Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) (31 page)

The center table at the Harvest Vine Inn, draped in pristine white linen and adorned with twists of silver wreath, waited for Lodovico’s arrival. His company for the evening was a young courtesan who called herself Snowdrop and poured herself into a scandalously short ivory gown with a low-scooped bodice. The servants rushed to pull out their chairs and pour full glasses from a decanter of red wine.

“Only the best and most expensive of everything tonight,” Lodovico told Snowdrop, and she knew he was including her in that sum. She flipped a dangling lock of platinum-blond hair and smiled, holding his gaze.

“So what’s the special occasion?” she asked.

“The restoration,” he said as he lifted his glass, “of my family’s good name.”

*   *   *

Costantini, the aged and withered chairman of the Council of Nine, closed his eyes and slid into his bath. The steaming water soothed his aching muscles and chased away the cares of the day. Minutes slipped by as he happily relaxed, beadlets of sweat breaking out on his wrinkled brow.

“He knows,” said a soft voice.

Costantini’s eyelids snapped open. Simon Koertig, lean and sharp and dressed to the nines, loomed over the tub. He peered at the old merchant over the edges of his horn-rimmed glasses.

“He always knew.”

“Who did?” Costantini demanded. “Who are—how did you get in here?”

“Lodovico Marchetti,” Simon said. “Don’t yell for your guards. They’re all dead. They weren’t very good. Then again, neither were you. Word of advice: if you murder a boy’s father, make sure you murder the boy. Otherwise, well, it might take decades for your sins to catch up with you…but here we are.”

Suddenly the bath felt cold as an icy river.

“No,” Costantini said, “you’ve got it all wrong.”

“Luigi Marchetti didn’t commit suicide. The Council of Nine murdered him. Not the entire council. It was Basilio Grimaldi, Terenzio Ruggeri…and you. You forced bottle after bottle of wine down his throat, laid him in his bathtub, and slit his wrists, leaving behind a badly forged letter detailing his great regrets at betraying the city and the empire he loved so dearly.”

“No,” Costantini said, “
no
. You’re wrong. It was nothing so simple—”

“Can you even imagine,” Simon said, casually rolling up his sleeves as he spoke, “what it’s been like for Lodovico all these years? Growing up amid the men who murdered his father and humiliated his family. Rubbing shoulders with them, drinking with them, being
mentored
by them. Pretending to smile and endure their backhanded japes and the way they stared at his widowed mother’s ass, knowing that no matter what they promised him, he’d
never
be allowed a seat at the Council’s table. Decades of playing the fool. And all the while, planning. Planning for one very special night.”

“You don’t
understand
. Luigi was mad! He would have dragged our entire city into war with the Empire. I loved that man like a brother, but putting him down was the only way to save Mirenze.
The city had to come first!
”

“And that,” Simon said, “is exactly what Lodovico thinks. It’s time for Mirenze to come first.”

Simon’s hands shot into the bath and seized the old man’s ankles. He hauled them sharply upward, yanking Costantini back and down, his head plunging under the bathwater. With his feet held high, Costantini couldn’t manage to sit up, couldn’t find an angle to get a breath of air. He fought and thrashed, and his hands flailed, sending waves of hot water splashing over the rim of the tub. The back of his hand slapped his wineglass, sending it crashing against the ceramic tiles.

*   *   *

Red wine spilled into Lodovico’s crystal glass. He laughed and raised it in a toast, clinking his cup against Snowdrop’s. The servants brought over a feast, laying out dishes of pork in wine sauce, fried wedges of cheese, a fat torte stuffed with chicken and onion, and even a plate of turnips coated in sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

“Repairing a reputation sounds like a difficult business,” Snowdrop said.

“It’s a slow and delicate thing, like weaving a spiderweb from silken thread. One snag, one impatient tug, and the whole thing pulls apart. Fortunately, I’m a patient man. Sometimes.”

“So how does it begin?” she asked as a servant ladled a fat and glistening slice of pork onto Lodovico’s plate.

