The Nascenza Conspiracy

Woodbury, Minnesota

The Nascenza Conspiracy: The Cassaforte Chronicles, Volume III
© 2011 by V. Briceland.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

First e-book edition © 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738730196

Book design by Steffani Sawyer

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Illustration on cover and on page i by Blake Morrow/Shannon Associates

Map on pages viii–ix by Jared Blando

Flux is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Flux does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Flux

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.fluxnow.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

Acknowledgments

Putting pen to paper—or my fingers to the keyboard—would not be half as rewarding as it is without the people who helped make possible this particular novel. My unending thanks goes to my agent, Michelle Grajkowski, and my editors, Brian Farrey and Sandy Sullivan of Flux.

Like Petro Divetri, I find myself having to contemplate a journey I didn’t expect to undertake, as I plan and prepare to move from my home of the last twenty-three years. As an author I’m always forcing my characters to face massive change in their lives; all those various creations would be ashamed of me if I regarded the move as anything less than a great adventure.

Therefore it seems appropriate to dedicate this book about friendships to the very people who made my time in Michigan so enjoyable. So to my Friday night Grand Azteca and my Saturday night karaoke crew of Lydia Cisaruk, Michael Monte, Brian Wright, Lonnie Warpup, Phil Terrana, Charlie Lewis, Howard Klein, Jose Reyes, Maryann Mairui, and Kim Unrau—this book is fondly dedicated to you all.

Visitors to the quaint city of Cassaforte are often so overwhelmed with its architectural beauties and the sweeps of color that enliven its streets, that they neglect to remember that for the traveler
without vigilance, the metropolis can teem with danger.

— Celestine du Barbaray,
Traditions & Vagaries of the
Azure Coast: A Guide for the Hardy Traveler

From his vantage point high at the top of the insula, Petro Divetri commanded an unparalleled view. The city of Cassaforte sprawled before him, soaking up the summer sunshine like a lazy cat. To the southwest, citizens bustled around Palace Square, where the red stone columns of the royal residence vaulted high in the air to support its graceful glass dome. Further out, and all around, the rooftops of the shops and domiciles, bright and gleaming, stretched to the horizon and the almost unbearable brilliance of the sea.

A seagull landed on the battlement beside Petro and stared at him through jet black eyes. “There’s a logical reason for my predicament,” Petro explained to it. The bird’s throaty chirrup seemed to match Petro’s own strained mood. He sighed, and shifted as little as he possibly could. “There’s not much I can do now, at any rate.”

The piazza beneath the southern entrance to the Insula of the Penitents of Lena had been fairly quiet for the last several minutes. This remote corner didn’t attract much of the city’s traffic. A fruit vendor, his gondola laden to overflowing with limes and citrons, had punted his way down the neighboring canal, and several yellow-capped messenger boys had run by on their way to their destinations, but none had bothered to look up at the top of the insula’s facade. A little girl dragging a doll on the stones had wandered from the door of a private residence for a moment, and had sucked her thumb and stared back at him before disappearing. Thus far, only the seagull had lingered.

“Oh gods,” he said, staring at the ground below. A small group of students was returning to the insula from a city walkabout, a tour to admire Cassaforte’s treasures of craftsmanship. Senior aspirants, by the look of them, all close to the age of twenty. And oh, by all that was holy, they were accompanied by Gina Catarre, the insula’s elder. Her attentions meant that soon this group would rise in rank and move on to new positions in the insula workshops, either in the city or at countryside outposts. Though the seriousness of his situation made Petro want to squirm, he didn’t dare. He had prayed not to be noticed, up here in his solitude, but all hope now was fruitless.

Sure enough, one of the gray-robed seniors stopped short of the tiled steps leading to the portico to stare at Petro. He tugged at the arm of a companion, who glanced up, did a double take, and promptly dropped the little leather-bound register in which he had been recording notes. Soon they were all craning their necks to regard Petro from below. Only when the elder turned to peer over her shoulder, baffled by the sudden inattention of the aspirants, did Petro stir into motion.

