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

  “That could happen,” Marcello said, “but it’s not going to.”

  Herzog took a step back, his shoulders bumping the dank tunnel wall. “Marcello, what—what is this?”

  “My benefactor has a vision for the future of the Murgardt Empire.” Marcello gave a casual shrug. “One that doesn’t include you ruling it, I’m afraid. We thought it’d be best to remove you from the table before the game began.”

  The soldiers up ahead parted ranks for Marcello to stroll on by, alone. Then they closed in on Herzog and drew their blades.

  * * *

  General Baum had commandeered Carlo’s old office. The decanters and bottles had been carted off, making room for maps and stacks of missives from the breathless messengers who darted in and out at all hours. The grizzled, broad-shouldered man frowned at the latest report from the western front.

  The rebel Terrai were still winning, still waging their lightning war to recapture their old towns and villages, scraping their kingdom back together one bloody acre at a time. Not for long, Baum thought, feeling a sense of grim anticipation.

  A knock at the open door got his attention. Marcello stood on the threshold.

  “It’s done,” the cardinal said.

  Baum waved him in, gesturing to a chair on the other side of the desk.

  “Thank you for that. I know that asking you to betray Herzog’s friendship was a tall order.”

  Marcello chuckled as he pulled the chair back. “Please. Herzog’s friendship and a couple of copper scudi would buy me a bowl of cold porridge. He would have planted a dagger in my back without thinking twice. So who is next in line for the throne?”

  “We’re keeping things quiet while my men track down any likely claimants,” Baum said. “Arranging an accident here, a disappearance there. We’ve found a blood relation living in Carcanna. He’s six years old and about to become an orphan. Better yet, he’s a simpleton.”

  “Allowing you to benevolently guide his rule from behind the throne.” Marcello steepled his fingers. “Elegantly done, General. Or should I go ahead and call you Emperor?”

  Baum’s eyes narrowed, his lip curling in disdain.

  “All that I do, Cardinal, I do for love of my country and my people. Our last two leaders went on reckless crusades, buying eastern treasure with Murgardt blood. Squandering soldiers’ lives for their personal glory. No more. It’s time the men doing the fighting had their say.”

  “And it’s my great honor to assist in that laudable goal. Any word from the shore?”

  “Not yet, but our spy in King Jernigan’s court confirmed that Livia Serafini set out with a war party days ago. That’s why I’m here, overseeing things, instead of fighting on the Terrai front where I belong. You can imagine my displeasure. Once we’ve confirmed Livia’s death, you can deal with Carlo?”

  “I’ll be happy to.” Marcello inclined his head, just an inch, and gave Baum an indulgent smile. “I think you’ll find that I’m a very easy pope to get along with. You protect my interests, and I’ll watch out for yours.”

  “That’s all I ask,” Baum grunted. He picked up a stack of fresh correspondence and sorted it into piles by priority. “We could all use a few years of peace and prosperity. Just a little blessed quiet.”

  “Speaking of peace, what do you hear from the west? Are the Terrai still behaving like unruly children?”

  “For now. Only for now. They have no idea that the crusade is over. As we speak, an invasion force is moving to meet them on the border. I’ll be joining the battle myself as soon as a couple of loose ends are cut clean here.”

  “Livia being one of them,” Marcello said. “And the other?”

  Baum looked like he’d swallowed curdled milk. “Lodovico Marchetti. I want him. He’s the only person alive who can prove Emperor Theodosius didn’t cause the massacre in al-Tali.”

  “Only by incriminating himself. Hard to imagine him doing that.”

  “I can’t afford the risk. Then there’s the matter of the weapons shipment. Taking the spears bound for the crusade and arming the Terrai instead. I fought in Belle Terre, Cardinal. I lost so many people—good friends, good soldiers—battling to bring those savages to heel. And in one fell swoop Marchetti yanked that victory out from under us.”

  Marcello wagged a bony finger at him and chuckled. “That sounds like a dangerously personal motivation, General Baum. We can’t afford to let feelings get in the way, not now. Not with the stakes we’re playing for.”

