Shadowheart (34 page)

“Both of them.”

Philip jerked his chin. One of his men moved hesitantly, lifting his hand toward Allegreto.

“Elena!” There was no fear in his voice, or even anger. It was disbelief.

“I will not hurt you. No one will hurt you or Franco. You are both in my protection.” She had no way to enforce her words, no guard or garrison at her command, but she said them. She said them with Prince Ligurio’s will, from the power of his vision of what Monteverde could have been. Could still be, if she had the heart and resolve and good fortune of a thousand angels at her back.

She had bound him once in a game before her, a defeated warrior at her command. In stark reality he was bleeding, and she was only a girl, untried and outrageous in what she asked, the sword tip trembling in her hand. She could not force him—she did not think all of Philip’s men could, or would, prevent him from walking out the door if he willed it.

His mouth was set. With each breath the muscle in his cheek drew taut—pain or fury, she could not tell. He looked at Franco Pietro and Philip and bared his teeth. His dark gaze passed to Elayne.

He stared for a long moment at her. His look held all the truth between them, that he had trusted her, when she knew he had never trusted anyone before. That he had let her take his defenses and put his life in her hands and love him.

“Allegreto,” she said. “Help me.”

He blinked at the sound of her voice, turning his head a little, as if he heard it from a great distance. And with the same bewilderment, the same blank pain, he lifted his face upward like a prayer. “Ah, God,” he said in a helpless voice. “Don’t do this to me.”

“For me,” she whispered, serving him a betrayal that went deeper than Franco Pietro’s blade.

“Monteverde bitch,” he said softly.

Franco made an incredulous sound as the fetters clattered in the bandit’s shaky hand and closed on Allegreto’s wrist. The Riata looked up at Elayne, scowling.

“You will have what is rightfully yours,” she said to him. “Navona will have again what was his. As it was under my grandfather. Will you accede to it?”

Franco wet his lips. He glanced at Allegreto and back at Elayne. “I do not comprehend this.” He thrust out his chin. “What of our betrothal?”

“There is no betrothal.”

“You forswear it?”

“There is nothing to forswear. I have given no consent.”

“That contract!” he exclaimed, instantly understanding her. “Damn the English pig, is Lancaster behind this?” He grunted as he shifted on his wounded leg. “Have you sold us to the English?”

“I have not,” she said.

“Better the English than Navona,” he sneered. He was breathing deeply, his face creased in pain and hate as he looked at Allegreto. “Has he got another bastard like himself on you?”

In the half-light Allegreto lifted his eyes from the fetters on his wrist.

“No,” she said bluntly.

She saw the faintest brush of Allegreto’s lashes, an instant of some expression that passed over his face, impossible to comprehend before it was gone. He stared at her coldly. Elayne felt her heart break inside her throat, tear into pieces that would never mend.

“What of my son?” Franco Pietro asked. His voice rose. “I want my son.”

Elayne thought of the boy with a blade at his father’s throat. “Matteo will stay with me, until I deem otherwise. He will not be in Navona’s power.”

“I don’t trust you, that you come here this way,” Franco Pietro exclaimed. “In secret, and at his hand.”

“Then we must wait until you can,” Elayne said. “I will do my best to be just. But Monteverde is first. Before Riata. Before Navona. Monteverde is what we all are, before we are anything else.”

With a troop of bandits she took d’Avina. It all happened swiftly, like a spark in a dry field of corn. Philip held the mint, easily seized when everyone in town had run to the fire, and easily defended once his men closed the great outer doors in the massive wall. The fortress of Maladire was hers, the small remnants of the Riata garrison surrendered to Philip’s men, cut off to anyone who could not pass the secret entrances.

The townspeople seemed frozen in doubt. They huddled in a mass beyond the burned-out bridge and guardhouse, shouting and milling without direction. They knew something momentous had happened, but none could cross to the castle over the smoldering remains of the bridge.

She ordered Philip to have the bell rung in the piazza.

In all of their blood and battle wounds, she took her prisoners. She allowed Zafer to bind up Allegreto’s arm in a sling with his turban. Franco had to be half-carried, unable to walk on his leg. But Philip’s bandits were efficient jailers. They moved their injured captives through the underground ways, up through the mint, and out onto the torch-lit dais in the piazza with speed.

