The Nascenza Conspiracy (21 page)

It was clear that Emilia couldn’t believe how foul and rude Simon was. “You say that of the child you’d have be king?”

“All I knows is I’ve been promised a seat at the table when the time comes. All of us loyalists have a seat at the table. We’ve been promised it from day one. I don’t care who brings in the new era—child or chicken’s all the same to me. We Jacobucis have been waiting for this chance for generations. When the Sorrantos and the Divetris find themselves purged from the palace, that’s the day my father and my father’s father will be smiling in their graves, the gods bless ’em. Now. Tell me who’s the clever one.”

Something about Simon’s speech had chimed with familiarity for Petro. He had heard something similar before, he knew, but he didn’t want to stop to figure it out right then.

“You’re the clever one,” said Emilia, not giving any indication of actually meaning it.

“So clever,” Petro added, “that you couldn’t distinguish the cazarrino of Divetri from a turd in a turban.”

“Don’t,” Emilia said sharply, before she could stop herself.

Adrio shook his head at him, but Petro was already on a roll. “You can’t call yourself clever when you’ve had the wrong cazarrino all along, Jacobuci.
I’m
Petro Divetri. Not this boy. He’s a nobody.” Saying those words went against every fiber of Petro’s beliefs, especially now that he and Adrio were reunited. Yet if he could anger Adrio, provoke his friend into repudiating him and confessing to their prank, it would be the surest path to Adrio’s protection. “He’s less than a nobody. I’m the one who had you fooled all along.”

“No, ye didn’t,” said Simon, looking from Petro to Adrio and then back again. Adrio was silent; he seemed stunned. If Emilia’s glares had been daggers, Petro would have been skewered to the tent wall a hundred times over by now.

“I did. This boy you thought was Divetri? He’s a tanner’s son. Barely good enough for the Thirty.” Saving Adrio’s hide would be the ultimate testament to their friendship. Petro prayed that, in time, Adrio would realize this.

The truth of their prank seemed to be too much for Simon. He blinked, confused, as his head bobbed from Adrio to Petro and back again. “You’re lying.”

Now it was Petro’s turn to smirk. “I’m not.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” said the loyalist. He opened his mouth as wide as a donkey’s and let out a bray. “You! Yes, you! Get your lily-white behind in here where you’re needed!” He then realized that the thickly woven canvas of the tent was likely muffling his cry, because he turned and thrust his upper body out so that he could call again.

Petro took advantage of Simon’s half-absence to mouth to Emilia, “Is Vico back there?”

She scooted forward with her feet so that she could peek behind the arras, but had to stop when they heard an answer to Simon’s roars from nearby. “What is it?” asked a voice that sounded evasively familiar. It was haughty, and far more cultured than anything Simon or any of his friends produced.

“It’s the other boy. He’s saying he’s the Divetri imp.”

“What? Impossible.”

Simon’s rump moved backward as he entered the tent once more. He was followed by a man bearing a lantern. Long wisps of hair clung to his temples, though the crown of his head was bald. A cruel, cold expression brought his face into focus.

“Brother Narciso,” breathed Petro, astonished. The man had risen from the dead and stood before him—though not in his surplice and religious garb, as he had throughout the pilgrimage, but in the grubby leathers of the loyalists.

“Ventremiglia,” said Narciso. He had been doing some sort of manual labor, from the looks of it. He wiped his free hand onto his pants. “I heard they rounded you up. That girl’s not Elettra, though. What happened to your companions?”

“I sent them back to the city.”

“Good, so it’s possible the palace is in a panic already. Perfect.” He turned to Simon and rubbed his palms together. “I can just picture them all atwitter over the cazarrino and his safety, can’t you? It’s all falling into place, like I promised.”

“You
wanted
this?” Petro asked, aghast. This was a man they’d trusted, fool though he’d been.

Adrio looked sad and shook his head. “I tried to tell you.”

