The Golden City

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  Silva crossed his arms over his chest, lips pressed together in an angry line. “I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here, pup, but forget it.”

  “You know what I want,” Duilio reminded him. The pelt was all he’d ever wanted from this man.

  “And I’ve told you I don’t have it,” Silva said. “I’ve never laid a finger on the thing.”

  That was what Silva always said. The one thing that made Duilio think there might be truth in those words was that the man had never asked him for a ransom. “Tell me about Mata,” Duilio suggested. “What’s he after this time?”

  Silva laughed aloud. “Mata? You think I’m giving him orders? You don’t understand what’s going on at all, do you? Playing policeman again—I should have known. What a waste! If all that money had come to me instead, as it should have, I wouldn’t be spending my time hunting for missing servants.”

  Duilio gazed at Silva wide-eyed, trying very hard to look stupid. The man clearly knew something about Mata. There was no telling what else he knew. “Missing servants?”

  Silva tilted his head. “How did you find Miss Paredes first? I planned to have her in my quiver of arrows, so to speak. But, alas, now she’s warming your bed, when I would have been using her as bait.”

  He hoped Miss Paredes wouldn’t be offended, but he didn’t intend to argue with Silva about that insult to her. “Bait?”

  Silva patted him on the shoulder in a fatherly fashion. Duilio was hard-pressed not to sweep the man’s hand aside. He did his best to ignore it.

  “You see, pup,” Silva said, “I don’t know exactly what the Open Hand is doing out there, but when she escaped them, your fishling lover changed the balance of prophecy. The prophecy that Fabricio is destined to die at the hands of the sea folk? Every day that prophecy is growing stronger and stronger.” Silva smiled with false affection, his hand heavy on Duilio’s shoulder. “So, keep in mind that while she’s powdering your sainted mother’s cheeks and handing her fans, your little fishling is planning to kill your lawful ruler. That makes you treasonous just for harboring her in your house.”

  Silva dropped his intrusive grasp and strolled past him toward the door.

  The Open Hand? Duilio hoped nothing showed on his face. He clenched his hands behind his back. Silva had just spilled far more information than he’d expected, which meant at best it was poisoned. It was more likely all false.

  “By the by, I wasn’t going to seduce the little one,” Silva said as he went. “Too bland for my tastes. But the older girl might prove interesting. A bit of fire in that one.” He paused at the door to see if Duilio was attending, then added, “Or perhaps I’ll wait until after you marry her.” With dramatic grace worthy of the theater, Silva swept out of the library.

  Duilio closed his eyes. He could not begin to express how much he hated talking to that man. He took a couple of calming breaths, afraid that if he spoke to anyone too soon he would bark at them. Then he turned back to look for the two women who’d heard every word of that exchange. They still stood next to the couch, less than ten feet away.

  Miss Paredes regarded him with wide, haunted eyes. “It’s not true,” she said softly.

  “I know,” he said, although he didn’t know anything of the sort. She could be an assassin. It was possible, but the very fact that Silva asserted it made Duilio think it unlikely. If she’d posed a direct threat to his prince, Silva would never have let her go. “I take everything he says with a great deal of skepticism.”

  Miss Paredes looked relieved, her shoulders losing their tightness.

  “Well, I found that informative,” the Lady said, apparently unfazed by all the distractions of Silva’s conversation. “Let’s have a look at that book.”

  Duilio located the book Silva had set back on the shelf. It stuck out from the others just enough that he could readily spot it. He pulled it out, noting that no title appeared on the spine.

  “Please hand it to me,” the Lady said. “Carvalho may have given me permission to use his library, but he didn’t extend that to you, Mr. Ferreira.”

  He had no way to verify that, so he didn’t see any point in arguing. Duilio handed it over.

