Children of Earth and Sky (43 page)

Which would be good for Jad and his children, wouldn't it? Pero remembered the privy clerk asking him that. And thus: two nearly parallel lines marking one of his paint pots.

Pero had noted that nothing was said by the clerk about vengeance against the man who'd conquered Sarantium and had the last emperor and his family in the city killed, heads displayed to rot on pikes by the triple walls.

His own city, Pero Villani recalled thinking, was many things, but those in or near power had limits to their pious sanctimony. You could call it a good trait if you wanted to.

In the meantime, right now, as they came to a large inn late in the day, Pero needed to decide what to do. What his father would have done—which was how he often dealt with such moments. Although there had never been a moment like this in Viero Villani's life, he was quite certain.

In the end—the thought came strongly—he was a painter, not a man who killed. Even if killing someone might save lives, or avenge,
in some small way, the thunderous fall of Sarantium. Even if an aged empress had spoken to him of that, as well.

It wasn't cowardice, he told himself. And that felt to be true. It had to do with how one wanted to walk under the sun, through a life. Rasca Tripon could not
live
without his battles. Neither, Pero thought, could Danica Gradek.

He was not such a person. And if what Djivo said was correct, he was never going to be anywhere near the khalif without everything he owned being
very
carefully inspected.

No westerners ever stood in the presence of Gurçu. It was known. They never even entered the palace complex. But Pero would be there, it seemed, and soon. So this inexplicable commission for a western-style portrait would put every guard and palace official into a panic-stricken state of vigilance.

Pero Villani, artist of Seressa, son of an artist, was not an assassin. And would never be allowed to become one here. Both were true things, he thought, and he made his decision outside a roadside inn.

He sent Tomo to prepare his room. He asked him to supervise hot water for a bath and a change of clothes. That would take time. He called Marin Djivo over and walked the man away from the others, towards the stables where their animals were being taken. They stopped outside. Djivo looked at him. A tall man, neatly bearded, even after this long journey. Pero said, “I needed a reason to linger a moment here. Thank you. When do I meet you tonight? Where?”

“Right here,” the other man said, his voice betraying nothing. “At blue moonrise. Is your servant coming with us?”

“No,” said Pero Villani. “I will enter Sarantium with you alone.”

“Asharias,” said Marin Djivo.

Pero looked at him. “Sarantium,” he repeated quietly.

Djivo frowned. “I understand. But only in your mind and heart. If you want to live.” He turned and walked away.

Pero went into the stables, found the donkey with his supplies
strapped to it. Artists knew how to deal with ropes, knots, sealed pots, canvas. There was light from the open doors, the smell of animals, dung, straw. He unwrapped his gear, found the kiln-fired paint pot with two scratches on it. He lifted it out. Rewrapped everything else, carefully. Tied it back on the donkey. Made himself move slowly. There was no danger here, he told himself.

There was, probably, but he'd be awkward and rushed if he let himself think that way. His heart was beating too fast as it was.

He walked back into the stable yard and then away towards poplar trees and a stream behind the inn. To the west, a willow dropped its leaves towards the water. The sun was going down. It was pleasant, warm at the end of spring. Flowers on the riverbank, drone of bees. He saw a fox run past on the far side.

He pretended to be relieving himself in the stream. He heard birdsong, and someone's servant shouting off to his right. Smoke rose from the main chimney of the inn. Dinner being prepared. He heard laughter over that way.

Pero took his knife and pried open the pot. He hesitated, then began pouring the thick paint out into the water. White lead was not expensive, this was not especially wasteful.

Jad's dear love.
I really am a Seressini
, he thought. As if the cost of the paint mattered in any way at all.

The apothecary's tube, tightly wrapped, stoppered, appeared at the neck of the jar. Death in a vial. His own death, most likely. He thought about lifting it out, opening it, spilling it in the grass by the willow tree. He realized it wasn't necessary, could even be dangerous. Arsenic could kill on touch, he'd heard from someone. He didn't remember who had told him that.

