Turning the Storm (36 page)

I paused to think about it. “When I was in Ravenna, I played for the funeral dance of the two executed reformers, Beneto and Jesca. This was before I knew the full power of the dances, but I remember the energy; to avert a riot, I pulled the energy down into the ground under my feet. That night, I realized that I could make a witchlight again—barely, with effort, but I could do it.” I looked around the Council. “I think that the Empire should create some permanent installments in the wasteland, but not prisons. Create communities for dedicated Redentori; so long as they're housed and fed, I think you'll find volunteers.” It occurred to me that Flavia's order, the Cantatori, would probably like this idea. “They can dance each day to restore the wasteland; over time, perhaps plants will flourish again. And in the meantime, they can keep watch on the border and fend off enemy magery. They would need detachments of soldiers as well, of course. A few communities like this, dotted along the border, would be far more protection than a wall.”

“What do you think of that idea, Clara?” Travan asked.

Clara opened her mouth. “I think it's a terrible idea,” she said immediately. She paused to gather her
thoughts—or, I rather suspected, to dredge up some reasons. “It's a terrible risk for the Redentori, living right on the border like that.”

“These would be volunteers,” Travan said. “Your protective feelings are admirable, of course. Go on.”

“You're talking about the creation of an entire religious order,” Clara said. “A new one.”

“Or the expansion of an existing one, like the Cantatori,” I said.

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Because they might challenge the power of the Servi?”

“Of course not!” Clara was pricked into vehemence for a moment, then sat back and summoned her kindest smile. “The proliferation of orders was something that weakened the Della Chiese. I think we can learn from their mistakes.”

“To be sure. Why do you think it weakened them?”

“There were rivalries,” Placido said, coming to Clara's rescue. “Factionalism. Precisely the sort of problems that the Servi were created to prevent.”

“God forbid that any of us should disagree, after all,” I said.

“Well, exactly,” Placido said. “I don't think God wants us to disagree.”

I shot a look at the Emperor, wondering if he saw how self-serving Clara's argument was. I thought he probably did. Lowering his eyes, he plucked at the braid on his sleeve. “Priestess Clara, I understand your concerns, but Eliana's idea seems to be so beneficial in so many ways I can't possibly disregard it.”

I was hoping that Travan would appoint someone like Flavia or Lucia to create the wasteland guard posts,
but Clara immediately said, “Well, though I disagree with the idea, of course I obey your command, Your Highness, and the Servi will begin setting up communities of Redentori immediately.”

Travan's eyes flickered to me; I wanted to protest, to say that the Cantatori were far better suited to the task than the Servi, but he said, “As you wish. Demetrio, I will ask you to find someone who can spy out the territory of the Vesuviani. In the meantime, I think this meeting is concluded.”

We rose as the Emperor left, then made our own way out. As I straightened my tunic and fought the urge to pluck at the hose, which were sticking to my legs in a really awkward way, I noticed that Clara was looking at me. It was not a venomous glare, of course; Clara would never have been so careless. It was a cool look of veiled patience. Like a cat, I thought. Stalking her prey. I bit my lip and looked away.

∗    ∗    ∗

I couldn't sleep that night, and after a while I got up and lit a candle. I was very careful not to use witchlight in Cuore, though it was tempting sometimes. The ceiling of my room seemed very high at night, with only candlelight to flicker into the vaulted corners. The darkness frightened me when I woke from dreams full of blood and fire; I found myself wanting to summon witchlight, to see my room in a pure steady light that shone in every corner and didn't dance in the breeze of my breath. Since I couldn't do that, I stumbled out of the huge soft bed and went to sit in the window, instead. The moonlight comforted me, along with the knowledge that the garden was there.

There had been no nightmares that night—no sleep at all.
It's the heat
, I thought, fanning my linen nightshirt as I stood by the window.
Maybe I could sleep if I went and lay down next to one of the fountains in the garden
. I laughed a little at the thought.

I liked my room fine during the day, but at night the palace was too quiet. The stone walls deadened sound in a way that cloth tent walls hadn't. Living in the Lupi encampment, I was always surrounded by thousands of people, and some nights I thought I could hear most of them snoring. Even at the conservatory, except for the three-month gap between Lia and Mira, I'd always had a roommate. Mira had talked in her sleep on occasion. Lia had snored.

After a while, I blew out my candle and curled up in the window seat. It was strange, but sometimes I wished I could have just gone on living with the Lupi. Not that I would have wanted a never-ending war, but if I could have somehow created a village of my closest friends and allies, and spent the rest of my life living in a tent— well, it was a strange thing to find appealing, but I would have liked it better than court. Of course, once the war was over, the Lupi had scattered. The ones with homes had returned to them. Of the others, some had gone to resettle villages like Doratura, as I'd suggested. A few had settled in Cuore—Giovanni and Lucia, of course, and Michel, who was still the Emperor's bodyguard. There were the Cantatori, of course, and some Lupi had joined the city guard. But for the most part, my army was gone.

I felt guilty for feeling such a loss; we'd won the war, after all, and they had the right to enjoy the fruits of their struggle. Still, as I drifted off to sleep in the cushions of
the window seat, I wished I could hear birds, at least, and the wind through the trees.

∗    ∗    ∗

∗    ∗    ∗

I woke in the darkness, convinced beyond reason that if I hurried, I would find Mira waiting in the garden below. Unwilling to question my own conviction, I threw a light cloak over my nightshirt and thrust my
bare feet into my boots. My heart pounding, I eased my door shut and ran down the stairs and out into the garden.

