Carlo stood with his back to her, in front of the open closet door. He stared at the corkboard on the wall, the lists of names and connections and questions.
“It’s true,” he said softly.
“Carlo.”
“It’s true,” he repeated, not turning around. “You and Amadeo. You’re conspiring against me.”
Livia shot a furtive glance at her bed, where she’d hidden Squirrel’s notebook under the mattress. The bedsheets looked undisturbed.
She approached him, slowly, uncertain. “Carlo—”
He spun around and lashed a vicious backhand across her face. Livia stumbled backward and fell onto her bed, stunned. Her split lip burned like a wasp sting, and a trickle of blood ran down her chin. He loomed over her, wild-eyed.
“You’re in it with him,” he said. “Don’t deny it!”
“You’re drunk,” Livia snarled, not daring to move. Under her, she could almost feel the shape of Squirrel’s book pressing against her spine. Reminding her just how close she stood to an executioner’s pyre.
“You and Amadeo! You’re plotting against me. You’ve always been plotting against me!”
“Carlo,” she said slowly. “Calm down. Look at what you’re doing, brother—”
“Don’t call me brother!” he roared. “Not after what you’ve done. The proof is right there, right on the damn wall! You’ve been sneaking around, plotting to steal my rightful inheritance, to stab our father in the back. You don’t deserve to be called a Serafini.”
“It’s not like that. Carlo, listen, I’m begging you—”
He walked past her bed, not giving her another glance. When he spoke, standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the parlor, he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Beg all you want,” he said softly. “Beg your mirror, because that’s the only face you’re going to see for a while. You’ll stay here. In these rooms. Your meals will be brought to you. You’ll stay here until I decide what to do with you. Maybe that’ll be tomorrow. Maybe ten years from now. Sit here and rot for all I care. You’re no sister of mine.”
“You have no authority over me!”
Now he did turn toward her. His face was pallid, caked with a sheen of sweat. Sickly.
“You know,” he said, nodding toward the closet. “You know about the knights.”
She nodded.
“Then you know,” he said, “that inside this house, I have absolute authority. Understand this: nobody is going to help you. Nobody is going to save you. Nobody cares about you.”
“My friends will come.”
He smirked. “Who, like Cardinal Accorsi? He’s the one who betrayed you. Oh, or maybe you mean Amadeo?”
He walked away. Just before the door to her rooms slammed shut, she heard his final words.
“He’s dead, Livia. Amadeo is dead.”
* * *
Sister Columba was sweeping the foyer when Carlo found her. She could smell the acrid odor on his breath the second he opened his mouth. Cheap wine, the elderly woman thought, and…something else. Something foul. Like a rat crawled into his throat and died there.
“Sister, good, I was looking for you. Livia is…Livia is ill.”
Her eyes went wide. “Ill, sir?”
“It’s an illness of the mind. She’s very sick. My father has decreed that she should be kept in isolation while we seek a specialist. For her own safety.”
We’ve been found out, Columba thought. She gripped her broom like she was trying to strangle a snake. It was the only thing that could keep her hands from shaking. Livia’s been found out, at least, and he doesn’t know I’m helping her.
“You’ll bring her three meals a day,” Carlo said, “and a pitcher of water in the morning. Enter her rooms, set down the tray, and leave. You will not speak with her. If she speaks to you, don’t answer her. She’s been having, um, fits. Violent fits. The doctors say absolute quiet is the best thing to rest her mind.”
“I…I’ll light a candle for her in the chapel,” Columba said. She couldn’t unclench her fingers until Carlo was well out of sight.
She made a beeline for the guest rooms. If Livia was in danger, so were the others. No one answered when she knocked at Amadeo’s door, and it opened at a touch.
A scrap of paper lay on the bedside table, bearing instructions in a terse, small-lettered hand: “Found something serious. I know what C. is up to. Too dangerous to discuss here. Meet me at the White Cathedral after dark. -R.”
The paper crumpled in Columba’s withered fist. A note from Rimiggiu. There was only one problem, something she recognized because she’d known the terse spy longer than anyone but the Holy Father himself. Something Amadeo couldn’t have realized.
