The Buccaneer's Apprentice (25 page)

“And now you’re the one stinking of seaweed,” she joked back.

He probably did. Nic wasn’t so overwhelmed by Darcy’s sudden transformation that he completely neglected to hear what Maxl said. “And we’re to see the king?”

In answer to his question, Darcy’s eyes darted from their end of the table down its full length, to the room’s other side. Nic heard a man clearing his throat. When he turned, he saw a tableau of people surrounding an oversized chair in which was seated an elderly man with long hair of the purest white. It flowed down the back and sides of his head and mingled with his snowy beard. Though he wore only the plainest of robes and Nic had never seen him in person before, it was perfectly obvious who he was. Wasn’t his face on every luni and lundri that had passed through his hands? “Oh gods,” he yelped as he fell instantly to one knee. The motion managed to make him vanish completely beneath the table’s edge. “I beg your most humble pardon, Majesty. I am a stupid … stupid … clod.”

“Oh, rise, rise,” said the king in a jovial voice. He did not sound strong, nor give the impression of strength. Given that he had been on his deathbed a mere three years before, however, it was remarkable that King Alessandro was alive at all. “It pains every joint in my old carcass to see you contorted down there. Besides, who cares to look at an old man like me when there’s a pretty girl about. Eh, Milo?”

When the king nudged the blond youth beside him knowingly, Nic’s heart sank. It was the young man whose head he had seen only a few moments before. “That’s Milo Sorranto,” he murmured to Darcy.

“Yes,” she said.

“Milo Sorranto, the named heir to the throne.”

“Yes,” she repeated. She had been around the titled all her life. She wouldn’t understand his confusion. “Then that’s …” The girl in the apron sat beside the heir. Their eyes met once more. Nic hazarded a fatal guess. “Risa Divetri?”

“Of course.” Darcy inspected him closely and hissed, “What’s the matter with you?”

He wanted to cover his burning face. “I thought they were servants,” he explained, mortified when her eyes flew wide.

As was the custom in Cassaforte, the king could name anyone as successor to the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn, ignoring his own offspring if he so chose. Milo Sorranto had been named heir to the throne mere weeks ago. The king’s only son, Prince Berto, had been banished to the distant island of Portoneferro after his role in the kidnapping of the seven cazarri and the attempted coup against his father. He had died by his own hand only a month after his imprisonment. The coup had largely been stopped by Risa Divetri, who for a few days had valiantly assumed the title of Cazarra of Divetri and kept her household from ruin. Milo Sorranto had been instrumental in aiding her, as had his sister, Camilla. And there was Camilla to the rear of Alessandro, dressed in the crimson of the royal guards, her breast decorated with the medals that declared her the king’s personal bodyguard. Her hair was as blond as her brother’s, and her eyes the same shade of green. “Well, they’re definitely not servants,” Darcy whispered back, yanking him down toward the table’s far end.

“I beg your pardon as well, signorina,” Nic stammered as he approached. “I did not know you were Risa the Enchantress.”

The Divetri girl’s lips quirked. “Is that what they’re calling me now?” she asked. “I suppose it could be worse. Risa the Snooty I shouldn’t care for. Risa the Appalling, I’d like even less.”

“How would you care for Risa of the Incredibly Loud Mouth?” Milo asked with a friendly jeer.

In reply, Risa stared at the heir for a moment. Her lips worked silently. Suddenly Milo’s hair appeared to catch fire, blazing with a red-blue flame. Darcy and Maxl both startled and began to fly to the heir’s side. Jacopo, who had been sitting close to the heir near the table’s head, pushed back his chair to distance himself. Milo himself sighed, appearing unconcerned. “She’s doing the fire illusion again, is she?” he asked, waving Maxl and Darcy away. “Really, Risa. It was amusing only the first dozen times.”

The flames went out, leaving Milo unharmed. “Children,” said the king reproachfully. “We do have serious matters before us.”

“I’m very sorry.” Risa crossed her arms and flounced into a chair. They seemed to have a great deal of familiarity between them, the king and Risa.

