A Conjuring of Assassins, page 23
“Proctor Nuccio.” I lowered the hood of the cheap cape and unfastened its clasp. I deemed Vashti’s red-and-black gown would give me a better hearing, muddy hem and all. “Excuse my intrusion. I am a former—”
“Cataline! So you’re not—”
“Dead? No. But consider me a phantasm who will vanish without trace before the interval is over. Forgive my intrusion on your hour of peace.”
Proctor Nuccio, a decent sort of man considering his profession, had wept when he told me that Lodovico di Gallanos, an infamous degenerate, had bought me. Though required to give me special tutelage of several unpleasant sorts at Lodovico’s request, he had been, as ever, considerate and impersonal. He believed it depraved to take advantage of his position.
On that terrible day, he had consoled me that I was intended as a gift for Lodovico’s nephew, Alessandro, assuming the young man survived the multitudinous plots against his life, and assuming Lodovico actually released me to the nephew once he had his hands on me. That hour and the two days following had been the worst of my life, and yet, like Mother Gione’s agonies as she gave birth to the world, they were the doorway to the best.
“My curiosity is unbounded,” he said. “Be seated, if you will.”
I perched on the stool that was the only other seating accommodation in his chamber.
In the days of my schooling, visits here had never encouraged me to take note of Nuccio’s chamber. It was as spare as the man himself. Bare wood floors, polished to a high sheen. A book chest, its simple domed lid strapped with leather and elegantly wrought bronze buckles. A small writing table.
A single artwork hung on his cream-colored walls—the painting of a beautiful, richly dressed young Lhampuri woman and an equally beautiful man who was kissing her breast as he disrobed her. A second beautiful young man in the bloody rags and chains of a slave yearned in the shadows. The work was glorious in its line and color—and in its heart-wrenching emotion.
“A phantasm, you say?”
“Mistress Cataline is indeed dead, by declaration of her master,” I said. “I now bear a different name and am employed elsewhere. My new mistress”—I liked thinking of the Chimera that way—“takes great interest in matters of importance to our city.”
His expressive brows lifted. “I’m fascinated. Go on.”
“At her direction, I have introduced myself to a man of very particular tastes, which I am trying to understand without asking him directly. I’m not certain these tastes fall into categories in which you enlightened me as a student, but I decided that as one who studies personal behaviors, you might be able to provide the answers I need.”
“You are a spy?”
“Would that distress you, Proctor?” Even as my stomach clenched, I maintained the steady deportment this school taught so well. Every man and woman of means in Cantagna employed spies.
His lips pursed as they do when disguising a smile. “You were a bright student, talented in many ways that would lend themselves to such a profession, as well as the profession we prepared you for. I’m simply consumed with curiosity as to the path that took you from Alessandro di Gallanos’s bed to such work.”
“That is a most private matter, Proctor, and as anything which touches the Shadow Lord of Cantagna, I would advise you forget your curiosity as quickly as I’ve raised it. I’ve been told that he … reacts badly … if my name is spoken in his presence.”
Dare I imagine I saw the cool gentleman swallow his gorge?
“Absolutely,” he said. “Already forgotten. Be certain of that. So, to your question?”
“I have visited the home of the wealthy gentleman I mentioned. His house is quite fine, immaculate and tasteful, crafted to please in every detail—to please himself, I concluded, even more than his guests. His servants are every one of them dignified, respectful, and exceptionally handsome, both male and female. In a place usually reserved for statuary, entirely unconnected to our business, I noticed an unusual decorative arrangement. It nags at me, for reasons I cannot fathom. I don’t believe it was put there for my benefit. If I’d not taken an opportunity to explore the room before the gentleman entered, I’d never have noticed it, which lends it an extra aura of mystery.”
Nuccio laid his book aside, propped his elbows on the arms of his chair, and rested his chin on a steeple of his slim fingers. “Most intriguing.”
