by Cate Glass
I drew my sword. One weapon in each hand, I shifted a few steps left, then to the right, ever closer.
“I’ll break your thieving friend’s neck.” The guardsman snarled and jerked Neri backward again. Hard.
Neri choked. His black masking scarf slipped downward. We could not afford to have him identified or for my voice to expose his accomplice as a woman, so I kept silent and halted, arms spread wide.
“On the ground, thief!” said the captor.
I kept one eye on Neri and one on Placidio. The duelist’s movements had slowed; he was allowing the guard to drive him back, away from the statue, away from Neri and me.
Arms extended, weapons still firmly in hand, I lowered myself toward the paving.
“Who thinks some scrap of metal is worth trespassing on the Fermi?” growled the burly guard. “I think we’ll have these masks off and learn who you are before we chop your hands.”
“More coming,” yelled Placidio, as he spun and bashed the hilt of his sword into his opponent’s head just a few steps above us. “Got to get out!”
I slid the sword, hilt first, toward Neri’s feet, then launched my dagger at the brute holding him. It didn’t strike the man, but the triple distraction gave Neri a chance to wrench one arm free, reach back, and gouge his captor’s eye. Another twisting move and he lunged for the sword, rolled to one side, grabbed the weapon, and slashed at the man’s legs.
The guard groaned and crawled up the step. Neri scrambled to his feet, snatched up my dagger, and tossed it back to me.
Eight or ten men surged from the great doors onto the porch and the steps. Two in fluttering cloaks, one red, one white, remained at the top of the steps.
Time to run. Neri and I charged past Placidio’s first victim, staying wide of the man I’d laid out who had crawled well away, clutching Neri’s bag. I glanced over my shoulder. Placidio stood still as the pillar we named him, staring at the two who were watching the fight play out.
“Call him,” I said.
“Run!” Neri bellowed. “Let it go!”
Placidio didn’t stir.
“Use Vashti’s word.”
“Sainye! Frog spit! Can’t lay a strike on your granny!”
As if Neri had stuck the sword in his buttocks, Placidio whirled and pelted down the stair. The three of us raced straight for the outer gates, where six guards moved into place, ready to block our escape.
“Stay on course,” I said. “Just a bit farther. Past the fountain.”
One of the gate guards nudged another and pointed at us, as if he’d read my thoughts. The two jogged forward. Faster …
“Now,” I said, and veered sharply left, taking us toward a span of wall between the fifth and sixth column from the end of the arcade.
The two from the gate saw us as trapped prey and broke into a run. The rest charged after them. We had outstripped the pursuit from the entry steps but they, too, changed direction and bulled after us.
Be ready, Dumond! Sisters grant I’d gotten the placement right. We’d had so little time …
The first gate guard reached us. Placidio was ready and left him disarmed and bleeding.
“Go!” he yelled.
Two more arrived as we reached the arcade. I squinted into the deeper darkness. Nothing.
Spirits, Dumond! Where are you?
Swords crashed. Neri and Placidio were both engaged. In moments we would be swarmed.
I held position, knife in hand …
An armspan-wide section of the curved wall melted into a solid door and swung away.
“Ready,” I screamed, striking at Neri’s opponent as the two circled.
Neri took advantage and slashed the guard’s legs. We dashed for the doorway, where Dumond stood waving us onward.
But Placidio was caught in a grapple.
“Sainye! Now!”
The duelist pulled free, spun the other man, and gave him a great shove, just in time to carom into two of his comrades. Then our most agile pillar launched himself through the doorway after us, while Neri, Dumond, and I slammed it shut.
Palms flat on the thick door, Dumond murmured, “Sigillaré!”
As I’d witnessed in the Temple of Atladu, the portal vanished and the section of the Palazzo Fermi wall where Rodrigo di Fermi had once carved his own name above the figure of a lion was its solid self again.
We scooped up Dumond’s paint pots in the canvas sheet he’d used to catch the spattered colors and took off through the deserted streets of the Heights. I scarce breathed until we’d stripped off our black scarves, donned the cloaks and hats we’d left waiting, and strolled past the last coffinmaker’s shop in the Via Mortua.