“He’s been promised a place at the table, too.” Emilia spoke loudly from the rear of the tent. “I wondered how the loyalists knew they’d have a cazarrino to snatch. This traitor was working with them from the inside.”

Dumbfounded, Petro remembered back to the first nights of the trip, when he’d been kept awake by sounds in the woods. There had been someone out there in the dark—the loyalists, he now knew. He rounded on Narciso. “You did something to Sister Beatrize, so she couldn’t escort us. You
harmed
her to take her place.”

Narciso’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know how much favor I had to curry in that insula? How much toadying I had to do, as we all lay in wait for the perfect moment to make the perfect gesture to bring Cassaforte running to us for protection? The moment I heard that the esteemed Petro Divetri was to be heading to Nascenza, I saw to it that Beatrize fell down those stairs and that I became her replacement. I did her a favor, sparing her a week in your company.”

“Then you fed the loyalists our route,” Petro continued. “You snuck away from camp at night to meet with them. It wasn’t chance at all that landed us in Campobasso!”

Simon’s eyebrows rose. “You weren’t as crafty as you thought during our midnight meetings, were you, Sclavo?”

Emilia said, “That was no pilgrimage he took you on. That was a death march.”

“Oh, my plan worked. It’s the reason we have what we want—a lamb of the Seven to sacrifice at the Midsummer High Rites. We will bid farewell to the old Cassaforte and usher in the new.” Narciso sneered nastily. “What’s this nonsense about the cazarrino?”

Simon drew a hand over the light growth of stubble bedecking his chin. “This one says he’s the real cazarrino. Claims the other’s an impostor.”

“Nonsense.” Narciso shoved the lantern into Petro’s face, causing his swollen eye to water uncontrollably. He blinked rapidly under the scrutiny. Just as ruthlessly, the priest turned to examine Adrio. “What are you talking about?” he demanded of Simon. A long finger crooked at Adrio. “This is the Divetri boy.”

“Wrong.” Though Petro was still stunned by Narciso’s complicity with the loyalists, he had enough presence of mind to issue him a final challenge. “I am the Divetri boy.”

“Liar.” Narciso hung the lantern from a hook near the tent’s ceiling, where it swung and cast eerie shadows below. Without warning, he swung back his right hand and struck Petro across the face, causing him to cry out in further pain. He crossed his arms. “Breeding shows, and it was obvious from the first you had none, Ventremiglia.”

Petro laughed weakly. His head throbbed. “I’ve more breeding than you.”

“Could he possibly be telling the truth?” Narciso addressed Adrio now. “Are you someone other than Petro Divetri?”

All the world seemed to hang in the balance as Petro and the others awaited Adrio’s answer. Surely Petro’s harsh words had angered Adrio enough to make him reclaim his name.

“I am Petro Divetri,” Adrio said at last. His voice was exceedingly small and difficult to hear. “I am cazarrino of Caza Divetri. Whatever it is you intend to do, do it to me. Not to him.”

“You fool,” rasped Petro to his friend, though his heart swelled with pride. Adrio had come through for him unexpectedly, though perhaps it was past mattering.

“I told you. This one is trying to play some kind of insula prank,” Narciso said to Simon. “If he does it again, feel free to whip him. Did you find the prince?”

“No, signor,” said Simon.

“Don’t waste any more time here. Find him.”

The loyalist, however, didn’t seem entirely convinced by Adrio’s statement. “But what if he’s actually not who he says he is?” he asked. “Have you thought of that?”

Without a look back, Narciso snapped his fingers and beckoned Simon out of the tent. The man followed, leaving the youths alone in the lantern’s light. Narciso still held the tent flaps open, though, so every word the two men said was clearly audible whether they realized it or not. “What does it really matter?” he asked Simon, sounding vexed.

“I don’t like the notion they’re a-gettin’ away with something,” said Simon. Petro knew then that he might not have entirely convinced the loyalist of his claims, but he had at least unsettled the man’s mind enough to admit doubt.

“Untie my hands and see what I get away with,” growled Emilia.

