The Nascenza Conspiracy (19 page)

“I don’t understand.” Emilia had stopped dead at the news. Her eyebrows furrowed with thought.

“It makes sense,” Petro said. He was aware that he was babbling and that his mouth was working more quickly than his thoughts, but the words came pouring out. “She said that Vereinigtelände would gain direct access to our ports, which is something they don’t have because they’re landlocked. In return, they were to pledge their armies for our protection. Don’t you see? We protected ourselves from Pays d’Azur two years ago, even though we lost most of our fleet, and now that we’re slightly weakened
…
”

“The ’Landers want our ports.” Emilia seemed reinvigorated. All the care that had weighed down her face for the past two days suddenly lifted. “If they have their armies in Cassaforte and the emperor’s daughter in King Milo’s bed, we’re just an annex of Vereinigtelände. And what better way to convince us that we need their armies than to attack us on every front while making it seem as if they’re our friends? Their spy Gustophe put a few hints in Prince Berto’s ear, and crash goes Cassaforte around us. Perhaps they suggested to Pays d’Azur that we were ripe for the invasion. Then, when we’re still recovering from that
…
”

“They move in,” said Petro, finishing his original thought, “when it looks as if there’s insurrection from within Cassaforte itself—since it’s Cassaforteans who are kidnapping a cazarrino and killing innocents in the name of a true king who’s only nine years old. King Milo knows that Vico would never be a real threat, but he would be under the impression that Cassaforte is beset on all sides and in need of additional armies. He would have no choice but to marry the foreigner.”

“It’s as if they’ve opened their back door into the country and have already started to file in,” Emilia said. But how in the world did they know they would have a cazarrino falling into their lap? They couldn’t have known the course Brother Narciso was taking to Nascenza.”

“Perhaps having Petro Divetri appear was just good fortune for them—an extra bargaining chip in case they needed it. The lynchpin of their plan is obviously the massive fabrication built around Vico,” Petro mused.

“They never intended him to be king at all,” Emilia agreed. For the first time, she seemed almost genuinely sorry for the child. “Poor little brat. From the moment he was born, he was nothing more to them than an opportunity to be used at some strategic moment.”

“A pawn,” said Petro. “No one cares when a pawn is sacrificed, so long as your opponent ends up checkmated. All these loyalists are pawns, too, part of a giant chess game.”

“And we’re the only two who suspect.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. The morning sun was almost blinding. Petals drifted on the warm breezes from the wildflowers they’d trampled underfoot only moments before. It seemed almost obscene, how insanely bright and cheerful the landscape around them was as they contemplated a future Cassaforte under ’Lander control. Then Petro nearly startled out of his skin when, from the direction they had just come, he heard the snap of a branch. It was enough to recall him to his duties. “We’ve got to find out for sure.”

They had come up with a story earlier, as they walked. They were to be mushroom collectors, returning to the village of Larocha after an excursion into the mountains. Petro wore Emilia’s hat. With his own hair covering his eyes and the hat’s large brim obscuring the rest of his face, he looked fairly nondescript and unthreatening. Emilia didn’t have to muss her short auburn tresses very extensively in order to look as if they’d been fungus-hunting for a few days, since at that point they were both filthy. After they created a makeshift sling out of Emilia’s surcoat, they filled it and her rucksack with mushrooms they found along the way—common criminis, dense clusters of cinnamon caps, delicate, fringed silver trumpets, and a few puffballs.

They trod well to the south of the stationary search team’s location, and approached it from the west, so it would appear that they were coming from a different direction. Petro chewed on a long straw, and Emilia stuck some wilted flowers in her hair. “Let me do the talking,” she reminded him. “I’ll say you’re my cousin, a simpleton.”

Petro couldn’t help but feel a touch of outrage. “Why do I have to be a simpleton?” he protested. “What am I supposed to do? Drool? Tell them we’re lovers.”

The tinge of red that appeared in Emilia’s cheeks at the suggestion would only have enhanced the lie had she not disapproved of it. “No,” she said firmly, bringing that possibility to a sad close. “Brother and sister, then. Follow my lead and we’ll get through fine.”

