by V. Briceland
Milo stood above her, Camilla over his shoulder. His hand was raised to strike her once more. “Get off me!” she insisted. It seemed as if her voice was weak and unused.
“She’s awake, finally,” said Camilla. “Give her some space.”
On the floor beside her lay the crushed remains of the pomegranate, its ruby red juice staining the matting. Her hands, face, and dress were all bloodied with its dried and sticky sap. “Is she all right?” asked another voice.
“Mattio? Is she—?” Amo was there, too, hovering in the doorway, as well as a number of the servants. Even Fita stood off to the side, her hands wringing her apron into sweaty creases.
“What happened?” It felt as if her throat had been soldered shut. She coughed, wincing at how it pained her chest.
She had never seen Milo’s fair skin so red nor his expression so furious. “You wouldn’t wake.” He spat the words out grudgingly. “We tried and tried, but you wouldn’t wake up.”
“Did I fall asleep? I’m sorry, I was so tired … ”
Milo knelt down beside her. “Are you all right?”
Mattio pointed with disgust at the music box parts scattered across the matting. “You didn’t open your eyes until we knocked that onto the floor and it broke into bits. I think it’s Cassamagi-made. Never seen one like it before. Blasted thing nearly cost us the caza!”
Camilla was gathering its pieces together. “Who gave it to you?”
“I don’t know … ” she breathed. “It was just there, on the table.”
“We’ve been trying to wake you for nearly an hour. Can you stand?” Milo still seemed grim, but his anger was fading.
“Do I have to?” From the side of the room one of the maids burst into tears. Fita instantly began to shush her. Startled at the fuss, Risa asked, “How long was I asleep?”
“Long enough,” said Mattio. His voice also sounded hoarse and tense. “You have to perform the rite. Now.”
Ice water suddenly seemed to flow through her veins. With wild eyes, she looked out the balcony doors. Beyond Caza Catarre, the western sky was darkening. The sun hovered just above the horizon. She couldn’t have been asleep that long!
In the distance, from the center of the city, she heard the unmistakable cry of the palace horn.
“Help me,” she cried, suddenly fearful.
The staircase to the residence’s uppermost balcony was just down the hall, but as heavy as her limbs felt, it might have been a mile. Milo and Camilla heaved her to her feet and carried her the entire distance. Her arms clung to their necks, and her feet barely touched the floor.
Though she still felt weak and strangely dreamy from her unusual slumber, the sound of Cassamagi’s horn pealing from the easternmost point of the city revived her. There was no time for reflection or delay. Mattio was already attaching the caza’s green and blue banner to the pole’s hooks. It was with his assistance that she hauled it into the sky, the rope flying so quickly that it threatened to burn her hands.
Milo and Camilla removed the weathered copper lid from the pedestal, exposing the Divetri horn. A fading glint of sun caught the flare of its bell. For a moment Risa feared that she would not have the strength in her limbs to raise the heavy instrument.
She need not have worried. When she placed a hand on the handpiece, a strange surge of power rushed through her. It felt like an invigorating rain shower on a summer afternoon; it felt like laughter, like joy in a moment of solemnity. The horn almost seemed to recognize her. Risa gasped as its resonance tingled throughout her entire body. Was this what her father felt every night when he grasped the brass instrument?
Above her, the banner’s metal eyelets rattled against the pole in the sea’s gentle winds. She raised the horn and blew.
It was the first time she was truly able to relish the sensation as the horn reverberated across the rooftops of Cassaforte. Pure enchantment was in that sound—she sensed it now in a way she never had in her childhood. Though created centuries ago, it sparkled as brightly as new. She could not see its traces, but some part of her could discern its presence in the periphery of her vision. So delicate was it that it would vanish if regarded directly. Yet it was so durable that an entire city had been built upon its foundation. It fed her strength.
For a moment, she felt that she would live forever.
