by Den Patrick
Duchess Prospero, Stephania’s mother, fanned herself under a parasol, attended by her consort Guido, the capo de custodia. The capo had been in thrall to her mother for over a decade despite being a similar age to Stephania. It was widely agreed he was the most attractive and vapid man in Demesne. The capo smiled without humour, favouring Dino with an insincere salute. The Orfano stared back, returning neither. The duchess caught the men’s exchange and murmured to her consort, breaking the spell.
Do not let the idiot rile you, signed Anea.
‘I like being riled.’
Fine, but not today.
Dino smiled, spotting Maestro Cherubini in the crowd. A heavy man, he dabbed at his brow with a purple kerchief, his teaching robes a burden in the heat. Cherubini nodded to Dino, a smile playing about his bow lips. Dino had grown up in the safe keeping of House Erudito, retaining the name even now. A childless bachelor, the maestro had always looked upon Dino as a favourite nephew.
Sombre professori lurked behind the maestro, raven-like in black robes. Irritation and eccentricity spilled over into a rumble of complaint. There were new faces among the scholars that Dino didn’t recognise, something he’d need to remedy. Not that there was much chance of corruption or betrayal among the faculty; Anea was feted for her cerebral nature and for her fondness for education at all levels of society.
Duke and Duchess Fontein were conspicuous by their absence. Petty breaches of etiquette were the favoured mode of protest of late, but to miss a funeral marked a new level of impertinence. They had sent their maid, Isabella, in their stead. The woman waited alone, face dour, clinging to her shawl despite the heat. The maestri di spada arrived, attending at Dino’s insistence. They were tardy but had the good grace to look apologetic about it.
‘Better late than never,’ said Dino quietly.
Ruggeri and D’arzenta exchanged a look. ‘Some of us have to teach,’ said D’arzenta.
‘I’d give my wolf’s teeth to get back to teaching, I can assure you,’ replied Dino with a frown. Ruggeri pursed his lips and said nothing.
‘Surely there are others who can guard your sister?’ pressed D’arzenta.
Anea’s eyes narrowed.
‘You mean the Lady Diaspora,’ said Dino, stepping closer.
‘I think what my colleague means,’ said Ruggeri, standing between the two men, ‘is that you are often engaged as a bodyguard these days. Perhaps it would be for the best to appoint a new superiore, one who could give the position, and the students, the full attention they deserve.’
Anea took Dino by the arm and signed. Tell him I will consider it. We do not have time for this now.
Dino passed her words on and they continued on their way, leaving the maestri di spada to stand with Isabella.
‘D’arzenta is in a particularly poor humour today,’ said Stephania.
‘He was as dutiful as any,’ said Dino, ‘but he’s never forgiven me for being appointed superiore. He’d decided he was next in line.’
‘Succession rarely works out the way we hope,’ replied Stephania, glancing at her mother.
House Contadino had arrived en masse. Margravio and Marchesa Contadino were attended closely by Massimo, who glowered at anyone stepping too close. His hand rested none-too-subtly on the hilt of his blade. Word of the attempted assassination had left a sour taste in the mouths of the mourners, the tension shared by all a hangover from the violence. Despite this, the Contadinos’ children were in attendance, Luc and Isabella, transparently bored and unimpressed – understandable given they were too young to have met the old dottore. Luc Contadino was just eleven but already the image of his father, minus the beard and scar. Isabella on the other hand had features from both her parents. A sparrow of just nine summers, she was spare of frame in the same way as her mother. Their cook, Camelia, stood at the back of the party. She gave a tiny nod to Dino and a tight smile. Her eyes shifted back to Virmyre.
Russo began the ceremony, which was mercifully short. The people of Landfall lacked much in the way of religion; the king had seen to that in a ruthless purge that had seen piles of books lost to conflagrations. The nobles were wedded to stoicism and spiritually apathetic since the purge, Angelicola included. The nascent cult of Santa Maria was the domain of the cittadini for the most part.
‘Who’s reading the eulogy?’ whispered Dino.
Anea shook her head.