“Yes,” said Petro to no one in particular. “You lead, because you’ve had so much experience at counterfeiting your identity.” Though he sounded disaffected, his stomach roiled with anxiety. His fingers sought out the moon charms still in his pocket, to rub them for luck—they would need as much luck as they could get. His fingertips met with a curious grit once he plunged his hands into the mass of metal; it was as if he’d spent the day on the beaches and come away with a pocketful of sand.

When they drew near the camp, Petro could have sworn they had been at this exact spot before. Although the brim of his hat blocked a good deal of his view and he was attempting to keep his face low, he recognized the space as the very spot where, the afternoon before, he and Emilia had stopped to argue. How strange that in all the wilderness, they should have come back here again. Two men were sitting upon the rock where Emilia had undressed—Petro tried in vain not to remember that provocative sight as he lumbered behind the soft-walking guard. Another man knelt by the very stream where Vico had filled his water bottle, seemingly washing his face in the cold water. Two more talked nearby, among the trees, while the last seemed to be looking at the sun to determine the time while he twirled an oversized Scillian candle between his fingers.

All of them looked tired, as if they hadn’t slept since Petro and Emilia had absconded with the prince. They wore not the accoutrements of the Vereinigtelände army, but the normal sturdy leathers and thick cloth of citizens of the
pasecollina
. They were Cassaforteans, and they were fools who’d turned against their own countrymen, all for the promise of power under a puppet king.

“The best of mornings!” Emilia called out, alerting the men to their presence. They leapt to attention, apparently not expecting visitors in this part of the woods. Emilia pretended not to notice their alert postures and wary expressions, however. She kept a bright smile on her face and a hand hovering over the blades concealed beneath her bundled coat. “Never thought I’d run across travelers in these parts.”

“Nor did we,” said the man who had been fiddling with the Scillian candle. Still twirling the bundle of tightly-packed powder between his fingers, he took two steps forward. Petro didn’t recognize him, either from Campobasso or the loyalist camp. In fact, he recognized none of the men within sight, though the man by the water was too far away to see clearly, and partly obscured by the rock.

Did Emilia realize that they were in the same spot as yesterday? For some reason it seemed too big a coincidence to ignore. Yet she advanced seemingly without reservation. “My brother and I’ve been up the mountain a bit, collecting mushrooms for our village’s Midsummer feast. I don’t suppose any of you would be needing a few in exchange for a luni or two?”

“We’re not looking for mushrooms,” said the man, not moving. Petro didn’t at all like the insinuation in his voice. Hoping to escape the man’s stern glare, he wandered a few feet to the side. One of the trees in this section of the woods had a strange marking on the side. He was one hundred percent certain that when he and Emilia had walked through here yesterday, the chalked legend had not been present. Perhaps the scouting party had made it.

“Wildflowers for your pretty brides?” Emilia’s attempts to be coquettish, coming from someone as grubby as she was, were slightly grotesque. “Or firewood for your bonfires? In Larocha we keep the fires burning all Midsummer night, and that takes a load or two of wood, it does.”

“Larocha, eh?” The man studied them both. “You’re not from the city?”

“Cassaforte city?” Emilia’s confidence in her story was slipping. Petro, too, felt slightly panicked. Had she made some error? Were these men by some odd coincidence from Larocha? “That would be a long way for a pair like us to walk before the holiday.”

“Oh, yes indeed,” said the man, not budging from his spot. “A very long walk.”

A second marking caught Petro’s eye. This one lay on the side of the rock—the same simple configuration of three lines crisscrossed by a curve. Petro knew for a fact that it hadn’t been there when Emilia had lain down her surcoat and tunic. “If there’s any way we can be of help
…
” Emilia started to say.

The man said nothing.

For a long time he stared at them, as did the others. Petro felt as he did when he and the other pilgrims had met the loyalists in the field south of Campobasso. They were prey, walking unawares into a trap. He should have trusted his instincts then, and he intended to trust them now. Petro placed his hand upon Emilia’s arm, silently warning her not to say anything more. Her hand tensed over her blades, ready to draw at the slightest movement.

After a very long time, the man with the firework sneered and laughed. “Do you recognize them?” he called out.