“Well, first of all, one has to politely explain to some disreputable persons that their rude behavior and loose talk will no longer be tolerated.”

Snowdrop nodded at Lodovico’s free hand. His fingers danced across the tablecloth, slow and rhythmic.
Tap. Tap. Tap
.

“You seem anxious,” she said.

“Just eager for everything to go well,” he said with a smile.

Tap. Tap
.

*   *   *

Tap
, went the tip of Basilio Grimaldi’s mahogany cane, rapping the cobblestones as he walked the streets of Mirenze by night.

Tap. Tap
.

The elder Grimaldi didn’t need a cane to walk—he was healthy and fit as one of his prize stallions, but it was an affectation that pleased him.

He didn’t need the bodyguards who discreetly trailed him from a respectable distance, either, but he hadn’t survived this long without being careful.

He strolled past darkened doorways and shuttered shops, enjoying the lonely night. The air felt cool and clean in his lungs. It helped clear his head and kept him focused on his plans. He was so focused, working out his designs on the Council of Nine, that he almost didn’t notice the men coming up the street behind him.

Basilio didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. Two pairs of footsteps, a fraction too rushed to be a couple of carefree locals out for an evening’s pleasure. The second giveaway: they didn’t talk to each other. At all.

He cast a sidelong glance at a darkened window as he passed and saw one of the men—now four feet behind and closing fast—slip a dagger from his belt.

“He knows—” the man started to say. That was all Basilio gave him time for.

Basilio twisted the brass hilt of his cane. The thin, lethal sword concealed inside sang as it slid free, whipping through the air while he spun, slashing the knifeman across the face from eye to chin. The knifeman clutched his face, screaming, staggering back. The second, with a stiletto of his own, was smarter. He lunged in close and got inside Basilio’s reach, going for his heart. Basilio twisted, snarling, and smashed his forehead down against the man’s nose. Cartilage spattered, and while the would-be killer howled like a whipped dog, Basilio grabbed the man’s wrist, wrenched it around, and drove the killer’s stiletto into his own lung.

He turned just in time to see a third assassin, eyes wild behind his black leather hood, charge from a side alley and thrust out his knife like a bayonet. Basilio wheezed as the thin blade went wide and dug into his side, skewering his hip. He dropped to his knees on the street, clutching the wound. The assassin raised his blade high—and plunged backward as a crossbow bolt punched through his throat.

Basilio slumped against the wall, clutching his hip. The first assassin, hands pressed to his slashed face, broke into a blind run. Basilio’s two guards, one cradling his crossbow like a baby, jogged up from behind. One pawed at his master’s coat, trying to get a look at the wound, but Basilio angrily waved him away.

“I’m
fine
,” Basilio snapped as warm blood trickled through his clenched fingers, “I’ll live, damn you. Just give me a moment to catch my breath. Go, take him! Bring him back to me. Bring him back to me
alive
!”

As his guards took off in pursuit, Basilio closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cool stone wall. Blood trickled between his fingers, his life seeping out with every rasping breath, making a faint
tap-tap-tap
on the cobblestones.

*   *   *

Lodovico savored a bite of the chicken torte. The caramelized onions added the perfect hint of sweetness to the moist meat and flaky pastry shell.

“Once you’ve done that,” Snowdrop asked, daintily patting a napkin to her wine-moistened lips, “what comes next?”

“Something very special. Something I’ve been planning for years. Do you know who my father was?”

She shook her head. “No, sorry.”

His fingers tightened, ever so slightly, around the stem of his wineglass.

“My father was a patriot. He believed in Mirenze. He believed that this city and its people had a destiny. We were a city-
state
once, the independent and shining jewel of the coast, before the Empire took it all away. Before scared, small men
gave
it all away without shedding a single defiant drop of blood.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Snowdrop said in a hushed whisper, glancing furtively at the other tables. “Someone might hear.”

“The Empire thrives on frightened little silences. And I’ve come up with a way of honoring my father’s memory and his dream.”

