Marco turned his head and spat on the dusty ground. “Nice try. I’ll decide what to do with you when we make camp tonight. I told you what would happen if you tried steering me into trouble.”
I didn’t have to, Renata thought. You just did it for me.
Chapter Sixteen
Livia held a waterskin as she spoke, taking sips to ease her sore throat and keep her voice from cracking.
She’d been talking for twelve hours.
The crowd encircled her makeshift stage now, and she turned this way and that as she preached. Not just her refugees, not anymore: as word spread through Lychwold, more and more of the locals came out to listen. She made eye contact, occasionally reaching down and touching a hand or a shoulder. She spoke of her father, giving them glimpses into the mind of their fallen pope, thinking aloud about how his teachings had shaped her life.
And she spoke of her brother, and what he’d done in Lerautia. As she told the crowd her story, describing the burning of the Alms District and the massacre under Carlo’s orders, Dante felt the mood of the crowd shift. The energy turned electric, tinged with righteous anger.
He prowled among the people, watching and listening. He’d shaved his goatee and rubbed a bit of henna into his coal-black hair, staining it a dirty red. His skin was a bit too dark, but at a casual glance he could pass for a native Itrescan. He’d spent most of the night mastering the accent and learning local idioms. When he spoke, he sounded like he’d been born and raised in Lychwold.
“That can’t be true,” he heard one man say to another. “A massacre? She’s making that up, right?”
Dante sidled up behind them, as if he’d been there all along. “It’s true,” he said. “I was over at Byrne’s market, by the south gate. There were two traders fresh from the Holy City, and they saw it all with their own eyes!”
Dante had spent hours just learning the crowd, marking the faces of those who lingered and those who left and returned with friends in tow. He marked pockets of adoration and disbelief, the ones who were swayed and the ones who had simply come to see what the fuss was about.
So armed, he went to battle.
Here and there in the throng, he planted the story about the traders from Lerautia. Just enough to get it spreading on its own. He even heard, doubling back, one wag insisting he’d spoken to the nonexistent traders and heard their harrowing stories personally.
Everybody loves a tragedy, Dante thought. You want to believe her story. You want to share her rage. And now, you have permission.
He insinuated himself into a knot of off-duty guardsmen wearing their Itrescan green and black with rearing griffins emblazoned on their tabards. He leaned toward the most receptive-looking one and gestured toward the stage.
“I knew she was a looker, but I didn’t guess she was tough as iron, too. Surviving that massacre, getting all those people out safe…she might have Verinian blood, but the way she stands up to trouble, she could have been born right here in Lychwold.”
“Wish she had been,” the guardsman responded. “I might have a chance with her.”
That drew a chorus of chuckles from his companions, and Dante joined in.
“You might yet,” Dante said. “Did you hear? King Jernigan was so impressed with her, he’s offered her citizenship. She’s got duty, honor, guts—everything an Itrescan should. I hope she says yes, don’t you?”
Of course they did. He left them to discuss it between themselves and slipped back into the crowd. Next he singled out a small clump of locals in clean clothes and perfumes, who had skipped the services in Lychwold’s cathedral in favor of hearing Livia instead. While many of the new arrivals were merely curious, these watched with rapt attention.
“That Carlo.” Dante crossed his arms, speaking low as if muttering to himself. “We could have done better with Livia on the throne.”
A well-dressed woman hanging on her husband’s arm looked back at him as if he’d announced the discovery of two-headed cattle.
“A woman? As pope?”
Dante shrugged. “Why not? The Verinians made that rule, and they treat their women like dogs. We Itrescans are far more enlightened; we always have been. We’re better than they are. So who are they to tell us who we can and can’t have on the throne? It’s our Church too, isn’t it?”
He raised his voice as he spoke, slowly, taking the temperature of the crowd around him. The woman’s husband looked between her and Dante.
“Well,” he said, “she’s obviously a holy woman, and I suppose if a woman can be a saint—”
“Better than that loudmouth Yates,” a nearby man said. “This is the most entertaining sermon I’ve heard in years.”
