The Instruments of Control (11 page)

In her time tending bar at the Hen and Caber, Renata had met more than a few veteran soldiers. Every one of them, once they’d drunk themselves limber and eager to unburden themselves, described life in wartime much the same way: long stretches of dull boredom that turned to sheer blinding terror in the space of a heartbeat.

It was like that when the road wardens attacked.

The Seven-Fingered Men set out along the Rover’s Strait, their ragged train unencumbered by any notion of military discipline. Marco led a rough procession of horses, footmen, and carts, all clattering along the forested road at the speed of a slow walk.

That was good for Renata and Hedy, at least, since they’d been manacled to the back of their own stolen wagon. No room for passengers, the back piled high with plunder and broken-down tents, so they trudged behind it with their wrists chained at the end of short tethers.

“They’re going to rest soon, right?” Hedy asked. “They’ve got to stop and rest soon.”

Stumbling along beside her, Renata forced herself to smile. Someone had to put on a cheerful face, even if she didn’t feel it in her heart.

“What’s the matter? Don’t like hiking?”

“My legs are shorter than yours,” Hedy grumbled.

Marco’s men paid them no heed, some of them outpacing the cart without giving the prisoners a second glance.

“I still don’t understand it,” Renata said. “You and that mouse mask.”

Hedy shrugged. “We’re all given names by the Dire Mother, and masks to suit. Master thinks it’s an insult that she named me Mouse because I’m timid and small, but I think he’s wrong. Mice see and hear everything, and they can go where bigger creatures can’t. Everyone underestimates a mouse.”

“No, I mean…you’re
kind
. Why would you want to be a witch?”

Hedy frowned. “We can be kind. Or we can be as cruel as you make us. We’ve been burned, hung, cut up…how kind would
you
be? It doesn’t matter. Any day now, we’ll all be going to Wisdom’s Grave, and you’ll never hear of a witch again outside of campfire stories.”

“Wisdom’s Grave?”

“The resting-place of the first witch who ever lived. The font of knowledge and magic. It will be a homeland for people like me. We always begin our sabbats by asking the Dire, ‘Will you lead us to Wisdom’s Grave?’ And she always responds, ‘Yes, I will.’”

“So why hasn’t she yet?” Renata asked.

Hedy stared straight ahead, her lips pursed.

“She will. When the time is right. It’s a wonderful place, where we can be wild and free. And
some
cattle may live there, useful ones, but they’ll do as
we
say.”

“Cattle?”

“That’s…well, anyone who isn’t a witch—”

“Like me,” Renata said.

“It’s just a word.”

“Words mean things, Hedy.”

“Some mean it harshly,” Hedy said, “but Miss Owl says it’s a compliment. Think about it: cattle give milk and meat, leather and bone. Every part of a cow is valuable. You can’t have a community without cattle.”

They walked side by side in awkward silence.

“Hedy,” Renata eventually asked, her tone cautious, “have you ever seen any proof that this ‘Wisdom’s Grave’ really exists?”

Hedy wrinkled her nose. “Have you ever seen proof that the Eternal Garden exists? But you still think you’ll go there when you die, don’t you?”

“That’s different. You’re talking about a place here, a place of soil and flesh and blood.”

“I’m talking,” the girl said, “about the coven who saved my life and gave me something to live
for
. You don’t know where I’ve been. You don’t get to judge my—”

The keening cry of a nightjar echoed through the woods. Renata’s chin shot up, her ears perked.

“Shh!”

“Don’t you
shh
me! Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean—”

Renata waved one manacled wrist, chains jangling, and whispered hoarsely as the bird hooted a second time.

“Hedy.
Listen
. That’s not a bird. That’s a man making a—”

That was all she had time to say before the battle began.

Lean men on lean horses crashed through the foliage on both sides of the road, bows already nocked and ready to fire. A random shot whined past Renata’s ear like a furious hornet, as she grabbed Hedy and dragged her to the muddy ground. Their tethers kept them from slipping too far away, but she still hauled the squirming girl about half a foot beneath the back of their wagon. The wooden slats over their heads offered shade but little else as the fight raged around them.

One of Marco’s men went down with a chest like a pincushion, writhing in agony as he feebly slapped at the arrow shafts that impaled him. A horse shrieked as a running bandit slashed its throat open, collapsing onto its forelegs and sending its rider—a road warden dressed in the blue and brown of the Aglianan militia—tumbling from the saddle. He’d barely hit the dirt before the victorious bandit brought his sword point slamming down into the man’s open-faced helmet.

Marco strode through the fray with his mighty two-hander, laughing as he swung the massive steel with brutal efficiency, cutting down his enemies and leaving carnage in his wake.
He’s loving this
, Renata thought with horror,
and worse…he’s winning
.

