A Conjuring of Assassins, page 37
“The future?”
And then he glanced at me full on with the smile that had melted my bones for nine years and endeared him to the citizens who loved and honored il Padroné, even as they feared his shadow self.
“Naturally. After such brilliant scheming as I’ve learned of these last few days, I’d be an even greater fool to ignore such talent. When a particular kind of need comes up that my usual retainers can’t resolve, I will call on the Chimera again. For Cantagna. Would that be acceptable?”
“I can’t speak for the Chimera.” My voice sounded much more composed than I believed possible. “But I’ll pass on your comments. I’m sure it would depend on the particular case.”
“Certain,” he said, and proffered the leather bag.
I passed him the scroll case, but before accepting our payment, I considered a piece of unfinished business. When I touched the heavy little bag, I made sure my finger touched his hand.
Relieved, I looped the bag’s ties over my shoulder and under my cloak.
“I should go,” he said. “Gigo will be apoplectic.” He rose and started up the steps to the bridge.
“Two more things,” I said, my wits returning before the stair took him out of sight. “The ambassador’s bodyservant … Cei…”
“The odd, silent one with bare feet. The favorite.”
“He is a meticulously trained assassin. Skilled. Savage. Unaccounted for. Egerik ordered him to kill you. So I was told.”
His eyes grew wide. “I’ll keep watch.”
“I was also told that when Vitalo di Malavesi realized the price of Egerik’s scheme, he refused to be a part of it. He died for that.”
“I wondered.” His suddenly grim demeanor told me I was no longer in the presence of Sandro or il Padroné, but only the Shadow Lord. “Be sure I’ll not forget.”
As it should be.
And then there was nothing more to say. “Fortune’s benefice, il Padroné.”
“Virtue’s grace, l’Scrittóre.”
The shadows under the bridge were deep when I slipped out of the door, and I was glad for the torchlight of the River Gate and the evening noise and crowds of the Beggars Ring. Uneasy shadows yet danced behind the light.
A brief stop at home to pick up a bundle of scraps and then I hurried around the Ring Road to Dumond’s house. I had notified my partners of the coming payment and suggested we meet there to share it out.
* * *
Vashti greeted me at her door. “Welcome, welcome, Romy-zha! I thought I would never get to hear the full tale of your adventures. Basha is a poor storyteller.”
She rolled her eyes and I laughed in agreement. “I’ve brought replacements for the costume I lost at Palazzo Ignazio,” I said, offering her one sapphire earring and the scraps of silk and brocade from the garments Egerik had prescribed for me.
“We have tea that has no salt in it, and supper noodles if they’ve left any.” She pointed me to the low round table where a pot of tea sat steeping and Placidio, Neri, and Dumond were stuffing themselves.
“Hoped you’d bring a goose,” said Neri without pausing his spoon. “At least a wheel of cheese.”
“You must get him back to lessons,” I said, laying a grateful hand on Placidio’s shoulder as I claimed a vacant floor cushion between the two of them. “He’ll go to fat and drive me back to penury with his appetite.”
“’Tis the magic does it,” said Placidio, shoveling in his own hefty serving. “He was in and out of that palazzo—”
“—and up and down that warren of tunnels—” Dumond interjected.
“—so many times, he was naught but a phantom for most of a day.”
“I’ve never been so proud,” I said. “It was the playthings cracked Egerik. Indeed, all of you were exceptional. No matter if this bag was filled with gold instead of silver, it would not be enough to repay the risks you took.”
“What of you, sister witch?” said Neri. “Going ahead with the impersonation while believing Placidio was out of reach. After Bawds Field? Don’t know as I’d have had balls enough for that.”
We each laid out our pieces of the story as we devoured Vashti’s noodles and tea and the supply of mead Placidio had brought to wash it down. Placidio said he’d heard that Falco di Taglino had abruptly retired as head of the Gardia Sestorale. Like Rossi’s sojourn in the country, we felt the Shadow Lord’s hand in that. Then I showed them Nuccio’s message and, though Neri would have preferred a more public punishment, we all agreed it was likely for the best.
