by Carol Berg
“Yes. The man I honored most in the world was condemned on my testimony. I was as firm in my belief in his treachery as you are of your tetrarch’s holiness. And I was absolutely wrong.”
“The daemon mage could have obscured your mind, and your friend’s mind, to believe in your father’s crimes. To hide his own dealings. He could have obscured the king’s mind to give him parole. Powerful sorcerers can do that, so I’ve heard. The holy tetrarch says the mage torments our dead, destroys souls.…”
She sounded sincere, as if striving to understand. But she was a child of the Temple, and believed in Beltan de Ferrau’s virtue, and could recall anything she saw or heard. Any attempt to explain the Gautier conspiracy and Dante’s actions would only tie me closer to him. I could not let her trick me into spewing confessions.
“I believe the mage capable of much wickedness. But my judgment of my father was made on facts and evidence, not compulsion. It just happened that the logical interpretation of the facts was flawed, because the crime was so much greater and so much more complex than anyone could ever imagine. As for King Philippe, I was present on the day he paroled the mage. He believed what he did was right and just. There are few people in the world whose judgment I would trust more.”
She swallowed my words as the night devours the light, and asked no more questions.
By evening the river had receded. By the next morning, my friend the bargeman welcomed us aboard his boat. By sunset, Rhea Tasserie and I parted under a linden tree on Merona’s Plas Royale, after going over our plan one more time. Though the thought of further delays near ground my bones, Rhea was adamant that we could not attempt the rescue right away. For the prisoner to disappear on the very night of her return would point an accusing finger directly at her.
A day or two would give her time to report on her mother’s lingering illness from a winter grippe, fend off any contrary reports, expound upon the delays of travel in such dreadful weather, and ensure that Ilario was fit to travel. When all had settled back to normal, she would hang a red scarf out her window in the hospice at sunset for an hour. On that night a small gate in the hospice garden would be left unlocked, and she would wait for me in the southeast corner of the garden. By the time she realized I wasn’t joining her, Ilario and I would be gone.
CHAPTER 17
MERONA
At last! I counted again. Fifth window from the right in the second of three rows. The hospice was a newer structure, built to house Temple servitors, traveling officials, and the infirmaries, as well as all manner of official activities. Long and low, its ranks of simple pediment windows sat orderly and pleasing in a style revived from before the Blood Wars. A number of casements stood open, and an irregular shape was draped over the sill of the one Rhea had indicated was her private bedchamber.
Fog had rolled up from the river, dulling the colors of evening. The Temple pennant that flew from the staff above the hospice roof was more mud brown than ivy green. But the rag hanging limp from Rhea’s window was surely scarlet.
Three days of skulking about the royal city and I had near given up on Rhea’s signal. Every sort of imagining had flown through my head. She was under arrest herself. Ilario was dead or dragged off to their dungeons, while the girl and her holy tetrarch prepared a trap. All still a risk. And while I twiddled my thumbs, Dante was getting farther and farther away, in search of an enchantress who spoke in dreams and emeralds that showed visions of a devastated world. I needed to be with him.
Hefting my bundle of Ilario’s clothes, I strolled through the evening bustle—royal guardsmen hurrying to change the watch, mounted courtiers, ladies in carriages, students and scholars hurrying to supper from the academies and collegiae that lined the broad boulevard. I had to give Rhea time to leave off her afternoon’s work. She was accustomed to sleeping for a few hours before returning to sit with Ilario through the night watches. But on this night she would sneak out to meet me in the garden.
Clutching the cold glass vial in my pocket, I stepped into an alley and breathed deep. Peace reigned in the royal city, both in the streets and in the aether, since Dante had undone the hauntings and plagues he’d worked for Germond de Gautier.
Two days previous, I had talked my way into the palace stable and fetched one of Ilario’s own horses. Guillam the stable master believed I was arranging a secret hunting party for the chevalier’s birthday and had agreed to keep my presence and my acquisition secret. Though he looked somewhat askance at my bedraggled turnout, he recognized me as the queen’s onetime maid of honor and Ilario’s friend. As every night thus far, the horses were waiting at a private hostelry just off the Plas Royale, a lad paid well to hold them ready.
The bells of Sabria’s royal city clanged in calm and reassuring timbre. Seventh hour of the evening watch. It was time.
Eight drops of the potion on my tongue. The world blurred, as if the fog had thickened, smearing the faded colors and winking lamplight. But soon the brick walls of the alley, the horses and carts and passersby returned to sharpened clarity, a faint blue halo about their edges to hint at the magic enveloping me. As I stepped out of the alley, a hurrying post messenger near bowled me over. I pressed my back to the wall with grim satisfaction. None could see me.
A side lane separated the hospice garden wall and the wall of the Collegia Musica. A few steps along and the sounds of city business dropped away. The hospice precincts were not easily broached. Birds chittered in trees planted well away from the high walls. The ivy grew thicker the farther the wall stretched from the Plas Royale, but certainly not thick or strong enough to climb as romantic poets insisted. Thick enough, however, to mask an iron door kept solidly locked.
