Children of Earth and Sky (26 page)

What?

Unless she isn't from Rhodias.

Oh, Jad. Don't say—

But she did. Because if she was right, it explained why Leonora had been summoned here. Not to be given comfort, but for instructions.

She didn't feel like being careful, suddenly.

“Are you even from Rhodias?” she asked the woman who ruled here. And heard, from behind, dry laughter from the older woman who had sat a throne in a greater realm.

“What? Of course I am!” said Filipa di Lucaro. “Do you want my family's lineage? To know if they are worth pillaging?”

“I'm certain they are,” said Danica. “We don't require much.” There came another chuckle from the shadows.

And unexpected laughter—from the Eldest Daughter herself.

“I deserve that, I suppose,” Filipa di Lucaro said. She smiled. She had a very good smile. “I believe I have let my dismay at the death of Doctor Miucci in a Senjani raid overcome my duty to guests. Whatever else, that
is
what you all are. I would be grateful if we might begin anew, with wine on the terrace here.”

“That might indeed be better,” Leonora said.

Danica looked behind her. The old woman in her chair said nothing, but her eyes had been waiting for Danica's. She moved her head very slightly sideways. No more than that.

You saw?

I saw, zadek.

There was a scraping sound, the chair on the tiles. The empress stood up, easily enough, though she held a walking stick in her right hand. With it, she thumped on a door behind her chair. It was opened instantly by a nervous-looking acolyte.

The empress-mother looked at Pero Villani. “Signore, attend upon us. We would speak privately.”

A command. Pero followed the old woman through the door. The acolyte went after them and closed it.

Another brief silence. Filipa di Lucaro smiled again. She said, “I do have words to share with you, Signora Miucci, after we share a cup of wine, the three of us. Might I request you to have your guard withdraw, after, perhaps into the gardens?”

“There is nothing,” Leonora said, “I do not share with Gosparko Gradek. I owe her a great deal.”

“I have no doubt you do, but our guards do not, surely, know everything about our lives.”

“This one does,” Leonora said. “Everything that might matter here.”

The other woman's smile remained but Danica thought there was effort to it now.

Leonora added, “She knows, for example, that Doctor Miucci and I were never married.”

The Eldest Daughter's smile faded.

She shouldn't have said that.

Probably not.

Be careful, Danica.

I will try, zadek. Should I leave? And ask Leonora what happened after?

There may be danger for you out there.

And not here?

Here, as well. Watch her.

And watching, Danica saw.

There was a heavy, handsomely made oak cabinet against the wall beside the writing desk. It had a panel that dropped to make a flat surface. Filipa di Lucaro used a key from her belt to open and lower this. She took out a flask of pale wine from inside. She claimed two silver goblets—and then a third, reaching farther back in the cabinet.

That one will be yours, child. Do not.

Danica felt suddenly cold. There had been a sense of danger, but nothing immediate, not the feeling she could die here. That had changed.

She looked at Leonora. The other woman was already gazing at her, brow furrowed. Their host was pouring the wine.

Filipa di Lucaro put the flask back down. She brought their wine on a silver tray, smiling again. She placed it on her desk, nudging cups towards each of them. The third, the one from the back, was indeed Danica's.

Danica removed her bow and quiver and set them down. Leonora came over to the desk and took her wine, also smiling. She walked across the room towards the terrace with the gardens and the vines beyond.

“You can see all the ships coming in and out, it seems.”

The other woman strolled after her.

“We can. In good weather it is a pleasure to be out here. And we know who has returned or arrived before anyone else. I enjoy that.”

“I imagine you do,” Leonora said.

The two of them stood together, looking at grass and trees, sea and clouds.

Danica reached across and took the cup Filipa di Lucaro had intended for herself. She left hers on the tray.

You know what she did?

I think so. Poison already in the cup so she didn't have to put it in?

That must be it. A vicious woman. You may have been right, Dani.

That she is from Seressa?

It makes too much—

He stopped. The other two were coming back. Leonora had known exactly what to do.

Filipa di Lucaro said, “I hope you will let this serve as my apology and that you might now . . .”

She stopped, staring at her writing desk.

“I am happy to,” said Danica. “Shall we drink to the triumph of Jad and virtue? And of course I will leave you to talk, after. I am only a guard.” She gestured towards the cup that had been meant for her, which remained on the desk.

Filipa di Lucaro's smile was gone. She was polished, however, immensely experienced. A long time doing this. She said, “I never actually drink wine in the morning, myself. But I will touch cups with you and—”

“In Senjan, it is an insult not to drink with guests when the wine has been poured by oneself.”

“I am fortunate not to be in Senjan, then, aren't I?”

Leonora was pale now. She was prone to that, her face showing her state of mind.

Danica said, “You are. But if you don't drink with me I will be offended and will also draw a conclusion about that cup.”

“Why would I care what conclusions—?”

“Drink it,” Danica said. “It was meant for me. Drink it down.”

“I cannot imagine taking instructions from someone such as you!”

“Ah. The apology is withdrawn?”

“I simply do not allow barbarous behaviour here.”

“Only you are allowed?”

The other woman turned to Leonora. “Forgive me, your servant is unspeakably ill-mannered. It is not acceptable. I must call my guards to escort her out.”

“I don't think so,” said Leonora.

And she put her own cup down and took the one remaining on the desk. She strode back to the terrace.

“Drago! Gospar Ostaja! I have need of you!”

Drago was out there, as promised, within earshot. They heard him reply. An immensely reassuring man.

“Signora?” he said, coming around to the terrace.

But another man could also be seen approaching, almost running. Big, young, broad-chested.

Leonora said, “Take this cup, please, gospar. Handle it carefully. I have reason to believe there is poison in it. We need it kept safe to take back.”

