Terms of Surrender (The Revanche Cycle Book 3)

by Craig Schaefer

  Rhys had followed through on his original promises, delivering the resources they’d need to take the Holy City and then, to satisfy his end of the bargain, to place Dante on the governor’s throne in Mirenze. Quick, clean, and if they were lucky, almost bloodless.

  “We can expect resistance from the Dustmen,” Amadeo said, brow furrowed in thought, “but there can’t be more than a hundred of them. The real concern is how the populace reacts. We don’t know what they’ve been told about you, or if they’ve been told anything at all.”

  Livia watched as regiments of men, clad in rough leather breastplates and swirling tartans in half a dozen different patterns, ranked up on the shore near the dock. Waiting in stony silence as porters rushed crates and barrels of rations onto the waiting ships. The king had granted them three in all—the Sabre, the Spear, and the Rhiannon’s Kiss. Four-masted war galleons fit for the journey and the fight to come.

  And then there were her Browncloaks, their formation loose but their blades sharp. They kept their distance from the soldiers, speaking quietly. Some clasping hands, some standing in circles with their heads bowed in prayer.

  Not counting the members who’d volunteered to stay behind in secrecy, maintaining the invisible sword over King Jernigan’s head, they numbered nearly eighty in all.

  Eighty? Livia thought. When did I get that many?

  “I’m not so worried about the teeming masses,” Dante said, taking in the view from the hilltop. “If Iago and the other spies have done their jobs, the entire city’s been littered with copies of my father’s letters for weeks now. Doesn’t mean they’ll be ready to toss Carlo off his throne, but they’ll likely want answers. And when we confront the College of Cardinals, those letters will be one more piece of bargaining power on our side.”

  “It’s a simple enough offer,” Livia said. “Swear fealty to me, join the Itrescan arm of the Church and repudiate Carlo, and they can keep their commission. Or refuse and get nothing, not even table scraps. They won’t refuse. If you ask me, I think we’ll be welcomed as liberators.”

  “And then my part of the deal,” Dante said.

  Livia sighed.

  “And then your part,” she said. “Unlike our good king, my word is my bond, which you know perfectly well. Everything is under control.”

  The three of them strolled down the hillside. A pair of Browncloaks, a woman and a man, rushed up to greet them. They bowed deeply.

  “Preparations are nearly complete, my lady,” the man said. “We should be ready to embark in an hour, maybe less.”

  Livia nodded. “Excellent. Is Kailani here? I don’t see her.”

  The Browncloaks shared a glance. A momentary pause.

  “She…went with the Cutter Blue, to keep watch over Sister Columba,” the woman said.

  “To ensure her safe arrival, just as you wished,” the man quickly added. “She’ll meet up with us before the march on the Holy City.”

  “Columba’s in good hands, then,” Livia said. “Well done. Thank you.”

  The Browncloaks shared another silent glance, bowed, and returned to the group. Approaching from the left, Rhys gave a tired wave. Pikemen flanked him, their tabards emblazoned with the Itrescan griffin—just like the flags and pennants that rippled on each of the three galleons.

  “I hope this is all to your liking,” he said, his smile not reaching his eyes.

  “Very much so,” Livia said. “Thank you for holding up your end of the agreement.”

  “Of course I did. I’m the king, aren’t I? A good king always keeps his word.”

  “Of course,” she echoed.

  He turned to regard Dante.

  “Remember, Uccello, these troops are a loan, not a gift. And you’ll pay the blood price for any you lose. Once you’re the top man in Mirenze, we can discuss trade opportunities.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Dante replied.

  The king’s gaze fell upon Amadeo. His smile vanished. He didn’t say anything at first. Then he stepped closer, lowering his voice as the two men locked eyes.

  “Don’t ever come back here again.”

  “I don’t plan to,” Amadeo replied.

  Rhys answered with a curt nod, stepping back.

  “Well, then, nothing left to say. Go forth and spread the flag of the Itrescan Church”—Rhys gave a mocking flutter of his hand—“or whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

  “To heal the schism,” Livia said. “This is a mission of mercy.”