Snowdrop hovered somewhere between curious and nervous as she asked, “What will you do?”

Lodovico held up his glass, studying the ruby wine by candlelight.

“What time is it, past seven bells yet? Ah. I’ve already
done
it. Can’t tell you the details, that’d spoil everything, but trust me.”

He grinned at her, baring his teeth like a wolf on the prowl.

“It’s going to be a hell of a show.”

The village of al-Tali stood a day’s ride into the desert, nestled in the shadow of a red rock mountain. It catered to the merchant trade, offering a friendly inn and a cool, clear oasis just when western caravans were starting to feel tired and thirsty. Beyond the two-story inn and an open-air market, there wasn’t much to the place besides a jumble of crude, white-domed peasant houses that stood out like half-melted saltlicks in the scrub.

“I don’t understand the desert,” Terenzio Ruggeri said as he squatted on a chair of stretched goat hide and warmed his hands in the glow of a fire. “You burn to death by the noonday sun and freeze to death at night. How do you live like this?”

Gerolt Becker, a Murgardt expatriate in the white robes of an Oerran shepherd, laughed and lifted his glass of mulled wine. “You do what the lizard and the spider do. You adapt.”

“Going native,” Terenzio said, not hiding the distaste in his voice.

“We’re in the no-man’s-land, here. Al-Badra marks the edge of the Caliphate’s border, and the city stands a mere five leagues to the east. With neighbors such as these, it pays to show you respect their ways.”

“Afraid of raiders?” Terenzio asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Goodness, no! Times have changed since the old Crusades, friend. We have a different emperor, they have a different caliph, and we all know what really makes the world go round.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

Gerolt rubbed his thumb against his fingertips. “Profit.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Terenzio said. “I’m going to need to hire a guide. Someone who speaks the language and has a head for numbers.”

“I know just the lad. He’s bright, honest, and works cheap. I’ll introduce you in the—”

The heavy hide curtain that dangled over the inn’s front door swung wide, and Terenzio’s caravan-master dashed in, panting for breath. He pointed, jabbing his flailing finger toward the east.

“War party,” he gasped. “Men in Caliphate armor, riding hard, maybe two minutes out. Grizzo was out in the dunes, getting the lay of the land. They cut him down, Terenzio! I saw it with my own eyes!”

Terenzio and Gerolt shot to their feet.

“Impossible,” Gerolt said, leading the way to the door. “We’ve been at peace for a generation. They’re our neighbors! My daughter married an Oerran, for the Gardener’s grace. She
lives
in al-Badra.”

They emerged onto the street just in time to see the first fire-arrows fly.

Shafts arced through the sky like burning hornets, whistling to land in thatch and plaster, spreading flames that sent the peasants screaming from their houses. Muscular stallions kicked up clouds of dust as they thundered into the village, their riders garbed in lacquered armor and helms fit with lion masks of hammered brass. They rode with horsemen’s bows and scimitars, firing wild arrows and slicing at anyone too slow to escape. Terenzio saw a villager go down in a spray of blood, cut across the belly with a vicious slash. He tried to pull himself to safety, dragging his bleeding body through the dust, until another stallion’s hoof smashed down on his skull.

“My caravan!” Terenzio shouted, running toward the market square. “We’ll unhitch the lead horses. We can still get away!”

A stallion whinnied as another rider whipped past, and the caravan-master’s head went rolling through the dirt, keeping pace with Terenzio’s stride. The dust stung his eyes, and suddenly the flat of a boot hit him from behind. Terenzio hit the ground, but Gerolt kept running in a dead panic, making for the horses.

One of the Oerran soldiers grabbed Terenzio by the back of his tunic and hauled him to his knees, pressing a blade to his throat. Another, still sitting in the saddle, notched an arrow and took aim at Gerolt’s back.

“Let that one go,” the first masked soldier said in a crisp Murgardt accent. “We need a few survivors, or there’s no point.”

“Right, right. Gotta tell the tragic tale,” said the horseman, lowering his bow.

“I will not be silent.”