The rites for the dead had been prescribed by the king, who had insisted on a panoply of funerary statuary: headstones and urns for the majority, angels for those who could afford them, crypts and sarcophagi for the very rich. No one alive knew the significance of these symbols, which were as ageless as they were meaningless, any religion the people adhered to a relic of the past. The disciples of Santa Maria searched for texts that had not fallen prey to the king’s attentions, archeologists of creed, cobbling together their faith from scattered remnants.
‘You look tired,’ whispered Stephania.
‘I feel tired.’ Dino smiled.
‘How is your arm?’
Dino looked down at the point where the dagger had slashed his jacket only to be turned aside by his tines. He swallowed and frowned.
‘It’s fine. One snapped off. It’ll grow back. They always do.’
Russo grated out hollow platitudes while Virmyre remained silent. No one had much to say: few had paid Angelicola mind, outcast this long tumultuous decade. Duchess Prospero manufactured some tears but genuine sorrow from the mourners was in short supply. Anea placed a lily on the coffin lid and bowed her head in respect. The undertakers lowered the casket into the ground by means of thick ropes dyed black. The sad spectacle concluded almost the minute it commenced. Dino watched the crowd.
‘Now comes the difficult part,’ whispered Stephania.
‘How so?’
‘There’s always someone wanting to make themselves the centre of attention on a day like this.’
‘I hope not,’ replied the Orfano, little knowing he’d find himself at the very centre of that attention, willing or not.
7
Strange Weather
– 13 Giugno 325
‘It’s a pity we don’t have a few more like him in the castle these days,’ complained Duchess Prospero just loud enough to turn heads. Anea was still paying her respects at the graveside. The duchess’s words roused her like the sound of clashing steel. Dino saw her flinch then straighten her spine.
‘He spoke a deal of sense and knew that real leadership comes from …’ The duchess trailed off as Anea turned, favouring the woman with a look that could wither grass.
‘Not now, Duchess,’ said Russo frowning.
‘I merely meant to say—’
‘Not now, Duchess.’ Russo stepped closer to the woman, imposing scarlet robes and silver staff silencing the outspoken noble.
Anea had brought two lilies to the cemetery. One remained, cradled in her clever fingers. The crowd parted as the Silent Queen stalked forward, the eyes above the veil offering sufficient warning to any potential obstacle. Dino followed, wondering at Anea’s next move. The mourners watched her passage through the cemetery to the mausoleums at the rear.
‘You’re full of surprises,’ muttered Dino.
Just a small act of kindness and remembrance.
‘Or a ploy to keep Stephania allied with us and at odds with her mother.’
That is one feud that requires little reinforcement. I simply wish to remind the people what a cheating puttana Salvaza is.
The Prospero mausoleum was a short walk, baroque and ridiculous in a halo of light spilling down from a gap in the sodden clouds. Anea entered the dark confines of the mausoleum and paid her respects to the duke. Dino lingered at the doorway, remembering the duke as a terrible bore but three times more tolerable than most of the nobles. Anea laid the lily on the stone sarcophagus.
‘Do you really think he slipped and fell down all those stairs?’
That truth died with him, unless someone feels compelled
to confess to murder.
‘And you don’t think Salvaza—’
No, I do not. She may be many things but a murderer is not one of them.
‘That’s why she has the capo.’
We have been over this before. You know if I had a scrap of proof I would bring his killer to justice. Anea stopped signing and gestured to Dino to look over his shoulder. Stephania waited outside at a polite distance. Dino waved her over.
‘How I miss him,’ she said with a twist of her lips that lent weight to the understatement.
I’m going back to Demesne with Russo and Virmyre. Anea glanced out through the door and then at Dino, clearly distracted. The rest of the day is yours. The coming week will be difficult with the conclusion of the Allattamento business.
And with that she was gone. The mourners parted around the Silent Queen, heads bowed until she had left the cemetery. She climbed into a carriage with Virmyre, keen to be at work. Dino plucked at his lip. Those damned machines and their secrets.
‘She’s all work lately.’ Stephania was watching the carriage depart along the road toward Demesne.
