"Wait." It was the elder priestess, putting out a hand to stop me. Through her veil, I saw her eyes, dark and curious, searching mine. "Some god has laid his hand upon you, child. Will you not seek the counsel of the Oracle?"
I glanced at Severio, who gave a faint shrug. "It is not wise to turn away the gifts of the goddess," he said neutrally.
So it was that we were conducted by silent eunuchs into the left-hand chamber, beneath one of the two lesser domes. It was dark and smoky, and the walls were unadorned; in deed, the chamber held naught but a stool and a table, on which lay a large, deadly-looking cleaver that filled me with apprehension. Like the altar, the table was stained a dark red, though I could not detect the stench of blood, even with eyes closed. The eunuchs set about lighting tapers, and left us. The chamber brightened somewhat and presently an ancient priestess shuffled out, carrying a simple woven basket of pomegranates.
"Some god-touched child, they say, and time to summon old Bianca," she said querulously, setting down her basket and lifting one crabbed hand toward my face. "Well, and why not, I've given counsel to a thousand and a thousand before, from altar and balcony alike, and never missed a day, except the one I had the grippe, when His Grace sought advice. Young Vesperia, she handled it well enough, they say, and why not, I trained her. Well, don't dawdle, child, let me see you!"
Belatedly, I realized that her eyes behind the light-shot silver mesh of her veil were milky and blind, and bent my face to her searching hand. Crimson-stained fingertips soft with age drifted over my features, and old Bianca grunted with satisfaction.
"D'Angeline, are you?" she asked. "No, don't tell me, I know it. Skin like a babe's arse, and the echo of a hundred fingers touched you before, men and women alike, kind and cruel, hard and soft. A rare beauty, yes? And marked, so plain even the blind can see it. Well and so; you don't belong to Asherat, but she takes an interest in all Her children, whether they like it or no. You have a question for the Gracious Lady. Choose, and I will tell Her answer.”
I hesitated, unsure of what to do. Severio was frowning, half in awe; he hadn't planned for this. I daresay it unnerved him somewhat. I hoped so, because it surely unnerved me.
"You
do
have a question?" the old woman asked impa tiently.
"Yes, my lady," I murmured. "I wish to know—"
"Asherat! Don't
tell
me, child. It taints the answer." Old Bianca gestured at the basket of pomegranates, the sleeves of her blue silk robe hanging loose and voluminous on her bony arm. It was nearly a mockery, such gorgeous fabrics adorning so wizened a form. "Choose, and I will tell."
With no better guidance, I gazed at the heaped basket and selected a large, ripe fruit, its outer rind a rich maroon hue. I placed it on the table before the ancient priestess. Groping for the stool with one hand, she took up the cleaver in the other, then grasped the fruit firmly.
I am not ashamed to say that I gasped when Bianca brought down the cleaver with unexpected swiftness, the deadly blade splitting the pomegranate a mere hairsbreadth from her fingertips. And I was not alone, for I heard Severio wince involuntarily.
The old woman merely grunted again, dividing the halves and setting them upright. The deep red seeds shone in a radiating pattern against the rigid white inner pulp, as vivid as the mote of Kushiel's Dart within my left eye. Scarlet juice oozed onto the table and stained her skin anew as she read the pattern of the seeds with her questing fingertips.
"What you seek you will find," she said matter-of-factly, "in the last place you look."
I waited for more. Bianca levered the cleaver cautiously this time, divided one of the pomegranate halves into quar ters. Bending it to expose the glistening ruby seeds, she lifted the quarter to her mouth beneath her veil and deftly gnawed at the tart fruit.
"That's all there is to tell," she said, chewing and turning her head to spit out the pips. "You can make an offering to the treasury before you leave, if you like. Silver's custom ary.”
Outside, with the bright Serenissiman sun reflecting on the rain-washed Square, it seemed almost a dream. Severio related the tale to
the
Immortali, who took it in stride.