  “He’s a traitor and a madman, and he will answer for his crimes. Last I heard, he was brought into custody by the governor of Mirenze without incident. I’ve sent a detachment to collect him. As soon as they do, we’ll be returning to the capital.”

  Marcello sank back in his chair. Suddenly quiet. He contemplated his fingertips.

  “What?” Baum said.

  “If we understand correctly, Lodovico sparked a massacre in the desert, gave the emperor a pretext for a crusade, dug his hooks into Carlo’s hide to ensure Theodosius had the Church’s full support, and blackmailed the emperor’s minister of finance to throw a lucrative contract to the Banco Marchetti.”

  “And?”

  “And,” the cardinal mused, “then he used that contract to arm a rebel uprising in Belle Terre while starving the crusade of weapons, guaranteeing a disaster on two fronts. And then he arranged the means to pin the entire thing on Theodosius himself.”

  “What’s your point, Marcello?”

  “My point is, after all that…does he sound like the sort of man who allows himself to be taken prisoner ‘without incident’?”

  Baum met Marcello’s gaze, suddenly grave.

  “Lodovico Marchetti weaves plans inside plans,” Marcello told him. “He won’t be satisfied until the Empire and this Church lie in smoldering ruins. And I hate to say it, but I don’t think he’s finished with us yet.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The noonday sun hung over the ramshackle, tangled streets of Mirenze, offering faint warmth to chase the autumn chill. A procession of gilded carriages rattled down the avenue, from the gates of the governor’s hilltop manse to the town square far below. Criers walked the boulevards, shouting the news of a citywide meeting. All citizens welcome, all urged to attend.

  “Do you really think they’ll buy it?” Weiss asked, the mercenary’s tone as bland as his face, unreadable and distant.

  Sitting across from him in the lead carriage, Lodovico Marchetti gave a solemn nod.

  “It’s the best kind of lie,” he replied. “One that’s too big not to believe. The governor knows his lines?”

  “My men have been working on him for two days straight, taking shifts around the clock. Don’t worry, they didn’t touch his face. Nobody’ll see the marks. At this point he’d cut his own mother’s throat to make the pain stop. He’ll do as he’s told.”

  Aita Rossini, sitting at Lodovico’s side, had spent the trip in contemplative silence. The sunlight glowed against her perfect, porcelain skin. Perfect save for the razor-thin scar that sliced along one high-boned cheek. Lodovico glanced her way.

  “You seem pensive.”

  “You’re opening us up to the risk of a full-fledged Imperial invasion. So yes, I am pensive.” Her gaze shifted to the fourth occupant of the carriage. The horribly burned man in dandy clothes, sitting across from her with a murderous look in his rheumy eyes. “And I am not pleased with your choice of traveling companions.”

  “I apologized for the bomb,” Simon Koertig rasped. “I honestly don’t know what else you want from me.”

  “Aita,” Lodovico said, “Simon’s skills will be invaluable to the cause. It’s…providence that brought him back to our fold.”

  Aita stared at Simon’s lobster-red and skeletal hands, his ravaged face. “Providence,” she echoed, her lip curled in disgust.

  The carriages wound their way to the outer ring of the square, a broad pavilion carved out at the center of the market district. Teeming throngs of people packed the open walk, from brocade-clad nobles lounging in the shade of sun umbrellas, to down-city beggars in patches and rags. Nobody knew what to expect when the city bells rang out as one, but curiosity and boredom had drawn them to listen.

  Lodovico took a deep breath as the horses clopped to a standstill, and he squeezed the latch of the carriage door to stop his fingers from trembling.

  “Showtime,” he said. “Simon, wait here. Aita, see to your men in the crowd. Weiss…fetch the governor.”

  The crowds parted for Lodovico and his entourage as they disembarked from the coaches. The din of conversation fell into a hushed silence as the citizenry got a look at the leader of the procession: the governor, shackled at the wrists and ankles, chains rattling as he trudged to the heart of the square. Behind him, flanked by a pack of Weiss’s mercenaries, came a line of five Imperial soldiers in heavy irons. Gags in their mouths, sun shining down on their blackened eyes and bruised faces.