All hopes of rescue shattered like fine-spun glass as the bandits turned the tide. Corpses in blue and brown dropped all around them, outnumbered and outfought by Marco’s band. The Seven-Fingered Men had taken casualties of their own, but it was too little, too late. Renata watched as a lone road warden turned his steed and thundered away, heading off to find reinforcements and raise an alarm.

A single arrow impaled him through the back of the neck. He collapsed in the saddle. The horse carried his corpse a good fifty feet before it finally slowed to a confused trot.

For a moment, near silence. Nothing but the fingers of the wind in the trees and whimpering moans.

“Medic,” one of the bandits shouted, “he’s bleedin’ out!
Medic!
”

Now came the scramble to shake off the battle shock, take stock, and save the dying. Boots pounded through the mud as Marco pointed and bellowed orders. Renata and Hedy eased out from under the wagon, nearly entangled in their chains.

One-Eye stood near the wagon, staring down at a dead bandit with a look of sheer disgust. Renata’s heart pounded. Her gambit could backfire in a dozen ways, but it was all she had.

“I warned him,” she said softly, just loud enough for One-Eye’s ears. “I warned him we’d be attacked if we took this road.”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at her. He just walked away. Now, though, his glare was fixed on Marco.

Message delivered
, Renata thought. It was a hopeful beginning.

Once the wounded had been loaded onto carts—and the dead left to feed the forest—the column made double time until they were well away from Agliana. They camped for the night in a hilly meadow, circling the stolen wagons and building fires just big enough to stave off the worst of the night’s chill.

Back in their tent, chained to the center stake once again, Hedy sat silent. Renata stretched out her leg and parted the skins with the toe of her boot, giving her a narrow peek out at the campsite.

“Renata?” Hedy asked, her voice small.

“What is it?”

“Are we still friends?”

Renata squinted through the partly open flap, straining to see. Out in the camp, an argument raged around the fire, but she couldn’t make out the words. Just the body language: pacing, fists punching the air.

“Sure,” Renata said. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Well…I did call you a cow. On accident.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

She reached backward, found Hedy’s hand in the dark, and gave it a squeeze.

“We’re in this together,” Renata said. “And we’ll get out of it together. I promise.”

Out by the fire, Marco shot to his feet. He swung his mighty fist and a bandit’s shadow crumpled to the ground.

“Uh-oh. Looks like somebody’s angry,” Renata murmured.

She yanked her leg back and let the flap fall closed when she saw a figure prowling their way. One-Eye ripped open the furs and stomped into the tent, dumping another armload of half-spoiled food onto the grass between the two women. Renata couldn’t miss the ugly purple bruise rising on his chin.

“Why do you follow him?” she asked as he turned to go.

“Stupid question. He’s the boss.”

“The ‘boss’ just got how many of you killed today because he refused to listen? I counted at least five bodies.”

One-Eye glowered down at her. “You’re a witch. He was probably right not to.”

“Oh? Does he listen to you when
you
give him good advice?”

From the pinched look on his face, Renata knew she’d scored a direct hit.

“Don’t mean nothin’,” One-Eye said. “Way our band works, Marco’s gonna be in charge ’til the end of the road.”

“Why’s that?”

“Don’t suppose you noticed how many fingers he’s got.”

“Ten,” Renata said.

“Aye, and so did the boss before him. Boss before
him
, the original, had seven. Hence our oh-so-clever name. There’s only one way to take the boss’s spot. Trial by combat. And there ain’t no man in this camp stupid enough to take him on. So you girls better get used to making him happy, ’cause you’re gonna be doing it for a long, long time.”

He left without another word.

Renata weighed their options.

Poisoning Marco—poisoning the whole camp, if they could manage it—and making their escape was still their best chance. Hedy had the deadly herbs, wrapped in leaves and hidden away, and all she needed was a mortar and pestle to create her concoction.

How to get them to
swallow
it, that was the hard part.

“Hedy, that poison…can a person become acclimated to it over time? So that a small dose wouldn’t hurt them so badly?”

“Oh yes. Miss Viper, she’s—she’s
awful
, but she taught me the trick. She’s immune to just about everything. Now she poisons herself for fun.”

Renata scooted around, her chains rattling, to face her.

“How long would it take to bring me to the point where I could take a
small
dose of that stuff and shake it off right away?”

Hedy looked Renata up and down, brow furrowed as she did some mental math.

“It depends on age, height and weight, your overall health…for a very small dose, not terribly long, especially not if I push your tolerances as hard as I can.”

“How hard?”

Hedy sighed. “Let’s just say, this is going to hurt. A
lot
.”