"That's an oracle for you," Benito Dandi said, shrugging. "Common sense, tricked out in smoke and mirrors. I mean, of
course
you're going to find what you're seeking in the last place you look, aren't you? Because after that, you stop looking. Heya," he said, distracted by the sight of a Serenissiman approaching the temple. Clad in a noblewoman's attire and swaying on tall wooden pattens, she nonetheless wore the Veil of Asherat, silvery mesh and gleaming beads obscuring her features. "Bet I know what
she's
looking for!" he exclaimed, and let out a whistle. "My lady, if it's male heirs you're seeking, no need to become a supplicant. If the field doesn't bear, change plowmen, I say!"
I smiled faintly at his ribaldry, pitying the poor woman. After what I had seen today, I was of no mind to mock Asherat's powers.
Common sense, indeed; but I had not told the priestess my question.
THIRTY-FIVE
To my surprise, all my chevaliers and Joscelin as well had returned by the dinner hour—and with the exception of the latter, who was quiet and indrawn, all gave a good account ing of their day. Unfortunately, there was little to be gained from it. Remy had been turned away at the entrance of the Little Court; the guards had accepted my letter and sent him on his way, warning him pessimistically that the D'Angeline Prince held few audiences these days, and there was a long list of requests. He had haunted the perimeter for the better part of the day to no avail. Prince Benedicte's guards were strict on duty, and housed within the Court itself, so he had no access within.
Fortun had spent a fruitless day trailing couriers in Stre gazzan livery, although he described to me with great relish the inner workings of the Arsenal, the great shipyard. There was an ongoing negotiation, it seemed, between Sestieri Dogal and Sestieri Navis. Well and fine, it might influence the election, but it meant little to me.
For his part, Ti-Philippe had been carousing with those of the Immortali who had not accompanied Severio and me. He had lost nearly a purseful of silver denari, but he had to show for it somewhat more valuable; to me, at any rate. The mother of one of the Immortali attended the Doge's wife— I'd not even known she yet lived, such was the role of women in La Serenissima—and regularly sought the services of her lady's astrologer, although the man had been disgraced and no longer served the Stregazza.
"Good," I said to him. "Find out how I might make an appointment with the man." I gazed at Joscelin. "Do you have aught to report?"
He gave an awkward shrug. "I found out the Yeshuite quarter. 'Tis much the same here as at home; they argue among themselves, and speak of a northern destination. Worse, though. Yeshuites here are confined to their own quarter, yet forbidden to own property. The men may have no congress with Serenissiman women, and those hats, they must wear at all times to identify themselves."
What he did there, I did not ask. I was sorry for the plight of the Yeshuites, but I could not afford to worry over whether or not Joscelin Verreuil had become a part of their grand prophecy. I related instead my own day's adventure.
Predictably, Joscelin was irate. "You should not have gone out without an escort! Bad enough it's soldiers and sailors, and not respectable women, like the Serenissimans have—to venture out on your own, without a single companion! Phèdre, it's folly."
"Well, and I would not have," I retorted coolly, "if you'd not left in a temper. But I did, and no harm done."
"It's stupid." Ti-Philippe scratched his healing nose. "The prophecy, I mean. You always find what you're looking for in the last place you look, don't you? Why keep looking after you find it?"
"I know," I said patiently. "The thing of it is, I never asked the question aloud, which makes me believe the an swer worth considering. If I might guess, I think the mean ing is more subtle. I think we will find Melisande in the place we least expect her."
"Selling fish at the market," Remy offered in jest.
"Or wiping gruel from the Doge's chin," Ti-Philippe added.
"Changing the swaddling clothes of Prince Benedicte's infant son," suggested Fortun with a trace of a smile.
I could not stop them, once they were off and running— driving mules along the salt-pans, blowing glass on Isla Vitrari, tanning hides, teaching archery. With each new pro posed location, it grew more and more absurd, until I begged them, laughing, to desist.
It was Joscelin, oddly enough, who took the prophecy most seriously; though not so odd, when I thought on it. After all, he had been a priest himself, and would be still, were it not for me. "What you seek, you will find," he murmured, glancing at me. "Blessed Elua grant it is so, since you're damnably single-minded about it. I never thought you'd desist, no matter what I argued." Propped his chin in his hands, he gazed at the lamp in the center of the table, its flickering light casting his face into shadow and making a mask of it. "Prophecy is a dangerous thing. But I'll say naught to dissuade you, for now."
