Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) Page 9

And I’ve been the lazy apprentice, Amadeo thought, sailing along blithely and letting other people decide our fate. Enough of that. It’s time to roll up my sleeves and do what I can to help before it’s too late.

  The first step, he reasoned, was to have a long talk with Carlo. Amadeo needed to know if he could really afford to uphold his vow to Benignus. The matter of the smuggler’s ledger still weighed on his mind.

  A four-horse coach stood in the pebbled horseshoe drive outside the papal manse. The livery of the Banco Marchetti emblazoned its polished doors, and twists of gold leaf adorned the black-stained wood. A bored-looking drover sat up on his perch, huddled under a heavy cloak. Amadeo frowned. Representatives from the bank came from Mirenze to visit the court on a regular basis—they held the contract to work the papal alum mines, after all—but this was after business hours, and he hadn’t seen a meeting scheduled in Benignus’s appointment ledger.

  “The Holy Father?” said one of the maids, pulled aside by Amadeo in the gilded foyer. “No, he’s sleeping. No visitors, not since three bells.”

  “But there is a coach outside. Someone from the Banco Marchetti is definitely here.”

  The maid nodded and pointed up the hall. “Oh, that was for Carlo. They’ve been in the conference room all afternoon.”

  His feet moved faster as he paced up the hall, brow furrowed. Why was Carlo meeting with the Marchettis? He didn’t have any authority to do business on the Church’s behalf. Amadeo almost knocked, coming up on the closed and ivory-inlaid door. Then he caught himself.

  Looking in all directions, biting down on his sudden sense of guilt, he crept close and knelt down to press his ear against the keyhole.

  “…how we’re going to sell you,” said a gruff voice on the other side. It sounded familiar to Amadeo, but he couldn’t quite place it.

  “…care what they…” answered Carlo’s muffled voice, softer and farther away from the door.

  “Because they can still mount a succession challenge. Don’t get overconfident, Carlo. Now is the time for you to be on your best behavior. Especially after that idiot Stathis went and got himself killed. Just get your father on board, and I’ll do the rest.”

  Amadeo couldn’t make out Carlo’s next question. He leaned closer to the door, pressing himself against the wood. The other man’s answer came in a lower, harder tone, and it sent a chill down Amadeo’s spine.

  “…because that much blood won’t wash clean.”

  Chairs scraped back against marbled floors. Amadeo jumped up, padding backward as fast as he could, and looked around to make sure nobody had seen him eavesdropping. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and walked forward as the conference room door swung open. He hoped he’d look as if he’d just been strolling along the hallway.

  Carlo and Lodovico Marchetti emerged from the conference room in a haze of cigar smoke. Lodovico had his arm around Carlo’s shoulder, hugging him like a brother.

  “Amadeo!” Carlo said, stopping in his tracks. “You know Vico, right?”

  “We’ve met a couple of times in your father’s court,” Amadeo said, realizing where he’d heard that voice before. Lodovico gave him a lazy smile, reached out, and pumped his hand in a vice grip.

  “C’mon,” Carlo told his guest. “I’ll see you out.”

  Carlo walked Lodovico toward the door, leaving the priest behind. Once they were out of sight, Amadeo poked his head into the conference room. The long, rounded table bore overflowing ivory ashtrays and a nearly empty crystal decanter of whiskey but no papers or contracts, nothing to shed light on what they’d been talking about.

  Fine, he thought, I’ll go straight to the source. When Carlo came back inside from sending his visitor off, he found Amadeo waiting for him in the foyer.

  “So what was that about?” Amadeo asked, trying to keep his tone lightly curious.

  Carlo shrugged anxiously. He twisted his bottom lip like a child who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Nothing. Business.”

  “Carlo, you aren’t in your father’s seat yet. You don’t have the authority to do business on the Church’s behalf.”

  “No, no, not like that. Personal. I needed a loan. Since we already work with the Banco Marchetti, I figured they’d be the people to talk to.”

  Amadeo tilted his head. “Didn’t you already take out a line of credit, just last year?”

  “I needed more,” Carlo said.

