Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) Read online

  “Then turn us around. We’ll go back to Itresca and return with more troops.”

  “We’re not riding a horse, Your Holiness. Wind’s against us. By the time we get all three ships turned around, we’ll be dead in the water. They barely missed with the first shot, and that was guesswork. They won’t miss again.”

  Livia took a deep breath, shoulders back, and fixed her glare upon the shoreline.

  “Then we make our landfall here,” she said. “We attack.”

  The captain’s eyes went wide. “M’lady?”

  “We attack. Now. Full speed to the shore.” She waved over the closest Browncloaks. “Spread the word. Everyone make ready for an assault on the beach. I want Rhys’s troops in the vanguard; they’re more experienced. We go in behind them.”

  Dante stood at her shoulder. “We?” he said. “Livia, you need to stay out of the fight. You’re too important. We can’t risk losing you.”

  The trebuchet’s arm slammed down. Another fat ball of pitch scorched through the air, hitting the masts of the Spear and thundering into the sister ship’s forecastle. Timbers cracked, blazing canvas billowing down as screaming men flung themselves overboard.

  “You hear that?” Livia demanded. “That’s the sound of our options running out. Everybody fights. Everybody.”

  Signalmen gave the orders, colored flags waving from ship to ship, and the Sabre and the Rhiannon’s Kiss closed in on land as the Spear foundered and burned in the water. Livia watched, grim and silent, as the Spear’s mainmast collapsed with a groan and the fire spread. Ropes rattled on pulleys, steel-eyed soldiers and Browncloaks piling into the landing boats. Livia found Freda in the crowd, jogging alongside her as they made their way to the closest skiff.

  “I need a sword,” Livia said.

  “Stay behind us,” Freda told her. “We’re your sword.”

  Livia grabbed the freckled girl by the shoulder, hauling her around to look her in the eye.

  “Freda, am I your leader?”

  She blinked. “Well, yes, of course.”

  “And if I allowed you to stand in harm’s way—if I ordered you into danger—and I didn’t stand right beside you, I wouldn’t be worthy of the title. Now do as I say and bring me a weapon.”

  The next ball of pitch blasted the Spear midships, timbers shrieking as the hull caved in. Sailors and soldiers floundered in the icy water, some of them desperately dog-paddling and clinging to scraps of kindling, some of them burning alive. The dying ship left a trail of wreckage and corpses.

  The two surviving galleons dropped anchor, as close to shore as they could reach before the shallows. Livia jostled onto a narrow bench in a landing boat, surrounded by a sea of brown burlap and naked steel as her followers packed in shoulder to shoulder. Skiffs dropped one by one, splashing into the restless water, rowers paddling hard and fast toward the beach.

  A ball of pitch arced overhead, burning like the sun, leaving a yellow blur in Livia’s upturned eyes. The galleon lurched as the tarry missile crashed into the rear deck, rupturing the planks and raining black death onto the berths below. Sailors ran in a mad panic, chopping at the boat lines and cutting the skiffs loose as fast as they could, evacuating the Sabre as it slowly listed to one side. Taking on water and a one-way trip to a sunken grave.

  Livia squeezed her eyes shut. The pulleys squealed and suddenly she was airborne, her landing boat plummeting from its moorings. It plunged into the water with a splash, the frigid spray slapping her face as her stomach lurched.

  They were behind the vanguard, skiffs full of tartan-clad marines from the Rhiannon’s Kiss well ahead of them and cutting through the waves on their way to the white-sand beach. On shore, Imperial archers scrambled to form a ragged firing line; apparently their commander had anticipated everything but a head-on counterattack. The twin ballistae rocked on their sandy anchors as they fired, sending massive spears screaming through the air. One hit the Rhiannon’s Kiss full on, blasting a chunk of hull and showering the water with sawdust and jagged timbers. The other, hastily re-aimed at the closest landing boat, hit its mark and plowed through the packed skiff like the fist of an angry god, turning wood to splinters and men to bloody paste.

