarona to learn if she knew anything about Egerik’s brief sojourn in her city. Then I would give thought to what kind of divination might entice a Mercediaran bureaucrat to reveal his secrets to a devotee of Lady Fortune.
Our mission was to locate the Assassins List and destroy it. But first we had to insert the Chimera between the two men Fortune would bring together three days from this.
13
TWO DAYS UNTIL THE PRISONER TRANSFER
BEFORE DAWN
The moonless night was pitch black on my hurried walk around the city, and the Month of Fogs again held true to its name. Wisps and tails of mist drifted through the quiet streets alongside me, so I felt like a phantasm spying on the dreams of ordinary folk.
The hour didn’t seem a fortuitous beginning. My eyes burned from the smoke of outlaw fires sparked by desperate souls in alleys and lanes where they cooked scraps gleaned from offal pits. My boots were already a muck-sodden mess from the impossible-to-avoid sewage of the Ring Road. And it was much too early to barge into a family house, where a man who ought to be dead recovered from a grievous wound.
But I couldn’t wait any longer. I marched across the cooper’s yard in a fizz of agitation.
A yawning Vashti opened the door to my knock. “Blessed morn, Romy-zha. Never thought to see you so early.”
“Blessed morn, Vashti. How is Placidio?”
“A better night,” she said. “But who knows?”
I followed her inside. Neri and Dumond sat at the low table eating buns filled with cheese. Neri was the only one who looked at all awake. Placidio didn’t look as if he’d moved since the previous afternoon.
“I’ve brought news,” I said, slapping the gilt-trimmed fold of parchment onto the table. It bore the dolphin-and-hammer crest of Mercediare.
Dumond picked it up and read aloud.
Segno Fabroni,
The Honorable Ambassador Egerik di Sinterolla, Anointed Agent of Her Eminence Cerelia Balbina Andreana di Vizio, Protector of Mercediare and the Two Hundred Islands, Savior of the Southern Coast, Commandante of the Bannered Legion, will be pleased to receive a call from Merchant Baldassar di Fabroni of the Cloth Guild and his daughter Damizella Monette at the Hour of Business on Sixth Day at the Ambassadorial Palazzo. Bring samples of materials suitable for men of rank, especially those which could be made available to His Excellency’s tailor within the day.
Mella di Bonsi,
Housekeeper to His Excellency, the Ambassador
A fierce heat rose in me as it had when I first opened the letter. The Hour of Business on Sixth Day. Dawn—
“Tomorrow!” said Neri.
“And it appears he wants a new garment for the next day,” I said. “The day of the prisoner exchange. What does that mean?”
“It means this will be a very busy day,” said Vashti. “I’ve a good start on costumes. For Monette’s papa, I found this fine jacket and fashionably wide trousses at a dye shop in the Asylum Ring. I’ll show you.”
From a bag on the stair, Vashti pulled out voluminous garments of such a garish shade of yellow as to rival a field of wild mustard.
“That is grotesque.” I would still see the horrid satin with my eyes closed.
“Nicely made and very expensive,” said Vashti. “But, alas, the dyer used much too bright a yellow for their owner—the governor of the Pantagi Asylum—who then abandoned the garments without ever wearing them. Because, you see, the dyer’s grandmam had died in misery in Pantagi Asylum and to ruffle the nasty governor made the dyer very happy. I do fear our Placidio might fall on his sword when he sees them, though.” The mischief in Vashti’s face was beyond price.
Next, she showed me folds of deep, vibrant red. “The last of my ruby silk will allow Damizella Monette to draw the ambassador’s interest even before she demonstrates her skills with soothsaying. Bodice and underskirt are done. Get them on so I can work on the sleeves and gown, and perfect the fit…”
As Placidio slept, Vashti stood me on her low table, fitting and stitching a respectable garment for a cloth merchant’s daughter. She was an artist at cutting apart old clothes she’d found in scrap shops, dyeing, embroidering and combining them with a few lengths of more expensive fabrics into garments that looked to have cost a hundred times my year’s income as a scribe.
Meanwhile, Neri, Dumond, and I talked quietly about possible ways forward without Placidio. Dumond expressed the enthusiasm of a tree stump at the prospect of playing Baldassar.
Neri was dogged in his belief. “He’ll be ready.”
Vashti gave me a hand down from the table, and then clipped some stitches to release me from the stiff red bodice and trumpet sleeves. “These will be ready for you by morning.”
Next, she took Dumond in hand. “Upstairs with you, Basha, and into Placidio’s costume. I must understand how much altering would be necessary if you needed to wear it after all.”
I retired behind the kitchen curtain to exchange the flowing red gown and underskirts for my plain blue kirtle and black sleeves.