“Right, right,” the husband replied, “but pope? It’s just not done.”
Dante threw up his hands. “Exactly! And why’s that? Because the Holy City is in Verinia. They make the rules and we follow? I don’t know about you lot, but I’m sick of bending the knee to foreigners. They’ve never had to fight like we have; they don’t know our struggles.”
That got nodding and grumbling all around. Someone clapped his back and muttered, “Damned right.”
Of course I’m right, Dante thought. All I have to do is appeal to your national pride, and suddenly you’re sheep for the shearing. Now to plant the seed.
“King Jernigan said she can swear to the griffin,” he said. “Then she’d really be one of us. Imagine that: what if we had our own pope? That’d tweak those wine-sniffers’ noses!”
The smile on his face as he slipped away from the sudden roil of debate was genuine this time. He circled the stage, repeating the routine in two other pockets of conversation, before making his way to the edge of the still-growing congregation.
Amadeo shuffled over, leaning in to speak softly. “How’s it coming along?”
“Better than I could hope, but we have to see if the disease spreads.”
“Disease?” Amadeo looked alarmed.
“Do you know how a sickness is spread? You touch a victim, or breathe sick air, and catch it yourself. And then you pass it to others, so on and so on, right?”
“Of course,” Amadeo said, “that’s simple medicine. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m planting certain ideas among the crowd,” Dante explained. “Custom diseases, targeted at the most vulnerable patients. You see, an idea, on its own, is nothing.”
He pointed, fingertip following the growing sea of faces. Leading Amadeo’s eye from one knot of onlookers in eager debate to others whispering intently with their eyes locked on the stage.
“But under the right conditions, an idea spreads. From mouth to ear, from heart to heart. And that’s how we create a groundswell. An idea plague.”
Amadeo straightened his cassock and frowned.
“I understand your method,” he said, “but you could pick a more tasteful metaphor.”
Dante ignored him. He handed Amadeo a folded slip of parchment.
“Here. Bring Livia a new waterskin, and slip this to her when you do. Be subtle.”
“Livia,” the long note began, “read carefully, and follow this next step to the letter. When you’re ready, take a long drink from the waterskin.”
Dante made his way back into the crowd, taking his time, looking for the perfect spot while he waited. She kept the parchment folded in her palm as she spoke, her eyes scanning. She didn’t act right away.
You’re weighing your options, Dante thought, and you don’t quite trust me yet. Good girl.
A couple of minutes later, though, she lifted the waterskin and took a long, five-second swig.
“As I was saying,” she began, only to be cut off as Dante cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted.
“Livia! They say King Jernigan offered you citizenship. Will you take it?”
She placed her hands over her heart, acting as if deep in thought, while eager voices susurrated across the crowd.
“While I have only been here a short time,” she sa
id, “I’ve come to know so many of you. Your hopes and your fears, your struggles and your stories. And I have seen the…the depths of the Itrescan heart. The strength of your character, the ferocity of your love.”
She swept out an arm, curling it back again as if drawing the entire crowd to her breast.
“Yes, it is true, the king has given me this opportunity. And while I think fondly of the land where I was born—”
She trailed off, bowing her head as if deep in thought, long enough for a distant voice to shout “Say yes!” His was joined by others calling out in excitement. Dante stroked the rough stubble on his chin, absently missing his goatee, as he watched Livia work.
“While I miss the Holy City,” Livia said, “it can no longer be my home. Lerautia is lost to me forever, but I have no sorrow. Because in my heart of hearts, I’ve already found my true home. In my heart, I am one of you. I am Itrescan.”
As the crowd exploded in wild cheers, Dante turned and strolled away. He was confident she could keep the momentum going for the next few hours, while he set up the next part of his plan.
He’d carefully placed Livia upon a pedestal. Now he had to tear her down.
His path took him to the city gate, strolling up a wide cobblestoned market road and aiming straight for the king’s hall. As he walked, his thoughts drifted to Mari Renault.