  Amadeo recognized the rising whine at the edge of the younger man’s voice. He was digging in, going on the defensive. Amadeo fought the urge to sigh and forced a smile instead.

  “Well, just be careful. I’m sure they are happy to offer you all the credit you can use, but there’s always a heavy bill in the end.”

  “I’ve got it under control,” Carlo said.

  Whatever they’d been talking about, it wasn’t another handout for the up-and-coming heir apparent. Lodovico Marchetti’s last words echoed in Amadeo’s ears as he walked the halls of the papal mansion alone.

  …because that much blood won’t wash clean.

  He made his way toward the apartments in the east wing. As he approached Livia’s door, he paused. He heard something strange, a sort of slow, rhythmic thumping echoed by faint and strangled gasps. He knocked, loudly.

  The sounds ceased.

  A minute later, the doorknob rattled and turned. Livia stood on the threshold of her parlor, backlit in the glow of a hearth fire. She wore a modest white dressing gown with long draping sleeves, as if getting ready for bed, but her hair was still pinned up and coiffed.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” he said, “but did you know anything about your brother meeting with Lodovico Marchetti?”

  Her already-dour expression dropped a few notches. “I expect he needs more money. You’re surprised?”

  “Well, that’s what he said, and it might be so, but…”

  He trailed off. But what? he thought. She stared at him expectantly, but he realized he didn’t have a theory to hang his suspicions on. He felt ridiculous. His gaze drifted. Over on a chair by the fire, something caught his eye. It was a scourge of braided leather with four or five wickedly knotted strands dangling from the whip’s handle. The sounds he’d overheard suddenly made sense.

  “Mortification of the flesh?” he said. She followed his gaze to the discarded whip but said nothing.

  “Livia,” Amadeo said, drawing her eyes back to his. “I know it’s a Church-sanctioned practice, for a monk at least, but…have a care. Sometimes I worry that you might be demanding too much of yourself.”

  “We must all do what we can,” she said. “Don’t you know the ‘Parable of the Lazy Apprentice’? You should read it again, if you haven’t lately.”

  An icy finger trailed down the back of Amadeo’s neck. It felt like someone was trying to throw that story in his path today. To make sure he was paying attention.

  “Oddly enough, I was just sharing it with some of the children down in the Alms District. I think they got something out of it.”

  “Children are the best listeners,” Livia said. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I should get back to my studies. I’m working on a special project, and I don’t want to lose my focus.”

  Amadeo nodded. “Of course. Goodnight, Livia.”

  She shut the door without another word. He heard locks clicking into place, one after another.

  Something was wrong here. Whatever Carlo and Lodovico were cooking up together, it wasn’t anything good.

  “And nobody is going to figure it out and do something about it. Nobody but me,” he sighed, talking to himself in the empty hall. “Apprentice, get to work.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Livia leaned her shoulder against the door, shut her eyes, and let out a pent-up breath. She waited until she heard Amadeo’s retreating footsteps before she dared to move again.

  She walked across the room, shedding her slippers and feeling the cool floorboards against her bare feet. A chill hung in the air that h
er modest fire couldn’t chase away. On the other side of the bedroom door, lying on the quilt of her four-poster bed, the hateful thing waited for her. It was just a book, a slim little folio with black leather covers and cheap parchment pages, but it sang to her like a siren.

  Her gaze flicked toward the fireplace. Ten steps. Five to snatch it up, five to throw the book into the flames. That was all it would take. Ten steps and her problems would be over.

  And if you could do that, she thought as her stomach churned, you would have done it two weeks ago when you brought the book home.

  She unfastened the neck of her dressing gown and let it fall to the floor, pooling around her ankles. Naked, her back reddened with throbbing welts, she picked up the scourge and knelt before the fireplace. The crackling flames filled her bright emerald eyes.

  “Gardener,” she said, “in your infinite wisdom, you forbade us from the artifices of the deceitful and the damned, the poisoner and the witch, that we might not lead ourselves down the road to the Barren Fields. You know that I am your faithful daughter. You know that I will do what I must to save this church, even at the cost of my mortal soul.”