The entire family of craftsmen and servants remained silent. The horn’s cry faded into the gathering darkness. There were none of the previous night’s cheers; a somber mood hung over the Divetri balcony. They were safe for another night. For how many more to come could they withstand the prince’s threat?
It was not until she heard the sound of low thunder that Risa realized how long she had been standing still. Like enormous drums it rumbled, jarring her every bone.
“No,” she whispered, clutching the Divetri horn for strength. She stumbled to the edge of the balcony, where she could hear the screams and shouts from the caza to the west. Every jolt and tremor it suffered was silhouetted by the setting sun. “Not Catarre!”
23
—
Why is speaking to you, my friend—my King—
easier than talking to my own kin? I fear they think me odd.
—Allyria Cassamagi to King Nivolo of Cassaforte,
from a private letter in the Cassamagi historical archives
This uniform is tight.”
“It fit Camilla well enough. It’s her spare.” Milo peered around them into the shadows. Lanterns lit the streets above, but precious little of that light spilled into the canal as they floated northward.
“She has muscle in places I don’t.” Judging from a certain slackness in the chest, Camilla had certain other qualities Risa lacked as well.
Milo punted the gondola under a bridge and into a wide area where several of the city’s channels intersected. River lights, their poles anchored deep into the canal mud, cast Milo’s features into sharp silhouette. He seemed grim, and worried.
They had to find Ricard. They had to stop him from spreading that song. Risa had already had a close-enough call with the enchanted music box and could not afford another. But it had been difficult to talk Milo into this plan. When she’d finally allowed him to tear her away from the sight of ruined Catarre—littered with paper and book leather and the wood and glass that once contained them—Camilla had told them that she hadn’t been able to find the Poet of the People at any of his usual haunts. They had found her sitting alone, nursing the broken, oozing blisters she’d accumulated during her day’s trek around the city.
“I really hope Ricard hasn’t been singing that song everywhere,” Milo had said with a groan. “But he’s sure to be at Mina’s tonight. We’ll just have to catch up with him there.”
Though Camilla had merely rubbed her sore soles and nodded, Risa noted a flash of pain and weariness cross her face, and spoke quickly. “No, she’s bone tired. I’ll go.”
“I’m not tired,” Camilla had protested, but weakly.
“Risa, it’s not safe for you to go out into the city,” Milo had warned.
“It’s not safe for me to stay in my chambers, either!” she’d replied. “You said yourself that it would be best for me to stay with you.”
Milo had stood still, stubborn and unyielding. “Tolio will never let you out of the caza after dark.”
In the end, it had been Camilla who devised the plan to dress Risa in an extra guard’s uniform. In the dark of night, no one would think to look closely at two guards leaving the caza for an evening meal after a long shift on duty. Camilla would rest in Risa’s chambers with the door locked; she could tend to her feet and soak them in water with salts.
As Risa now looked across the glittering waters, she saw that they were littered with wet paper—pages from books. “So much learning enchantment, wasted.” She leaned out and fished a sh
eet from the canal, peering at its running ink. Whatever had once indelibly marked this page was now illegible. “Did you ever read a Catarre book?”
Milo nodded. “It could have been worse. It could have been as bad as Portello, or as bad as … ”
The rest of his words went unspoken, but she knew what he was thinking. Or as bad as Caza Divetri would be. Again she had a premonition of glass exploding throughout their island. The workshops, the kitchens, the residence windows—all of it piercing wood and bone and flesh alike.
When Milo remained silent, Risa spoke again. “You’re worried that Tolio will find out what we’re doing. That Camilla will get in trouble if we’re caught.”
Milo continued to punt the gondola up the canal. “We won’t be caught. That’s all there is to it.”
Running footsteps sounded in the streets above. Risa turned, apprehensive at the sudden flurry of noise. When the boots faded into the distance, she relaxed. Milo did not seem at all unsettled. He slowed down as they approached another junction, and began to maneuver the craft around the corner to take them eastward.