  “Just so long as ‘mercy’ also means ‘money.’ Send a courier as soon as you have some good news to share. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  With that he turned his back and walked away, back toward the towering walls of Lychwold, his pikemen falling in lockstep behind him.

  “Can we trust him?” Amadeo asked softly, then nodded to the ships and the waiting soldiers. “I mean, about this?”

  Dante watched the king go and put his hands on his hips.

  “Absolutely. His gambit failed. Now the only wise move is to do as he first promised: help us, then see what he can earn from Imperial concessions and Mirenzei trade. Between carrying a grudge and turning a profit, he’ll take the profit.” Dante smiled. “He is a good king. Well. Shall we?”

  They ascended the gangplank of the Sabre, with the Browncloaks following in silent procession.

  As they stepped out onto the open deck, Livia winced. She pinched the skin above her nose and squeezed her eyes shut, wavering on her feet. Amadeo put a protective hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you all right?”

  She waved him off, nodding. “Fine, fine, just…need to take my tonic.”

  “Tonic?” Dante arched a thin eyebrow.

  “It’s…a medicinal formula,” Livia told him, “for my headaches.”

  “Good, good. I’m glad you’re doing something for that. We need you in top form for your triumphant return to the Holy City.”

  “Quite. If you’ll excuse me.”

  Livia left them, descending belowdecks. Dante threw an arm around Amadeo’s shoulder.

  “So. Once we run Carlo out on a rail, our girl’s about to become queen of the world. You must be proud of her.”

  Amadeo looked out across the deck, a swirling mass of brown as Livia’s self-appointed guardians marched aboard. In his mind’s eye, he was back at Rhys’s feast table. Watching Kailani slash Merrion’s throat. Murdering the man in cold blood on Livia’s orders.

  And the calculated, almost satisfied look on Livia’s face when she did it.

  “Very proud,” Amadeo said, his voice soft.

  “I had my doubts, but she was the right horse to wager on. Little worried about her health, though. This ‘tonic’ she’s taking, it’s the real thing, not some quack medicine?”

  Amadeo nodded, his eyes on the distant horizon. “It seems to be helping her. If you’ll excuse me, I’m…not feeling well myself. Going to lie down until my stomach settles.”

  * * *

  Amadeo took his leave and Dante strolled, alone, to the prow of the ship. He tasted the cold, salty air, letting the wind ruffle his hair as he stood at the rail’s edge. Some faint memory of a sea shanty came to mind, something he’d heard in a dockside tavern, and he tried whistling the part he remembered.

  One of the Browncloaks sidled up next to him. An Itrescan woman in her twenties, wearing her rust-red hair in an elaborate braid.

  “Signore Uccello,” she said, “a moment?”

  He stopped whistling and gave her a winning smile.

  “Signorina. How may I be of service?”

  “We just have a question for you.”

  “We?” he asked. Then he looked behind him.

  At least a dozen Browncloaks stood at his back. Clustered tight, a silent human wall. Every eye staring straight at him. Dante chuckled and turned away, looking out over the water.

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Are you acting, at all times, in the best interest of our Holy Mother?” She put
one hand on the ship’s rail and the other, gently, on the small of his back. “Are you faithful to her and her greater calling?”

  The smile froze on her face. The breath froze in Dante’s throat. Her fingertips pressed, feather-soft, against his back.

  “That is…a most complicated question, signorina.”

  “We don’t think that it is.”

  Tell them what they want to hear? he thought. No. They’ll smell the lie. Time to take a calculated risk.

  He turned, shrugged off her hand, and addressed the gathered throng.

  “Then you truly are a pack of imbeciles, and you’ll do more harm than good.”

  Confusion. Side-glances. The woman’s mouth dropped open.

  “Let me explain something,” Dante said, spreading his hands. “I’m not a very nice man. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a scoundrel, though certain angry fathers in certain small Verinian towns—and their deflowered daughters—might claim otherwise. I am an unrepentant liar, a manipulator by trade, and I have been known to cheat at cards. I have no more belief in ‘Pope Livia’s’ divine calling than I do in the imaginary god she serves. And I am, without question, Livia’s best and most faithful friend in the world.”