“Good afternoon, Elder Catarre,” he called down, as conversationally as possible under the circumstances.

The elder turned all the way around. Her familiar braid, long and thick as a man’s arm, fell in a rope down her back. Silver though her braid might have been, her eyebrows were still thick and black. They rose in twin arches as she planted both feet on the ground and let out a sigh that could have shaken the foundations of Caza Portello itself. “Petro Divetri,” she announced. “You appear to be hanging from Lena’s scales.”

The seagull opened its beak and let out a squawk that Petro felt bore an unfair resemblance to laughter. “Brother Cappazo was making a similar point today, in his lecture on philosophy,” he replied as pleasantly as he could. “I believe his point was that most of us find ourselves attempting to achieve a moral balance that
…
”

The elder was having none of his nonsense. “Brother Cappazo never had anything as literal as your predicament in mind,” she said, her voice dangerously level.

Almost involuntarily, Petro looked over his shoulder at the relief sculpture of the goddess Lena, who serenely grasped the carved scales from which he dangled, suspended by his tunic. The weight of his body, swinging from the marble fulcrum of the scales, had distended the tunic, but the Ventimilla blessings and workmanship that had gone into its stitches ensured that it hadn’t torn. For ten minutes, Petro had dangled like a game rabbit on a meat hook; any movement set him swinging again, which was the last thing he wanted. Although there was a balcony a mere eight feet below him, the last thing he needed to add to his humiliation was to be sick in front of a group of senior aspirants.

“Yes,” he said weakly. “You might be right about that, Elder Catarre.”

“Go fetch him down.” In her long tenure as the head of one of the city’s two craftsman training schools, Gina Catarre had doubtless seen many an escapade. She didn’t seem at all surprised by this latest prank. A handful of the senior aspirants scampered into the portico to escape her immediate wrath. “Who put you up there?” she demanded. “Was it one of di Angeli’s crew?”

It had indeed been Pom di Angeli who had scooped him up from the courtyard as Petro scurried along its edges with his friend Adrio. “What ho, little mousie?” Pom had said, thrusting out his barrel chest to obstruct Petro’s path. When Petro attempted to evade him, first one then the other of the Falo twins, Pom’s well-bred flunkies, had blocked his way. Adrio, wisely, had vanished immediately into the shadows.

“I have a summons,” Petro had muttered, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. “Let me pass.”

“A summons where?” Even when he wasn’t trying, Pom wore a permanent sneer on his face—and he was trying, at that moment.

Petro had paused. If he’d been honest and admitted that he’d received word to report to the royal residence within the palace, they’d accuse him of pulling rank. “I have to be somewhere,” he’d said instead, staring at the ground and hoping that his obstacle would vanish.

“Somewhere?” Pom asked.

“A fancy dress ball,” suggested one of the twins.

The other pressed a dirty finger against the tip of Petro’s nose and forced it up while crooning, “Sandwiches with the king and the cazarri. With the crusts trimmed off so the widdle baby won’t have to chew.”

Through clenched teeth, Petro had growled, “If you’ll excuse me
…
”

“We won’t.” Pom had gestured to the twins, one of whom had scooped up Petro by the collar and began dragging him toward the stairwell. The insula had been designed as a fortress, with thick walls and an impenetrable exterior. Indeed, both the Insula of the Penitents of Lena and the Insula of the Children of Muro had withstood long sieges during the Azurite invasion decades before. Thanks to their sturdy construction, the stairwells merely echoed with Petro’s protests as Pom and the twins coerced him to the top.

“Petro Divetri, every teacher’s pet. Petro Divetri, of the Seven. Petro, the suck-up. Perfect Petro,” the twins had chanted, while Pom barked out orders.

“I’m not perfect!” That lesson, to his dismay, had been hammered into Petro’s brain from the moment he’d set foot in the insula at the age of eleven. He was far from being a lag-behind, but he wasn’t at the top of his classes, either. He studied only as much as was necessary, and no more. He declined to play bocce. And though he kept a straight face through the religious services, they bored him in a way that he thought the priests might find faintly heretical.

