The Boy Who Wept Blood (3 page)

4

Death in Santa Maria
–
7 Giugno
325

Suddenly the street was transformed. A wordless panic rippled through the
cittadini
; uncertainty caused the hearts of every man, woman and child to skip a beat. Men and women looked aghast, realising they were unarmed. Rusted swords and pitted knives appeared in clenched fists, conjured from fetid sleeves. Someone cried out and the rush began.

A fleeing woman careened into Dino, not looking where she was heading, nearly knocking him from his feet. The Orfano stifled curses and drew his blade, his grey eyes flashing silver in the sunlight. Massimo drew his sword and stiletto and they closed up around the aged
professore.

‘Into the teeth of the wolf,’ said Dino.

‘And knock them out, every one,’ replied Massimo.

The screaming began.

‘All this for a glass of wine no better than piss and vinegar,’ grunted Virmyre.

A figure in grey lunged across the street toward Dino but there was something wrong with the motion. More of a lurch than any considered movement, awkward and lacking the fluid assurance of a seasoned fighter. Dino met the charge with a strike of his own, slashing down at the man’s knee with a force lent urgency by adrenaline.

His opponent blocked it. Almost.

A wooden club was smashed aside as Dino’s blade bit deep into rags and flesh. The smell was overpowering, the cloying musk of an unwashed body, the acrid stench of urine. The attacker stumbled, momentum carrying him past Dino, who stepped in behind and neatly slashed across the back of his thigh. The man screamed for his severed hamstring, flopping down into the dirt. He proceeded to shriek and writhe as if on fire. Dino skewered him, feeling the tip of his blade catch on ribs before slipping through. The man coughed and trembled. Dino twisted the blade and tore it loose.

Massimo had also felled one of the grey men. He looked up from running his opponent through and locked eyes with Dino, a frown on his fine features.

‘What in nine hells is happening here?’ asked Dino.

‘First Anea, now Virmyre,’ replied the swordsman. But Virmyre remained untouched, shaken but unharmed.

‘I don’t think they even noticed me,’ intoned the
professore
.

Two of the attackers were already departing through the crowd, hands full of plundered meat from the butcher. The last of them was wrestling with Angelicola, who gasped and sank to his knees, clutching his arm. There was a pitiful cast to his haggard features, part confusion, part fear.

Dino surged across the street, blade reflecting brightly in the sun, teeth bared, heart kicking loud and strong. Angelicola hinged forward from the waist, face down in the dirt. His attacker need no further encouragement, fleeing with the
dottore
’s basket hooked over one elbow. Dino followed, body bent low, sword parallel with the ground, eyes fixed on shoulder blades dressed in filthy rags. There was a dull roar in his ears, a bitter tang of adrenaline in the back of his throat that sang for blood like a dirge.

Suddenly the figure lifted off the ground as if plucked by an unseen hand, bounding up to an overhanging balcony. Dino snarled in frustration, turned the corner, taking the building’s wooden stairs two at a time.
Cittadini
stared after pursuer and pursued, eyes glazed with shock, unsure of what they’d seen. Elsewhere in the town were occasional screams and shouts, becoming more distant with each passing second.

Angelicola’s attacker had reached the end of an adjoining balcony when Dino caught up with him. A woman hanging out her washing had been knocked aside amid a scattering of garments. She looked up at Dino with unfocused eyes, nose a red ruin.

‘Going somewhere?’ Dino snarled, closing the gap with his prey. He fastened a hand on the basket, wrenching it back. The thief turned and lashed out with a knife, ripping through Dino’s sleeve and the bandages beneath. Metal skittered from something hard, then snagged in the shorn material. There was a moment’s confusion and then the basket fell apart, tumbling olives, vegetables and bread down into the street below. A clay pitcher of milk fell for long seconds only to shatter, a shock of white across the grey cobblestones. Angelicola’s attacker slammed into the balcony rail and bounced back. Dino mashed the pommel of his sword into the grey man’s face on instinct, hearing the wet snap of something beneath the hood. The momentum of the strike lifted the man over the rail, pitching him head first to the street below.

Dino gasped, watched the descent, heard the muffled thump. Silence.