“Hmm?” the horseman said.

“Line from an old hymn,” the soldier holding Terenzio said, frowning. “Weird. It just popped into my head.”

“Didn’t think you went for that church stuff, Kappel.”

“I don’t. All right, let’s get this one off the street.”

They dragged Terenzio past the dead and the dying, the dusty street littered with corpses as the fires of the village houses lit the night sky. The inn still stood. They sat him down on a stretched-hide stool, binding his wrists behind his back with a strap of rawhide.

The soldier—Kappel—took off his helm, revealing the sandy blond hair and ice-blue eyes of a native Murgardt.

“He knows,” Kappel said. “He always knew.”

Terenzio trembled.

“Lodovico,” he whispered.

Kappel nodded, looming over him with a cruel smile on his lips. “He didn’t think you’d need much of an explanation.”

“I can pay you. I can pay double whatever Lodovico is offering. Triple! Just let me go. Say you killed me. Say I slipped away. Say whatever you want—”

“We are well,
well
past the point of bargaining. Besides, we’re the Dustmen. We don’t make deals.”

“Why do this?” Terenzio said, hearing faint screams outside the inn as the raiders mopped up the last few survivors. “If he wants me dead, so be it, but why a massacre? Why hurt all these people just to get at me?”

Kappel snickered. “He said you’d say that. That you couldn’t imagine it wasn’t all about
you
. The two or three villagers we let go, they’re going to ride for the Imperial borders. And what will they say when they get there?”

Terenzio’s eyes widened.

“They’ll say,” he answered softly, horror in his voice, “that al-Tali was ransacked in an unprovoked attack. They’ll say that Oerran soldiers butchered Imperial settlers.”

Kappel mockingly clapped his leather-gloved hands. “Now he gets it!”

“That’s insane! The emperor’s been aching for a crusade since he took the throne! Even without an excuse, it still took Pope Benignus to hold him back…” Terenzio’s voice trailed off. He shook his head, understanding.

“You mean, the
dead
Pope Benignus,” Kappel said. “The Church is under new management. And the new pope? Let’s just say he’s not quite the man his father was.”

“This…this will mean war. The Empire will march on the Oerran Caliphate. Thousands of people are going to die, on both sides. Tens of thousands!”

“See? You’re smarter than you look.”

“
Why?
” Terenzio shouted, the word coming out in a strangled cry.

Kappel pulled up a stool, sat down, and offered Terenzio a placid smile.

“For Mirenze.”

Terenzio couldn’t speak. He tried, but the words wouldn’t come.

“The Empire cut off Mirenze’s balls,” Kappel said, “and you, you and your little friends, you murdered Luigi Marchetti—the last, best hope for his city’s freedom. So Lodovico thought it was only appropriate that you be here, right where it all kicks off. His vendetta. A vendetta
against the Empire itself
. This is just the first step. Like I said, he’s been planning this for years. When he’s finished,
nothing
will be left standing. Nothing but a free Mirenze.”

“And me?” Terenzio asked, dreading the answer. “What’s my part in all this?”

“Same as your friends,” Kappel said.

Terenzio didn’t even see the knife. Kappel’s hand was empty—then suddenly it wasn’t, sprouting five inches of cold steel. He lunged, plunging the blade into Terenzio’s heart.

“Same as your friends,” Kappel whispered into Terenzio’s ear, holding the merchant close as he convulsed and bled out in his arms. “To die in shame, knowing that Lodovico Marchetti beat you. And that his father will be avenged.”

Kappel dumped the corpse on the floor and strolled out of the inn, whistling as he wiped his blade clean. It was over now, all but a few frenzied screams as the Dustmen had their fun with the odd straggler or two, but that wouldn’t last long. They’d rally, ride out to the marked dune where they’d buried their real leathers, and leave their stolen Caliphate armor hidden deep beneath the sand.

Kappel paused, recognizing the tune he was whistling. He couldn’t get that damn hymn out of his mind. It didn’t feel like a comfort. It felt like a warning.