  She paused, feeling the whip handle in her palm, its leather warmed by the fire’s glow.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t make the price that high.”

  She swung her arm back with a sudden ferocity, and the braided strands of the scourge slashed across her shoulder blade. She gritted her teeth, eyes squeezing shut against sudden tears.

  Purity, she thought.

  The second blow, over her opposite shoulder, lashed across a rising welt. It burned like a hot razor slicing into her skin.

  Faithfulness, she thought.

  The third blow broke the skin, leaving a hair-thin line of blood trickling down the curve of her hip.

  Love.

  The knotted tails of the whip came down again and again, a staccato rhythm of pain drowning out the world, drowning out everything but the repetition of her mantra, three simple words. Purity. Faithfulness. Love.

  When it was finally done, there was nothing left of her. Nothing but tear-stained cheeks, a whip-scarred back, and a peaceful emptiness in her heart. The handle of the scourge tumbled from her trembling fingers. She stood slowly, wobbling on exhausted legs, and left tiny blood spatters on the wood behind her as she hobbled into the bedroom. The book was waiting.

  One year ago, the villagers of Kettle Sands cried out that they were plagued by a witch. Nothing but mass hysteria, usually, but a pair of bounty hunters had tracked down a likely culprit: a young girl who was immediately put on trial and burned at the stake. It was only later, searching the hovel she’d been squatting in, that a scavenger found the hidden book.

  The book ended up in the Black Archives in the vaults of Lerautia’s great library, left to rot in the darkness. And that was where Livia had found it. She couldn’t say why she’d slipped the book under her skirts and stolen it from the vault, only that she needed it.

  It called to her.

  “My book of Secretts (by Squirrel),” the first page read, with a clumsy blot of ink to fix the misspelling. Whatever the girl’s talents as a witch had been, she was barely literate.

  Livia turned the pages slowly, feeling lost in a dream. The throbbing pain from her welts pushed away her conscious mind and washed her in lightheaded tranquility. Her fingers found the page she’d left off on.

  “…we lured the cat from the yard with some bits of tuna, and Miss Owl gave me the knife. She showed me how to squeeze it and cut its throte just right, so that she could catch its last yowl in a jar of blue glass. Miss Owl says there’s much mischief we can make with a cat’s last yowl!But tonight we needed its bloode so I caught it in a bowl and coverd it with lamskin.

  “Then Miss Owl taut me the Marque of Passage. Draw it above the door in bloode no colder than two hours gone, and those what are asleep inside the house will stay asleep unless frightfully roused. It is this way, she says, that we can come and go as we please after dark and no-one will wake to learn our business. This Marque looks like this:”

  A ritual circle took up half the page, lined with swirling glyphs that made Livia’s eyes hurt. It was something primitive, something wild and cruel that evoked images of fires in a nighttime forest glade. Livia traced her fingertip over the circle’s lines, following them like a wandering explorer lost in a labyrinth, memorizing their twists and turns.

  And she was only a fledgling, Livia thought. With this kind of power, imagine what I could do—and then she slammed the book shut, her tranquility broken.

  “Tomorrow,” she told the book and went off to find a bath. She needed to sluice the dried blood from her back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Felix wasn’t cut out for a sailor’s life, but he had to admit he’d weathered this voyage pretty well for a land lover. He stood up at the helm of the Fairwind Muse while Captain Iona held the ship’s great wooden wheel. An icy wind ruffled their hair and billowed the canvas sails.

  “Here’s the tricky part,” Iona said, pointing off toward the coastline. “The Jailer’s Teeth. Jagged rocks reaching up from the ocean floor like knives, just waiting to rip an unwary ship from stem to stern.”

  Felix cupped his hand over his brow and squinted. Here and there, off to starboard, he watched the ice floes bob against tiny dark nubs in the water.

  “Most of the rocks are just below the waterline,” Iona explained. “No good trying to navigate between them. We’ll skirt alongside the whole mess, close but not too close. We’ll follow around until we make port tomorrow morning. Until then, I might as well be lashed to this wheel. Too dangerous to trust anyone else with the job.”