“The display consisted of a single, stemmed rose—fresh, not dried or wilted—and a narrow-bladed knife with a curved tip. Beside these two was a single drop of fresh blood. My initial reaction was that this was some careless clutter left from an accident. Yet the gentleman was not careless in any fashion. Thus, the more I considered it…”
I let the pause hang in the air, thinking Nuccio might take up my sentence. The mention of the rose had already changed his expression. He knew exactly of what I spoke. Yet he remained motionless, save that the tips of his steepled fingers moved to his lips. Was he deciding what to tell me?
His hands settled to his lap. “Why is this odd matter important enough to bring you here? Few who leave the Moon House can be persuaded to return for any reason.”
Had it been any other of my tutors or proctors, I would have made up a story. But so many years of detecting falsehoods had made the Moon House disciplinarian expert at it.
“I’m not permitted to tell you, Proctor, but I would ask you to believe me that the safety of hundreds of people, entire families—could turn on the character of this man. I need to understand him.”
“Hundreds. Truly?” No horror laced his words. Only his usual cool remoteness.
“I speak of grave consequences, Proctor. If what you tell me”—and more and more I believed he could tell me something—“might lead to understanding, I ask you to speak it. Elsewise keep your information as you will. I dared reveal myself to you because I believed you had some sense of honor about you. You did not revel in cruelty as some of your confederates do, so I thought perhaps the prospect of innocent deaths might induce you to answer.”
He chuckled, a bit grotesque coming from a man who had beaten me to agony twice without breaking my skin.
“Oh, Cataline—or whatever you call yourself now—I’m astonished you didn’t find yourself a place among our independency’s finest diplomats. What a life you must have had these years to instill such skills atop those we built inside you.”
I reined in my impatience. “Excuse me if I am not grateful for my schooling, Proctor. Can you—will you—answer my question or no?”
My spirit flinched as he rose and crossed the room to a tall, shallow wooden cabinet standing flat against the wall. Behind its single door were hung his canes and other implements of discipline. The right half of the cabinet was a stack of shallow drawers. He picked something out of the topmost drawer and brought it to me—a heavy ring he dropped in my hand.
He returned to his chair as I turned the heavy ring to view its face. A starkly simple design. Three words—ad sublimi quaerere—surrounding a rose, a knife with a curved tip, and a single tiny ruby.
“To seek the exquisite,” I said, and inhaled sharply as I recalled Mantegna’s report of Egerik’s fraternal associations.
A glance up and Nuccio affirmed my translation. “This is a token of a society known as the Brotherhood of the Exquisite.”
“And this ring is yours?”
“Yes.”
Spirits, did he know Egerik? My confidence that I’d found a clever remedy for our ignorance … my certainty that a visit to this benighted place held no dangers … my naive view of this man … all came collapsing about my head as if the monster Dragonis had chosen this day to rage against his imprisonment under the earth. I had endangered us all.
“Many Cantagnans take pleasure in a search for the sublime,” said Nuccio, “in art, in food, drink, music. In every human endeavor. Certain, your former master does so.”
“But he’s not—” I snapped my mouth closed. I would not speak of Sandro.
The corners of Nuccio’s thin mouth twitched. “Be easy. Though I am sworn by the most serious consequences not to speak of other members of the Brotherhood, I allow myself the freedom to say who is not. Il Padroné is not and has never been. Though, in truth, few members present anything to the group to which a woman of the world like you would object.”
I wasn’t sure I liked Nuccio calling me a woman of the world—his world.
“Il Padroné’s uncle was a member, but was expelled, as his search for the sublime took some very dark turns. Exquisite pain and exquisite suffering can certainly bring enlightenment just as can the evening light on a perfectly arranged garden, or the taste of a single quail egg poached in espina leaves and dusted with saffron. But Lodovico got very messy. No subtlety. No care. So we dismissed him. Coincidentally, fortunately, he died before he could take the vengeance he threatened.”
That was where I had seen the symbol before. In Lodovico’s chambers. Lodovico had died of poison in his soup a year after giving me to Sandro. No perpetrator was ever discovered.