“Separate routes, as we planned,” said Placidio, “and stay out of sight. Within the hour Fermi will have condottieri rousting every beggar, drunkard, and gate guard.” And sniffers, too, if anyone had spied our exit.
Without a word, we scattered, each making our own way to the Beggars Ring through the waning night.
19
My heart didn’t slow until I glimpsed the three of them waiting for me in the alley behind the Leguiza Hospice. Words failed. I threw my arms around Neri, not caring if he was embarrassed. I just held him close.
“Are we all clear?” asked Dumond.
“Let Lady Fortune be promoted to goddess this night! I met not a single soul all the way,” said Neri, shrugging me away until only our shoulders touched. I smothered a smile.
“I waved at a pair of gate guards in the Asylum Ring,” said Dumond. “They were as drunk as Philosophic Confraternity novices on their first visit home. Lest you’ve never met one, that means very drunk indeed.”
Whimsy seized me.
“I had a collier offer to bed me,” I said in the same equable tone.
All three men growled and bristled, peering behind me as if the man might have chased me all the way into their protection. Their concern made it near impossible to maintain my serious mien.
“I told him I’d be happy to do that. I licked his cheek and asked him how he liked his comfort, and if he kept a whip with him, as the client I’d just left enjoyed blood on his back. And by the way, it would cost him fifty coppers. He declined.”
Neri bellowed in hilarity. Dumond shook his head and his mouth pursed in a wry amusement. To be sure I’d never seen him smile, save with his eyes at Vashti.
Placidio, whom I’d thought might enjoy the jest most, sat on a stoop expressionless, wiping his blade with a rag. “I saw no one. The north gates are rarely manned at the Hour of Spirits.”
“All of you—I think we did well,” I said. “If there is any way for this scheme to reach a satisfactory end, this night will be the keystone. How can I possibly repay you?”
“If the end is worthwhile, that’s enough,” said Dumond. “Like your brother, I’ve waited my whole life to use magic for something more worthy than avoiding the consequences of using magic. And my lifetime has been more than twice his!”
Placidio rose from the stoop and sheathed his weapon. “We shouldn’t be babbling and lying about out of doors.”
Only slightly sobered, we made the short walk to Dumond’s workshop behind the cooper’s yard. But once inside with a lamp lit, Placidio drew us close. “We must lie low tonight. I, or Romy and Neri, should hold the true bronze somewhere well hidden, with one of us awake at all times. And you, Dumond, be especially wary. Rodrigo di Fermi might choose to question anyone who trades in bronze work. His fury will be monstrous.”
Common sense suggested caution, but I didn’t understand his grim turn. “Why? Yes, thieves invaded his house, a disagreeable matter for any segnoré. He’ll likely do what men like him always do—pick out a scapegoat, strip him of rank, give him a flogging. But an incompetent thief”—I elbowed Neri—“has left him Dumond’s magnificent counterfeit that he will surely believe is his own prize. I couldn’t tell the difference.”
“Whatever he may think of the forgery is unimportant,” said Placidio, “because he has a
guest who’s witnessed his humiliation. Armed intruders invading your well-guarded palazzo is one thing. But which is more stupid, to allow the Shadow Lord to steal your prize, or to misplace it and have a thief expose your carelessness in front of a man you hoped to impress?”
As the meaning of his words sank in, I stepped back to lean on one of Dumond’s heavy worktables as if its sturdy bulk could prevent the world spinning off course.
“His guest—the man in the white cloak,” I said. Fermi colors were red and gray. “White and silver are the colors of Riccia. Eduardo di Corradini was guesting at Palazzo Fermi?”
“Indeed so.”