The Orfano hopped over the rail and landed nimbly, rolling as the fall stung the balls of his feet. The chase was at an end. Dino looked down at the broken man, knife in one hand, remains of the destroyed basket in the other. The head, still obscured beneath a hood for the most part, rested at a cruel angle. A few urchins were already prowling close to the fallen food. Dino shivered as sweat cooled beneath his doublet. He forced his breathing to a slow crawl, calming himself. Something about the way the man had come to rest reminded Dino of a body he’d found many years ago. A body discovered at the base of a spiral staircase when he’d been just eleven years old. Demesne had not been kind to him during his eleventh year.

‘Dino?’

He jerked back as if stung. Massimo stood by his side.

‘Are you hurt? Your sleeve is—’

‘No, I’m …’

‘You were just standing there, staring into space.’

‘I was …’ The food had been neatly stolen, the urchins long gone. A crowd composed of respectful silence and hand-wringing anxiety had gathered without his noticing.

‘He fell from the balcony …’ Dino gestured with one hand as if this might conjure further explanation. ‘I didn’t mean to …’

‘You’ve no need to justify yourself to me.’ Massimo frowned. ‘A death from a balcony is just as good as one from the blade. They were dangerous and they were armed.’

Dino composed himself. ‘Is Virmyre …?’

‘He’s fine.’ Massimo grinned. ‘It will take more than a few ragged paupers to give Virmyre pause.’ The swordsman looked back up the street. ‘The old
dottore
didn’t make it. Seems his heart couldn’t take the strain.’

Dino’s gaze had returned to the crumpled man. Massimo sheathed his sword and took a step closer, dropping his voice.

‘What’s troubling you, Dino?’

‘This wasn’t assassination. This was starvation. They were after food.’

‘I can believe that. None of them look much like assassins.’

Dino continued to gaze at his quarry, a broken tangle of limbs beneath the crude collection of rags. The bright sunlight spared no detail. Naked filthy feet, a hunch in his back, dull black nails on fingers that clutched a short rusted blade.

‘Dull black fingernails. Just like—’

‘Come on,’ said Massimo gently. ‘Let’s get you and Virmyre back to Demesne. We can let the guards clean this up.’

‘Clean
him
up, Mass. It’s a person. A man like you or me.’

‘Just not so well dressed.’

Dino curled his lip. ‘He’s a person, Mass.’

The Contadino swordsman studied him a moment, concern clouding his dark eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Dino. I didn’t mean anything by it.’

The Orfano’s anger subdued, then withered altogether. Dino had always found it impossible to stay angry at the swordsman for long. He sheathed his sword, unable to meet Massimo’s eye.

‘Bad wine and starving peasants,’ said Virmyre, leaning heavily on his stick. ‘This is one hell of a town we’re running.’ He’d pushed his way through the crowd, dabbing at his brow with a kerchief.

‘I’m sorry about the
dottore
,’ said Massimo.

‘Don’t be,’ replied Virmyre. ‘He was dead the moment he left Demesne. He was probably glad to have an end to it all. If the people knew what I know, he wouldn’t have lasted ten days, let alone ten years.’

‘I didn’t realise he was still alive,’ said Massimo quietly.

‘Well, he’s no loss to us then, is he?’ said Dino.

Virmyre nodded and stalked off.

‘Your sleeve, it looks bad,’ said Massimo with obvious concern. Virmyre stopped, turned and flashed a glance at the fabric. Beneath the rip were the telltale cream bandages. Dino held his forearm up to his chest, covering it with his free hand.

‘It’s fine. My … my deformity protected me from the blade. There might be a little damage but nothing that won’t grow back.’ Virmyre nodded to him, stern face more serious than usual. ‘They always grow back.’

The walk through the town took too long, Virmyre’s pace an idling stroll compared to Dino’s urgent stride. The swordsman and the Orfano flashed looks over their shoulders, wariness in every step. Virmyre rattled off an articulate series of complaints about the town, the wine, the
cittadini
, the economy and the weather.

‘You’ve never really told me what’s wrong with your arms,’ said Massimo as they approached the Contadino gatehouse. ‘Even after all this time,’ he pressed when Dino made no effort to provide an explanation.

‘Surely you’ve heard the rumours,’ said Dino, eyes fixed on the cobbles at his feet.