As two dour-faced guardsmen in griffin tabards escorted Dante along a corridor of dank gray stone, he could already hear shouting from up ahead. A stout oak door muffled the voices behind it, but Dante’s ears were sharp enough to hear all he needed to.

“—telling you, you must arrest her at once!”

“Again with the tedious ‘musts.’”

“This,” snapped a third voice, “is the basest sacrilege.”

One of the guardsmen rapped reluctantly on the door and poked his head in.

“Er, sire? There’s a gentleman here to speak to you regarding, um, the…matter at hand. He says it won’t wait.”

“Well,” Dante heard Rhys say, “I suppose I have no choice but to see him. It’s not like I’m the king of Itresca or anything.”

“Should I…send him away, sire?”

“No, no, I have a theory that this day can’t get any worse. I seek to
test
it. Let him in.”

As Dante stepped past the guard and into the strategy room, he took a quick inventory. There was Rhys, leaning with both palms against the map table, looking exasperated. The bald advisor, Merrion, trying to disappear into the corner behind him. Dante hadn’t met Bishop Yates, but he knew the man by countenance. As for the taller, rail-thin man hammering the other side of the map table with his fist, his forest-green stola embroidered with golden thread marked him as Vaughn, the Cardinal of Itresca.

He wasn’t supposed to be back from Lerautia yet
, Dante thought.
Hmm. Possibly a good thing
. He approached Rhys and offered him a sweeping bow.

“Your Highness, my name is Dante Uccello. And I am here to make you a very powerful man.”

Rhys slumped against the table.

“He’ll
make
me powerful, he says. Is there one man in this room,” he asked, “just one, who will acknowledge that I
rule this country?
”

“You rule by the Gardener’s grace,” Vaughn said imperiously, “and He can seize your crown just as easily as He placed it upon your head.”

Yates gave Dante a sharp look. “I know your name. You’re that Mirenzei traitor. There’s a noose waiting for you.”

“It’ll have to keep waiting a bit longer, I’m afraid. I’ve grown rather attached to my neck over the years. So I take it you gents are discussing the Livia Serafini situation?”

“What do you know about it?” Vaughn demanded, scowling.

“I know you’re letting the greatest opportunity of your lives slip through your fingers, that’s what.” Dante turned to the king. “Let me guess. In this room we have two votes against letting the Serafini woman speak—the two gents in green—plus the messenger from Pope Carlo who you’ve got locked in a room upstairs.”

“You
what?
” Vaughn turned on Rhys.

Rhys pressed his palm to his forehead. “I was wrong. This day could get worse after all.”

“What if I told you,” Dante said, “that I have a way to deal with Livia, deal with Carlo, and make everyone who matters—that being you gentlemen and also myself—happy?”

“I’d say you’d better be able to come through with that offer,” Rhys said, “unless you’d like to see our
downstairs
accommodations.”

“There is only one ‘way to deal’ with this situation,” Vaughn snapped. “Render the heretic to her brother’s court, where she can be properly condemned!”

“Now, now,” Dante said, holding up one wagging finger. “Let’s not be hasty. You don’t want to appear subservient to Verinia, when Itresca has a claim of her own.”

“All that matters is the will of the Church—” Vaughn started, but Rhys cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“A claim of our own? Explain yourself.”

I could explain
, Dante thought,
that you know what a prize Livia is, and that you know full well you’ll get nothing but a polite thank-you for sending her back to Carlo. No, you want to exploit her.

And so do I
.

“You do have blasphemy laws on the books, do you not?”

“Of course,” Rhys said, brow furrowed.

Dante swept out his arm, pointing to the door.

“And yet, as we speak, a layperson—a woman, no less—is usurping the duties of an ordained priest. Brazenly flouting the laws of the land.”

Dante gazed around the room, taking in each man one at a time, reading their faces. He finally settled on Rhys, locking eyes with the king.

“So arrest her. But
keep
her. Keep her here.”

Rhys ran his tongue across his lips, deep in thought.

“Clear the room,” he said. “Merrion, you too. Give us a minute alone.”

Once the priests and the spymaster had gone, leaving Rhys and Dante standing face to face at the edge of the map table, Rhys glanced to the closed door and back again.

“All right. Out with it, Uccello. What’s your game?”

“Throwing Livia in prison will be a sop to those rabid badgers in green. They just want to see her punished.
Where
she’s punished shouldn’t matter. This will buy us time and keep her securely in our hands while we arrange our next move.”

“‘Our’?” Rhys asked.

“
Our
, Your Highness. We will be partners in this enterprise. You and me, until the profitable end.”

“You still haven’t told me what ‘this enterprise’ is.”