Right now, Dante pictured the scene like a pantomime playing out on a garishly painted stage, Mari is helping a little old woman who’s fallen into a mud puddle and sprained her leg. She’s cheerfully helping her hobble home, putting on a kettle of tea and mending the old woman’s skirts before moving on.
Ever since he’d abandoned the two bounty hunters in the night, stealing away from their camp, he’d caught himself playing this little game. Imagining the aspiring knight performing some selfless act, roving the land and doing good deeds.
Mari was a madwoman—he knew that. Utterly out of her gourd, and he assumed Werner Holst’s protection was the only reason she hadn’t been taken advantage of or cut to pieces a hundred times over by now. Still, as he’d told the corrupt Cardinal Accorsi, she was the nobler sort of madwoman.
Something about her wide-eyed, naive idealism had touched Dante’s heart. Not in the way she hoped, he was sure. He had no intention of joining her deluded dreams of a better world. That didn’t mean he wasn’t an admirer of hers, in his own twisted way.
The more he schemed and turned people into pawns, the more his thoughts turned to fantasies of Mari. She was a counterweight in his imagination, a wandering beacon of light to offset what he’d referred to, in his farewell letter, as his “banal and tawdry darkness.”
No matter how much blood spills on my hands, no matter how low in the mud I slither, she’ll offset every one of my deeds with her own. Outshine them, even. No matter what I do, the world is still at a net positive. Mari Renault is the angel on my shoulder.
He let those thoughts comfort him, sloughing off his guilt like a serpent’s skin, as he betrayed his new allies.
Chapter Seventeen
The road ended at the coast. Mari stood on a rocky beach, a cold breeze ruffling her messy hair, and watched the sunset glimmer across black, rippling waters.
Werner called out, climbing down to the beach from a cottage on the hill. “Ferry runs twice a day. He said they can take us and the cart, no problem. It’ll cost us, though.”
“I’m good for it,” Nessa said, not even glancing in his direction. She stood at Mari’s back, just off to one side, sharing the sunset with her.
“I don’t understand,” Werner puffed, ambling over, “how you can afford all of this. How much money do scholars make, anyway?”
“A pittance, but I recently inherited some heirloom ruby rings. I sold them to finance this expedition.”
He shrugged. “Well, it’s your money.”
“Yes,” Nessa agreed.
Werner looked to Mari. “Could I talk to you for a second?”
“Of course,” Mari said.
He nodded back over his shoulder. “Alone?”
Werner frowned as Mari looked to Nessa, as if silently asking her permission. I’m your teacher, he thought, seething. I’m your partner, you listen to ME.
Nessa gestured to Werner. “Go ahead. I’ll be perfectly safe here.”
Werner walked away, and Mari followed. They picked their way along the rocks, evening tide lapping just a few feet away, until Nessa was a still shadow in the gathering dark.
“What is it?” Mari asked.
Good question, he thought. He didn’t have words. He had emotions, heated to boiling over, and no way to get them out of the wire cage around his heart.
“I don’t like her,” he blurted out.
Mari blinked. “So? I mean, come on, Werner. Since when do we have to like anyone we work for? Our last client was a tannery owner who had his men attack us when we showed up for the interview. His coin smelled like pigeon shit, but we still took it. Besides, why don’t you like her? She likes you.”
“She…does?”
“Of course she does.”
“She doesn’t act like it,” Werner said.
“She’s not a—a warm person, I guess, but half the time we were talking, it was about you. In a good way, I mean, you should have heard how she complimented you. She wanted to know all about how we met, how you trained me—”
“What did you tell her,” Werner asked quickly, “about how we met?”
Mari shook her head. “You know…you know some of that is all fuzzy in my head. Because of how lost I was before you helped me. So I mostly talked about our recent jobs. She’s had a sheltered life, you know; she really liked hearing about the fights we’ve been in. Don’t worry, I made sure she knows she’s safe with us.”
“Well, that’s…” Werner paused, searching for the right word. “Good.”
“Was that all you wanted to say?”