  Livia’s heart hammered against her chest as a hail of arrows whistled overhead, peppering the water. She fought to breathe, to hold steady, to keep any hint of fear from showing in her eyes. There were too many people looking her way for that. Too many people who needed to know they weren’t going into the maelstrom alone. At her side, a faint whimper escaped Freda’s throat. She was petrified, eyes fixed on the shore, her bottom lip pinched white between her teeth.

  Livia rested her fingers on the girl’s clenched hands and spoke softly. “Freda. The Gardener is on our side. We can’t lose.”

  Freda met her gaze, and her fear softened.

  Please, Livia prayed, let me be telling the truth.

  The Itrescan marines leaped from their boats in the shallows. They waded through hip-deep water to storm the beach while Imperial infantry raced to meet them with gladius and shield, their lines clashing at the water’s edge. Sprays of blood glittered in the sun like fistfuls of garnets as torn bodies splashed down and built a seawall of corpses. The next ranks clambered over the bodies of the fallen, bellowing their battle cries and carrying on with the slaughter.

  Then it was Livia’s turn. Her boat’s keel bumped the sand, jolting to a stop, and her Browncloaks jumped down into the surf to join the fight. Fear turned her muscles to stone, but she struggled through it, forcing herself to follow them over the side, feeling the icy water pool around her thighs and soak her green robes as she waded toward the beach. Someone had loaned her a sword and a belt that didn’t quite fit. She felt ridiculous drawing the blade and holding it high. Who do I think I am? her swirling thoughts demanded. What do I think I’m doing? But the gesture drew a full-throated cheer from the men and women around her. A cheer that spread like wildfire along the coastline, louder than the rattling boom of the trebuchet or the clash of steel on steel.

  The Browncloaks thundered down on the beach, swarming around the Itrescan vanguard and carving into the Imperial flanks. What they lacked in training they made up for with fervor and mad-eyed zeal, bowling over the archers’ ranks and dragging their enemies to the blood-soaked sand. Hacking them limb from limb as the Imperials screamed for mercy. Livia strode through the chaos as the battle raged around her, cold grace in the eye of the storm, brandishing her borrowed sword like a beacon to spur her followers on.

  * * *

  The sun crested over the rolling green hills of Verinia, bringing the cold, clear light of an autumn morning. Shining down on silent, scarlet sands, where cherry foam washed over the teeming bodies of the dead, shoving them toward the shore. And beyond the corpse sargasso, the ravaged and flame-scorched ruins of Livia’s fleet slowly sank toward an icy grave. Charred masts jutted up from the water like the straining fingers of a drowning man.

  Amadeo knelt in the bloody sand, clasping a soldier’s hand. He was barely more than a boy. His chest was a ragged waste, cleaved open by an Imperial blade and laying bare his shattered ribs, and it was only by some sick miracle that he still drew breath. Amadeo stroked his trembling hand, listening to his rattling breath as his chest rose and dropped, meeting the animal panic in the boy’s eyes.

  There were ritual words to say, a rote prayer for the dying, but the soldier didn’t need that. Instead, Amadeo just sat with him. Eventually the boy managed enough breath to gasp out a single question.

  “Did we win?”

  Amadeo looked out over the beach. The survivors staggered in tiny clumps, voices hushed, medics scurrying to tend to the wounded and ease the dying. They’d left Itresca with three ships’ worth of veteran soldiers. What they had left would barely fill a single galley.

  “Yes,” Amadeo told him, forcing a smile. “We won.”

  The boy tried to smile back, his lips contorting in a rictus. “Good,” he said. Then he died.

&
nbsp; Amadeo released his limp hand, letting it drop to the sand, and rose. He walked through the carnage, feeling adrift, wondering if he was dreaming again. All the things you show me, he thought with a sudden flash of anger at the sky, all the pointless visions, all the stupid riddles, and you couldn’t warn me about THIS?

  A pack of Browncloaks conversed in a tight huddle, their voices carrying on a gust of cold wind.

  “Did you see? The sword caught the sunlight. It glowed, just like Saint Elise’s did.”

  “Just like Saint Elise at the Battle of the Red Gates.”

  Amadeo gritted his teeth and walked on by.

  He found Livia at the water’s edge, Dante at her side. Her face etched in sorrow. She threw her arms around Amadeo and he held her tight, letting her cling to him as long as she needed to. They parted, wordlessly, and her eyes had gone hard. Her mask firmly back in place.