But on this night, the opening lever, wrought in the shape of a grapevine as thick as my arm, yielded smoothly to my touch. I held back, waiting for bailiffs to jump out of the dark masses of shrubbery within. Quiet conversation carried across the lawn from the direction of the hospice. Lamplight spilled from one and then another window as evening deepened into night. But no alarms sounded. Not so much as a leaf stirred.
Rhea’s diagram had shown a service door at the rear of the building. A bailiff stood guard there at any hour, she had told me, always an experienced man who recognized the Temple servitors allowed to use the entrance.
I halted a few metres away near a thick tangle of lilac bushes and launched a pea-sized bit of gravel at the liveried bailiff. It struck him on the cheek. He spun around. Thanking my brother for pestering me to compete in endless throwing competitions, I aimed the next for the man’s thigh. One more, and he was trotting across the grass in my direction.
“Hey now, what’re you about out there, rascals? Hiding, are you?”
Wishing the guard would keep his voice quieter, I skirted around him, darted through the doorway, and pressed my back to the wall inside. After a few moments, he poked his head through the door, saw nothing, and harrumphed.
The door snicked shut behind him. Blotting the dampness from my forehead and tucking my shoes more firmly in my belt, I reminded myself to keep a moderate pace. It would be stupid to betray my presence by panting and heaving or bumping into a servitor. Heart pounding, I ventured onward.
Ten metres in, branch left. Take the first stair to the right, to the uppermost floor. First obstacle. Three or four women—cleaning women from the look of them—lingered on the first-floor landing chattering about babies and the advantages of hiring out to wet-nurse instead of cleaning. I could not pass.
To retreat and find an alternate stair meant passing through lobbies and reception areas, still busy so early in the evening. Do not run. Do not run. At least the stair was wider and I could get around the groups of servitors or visitors who dawdled. At the first opportunity I returned to my original path. The third-floor chamber where Ilario lay was accessible by only the one stair. And then there would be guards.
Fortune smiled as I reached the last door at the end of the third-floor passage. The two guards were peering out of the
window, pointing and chuckling at something on the lawn. I was able to slip past and through the single door behind their backs.
Most of the small, bare room lay in shadow. A single candle burnt on a bedside table, illuminating a clutter of jars, bottles, and spoons. The candlelight spilled onto a bed shoved into the corner and the untidy sheet and blanket that draped a huddled form, facing the bare wall. Tears welled at the sight of pale hair tousled on the pillow and the feet hanging off the end of the short, narrow bed. After all, I’d been afraid Rhea had lied.
I closed the door softly.
“Naught to say to you, interrogator.” The words from the corner were slurred and faint. “Succor me, Santa Alis, Santa Claire, Sante Ianne…” A Cult prayer litany.
“Hold still and quiet, my fair chevalier,” I whispered, touching his shoulder. “A friendly ghost has come to steal you away.”
He didn’t move. But his pale slender hand reached over his shoulder to grasp my hand. His flesh was cold and damp.
“Be this another fever dream?” he said softly. “Or shall I begin my litany of thanksgiving right off?”
“Not until we’re out. I’ve brought clothes your tailor would wholly disapprove of.”
He shifted, shoving ineffectively at the bedclothes. I dragged them off and helped him roll over. He wore only a coarse wrinkled shirt that might once have been white. His face remained firmly pressed into the pillow. “Head’s an iron pot filled with porridge.”
“We must do this,” I said. “We’ll find a safe place for you to rest as soon as we’re away.”
“Small problem.” He raised his left wrist, bound by a metal band chained to the iron bedstead.
I roused a short blast of Mondragon heat from inside me and shattered the damnable chain as far from Ilario’s hand as I could manage it. The raw and ugly bit of magic left the bedclothes smoking. My stomach curdled in disgust. How could Dante love this so?
“You’ve practiced.” Ilario coughed, stretching his hand and its shattered remnant of chain away from his head. “Might warn a fellow.”
“If I think about it, I can’t make myself do it. Now, up.” I slid an arm under his shoulders. We eased him to sitting, small, strained sounds in his throat rousing my dismay. Ilario had always been the very image of life, even when dealing death with his sword.
Arms rigid, hands pressed against the bed, head drooping, he exhaled slowly. “ ’Fraid you’ve picked a bad night, ghost. They infuse me with diabolical potions to loosen my lips.”
“Unfortunate.” I dropped the clothes in his lap. “Get these on, Knight of Sabria, or I’ll take you out of here naked. And imagine what that would do to your reputation.”
His shoulders spasmed…and then shook.
“Great heavens, Ilario…”
He glanced up, his blue eyes heavy lidded, his skin scoured by pain and blotched green with fading bruises, but sporting a grin as wide as Ocean. “Anne de Vernase,” he said, squinting as if he might see me did he try hard enough. “My beloved lady. Unseeable as grace. Irresistible as an avalanche.”
He pawed at the pile on his lap and pulled out the ugly green tunic we had bought for him in Leynoue. He sighed heavily. “But no appreciation for fashion.”