Jacopo seemed still shaken by the unexpected display of sorcery from the Divetri girl. He pulled his chair close to the table once more, pointed to a map of the Azure Sea that lay before the king, and spoke. “We have been telling King Alessandro of the threat that is Pays d’Azur, Niccolo. We have convinced them of the threat from their ships of war.”

“Very grave, indeed.” The king appeared wearied as he turned his attention once more to the situation at hand. Nic wondered if the banter between the heir and Risa Divetri might not have been for his benefit, a deliberate display to lighten his heart. Alessandro appeared very frail as he pulled the map closer. His hand trembled. “Never in my lifetime has Cassaforte faced a greater threat.”

Nic noticed that Risa appeared to be staring at him. In front of the place where she sat to the king’s left lay a square of mirrored glass. As the monarch talked, she had traced several signs over its surface. Now, hovering inches over its surface emerged an image, floating in the air like a rainbow. And like a rainbow, Nic had no doubt that if he attempted to touch it, it would prove as elusive. “That’s them,” he said, pointing to the oval-shaped illusion. In its center he could see the warships of Pays d’Azur, dark and ominous on the water. “You can see where they are?”

“Alas, no.” Risa appeared disappointed in herself. “You can see them in your mind. I am only sharing that image with the others.”

“This is a memory, then?” Nic asked, trying not to sound let down himself. It would have been useful to spy upon their enemies remotely.

“As best as we can estimate, the Comte Dumond and his forces could be anywhere between twelve hours to four days away.” The king leaned back in his chair of command, and turned to his heir.

“We must assume the worst, and act upon it,” Milo replied in answer to the unspoken question.

“Which is why we must immediately send envoys to Vereinigtelände.” The man who spoke had heretofore been silent. He was a coarse-faced man with blunt features that seemed hewn out of stone. Somehow they managed to complement his uniform, which was a highly decorated variation of Camilla Sorranto’s. He struck the table with the side of his fist. “Vereinigtelände would assist us in the event of a siege. They did so during the last Azurite Invasion. Had we settled matters an hour ago, I could have had a party on the road north by now. With a nuncio as esteemed as yourself at its head, to express our deep need,” the man added, with a chair bow to Jacopo.

Jacopo replied in kind. “And I would be more than willing to serve, High Commander Fiernetto.”

“I wouldn’t,” Darcy muttered darkly, beside Nic.

So this was Lorco Fiernetto, High Commander of the King’s Guards. It was a well-known name in the city, as since the coup of three years before he had commanded not only the royal guards, but the naval guards and those of the remote posts as well. The king nodded, acknowledging the commander’s point. “We have no objection to an envoy to Vereinigtelände, Lorco,” said Milo, speaking for the monarch. “Where we differed was in our naval response.”

“There is but one response.” Fiernetto leaned over and thrust the map beneath Milo’s nose, as if proximity might help him better understand. “We send our top naval personnel to Massina using what large craft we have available. Massina would also aid us. It is our only solution.”

“What large craft are left?” Nic found himself asking. He reddened slightly at his boldness, but he knew better than anyone present what he had witnessed the night before. “I mean no presumption, Signor. But with my own eyes I saw six of Cassaforte’s warships destroyed not twelve hours ago.”

“They are all gone.” The high commander refused to meet his eyes. He looked only at Milo and the king. “But there is the
Allyria
.”

Nic felt as if he’d been knocked to the ground with a single blow. “My
Allyria?
”

Darcy’s face looked pinched. Jacopo held up his hand before his mouth, disguising whatever expression hid behind. “After the devastation of last night, we are left with a city of gondolas and the tiniest of fishing craft. Any foreign merchant vessel that escaped the conflagration is long gone. The
Allyria
has been delivered to us for such a moment as this. It was made to be unsinkable. Loading it with the appropriate personnel and sending it to Massina is the only solution.” Again, Fiernetto refused to look in Nic’s direction.