  She opened it out and flipped through a few pages in the center. Then she shook her head. “I wonder how many times Silva’s managed to get into this house. I suspect he’s stealing most of his better prophecies. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Silva isn’t a particularly strong seer. Stronger than you, Mr. Ferreira, but nothing like Abreu or Gardineiro.” She turned the book so that Duilio could see the handwritten pages. “Whose prophecies are written in this volume. This belongs to the city’s Freemasons and is not for public consumption—the reason Carvalho keeps it locked away. I will suggest a more secure arrangement for the future.”

  Miss Paredes had come closer, simply listening. Duilio hoped she was keeping track. It would give him the luxury of having someone with whom to discuss this bewildering evening. He turned back to the Lady. “Are you a member of the Freemasons?”

  The Freemasons sought enlightenment in all things, and someone who studied the practice of witchcraft in the abstract might fit well into their ranks. But they didn’t have female members here, even if they did in France and in the Americas.

  “No,” she said. “Carvalho is my contact, should I need information from them, but I am not a part of any of their organizations.”

  That was a nicely unequivocal statement. “What about the Open Hand? Who are they?”

  “A secret society?” the Lady said musingly. “So far we’ve identified five officers within the Special Police who seem to be members of this Open Hand, Mata among them. There have to be others outside the Special Police, but we don’t know yet who they are. At this point, we don’t know exactly what their goal is, either.”

  Not very helpful. All Special Police officers bore the sigil of an open hand on their caps, a symbol modeled after a stone carving on the gate of the palace itself. It seemed only logical that this group might be found within their ranks.

  “I find it interesting that your uncle handed that name to you on a platter,” she added.

  Ah, the Lady was aware of his relationship with the man. Duilio suspected she’d chosen those words to inform him of that. It increased the likelihood that she actually had known Alessio. “I did too,” he said. “I’ve never heard that name before tonight.”

  “But he has,” she pointed out. “Silva is like a spider, Mr. Ferreira, and his web touches on everything. He has friends everywhere, if you can call them friends. I suspect most of them tolerate him because he’s pulling their strings; no more.”

  That was Silva’s special talent: twisting people’s words and intentions, provoking them to distrust one another. Getting them to dance to his tune. It was gratifying to hear someone else say it aloud. “So he wanted to assure the police heard that name, through me,” Duilio surmised. “Why would he use Miss Paredes as bait?”

  The Lady’s pale eyes flicked toward her. “Most practitioners of witchcraft are very superstitious, Mr. Ferreira. A spell of this complexity—and I suspect there’s much more of it than what appears on the surface of that table—it does not require a specific victim, save for the apparent fact that they lived in that house. However, if the witch involved wants to go back and fix this spell, fix the fact that one of the intended victims escaped, they will prefer strongly to recover the original victim.”

  Miss Paredes’ eyes lowered to the carpet.

  “So this Open Hand will be looking for her,” Duilio said, “to try again.”

  “It’s very likely.” The Lady turned to Miss Paredes. “I would keep my distance from the Special Police, Miss Paredes, or you might be rejoining the other maid you mentioned in that house. I want you to appreciate the danger you stand in.”

  Miss Paredes’ hands were shaking now. “Not a maid, Lady. It was Isabel Amaral, my mistress. She died there.”

  For the first time, the Lady appeared disconcerted. “I tho
ught you said they were servants.”

  “Until last Thursday night,” Duilio said, sparing Miss Paredes from repeating it. “Lady Isabel was planning on eloping, and decided that she and Miss Paredes should dress as housemaids to escape notice.”

  “Whose idea was that?” the Lady asked.

  “She seemed to have come up with it on her own,” Miss Paredes offered hesitantly.

  “I don’t trust anything that convenient,” the Lady said. “If I understand correctly, they’ve chosen dozens of victims already, and managed to cover their tracks well enough that the police didn’t catch on. Miss Paredes, you were the one person in the Amaral household not likely to die if put in the water, yet they chose you, a sereia? Does that not strike you as an unlikely twist of fate? It makes me suspect you were there intentionally.”

  Miss Paredes looked as haunted as she had when Silva implied she was an assassin. “I am not in league with them.”