‘Something about spikes or stings?’

Massimo missed the warning glance Virmyre spared him.

‘Tines, we call them tines.’ Dino was stifling hot, and it had very little to do with the midday sun.

‘We don’t have to speak of them if you—’

‘It’s fine. I just … Golia had them too.’

They lapsed into silence. Dino could almost sense Massimo searching for something to say, anything to provide a change of subject.

‘It seems my simple need for wine and sunshine has drawn attention.’ The swordsman jutted his chin toward the gatehouse, where Lady Stephania Prospero waited with her retainers. Dino had seen the way men at court regarded her. Olive-skinned, she possessed an hourglass figure that set pulses racing. Never without a fan, her dark hair often piled atop her head, spilling ringlets framed her eyes. Her choice of attire was always in good taste, never gaudy or flamboyant.

‘I cannot understand why a woman like that is going to waste,’ said Massimo.

‘Perhaps you should propose to her,’ said Dino.

Massimo missed the dangerous edge to his tone. ‘A lowly swordsman does not propose to the daughter of a major house.’

‘And there is your answer, young masters.’ Virmyre paused and wiped his brow for a moment. ‘There are few who possess the correct standing to make such a proposal. And so Demesne’s most exotic flower withers in the sun.’

‘I know how she feels,’ replied Dino. ‘Can we get into cover before you die of old age?’

‘Impatience is ever the folly of youth,’ replied Virmyre. ‘But yes. Onward.’

They walked the final stretch of road in silence, presenting themselves to the noblewoman with the requisite bows.

‘I’m so glad you’re safe,’ she said with a smile. ‘I came as soon as I heard. The messengers are spreading the word even as we speak. We all feared the worst.’

‘We’re fine,’ replied the Orfano, ‘I had Massimo to look after me,’ making a lazy salute at his friend.

‘I live to serve.’ Massimo grinned. ‘But we both know you could have protected the
professore
alone.’

They passed under the arch of the gatehouse and into the House Contadino courtyard, crowded with wagons. Chickens clucked and strutted, the sweet smell of straw and manure obscuring all others.

‘It seems people have been trying to finish you your whole life,’ said Massimo, ‘and yet here you are. Dino the Untouchable.’

‘Not quite,’ replied Dino, gesturing to the ripped sleeve.

Stephania’s eyes widened. ‘Should I send for a
dottore
?’

Dino shook his head. ‘I’ll attend to to it myself, thank you.’

Stephania nodded, then turned and headed into the cool corridors of the house.

Massimo clapped a hand on Dino’s shoulder as the Orfano gazed after her. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘There have been other days like this,’ replied Dino, ‘other ambushes.’ Other times he’d felt ashamed of his difference.

5

Recollection
–
Settembre
314

Dino had progressed no more than a dozen steps from his apartment when he heard the now-familiar scuff of feet. It was Stephania, of course, clutching her school books to her chest, attempting to run in a dignified fashion. Not easy given the increasingly elaborate gowns her mother insisted upon. Duchess Prospero had eyed Stephania, just seventeen, and made a challenge of her ripening figure to any man with a pulse. Dino, fast approaching twelve, couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Camelia assured him that in just a few short years he’d notice girls, and then he’d have difficulty noticing anything else. Boys of his own age made various comments that ran the gamut of inappropriate to crass; Dino remained none the wiser. That Stephania had become fascinated by an Orfano six years her junior was a constant source of annoyance to the young blades among the nobility. Dino, however, had not been fooled for a moment.

‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ Dark hair fell in a confusion of ringlets about her face. She wasn’t of course. Dino had left early but omitted to mention this. He also failed to mention there were more direct routes to the classroom.

‘It’s wonderful you receive private lessons,’ she said.

‘Hmmm.’ The syllable was non-committal at best. ‘I was expelled.’

‘Really?’

‘There was a brawl. One boy’s nose was broken, another suffered a fractured rib.’

‘How is that your fault?’

‘They were attacking me when it happened.’ Dino shrugged. ‘Cherubini decided my education might progress more smoothy if I don’t have to best every other boy in the class.’

This was how Dino found himself being privately tutored and in turn being escorted by House Prospero’s dark-eyed daughter.