  Felix was silent for a moment, but his curiosity finally overwhelmed his fear of sounding foolish.

  “I was talking to some of the crew,” he said. “They told me a story about this, ah, sea monster—”

  Iona laughed. “The Elder? Oh, he’s real enough, but I wouldn’t worry. He won’t vex us as long as we send out an offering. Besides, if that old bastard hasn’t shown up by now, he won’t. We’re just past his usual hunting ground. Of course, there’s always the return trip! So what do you think? Ready to abandon the banker’s life and join an honest crew?”

  “Oh, I think I’ll leave that to hardier souls than mine. I know where my talents lie.”

  “No shame in that,” Iona said. “The sea’s a fine lover, but she’ll take everything you’ve got. Speaking of lovers, saw you feeding that pale sewer rat.”

  “Sewer rat?” Felix raised an eyebrow.

  “The Terrai girl. You’re not getting sweet on her, are you?”

  “I’m sweet on my fiancé back home,” Felix said, “and faithful. Mari’s just…she’s an interesting person. And it’s always good to make a new friend.”

  Iona snorted. “Just as well. She looks like the type who goes for other women, anyway.”

  “You are a prince among gentlemen, oh captain, my captain,” Felix deadpanned with a bow and a flourish. “Huh, look at that. Werner is back on deck. He’s giving it another try.”

  Iona shook his head and smiled. “I’ll say this much about him: never seen a man so stricken with seasickness, but I’ve never seen a man fight it that hard either. Stomach of jelly, will of iron.”

  “He’ll probably put that on his tombstone. I’m going to go check on him. Galley should be open soon. Since you’re stuck at the helm, can I bring you back some food?”

  “And see,” Iona said, “when we took you on board, I was afraid you wouldn’t be useful.”

  Felix wandered down-deck, keeping his feet light on the snow-flecked beams, and gave Werner a wave.

  “I see you’ve returned to walk among the living!”

  Werner chuckled, but his face was pale gray. “For now. Another few months of open water and I might actually get my sea legs.”

  “Bad news: we’re making landfall tomorrow. I’m sure you’re crushed.”

  “Devastated,�
� Werner said.

  They walked together, strolling along the side of the ship, watching the snowy wilderness glide by.

  “I was talking to Mari—”

  “Talking?” Werner said. “She actually talked to you? Like, more than please and thank you? That’s…that’s a good sign.”

  Felix glanced over his shoulder. Mari was up toward the bow, practicing with her batons, well out of earshot. He leaned a little closer.

  “What’s her story, anyway?”

  Werner didn’t answer at first. His hand slid across the ship’s railing, fingers tensing.

  “Found her in Winter’s Reach. When you talk to her, what words come to mind? If you had to describe her in a nutshell.”

  Felix shrugged. “Controlled. Devout. Taciturn, maybe. The girl’s practically a monk.”

  Werner looked up at the gently falling snow and took a deep breath as tiny flakes turned to water on his cheeks.

  “Met her in a tavern. Some drunken sot grabbed her rump as she walked by. She spun and threw a punch—”

  “Not unreasonable,” Felix said.

  “—then she smashed a bottle over his head, knocked him to the floor, and stomped on his skull until it cracked like an eggshell.”

  Felix stopped walking.

  “Mari’s father was an aristocrat in Belle Terre,” Werner said. “He was supplying the resistance, or they said he was, anyway. When Mari was six years old, Imperial soldiers dragged the entire family out onto the lawn. They beat her father to death in front of her. Broke every bone in his body with an iron bar, making sure to keep him alive and screaming until they felt like letting him die. Then it was her mother’s turn, and what they did to her…her father was the lucky one. That girl has seen things, Felix.”

  Felix stared at him. He looked back up toward the bow, watching Mari move in slow motion. A picture of restrained serenity.

  “The years after that weren’t any kinder to her. When I met her in the Reach, she was feral. Rabid. What you see now, Felix, isn’t what I saw then. She was this…this bottomless pit of rage and hate.”