The Ugly Woman of Castello di Putti

by A. M. Dellamonica

  Having reached the caldera, the petitioners became more festive. A few leaned over the lip of stone, the better to feel the blast of hot air rising from the lava. Others gathered around an orator who was speaking in Erinthian, gesturing energetically as she related some tale …

  “It’s a tale of the Fleet’s early days,” Tonio said. “The raising of the first ships against the Piracy, and the battle in which our own Stellita was sunk by raiders from Isle of Fury. Shall I translate?”

  “No, that’s all right.” He remembered the history well enough.

  “Then shall we dare the bridge to the glassworks?”

  Parrish assessed the lay of the land. The petitioners’ trail led up the southern edge of the volcano, onto a balcony of stone overlooking the caldera. To the east, a stone bridge arched over the lip of the crater, where the lava began its flow down to the sea.

  “Yes,” Parrish said. “I want to see the glaziers.”

  Tonio scampered to the bridge, lowering his voice. “This is where we burn the dead, and where the forsaken come to end their lives, Kir. We don’t speak of it, naturally.”

  “Naturally.” He followed Tonio down and around the mountain to the banks of the Fiumefouco.

  Across the bridge were the glaziers.

  The first artisans stood alongside a narrow stream of lava, using it as one would any furnace, twirling their blower’s wands over the flow to make vases. Downstream there were potters, roasting clay creations on low-roofed kilns that hung over the molten stone, capturing and focusing its heat. It was a clever but purely mechanical use of the lava. Only after the stream had widened and the plains became less hilly did he see the first sign of magic.

  A bare-armed strongman, clad in a heavy apron, dipped a glazed ceramic staff covered in spellscrip into the river of fire. Molten rock clung to its bottom third, red-hot and thick as honey. With a grunt, the man raised it overhead, spinning it to an even depth before rolling it on the undulating surface of a glazed table, sprinkled with yellow beads and flecks of gold. As he worked it back and forth, almost like a column of dough on a rolling pin, the stone came to form one of the sconces Parrish had seen in town. The yellow beads melted in the heat, imparting the thinning volcanic glass with a golden hue.

  The glazier plunged the staff into a barrel of water with a hissing eruption of steam. Then, with a practiced twist, he tapped the sconce twice with a pumice hammer, separating it from the staff.

  “The fellow at the riot had one of those,” Parrish said. “The hammer that broke up the statue.”

  “They’re called bunters,” Tonio replied.

  “The one at the riot was magical.”

  Tonio nodded, considering. “It’s been seen before, Kir.”

  “Really?”

  “There was a pumice-grinder who had himself scribed so he could shatter rock with his bare hands. He sold the powder to the beauty shops. Last year when he died, they say, his wife had the hammer made from his bones and then gave it to the glaziers’ guild.”

  Downstream, other glaziers were making flat panes of volcanic glass using magically inscribed ceramic forms, lowering the tablets into the lava, pulling them out again and coloring the molten stone in elaborate patterns of colored beads. There were wineglasses and plates of window glass, ships’ portals and pieces of lanterns. Artworks, too—glass figurines of the Lady, castles and houses, and depictions of the Fleet’s most famous ships: Temperance, Constitution, and Breadbasket, the ship from Gale’s homeland. There was no sign of the nameless, moss-draped funeral ship from his own birthplace …

  Parrish turned away. “Do the glaziers gather somewhere on their breaks?”

  Tonio indicated a small grove, removed from the searing heat and the smell of baking stone.

  “Can anyone join them?”

  “Why not?” They sat under a tree, within earshot of serious-sounding murmurs, all in Erinthian.

  “What are they saying?”

  “What everyone’s saying now—that our crown prince has lost his way,” Tonio said. “Primo was always noble and just, but now he is fire-tempered. Gino Scutti was beaten in the street last week, and may die.”

  “Who?”

  “He offended the palazzo this spring. They say Primo strikes his servants and horse, say he sneezed on the ambassador from Tiladene for the fun of it, and she holding the belief that illness is spread through fluids…”

  “Is everything they say true, I wonder?”

  “My padre says telling the tale enough can make it true.” Tonio munched his pasty, unconcerned.