It wasn’t Rimiggiu’s handwriting.
* * *
At that moment, Rimiggiu the Quiet was out in the winding streets of Lerautia, cloaked by a canopy of stars. He crouched in the shadows under a vaulted arcade, the building’s second floor extending out over the first on stout pillars of unpainted wood. He’d received a note of his own, slipped under his bedroom door, and that was when he knew they’d been exposed. The forgery of Amadeo’s handwriting, summoning him to a clandestine meeting in the city, was clumsy at best.
He had to trust that Carlo wouldn’t hurt his own sister, at least not right away. As for Amadeo, the priest was probably already dead. If not, though, Rimiggiu thought there was a good chance he might slip out of harm’s way. Amadeo might be graying and ill-suited for a life of intrigue, but the pope’s confessor had more steel in his backbone than he gave himself credit for.
The note was a lure, beckoning Rimiggiu to a lonely house on the edge of the Piazza Colonna, not far from the old curtain wall that cut the district in half and towered high over the rooftops.
Priority one, he thought, creeping around the side of the house, ambush the ambushers. Keep one alive for questioning. Priority two, evacuate Livia to a safe hiding place, outside the city.
Priority three, assassinate Carlo Serafini.
Murdering the pope’s son would probably buy him a plot of land in the Barren Fields when he died, assuming his deeds hadn’t already damned him five times over. So be it. Rimiggiu had pledged his loyalty to Pope Benignus, not to the Gardener, and he’d do what was best for his master. Right now, that meant smashing Carlo’s plans and getting Livia to safety.
He chanced a glimpse into a darkened window, staying low. Shapes huddled in the gloom, barely moving. Armed men, at least two of them, right inside the front door. The trap was obvious. They were waiting for him to walk right in, expecting a rendezvous with Amadeo—at which point they’d chop him down before he could draw his knives.
Amateurs, he thought as he crept on by, keeping every movement, every breath, precise and controlled. Rimiggiu the Quiet never enters by the front door.
Around the back of the house, a pair of windows looked out from the second floor. One was open, just a crack.
And me, he thought, eying the plaster walls and looking for handholds. He’d slip in through the upstairs window and prowl through the house, picking Carlo’s men off one by one. Quick, clean, and easy. Easy, save for whoever was unlucky enough to be the last survivor. That poor soul had a long and painful night ahead of him.
He jumped, hand reaching up to snare a chunk of stone jutting an inch or two from the wall. He swung his legs, building momentum, and the fingers of his other hand dug into a gap in the masonry. Rimiggiu clambered up the side of the house like a venomous spider in the dark, slowly making his way up toward the open window.
Almost there. With the toes of one foot braced in a narrow crack and the other dangling over open space, he stretched to grab the windowsill, curling his fingers around it. Now just to reach up with the other hand, pull himself up with both arms, and tumble up and over—
He never saw the man lurking to one side of the second-floor window, the one holding the ax. He only saw a quicksilver flash of steel, then felt the searing pain as it lopped off
four of his fingers in a single stroke.
Suddenly unanchored, Rimiggiu fell, arms flailing, down to the street fifteen feet below. The blood trailed out in glimmering arcs, like liquid rubies in the moonlight. He landed on his back. His shoulder and his hip cracked like twigs against the frigid cobblestones.
His thoughts were consumed in a screaming alarm, an animal frenzy driving him to get away. He rolled onto his belly and dragged himself on his forearms, one agonizing inch at a time, leaving a scarlet slug-trail in his body’s wake.
“I bet I can guess what you’re thinking,” said the man who casually strolled up to him, toting a woodcutter’s ax against one shoulder. Rimiggiu recognized him even in a ruffian’s leathers and a hood: Weiss, master of the impostor-knights.
“You’re thinking,” Weiss said, “that between the obvious forgery, the obvious trap, and the fact that we left you one—and only one—way into the house, that you probably should have seen this coming. And you’re right. You should have.”
