The Rising Scythe

by S G Dunster

  “I was,” Thessaly said, though her tone was wry. She took the hand he offered and followed him out of the hall. Her father came after with his crew.

  As soon as they left the great room behind, Loredan’s gait become suddenly quick, businesslike. His grip on her hand firmed, and his face became serious. “We cannot go back to your rooms,” Loredan said.

  “You had the crowd in hand,” Antonio said. Thessaly noted his tone—impressed, perhaps even awed. Certainly covetous.

  And that is the end, she thought numbly. He has chosen for me.

  Do I care? Do I mind? Whose hand am I holding? Who just defended me?

  He likes me for what I am. He as much admitted he knows I’m a—

  Loredan’s voice cut into her thoughts. “I calmed them for a moment. They saw a romantic scene. But they will remember the fire, too. Umbra is tolerated. Her spells, her power brokering. But Thessaly.” He gave her a look, warm with concern, apology. “Many a powder can find its way into a cup in this place. She is young, and yet without the power Umbra yields. She’s a threat many in that room will not see live.”

  Antonio’s face contorted. Anger, sorrow. Fear. Finally, he nodded. “There is little other than gowns and linens to pack,” he said. “We shall go.” He turned.

  Loredan grasped his shoulder. “Let me come.”

  And it begins, Thessaly thought. She released Loredan’s hand and watched her world turn as if from a distance.

  Why am I upset, she wondered idly, while at the same time the sick feeling descended, a cloak of fettering, a binding on her. On her life.

  Antonio studied him. “With what understanding?”

  Loredan glanced back at Thessaly. There was a shyness in his look. “Your daughter is a curiosity,” he said carefully. “A curiosity and interest I’ve not found in the courts of Milan or Venice, and I’ve looked long. I’d like to know her better. Also, as a younger son, I’ve no trade of my own.”

  “You would come aboard the fleet, learn the spice trade?” Antonio said.

  “I would, cousin, if it would keep me close to your daughter. I see only benefit to me in such an arrangement—skills that can keep me in bread one day, perhaps as a crewman on a merchant fleet. And diverting association.” He smiled at this, flicked a glance in Thessaly’s direction.

  Thessaly couldn’t feel ice, couldn’t feel fire. She couldn’t feel much of anything. She’d fettered herself again, somehow. Both, this time, byssus and cereus. Fettered herself so tightly, she’d carried all natural feelings into the knot as well. Her hands tingled, like they did not have enough blood.

  Watching her father, she put a hand to her face. Her cheek was warm to the touch.

  Antonio let out a long breath. Nodded. “After what you saw here tonight, you still wish association with my Thessaly? You must be a jewel among men.” He bit off the last words, aimed a cold look at his daughter.

  “That I am,” Loredan replied unabashedly. “And also curious. Art is art.” He said this directly to Thessaly, and his tone took on an earnest note. “And the art one wields, whatever it may be, can be wielded for good or evil. I saw art wielded for good tonight.”

  Chapter 7

  S

  hem felt a little dizzy as they climbed into the carriages, as they passed through the castillo gardens and outbuildings. They passed directly by Umbra’s front garden. Thessaly saw that the cereus plants with their strange, spiky uplifted arms were studded with pale buds. They would bloom soon.

  They passed through the gates. Sitting in the carriage, slumped against the plush walls, picking at the gold embroidery on the cushions, she watched the sentries there, feeling through them without even realizing she was doing it. They were calm. Bored, even, as the carriage passed through.

  Nobody had alerted them to stop Thessaly leaving. They were leaving.

  Leaving. To where?

  Thessaly felt Loredan’s eyes on her and lifted her gaze to meet his. There was a mix of feelings on his face. Sympathy, some excitement. He liked this: the escape, the danger.

  He was leaving without his money. Why did he seem to care so little? As a younger son, he likely did not have much coin to spend.

  He’d liked the fight, too, she realized suddenly, feeling a confusing cacophony of emotions rocket through her as she dwelled on him. He’d liked the thrill of danger, the swordplay, the dominance. And, he’d liked defending her.