Petro froze as the man kneeling by the little stream rose, revealing a sunburned face and a decidedly squashed head. His tiny pig eyes glinted. Simon Jacobuci himself strode forth, limping on his short leg. “Him I know, though he’s gone to some trouble to muck over his ugly face,” he said, stabbing a finger in Petro’s direction. “Her, I don’t recall. It’s not the slut he was traveling with.”

Emilia didn’t so much draw her blades as allow them to leap into her hand, glinting and lethal. She used her left arm to protect Petro, while her right pointed at Jacobuci’s throat. “I’m armed,” she warned him.

“So are they.” Without the least fear in his eyes, Simon nodded in their direction. Petro whirled around to see several more loyalists advancing from the forest behind them. Several of them wielded blades that were obviously ’Lander in origin, though one carried a pitchfork.

“We’re badly outnumbered,” Emilia murmured, softly so only Petro could hear. “I’ll attract attention. You need to save yourself.”

“It’s too late,” Petro said. For the first time, he knew a plan she created wouldn’t work.

“Get back to Cassaforte city,” she said in his ear. “Tell your sister what you’ve learned. Go! To the palace!”

Had she impaled him with a white-hot skewer, it couldn’t have burned him any more. She knew. Emilia knew who he really was. But for how long? Before Petro could at all respond, Simon Jacobuci snapped his fingers. “You can come out now, highness,” he called.

When Prince Vico emerged from behind the rock, Petro ought to have been surprised. Emilia’s statement, however, had knocked the stupefaction clean out of him. Surrounded by so many adults, the boy looked paler and smaller than before. His neck trembled proudly as he lifted his nose and stared up at Emilia, and then Petro.

“You were marking our trail the entire time,” Petro said, his jaw set and grim. “You marked it so they could follow you. But you had to stop when we made you start walking in front of us, didn’t you? That’s why they couldn’t pick up our trail any farther than this.” He looked at Emilia. Her eyes flashed in understanding as well as anger. It was obvious she was still trying to think of some way out of their predicament.

His nostrils flaring, Vico reached into his pocket and withdrew a nugget of pure chalk. It left a soft powder on his fingers—the very same that Petro had seen the day before. “As you said yourself, I’m nine,” he said, tossing it to the ground at Petro’s feet. “I’m not stupid. Assassin.”

No foul odor lingers longer than the sweet smell of treachery.

—Lorco Fiernetto, High Commander of the Cassaforte
Palace Guards, in his private journals

The enforced march after their surrender seemed to last for leagues. With rough rope tying their hands behind their backs, it had been almost impossible to maintain their balance as they stumbled over field and through forest. Petro had come close to falling once, his nosedive interrupted only by slamming his shoulder and chin against a fir. Emilia, however, had a particularly bad topple on a steep bed of slippery pine needles several hours into their journey. With no way to catch or steady herself, she fell to the ground and rolled a very long way before coming to a stop. Petro’s automatic reaction, although they’d been separated by a number of people, had been to run to help her, but he’d been violently restrained. Not once during her spill did she let out a yell or any sign of pain. The most noise she made, when two of the loyalists yanked her up the incline and forced her back into the line, was a grunt of annoyance.

Hour after hour passed. They marched eastward, at a rate far brisker than any Brother Narciso had taken during the pilgrimage, over terrain unlike any they’d passed over before. Morning changed to midday, and midday changed to afternoon. By the time the sun was beginning to dip in the west, Petro felt stunned. His feet and legs were numb, moving only by force of habit and without any sensation whatsoever. In fact, he wondered if he’d ever feel them again—or so he might have wondered, if his brain had been working. All thought seemed too far beyond him. There wasn’t a muscle or hair or patch of skin upon his body that didn’t throb. When at last they reached their destination, his eyelids were too droopy and his head thudding too heavily to even take in where they were. He found himself being shoved down to his knees; his head struck something heavy and wooden. It was a filled watering trough, he realized, after staring at it without comprehension for several moments. Leaves and needles from the surrounding trees floated on the surface of the dark water within, and some kind of insect skated across it on its long, crooked legs, but Petro didn’t care. He’d had aught to drink that day during the lengthy walk, and his tongue felt like sandpaper. Worse still was the sensation when he thrust his face into the trough and let the stale, lukewarm water slake his thirst. With no way to use his hands for balance, fluid filled his nostrils. His throat was so parched that, assaulted by the liquid, he feared it might shatter altogether.