“It was made to be what?” Nic sounded out of breath when he asked the question. He still felt as if he were staggering in the dark. He couldn’t bear the thought of the
Allyria
being taken from him. Perhaps it was wrong of him to think so, but that galleon was his. It felt like it was his. The prospect of losing it affected him as deeply as if a physician had suggested removing one of his limbs.

Risa turned to Nic. The image floating above her mirror was a miniature view of the
Allyria
as Nic had seen it the previous night from the docks, golden and shining, its figurehead pointing at some greater destination in the distance. He found himself a little uncomfortable at how easily the enchantress could slip into his mind like that. “Ianno Piratimare was here to give us the history of the craft, as best he knew,” she explained. “Do you know of Allyria Cassamagi?”

“Oh gods,” muttered the high commander. “More history.”

A shush from Milo silenced him. “I know of the Bridge of Allyria,” Nic said. “And my ship.”

Risa nodded. “Both were named after her. Allyria Cassamagi was an enchantress of exceeding skill. It was she who tied the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn and the horns of Cassaforte together to establish a peaceful coexistence between the ruler and his subjects, among other marvels. Upon her death, many centuries ago, she left instructions to the Piratimare family of how to build a craft that would be unsinkable and virtually indestructible.”

“An asset to the country, not a toy.” For the first time, Lorco Fiernetto looked directly at Nic. “To be commandeered in times of dire need, such as this.”

Risa continued, unperturbed. “The family lost these instructions and did not discover them until three hundred years ago. Though they thought it folly, at the advice of Caza Cassamagi they built the ship and it was put into service, only to be lost on its first voyage. The Piratimares assumed that Allyria’s instructions had been faulty, or their execution of them, and that the boat had indeed sunk with its crew.”

“Only it had not,” said Milo. He looked at Nic. “We now think it must have been taken by pirates. And as Allyria intended, the ship became non-functional in their hands.”

“Cursed,” Nic whispered.

Milo nodded. “Ianno was very firm on the fact that only someone of pure Piratimare blood should have been able to reclaim the ship.”

He seemed about to say more on the subject. Risa, who had witnessed Nic’s discomfort in the presence of the cazarro earlier, smoothly broke in. “But somehow you managed anyway, Niccolo Dattore. And for that we are grateful.”

Nic had pressed his lips together tightly while Milo spoke, but now he looked at the Divetri girl with appreciation. He cleared the lump that had gathered in his throat and said, “But Massina is in the opposite direction of where you want to go. The
Allyria
needs to go into battle. Not to retreat.”

“I have thirty years of tactical experience in these matters,” said Fiernetto. “What have you? Two weeks?”

Nic would not have been summoned to this roundtable of war if his opinion had not been wanted, he realized. He found himself unafraid to give it. “I know that ship,” he countered. “I know what she was made to do.”

“Boy.” The high commander sounded as angry as the rain without, beating against the chamber windows. “What good will one galleon do against sixteen or more ships of war? The
Allyria
has no cannonados.”

Nic refused to be provoked by being addressed as
boy.
Instead, he turned his attention to Risa. “Isn’t there some sorcery you could perform? Your powers are wondrous.”

“You flatter me well, Captain,” she replied. Nic was a little surprised she addressed him as such. “Like a sponge I have wrung dry my brain this morning, trying to think of some way that I can lend aid, but I am dry.”

“Couldn’t you … I don’t know. Repair the damaged vessels with your enchantments?” She shook her head. “Enchant what small craft we have to become mighty warships?”

For a moment, when she paused, he had hope. But then Risa demurred once more. “I have the knowledge to make something appear more of what it actually is than before.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s all about the object’s natural function and is difficult to explain. I could make a gondola appear to be a warship, but it would still only be a gondola. It would not hold more than two or three people, nor could it do the things a warship could do.”

“That’s still a good idea, though.” Milo snapped his fingers. “Perhaps if we stationed some old gondolas around the city’s perimeter and made them appear as warships, it would at least make the Comte Dumond think twice before attacking.”