“By the Great Anvil! This will not do!” Dumond soon followed his horrified protest from the stair.
I bit my lip before saying anything or, more unforgivably, bursting into laughter. Placidio would have enjoyed the sight immensely.
The grinning Neri voiced the only words that could apply. “’Tis a giant duckling! Aye, Romy had best go alone lest the ambassador throw you on a spit and roast you!”
Though overlong, the garish doublet might do, as Dumond’s shoulders were those of a man who’d worked a forge to support his family as well as his art. But the voluminous satin trousses would never work for short-legged Dumond. The fashionable stiff codpiece reached halfway to his knees.
Vashti pressed her slim hand to her mouth before speaking. “Indeed if you are pressed into service, husband, we shall have to find something else.”
Dumond vanished so quickly up the stairs, she had to call after him, “Careful as you take them off, Basha!”
She laid my costume aside. “Now I’m off to take morning blessings to my girls, and make sure Meki will keep them another night. I’ll be back, and we shall put a finish on these costumes.”
“You need to see what we’ve found, Romy.” Neri shoved his emptied bowl aside and sprang from his cushion.
Atop an extra table made of planks supported by two of their neighbor the cooper’s casks, the building plan of Palazzo Ignazio lay open. Lead weights held down its corners. The plan was little more than a smudged sketch of the main house and outbuildings—kitchen, stables, steward’s house, gardens, and walls—with lines and notations of distances and water conduits.
I couldn’t understand Neri’s excitement. “I suppose there’s no sign of a dungeon where Egerik might stash a prisoner.”
“None. But Dumond read that book you brought about city defenses.”
Neri unrolled one of the city maps on top of the drawing. One finger firmly on the Palazzo Ignazio plan, he pointed to a detail on the second map. “Right here is the ambassador’s house and his kitchen house, and it looked to me like there’s this same pairing on this other map, which Dumond says is a drawing of old defense works.”
“Tunnels,” said Dumond, who was tying on his leather apron. “This city’s built on an anthill. They were used to store food and armaments back when Cantagna was just an outpost protecting the highroad off to Riccia. Ordinary folk hid in them, too. Did you ever hear mention of them when you lived up there with the rich and powerful?”
“No. Il Padroné showed me his own secret ways, but never mentioned tunnels.”
The smith leaned over the old pages, squinting, and traced a blunt finger down the faint line. “Neri spotted it right off. This passage goes between Egerik’s main house and his kitchen house. It looks to us like another goes straight downhill underneath the Merchants Ring wall and comes out square into the Ucelli Gardens. They could be used for hiding things or people or weapons. Or working magics we want to be out of sight.”
“Have to figure out how to get in or out of ’em,” said Neri.
“Escape routes,” I said. “The Quartiere di Fiori has its own gates—and guards that we might need to avoid.”
My stomach was full of toads. Some combination of my brother’s talent and Dumond’s could get us through almost any barrier. But they needed specific destinations for their magic, and the diagram made it clear that guessing would not be fruitful. The Mercediaran Embassy and Ambassadorial Residence was a sprawl.
Now we were actually going to act on my guesses about Egerik’s belief in augury, the flimsier those guesses seemed. What could Damizella Monette foresee that would make him reveal what he knew of the Assassins List or his plans for the prisoner to be delivered to him the following day? How could I ensure we could get inside the embassy when Rossi was actually present?
“I’ll need all my wits to play this right,” I said, trying to implant the positions of halls and courtyards in my head.
Neri looked up from the map. “When you worked the memory magic on Rossi, I guess you couldn’t take away his memory of you.”
“Impossible. We’ve probably met fifty times or more. The best I could do was replace the story of that one meeting with one that had nothing to do with me or you or the Assassins List—and then set him up to think the experience was a dream. I hope it worked.” But I knew what Neri was really asking.
“So yes, I must use my magic; the moment Rossi walks into the palazzo, he could recognize me. But once I become Monette, her ideas will drive her reactions, and those ideas—the instincts I create in her—could be entirely wrong.”
The Ascoltaré rite would be familiar to any man of Egerik’s inclinations. But Monette had to entice him into the rite without seeming to do so. Then I had to make sure the augury she cast would lead to Rossi and the Assassins List. If he didn’t take the bait, she would need to do something different.
“You’ll figure it out. Placidio says the first impersonation worked perfectly, and you didn’t even know what you were doing.”
“My brother, the optimist,” I said.
But it was true. A month previous, when I had appeared before the Public Arts Commission, I’d not even realized that magic had made my impersonation into a true mask. What had made it work? Tarenah’s story had been solid. I had made her a self-effacing daughter of a fisherman, and the articulate, devoted sister of an antiquities scholar. I’d given her desires, curiosities, and knowledge that enabled her to do what we needed.