  Dante put his hands on his hips, shaking his head at the battlefield. “Apparently,” he said, “we underestimated your brother’s reach.”

  “This isn’t Carlo’s work,” Livia said. “The Empire was committed to their crusade. Emperor Theodosius’s sole and single-minded dream was to conquer the heathen east. And yet.”

  Dante looked over at a fallen black and gold banner, the Imperial eagle slashed down the middle. “And yet. Sometimes emperors die. And sometimes they’re undermined. Someone had a vested interest in making sure your homecoming was cut tragically short, signora.”

  “We have to turn back,” Amadeo said. “If they sent troops to stop us, we have to assume the Holy City won’t stand unguarded. We came prepared to battle a band of mercenaries, not the Imperial army.”

  “Turn back?” Dante pointed a finger at the wreckage in the waves. “With what ships?”

  “Then we find another ship. Or we head south, to Carcanna, and slip into hiding.”

  Livia frowned. “No. No hiding. No running. We do the one thing they won’t be expecting. We advance.”

  “Livia, we don’t have the troops. It can’t be done.”

  Livia stepped toward the water. Foam rippled over her slippered feet.

  “The people who died here today,” she said. “They died to ensure my return. To see Carlo’s downfall and the mending of this Church. Run? Hide? I’d be spitting in their faces if I did that. Betraying them and all they fought for.”

  She turned, her eyes burning with cold fury.

  “We are taking the Holy City. We are taking the papal throne. And Emperor Theodosius, or whoever has stolen his crown, will crawl at my feet and beg forgiveness for raising arms against his true and rightful pope. No. Nobody is going to stop me, Amadeo. We’re taking Lerautia.”

  Amadeo threw up his arms. “How?”

  “We’ll figure it out on the way.” She cast a hard glance across the battlefield. “Rally the troops. It’s time to leave.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  From his suite in the papal manse, Carlo Serafini could look down upon the inner gardens. He’d sit in a chair by the window, cradling a goblet of red wine and watching the hours pass by. The sun slowly crawling across the sky, and the shadows shifting below. A tree of black iron stood at the heart of the garden, its gnarled limbs and razor-sharp leaves spreading out over the flower beds.

  His father had always hated that tree.

  “I promised I wouldn’t tear it down,” he’d told Carlo more than once, “but when I’m gone? Rip it out by its roots. My father wanted to make a statement about the Church, to show its strength, its unyielding nature, how its limbs can’t be bowed or broken.

  “My father forgot, though. He forgot that a tree made of iron can’t bear fruit.”

  “One more,” Carlo murmured, tossing back another swig of wine. “One more promise I didn’t bother keeping.”

  He ran the back of his hand over his mouth, feeling three days of rough stubble on his cheeks. His ermine robes were stained, looking more like a beggar’s rags than papal vestments, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d bathed. Not that it mattered. His only visitors now were the soldiers who guarded his door and brought him his meals and his drink. Keeping him sealed away from the world while a usurper ruled in his name.

  He needed more wine.

  He shoved himself up from the chair and shambled across his suite, past the unmade bed, to the decanter by the door. His captors were generous about keeping it filled. A small mercy, letting him live out his last days in an alcoholic fog. Tiny flecks of brown danced on the surface of the crimson wine, shavings of some exotic herb.

  There was nothing left for him now but to drink and reflect on his failures. Pope. He’d become pope. He couldn’t even remember why he’d wanted to in the first place. Cardinal Accorsi was right: he’d never been anything but a puppet, dancing on Lodovico Marchetti’s strings and then Accorsi’s. Everything he’d done on his own, everything he’d ever tried to accomplish, had been a failure.

  My great legacy, he thought. Carlo, the worthless drunkard.

  He lifted the decanter in a shaky hand, poising it over his empty goblet.

  Do I have to be?

  He stared at the wine. Drinking wine wasn’t something he even questioned, any more than one might question drinking a glass of water. He’d lived in a constant haze for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to go without it.