I glanced up at Nuccio, whose fingers were again matched tip to tip under his chin. Interested and amused.
If Egerik was a man of Lodovico’s ilk … and Nuccio, too, was one of them …
A frisson of terror spidered through my limbs. Did the Brotherhood dabble in exquisite assassination? Did they eliminate those who compromised their brothers in the fraternity? Or foolish people who were too curious about their activities?
“I should go,” I said, rising from the stool and fumbling with my cloak. “I’ve no wish to compromise your associates. Perhaps this person is but an aspirant to your society.”
I dropped the ring in his hand.
“Perhaps so,” he said, turning the ring so the ruby gleamed in the sunlight. “Leave if you wish. But I doubt I know the man you speak of, if that’s what concerns you. I was not born a wealthy man and my position here has not made me one. The most exquisite objects and experiences of this world are often quite expensive. The Brotherhood is not so welcoming of those who lack the wherewithal to share their new experiences of the exquisite with the other members. Thus, I’ve not been an active participant for a decade.”
And Egerik had lived in Cantagna only three years.
“Besides, your description fits at least half the members I know—which is a very small part of the Brotherhood. Come, ask me your questions. What I hear will not go beyond this room. It is amusing to deal with matters that are not students who fail to keep control of themselves.”
I hardened my lips against instinctive bitterness and my quaking spirit against the desire to run. The information was important. If Nuccio was lying and intended to expose me to Egerik, leaving would not stop him. And I’d no other resources.
“All right.” I returned to the stool. “Why would this man have displayed the symbol of rose, knife, and blood in his inner chamber?”
“To pique your curiosity, perhaps, if he suspects this intriguing avocation of yours. Usually it serves as a message to others who have occasion to visit the room. A notice to the like-minded. Or a reminder to the subjects of his passion.”
“His passion for exquisite things—or persons?”
Nuccio smiled proudly, as if I were reciting my lesson back to him or demonstrating the efficacy of his punishments. “Our passion is to experience the exquisite—sublime perfection, especially fragile perfection—in all its forms. A rose at full bloom is already dying. Its perfection occurs in only a very few moments between bud and bloom. For some of us, experiencing sublime perfection is a way to rouse emotions and sensations that are otherwise out of reach.”
“So it is not the mere viewing of a beautiful painting or sculpture…”
“Sometimes the object itself creates the experience of the sublime—eating the saffroned quail’s egg or hearing the lutenist fill the air with a perfect melody or seeing a Moon House courtesan dance. Sometimes performing the melody on the lute for oneself yields the sublime experience, or preparing a dish of such perfection does it. And sometimes it is owning the painting or owning the quail who produces such fat and perfect eggs … or owning the lutenist.”
His description brought to mind Egerik’s chamber of sunlight and mosaic and silk threads—not simply a moment of perfect art, but of knowing that a guest could be in the room and miss it, and only he, Egerik, would know.
“Sometimes it is even more than owning,” I said. “Sometimes the pleasure is in mastery of the beautiful thing or person.”
“Indeed so. As I taught you here in these chambers.”
“Yes,” I said, half to myself.
How had I not seen that Cei was an expression of this same mastery? Egerik had collected Cei. Flattered him, perhaps. Lured him. Groomed him. Tamed him like a wolf, as Placidio said. And then …
“One who relishes mastery might take delight in reminding his subject of their relative positions,” I said.
“Certainly. Subtlety is an intrinsic element of experiencing the exquisite, as well. Nuance can often make the difference between the sublime and the merely satisfactory.”
Every time Cei passed through Egerik’s chamber, he would see the rose and the knife and the blood, a reminder of his master’s passion. And when Egerik ignored him, was that yet another reminder? You are nothing, it would say. Even your beauty cannot make me look at you. You still lack perfection. Had he done that with his beautiful wife, as well? Possessed her. Groomed her. And then ignored her?
“Some of your fellows’ searches could lead into very complex games,” I guessed. “Sometimes harsh.”