  The soldiers were a lucky catch, Lodovico thought as he walked at the governor’s side. They’d arrived that morning, with orders to return the “captive” Lodovico for trial and execution. Now they’d serve a new purpose.

  “Do it just as you were taught,” Lodovico whispered, “or I’ll hand you right back to the Dustmen, with orders to keep you alive and screaming as long as humanly possible.”

  “And if I do,” the governor whispered back, his face pale and jaw clenched, “you’ll let me go?”

  “Play your role perfectly, and I’ll let you go. You have my word.”

  The square was silent now. No sound but the faint rasp of a cold breeze gusting through the city streets, ruffling Lodovico’s hair with icy fingers. The governor took a halting breath, his eyes glistening with tears, and spoke.

  “My…my people. Citizens of Mirenze. I stand before you today to…to make a confession.”

  Murmurs chased the wind now, rippling through the crowd. People in the back stood on their toes, straining to hear.

  “You may have seen the Imperial force that passed through the city not long ago, dispatched to capture the city of Winter’s Reach. What…what you don’t know is, it was part of a greater plan. A plan to expand the Murgardt Empire’s borders. The Empire is no longer satisfied with taking tribute from Mirenze as a client city. They plan to invade.”

  As the curious murmurs turned to tones of disbelief and shock, he looked to Lodovico. “Please,” he whispered. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “If you’d rather go back to the basement,” Lodovico replied, “I’m happy to oblige. I’m sure they already have the branding irons heated.”

  The governor swallowed hard and turned back to the crowd.

  “I…have been instrumental in the plan to destroy this city. To…betray my oaths of office and you, the people, by leading a campaign to weaken Mirenze. To soften it in advance of a siege. The bombing of the Ducal Arch, the greatest tragedy in our city’s history”—he shuddered, on the edge of tears, forcing the words out one by one—“was carried out on my orders.”

  Almost everyone in the crowd knew someone who had died at the Ducal Arch. Everyone had known the feeling of loss, the hunger for justice, for revenge, anything to fill the missing space in their lives that had torn open on the morning of the bombing.

  And now they had a target.

  The Dustmen pressed in close, guarding the governor and the captive soldiers as shouts of rage rose in the air along with clenched fists. Lodovico held up his hands, urging them back.

  “Please.” Lodovico’s voice was crisp and polished. “Please, my friends, there’s more to hear.”

  He waited until the crowd fell into a pensive silence. Shifting, on a razor’s edge, hundreds of bodies tensed like hungry panthers ready to pounce.

  “I am no one,” Lodovico said. “But I am a son of Mirenze. My father fought for our city’s independence. I have done nothing so brave. Merely unmasked the traitor before you and the assassins—these ‘soldiers’ you see here—who slaughtered so many of our people.”

  Lodovico rested one hand on his heart, eyes downcast in mock solemnity.

  “My friends, we stand at a moment of crisis. The Empire is coming. You’ve heard this traitor’s confession. You saw the troops, the ships, setting off to conquer Winter’s Reach. We are next. So I have one question to ask you: when the Murgardt hordes darken our doorstep…will we kneel, or will we fight?”

  “We’ll fight!” a man cried from the edge of the square, spurring shouts of agreement and more raised fists. Lodovico held back a smile. Aita had seeded the square with her own people, actors ready to spur on the crowd.

  “I have a plan,” Lodovico said, “to save this city. To keep us strong, and safe, and independent once more. Independent forever, as we were meant to be. As we were born to be. A free Mirenze!”

  He threw up his arms and basked in the roar of the masses, bathing in the alchemy that turned anger and loss to zealous rage. The people united in furious defiance, their shouts echoing over the rooftops.

  “We need a new militia,” Lodovico called out, “a fighting force to guard our streets, our citizens, our children. And to that end I am calling every able-bodied patriot to present himself at the governor’s manse. Do you love your homeland, this city that has given you so much? The time has come to prove it. Join the militia—join me—and together we will secure Mirenze’s future.”