  The Lady laid a gloved hand on Miss Paredes’ arm. “I do not imply that. But you and your mistress may have been chosen because someone within the organization wants to sabotage whatever the Open Hand is trying to achieve.”

  “My knife,” Miss Paredes whispered, her eyes lifting to his. “They didn’t take my knife. I had it with me, but whoever tied me to that chair didn’t take it.”

  Duilio recalled her mentioning the knife, but before this moment he’d assumed it was a hurried oversight. He could tell she’d already worked her way to the conclusion: if she’d been put there to sabotage the spell, then Isabel had been selected intentionally merely to put Oriana Paredes in the desired situation. He set a hand under her elbow to support her. “We don’t know what’s true at this point, Miss Paredes.”

  She nodded jerkily. He hadn’t driven that demon out of her mind, he could tell.

  The Lady glanced across the library, and Duilio turned to see Inspector Gaspar standing in the doorway. Duilio nodded to the man but didn’t bother with introductions.

  “Are you ready to go?” the inspector asked the Lady.

  “Actually,” she said, “I need to stay a while longer and speak to Carvalho about his security. Could you see these two home safely and then return for me?”

  The inspector nodded and stepped inside the library to wait.

  Miss Paredes handed the sketch to the Lady. “Perhaps it will help.”

  “We’ll talk again,” the Lady said, tucking the folded paper into a handbag Duilio hadn’t noted before. “I think we’ve all learned enough for one night.”

  Duilio mentally agreed to that. If they weren’t running short on time, he would like to mull this over for a week or two. Possibly three.

  Still looking shaken, Miss Paredes took his mother’s shawl and settled it around her own shoulders. “I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Walking might not be the fashionable choice, but it was faster than sending for the carriage and waiting for it to come back. So she and Mr. Ferreira slipped out the servants’ door in the back and walked down the street in silence, the unknown African man following them at a distance. Oriana hadn’t caught who he was, although he was likely one of the Lady’s special associates. Mr. Ferreira seemed inclined to trust him. For now that was enough for her.

  Oriana drew the shawl up over her head to cover her hair. It was chilly out, although not nearly so much as this time last week. Her thoughts swirled. She didn’t think she would sleep at all tonight, despite feeling worn to the bone.

  Until tonight, she’d believed that ending up in that house with Isabel had been an accident. Not that those who put them there were unaware of their actions, but that the selection of Isabel Amaral and Oriana Paredes as victims had been an accident. Hearing that her placement there might have been intentional—that hurt. That Isabel had been killed merely for being with her. For befriending her.

  If true, it also implied that the saboteur was aware of Oriana’s identity. The killer hadn’t been, although he might have guessed by now how she’d escaped. Would the killer even know that something was missing from the artwork yet? How would he know that?

  And Silva, that . . . bottom-feeder. She hadn’t believed for a moment that his rescue of her had been beneficent. But he clearly had ugly designs within designs. If that was what one used a seer’s gift for, it was a crime.

  The Lady had said it very clearly, though. Silva was a seer, not a particularly strong one, but stronger than Mr. Ferreira. The moon was almost full, allowing Oriana to see Mr. Ferreira’s face. He was watching the pedestrians on the street. Not overtly, but she could tell from the way his eyes flicked from group to group, evaluating the danger each posed.

  “I owe you an apology,” she told him.

  He didn’t look her way, eyes still busy. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because of what I said about seers being frauds.”

  He laughed softly. “No offense taken, Miss Paredes.”

  A carriage rattled by and she tensed, unable to quell the irrational fear that someone would jump out and grab her. It was foolish. She knew that.

  Mr. Ferreira took her hand and laid it on his sleeve. “We will get home safely, Miss Paredes. That’s about all my gift’s good for, but it does tell me that.”

  Her tension slipped away like water rolling past. She wouldn’t have believed those words if they’d come from Silva, seer or not. But she trusted Duilio Ferreira. They walked on for a moment in silence, and then she said, “So, you and Miss Carvalho are betrothed?”