“No rumor of Cei?” asked Placidio.
“I warned il Padroné,” I said, “but we all should take care. He never saw Romy, only Monette, but you, Placidio, he heard your name, and saw both you and Neri, despite the masks—”
“We should all of us lay low with our magics. Cautious, yes, boy?”
Though Neri’s mouth was full of almond biscuits, he agreed. Without rolling his eyes.
Despite Cei and the inevitable increase of sniffer patrols, we concluded this was an even more satisfying venture than our first.
“It seems our employer agrees.” I opened the bag I’d collected, and spilled out at least a thousand silver solets. My tale of Sandro’s apology entertained them almost as much.
“When I collected this, I made sure that the Shadow Lord will not recall the name of the swordsman the Pizottis came hunting.”
Their shocked silence surprised me. As it did me, as well, when I thought what I had just confessed. I’d used my hateful bit of magic on Sandro. Without hesitation.
Vashti brought four small bags to divide our pay.
“Maybe a fifth?” I said.
“He won’t take it,” said Placidio. “Promise you that. He said he’d sworn to do whatever you needed forever.”
“When he says forever, it sounds like he means it,” said Neri. “He seems a cheerful fellow, considering he was near dead a sevenday ago.”
“Say the silver is from the rest of us, Romy-zha,” said Vashti. “He could have saved you by merely speaking your name. Putting himself in front of sniffers saved us all.”
“I’ll persuade him,” I said.
“So il Padroné didn’t say what our next venture might be?” said Neri, carrying in yet another bowl of noodles from Vashti’s kitchen. The rest of us groaned and flung cushions and spoons at him.
After a while Vashti and Dumond walked out to fetch their children from their friend Meki’s house, and Neri raced off to the Duck’s Bone. Placidio and I strolled around the eastern arc of the Beggars Ring that would take us past the docks. We stayed alert.
“We did a good thing,” said Placidio. “Hearing the actual detail of the plan … It could have succeeded.”
“I believe that, too. I erased your name from memories of the five quislings as well. Couldn’t get to Taglino. Will that come back to haunt you?”
“I’ll stay clear of him. Without the Gardia or the other five to back him, I’m not thinking he’ll ever admit he was there. And it doesn’t seem like Egerik or Rossi will be after me. The Pizottis likely won’t back down, but they’re chastened; certain, there’s fewer of them in fighting trim. Cei’s the worry.”
“What does such a man do when the person who’s owned him since childhood is gone?”
“Break into pieces. Run. Hire out, maybe. I’ve seen all those happen with young soldiers who’ve lost a strict commander.”
We didn’t talk much more. The night air was as soft on the skin as silk pillows, as only summer in Cantagna could be. I was lost in Dumond’s report of Neri popping in and out of the palazzo all that terrible night because he didn’t like thinking of me alone, and Neri telling of Placidio going out into the streets and deliberately taunting Digo di Pizotti’s favorite son so as to draw the entire clan to come after him. And Dumond, painting for hours. Waiting. Ready to catch me if I fell. No confidential agent ever had such partners.
As we neared the South Gate, where I would turn down to the docks to give Teo his share of our fee, I summoned the daring to ask my question. “Back at the woolhouse when we questioned Teo, you weren’t surprised that he could speak in my mind. And you immediately asked if I could speak back to him. Why?”
“It’s none—”
“Don’t you dare say it’s none of my business.” Having just enjoyed the camaraderie of the evening, I wasn’t harsh. Just determined. “I’m the one who endured the three of you telling me how stupid I was for rescuing him. I’m the one who’s felt the guilt for it. But when this stranger worked a most astonishing feat of magic, you believed it instantly? And you bowed to him. I’ve honored your boundaries, swordmaster, but magic is not your private fiefdom. Can you not trust me in this one thing?”
We walked on toward the gate. By the time he opened his mouth, I was at the point of bursting.