  He waited, his shoulders back, his chin raised high, until the shouting died down.

  “One last thing before I leave you. A matter of justice. The Empire drove a dagger into all of our hearts the day they bombed the Ducal Arch. The day this man gave the order to slaughter our innocent, for no reason but to wound us. The Empire did this to us. And today, our revenge begins.”

  The governor looked to Lodovico, his eyes bulging with terror. A slow, wet stain spread down the leg of his linen trousers.

  “You said,” he stammered, soft as a mouse, “you said you’d let me go.”

  Lodovico put his hand on the governor’s shoulder.

  “I think these fine citizens might take issue with that,” he replied.

  Lodovico gave him a shove. The Dustmen stood aside and the crowd surged in, falling on the governor and the bound soldiers at his back, shrieking their grief and fury as they tore them to pieces with their bare hands. Lodovico turned and strolled to the coaches, flanked by Weiss and his guards. He didn’t bother looking back.

  * * *

  “I think that went well,” Lodovico said, watching the crowd through the carriage window. Men ran behind the carriages, cheering, punching at the air, ready to join the new militia and take up arms for their city.

  “You’re a madman,” Aita snapped, sitting beside him. “So you whipped the idiots into a frenzy, well done. What’s that going to accomplish when the Imperial army really comes knocking at our door? Are you going to drive off the catapults with a rousing speech or two?”

  “No.” Lodovico clasped his hands in mock prayer. “The Gardener will do it for us. Weiss, can you get word to your men at the papal manse?”

  Weiss shrugged. “Lerautia is a two-day ride from here. My messenger can do it in one.”

  “Tell them to grab Carlo and bring him back here.”

  “A hostage?” Aita arched a delicate eyebrow at him.

  “An honored and willing guest,” Lodovico replied. “Lerautia has lost its glow, and our dear Pope Carlo is going to do something unprecedented: relocate the Holy City. Mirenze will become the new heart of the Church, and all the world will know it.”

  Aita tilted her head. “And if the Murgardt decide to invade, they’ll be laying siege to the seat of their national religion and risking the life of their own pope. That’s a nice little morale killer, I have to admit.”

  “It’ll give them pause. Enough pause for us to make new plans. We’ll have time to strengthen the city, harden it against a siege.”

  “You’re still wagering one city’s walls against the might of an angry empire,” Aita observed.

  “Wagering my life, in fact.” Lodovico leaned back in his seat. “I find it exhilarating. Don’t you?”

  Lines had already formed at the gates of the governor’s estate, would-be soldiers ready to fight for their city. While Weiss and the other Dustmen set up impromptu tables, registering each man’s name and sorting them into regiments, Aita took Lodovico aside.

  “Alone,” she said flatly, glaring at Simon as he tried to follow them.

  They stepped into the parlor, and she shut and locked the door before stabbing an accusing finger at Lodovico.

  “You said.” She seethed, the scar on her cheek twisting. “You said you’d kill that creature if you ever saw him again.”

  “Simon?” Lodovico shrugged. “He’s more valuable to us alive.”

  “To you. He may be more valuable to you alive. I still have an ache in my arm when I play my violin, thanks to the bomb he tried to kill me with.”

  “To be fair, signora, he was trying to kill your husband. You were merely walking at his side. And what’s good for me is good for you. You wanted this partnership, Aita. You demanded it. Now you have it, until death do us part.”

  “You may have your ‘patriotic militia’ by the light of day,” Aita said, “your little army, but I command the armies of the night. Mirenze’s underworld answers to me. Would you like to find out what they’re capable of if I let them off their leashes?”

  “Could you?” Lodovico asked, his tone light. “The Dustmen have heard rumblings in the taverns. Whispers in the back alleys after your, ah, embarrassment at the Saint Lucien’s ball. Some are starting to wonder if you’re truly your father’s daughter.”

  Aita’s fingertips absently brushed the scar on her cheek.

  “I was a fool, asking you for help with Felix,” she said. “Simon couldn’t take him down. Neither could the Dustmen. Clearly, I need to do exactly what my father would have done in this situation.”