  The woman frowned. “You contradict yourself, and you blaspheme.”

  “Not at all. I blaspheme honestly and without contradiction. Understand that my sole drive is to claim the city of Mirenze for my own. The only way I can make that happen—the only way—is for Livia’s ambitions to succeed. And so I pledge to you: I will manipulate, scheme, and use every last dirty trick in my arsenal to make sure that happens. I will likely sin quite a bit. I’m good at sinning. And you will, if you have one brain between the lot of you, thank me for it.”

  He turned his back on them, gazing out across the sea.

  “So. If you’re going to shove me overboard—and lose the best weapon you’ve got—do it and stop boring me already.”

  The woman edged away from the rail.

  “We’ll be watching you, Uccello.”

  “That,” he replied, “is the first sensible thing you’ve said.”

  * * *

  They’d prepared a tiny cabin for Amadeo, with a narrow cot and a porthole window that looked out over the endless blue. He found Freda fixing his linens, the hem of the girl’s oversized cloak draping around her patchwork shoes. She looked up and gave a cheerful smile.

  “All set for the trip, Father. If you need anything at all, just ask any of us. We’re here to help.”

  He almost held his silence as she turned to leave. Almost.

  “Freda?”

  She turned back, beaming at him. “Yes, Father?”

  “When we arrive in Lerautia, if the Dustmen don’t surrender…I don’t want you in the fight. Promise me you’ll stay back.”

  “Kailani says—”

  “I know what Kailani says, Freda. But Kailani isn’t…” He waved a frustrated hand. “I don’t know what she is.”

  “First apostle.”

  Amadeo inclined his head. “What?”

  “First apostle. That’s her title. Father, you really should join us. Won’t you please think about it?”

  He paused. Glancing to his cot and the perfectly folded linens.

  “Freda…it wasn’t a coincidence that you happened to be in here when I arrived, was it? You were waiting for me. To talk to me, alone.”

  Her smile faded, just a bit. She moved a little closer and lowered her voice.

  “It’s okay, Father. I’ve vouched for you. Even without the oaths, we know you’re loyal to Livia. But everyone would feel better if you were one of us.” She stared into his eyes, hopeful. “Would you please…say you’ll think about it?”

  “So that if they ask you,” he replied slowly, putting it together, “when they ask you, you can truthfully tell them I said so.”

  Her response was a tiny nod.

  He sighed. “All right, Freda. I will consider it.”

  Her smile lit up again. She leaned in, rising up on her toes to give him a peck on the cheek, and darted out of the cabin.

  Amadeo shut the door and hooked the latch.

  The Browncloaks were out of control. And meanwhile, Livia was downing a concoction to stave off the deadly infection in her veins—but not the slow corruption that came with it. That she’d have to fight on her own. Every step of the way.

  Is she strong enough? he asked himself. That had been the question all along, he supposed. Was she strong enough to tame her self-appointed protectors, defeat Carlo, unite the Church, win the Empire’s devotion, and do it all without losing her soul in the balance?

  If it isn’t already lost.

  Amadeo put his back to the door and slid downward, sitting on the cabin floor with his knees to his chest and his head bowed. He closed his eyes and tried not to think of what-ifs and what-could-have-beens.

  The die was cast. He’d made his choice. All he could do now was all he’d ever done.

  Stand by her.

  * * *

  In her own cabin, Livia gazed out the porthole as the Sabre slid away from the dock, leaving Itresca behind. And ahead: the greatest fight of her life, about to begin.

  She wasn’t afraid, though. With Amadeo at her side, with Kailani—even, she hated to admit, with Dante—she couldn’t fail.

  “Father,” she whispered, “I’ll make things right. I promise. I’ll rebuild the Church, better and stronger than it’s ever been. I’ll make you proud of me.”

  Her jumbled luggage included a small trunk with heavy brass hasps. She flipped the latches, hinges whistling as she raised the lid. Inside, slender spun-glass vials nestled in neat rows. Her supply of the Owl’s formula for the trip.