“In the past—long past—I lived near the sea. I heard of—I met a woman from Lesh. The Isles. She had the skin markings and this magic, both to speak and to hear. Neither did she lie. Talk around things, yes, but not lie. Their people have—a way of life that is worthy of respect. But they also have strict … absolute … privacies, so I can’t—I just can’t. If he could remember these things, Teo would thank me for honoring that.”
“But you won’t tell him what you know about his people?”
“No. They have their ways. Reasons.”
In this tortuous telling, Placidio was clearly filtering the secrets from truth like a sieve filters rocks from a slurry. My own perverse logic recognized it as his attempt to acknowledge the rightness of my anger without breaching whatever stricture forbade him say more. It was not whim or pique or selfish hiding, but honor.
“And the five candles?”
“That was a guess. A test. Call it an insult. With all he’s forgotten, he likely couldn’t tell you why it bothered him so. Now, please…”
“Fair enough.” I’d no wish to torture him. “So I’ll tell you a conclusion I’ve come to. I know what Teo’s searching for.”
That stopped him in his tracks. “And?”
“The Antigonean bronze. The statue we so carefully ensured would go to the grand duc of Riccia-by-the-sea. Every place Teo felt the presence of his mysterious quarry, the statue had been. The woolhouse. Dumond’s workshop. My house. Sandro’s house. When Teo lay so ill, I had a dream of a sad, fracturing city—his dream, I believe. It was very like the visions Dumond and I saw when we touched the statue with magic. Dumond agreed. Am I mad to think Teo’s hunting the statue? Should we tell him?”
“Not mad. And not yet.” The answer came so quickly, I knew he’d guessed the same. “There’s naught to be done about it right now. It’s too far away. Until he remembers more of his purposes, what would he do with the knowledge? Let me think about how to approach … the problem.” The problem of Teo and Eduardo di Corradini, two people Placidio respected, laying claim to something of importance for reasons I could not fathom.
“All right,” I said. “In the future, it might be well if you would share your thoughts about such topics right away. I promise that when you say no more, I won’t press. But it might prevent me combusting, which would be better for everyone involved. And maybe someday, you might be able to shift the boundary a bit.”
“I’ll consider it.” We arrived at the turn for the gate. “But likely won’t. You’ll have a care going home? Keep aware of your surroundings?”
“I will. But remember it’s you and Neri that Cei saw. Fortune’s benefice this night, swordmaster.”
“Virtue’s hand, lady scribe.”
I watched him go. Placidio, the rootless man. Deliberately so. Having lived with Sandro whose roots were so deeply entwined with Cantagna as to be inseparable, the contrast was very clear. Someday Placidio di Vasil was going to walk away and never be found in Cantagna again. That would be a terrible day.
The evening was still young down at the docks. Fishermen were mending nets, coiling ropes, and sloshing buckets of water through bloody fish troughs. Cats’ eyes gleamed from the shadows, as their owners pounced on unlucky rats or glided through the clutter to find tasty tidbits from the day’s catch. Human gleaners crept through the shadows, too. I heeded Placidio and stayed alert. I held tight to my bags of silver.
Frenetti’s pilchard house sat at the less favored upriver end of the docks. But I didn’t have to venture the warren of drying racks, emptied casks, ropes, nets, and brine ponds in Frenetti’s yard to find my friend from the Isles of Lesh. It was easy to guess where he’d be this time of night. Indeed, as I walked to the far end of the nearest open pier, I spied a lanky silhouette dangling his feet in the water.
“Watching the stars come out, are you?” I said, joining him on the plank decking before he could jump up. “They seem to multiply as the city goes to sleep.”
“Aye, they do. But never so many—”
“—as would be visible in the Isles of Lesh.”
I could feel his smile, even if I couldn’t make it out in the dark.
“Someday I’d like to see your home. My whole life has been spent in this city, with only a few short journeys around the northlands. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live surrounded by the sea.”
“Very different.” He scooted around to face me, folding his legs and peering through the dark. “Is all well now? Such a dangerous venture. So courageous of you and your friends to do it for the good of your people … your city.”
“With your help, we had as good an outcome as we could hope. Which is why you must share in our fee.” I set his bag on the damp planks between us.