  He liked her, indeed.

  Did she like that?

  She studied his face hard.

  Did she like him?

  A smile bloomed across his features. “Well?” he asked, tilting his head slightly.

  Obviously some of her thoughts had shown on her face. And she had already noticed

  Loredan’s uncommon perceptive skills. It was attractive, and unnerving.

  She narrowed her eyes and didn’t answer, looking away out the window. They were

  approaching the sea; the docks, with the bristle of masts, the lines of barrels and bags being loaded onto broad stretches of wooden platforms, filled her view, and the smell of salt-fish, marsh, mud, and humans in close quarters filled her senses.

  She remembered just before they came to the docks. “Nur.” The word came out sounding just as she felt—dull. Muted.

  “She’s on the boat,” Guzal, crunched in next to her, reassured her. “She was quite disturbed by your . . . illness, and got restless. Nobody was taking her out, either; all worried over you. We sent her away so she’d stop shredding the Sforza’s curtains.”

  Thessaly didn’t bother to nod. She should have worried over her friend. Why hadn’t she even thought of her? Was this what magicks were going to do—make her remote and cold?

  The memory of the holy water, singeing on her fingertips, filled her with a curdling shame. A black worry.

  What was she becoming? How had this happened, the fire? She’d done it, there was no question. But how? She hadn’t tried to do it, hadn’t expected it. She’d felt fear as the sword came down on Loredan. Floes had flown through her in the face of her fear, and she’d cast them out. Cast them at Pietro.

  And burned him with them.

  She’d not known that was even a possibility. She’d hoped to shock him maybe. Fill him with a troubling warmth that would make him stop, that would pause the sword in his hand.

  Would she spew fire any time she felt such fear?

  They climbed out into a large rowboat, and Bellccior and the others got to rowing. Loredan removed his fine coat, rolled up his sleeves, and joined him. Antonio said nothing about it. He sat in the prow, remote as a figurehead, and watched the three massive carracks as they approached them—the fleet of Santo Miguel.

  She couldn’t just spew fire every time she was afraid, Thessaly thought. She had to control her emotions. Fire on a boat was not a small problem.

  But she couldn’t cut herself off from everything that brought her joy, either. If you cared for things, you feared for them.

  A small gold speck, floating above the masts of the Espada, lit up in a stream of light coming down from the clouds—Nur, Thessaly knew. She could feel the flavor of her friend, even this far away.

  She couldn’t live in this way. She would have to find some balance. Some in-between. Caring, but not. Feeling, but removed.

  How?

  There was Loredan, composed, calm, and rowing toward the Espada as if he did it every day of his life. As if he hadn’t just suddenly proposed marriage to a stranger, asked to be a partner in an enterprise he’d never sailed with, and took up with some cousin he had never met.

  How was he staying so calm?

  As if he sensed her thoughts, he looked at Thessaly, his dark hair blowing up over his brow, gold eyes gleaming, turned up in a slight smile. The smile again had some understanding in it.

  This was life, Thessaly thought. He had accepted it. He liked her, he needed a profession, and he could be of use to Antonio.

  And here was her father, grim and silent, saying nothing about h
er abomination, nor the fact that they were running from yet another court. Accepting it.

  I cause blood to spill, Thessaly thought dully. And flesh to burn.

  Blood. Flesh. All that remains for me to misuse are breath and passion.

  She glanced at Loredan again. He gave her a small smile, his eyes dancing.

  She looked away.

  Loredan fell into shipboard routine naturally, making the tour of all three vessels with Antonio after the morning meal was served. Then he would spend the rest of the day with one boatswain or another, or the pilot, or the cargomasters, or even the rowers and the deck boys. He threw himself into every task and worked as hard as any of the others. He would greet Thessaly cheerfully anytime she was nearby, but kept his attention on his tasks, and left her be.

  It seemed he knew that was best. Because Thessaly wasn’t certain how she felt about her new station in life, betrothed, in all but word, to a man she did not know. Certainly she liked him. But her mind was full of other things, had to be full of other things, if she were to keep herself and those around her safe.