Exhilaration escaped me like wine from a burst skin, leaving my limbs heavy and my mind sagging. “If Fermi has already forged some sort of alliance with Riccia, then gifting the grand duc the true bronze likely won’t mend it. And if Fermi and Boscetti get a notion that the bronze they hold is not the one Boscetti brought—that the thieves left a counterfeit—they’ll start looking for answers…”
Placidio’s ferocious gaze stilled my tongue before I could voice another word. The chain of reason yet stood stark against the silence between us. The grand duc had said he could identify the statue inerrantly and might already have told Fermi the statue they had now was false. If they started looking closer, all of our plan could unravel. Which could lead to Gilliette, who would accuse me of stealing it for Sandro. And Neri and I would pay.
“All of this would be for nothing.” I could not leave it unsaid.
“Simply exposing Fermi’s vulnerability as we just did might weaken such an alliance,” said Dumond. “That would be a decent outcome of our night. Yes, Fermi will be furious. But the man’s likely furious in any case. Certain, one of those fossils on the Arts Commission has informed him that someone else claims to possess the true Antigonean bronze. He won’t know but that Boscetti’s lied to him all along.”
Dumond glanced from the swordsman to me and back again. Blowing a curt sigh, he scratched the remaining wisps of hair on the back of his head. We were all bone weary. “I suggest we see what comes by morning,” he said. “Fermi’s fury could fall hard on antiquities merchants. Or traveling professorés.”
“None of us should go home tonight, save you, Dumond,” said Placidio, “and if you’ve anywhere to go, you might give a thought to getting your family away till all this settles out. If any of them suspect the statue Neri dropped is false, the fury could fall on sculptors and metalsmiths as well.”
“I told Romy early on that I refuse to live in fear,” said Dumond. “But down in that cellar you visited, there’s a door painted on the wall. Do we ever need to leave in a hurry, be sure we can do it, and none’ll be able to follow.”
Dumond opened the workshop door, then stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Should we expect you two in the morning? Vashti’s certain to have your outfits well spruced.”
I glared the question at Placidio, who was passing it along to me at the same time.
He spoke first. “Nothing’s changed. The Antigonean bronze should go to the one who’s paid for it. If the person he thought to gift it to has taken sides against him, that’s his problem to solve. We’ll have done what we can. So I’ll deliver il Padroné his bronze.”
“I agree,” I said. “The Shadow Lord is no fool. If he’s being played by the grand duc, he’ll see it.” I hoped.
If Sandro’s acuity fell short anywhere, it was in holding too long to a doomed course. He’d clung to boyhood friends like Rodrigo di Fermi and Arrigo di Secchi long after their fathers were plotting against his ascendancy. Once he married Gilliette, his consigliere told him time and again to be rid of the Moon House whore, that nothing but trouble would result. He had clung too long, and sure enough trouble had arrived.
“We’ll be to your house at the morning anthem.” It came out sharper than I intended. “We cannot be late for our delivery. Placidio and I will decide how to deal with the risks.”
Dumond grabbed Neri’s sleeve and jerked his head at the door. “Come with me, lad, and I’ll give you the prize. Your sister and the swordsman can decide who sleeps with it tonight. Vashti might also have left out a bite and a drink for visiting not-thieves.”
Neri followed Dumond into the dark alley that led to his house. I was ready to have a moment alone with Placidio.
He leaned against the doorpost, staring into the night. Maybe having his back to me would help him answer questions he didn’t like. At least I wouldn’t see his eyes darken when I asked.
“Il Padroné believes that Eduardo di Corradini can identify the Antigonean bronze inerrantly. Do you think that’s true?”
“If the duc himself has told him that, then yes.”
Philosophist di Bastianni said inerrant identification was impossible. Which suggested Eduardo had access to magic. Did the grand duc carry some taint of the blood that allowed him to touch the statue’s wonder as Dumond and I had done? Did he own some spelled device that could expose such a mystery? In either case, the grand duc of Riccia would be in violation of the First Law of Creation—a secret so dire it was near impossible to comprehend.
No matter our agreement, I needed to learn what Placidio knew. So I picked my way carefully through his reticence. “The tales I’ve read claimed the statue was forged by Atladu’s own smith who infused it with holiness.”
“I don’t believe in gods.”
But Placidio hadn’t touched the statue that first time when he examined it so closely in this workshop, nor had he done so since.