“No, I didn’t help for coin. I told you—”
“And I’ll be ever grateful for your willingness to believe our purpose was worthy and for trusting us enough to put yourself at such risk. But you also spent time of your own—work time, perhaps, or time you could have been resting so as to work the next day. It’s only fair that your time be paid for, if not your risk or your magic. Use it to get yourself a good pair of boots. Maybe a wool cloak and blanket for winter; ours are not so mild as in the southlands.” I shoved it toward him. “I won’t accept a refusal.”
“All right. I’ll find something worthy to do with it. But until then … would you keep it for me? Down here, I’ve no place for it.” He pushed it into my hand.
“If you wish.”
I tied the bag to my belt alongside my own. “Perhaps you can use it to find your mother’s friend. Have you remembered any more about her?”
“Yes! As I was running around the city that night. Domenika is her name, and she is one who studies events of the past.”
“A historian.”
“In Lesh, we would name her as one who unravels the winds of time.”
The nape of my neck prickled at his words. I scraped my fingers through my hair and laughed. “Someday, Teo, we are going to talk about what that means. The way you put words together sends my head spinning. But my head has experienced enough stretching over this tenday. I should go home.”
“Weary, yes, I hear it in you. Anxious, too. I am, also, ever since you dragged me from the river. Do you know what gives me peace?”
“Besides watching the stars come out?”
“Together with it. Take off your shoes.”
“But I need to—”
“I promise it will help with the overstretching.”
In moments we were sitting shoulder to shoulder, bathing our bare feet in the cool urgency of the Venia, as the silken night air bathed our faces. The quiet power of the river infused my tired spirit—or perhaps it was some magic of Teo’s that soothed. Sounds of the city receded. The flow eddied about the pilings with a soft slurp. Distant pinpoints of light swirled in the deeps … and shadows …
“Beware!” Teo twisted his torso away from me and flattened himself to the pier. The blade that had just missed Teo’s spine raked a gouge in his shoulder. The wound gouted blood as he swept his arms behind his head, grasping furiously at scrabbling feet. Cei’s bare feet. Training brought my dagger from sheath to hand faster than I could think it.
Off balance from the miss, Cei scuttled backward to avoid Teo’s entanglement, then raised up for another strike.
“No!” I screamed. The blade slashed at my neck. My dagger blocked the blow, near cracking my arm. The weapon fell from my numb fingers.
A great splash of water near blinded me, and for a terrifying moment I thought Teo had gone into the river. But instead, faster than an eyeblink, he had rolled over backward and planted two wet feet in Cei’s midsection with such power as to explode the air from the assassin’s lungs. As Cei staggered, I pivoted onto my knees, stayed low, and lunged for his ankles. I missed. Teo didn’t. Cei went down hard on his back.
Teo scrambled on top of him, pinning him to the planks, clamping Cei’s wrist so tightly his fingers opened. I snatched up his dagger, slick with blood, and threw it into the river.
Cei snarled and writhed, but Teo’s hold … hands and feet and knees … immobilized him.
“Who is this?” said Teo, cold as I’d never heard him.
“Egerik’s favored assassin,” I said. “Trained from childhood. Did at least two murders on that fraught night. Others in the past. But why he’s after you…”
“Me?”
“No, no, of course not.”
All became clear as I recalled the youthful gleaner down at the Avanci Bridge. Cei had been stalking Sandro. But Sandro had left our meeting by the stair and the bridge, while I was the one who came out the door.
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Evidently he doesn’t stop killing, even when his master has vanished and their plot crumbled.”
“What shall we do with him?”
Cei’s limbs were taut, murderous rage quivering the air.
What else was there besides the choice I’d sworn the Chimera would not make? Cei had seen Placidio and Neri and now me and Teo. What else did he know to do but murder?
“He cannot go free,” I said. “I should summon the Gardia.” Though it could take all night to get a warden down here. And how would I answer their questions?
“Fetch some rope if you would, while we consider. That skiff just up there is Frenetti’s. I’ll pay him for the rope.”