The water seemed to work its natural magic, both cooling him down and soothing the pain of his sore windpipe. After he’d satisfied his need, he fell back onto the ground and curled onto his side. His cracked lips moved as little as possible as he prayed for stillness. But in the minutes that followed, no one came to get him. Gradually, as the setting sun passed from his eyes, he began to feel more like himself. An aching and fatigued shadow of himself, to be sure, but one who realized that by now he ought to have taken in every detail possible of this new encampment and the people in it.

This camp was much larger than the one in which they’d found Vico. Though the tents here were very like those at the other camp, there were far more of them. From his sideways position on the ground, Petro could see perhaps a dozen, or maybe a score. Most were two to three times the size. He figured they must be quite close to Nascenza.

Emilia. Where was she? Nowhere nearby, of that Petro was certain. Rather than call out and attract attention, he kept his puffy lips closed and his eyes watchful. The incline of the ground here was steeper than at the other camp, and instead of having cut down trees to make a clearing, the loyalists had set up tents between them as best as possible. All in all, the camp looked makeshift, as if it had only been here a day or so, or as if the people here did not intend to stay long.

Petro was attempting to pull himself forward so that he could spy around the trough into the center of camp when he heard a familiar voice in the distance. “What do you mean, he’s not here?” shrilled the strident tones of the little prince. Somewhere across the camp, Vico was throwing a fit. “I was told he would be here! I was promised! Time after time I have been promised!” A deep voice uttered something in reply, causing Vico to yell, “I wish my uncle to be brought to me
now
!”

It was difficult to feel much emotion, depleted as he felt, but Petro experienced a twinge at the sound of the boy’s tantrum. Vico had betrayed them, true, but he hadn’t known any better. Even now he was convinced that his uncle, the mysterious spy, would appear and lead him down to Cassaforte city, through adoring crowds in Palace Square to the throne that had awaited him all his life. Petro, however, wasn’t at all surprised that the uncle wasn’t here. Chess pawns might well know the hand of their player, but rarely spied his face. He pulled himself forward a few more hand’s widths and caught a glimpse of the boy as he was led into a tent.

Where would Emilia be? Petro’s eyes darted around, trying to gather clues. Before he could take in much more, however, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps behind him. “Up ye go, jackanapes,” he heard Simon Jacobuci growl. Petro’s vision went white as the man yanked him by his bound wrists, pulling his arms up and backwards and nearly wrenching them from their sockets. Even if he’d been mired in quicksand or weighted down with bags of sand, he would have had no choice but to scramble up to escape that piercing, muscle-rending pain. “Thought you could pull one over on us, did you, making off with our little prize? Well, this is bigger than you or me, lad. Bigger than you or me.”

Simon used his strength and advantage to bang Petro’s body against a pine tree as he hauled him into the center of the camp. Everything on the right side of Petro’s face seemed to go numb as he felt it smash into the bark. Specks of red flew from his lips as he muttered an obscenity. When he licked them, he found his mouth full of the dark, metallic taste of blood. “That boy will never be king,” he said as best he could.

“That boy will do what he’s told. Just like you, son.” Again Simon shoved Petro into the closest tree as they wove their way through the camp. This time, however, Petro anticipated the push and let his shoulder take the brunt of the blow. No one in the camp seemed at all shocked to see Petro manhandled.

They were headed to a tent on the outskirts, it seemed, smaller than the rest and adjoining a rubbish pile that stunk of meat scraps and refuse. Scavenging mice scurried out of sight at their approach. “What did you do with my friend?” Petro growled. If they had laid an inappropriate hand on Emilia, he’d give them hell.

Simon didn’t say anything for a long moment. When they reached the tent, he wheeled his prisoner about so that they were face-to-face. Up close, he reeked of pickled garlic and sweat, and his eyes were cold, shiny, and hard, like chips of black volcanic glass. “Ask the brat yourself,” he said. Then, with one last mighty push, he sent Petro sprawling backwards.

Through the canvas flap of the tent he went flying, tripping over his own feet until his back and head hit one of the tent’s central supports. Down he went, tumbling over and over on the dirt floor and getting a mouthful of grit in the process. He spent a moment spitting it out and blinking his eyes clear before he realized that he could see a familiar face. “Emilia.” His bleeding lips seemed to obscure the word.