“Indeed so. And if a member invites a group of his brothers to witness the fruits of his search for the sublime, they are obliged to agree. Without judgment. Which is why the matter of Lodovico di Gallanos’s expulsion is still a tender wound with many in the society. I sorely miss most of the experiences I shared while active in the Brotherhood, but a few took me places that I did not enjoy—despite what you may think of me. Here at the Moon House, I teach survival. I take no pleasure in physical torment or death, no matter how exquisite the design of the experience or how beautiful the subject.”
“Death!”
Furrows on Nuccio’s brow deepened. “I never saw such, but I’ve heard stories. The rules don’t forbid it, in the way they forbid even the remotest taint of sorcery. Violations of that rule will reap a most significant consequence in any reputable chapter of the Order. The other members have reputations, families, public positions that cannot be compromised.”
Egerik’s overweening confidence, his contempt, his delight in manipulation of his servants and his guests hinted that he would see no problem with death or torture if it satisfied his passion. Certain, a man who shaped a room in his house for a single moment’s pleasure twice a year would not be bothered by the ephemeral nature of the experience. His wife had died within months of his arrival in Cantagna three years since—and she was reputedly a great beauty. Grotesque and horrid as it seemed …
“Proctor, you said you were not a member three years ago.”
“I was not. And lest you ask, besides being forbidden to reveal other members, we may not reveal any experience we’ve had as members to outsiders, whether or not that experience is entirely lawful. I’ll not break my word on that. Someday Lady Fortune might send her luck my way, and I would prefer to be a former member in good standing.” He twirled the gold ring and set it beside his book.
“I ask for no names, no violation of such an oath. But this: if you were to speak to some you know and find out if these acquaintances shared an exquisite experience of murder in the summer three years since, could you let me know? Just whether or not it happened. I must understand this man. He’s the key. I’ll swear that what I’ve told about my purpose here is true.”
“To prevent a siege of murder. Truly?” I had never seen—never imagined—Nuccio indecisive. “I don’t know…”
I couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. I hurried over to his writing desk, unstoppered the ink, and wrote Box 1 at the L’Scrittóre shop on the Beggars Ring Road.
“Send the answer—as much as you can give—here.”
19
ONE DAY UNTIL THE PRISONER TRANSFER
AFTERNOON
As I hiked the gravel path past the Domata Ponds, I wanted nothing more than to forget everything I’d just learned about the Brotherhood of the Exquisite. I comprehended people who spent their lives pursuing new expressions of beauty in architecture, poetics, or sculpture. Exploring the refinements of law or governance or viticulture also struck me as worthy endeavors. Even my own difficult experience had roots one could understand. Though I could never approve the Moon House goal of enforced submission, seeking new delights in the arts of companionship or lovemaking held intrinsic merit.
But how hollow was a life, how profligate a waste of minds and talents was it, to pursue perfection for its own sake? A quail’s egg … truly? A single instant’s artistic glory in a cold, empty chamber? And to seek out some kind of a perfect exhibition of torture or death was too grotesque to contemplate.
Hearing that even this appalling Brotherhood had limits soothed me a little. Surely Nuccio had just told me that the lunatic fraternity was responsible for the death of Lodovico di Gallanos. Knowing what I did of Lodovico’s depraved pastimes, I could not call such an execution wanton murder. So what of Egerik? Mantegna’s letter said he had left Argento eight years ago because of a salacious scandal, and the other men involved were all of them dead soon after Egerik’s departure. Was it possible the local Brotherhood executed them for some horrible offense, missing only Egerik because he’d run away? I should read Mantegna’s letter again.
Placidio was correct that our sole objective was to prevent the Assassins List from reaching Protector Vizio, but at the moment it seemed equally important to wipe the smirk from Egerik’s face. I doubted it was plague victims buried under his house that stoked his fear of malignant spirits. Perhaps it was a guilty conscience.
I needed to go home, settle my mind, and consider how to incorporate the exquisite into a new divination.