“From what that philosophist said, there is no inerrant—”
“I’ve no idea how the duc thinks to do that, and I’ll make no guesses.”
“Then, I suppose the question is: Will the grand duc tell Fermi that his almost stolen statue is a counterfeit?”
“How could I possibly know? You’ve a better notion of political skullduggery than I can aspire to. But it makes no difference. Dumond is right. Fermi is sure to have a spy on the Arts Commission; he’ll be watching for brother and sister di Guelfi. Your Shadow Lord will certainly have heard about this night’s doings at Palazzo Fermi, as well. We knew all those things going in. We play our parts and deal with them as they come, or we give up the scheme and you and Neri run to the hinterlands to escape il Padroné’s wife.”
And so to the next risk. “The grand duc is already in the city, not traveling as we assumed,” I said. “What if he arrives at il Padroné’s residence early? Il Padroné could put us all in a room together to decide who has what statue.”
“The birthday feast is in the afternoon,” said Placidio. “The grand duc’s manners are impeccable. He’ll not arrive beforetime and—”
Placidio threw up his hand for silence. Then he slipped sidewise, out of the backlit doorway, hand on his sword. Moments later, footsteps crunched in the alley. No mistaking Neri’s unsubtle, determined stride.
Placidio relaxed, and in moments Neri appeared in the doorway with a heavy, canvas-wrapped bundle in hand. “So where do we sleep?”
DAY 4—MID-MORN
Placidio and I hurried through the muddy, crowded streets of the Merchant Ring. Vashti’s hair combs and sewing needles had again transformed us into the very model of a scholarly pair, and I carried the Antigonean bronze in a canvas bag under my enveloping cloak.
Every step closer to Sandro’s home—my home for nine years, the center of my world and my delight—threatened my concentration. I had considered reaching for Tarenah right away, drowning myself in the subservient sister as a way to lessen the pain of Cataline’s memories. But the grand duc’s birthday was fraught with far more dangerous possibilities than heartache.
We had spent a drizzly night in the wool house. Placidio and I slept wrapped in blankets we grabbed from Lizard’s Alley on our way. Neri had not slept at all, but rather watched over us and the bronze for the few hours of the night that remained. At first light he’d woken us with bread and ale fetched from a tavern just inside the River Gate and the news that
every tavern in the Beggars Ring had been scoured by search parties hunting a gang of thieves—in the name of the Shadow Lord.
Dumond had greeted us with more unsettling news. He had visited his friend Pascal’s foundry in the Asylum Ring at dawn on the pretext of recovering one of his tools, and returned with reports of constables rousting artisans and antiquities dealers from their beds and assembling lists of slender young men of dubious character who might recognize a sculpture known as the Antigonean bronze.
“I doubt I’d be listed as slender or young, either one,” he’d said, assessing his own build, which was very like a bridge piling, and scruffing his almost nonexistent hair. “My friend Pascal would be, the little odd-fish, but none would call his character dubious. Every copper he earns goes to his mam, and he prefers his mam’s cabbage juice to wine, and practicing his letters to wedding or whoring. What bothered me most was that those hunting thieves and assembling lists invoked the Shadow Lord’s name. Aren’t we working to his benefit?”
No longer privy to Sandro’s confidences, I could not judge which of myriad possible reasons might induce him to pander to Fermi’s grievances, whether or not he expected the true statue to be delivered within hours. Which meant I had no convincing reason to abort the plan.
So Placidio and I prepared ourselves for anything and walked carefully. We avoided both main streets and lonely alleys. We took abrupt turns and flattened our backs to the wall around the corners, ready to pounce on thief-stalkers, constables, or anyone else trailing us. We’d seen naught to explain the spiders crawling up our backs. Not yet.
Despite our roundabout course, and a constant traffic of fish and vegetable carts and vintner’s wagons turning into the back lanes that led to the Gallanos kitchens, we arrived before the midmorning bells.
“House, windows, defenses—anything out of order?” Placidio tugged his hat lower over his face as we strolled past the flat, harmonious facade of what Sandro and his family called the Garden House.