  “And this tax on glass?”

  “Primo wants to levy extra fees on the glaziers along the Fiumefouco,” Tonio said. “Why would you not ask the Lady to ease your heart?”

  “Your lady has a whole volcano on her hands.” It was foolish to think ill of the Erinthians for attempting to put nature on a leash, but it seemed all of a piece: the beauty scribes disguising elders as youths, the ornate houses with their columns and curlicues and their backs turned to the deadly fire of the mountain.

  “Has your beloved rejected you?” Tonio asked.

  In a sense, Parrish thought, thinking again of his ejection from the Fleet. He confided, “I’m to be master of Nightjar soon.”

  “So young! The first step of a great career!”

  “No,” Parrish said. “If I take it, I must stay, at least until—until my employer dies.”

  “Well, she’s ancient.”

  “She’s not really.”

  “Still, you could be an admiral by the time you’re…” He frowned, his nine-year-old brain trying to process divergent ideas of young and old.

  “It’s complicated, Tonio.” He shouldn’t share his troubles with a child. Then it struck him: he and Tonio were closer, in years, than he and Gale, or he and Sloot. “Fleet won’t have me. I’m out. I’m not getting back in.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “You killed someone?”

  “Not as such,” he said. “I made an honorable choice, but I ended up the villain. What did your father say? Telling the tale makes it true?”

  “Well, making your fortune with the Hag will be more fun than polishing your boots and waving the flag on state visits, won’t it?”

  “Probably.” Gale was a true adventurer. And Parrish had been raised to obey, to accept. This mulish refusal to be grateful that he’d landed on his feet … he felt a surge of guilt.

  It was time to tame the rage, to be worthy of his good fortune.

  Tonio tossed a fruit pit downhill, watching it bounce all the way to the stream of fire, and vanish into the molten stone. “A ship’s captain should be taller. If you got scripped, I know a tailor who’d redo your pants. Fine work, very reasonable. You want a plum?”

  * * *

  He returned to the apartment in the afternoon, to find Sloot reclining on a couch in a patch of sun amid bouquets of blue daisies and small white starflowers.

  “Where’s Gale?”

  “Took Strumpet Walk to the palazzo,” Sloot indicated a narrow little walkway behind the building. It was lined with glass walls. “Having a chat with our betters.”

  “You let her go alone?”

  “You can’t watch her every minute, lad—believe me, I’ve tried,” Sloot shrugged. “She always said she’d be happy to meet her end here in Erinth.”

  “What happens if she’s killed at the palazzo?” The prophets from Gale’s homeland swore it was her fate to be murdered. It was why her parents had resorted to magic to make her hard to notice.

  “Verdanii succession is idiotically complex. There’s a sister who’s pregnant. If she has a daughter, the girl will get the ship.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Crisis of faith, Gar?” Sloot pursed his lips. “Or has the Fleet offered to take ye back?”

  “No chance of that.” Acceptance, he reminded himself. Gratitude.

  “There’s no shame in being mad, boy. They made a show of you, didn’t they? Exhibit A—The
Great Disgrace.”

  “It might have been worse. They didn’t court-martial me.”

  “Never! Ye might have proved ye’d done nothing wrong. Politics are theater, always were.”

  His reply was cut off by a stammering servant, shouting a stunningly long name: all Parrish caught was Rosalia Modesta Corrina.

  It meant nothing to him, but Royl was jumping to his feet, so Parrish stiffened to attention.

  Rosalia of the many names was another Erinthian beauty—olive-skinned, muscled as an acrobat, and dressed in a black suit overlaid with bright red beads. She swept into the room, parting her veil to reveal eyes the color of cornflower. “Where is she?”

  “She, Kir?” Sloot said.

  “Neither of you is Secondo’s lover.” Her eye lingered on Parrish. “Unless I’ve seriously misjudged him, that is.”

  Royl smiled. “No, Kir, not us.”

  “Well? Where’s the infamous Ugly Woman?”

  “Kir Feliachild is at the palazzo,” Royl said. “Meeting with her great friend, your future mother-in-law.”

  Ah—this was the prince’s fiancée.