Stephania’s campaign had started innocently enough with random encounters in the halls of House Erudito. The young noblewoman always took time to greet him, and Dino was glad of the exchanges. Few if any in Demesne made an effort to put the Orfani at their ease. At best he could hope to be insulted a minimum of three times a day, although never to his face.
Strega
or witchling were the preferred terms of disparagement, but harsher terms were never far from the lips of his tormentors. Lucien had no better time of it, nor even Golia, who was not to be riled for sport. Only Anea seemed to escape the worst of the whispered unkindness. Many in Demesne believed she wielded arcane power and were loath to insult her lest she look on them with the evil eye. Stephania by contrast hadn’t succumbed to the prejudice. And for good reason. Her mother intended her to marry an Orfano, which in turn had precipitated her interest in Dino.

What had begun with ever more frequent meetings after classes in House Erudito evolved to include a sudden interest in his fencing lessons at House Fontein. Next were unannounced visits to his apartment. He’d been baffled at first, then oddly complimented, before confusion combined with a dose of irritation. Finally he’d accepted his new companion, developing patience when questioned by Stephania on her favourite subject.

Lucien.

Where was he? How was he performing with weapons? Why did he have such awful pets?

‘Does he spend an unseemly amount of time with Anea?’

Dino laughed until he was quite breathless, pausing in his haste to reach the classroom.

‘No one spends “an unseemly amount of time with Anea”.’ Dino suppressed another round of laughter. ‘She’s almost a recluse, more enamoured with books than people. She tolerates Professore Russo. And me, I suppose, but only just.’

Stephania’s questions regarding Lucien continued. She had the wit to bury them within innocent conversations, but sooner or later the topic always focused on Demesne’s most wayward Orfano.

Lucien ‘Sinistro’ di Fontein.

Duchess Prospero had not concerned herself with anything as delicate as subterfuge. She intended Stephania, blood of her blood, to wed the most troublesome of boys her own age. Dino wondered what the duchess’s true agenda was. Lucien rarely refused to spend time with Stephania, largely to keep the peace with the duchess, but neither did he seek her out. Now, so close to his his final testing at eighteen, Lucien had volunteered for additional lessons from Maestro di Spada Ruggeri, which took up a great deal of his time. The rest he spent with Professore Virmyre, whom Dino was journeying to see himself.

‘Master Dino.’ Virmyre had not commented on Lady Stephania Prospero’s appearance. She’d no need to be there. The women of Landfall did not study the sciences. At least until Anea had come along. The silent Orfano had almost pulled House Erudito down, stone by stone, during one of her trademark rages. Maestro Cherubini wisely changed policy at that juncture. So now not just Orfano ladies, but all ladies, were allowed, if not encouraged, to study the intricacies of physics, biology and chemistry, should they so wish.

Virmyre’s classroom was a dusty place of solid workbenches with a high ceiling that saw pupils freeze in the winters and boil in the summers. The wooden floor was unvarnished, threatening a host of splinters to any who tripped. Virmyre had built a backdrop of oak shelves that were monolithic in scale, home to minutiae and oddities beyond counting. Books in languages known only to a handful of scholars competed for space with broken timepieces and jars of specimens. The worst of these were organs rank with corruption, bloated in cloudy fluid, promising only noxious fumes should they be opened. And there was the urn full of ashes that none dare ask after. The centerpiece of the numberless curios was a cat shark which lay at rest in a tank of preservative. Virmyre was obsessed with sharks. He never failed to use them in some metaphor or other that only the truly eccentric can ever achieve with any aplomb. It was after one such lesson with Virmyre that Dino almost lost his life.

They had come for him in a rush; this was the first difference. Beatings were always presaged by posturing. It was the ritual of bullies everywhere, the mark of aggressors, even petty ones such as these. One did not simply do violence without verbal escalation.

‘
Strega
.’

‘Witchling.’

‘
Figlio di puttana
.’

‘What are you looking at?’

‘You think you’re better than us?’