‘I worry her ambitions aren’t aligned with her function,’ admitted Dino. ‘Lucien wanted to discover the south-east coast of Landfall.’
‘But Anea desires scientific discoveries when she should be leading.’
Dino nodded.
‘I must return. I’ve matters to attend to.’ Stephania forced a smile. ‘Take care of yourself, Dino.’ She stepped forward and rested a hand on his shoulder, brushing his cheek with her lips. He watched her leave, surprised by such an informal display in public. She mounted the steps of her carriage and then she too was gone.
Dino sighed and let the day’s tensions drain out of him. The interior of the mausoleum was a cool balm. He regarded the single pale lily resting on the duke’s sarcophagus. Other dukes and duchesses were also laid here, but Duke Stephano lay alone. Just as he’d been the night Dino had found him.
‘You’d barely recognise the place now, my lord,’ said Dino addressing the sarcophagus. ‘Anea has converted the King’s Keep into her court, the Ravenscourt she calls it. She still has the same quarters in House Contadino. I think they remind her of her childhood, you know?’
He traced fingers along cool stone.
‘The sanatorio was made into a school by Lucien for a while. The lower floors are a library where the cittadini can read. For free. Anea’s idea, of course. You’d never believe how many books the old king had. Anea has her laboratory on the upper floors, packed full of those awful machines.’
He unfastened his sword belt, squatting down and laying the scabbard across his thighs.
‘Your daughter’s all grown up, but in truth I think she’s as lost and lonely as the rest of us.’
He rubbed a speck of dirt from the crosspiece of the sword with a thumb.
‘She does you proud, my lord. She’s her own woman, knows her own mind. A touch formal perhaps, but, ah, what do I know of women?’
‘A good question.’ It was the capo, appearing like smoke at the doorway. The Orfano made no hurry to rise to his feet, piercing the man with a look. He made no attempt to reattach his sword belt but one hand curled around the hilt of worn leather.
‘Did you want something particular, or did Duchess Prospero send a message?’
The capo clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring. As her consort he had no real standing at court, the duchess’s refusal to marry him keeping him politically impotent. He was an ornament at best. As capo de custodia he might have once had some power, commanding the men of House Fontein. Now he was required to answer to the Domina and to Dino, another of Anea’s changes to Demesne.
‘I bring no message, but you should be warned: there will be friction if Anea maintains her course.’
‘Which course would that be?’ Dino enjoyed watching the capo grasp for words.
‘Her desire to neuter the nobili.’
‘Neuter? You walk into this mausoleum and talk about neutering while he lies there?’ He indicated the dead duke.
The capo ignored him.
‘I should neuter you for fucking other people’s wives.’ Dino felt the anger come to him quick and easy. A few inches of steel had eased out of the scabbard.
‘What do you know of passion?’ replied the capo, trying for defiant, managing a limp petulance.
Dino had no answer for him, distracted by an unbidden thought of Massimo.
‘Tell your sister there have been changes enough to our way of life. The nobles have worked tirelessly to support her, and yet she undermines them at every turn with her desire for a republic.’
‘Tirelessly? You pompous—’
‘Tell her, Lord Erudito. It’s in everyone’s best interests.’
‘And what if I don’t pass on your warning?’ Dino imagined how good it would feel to break that perfect nose. He’d pay the price in bruised knuckles willingly.
‘Then other messengers will come.’
‘Like the messengers last week, I take it,’ spat Dino, eyes hard as flint.
‘That’s not for me to say.’ The capo broke eye contact, aware he’d said too much.
‘You send them. Send your second sons and your dispossessed. Send your morons and your fanatics. I’ll be waiting, you pathetic motherfucker.’
The capo went for his blade.
Dino struck him in the face, the crosspiece of his undrawn sword smashing into the perfect lips of Demesne’s most handsome man. The capo stumbled out into the graveyard, holding one hand up to his mouth. Those mourners who’d lingered by the graveside looked up, curiosity making them bold. A few gasped when they saw the capo’s bloody fingers. More gasps and a call of alarm as Dino emerged from the mausoleum, grey eyes flashing silver with hatred, blade drawn, jacket unbuttoned.