Like him, her hands were still bound, and she lay propped up against a barrel at the tent’s back wall. Her face crumpled with sympathy at the sight of him. “You look awful,” she said.

Considering that Emilia didn’t look any too good herself, what with her torn clothing and the matte of dried blood and hair adhering to the side of her face, Petro realized he must have hit the side of the tree harder than he’d thought. His right eyelid seemed to be swelling shut, second by second. He turned to the tent’s other occupant, sitting in the corner opposite. “Adrio?” he asked, his heart pounding.

“Petro?” The other boy had been staring at him since his inglorious entrance moments before, but only now dared open his mouth. It was indeed Adrio Ventimilla, looking pale and frightened but, unlike the other two, not much the worse for wear. His hands had been bound to his ankles in some complicated arrangement that left him unable to do anything more than creep, crablike, on his feet and rear end. He blinked at the narrow parting Petro had left in the tent flaps, as if he hadn’t seen daylight for some time and found even the dusk blinding. “What are you doing here?” Adrio’s voice creaked from disuse, like an old fruit cellar door. He was so excited to see Petro, though, that his amazement was rapidly transforming into exhilaration. “How did you—? When—? Oh gods, Petro.” He wheezed with exhaustion and despair both. “It’s been awful.”

How cruel it seemed that once they’d finally been reunited, neither one could move toward the other. Petro had to content himself with jerking himself bit by bit into an upright position against the support post he’d struck. The tent in which they’d been placed was by no means spartan—a heavy arras hung around the perimeter, leaving a crawl space between the arras and the actual tent wall and creating more warmth than the mere canvas did. A fine rug had once covered the ground, but Adrio had managed to crumple it into makeshift bedding. An empty weapon rack occupied one corner.

“This is all my fault.” Petro stopped. Though the emotions of the last three days wanted to pour out, he found them dammed up, blocked by restraint. He and Adrio had had words before he’d been taken—they’d almost been enemies instead of friends. How awful would it be if he were to apologize and pour out his heart, then find that Adrio had already decided he hated him? And yet, Adrio seemed so eager. “I’m sorry,” Petro squeaked out.

“I’m the one who’s sorry! I’m the fool!” Although Petro didn’t think he could have any more lumps than those already bruising his body, Adrio’s apology brought a lump to his throat. “I don’t know what these people are doing,” Adrio added. “They keep talking about Nascenza. I keep telling them I’m not who they think I am, but they never listen. And Brother Narciso
…
” His words trailed off in a tearful gulp.

Petro automatically assumed the worst. Narciso had to be dead. “You don’t have to say.”

“But I do.”

Despite these words, Adrio didn’t. He seemed so thoroughly racked with emotion that he couldn’t even speak. If Petro’s hands were free, he might have patted Adrio on the back, or offered some water, or found some way to comfort him. Even if he could merely sit there next to his friend, he wouldn’t feel half as useless as he did right now.

“I do,” Adrio was repeating, over and over.

After a little while, Petro looked over his shoulder at Emilia. She shook her head at his unasked question. “He wouldn’t speak to me, when we were alone,” she said. Then, defensively, “Of course, he doesn’t know me.”

Amazed as Petro was to see Adrio, he still had to talk to Emilia. They had unfinished business between them. “You knew,” he said to her. “You knew exactly who I was, and didn’t say anything.”

“I did.” She simply shrugged as best she could. “I thought it best not to.”

“When did you know?”

“Yesterday,” she said. “When we were arguing about Vico. You were so adamant about something. Lying, I think it was. I don’t remember, exactly. And you reminded me so much of your sister during one of her tantrums.”

Petro couldn’t help but laugh, painful as it was for his bloodied lip. “You’ve seen one of those, have you?”

“There’s not a guard in the palace who hasn’t.” She too smiled. “Then I tested you. I asked what your family would do, if asked to decide about Vico. A Ventimilla wouldn’t have any say in the matter.” The slip of the tongue had evaded Petro’s notice. He wanted to kick himself. “I thought back to the few months I was in the insula. I wouldn’t have had much call to run across you. We weren’t friends. After all, I’m
…
”