"Thank you," I said simply.
We left it at that, for the evening. If nothing else, Joscelin's words had lent the prospect of believability to our quest, and I was grateful for that, although I did not know how far I could count on his aid. We had declared a peace by default, and I was glad he had returned, but our harsh words earlier lay like a sword between us, and neither of us willing to take it up or cast it aside.
In the days that followed, I came to see a great deal of La Serenissima and became accepted into the society of Sev erio's peers. A season of truce-parties had begun, where young gallants of all the Sestieri's clubs held extravagant fetes, and no quarreling was allowed on the host's estate. Strange affairs, to a D'Angeline mind, where the young men gathered to discuss politics and the women to discuss romance and fashion, under the watchful eyes of a half-dozen chaperones. Married women had some freedom; maidens had little. More often than not, I was bored, except when there was dancing and entertainment. When the fête dwindled to a close, the revelers would straggle homeward in torchlit processions—and there the truce ended. Any gallant escorting his lady's party was reckoned safe from harm, but unaccompanied clubsmen set upon each other in the sort of gleeful skirmishes I'd witnessed in the Square.
It goes without saying that a great deal of matchmaking went on at these truce-parties.
For his part, Severio displayed me like a jewel, and his pride in it was nearly enough to offset his impatient desire. The gallant sons of the Hundred Worthy Families, sporting the colors of a host of vividly-named clubs—Perpetui, Ortolani, Fraterni, Semprevivi, Floridi—flocked to me like bees to honey, and I was glad of the Immortali's zealous protectiveness, both for my person and my reputation. The young women of La Serenissima treated me with a certain jealous awe, and if I made no friends among them, at least they were wary of maligning me where the Doge's grandson might get wind of it. Most of them, I was shocked to learn, were illiterate. Only priestesses and a few rare noblewomen learned to read and write.
Although I must say, they did know how to cipher. A shrewd mind for trade was reckoned an asset in a wife. Giulia Latrigan, whose uncle was one of the richest men in La Serenissima and stood as the likely candidate for Sestieri d'Oro, could add and deduct whole lists of figures in her head in the blink of an eye. She was clever and funny, and among all the young women, kindly disposed toward me; I think we might have been friends, if not for the rivalry between her family and the Stregazza. But there was talk of an engagement between Giulia and a son of the Cornaldo family, who held great sway among the Consiglio Maggiore, and Severio said bitterly in private that Tomaso Cornaldo would take six votes with him if the rumors regarding the size of Giulia's dowry were true.
Amid the whirl of activity, Ti-Philippe tracked down the Doge's astrologer.
I went to see the man with Remy and Ti-Philippe, and I was glad I'd taken both, for I saw another side to La Serenissima, winding through the smaller canals in the poorer quarters of the city. Here, the work of building this city on the sea was evident. Brackish water flowed sluggishly in the narrow canals and ramshackle wooden houses crowded together, built on ill-drained marshland that stank of rot and fish. When we paid the hired boatman and dismounted, I quickly understood where pattens had originated, the teeter-ingly high wooden platforms women of style wore as foot-ware. It had begun on the muddy, unpaved streets of La Serenissima.
We were attracting enough curious glances already; I re fused Remy and Ti-Philippe's laughing offer to carry me. As a result, I was mired to the ankle by the time we had trudged through a murky labyrinth of back alleys into a mean little courtyard, strung with crisscrossing lines of drying laundry. One closed door onto a windowless dwelling bore a rude painting of the circle of the Zodiac.
"Quite a comedown for the Doge's astrologer," I re marked, holding up my skirts and trying in vain to stamp the worst of the mud from my finely made heeled slippers, which were likely ruined.
"He read the stars for His Grace's wife when she was ill," Ti-Philippe said philosophically, "and prescribed a philtre of sulfur to cure her. It's a wonder it didn't kill her. My friend Candido said Prince Benedicte sent his own Eisandine chirurgeon, who gave her a purge that likely saved her, though she's been sickly ever since. But his mother's superstitious; she thinks someone played foul with Magister Acco's po tions, and is yet devout to his advice.”
I gave up on the mud. "Lucky for us we're not seeking him out for his medical acumen."