I knelt in front of him and pushed stockings up his long bare legs. Then baggy trousers. He squirmed enough to get them over his underdrawers so I could fasten buttons and ties. It must have looked very strange, as if his clothes were dressing him all of themselves. He couldn’t reach high enough to get the tunic over his head. I did that, too, taking care to prevent the chain dangling from his wrist from rattling.
“No boots till we’re away,” I said.
“Barefoot. Mercy…”
His mocking dismay raised a smile as I pulled the vial from my pocket. “I’m going to give you a few drops of my sister’s magical brew, and we’re going to walk right out of this place with none the wiser.”
“I’ll be a ghost, too? Delightful! Ghosts couldn’t have guts that feel as if they’ve been stitched by a sailmaker. Though I’ll say…” His brow creased and he peered into the shadowed corners. “The healer. Where is she? The time…” No mockery when he spoke of her.
“She’s in the garden.” There wasn’t time to probe his opinion of Rhea. “Now, open your mouth.” Four drops for him. It was going to take us a while to get him out. Surely…I hadn’t thought about the possibility Lianelle’s potion wouldn’t work on someone else. “It will feel strange.”
“Saints and angels!” Ilario stretched his eyes wide…blinked…gaped…threw his arm across his face…and then faded into nothing. “Strange medicines you dish out. But alas, sweet ghost, I’m still here.”
“No more than I am here. Trust me.”
The bottles and jars on the bedside table glared at me. Gods, what were they all? I scooped everything into my pack and slung it back over my shoulder, blew out the candle, and returned to his side. Laughing in relief, I found his head, not quite poking him in the eye. “Now, onto your feet like a good fellow. Lean on me. Right foot first. We’ll take it slow, but you and your ugly jewelry must be absolutely silent. Save all groaning and whining for later.”
Supporting an invalid when we couldn’t see each other was incredibly awkward. Three times, tangled feet came near tumbling us in a heap, and twice an aborted groan told me I’d moved too quickly or too far.
Our shuffling progress was brought to an abrupt halt by clicking footsteps and gruff voices outside the door. “Did you mention the time?” Ilario mumbled into my hair.
“Near eighth hour.”
“Saints…” He retreated to the bare wall behind the door, dragging me alongside.
When the door opened a few centimetres, Ilario set up such gagging, hawking, spitting, and groaning as near made me vomit in sympathy.
“Go ’way,” he croaked. “Leave a man…bit…dignity to heave…patchwork guts…privacy. Queshions later…won’t answer anyway…”
“Where’s the healer?” The man with the steel-edged voice wasn’t pleased. But he didn’t push the door farther open as Ilario drowned out a mumbled response with more retching.
“Well, fetch her,” the man snapped. “Tell her the prisoner is puking.”
Rhea, who wasn’t in her bedchamber, but in the garden.
Iron bars crosshatched the single window, and we dared not move through the door. It remained open but a few centimetres, and the murmur of voices in the passage did not abate. Fire and destruction might be the only way.…
“What’s happened? Why are all of you here?” Rhea’s clear voice interrupted the mumbling. “He was resting peacefully when I left him. Move aside, please!”
The door opened slightly wider.
“Clean him up,” said the man. “But give him none of your pills or potions. Perhaps a sour gut will persuade him to answer.”
“I wasn’t told he was to be questioned tonight.”
“His questioning is the tetrarch’s concern, servitor, not yours.”
“Forgive me, bailiff. I’m just concerned with keeping the man alive. Let me see what’s wrong and clean up the mess.”
The wider view through the opening door told me we could not push our way through the men crowding the passage. A disheveled Rhea grabbed a lamp from the passage, marched into the dark room, and shut the door firmly.
“What in the—?”
Holding the lamp high, she tweaked Ilario’s rumpled bedclothes, and then whirled about to stare at the bedside table. Ilario took a breath as if to speak, but I squeezed his arm and pressed my other hand in the vicinity of his mouth.
“Bailiff!” The healer darted to the door and flung it open, raising a curse in my heart. “The prisoner’s gone. Someone’s moved him.”
“That’s impossible. We all heard him. Step aside!”
Rhea held the door open and the men swarmed inside, a short man with tight black curling hair and beard in the lead. “What have you done with him, woman?”
I swore under
my breath. There was no way to get past the men.
“Your own men, Teil and Geroux, were on duty when I left. They took away his dinner tray and ensured his chain was locked, yes?”
Two other men nodded.
“Where were you, girl?” snapped the black-bearded bailiff. “Not in your bedchamber.”
“Why do you question me? Hadn’t you best be finding out who took my patient before Tetrarch de Ferrau finds out he’s missing?”
The mention of the tetrarch’s name prodded the men like a spear in their backsides. The bailiff took one moment to examine the broken remnant of chain dangling from the bedstead. Gray as the sheet, he pelted from the room and down the passage.
I nudged Ilario toward the open door, hoping to make it through before the woman closed it, but he wouldn’t move. I caught it halfway as it swung closed. We could still make it through.…