“I did see a Catarre book, once. On swordcraft. It was my mother’s.” He sounded almost lost in a dream. Risa had another vision of his late mother, white-haired, fat, and maternal, occupying young Milo with a book on swordsmanship while she trimmed his fair curls. “I never forgot a page of it.”
“That’s the beauty of the Catarre enchantments,” Risa said. “That was the beauty, anyway.” She could not keep dwelling on loss, for it only frightened her. She changed the topic. “What is this Mina’s we’re going to?”
“Oh, you’ll love Mina’s,” said Milo, relaxing. “It’s a taverna on the artist’s spit. We eat there almost every night.”
“You don’t have meals at home?” Save for the rare dinner at another caza or home of the Thirty, Risa had almost never eaten a meal prepared outside Caza Divetri. She certainly had never visited a public house.
Milo laughed. “Camilla and I don’t have a kitchen like the Divetris. No servants, either. Although we used to, when we lived on the Via Dioro.” At Risa’s gasp of surprise, he quickly added, “It wasn’t one of the big homes! Just a small cluster of rooms over one of the shops. We had a servant, though. That was before Mama died. Now we just eat our dinners at Mina’s.” He shrugged. “It’s easier.”
As they punted farther past the center of the city, the canals widened and became broader and lower. Entire banks of tall and grimy buildings directly fronted the waters, their doorways bordered with stone staircases that descended directly into the waters. In the wealthier sections of Cassaforte, the homes had long ago been built with berths and small docks where the families and servants could tie their gondolas. Here, the canal was littered with long boats along its sides, clustered heavily around the doorways. They sometimes collected five to six boat-widths deep. In the dim light of the gondola’s lantern, Risa watched as someone crawled over boat after rocking boat to reach one of the entrances.
“Who lives in these places?” she asked as Milo carefully navigated the waterway. The abundance of boats moored haphazardly along the low-banked canal walls left only a narrow sliver of water to navigate. From the balconies above came the sounds of entire families arguing over their dinners, squalling babies, laughter and shouting. From one garret she heard a flute, its song melancholy in the dark. Overhead, long ropes were strung with shirts. Smells of boiling laundry and human waste mingled with fish and cabbage, making her clutch her nose.
Milo shrugged. “Families live here. Workmen. Servants.” There was something odd about the nonchalance with which he spoke. Only too late did Risa realize that he and Camilla probably lived in one of these crumbling structures, cramped into a room together. It would be quite a set-back for anyone who once held rooms over the Via Dioro.
“They look cozy,” she said, trying to be cheerful. He did not reply. She felt awful; despite the smell and squalor, she had arrogantly forgotten that good people lived in these homes. She did not want to seem like many of the Thirty, full of conceit and entitlement. And yet, she had managed to offend him.
They completed their journey in silence. Speaking would have been nearly impossible anyway, in some areas through which they passed, for they were often noisy and crowded with people. On a fire-lit bridge above them, children and adults alike sat on the ledge of a brick wall, yelling out as a pair of men in short tunics engaged in a wrestling match; the cheering could be heard two streets away. From the public houses came sounds of singing and dancing, while in the upper stories, women in fancy clothing leaned from windows and flirted with men in the boats below.
Milo continued to steer the boat north and east through this old, dilapidated section of the city until they came to an area where the water’s current would have carried the boat south had he not been pushing all his weight against the pole. “The river gates are just ahead,” he explained, nodding to the north. Then, the east-west canal broadened as Milo pushed the boat out from the closeness of the cramped buildings. Light from the brother and sister moons shone brightly across the rippling waters. “It’s a bit trickier here.”
He seemed to be steering toward an isle in the canal—or a peninsula, which projected from the Portello-engineered river wall that controlled the flow of water into Cassaforte’s intricate complex of canals. Every inch of land on the peninsula was covered with the same timeworn buildings, but she saw that the southernmost structure boasted a long pier that jutted into the canal. Warm yellow lamps shone from its windows, mingling with the pure white light of the moons on the waters. “That’s Mina’s,” Milo told her.
