The Instruments of Control

by Schaefer, Craig

  “Pick a finger,” Basilio said.

  “Excuse me?”

  The older man regarded Felix with cold, dead eyes.

  “Once my men find her. Pick the finger they’ll cut off.”

  Felix just stared out the window.

  “Do you think I’m joking, Felix? Look me in the eye and tell me: am I bluffing?”

  “My father,” Felix answered. “My father, my brother, and my brother’s wife.”

  Basilio gave him a quizzical glance.

  “Hostages,” Felix said. “People I care about. Leverage on me. That’s what you want, right? Well, those are three people I care about. Three people motivating me to cooperate with you, and I have cooperated with you, every step of the way. People you can hurt if I don’t do as you say, and believe me, I don’t doubt that you will.”

  He took a step closer, close enough to feel Basilio’s hot breath on his face. Felix’s voice dropped to a hard whisper.

  “But if you so much as lay a finger on Renata, I’ll stop caring about any of that. And no matter what, even if it costs my life, I will cut your balls off and I will feed them to you before you die. Now you tell me, Signore Grimaldi: am I bluffing?”

  Basilio stared into Felix’s eyes. Trying to intimidate him or read him, Felix wasn’t sure, but he turned his face to stone and stared right back.

  “I almost think,” Basilio said slowly, “that you believe you could.”

  Light, girlish laughter echoed through the open chamber doors, and both men looked back as Aita Grimaldi strolled into the room arm in arm with Petra, Felix’s sister-in-law. They were polar opposites, Aita shining and golden haired while Petra was olive complexioned and given to dark, frumpy frocks, but they wore identical smiles.

  “Felix!” Petra called, giving a wave. “I was just telling Aita about the wedding Calum and I had in Carcanna. You know, it’s not too late to move the—”

  “It’s bad luck,” Basilio said archly, talking over her, “for the bride and the groom to see each other before the wedding.”

  Felix and Aita locked eyes across the room. A wordless understanding passed between them in the space of a heartbeat.

  “Right,” Felix said flatly. “Can’t have that, can we?”

  * * *

  Night rains pelted the wrought-iron balconies of the Guildsman’s Seat, and coppery velvet drapes curtained every tightly latched window. Felix kept his head down as he eased through the quiet building, slipping past latticed wooden screens and shadowy nooks, but he wasn’t worried. By now he’d learned that the regulars here had a tacit agreement to go deaf and blind when it came to their fellow patrons. Half the guests were here to meet a lover behind their spouse’s back, and the other half needed a private place to trade in secrets or contraband. Nobody wanted to know Felix’s business and nobody cared.

  Aita was already waiting in their usual suite. She yanked the sandalwood door open as he approached and waved him inside, glaring daggers.

  “Idiot,” she hissed the second she’d slammed and locked the door behind him.

  “What?”

  “Do you think we’re playing a children’s game? Is this knucklebones? Is it checkers?”

  “Aita, I don’t—”

  She jabbed him in the chest with her fingernail.

  “What part of don’t antagonize my father did you not understand?”

  “He knew Renata was missing. He knew I knew about it. What could I have said?”

  Aita threw her hands in the air and paced across the luxury suite, her slippers sinking into a plush rug the color of hammered brass.

  “You could have played dumb. Should have. Instead, you showed him your backbone. Now he wants to break it.”

  Felix frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Aita spun on her heel to face him. “I mean, you just signed your fiancé’s death warrant. As soon as he left your estate, he put out the call for bounty hunters. There are five hundred scudi riding on Renata’s head.”

  Felix leaned against the door. His legs were suddenly too rubbery, too numb, to hold him upright.

  “My father’s plans depend on you being obedient, fearful, and above all, predictable,” Aita said. “He’s not taking any chances, and insolence is something he cannot tolerate. Make that double, after the assassination attempt. He’s ordered that Renata be brought back alive if at all possible. At which point, you will be forced to watch while he murders her in front of you.”

  Felix’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  “He’s quite confident,” Aita snarled, “that he’ll have no further back talk from you after that. And that is why, my dear husband-to-be, when I tell you to do something, you do it. This situation is entirely your fault.”