It was better to let bullies like Pom get the spleen out of their system. The less resistance he showed, the faster that might happen. “You think you’re high-and-mighty, with that witch of a sister of yours?” Pom had said the moment they’d emerged into the sunlight of the roof. Sparrows scattered at the sound of his bray.

“Don’t talk about my sister.” Petro might not have cared so much about what the bullies said about him, but comments about Risa Divetri were off-limits.

“Why not?” said one of the twins. “The whole city of Cassaforte does.”

His three opponents had laughed. “And how she hops in the king’s bed at night, even though he won’t marry her,” said the other twin.

Pom had pushed Petro against the stone rail and leaned in close. He stunk of garlic and malice when he purred, “The king knows better than to marry a harlot.”

Most people knew to fear Risa Divetri’s temper. Petro must have also inherited their mother’s fiery Buonochio blood, because the di Angeli boy’s words made him see red. Like an animal, he had attempted to struggle out of Pom’s grasp. He wanted to blacken his eye, or bloody his lip, or throw him down and break his long, aquiline nose. Anything to remind Pom that he couldn’t slander the Divetri family—one of Cassaforte’s seven highest-ranking—and get away with it.

As with everything else in his life, though, Petro was not the biggest fifteen-year-old, nor the strongest, nor did he have much experience in fighting. The Falo twins had scooped him up as easily as if he were a doll made of corn husks. Up into the air he had gone, and over the balustrade. There was a terrifying moment when he swung out and over the hard stone of the piazza below. Then he felt his vest tighten from behind. When he looked around, he’d found himself suspended from the sculpture of Lena’s scales. “He won’t be so high and mighty when that slut of a sister of his is kicked out of the palace,” Pom had crowed, before they all ran as far and fast from the scene of the crime as possible.

“Well?” Elder Catarre was demanding. Petro had almost forgotten she was there. “Who put you there?”

He shook his head. In his most engaging voice, the one he used to convince adults that everything was fine when it wasn’t, he said, “No one. I tripped.”

The aspirants who remained below laughed. “You tripped,” repeated the elder, scowling. “You expect me to believe that you
tripped
?”

“And fell, of course. It’s a logical corollary.” Brother Cappazo would have approved of the terminology.

“Logical corollary, indeed. I’ve heard better logic from the insula goats!”

Gina Catarre then turned to one of the aspirants and began fussing, just as Petro heard a scuffle of feet on the upper walkway behind him. He assumed it was the aspirants who’d rushed into the building a few moments before, but when he gingerly looked up and over his shoulder, he saw his friend, Adrio, along with several others he recognized: Talia Settecordi, Amalia Caspiro, and Bruno Poscetta. All of them seemed astonished to see Petro hanging there like so much aged beef at the butcher’s, but only Adrio appeared really to be fretting. “Sister Batrilla and her sketch-pad crew were hanging about the stairwell entrance, so we had to wait. We came as quickly as we could, though. Are you all right? Did they—?” Adrio hoisted himself up to look over the balustrade and caught his breath. “Gods,” he muttered, at the sight of Elder Catarre.

“Adrio Ventimilla!” Elder Catarre howled, the moment she caught sight of his head appearing over the rail. “What do you know about this affair? Don’t try to hide. I’ll have it out of you one way or another.”

Adrio gulped. “You’re in for it, aren’t you?” he whispered to Petro. “Aren’t you going to tell her about Pom? Do you want me to, so you can deny saying anything?”

“No.” Petro had borne his midair suspension well enough, but all the insistence that he turn in Pom di Angeli and the Falo twins made him twitchy. It wasn’t a matter of taking the high road. Bullies like those didn’t back down, and in the long run getting them in trouble would only make things worse. From below, he heard the sound of a door opening followed by footsteps on the balcony. Simultaneously, scuffling noises rose from the walkway over his other shoulder. “Just drop it. Please.”