  “No, she and I are not betrothed,” he said firmly. “Her father suggested that it would be a good match, but I refused his proposition. I wonder how Silva learned about it.”

  A good question. “She’s a nice girl, although she and Isabel didn’t associate much.”

  It was prying, she knew. She didn’t have any business asking into his personal plans.

  “Yes, Genoveva Carvalho is a perfectly nice young lady. When she was her young sister’s age or so, she fell head over heels in love with Alessio. He never led her on. He was always very clear with women that he had no intention to marry, ever. But he was friendly to her, and that was enough. I would hate to marry a woman for whom I’m the second choice.”

  Like Pia, Oriana thought. Pia would have been Mr. Efisio’s second choice. Oriana wholeheartedly agreed with the girl’s decision to cut her ties with him. They stopped for a carriage to cross Clérigos Street, and then continued on. “Why did your brother not intend to marry?”

  Mr. Ferreira let out a long breath, sounding almost vexed. “His scruples. He didn’t believe he could be faithful to a wife and refused to take vows he couldn’t uphold.”

  “Is that what he and your father argued over so much?” Pressuring a young man to marry and produce a legitimate heir was common in aristocratic families.

  “They argued over everything possible, Miss Paredes. They would argue over whether the color of an invitation card was ivory or bone,” he said with a sigh. “Alessio adored our mother, and it infuriated him that Father was unfaithful to her. Alessio took every opportunity to fling that in his face. Father actually threw him out of the house a few years ago. It took the theft of my mother’s pelt to get them to work together on anything.”

  Oriana pressed her lips together. She had bickered endlessly with her own father. It didn’t mean she hadn’t adored him. But she’d always thought she knew better than he did, particularly where her younger sister was concerned. It had taken her years on her own to realize how often she’d been wrong as a girl.

  She could see the front gate of the Ferreira house now, a reassuring sight, but in the moonlight the house looked Gothic, its dark stone haunted by the memories of angry quarrels and bitterness. “Your mother doesn’t mention that about your father—that he was unfaithful.”

  “No,” he said, “her people expect males to be promiscuous. She found it more troublesome that he lied about it and treated women like they were . . . I don’t know . . . whores. Throw some money at them and his resp
onsibility ends there. Just like his father before him.”

  Oriana felt the corners of her lips lifting. He definitely wouldn’t have said that to Genoveva Carvalho. His irritated tone hinted that the lying must have irked him as well. And his grandfather’s actions had to be part of what made Silva such a twisted man. “Do you have any other siblings?” she asked cautiously. “Like Silva, I mean?”

  He paused at the gate before his house. “There’s a reason I didn’t refute Silva’s claims about the nature of our relationship, Miss Paredes, despite the fact that I did so earlier when speaking to Rodrigo Pimental. Any scrap of information Silva picks up, he’ll twist into a weapon. He has, in the past, hinted that I have two bastard brothers. He says he kept a closer eye on our father than Mother did. I have no way to know if it’s true. But he used that to distract me, which was all he was after, I suspect.”

  Somehow she didn’t think another member of the Ferreira family would be a bad thing. “Could it be true?”

  “Of course it could,” he said with a sigh.

  He swung the gate open, and Oriana saw that Cardenas already stood in the doorway, as if he’d been waiting for them. Oriana went up the flagstone walkway to the house. He stopped at the front door of the house, nodded in the direction of their distant escort, and then led her inside while Cardenas locked up behind them. They silently made their way up the stairs, but when she stopped at her own door, he paused, laying one hand on her arm.

  Oriana turned back to look at him in the glow of the gaslight at the head of the hallway. She couldn’t read the expression on his features. He did look tired now, perhaps because he no longer needed to keep up the pretense. He opened his mouth to speak and then apparently thought better of it. She wanted to hear it, she realized, whatever it was he had to say. “Mr. Ferreira?”

  He tugged off his gloves and brusquely said, “It isn’t your fault.”

  She found herself staring at his patent shoes, surprised by his cross tone. “I . . .”