  Guzal sat with her during the mornings, and then was called to her less happy duties for the afternoons. During that time, Thessaly read with Cerdic, and he began teaching her Greek in earnest. She’d accidentally stolen the book from the Castillo Sforza library—wrapped as it was in her skirts, tucked into her waistband. By the time she’d remembered, they’d been sailing fast away from the docks and into the open sea.

  She felt the fire of bound magicks in her veins spark at every emotion, every sensation, even as she had the mass of it fettered in her middle. And the cold gold of loose magicks began to glimmer, too, and grow through her like threading roots. She could contain the mass, but it was sending out runners and lines through all of her. She breathed in, and it gleamed as wind spread through her, flooding her blood.

  She was a garden of dangerous forces. And she grew more every day.

  It had been the wrong choice to leave Umbra; she was certain of it. The court would have calmed down, she thought. They accepted Umbra; they would have accepted her. And Umbra was powerful. An ill wish or action toward her would be detected immediately and quelled with her aunt’s subtle, dark power and influence, which wended its way, after all, clear to His Holiness himself.

  Her father was ashamed. That was the real issue. He wanted his name to be high, noble. And Thessaly was a wytch.

  What was he to do with her, then? Keep her in a floating box of dry wood, which would so easily be set aflame in the middle of sea, away from help, the first time he and his daughter argued?

  But he, like Loredan, stayed away from Thessaly.

  And Thessaly felt the powers grow through her, keeping her feelings carefully in check. Greek helped.

  They sailed down the Italian coast, far enough away from land that it looked only like blue mists on the horizon. As they turned east, following the shore past the scatter of islands that surrounded the boot’s toe, Cerdic was always on the forecastle deck with his longbow at his side, and a dozen of the deck boys wielding crossbows. Loredan’s duties turned to cannons, powder, and oiled metal. This was the dangerous part of the sea, where runnels and caves and crannies in the white rocks of the Grecian coast often hid bands of men who made their living taking cargoes.

  Unlikely, Thessaly thought, watching through her round window with Plato on her lap, that such a fleet as Santo Miguel would be attacked. But in desperate enough times, and with enough men, anything was possible in this maze of islands.

  The isles looked like something from a story of heaven, or fantastic tales of the kingdom of Prester John—gleaming pale blue, pale green, and white rock, with emerald trees and bushes surrounded by clear jewel-bright water.

  Beauty covers all manner of deceptions, Thessaly thought, turning back to her book.

  Thankfully they came into the bay of Venice, with its great horseman statue, without having experienced any incident of piracy. The crowds of ships in the bay, surrounding them slowly like a forest as they drifted in, felt in a way reassuring to Thessaly. Even more reassuring was the prospect of solid ground, though there wasn’t much of it in Venice—all the streets water, all the carriages boats—but if the ship caught fire, all the men of the Espada would at least have a place to run to.

  The vessels looming over the docks, suddenly giants after being dwarfed by the ocean, moored alongside other giants—worn, embattled vessels that had sailed all sorts of routes all over the world, bringing back silks, china, spices, tobacco, and teas, even holds packed full of dark men to be sold as laborers. Thessaly touched on them and then pulled herself away as the stink of misery filled her immediately. Men sold. Men bought. And here she was, sitting in a nest of cotton and down and silk, like some prized object, sold, too, but for a much softer life.

  Antonio and Loredan rowed away on a boat into the gilded streets where pillared warehouses touched the waters and mansions with decks that stretched over them waited. He was giving Loredan a tour through Venice to unload the rest of the fleet’s cargo—Antonio did not invite Thessaly to come.

  Thessaly did not blame him. She was clearly a problem. She’d kept herself tightly fettered ever since Milan, all along the Sicilian coast and up the other side of the peninsula to the network of islands that flanked the island city. It allowed her to sleep at night—dreamless, dry sleep; sleep that seemed to seep in and demand more sleep.

  She’d had enough of court life, too. She kept herself to herself, with mostly Guzal and Cerdic as companions. They watched her as she ate, she slept. She absently stroked Nur and let her fly. She climbed the ladder to the highest of the wooden nests that topped the sails. She watched the bird fly, leaning on the rail. She breathed in the wind, looking down on the crawling humanity below. A soup of blue-green water and ships, boats, people, crossing and trading, buying, selling.