“Yes,” he said, then spoke up again as she turned to go. “No. Mari, I’m…I’m afraid.”
She half smiled as she looked back at him.
“You? Afraid? That’s a first.”
“Mari, I know these are your people, and I know you’re excited to be going…home, after all these years, but…” He clenched his hands at his sides. “I’m just afraid you’re going to be disappointed. That this might not end up the way you’re hoping it will.”
She fished in her purse and held up her pewter brooch. The dying rays of the sun glinted off the craggy face of its engraved moon.
“Faith,” Mari said, lightly thumping the brooch against his chest, “tells me otherwise. Faith tells me I’m exactly where I need to be. I will stand before the Autumn Lance with an honest heart, and I will earn my knighthood. Don’t be afraid, Werner. There’s nothing to fear here, nothing but the prize at the end of the journey. And that prize is all I’ve ever wanted.”
“I know,” he breathed as she walked away. “That’s what I’m afraid of most.”
At the end of a slow ferry ride across restless black waters, they finally set foot on Terrai soil.
It’s dead, Werner thought. It’s all dead.
Yellow grass and stale, rocky soil crunched under his boots in the dark. Trees blighted by disease, their bark caked with violet fungus, curled their limbs inward like the fingers of an arthritic hand. Werner watched a blind crab-thing, its shell white and pustuled, skitter along the shore.
“Home,” Nessa said, her eyes wide behind her big, round glasses. Mari stayed silent, her expression unreadable.
They decided to chance riding by starlight for a bit, in the hopes of finding an inn. Werner’s stomach grumbled as he steered their cart down a long and broken road, the reins loose in his grip.
“Light up ahead,” Mari said, squinting. “Is that a roadhouse? Maybe they’ll have room for us.”
As came around a bend and clearing the tree line, they got a better look. Torches burned around the stout stone walls of a fort, banners emblazoned with the Imperial eagle drapi
ng from the battlements. A wooden barricade, little more than a thick log studded with foot-long spikes, blocked the road ahead.
Before Werner could turn the cart around, the local welcoming committee marched out to greet them. Two soldiers wearing leathers the color of dirty sand, one carrying a bull’s-eye lantern and splashing light across Werner’s face.
“Come on down, then,” the other said. “Let’s have a look at you.”
“Let me handle this,” Werner whispered, clambering down from the driver’s perch. Mari and Nessa followed, lining up beside him.
“Papers,” the soldier said.
“Papers?” Werner echoed. “What papers?”
“Are you thick? Citizenship papers. Letters of transit.”
Werner held up his open palms. “There’s been a misunderstanding here. We’re not locals. We just arrived by ferry.”
“You came from the Empire to here, on purpose?” the other soldier said. “Why in the Gardener’s green would you want to do that? Are you lost, or just stupid?”
“We’re here on business. It’s all aboveboard—”
“A Murgardt traveling with two Terrai women, after nightfall? There’s nothing aboveboard about this.” He passed his lantern to his partner. “Keep them here. I’m fetching the captain.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Werner saw Mari’s hands easing toward the fighting batons on her belt. “Mari,” he said warningly. Her hands pulled back.
They waited. The soldier kept the lantern’s aperture sweeping across their faces, making a point of flashing their eyes with it. A bark of laughter turned Werner’s head.
“Sarge? Damn my eyes for lying if it isn’t you!”
A big, barrel-chested man, his leathers filigreed with swirling gold trim, stormed up and clasped Werner’s shoulders. “Get that light off him,” he snapped at the soldier with the lantern. “You know what we’ve got here? A soil-blessed hero is what.”
“Beitel, you old dog,” Werner said with a grin. “What’s with the fancy kit, somebody actually promoted you?”
“For my sins.” He gestured back at the fort. “All this grandeur is mine to command. Not much commanding to be done now, though, with the garrison down to quarter strength. Orders came down from high command: they’re moving everyone in-country, some kind of trouble with the Caliphate. But was I lucky enough to get called up to the action? No bleeding chance.”
The Instruments of Control Page 10