  “These—these hunters,” Felix found his voice. “How skilled are they?”

  “Butcherman Sykes and Lydda the Hook? They’re good. And others will join the hunt once they hear about the bounty. Think hard, Felix. You’re sure you don’t know where Renata’s gone? There’s no way to send her a warning?”

  He shook his head. “Positive. I told her to cover her tracks. She knew Basilio might come after her. We hoped not, but…we knew it was a possibility.”

  Aita took a deep breath. Her expression softened, just a little. “She sounds like a smart woman. Resourceful?”

  Felix nodded. “Very.”

  “It’s up to her, then. As long as she keeps moving and doesn’t go talking to anyone she oughtn’t, she has a good chance of staying ahead of the hunters. The faster we finish our work, the safer we’ll all be. Do you understand now, Felix? Do you see how precarious our position is here?”

  Felix swallowed hard. His throat was dry as desert sand.

  “I’m getting the idea.”

  “Good. And that is why you must obey me, without question and without hesitation. Because it isn’t just your Renata under the knife. There’s a blade dangling over all our heads.”

  “Speaking of knives—”

  “I know,” Aita said. “Someone is trying to do our work for us. It would hardly be the first time some would-be contender for the throne made an attempt on my father’s life. Wouldn’t be the first time they’d failed miserably, either. Still, it’s been a long time since anyone’s dared to try.”

  “I heard one of the attackers escaped. True?”

  Aita nodded, pacing the carpet again.

  “True. Though if he has any sense, he’ll run until he reaches the Murgardt border and keep running. For the rest of his life.” She glanced to the curtained balcony window. “You should go. Not long until the wedding, and after that we’ll have the perfect excuse to speak in private as much as we like. Right now it’s an unnecessary risk.”

  He turned to go, unlocking the door and pulling it open. She stopped him on the threshold.

  “Felix.”

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  “She’s a resourceful woman,” Aita said, “and she understands the danger she’s in. She’ll be all right.”

  He wished he could feel as confident as she sounded.

  Outside the Guildsman’s Seat, the rain had turned into an icy drizzle that splashed Felix’s cheeks and sent freezing, tickling tendrils down the back of his neck. He pulled up the collar of his brother’s hand-me-down wool cloak and walked faster along the cobblestoned street, splashing through shallow puddles.

  His lover was out there somewhere, out in the dark and alone, with wolves on her heels. And I should be with her, Felix thought, balling his hands into angry fists.

  Chapter Five

  The buckboard wagon leaned from side to side, swaying with every pit and stone on the backwoods road as its old wheels groaned. Felix, Renata thought, sitting in the open back with an moth-eaten blanket over her lap, I should be with you.

  Hedy slumped beside her and shared the blanket, her heart-shaped face pressed into Renata’s arm as she snored softly. That was some small relief. The fourteen-year-old had two speeds, breathlessly fast and sound
asleep, and had barely stopped talking since they left Mirenze. They shared the wagon with a clutter of casks and barrels and one other traveler, a former soldier named Vanszetti who hoped to find work in the papal guard. Vanszetti was sound asleep too, with one calloused hand riding protectively on the hilt of his sword.

  They’d hitched a ride with an old Murgardt who ran a trade route from Reinsbech to Mirenze and back again. He peddled odds and ends, buying low and selling a tiny bit higher. “I earn just enough to fill my belly and keep me moving,” he’d told Renata when they negotiated for the trip. “That’s all a man can rightly ask for in this world.”

  Renata craned her neck, careful not to jostle Hedy, and whispered up to him. “You must be tired. If you want to take a break, I know how to handle a wagon. I’d be happy to help.”

  The old man squinted up at the evening sky, then gestured to the thick pines squeezing the road.

  “Mighty kind, miss, but I’ll pull us over for the night soon enough. There’s a wayhouse about five miles up. They’ll have fresh feed for my—what’s this, now?”

  He tugged the reins. The big bay horses pulling the wagon clomped to a stop. Holding his small lantern out before him, the driver clambered down from his perch. Hedy shifted in her sleep and murmured something that sounded like “Mum?” as Renata carefully pulled away, getting up in a crouch.