‘This won’t take long,’ he whispered.
The capo drew his own blade and jutted his chin defiantly.
‘You arrogant Orfano swine,’ he sneered and lunged. Dino stepped into the swing, parrying the blade and catching the capo in the face with a hasty elbow. Guido stumbled, swore, lashed out. Dino stepped beyond range and flicked his fingers from beneath his chin.
‘First blood to me.’
‘Your funeral next, I think,’ said the capo with a bloody grimace.
‘Why don’t we stop talking and find out?’
Dino prepared an attack he hoped would disarm the mewling capo, but instead felt something lodge in his eye. Guido spotted the hesitation, stepping in to press his advantage, but something alighted on his face. He swept a hand across his cheek, then blinked and flinched back.
Dino felt more soft impacts on his skin, something crawling at the corner of his mouth. The mourners, who had been engrossed in the fight, now swatted and batted the air. Dino looked up and saw the sky was speckled with black, swarms of bodies adrift on the afternoon wind, emitting a drone that made his blood run cold.
‘Get them off me!’ shouted the capo, wiping his face and running fingers through his hair, dislodging a score of winged insects. Dino stared at the sky, trying to understand the rain of black bodies. He withdrew to the mausoleum as mindless panic enfolded the graveyard.
A few screams. People dashing to the mausoleums for shelter. Someone lost their footing, almost tumbling headlong into Angelicola’s open grave.
‘They’re in my mouth!’ someone shouted. Dino ran a hand across his face on instinct and was glad he did.
‘What in nine hells is this?’ he whispered. Tiny black bodies writhed in the palm of his hand.
The capo fled, sprinting across the graveyard before clambering into a carriage with a handful of his retainers. Dino could hear him yelling at the coach driver over the hum of winged bodies swarming the cemetery. The carriage started, stopped, then careened away, the horses confused and skittish.
The swarm moved on, heading toward the town and the looming stone of Demesne itself. Dino surveyed the graveyard wordlessly, feeling as if he were in a dream. The rema
ining mourners had fled to the cover of the trees. Gravestones were upholstered in black bodies which crawled or took to wing at intervals.
‘No good will come of this.’
Dino turned and found himself face to face with a young woman, eyes bright above a cream veil. One eye shone icy blue, the other glinting green. The simple shift had matched the veil once but was muddy from the road, the fabric stained brown to the calves, the ragged hem almost black. Lank hair lay plastered to her scalp and an unwholesome vapour lingered. Dino had seen women like this before. Disciples of Santa Maria. Gutter prophets and taverna seers, telling fortunes for a few denari. He’d not seen her at the funeral or sneak into the mausoleum.
‘Black rain.’ She gestured to the skies, the roiling wings. ‘No good will come of this.’
‘It hardly needs saying. A swarm of locusts is never good.’
She knelt down to retrieve a squirming body, pinching it between forefinger and thumb without killing it.
‘Not locusts, ants.’ She held the creature before him and Dino saw the truth of her words.
‘I didn’t know they grew wings,’ he admitted.
‘They are attempting to create more colonies. They will grow in strength until we are overrun.’
‘Overrun? They’re only ants.’
‘It’s easy to dismiss something so small, but didn’t they just stop you killing that man?’
‘The capo? Yes, I suppose they did.’ Dino brushed a few lingering bodies from his hair and shook his head. ‘This is disgusting.’
‘Another symptom of a deeper sickness.’ She crushed the ant between finger and thumb. ‘Of Demesne’s deeper sickness.’
Dino shuddered. Her fingernails were chewed down to the quick, the skin on the backs of her hands cracked and dry. There was a feverish cast to her features.
‘This is a portent of things to come.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Difficult to say. We all interpret signs differently. What do you see?’
‘I see a woman in need of a bath with a squashed insect on her fingers.’
Dino backed out of the mausoleum, reattaching his sword before heading toward the cemetery gates and the road beyond.