Dino had learned it all by rote, knew the boys would only commit to the physical once the verbal assault had provided the vanguard. It made the attack that day all the more shocking. They approached from behind, catching the Orfano and the noblewoman in a stretch of seldom-used corridor. The attackers were older than him by a few years and spoke coarsely, jackets unbuttoned, shirts untucked. Their close-cropped hair indicated allegiance to Maestro Superiore di Spada Giancarlo, or simply that they aspired to the levels of thuggery he espoused. They drew closer until it was all Dino could do not to walk backwards so as to be able to keep watch on them. He didn’t see the third of them until he’d been punched in the stomach. The boy had emerged from a side corridor, obviously having lain in wait for some time.

The strike knocked the air from the Orfano’s lungs, and was accompanied by an unexpected sting. He staggered and reached for his blade. Reluctance to draw his weapon conflicted with numerical inferiority and his duty to protect Stephania. He got no further than closing his hand over the hilt. The trio ran off, not laughing or jeering, instead committed to fleeing the scene. Stephania shouted after them but Dino urged her to pay them no mind.

‘I’ve suffered worse beatings.’ A single punch to the stomach was no great hardship after all. Stephania pressed one hand to her mouth and fell silent, eyes widening. A dark stain of deepest red was spreading from a tear in his jacket.

‘It was only a punch,’ said Dino. A frantic moment to unbutton the garment revealed a white shirt soaked with blood. The sight of it staggered him, shock undoing his knees, ushering a cold sweat. The floor lurched toward him. A hand struck out for the wall, clawed for purchase on a side table, then darkness.

The rock and sway of walking. His legs motionless. Being carried. Dino forced his eyes open and saw ash-grey robes. There was a smell of dust. The arms that held him were like iron. And above the vast slab of a chin, weathered skin, the ragged hood concealing eyes.

‘I …’ His throat was too dry for other words, mind stumbling.

‘Hush now,’ droned the Majordomo. ‘Be still, rest.’

Dino did just that.

Dottore Angelicola’s face greeted him, all too close, shaggy eyebrows fixed in a frown beneath a bird’s nest of wiry grey hair. The man’s breath was an affront; a light dusting of white clung to the shoulders of his threadbare suit. There was a litany of complaint and half-whispered grievances, silenced every so often by a sharp word from the Majordomo. A damp cloth tended to Dino’s brow, provided by Stephania, her face taut with worry. Her immaculate gown was now smeared and unclean. The
dottore
mumbled something, reassuring him the wound was not fatal in anything but soothing tones. Somewhere in the confusion he’d lost his shirt, and in losing it had been exposed. The tines. He could feel her eyes on them in the scant moments she allowed herself to look. They began just after his wrist bones, tines of deep blue chitin that punctured the skin and angled back along the limb, pointing toward the elbow. There were thirteen of the tapering barbs on each forearm, some almost as thick as his smallest finger; all wept with a clear tasteless fluid that required him to bind them up before bed each night.

This was Dino’s mark, his heritage as Orfano. His tear ducts were also affected, causing him to weep blood on the rare occasions he gave himself over to tears. Golia had the same tines, combined with great size and strength. Lucien lacked ears and his fingernails were a shiny midnight-blue; he also benefited from agility and a certain resilience. Dino hoped he might develop these same benefits in time. He’d certainly have use for resilience if today foretold his future. Only Anea’s marks remained hidden. That she was never seen without gloves made Dino suspect she had the same blue-black fingernails as Lucien. Few if any knew the nature of the deformity she hid beneath the veil, and none spoke of it. When people did pass comment they discussed her great intellect.

The Orfani, twisted children of Demesne, strangelings of Landfall.

How Dino hated those tines. How many hours had he spent binding them? How many shirts had snagged and torn on their points? They grew longer with each year: soon he’d need to bind them during the day, or else walk about with sleeves rolled back to his elbows, his disfigurement plain to see.

There was a fiery pinprick of pain as the
dottore
began to sew the wound.

‘Take this.’ Stephania proffered a thimble of brandy, which burned all the way down his parched throat. Dino lost track of how long he lay there, the ill-tempered
dottore
working at his gut, the pull of thread closing up the slender wound. Lost count of the times Angelicola told him how fortunate he was the blade had missed his entrails. Lying there with the full extent of his otherness revealed, Dino felt anything but, only a deep and excruciating shame. A shame that would in time harden to a cruel hatred of House Fontein. He felt the corners of his vision grow red with blood. He would not cry.

The only thing worse than tines were tears.