  “Shh,” Renata said, “I’m just taking a look. Here, sleep.”

  She bundled Hedy up in her half of the blanket and jumped down from the wagon. Vanszetti started to stir, behind her, but her attention was drawn to the puddle of lantern light just ahead of the horses. The lightning-seared corpse of a tree blocked the road, brambles and broken branches strewn everywhere.

  “Just my luck,” the driver muttered. He set the lantern down and started rolling up his sleeves. “Don’t worry, miss, I’ll lug this to one side and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Let me help,” Renata said. “I used to roll kegs of ale up and down my father’s cellar stairs all night long. A log’s no different.”

  “If we both grab hold on that end, reckon we can swing it—”

  A whistle and a snap split the air. The next sound was the thump of the old man hitting the ground, choking up blood around the arrow lodged in his throat. A triumphant cry welled up as men poured from the thickets on both sides of the road, ruffians in cheap leathers and burlap hoods that made them look like an army of scarecrows. Renata reacted on instinct, turning to run as one of the men lunged at her, only for muscled, sweaty arms to grab her from behind in a bear hug and lift her off her feet.

  Vanszetti jumped down from the wagon, and his steel sang as he whipped his sword from its sheath. “Stay behind me,” he shouted at Hedy and put his back to the wagon. The first brigand to charge went down screaming, sliced open from neck to belly. The second one was faster, flailing at the veteran soldier with a pair of rusty hand axes, but his head hit the ground two seconds before the rest of his body.

  Another pair of scarecrows, eyes wide behind their misshapen hoods, danced around him. Neither wanted to make the first move. They didn’t have to. The underbrush crackled as it parted for a giant of a man, seven feet tall at the shoulder with coal-black hair and blacker eyes. The newcomer’s weapon matched his size and his lumbering gait: a monstrous sword at least five feet long that he rested against his shoulder like a woodsman’s ax.

  “C’mere,” he grunted, beckoning Vanszetti closer with his free hand. “Have a go, hero. Just you and me. Fair fight.”

  The closest bandits lowered their weapons. Vanszetti took a deep breath, stepped closer, and inclined his head to the giant as he readied his sword—

  —and spat blood as one of the bandits charged in from behind and impaled him on his blade. Gore-streaked steel punched out from Vanszetti’s rib cage, his lung skewered, then yanked free as a kick knocked the dying man to the dirt.

  “Look at that. Bastard ruined my fair fight,” the giant said over a chorus of laughter. As Vanszetti twitched and spasmed on the ground, the giant casually raised one massive boot and brought it down on his skull with a sickening crack.

  Still struggling in her captor’s grasp, Renata heard Hedy’s screams as two more men dragged her from the wagon. “Let her go, damn you!” she shouted just before a filthy hand clamped over her mouth.

  The giant surveyed the scene, still standing on Vanszetti’s skull. “Take the goods. Take the horses, the wagon, and the women. Burn the bodies.”

  * * *

  The bandits’ camp was secluded in a copse of trees a short hike from the main road. With rough hemp rope lashing their wrists behind their backs, Renata and Hedy were shoved into a tiny, dirt-floored tent made from goat hides stretched over wooden stakes.

  “We’ll be coming back for ya,” one of the bandits said, his eyes leering behind his scarecrow hood. “Real soon.”

  Renata tugged and twisted against her ropes, but all she did was skin her wrists raw. There was nothing to do but wait.

  In the dark, in the silence, they could hear the bandits whooping and laughing around the campfire as they divvied up the old peddler’s meager goods.

  “Renata,” she suddenly said, her voice very small.

  It was a conversation in one word. Yes, Renata thought, there’s only one reason they killed the men but kept us alive, and yes, you know exactly what they’re going to do to us.

  For a second, it felt like the horror in her heart could open up like a chasm, a pit wide enough to swallow them both. But it didn’t. She stayed right where she was, sitting on the cold ground and feeling her time running out. Helpless. If she had a weapon, she could at least give Hedy a merciful death and spare her what was about to happen. All she had was dirt and grief.