  She felt refreshed up there, above the stew. But fettered, there was none of the exhilaration she’d often enjoyed putting herself in Nur’s body, watching the curls of breath come in, seeing the slant of water—earth’s blood—underneath. Feeling the feelings of all around her.

  They tormented. They teased her, asking to be tasted, asking to be loosed.

  She was not going to let them go. She was not ready. She needed more time to harness, to bridle. So she shivered and wished, watching.

  Cerdic’s and Guzal’s worry showed on their faces. They did not say anything, but they treated Thessaly gingerly, coddling her. Thessaly didn’t much like it but didn’t have the energy to thrust their patting hands and caressing fingers away. Cerdic had her studying Greek like it might save her soul.

  Loredan began to visit her in her rooms, chaperoned of course by Guzal and Cerdic. He bought paints and canvases in Venice. And he made her a gift of a small packet of spices and herbs. “For your pursuits,” he said, giving her a kind smile one evening.

  Thessaly let them be stowed in the hold with her other goods not currently in use and gave him a smile in return. She had not touched her censer since coming aboard ship.

  She was afraid to even touch on fire. To even think of it.

  A small piece of her knew it was folly—fear would just build and cause another problem. Her aunt had said that.

  Umbra. She had her aunt’s words in a sort of mental primer now. She reviewed them every day. About binding, about warring floes. Vinculum. A spell that held bitterness, darkness, but it had kept her safe. Each day, she resolved to loose herself, feel, battle, and then carefully bind using her aunt’s word.

  Each day, she kept herself tight, numb, and cowardly, dulling through the day, barely tasting anything that came to her lips. Barely perceiving the Greek she read aloud for Cerdic.

  As they left Venice, Thessaly could see the battle her father fought as well. What to do with her. A daughter who’d sunk into the unholy practices of wytchery. She wanted to ask, wanted to find out what he knew. He knew something. He’d spoken of her mother. What of her mother?

 
; Loredan provided the answer one night, as they sat eating supper on deck. Antonio was busy behind the compass, charting. Cerdic had taken Guzal up on the forecastle to teach her constellations and cartography. Thessaly and Loredan sat alone, quiet. The awkwardness had faded, but Thessaly was not herself. Not the interesting study he’d hoped for, coming on board. She knew that, knew she had disappointed him.

  “What do you know of the Loredans?” he asked, popping a raisin biscuit into his mouth, chewing before he continued. “Your mother, your aunts? My mother?”

  “Not a lot,” Thessaly replied. “Papa is pained to speak of her.”

  “Of course,” he tilted his head. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  She was startled for a moment.

  She turned to him, frowning a little. “You know of my mother?”

  “I met her once.” Loredan leaned back against the rail, tucking his arms behind his head to support it there. “She and her sisters, Helene and Cecelia, were sought after. They were lovely, all. Thessalia had hair the color of poppy petals—red like paint. Helene and Cecilia were fairer, with freckled skin and wide, high brows. Many men courted them. And not just for their beauty.” He turned a smile on her. “For their wit. And their art.”

  “Their art,” Thessaly repeated. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

  He gazed at her for a long moment. “Loosen up inside there, Thessaly. Fettered up so tight, you cannot even enjoy a night full of diamond dust?” He pointed up.

  His use of her given name startled and warmed. It was shades of the joy she’d felt meeting him in the library. The friendship started. She couldn’t restrain a smile in return and looked up. Something inside her sagged, then swooped. A mild burst of joy. A memory.

  “Loosen,” he urged, leaning forward, looking her dead in the eyes.

  “You can see it?” Thessaly asked, frowning at him. “The bindings I’ve made?”

  Loredan held her gaze keenly. “Aye. I see you fretting. I see you guilting yourself to nothing. You did right at Francesco’s court. Stop flaying yourself over it. You’re a power, a force. And I admire that about you. I covet it. I want that in my wife.”