  “Perhaps we can help you?” Parrish asked.

  Rosalia fisted her hands. “It’s traditional for the bride-to-be to warn off her groom’s lovers.”

  “What was I just saying, Gar?” Royl said. “Theater.”

  “Is it merely a matter of being overheard?” Parrish gestured at the curtained balcony.

  With an amused glance at them both, Rosalia twitched the curtain aside, assessing the crowd through her veil. “Who did your face, Kir?”

  Parrish bit back a sigh, and Royl answered, “His parents had that honor.”

  “A natural beauty, here on Erinth? Watch the scribes don’t stone you.” With that, she let out a stream of high-pitched, shrieking Erinthian. Parrish couldn’t quite keep himself from jumping as she heaved a small table through the curtains, so that it clattered over the balcony. “That’ll keep up appearances, anyway. You have any wine?”

  Royl nodded to the terrified servant.

  Hurling one of the bouquets of blue daisies out after the table, Rosalia smashed its vase against a wall before arranging herself onto a couch. “I came to ask a boon of your lady. Primo—the prince? He’s been … troubled. I’ve been urging Secondo to take action.”

  “What action? Displace his brother as heir?” Sloot snorted. “He never wanted to be Conto.”

  “The Hag could convince him.”

  “Her name’s Gale,” Sloot said, “and she don’t involve herself in politics.”

  “Nonsense—she does little else. Primo’s out of control, Kir. There are angry glaziers on the loose with a scripped bunter. What if they smash the Lady of the Caldera?”

  “Nobody’s that keen to die,” Royl said. “As for the princes—”

  “Primo’s been scripped.” That was Gale, standing in the doorway, with a glass of wine. Behind her was a handsome man of about thirty years. “It’s the only explanation for his overnight transformation.”

  Rosalia rose, circling Gale like a cat. She addressed the man. “You shouldn’t be here, Secco.”

  “Amorita,” he said. “Stop agitating on my behalf. We need to restore my brother’s good temper.”

  “The girl wanted you to have this.” Gale held out the wine and Rosalia knocked it away. “Oh—you’re here for the traditional eye-scratching fight?”

  “She started without ye,” Royl said, indicating the broken vase. “Afternoon, Secco.”

  “Capitan Sloot.” They bowed.

  Were they really going to fight? Parrish decided to pretend everything was normal. He asked the prince, “When did your brother’s behavior change?”

  “The night of my betrothal,” Secondo said. “There were two hundred guests at the palazzo. Pree got drunk, which wasn’t like him, and excused himself early. Next we knew, he was sleeping off a rampage in the galleria.

  “He’d smashed our betrothal gifts: furniture, dishes, the musical instruments—” Rosalia put in.

  “Slashed a couple old portraits, too,” Secondo said. “Mama’s still mourning the painting of him during his tyrannical tot years.”

  “Since then, it’s been rages at servants, drinking binges, that stupid proposal to raise the merchant fees. His wife’s sailed off home to visit her family, and if things don’t change, she’ll stay away,” Rosalia said. “The glazier being beaten didn’t help matters.”

  Secondo glared at her. “He didn’t do that.”

  She raised her chin in apparent defiance.

  “As for the fees,” he went on, “It’s a necessary change in policy. The glaziers weren’t meant to learn of it until autumn.”

  “All a show,” Gale said. “Someone wants you running the island, Secco.”

  “Lady preserve me.”

  “You’d be a great Conto, my love,” Rosalia said.

  He acknowledged this without agreeing. “What’ll you do, Gale?”

  “Don’t know yet.” She strolled up to the fiancée, so they were nose to nose, and then grabbed the veil’s bottom edge and shredded it from hem to crown. “Your mother said she had someone looking for the inscription that changed Primo,” she said to Secondo. “Who is it?”

  “No idea.”

  Rosalia considered her veil. Then she reached up with a single finger, dragging it down Gale’s ash-colored cheek, leaving a pale pink line. “You’ll be in touch?”

  “I’ll do as I please.”

  “Then we’re done. Now, do you know a Maglena Torino?”

  Secondo protested. “Darling—”

  “Fourth floor.” Gale dabbed at her cheek. “But I wouldn’t mess with Maglena.”