He poured the rest of the jar's contents, including the sealed poison he'd carried all this way, into the rushing water at his feet. He saw the vial for an instant, then didn't see it any more.

He tossed the empty paint pot in as well and went back to the inn.

—

TOMO KNEW HE'D
been deliberately sent away with those instructions as to clothes and a bath. He had a pretty good idea what the artist would be doing, after his conversation with Marin Djivo. The exchange they'd thought no one could follow.

There were difficulties coming now. For one thing, Guibaldo Ferri was not only foolish, he was dangerous—could get other men killed.

Ferri was carrying twenty small gold-plated sun disks in the false bottom of a clothing chest. His principal servant, a talkative fellow, had told Tomo as much early on their journey.

The duty on Jaddite religious artifacts brought into Asharias for sale was forty percent. You could still make money, but you could make a
lot
of money if you dodged that tax, and Ferri had evidently decided that if others could, by report, so could he and his family.

There was a ready market here (on the far side of the strait, where Jaddites were allowed to live and trade) for such items, and people paid handsomely so far from home. Distance equalled profit, if you didn't get undone by the taxes.

Or death, Tomo thought. He really didn't want to pass through the city's walls in the company of a man smuggling goods.
Religious
goods. In a time of war. Yet he now knew, being rather more than an artist's servant, that his own man and the clever Dubravae intended to slip away tonight—leaving Tomo with the Seressinis.

Not a good development. He had his own assignments here. There had been an awareness within the Council of Twelve that he was unlikely to have any chance to perform some of them. But if Villani was permitted, or required, to dwell inside the palace grounds and allowed to have his manservant with him (unlikely, but . . .) then Tomo Agosta would be the first trained spy in there since the fall of Sarantium.

It was worth a great deal to the duke and the council, and so to Tomo—in silver and gold—if that happened and he returned
to the canals with whatever he'd observed. He had his ambitions, did Tomo Agosta. What man of spirit did not?

He was also someone with diverse ways of killing people, and Guibaldo Ferri was on his mind as he offered two coins to a servant in the inn's kitchen to heat water for his master's bath. He wished he had a chance to confirm what Villani was doing, but it wasn't really necessary. He knew. Villani was doing what Tomo wanted to do himself: achieve a measure of safety as they neared Asharias.

He'd be getting rid of the poison. And he'd be planning to be rid of Tomo tonight, leaving him to enter the city with twenty hidden sun disks and a vain, foolish man who would—very probably—begin talking about Skandir the moment customs officers seized hold of him.

Which
would
likely kill them all. Including Villani and the Dubravae.

He wondered if those two had thought about that. Probably not. They weren't trained in these matters. Seressa prepared its spies extremely well. The woman on their ship, Leonora Valeri, had been different, an impulse of the duke's, opportunity seized. Women, attractive ones, could be useful, even without knowing how to unlock doors or coffers, or kill.

He had to think swiftly. There were two different problems. He needed to go ahead tonight with Villani and Djivo. And those hidden sun disks were a danger, and so was Ferri. Tomo agreed with Marin Djivo about this. The disks were
not
going to get into the city undiscovered.

Tomo felt agitated and was trying not to show it. He was leaving the kitchen to sort out the bedroom when Guibaldo Ferri's servant, the talkative one, came bustling in with two coins of his own and a loud request for a bath for his man. And so it was that a light dawned for Tomo Agosta, like Jad's sun rising over the lagoon on a midsummer morning.

“Let him go first,” he said to the sweating kitchen servants by the fire. “His master is more important.”

—

THEY WOULDN'T HAVE
to meet by the stable, Pero realized.

He and Djivo were sharing a room, with the three Seressini merchants in another. That was a small, useful thing. The other things that happened before the dinner hour were less obviously good.

Tomo, his servant, whom he knew to be a spy (they had told him in Seressa), came in to take his boots for cleaning. Djivo was also in the room, dealing with his own, his servants dismissed for the evening. Pero knew where they'd be, and what they'd be doing in preparation for tonight. Blue moonrise.