From the taverna’s front door came the sounds of men and women singing to the strains of a lap harp and drums. Climbing up to the pier, Risa smoothed down her borrowed guard’s uniform as Milo tethered the gondola. Anxiety leapt in her stomach. Would she be able to convince anyone that she was a guard? She checked her posture to ensure it was erect as possible.
“Don’t worry,” Milo said as he climbed the ladder to join her. “You’re with me. We’re just two city guards here for dinner. You’ll be fine.” She stared at him for a moment, wanting to relax but finding the clamor intimidating.
It was over his shoulder that she first glimpsed the taverna’s interior. Light spilled from fireplaces at either end of the room, and oil lanterns hung from the broad-beamed rafters. Smells of smoke and burning wood and fish stew and wine filled her nose, as well as perfumes and sweat and the dank smell of the canal water seeping through the doors. Everyone seemed to be happy and smiling, which comforted her. The harpist finished her performance to a round of raucous applause that drowned out shouts and laughter from the groups of men and women playing a complicated game with tiles upon several of the wooden tables.
“Milo!” Scarcely had they begun to cross the room when a gray-haired man clasped the guard’s shoulders and shook him. “Good to see you, boy!”
“It’s Milo!” exclaimed one of the taverna servers as she walked by with a tray of mugs and stuffed olives. Risa looked around in bewilderment. Everyone seemed to know her friend. Most greeted him by name, turning from their dinners or their mammoth mugs of wine to cuff him on the back or reach out to pat him on the shoulders. Many of the men and women were genuinely affectionate; one matronly looking woman stood and hugged him tightly and commented that he was looking too thin, which generated a laugh from the rest of the table.
Milo did not introduce her to anyone, nor call attention to her. Risa was glad of it. If anyone were to question her about her uniform she would have precious little to tell them. A good number of people nodded at her while they pushed their way through the rows of tables. It had been quite some time since she’d last seen so many smiles. As she began to relax, so did the tense feeling in her mid-section.
“Milo!” A large woman of several decades of age put down a tray so that she could squeeze the guard’s head
between her hands. With her painted lips she imprinted a kiss on his forehead, and then immediately licked the heel of her hand and began to wipe the mark away. “Edmundo’s been worried sick about you,” she said, dragging him away while talking and wiping at his forehead. “You know how he is. He thinks of you as one of his own sons. You shouldn’t stay away for so long without sending word! Naughty boy! Go say hello!” She laughed giddily and with great good humor.
“Milo Sorranto!” cried an older man sitting at one of the back tables near the stage. He gulped down the last of his wine before he stood. Risa began to wonder if everyone in Mina’s knew Milo’s name.
“Edmundo!” Milo replied, waving. His face had been jovial the entire time they had been weaving their way back to this edge of the room, but now it seemed genuinely affectionate at the sight of the man.
“I was just telling him how you were fretting,” said the large woman, brushing imaginary dust from her skirts.
“Sit! Sit! We saved seats for you and Camilla, although you haven’t been here the last two nights to use them … ah, and that’s not your sister, is it?” Though puzzled, Edmundo bowed politely in her direction.
“This is Muriella,” said Milo, using the false name they had agreed upon. “And this is Edmundo, with his daughters Charla and Missa.” The girls had to be Milo’s own age; they fluttered their eyelashes and giggled at the sight of him, but barely looked Risa’s way.
“Mina, meet my friend Muriella.” Milo put his hand on the large woman’s back. She was busily talking to one of the other men at the table, but stopped her conversation to look up. “Why, hello … hmmm. Muriella, did you say?” She looked straight into Risa’s eyes, winked, and laid a hand on hers. “Well then. Muriella!” Risa feared that she had not fooled the taverna owner for even a moment, but the woman broke out in a smile and squeezed her hand fondly. “Always glad to have the king’s guards at Mina’s. Mind you come back often!”