  She took up a vial in her hand and tugged its cork free, smelling the elixir’s rich, clean aroma. It made her think of dew-damp grass and tart apples. She tossed it back, swallowing it all down in a single gulp, and frowned.

  Ashes.

  It tasted like ashes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  It snowed soot in Winter’s Reach.

  The wind brushed the charred stockade wall and ran its fingers along burned-out storefronts and hovels, kicking clouds of black dust into the air and sending it swirling through the city streets. Veruca strode with a platoon of Coffin Boys at her back, touring her dominion, assessing the damage. Here and there, offering a touch of her hand or a kindly word. Brushing a finger of ash from a child’s upturned face.

  The one thing she wanted to do, the one thing she couldn’t do until she was back in her mansion and safe behind locked doors, was let out the grief that was tearing her heart to pieces. No, that wouldn’t do at all. She was the mayor. First among equals. The captain of their ship. They needed her to be as hard and cold as winter itself.

  Have to give the people what they want, she thought, hiding her sorrow behind a tight and steely-eyed smile.

  “Mayor.” Another of her boys ran up, pointing. “We found them.”

  She followed his finger. Mari, and her…friends, lined up on the street. Veruca raised her chin and sauntered over to them, making a beeline for Mari.

  “On one hand, you warned us about the invasion and saved me from that maniac Bear. Without your help, the city would have been lost.”

  She swung her gaze toward Mari’s companions. The closest, the one with the soot-spotted glasses and withered hand, met her hard eyes with a look of defiance.

  “On the other,” Veruca said, “if you people hadn’t used my town for a dumping ground, would the Imperials have come in the first place?”

  “Eventually,” Nessa said.

  “But not last night.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not last night.”

  Veruca glared at Nessa.

  “Her ‘liege,’ I take it.”

  Nessa’s only response was to put a possessive hand on Mari’s shoulder, fingers curling tight.

  “You get a pass,” Veruca said. “I want the one who stole my memories. The w
oman in the muskrat mask.”

  “You’re half a day too late.” Nessa pointed back toward the mountains. “If you want the Muskrat, check by the mouth of your shiny new alum mine. There’s nothing left but bits of shattered skull.”

  Veruca’s eyes narrowed. She looked to Mari.

  “Is she telling the truth?”

  “Every word,” Mari said.

  “Suppose that score’s settled then. Not the way I wanted it, but…none of this is.” Veruca rubbed her chin, thinking. “You. Glasses. Follow me.”

  Nessa arched an eyebrow, but she followed in the mayor’s wake as they stepped just out of earshot.

  “I’m not going to thank you,” Veruca said, “considering you helped to ‘fix’ a problem your own people created. That said, you did help. Listen, Bear’s dead, and I need capable hands. If you and your…coven want to stay on, I could find work for you. Good-paying work.”

  “A flattering offer, but we have places to go and an appointment to keep.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Paradise,” Nessa replied.

  “No such thing.”

  “Then we’ll just have to create one.”

  Veruca fell silent. Her gaze kept flicking back to the witches in the snow. And Mari.

  “It must be exhausting,” Nessa said.

  Veruca frowned. “What?”

  “You and I aren’t so different,” Nessa said. “Except sometimes, I can take my mask off.”

  “You want to see me without my mask? Really?”

  Veruca moved in, standing almost nose-to-nose with her. Her voice dropped to a low growl.

  “Mari was mine first. I taught her. I trained her. She was the best soldier I ever had. And if I can’t have her back, then understand one thing: if you hurt her, I will hunt you. I will find you. And I will fucking kill you.”

  “She belonged to the war first, Veruca, and the war taught her. Everything since then has been nothing but higher education. But if it sets your mind at ease…no.” She wore a small, lopsided smile as she glanced over at Mari. “Hurting her is the last thing in the world I want to do right now. And that’s me, with my mask off. Satisfied?”

  Veruca stared into Nessa’s eyes, as if searching for the truth. She nodded.