“That is beyond an insult!” cried Filipa di Lucaro. She looked at the other man coming through the garden. “Juraj, I command you to stop this.”

Danica said, “He will die if he tries, Eldest Daughter.”

“
What?
”

“If the cup is blameless our contrition will be real. If it is not, the rector and council will be informed.”

Leonora was still holding the cup. Filipa di Lucaro moved suddenly towards her, a hand drawn back to strike it.

Her life ended.

A thrown blade. The same knife that had killed Vudrag Orsat in the council chamber.

It was an awkward angle. Danica's dagger caught her in the heart, slightly to one side.

Oh, child.

I had no doubts, zadek.

There came a wordless scream from the man in the garden. He had no tongue, Danica realized. He did have a short sword at his belt. Not very usual for a gardener. And he was running now.

“Back!” she said to Leonora. “Quickly!”

It wasn't necessary, in the event. Drago Ostaja, burly and stocky and happier by far on sea than on land, was nonetheless extremely quick himself—and no good sea captain was ever without his own blade.

He met Filipa di Lucaro's tongueless assassin as the man approached the terrace. The bigger man turned to face him, still making that high, unholy-sounding noise. Blades clashed. Danica was turning for her bow when she saw it end.

He was good, Drago, and he didn't fight with anything that might be called gentility. He kicked the other man in the kneecap
as he parried a swing. Then he stabbed him in the midriff as the other man stumbled. A straight, short sword thrust. Efficient, you could call it.

The screaming ended. It was suddenly very quiet out beyond the terrace. They could hear seabirds calling from the dock where their boat was moored. The birds were darting and diving in sunlight. The waves sparkled in the breeze from the west. The air was bright, the world was bright, the god's sun was rising through the sky.

So many people I've killed now, zadek!

Child, stop counting.

How?
she asked, in pain.

She was trying to kill you, Dani.

I know! But so many. And not one of them was—

Child, stop.

They heard a door open behind them. Danica whirled, reaching for her second knife. She stopped.

“It is past time someone killed that one,” said the empress-mother Eudoxia, coming forward to where light from the terrace fell on the tiles. “It is acceptable that it was you.”

Pero was behind her. He had stopped by the desk, put a hand upon it for support. Not a man, Danica guessed, who had lived a life that contained much violence. He was looking at Leonora, who still held the cup of poisoned wine.

—

HE HAD SEEN DEATH SO
MANY TIMES.

Everyone saw death, the plague made certain of it, and the gallows, and Seressa was dangerous at night.

But in the past few days he had seen people slain in front of him, or newly dead. Pero Villani thought,
This is much too much. I am an artist. I only want to be permitted to do my work
.

Given the conversation he'd just had in the room on the other side of the door, that might become a challenge.

“You are going to Sarantium?” the old woman had asked, turning to face him. The room was simply furnished, with a narrow bed against the far wall, a sun disk above it. The young acolyte had looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but here. Pero, to be truthful, felt much the same. He didn't correct the empress-mother as to the city's name. He doubted she ever used any other.

“I am, your grace.”

“You are commissioned to paint the hound? The enemy of light? His portrait?”

He was quite sure she never used any other names for the khalif, either, unless they were worse.

He cleared his throat. “I am,” he said. “I have been honoured by Seressa and—”

“You will paint from life?”

“That is possible, your grace. If I am . . . if he permits—”

“Good. If so, you will use the opportunity to kill him for us.”

She said it with calm precision. But you knew, Pero Villani thought, you had to know how much undying fire was here, how much hatred, rage.

He was shaken. He struggled to think what he should say, what he
could
say.

She smiled at him, as if encouragingly. Her hair was white under a purple cloth cap. Porphyry, they'd called that colour in the east—and reserved it for emperors and empresses. She wore a dark-blue cloak over a green robe. Her face was small, wrinkled, her eyes wide-set, blue and brilliant, still.

She said, casually, “They will kill you, of course. You will be martyred in Sarantium, die where so many died. A Blessed Victim in years to come—venerated, prayed to. This is not being honoured, being sent to put paint to canvas or wood.
That
will be the honour that clings to your name with the scent of eternal grace.”

“My lady,” Pero began, “I am not a man of violence or war. I am—”

“You would never get near his palaces if you were. It is,” she smiled again, “perfectly devised to our purpose that you are what you are.”

Our purpose
.

He opened his mouth and closed it.

She said, “We are not yet so old as to be a fool, Signore Villani. We know this may not be possible. We also know that Seressa will have raised this possibility with you. We know the Seressinis. Yes, you will be searched, and watched whenever you are close to the hound of night. But we lay this upon you as a task any Jaddite, loyal to the god and to the city that is lost, must take up with pride. You
know
what was done there twenty-five years ago. You know what Sarantium was for a thousand years. You may have a chance—how many men have had this?—to make redress for all that pain, for the golden centuries stripped away.” She paused. “I ask you to pray in Valerius's great sanctuary—for me and for my husband and son and all the dead—whatever else happens when you are there.”

It wasn't a sanctuary any more. The Asharites had turned it into one of their own temples. They had removed the altar, the sun disks, what mosaics had remained. Everyone knew that.
She
knew that.

Even so.

Even so. Pero knelt again before this woman whose unbending, unending pride and remembrance was a reproach to all of them. He said, “I am honoured that you have spoken to me, asked me these things. I will remember. And . . . I will do what I can.”

He astonished himself, saying the words.

She smiled at him again. It was not a gentle smile. It had been widely reported that she'd had two of her children strangled by eunuchs in the palace complex to smooth the way for her chosen, youngest child to the throne—the one who had taken the name Valerius XI, and had died in the last assault. Pero felt, disturbingly, as if he had entered into a story that wasn't his own.