  “She does keep a dog,” Secondo said.

  Giving them both a disdainful look, Rosalia swept from the room.

  “Can’t say she wasn’t warned,” Gale said. She hugged Secondo. “Enjoy the show, Secco.”

  “Is it just me, or is that fiancée up to her neck in it?” Sloot said, as soon as the door was shut on them.

  “The Contessa believes it’s Rosalia’s family behind the conspiracy—the change to Primo, the beating, all of it.”

  “No proof?”

  She shook her head. “She’s asked us to find that hammer. The city’s in a stir over what it could do to the Lady. Never mind that there’s a whole garrison guarding the volcano. Parrish, how was the glaziers’ hill?”

  “They are tense,” he said. “If Secondo wished to make a move for power, I’d say they’d support him.”

  The maid brought a tray of fruit, meats, and tiny bread rolls shaped like little snails—and nearly dropped it when a fearful barking, followed by screams, broke out upstairs.

  “It’s okay, Laleen.” Gale reached for a bun.

  Parrish asked, “How many former lovers does Secondo have?”

  “No idea, but Maglena’s a retired Fleet regular. She won’t settle for some ritual exchange of scratches.”

  “Secco likes ’em tough.” Sloot nudged Gale. “Time gone by, I was fearful jealous of him.”

  “Forget Secco. How are we going to find the magic hammer?” Gale munched on the bun.

  A crash, upstairs, thrummed through the walls. Royl frowned. “Why didn’t the Contessa ask you to find the scrip that changed Primo?”

  “She’s hiding something there.” Gale shook her head. “In the meantime, there’s a festival tomorrow to celebrate Secco’s betrothal.”

  “Will the Contessa cancel?”

  “No. They’ll post more guards on the path to the caldera, and masks and veils have been forbidden at the fete. Other than that … the show goes on.” Shrieks made her pause. “We’ll have to get you an outfit, Parrish.”

  * * *

  “Murder! Murder!”

  He was out with Gale at a tailor, getting measured for an outfit and being told, again, that his face could be improved upon, when they heard cries in the street.

  They followed the hubbub to a shabby villa surrou
nded by people.

  “I don’t think we can push through.”

  “Raise your voice, Parrish,” Gale whispered, “Say this.” She uttered a phrase in Erinthian and he copied it his best military boom. The crowd around the house parted, people staring with avid curiosity as they passed.

  “What’d you have me say?”

  “Make way for the Hag.”

  The murdered woman had been one of the few Erinthians who looked her age. She had paper-thin black skin, stringy, coiled white hair, and her remains were a sorry sight. Her fingers had swollen and burst like balloons; her eyes and tongue, too. Her teeth had been blown from her mouth. Blood lay thick on the floor and was spattered on the walls.

  The corporal on site gave the body a push with his boot. “She’s soggy,” he said, clearly nauseated. “It’s as though all her bones are broken.”

  Parrish remembered the statue of the dancing boy, blown to pieces.

  Gale looked around at the bottles of fluids, the powders, the writing tools. “She was a spellscribe, Corporal?”

  “Yes, Kir.”

  “Did she have a speciality?”

  “She did a little of everything.”

  “Could she have scripped the prince?” Parrish said. “Altered his personality?”

  The corporal’s eyes widened and Parrish realized he’d been indiscreet.

  “She’d have had to know Primo’s full name.” Gale pulled a bloody scribe’s log from the desk. “But from the looks of this operation, she’s too poor to have worked for the palazzo.”

  “Couldn’t the prince have gotten some work on the sly?” Parrish said. “Secondo looks half your age.”

  “They have their own scribe.” Gale tsked. “She might have fashioned that magic hammer, though. Looks like she had the knack for taking the bodies of the dead and preserving the magical intentions laid upon them.”

  “Relic-making.” Parrish’s training had included basic magical theory. Laying a magical spell on a person, a ship, or a landmark like the volcano—anything with a name—was a relatively straightforward business. The scribe wrote out the intention, using specific materials and the right words, and if the writing was performed perfectly and the subject of the spell was up to bearing it, the magic took hold until such time as the inscription was destroyed.