“Who are ‘they’?” Narciso snapped. “But it is no matter.” Then he spoke in a hiss that chilled Petro to the core. “When the blood runs thick and red on the morrow in Nascenza, the bodies of three important guests will be found among the hundreds—the cazarrino of Divetri, his pitiful friend of the Thirty, and their pet guard. Let the mourners sort them out.”

There was a silence for a moment before he continued. “Now, unless you wish to tell me you have better things to do, find the prince. He’s proved himself our lapdog by running home so obligingly once, thanks to his uncle’s training. I don’t like him wandering about, though.”

“All right, then. But—” Simon released the tent’s opening so that it fell from his fingers, muffling anything else he’d been planning to say.

The three youths sat without speaking. They had light now, to be sure, but its yellow glow failed to provide any warmth or cheer. They were all frozen by the words they’d just heard. Petro, in particular, seemed to feel exceedingly small and fragile. It was a mean world that lay outside the insula walls. The bullies were larger, and the stakes were higher.

“Well,” he said at last. “There hasn’t been a bully I’ve run away from yet. Right, Adrio?” His friend shook his head. “What of the prince?”

In response to Petro’s question, Emilia finally thought to peek into the gap between the arras and the tent wall. “He’s not there,” she said slowly. “But do you think he heard any of that? I hoped … ” She shrugged. Her face was drawn and long, as if she had lost hope.

“I’ll think of a way out of this,” Petro promised her.

When she said nothing, choosing instead to smile wryly and turn her back before settling down on her side, he knew that she’d given up. Adrio, too, wilted onto the ground, seeming to melt into the carpet he’d wadded up for bedding. Only Petro remained upright, staring grimly ahead and thinking over every possibility.

It was going to be a long, long night.

Vesta, for shame! Your brother Petro is not destined to be a mere insula cleric or clerk, hiding in Risa’s shadow!
Already my own work is being forgotten and I find myself
being called ‘Risa Divetri’s mother.’ I am not the mother of one remarkable child, however, but five. You shall see, in time.

—Giulia Divetri, in response to a letter from
her daughter, Vesta

Having an extraordinary family member brought extraordinary burdens. Petro wasn’t quite certain at what point of the night he came to that conclusion, but it was some time after the din of the camp had died down, damped suddenly as if an invisible blanket had been thrown over it, and long after the lantern Brother Narciso had left behind sputtered and died. Risa would have been able to ignite that lamp again, Petro realized with some dismay. She could have made some sort of magical flick of her fingers, whispered a prayer, and the tent would have filled with the warm, rich glow of firelight from home. “A knot’s primary purpose is to hold something fast, of course,” she would have said in her maddeningly competent voice. “But its secondary purpose is to allow itself to be untied.” And then she would have lifted her unblemished wrists from behind her back, unfettered.

Risa Divetri would no doubt have come up with some sort of scheme to send the entire camp into a deep and permanent sleep that spared none save themselves, or she would have taken a Y-shaped twig, a few leaves, and a pinecone to make a monstrous golem that would have attacked the loyalists and brought them to their knees. Who knew what mysteries she lately had dug up from the Cassamagi library among the writings of its founder, Allyria Cassamagi? Perhaps at this point, Petro thought with bitterness, one blink of her eyes and a twitch of her nose would turn all their enemies to pond frogs.

He, however, could do none of these things. Proud as he was of having so powerful a sister, none of the abilities that made her so unique seemed to flow in his own blood. For long minutes he mentally tried to decree his knots to untie, or will into awakening some long-dormant ability that might save them all. All he got for his efforts, however, was a slight headache. If the gods had led him to this moment so that he could discover some latent power that would justify his existence, he was failing them miserably.

From the far end of the tent, Adrio slumbered fitfully. From time to time he would waken and seem not to remember, in his half-roused state, that his limbs were bound. He would yank at his ropes and mumble to himself before falling back asleep again. Emilia, on the other hand, slept like the dead. Petro had managed to scrape and claw his way across the floor to her before the lantern had guttered into darkness, and now sat beside her curled form. Every motion he made to ease his aching muscles was done slowly, so as not to awaken her. It comforted him to know that at least she slept when he could not.