  “I need a knife,” Hedy whispered, her words spilling out in a frantic torrent, “something to cut with. Something to cut with and stagnant water. Master Fox can help us. He’ll know what to do.”

  She’s delirious, Renata thought. “Hedy. Listen. It’s all right. I’ll protect you as best I can. I’ll…take as much of it as I can, so you don’t have to. When they come for you, tell them…tell them it’s your moon time. They have Carcannan accents, and Carcannan men don’t like—”

  The tent flap whipped open and three bandits sauntered inside. The one in front had a glass eye and a face that looked like someone had used it for knife-sharpening practice. He tossed a heavy pack down at the women’s feet. Hedy’s pack.

  “Whose is it?” he said in a gravelly voice, looking between them.

  Renata heard Hedy bite back a gasp. One-Eye waited a few moments, expectant, then crouched down and dug around inside the pack. He held up a mask of bleached-white bone, carved to resemble a mouse’s face.

  “Whose is this?”

  Now Renata understood. As a girl she’d heard stories about the sabbats that sometimes—so the old-timers said—took place in the woods outside of Mirenze’s walls. Unholy revels, carried out by witches in masks of bone.

  Hedy was a witch.

  You’d burn for that, in any city under the Church’s grace. In the backwoods and stillwater towns, Renata knew, the penalty could be even worse. Never underestimate the cruelty of a panicked crowd, especially in times of a famine or drought they could blame on “black magic.”

  Given what the bandits already had planned for them, what would men like this do if they feared a witch in their midst? Renata didn’t want to think about it.

  “It’s mine,” she said.

  I can’t save you, Renata thought, but at least I can spare you the worst of it.

  Hedy’s jaw dropped. Renata shot her a warning glare, then turned back to the one-eyed man. “It’s mine. I’m the witch.”

  “Boss is gonna want a word with you,” he told her, then jerked his thumb at Hedy. “This one’s useless. Take her out to the campfire and tell the boys to share nice.”

  Hedy screamed and kicked as the bandits grabbed her by the arms, dragging her out of the tent. Renata’s heart
squeezed in a fist of terror. I misjudged, I misjudged this whole thing—

  “Wait!” she shouted. The bandits froze in their tracks, barely noticing Hedy’s frantic squirming. “Your boss. He wants something from me.”

  “Maybe,” he rasped. “If you’re the real thing.”

  “This girl is…she’s my apprentice. If you hurt her, I won’t help you.”

  One eyebrow, the hairs shot through with a web of tiny white scars, slowly arched upward. “You’re not in a position to argue. You’ll do what you’re told.”

  “I promise you,” Renata said, pushing past her fear and putting as much authority into her voice as she could muster, “whatever he wants, if you hurt her, you won’t get it. The girl stays with me. Safe and untouched. Go ahead and test me if you think I’m bluffing, but if you’re wrong, you can explain to your boss why I’d rather die than cooperate.”

  One-Eye stared her down, but he looked away first.

  “Fine, hell with it, take ’em both to the boss’s tent and let him decide what to do with ‘em. Night’s still young. Tell you one thing, witch: if you’re lying, you’re gonna wish you’d kept your mouth shut. Because then we’re really gonna have some fun.”

  Chapter Six

  Werner and Mari hitched a ride on a merchant’s cart, headed west, and the dead girl followed them.

  That was how he thought of it, anyway, every time Mari woke up in the middle of the night. Screaming, drenched in icy sweat, throwing frenzied punches at a phantom only she could see. Every time it was the same. He’d push himself up from the wooden chair he’d been sleeping in, his back and knees groaning in protest, and hover by the bedside until it was safe to come closer.

  Sometimes he could touch her; sometimes he could only talk or try to make reassuring noises. Tonight she curled up and rested her head in his lap, her eyes fixed on the slats of the bare pine wall. Werner’s sausage fingers stroked her ragged blond hair, coming away cold and wet.

  He sat, silent, feeling Mari shake against him, and he hated that dead girl more than he’d hated the motherless fools who killed her.