Tomo closed the door, which was normal, then he knelt in the middle of the room, which was not. Pero had been sitting on one side of the big bed they'd be sharing. Djivo, on the other side, stood up, looking at the servant. Pero stood up, too.

Tomo said, “Forgive me. I was trained to be able to follow conversations at a distance by watching the movement of lips. I know you intend to leave tonight. Please—let me also come.”

Sometimes you really couldn't think of what to say. Pero stared, he waited. Marin Djivo, he noted, was doing the same.

Tomo met Pero's gaze. He was a spy, trained—you needed to remember. Then, abruptly, remembering that became easy.

“I have arranged for Guibaldo Ferri's death,” his servant said quietly. “Gospodar Djivo was correct. He would have been discovered smuggling and he would have talked. About the battle. Who fought there.”

Pero opened his mouth and closed it.

Marin Djivo said, also quietly, “You killed Ferri? It will be investigated. We will never—”

“I arranged for his death, gospodar. He will die tomorrow, in the morning most likely. It will appear to be a seizure of the heart.
You will be—we will be, I dare hope—gone before that.”

“More poison?” Pero found his voice.

Tomo nodded. “In his bath. It penetrates through the skin. It was devised in Esperaña where they know much about such things.”

“And what about whatever he is smuggling?” Djivo asked. Pero wondered how the man could be so calm. If he'd ever be like that himself, hearing things like this. If he wanted to be.

“Sun disks. At the bottom of a chest. If Grilli takes over his goods, to deal with them for the Ferri family—and I expect he will—he'll have them closely examined. He knows Ferri. He won't want to risk his own life. I think he'll look.”

“And if he doesn't?” Pero asked.

Tomo shrugged. “This is the best I could devise. Ferri would have been caught, he would have talked about the fight on the road. We would have been arrested.”

“You keep saying ‘we,'” said Marin Djivo.

“Because it is true, gospodar. Servants are tortured first.” Tomo offered a wry smile. “I respect Signore Villani greatly, but I would not protect him if they squeezed my balls in a vise.”

Pero Villani stood in a room in an inn far to the east, on the imperial road to what he'd have to call Asharias, and he felt his life to be suspended very strangely. He realized, belatedly, that violence was possible now, right here.

Marin Djivo said, “And we trust you why? You have admitted murdering one of our party.”

“To save all our lives, gospodar. You know this is true.”

“And if you are caught in the city yourself? Identified as a spy?”

Tomo smiled a little. “Gospodar, they
know
I am a spy. Every one of us is when we come east. I do not expect to be allowed into the palace when Signore Villani goes there.”

Pero managed words. “But if you do enter with me, would you be looking to kill . . . someone more important than a merchant?”

Tomo's expression turned grave. “Seressa might expect me to try. I have no intention of doing so. Just as you have chosen not to. I believe Gospodar Djivo to be correct: nothing we bring in will remain hidden. My own . . . devices will be discarded tonight, as I take it yours was just now. I would also like to return home, signore, gospodar.”

“This is,” said Marin Djivo, “much to take on trust.” He had spread his feet, Pero saw.

Tomo nodded. “I understand. I . . . gospodar, I believe you are skilled with your sword, and might try to reach for it and kill me now, as a solution. I have no sword, of course, but I have knives on my person and I am trained. I would not accept being murdered, gospodar. I will shout, scream. And I might kill you. It would be better to take me with you. We are, I believe, destined for that now.”

“
Destined?
” Pero said.

“Jad has his designs for all of us, signore.”

Pero stared at him. “And right now that means Guibaldo Ferri dies and you come with us?”

“I believe it does,” said Tomo calmly. “I pray that it does.”

Marin Djivo laughed aloud. “This is not,” he said, “how I thought the story would play out. I don't believe this is destiny, but I don't see why you shouldn't come with us. We can't really stop you. If we accuse you of a murder you'll tell them about Skandir.”

He really did seem amused, Pero thought.

Tomo nodded seriously. “I would do that. For an easier death and having no reason to be loyal.”