Rimiggiu spat up a lungful of blood. He kept dragging himself, forearm over forearm, his glazed eyes fixed on some distant light. Weiss walked alongside him.
“Really? You’re still trying to get away? You’ve got spirit, but the time comes when a man needs to face the facts. It’s over. You’re done. Here, let me help you with that.”
The ax came down with a whistle, straight into Rimiggiu’s spine. His mouth opened in a jaw-breaking rictus, a silent breathless scream as his vertebrae cracked in half. Weiss pushed his boot against Rimiggiu’s shoulder, rolling him over onto his back.
Rimiggiu’s head thumped against the cobblestones, while his limbs hung limp and dead. His eyes rolled back in his skull. Weiss watched him for a minute, curious.
“If it’s any consolation,” Weiss told him, “you’re not half bad. It’s just that you’re in the spy business, and I’m in the murder business. Oh, one other thing. Carlo Serafini sends his regards.”
Then the ax whistled down, one last time, into Rimiggiu’s throat.
* * *
The White Cathedral loomed over the Holy City in the dark, a great alabaster bird of prey. Amadeo shot a furtive glance over his shoulder as he hustled up the pebbled path to the granite front steps, used his private key to unlock the cathedral doors, and slipped inside.
Starlight filtered through the high stained-glass windows, painting the quiet cathedral in shimmering purple and blue. A couple of the windows had been removed for renovation, leaving their stone arches open to the night sky and inviting a crisp fall breeze to whisper in. Scaffolding fifty feet high blanketed the walls, creaking in the draft, waiting for the workmen to return in the morning.
Amadeo crept along the central aisle between the long rows of empty maple pews. His shoes rustled softly against the ceramic tile floor.
“Rimiggiu?” he whispered. The vaulted cathedral caught his low, cautious voice, amplified it, and hurled it back in his face.
“Not exactly,” said the man who stepped out from his hiding place behind the altar.
He hadn’t even bothered putting on a fresh disguise. It was one of the “knights” from the papal estate, still garbed in his heavy greaves and shining mail shirt, with the Imperial eagle emblazoned on his shoulder in gold and black. He hefted a battle-ax in his hands, a brutal weapon with a long, sweeping blade made for shredding steel.
The cathedral door swung open behind Amadeo. Another pair of knights let themselves in, brandishing swords. The three men flanked him at either end of the aisle, cutting off any hope of escape.
“You’ve been a bad boy, Father,” the axman said. “Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Good way to get it chopped off.”
The knights advanced on him from both sides. Slowly, taking their time, like they were savoring the smell of his fear. Amadeo held up his hands, looking left and right.
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” he said. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Carlo Serafini sends his regards,” one of the knights said with a snicker. “His final regards.”
Amadeo looked around, frantic. He could try to escape to the side, running through the pews, but where would that get him? They’d corner him either way. He had no weapons and no way out.
No, he thought, his despair turning to a sudden burst of angry fire in his heart. No, it doesn’t end like this. Carlo doesn’t get to win. Not like this.
Looking around the cathedral, a mad idea grabbed hold of him. He couldn’t get around the knights, and he couldn’t get out through the front door.
But he could go up.
Amadeo jumped up onto the nearest pew and ran, his shoes slapping against the polished wooden bench. One of the knights pointed and laughed.
“Where’re ya goin’, Father? There’s no door that way!”
At the farthest edge of the pew he took a mighty leap and threw himself at the scaffolding, catching a wooden support with both hands and hauling himself upward. The scaffold rattled and squeaked, knocking a shower of sawdust onto the tiled floor.
“What are you—” the axman started to say. He shook his head as the knights converged under Amadeo’s kicking feet. “Oh, come on, Father! Come down from there! You’re just going to hurt yourself and die anyway. Tell you what, you come down, lay your head on the pew, and I’ll make it quick and easy. One swift chop, you won’t feel a thing.”
Amadeo’s response was a grunt of exertion as he clambered up to the next tier of scaffolding, gripping beams and cross-supports, his arms burning as he climbed.
The axman sighed and looked at the other two knights. “Well? You waiting on an invitation? Get up after him!”