“You already know what you need to know,” Dante said. “You know that Livia is a pawn made of solid gold, and you’d be a fool to let Carlo take her from you. What you don’t know is how to profit from her without our newly minted pope turning his wrath on
you
. I do. All I ask of you is a scrap of trust for now. Just the tiniest scrap. All will be revealed in good time.”

Rhys turned to the map table. His fingers played across a marble weight carved in the shape of a coiled spring.

“All right. You may have your scrap of trust. For now. Use it quickly, because it won’t last long.”

Dante bowed at the waist. “You have my gratitude.”

“Which is worth less than my trust.”

“You’ll have more than that soon enough. Hold your men back for now. Arrest Livia one hour after sunrise, when the daytime crowds begin to gather.”

“Why?” Rhys squinted at him.

“So that your people can see the just fate of a heretic,” Dante lied with a smile.

Right now
, he thought,
Mari Renault is bringing a lost child home safely to his mother
. He watched her upon the garishly painted stage of his mind, another good deed to set the world right.

*     *     *

Nightfall at the walls of Lychwold reminded Livia of her days in the Holy City, sneaking down to the Alms District in her guise as the Lady in Brown. By torchlight and candle she’d move among the needy there, passing out food, medicines, anything she could scrounge or steal from her father’s estate.

And now, as always, her fond memories turned to images of burning buildings and charred corpses.

She didn’t talk about that, though—not directly. As the crowd dwindled in the dark, her rambling seventeen-hour sermon coiled back in on itself and turned to thoughts of charity and duty.

“—the Parable of the Lazy Apprentice,” she said, her voice cracking despite the fresh waterskin dangling in her hand. “Do you know that one? It’s about the danger of doing merely ‘enough.’ The story begins on a warm spring morning, quite different from this dark and chill. The kind of morning where the sun hangs in a cloudless sky, and a gossamer mist blankets the meadow…”

Perhaps
, she idly thought,
they’ll all get bored and go home to sleep
. She was bone-tired herself, her throat sore and feet aching, and the knowledge that her ordeal was only halfway over made it all the worse. The end of the feast was so far out of sight it might as well not exist.

The audience thinned out, with pockets of onlookers trudging back to the city gates, a hot meal, and a warm bed, but just as many stayed behind. Someone came down from the gates with a crate of candles, passing the small ivory tapers through the crowd. Lights blossomed in the dark, and upturned faces glowed as onlookers sat down on the cold, wet grass around Livia’s stage.

Amadeo had bags under his eyes, but he’d made it clear he was going to stick out the feast right alongside her. Livia was fairly sure he hadn’t eaten, even though she was the only one who had to fast. He made his way carefully through the crowd, stepping over a couple of snoring bodies, and passed her a folded note.

A young boy with a candle strained out his arm at the edge of the makeshift stage, offering his candle to Livia. She took it with her thanks, holding the candle near the parchment as she told her tale.

“Traditional to offer sacrament of oil at sunrise
,” read Amadeo’s cramped handwriting. “
Step down to let me do it and you can get short nap in tent before resuming
.”

The offer was as tempting as a purse of gold. An hour’s rest, just one solitary, blessed hour. She could muster her strength and come back for a big finish. A little rest, that was all she needed. She looked over to Amadeo, about to nod her assent—then froze.

And what would that say about me?
she thought.

Any priest who took up this challenge would be expected to see it through. Sleep for an hour? Might as well break my fast with a three-course meal while I’m at it
.

She knew Amadeo’s intentions were good, and he only offered because he cared for her, but she couldn’t hold back a sudden flash of anger.

So I can talk, for a time, but step aside for a man to finish the job. Is that it? Am I some curiosity, a trained animal, there to entertain but put back on the shelf when the real work’s at hand?

No.

I am my father’s daughter
.

“I need to say something.”

She stopped, mid-parable. Sleepy faces opened their eyes, jarred by the interruption in the story.

“It is traditional, on Saint Wessel’s Feast, to perform the annual Sacrament of First Oils.”

Amadeo stepped up to the stage, ready to explain and introduce himself. She stopped him with a raised palm.

“Many of you will go to the cathedral in Lychwold to receive this sacrament. I hope that if you do, I’ll see your faces here again afterward. It is an important sacrament, a protective blessing against the coming cold of winter, and I encourage all of you to seek it out.”

Livia paused. She took a long, slow look across the crowd, studying their upturned faces, before she spoke again.

“For those who choose to stay, or for those who join us at daybreak…
I
will be performing the sacrament as well.”

She ignored the sudden murmur in the crowd and Amadeo’s shock. She merely smiled.

“Seek the sacrament where you will. Follow your heart. That’s all I ask of you. Now then…shall we continue the story?”