Slumber did come, but only in fits and starts. Every time he found himself nodding off, he would startle himself back into wakefulness. He couldn’t even forgive himself on the basis of not having had a good night’s rest in days. Worse, the dreams he had during those few minutes tended to be so realistic they were difficult to distinguish from reality. He imagined himself at the inn in Campobasso, discovering the body of Bonifacio de Maczo, his hands covered in the man’s blood. He dreamt of lying next to not Emilia but Elettra, and talking about insula matters. Another time, he dreamt of walking through the wild lands with Vico talking of mushroom hunting, then suddenly and without warning hauling off and slapping the boy across the face. This last dream woke him up so violently, and left him so perturbed, that he had to lie in the dark for several long minutes, reminding himself that such a thing had never really happened.

When the Sorrantos and the Divetris find themselves purged from the palace …
Those had been the words Simon Jacobuci had used in his screed. Where had Petro heard such a thing before? It took him some time to cast his mind back far enough to dredge it up. It had been the same afternoon he’d last seen his sister—the afternoon he’d learned that he was to be shadowed by guards, night and day, until the delegation from Vereinigtelände had made its case and returned home. He’d heard it from the mouth of Pom di Angeli, after the bully had insulted Risa.
He won’t be so high-and-mighty when that slut of a sister of his is kicked out of the palace
, Pom had said, sneering as if he knew what was to come.

The wedding negotiations between Cassaforte and Vereinigtelände were supposed to be a secret. Risa had said so. It looked, however, as if Pom not only knew about the delegation’s visit long before it happened, but knew of its import and probable outcome. Had the di Angelis, too, been promised a “seat at the table” like Brother Narciso and the Jacobucis? In the dark, where every dread seemed almost tangible, Petro’s suspicion became a certainty. He wanted to wake Emilia immediately and share with her what he’d worked out, but he let her slumber on. He refused to believe that this would be his last night on earth. To accept the fate laid out for him would be surrender. He would fight until the end to avoid it, and he knew Emilia and Adrio would join him.

“So I have limitations,” he murmured to himself, laughing a little. He ought not to have wasted the night worrying about them. Isn’t that how he’d spent most of his life in the insula, fretting about all the things he couldn’t do and could never be? Defining himself by the things he wasn’t had made him a nobody. He might not yet be certain exactly what he was, but he’d learned of a few things at which he was more than capable: digging in his heels and fighting against the odds were two of them. All things considered, he rather liked the Petro who’d emerged on this pilgrimage.

Sometime in the morning’s small hours, he heard a scratching noise. At first it was difficult to tell where it came from, since it was so slight and insignificant. It could have been anything, Petro told himself. A rat, scavenging for food, or even the scrape of a nearby tree branch against the canvas. Yet there it sounded again, louder and more distinct—a ragged tearing that came in bursts, as if whatever or whoever was causing it was exerting effort. The close air of the tent seemed to become less dense and muggy. It was when he heard small, labored breaths that Petro realized what was happening. Someone was cutting through the canvas at the tent’s rear.

Immediately, all the clouds of weariness that had hovered over him through the night dissipated. Petro bolted upright and began scrabbling across the dirt in the sound’s direction. Emilia let out a small whuff of surprise as he collided into her. “Who’s there?” Petro whispered.

“I cannot cut it like you did.” Vico’s voice was muffled, and further dampened by the arras. “Perhaps I am not as strong.”

“You cut some of it, didn’t you?” Petro received no answer in reply. He had no idea who might be guarding the tent in front or how far away they were, so he tried to keep his voice low and to speak through the opening between the fabric panels. “Vico, if you made a cut, just come through. You’re small. The opening doesn’t have to be very large.”

“What’s going on?” Emilia asked. Petro couldn’t see her face but he could imagine it, drawn and pale and sleepy.