Now it was a race. The knights sheathed their swords and started to climb. Amadeo tried not to look down, the hard cathedral floor growing farther and farther away with every straining inch. Soon he was fifteen feet up, then twenty, but the younger, more limber killers below were closing the gap fast.
Platforms of wooden planks spotted the scaffolding here and there, spots for the artisans to perch as they repaired the fading cathedral frescoes and patched the peeling plaster, but Amadeo refused the temptation to stop and rest. He ignored his burning lungs and aching arms and legs and pushed aside the stabbing twinge in his side as a mistimed jump yanked a muscle taut.
A gauntleted hand grabbed his ankle, yanking hard, almost making him lose his grip on the girders. His fingers clenched and the scaffolding seemed to lean, as if the entire groaning structure was about to come crashing down.
One of the knights grinned up at him. “Gotcha,” he said, giving Amadeo’s ankle another tug.
Amadeo kicked him in the face. Rotten teeth broke under his heel, and the man instinctively grabbed at his bloody mouth, losing his balance. He teetered backward, arms cartwheeling as he fell down to the cathedral floor. He hit a pew, and his back snapped against the maple with a sickly crack that echoed like a cannon-shot.
“You killed Dieter!” screamed the other knight, not far behind. “You bastard, you killed Dieter!”
Amadeo gritted his teeth and kept climbing.
He pulled himself up onto the top platform just as his arms gave out, quivering like useless jelly. Here, the workmen had been restoring one of the great windows, but their job was only halfway done. An empty stone arch looked out into the starry night sky. Amadeo held his breath as he stepped out onto the ledge.
Barely a foot wide, the ledge encircled the cathedral dome. A gust of cold wind shoved against Amadeo as he made his way across the slick stone, inch by careful inch. The back of the cathedral looked out over a sheer cliff and far below, just a murky snake shadow in the dark, lay the icy waters of the Gabler River where it widened to meet the sea.
“Where now, huh?” shouted the knight as he emerged onto the ledge, barely ten feet away. He drew his sword, holding it tight as he inched his way toward Amadeo. “Where now?”
Amadeo realized, with sudden and chilling certainty, that he only had two choices. Skewered on a mur
derer’s sword, or broken and drowned on the river rocks at the end of a very long fall.
Gardener, he thought, clasping his hands before him, if I must die tonight, so be it. I only ask that you extend your protection over Benignus and Livia. They are good and faithful and true, and deserving of your blessings in this hour of darkness. If I am not to be their protector, then send someone more worthy in my stead.
“What’s with the hands?” the knight demanded, edging ever closer. “Are you praying? What, you think the Gardener’s gonna come down and save you?”
Amadeo rested his hands at his sides. As a shrill wind washed over him, he felt strangely peaceful. He looked to the knight and shook his head.
“No,” he said.
Then he leaned forward, spread his arms, and let the wind take him as he fell from the ledge. Past the cathedral, past the cliff, past the city, down to the waiting darkness and a river grave.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The cardinal’s stables provided three strong steeds with dun coats and hooves that crackled like thunder along the old merchant road leading out of Lerautia. Dante led the way, veering off the worn and ancient stone at the first opportunity and guiding Mari and Werner down a dirt path. The Holy City fell away at their backs, but trouble wouldn’t be far behind.
As night fell, forest swallowed the dirt road whole. They had to slow down, picking their way through brambles and fallen trees. Eventually they swung down from their saddles and led the horses through, keeping careful hands on the reins.
“The road was better kept, last time I came this way,” Dante said, “but that was a long, long time ago. We’re almost there.”
“You still haven’t told us where ‘there’ is,” Werner said. He coughed into his sleeve.
“I smelled something foul as soon as Accorsi began questioning me, and it wasn’t his cologne. Didn’t think he’d go so far as to have me killed, but he was too eager to know about my father and too reluctant to explain why. My father was a cloth merchant and a man of means. Spent many fine years in the Holy City before commerce drew him to Mirenze. When the cardinal started badgering me about his time in Lerautia. I knew exactly where to look.”
Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) Page 23