  More to the point, he didn’t want to go without it. The idea of facing the world without a drink in his hand was alien, terrifying. When he drank, the hard edges of life turned soft, the cold of autumn became cozy and warm. The wine was his safe place, his escape from…everything.

  And where has that gotten me? he asked himself. I had the whole world in the palm of my hand, and I lost it. No. I didn’t lose it. I threw it away.

  He set down the decanter.

  “I don’t want this,” he said to the empty room, his voice hitching. “I don’t want to be like this anymore.”

  I can stop tonight, he thought. One quick drink, for now, to steady my nerves.

  He reached for the decanter. Stopped himself. Made himself walk away. He walked straight back again. He balled his hands into fists and paced the floor of his prison, arguing himself into a drink, then arguing himself out of it, over and over again.

  He thought of Livia. His own sister, who he’d been tricked into believing a traitor. He’d betrayed her. He’d ordered her death, all on the strength of a lie.

  And all she ever wanted, he thought, all she ever asked of me, was that I try to be a better man.

  Carlo left the decanter where it was and went to sit by the window. He owed his sister an apology. She might not be willing to listen, and he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t, but he’d give it to her anyway.

  And he’d be sober when he did it.

  * * *

  In the gardens below, Marcello Accorsi strolled serenely along the manicured paths with Cardinal Herzog at his side, both men dressed in the green and gold-trimmed vestments of their office. Gold rings dripped from Herzog’s outstretched fingers as he gestured at a pair of passing knights.

  “I don’t understand it, Marcello. Soldiers in the papal manse, soldiers in the streets? Why has the Empire taken a sudden interest in the Holy City? And why aren’t these men in the east, fighting the heathens?”

  “Precautions,” Marcello said amiably. “After all, Carlo’s quite ill. Who knows what might happen in the next few weeks?”

  “It’s turbulence. Upsetting the calm we’ve worked to build here.”

  “Turbulence is another word for opportunity, my friend.”

  As they left the gardens, passing under an alabaster arch and down a long hallway lined with oil portraits, Herzog squinted at him.

  “I think someone knows ‘what might happen,’” Herzog said in a low voice, “and I’m speaking to him right now.”

  A tiny smile reached Marcello’s thin lips.

  “Carlo’s been a good investment, but let’s face it, you can’t trust a drunkard. I think it’s time to solidify ou
r hold here. Now, should something happen to our beloved pope, De Luca and Cavalcante are both in my corner—and they’ve each got another ten cardinals under their sway who will vote whichever way they do. Once I’m absolutely certain I have majority support from the College of Cardinals, I’ll make my final move.”

  “And from me,” Herzog said quickly, squeezing Marcello’s arm. “You know you have my support, so long as my generous affection is repaid in kind.”

  “Oh, I know. In fact, that’s why I wanted to meet with you. To share a most valuable secret.”

  Marcello opened a side door, stone steps leading downward to a vaulted tunnel. Torches crackled in the gloom, guiding the way with splashes of smoky yellow light.

  “Ah, my dearest friend, generous to a fault.” Herzog gave him a toothy smile but squinted into the tunnel. “This isn’t the usual way to the assembly hall.”

  “Away from prying ears. The news hasn’t spread this far from the Imperial borders yet, but…now brace yourself for this, but there’s been a coup. Emperor Theodosius has been removed from the throne. A military council is safeguarding the Empire while they search for his replacement.”

  Herzog stopped short, eyes wide. His expression flickered from shock to anxiety to a slow-encroaching greed.

  “His…replacement?”

  “Now you understand why I wanted to have this talk in private. You’re his third cousin by blood. More than that, you’re a highly ranked churchman, a breath away from the papal throne. An experienced leader of men. You could make a claim for the crown. You’ve already got the popular support for it, and getting more, with the right friends, would be child’s play.”

  Herzog’s lips parted in a froglike grin.

  “You and me, Marcello. With me wearing the crown, and you the miter. The two most powerful men in the world, united until the end.”

  Marcello chuckled. “Indeed. That could happen.”

  The sound of jangling metal jolted Herzog from his fantasies of power. Up ahead, a pair of Imperial knights strode toward them with hands on their sword hilts. From behind, another two soldiers marched up and closed the gap.