No one was there. I sat down at the edge of the fountain and waited for a long time, listening to the splash of the water. I finally made my way back up to my room just before dawn.

I
t was perhaps a month later that I first heard the rumor from Giovanni. The heat had eased somewhat, and we had met early in the morning for a practice session at the enclave training ground. This was not a part of the enclave I'd ever seen as “Daniele,” but noblemen could practice their skills as swordsmen in the comfort of an enclosed courtyard. Giovanni tossed me a sword and we worked together for an hour or so, stopping when the sun rose high enough to really get uncomfortable. Sitting down in the shade, we drank cooled tea and watched some of the others who were still at work. By virtue of regular practice, I was—according to Giovanni when he was feeling magnanimous—almost as good with a sword as he'd been when Placido had kicked his ass back in his early days as a student.

“I don't know why I do this to myself,” I said, putting down the cup of cold tea and stretching until my back cracked.

“It's for my scintillating conversation,” Giovanni
said, slouching next to me and refilling his cup. “Or else you're keeping yourself in good form in case you get to lead another war. I can't decide.”

“Maybe it's in case I ever have to fight a duel with Placido.”

“Better have me fight it for you, if this comes up anytime soon,” Giovanni said. “He may look like a pig, but he's faster with a sword than you'd expect.”

“He beat you, after all.”

“Exactly. Though that was a long time ago.”

Giovanni took another swig of the tea, then checked carefully to see if anyone was close enough to overhear our conversation. “There's a rumor going around about you,” he said. “Supposedly you were seen, toward the end of the battle for Cuore, spiriting someone out of the city.”

I bit my lip and looked away from Giovanni, watching the men who were still training out in the sun. “Really,” I said, when I trusted my voice to stay even.

“Yes, really,” Giovanni said. “Who was it?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said.

Giovanni stood up abruptly and went to put away the training equipment. When he returned, he sat down closer to me and said, “The person I heard it from seemed to think it was a Fedele priestess—someone you kept company with while you were here before.”

“Rather an odd way to put it, but the priestess I ‘kept company with’ was Rosalba,” I said. “She's dead, remember? We found her body in Manico.”

“That's what I told the person who told me the story,” Giovanni said.

I thought back to the night of the battle. I hadn't thought anyone had seen me, but I hadn't really taken
steps to disguise myself; there hadn't been time. “What are people making of this?” I asked.

“The story I was told apparently illustrated your gallantry,” Giovanni said. His voice was sour. “Risking your life to save a lady who'd fallen in love with you, thinking you were a man.”

I snorted. “Rosalba betrayed me to the Fedeli.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that was supposed to be a lover's spat?
I
didn't come up with the story.” Giovanni slouched back against the wall, relaxing slightly. “I'm probably worrying over nothing,” he said.

We got up to go and walked back to my room, chatting about nothing in particular—gossip about other people, how the rebuilding efforts were going, the weather. When we reached my room, Giovanni said, “It was Mira, wasn't it?”

I didn't answer. Giovanni's face was rigid as he walked away.

The extent of my friendship with Mira was not widely known beyond my closest associates; it simply wasn't something I had liked talking about. Lia had kept it out of the songs she wrote, and fearing for Mira's safety, I'd tried to make sure only a few people ever heard the full story of my escape from the Fedeli. Giovanni and Lucia knew, of course, and obviously Isabella had known. Flavia and Celia knew that we'd been close friends at the conservatory; so did Giula, but she hadn't ever joined the Lupi, even when we'd put out a call for musicians. So far as I knew, she and her family were still living in Doratura.

Nonetheless, a week later Lucia told me that she'd heard a rumor that I had helped a mage escape Cuore. Her face was puckered with worry as she leaned back
in her chair and plucked at the fabric of her skirt. “I thought you should know,” she said.

I leaned back in my own chair, looking out the window. It was dusk, and the garden was in deep shadow. “What do you think I should do about it?”

“Deny it,” Lucia said. “Find out who's spreading the story and put a stop to it.”

“The only way to kill a rumor is to start a better one,” I said. “Denying it, pursuing the people spreading it—these are just fresh logs for the fire.”

“I think it's Clara who's spreading it,” Lucia said. “But I can't prove that.”

“Clara's too smart to spread the rumor herself. If I were her, I'd arrange for someone who liked to gossip to overhear the most damaging information.”

“Still, it's her doing.”

“You're probably right,” I said.

Lucia's hands were twisting the fabric now. “Is there anything to the rumor?”

“Would you think less of me if it were true?”

“Of course not,” Lucia said, and then raised her eyes to meet mine. “I mean that. I know you, Eliana. If you helped a mage escape Cuore, you had a good reason to do it.”

I laughed a little at that. “You're a priestess. You should probably be telling me that I sinned and ought to go turn myself in to the Servi right now.”

“If I ever reach the point of telling
anyone
to go to the Servi for anything, I hope God strikes me dead.”

“Whatever would Gèsu say about that?” I tried to make my shaky voice take on a teasing tone, with mixed success.

Lucia's hands relaxed their grip on her skirt and she leaned forward. “He'd say that redemption is open to
all who seek it, even Clara, and that I ought to remember that.”

I could genuinely laugh at that. “I don't think you need to worry about Clara seeking redemption anytime soon. She thinks she's doing the work of God.”

Lucia shook her head. “No. No, she's not. But I think you were. Redemption is open to all who seek it—even a mage. That's why you saved Mira.”

Had Lucia followed me that day? I turned to meet her eyes, shocked, and she simply shrugged. “I know you, Eliana, and I know what you've told me about Mira. That's all.”