Before he could explain, the air changed inside the tent once more. The sound of the tent’s fabric slowly ripping, as Vico forced himself through the cut he’d made, seemed to rend the night. “Ouch,” they plainly heard. Then, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Are you all right?” Petro asked. He heard the boy grunting as he righted himself, and then the sound of more tearing. Was he leaving?

Emilia must have wondered the same thing. “Your highness?” she asked, sounding uncertain.

“Do not call me that.” The words were faint, but the disdain in them was clear enough.

Now Adrio was awake. “What’s happening?” he whispered, sounding frightened.

“Vico.” Petro couldn’t tell what the boy was doing, and it was maddening. He spoke again into the pitch-black area between the fabric panels and the tent’s back wall. “Are you all right?”

“Maybe,” he heard, after a minute. Something clattered to the ground near his knees, and then he heard Vico moving around once more.

“What’s he doing?” Emilia asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“If he’s here to lecture us again about his rightful place on the throne
…
”

“I don’t think that’s it.” Petro tried to keep his wildest hopes in check. “Not at this hour in the morning.”

Vico seemed to settle down from whatever it was he was doing. From where he knelt or sat, they could hear the rattle of metal, then a percussive tick. A moment more, and a spark shot into the darkness. “He’s trying to use a tinderbox,” Petro told Emilia.

“I’ve never done it before.” Vico sounded cross. Obviously he’d expected to succeed the first time. “It refuses to obey.”

Emilia began to suggest holding the striker at a different angle, while from across the tent Adrio began chiming in with a hint about warming the flint between the fingers. Petro shushed them both. “He’s a grown lad,” he told them. “He can do this.” The whimper with which Vico answered that assurance seemed less convinced. “He absolutely can,” Petro repeated.

A few tense moments of silence followed, as again and again they saw little sparks fly in the darkness. At long last, one of the sparks caught and began to glow. From the stub of a candle set in a metal holder came a flickering light that filled the cavity at the tent’s edge. Vico’s face loomed over it, peering in Petro’s direction. He was biting his lip. “I did it,” he said, managing to sound both grim and extremely happy all at the same time.

“Yes, you did. Come in here with us.”

“One moment.” The boy set the candle on the ground. Now that there was some light, Petro could see a rip in the tent’s exterior at about knee height. Vico leaned through it, retrieved something from the ground below, and pulled himself back. A bundle was in his hands. “I beg your pardon, please,” he said, crawling past Petro with everything he’d brought. Once he had made his way to the large tent’s center, he set down both his parcel and the candle.

Petro was happy to see Emilia’s face, anxious and cross, as well as the reflected glow of Adrio’s eyes, far away. As for Vico, his own eyes were filled with doubt when he pronounced the words they all hoped to hear: “I have come to rescue you.”

“Thank the gods,” muttered Emilia.

“Why, Vico,” said Petro, trying to sound a little more grateful than she. He’d never had a younger sibling of any sort, but he tried to sound as affectionate and direct with the boy as he would with a little brother. “That’s really sporting.”

“But there are conditions.” Vico sat on his haunches and looked them over. “I am not going to ask to be put on the throne of Cassaforte. I know how unlikely that is, now. Nor do I care to be a
lapdog.
”

“You overheard, then,” Petro said softly. The boy nodded. “Vico. I’m so sorry
…
”

“Pray do not burden me with your sympathies.” When he spoke in his formal voice, which he’d no doubt been thoroughly trained to use when addressing minions, Vico had an unfortunate tendency to sound distant, cold, and thoroughly unlikable. Thankfully, he didn’t sustain it for very long. “I just wish my uncle had cared about me. That’s all.”

“I’m sorry.” Then Petro had to say it. “What are your conditions?”

Vico held his posture erect as he announced, “If I help you escape, I do not want to be returned to my uncle’s
schloss
. Or to Vereinigtelände. I am the son of Prince Berto. I do not care if this is my first time in Cassaforte. I am half of this country and it is my right to remain.”