She still carried Allegreto’s sword. She stood foremost on the dais, overlooking the uneasy crowd of people gathering below. The freezing air burned her cheeks and turned her breath to frost.

Be clever.
Lady Melanthe had said it.
Be bold if you must, and act on the edge of a moment.

Prince Ligurio would approve it. She felt so sure that he would approve that it was as if he stood beside her and whispered what words to say.

“I have come here first!” she shouted, her voice a cry that died away in echoes in the night. “I am Elena of Monteverde, and you are my father’s and my grandfather’s people.” She looked down into the eyes of a man who stood just below her, a young miner from his clothes. “And my people.”

He stared up at her, his grimy face intent in the firelight. His mouth opened, and he gave a little bewildered nod as she held his gaze.

Elayne nodded back to him. She lifted her face. “Tonight in the fortress, while the bridge burned, the leaders of Riata and Navona fought.” She gestured back to Allegreto and Franco Pietro with the sword. “Look at them.”

The miner looked, wide-eyed. The crowd around him looked, murmuring, and saw what she wanted them to see—two men bloodied and torn by their combat.

Below her, there were richly dressed men in fur, and thin-clad miners mixed with women and children. They filled the
piazza
now, a sea of faces fading into darkness. She knew there were Riata among them, and others loyal in secret to Navona. She knew the Riata would lose from what she did, the Navona would rise. But there were others, too, all those who belonged to neither house, those her grandfather had written of who only suffered from the endless discord.

“This is what Monteverde has been,” she said over the crowd, holding up the bloody sword. “A battleground for wolves! And I’ve come to put an end to it. I’ve come in the name of Prince Ligurio and my father, to rule in peace, and with equal justice. I have no allies. I am not of Navona, nor Riata. I have nothing to overpower you—only these few outlawed men who stand beside me.” She raised her voice in fierce emotion. “But it is not
bandits
who have bled Monteverde of concord or peace!”

She looked down at them as her shout died away. There was utter silence in the piazza, only the hiss of torches and the soft groan of the snow underfoot as people stirred.

“By chance you will not have a woman over you,” she said into the quiet. “It will be your choice. Tonight I hold the mint and the castle and these two men by my small force. Tomorrow, in the morning, you will each bring a stone, every man and woman of you, and place it in a pile. This is how you chose your leaders long ago, under the old republic. There will be one for each of us. Franco Pietro della Riata. Allegreto della Navona. Elena di Monteverde. So look at us here—at what we are—and think of what you want for yourselves and for your children.”

She stepped back, lowering the sword, turning away. In the silence Allegreto stood in the fetters, gazing at her like a man watching a comet cross the sky.

The young miner raised his fist.
“Monteverde!”
he yelled. Someone in the back took up the shout. People pushed forward, reaching their hands toward her. She felt a spurt of fear, but they were not enraged—they were smiling as they pressed and shouted, taking up the chant.

She dropped the sword and knelt down and touched their hands.

It was not until the bells tolled midnight that she had a moment to stop and feel the magnitude of what she had done. To feel fear. Philip and Zafer and Matteo and Margaret and even Donna Grazia had demanded her notice. She had conferred with the bandit on where to place the prisoners, she had ordered Zafer to make certain no message was yet sent to the city, she had put Matteo and the dogs in Margaret’s care, and exchanged a hard hug with the freckled maid that needed no words. Dario hovered near, standing over them with his blunt jaw set. He did not move away as a tearful Donna Grazia begged a moment that became near an hour to pour into her ears the story of how the Riata had killed all her brothers, and yet she had forgiven them for her late husband’s sake, and how terrified she had been of Allegreto’s plans, but she could not deny her aid to him for the sake of her brothers’ name. She ended in a confused and joyful pledge to Monteverde, above any house, holding Elayne’s hands in hers until they were wet with tears.

It was while Donna Grazia wept over her fingers that Elayne began to know her own fear. The woman was so grateful, and unquestioning, so afraid that Elayne would think her a Navona or a Riata and punish her for either— Elayne began to see all the peril of being caught between— of what could happen now. Dario already saw it, she realized; he had shadowed her from the instant she had left the dais, so close to her that he would not even allow Zafer near. He was afraid of her assassination, she realized with a jolt. Afraid that even Zafer might attempt it.

She sent them all away, but Dario. In the rich chamber that held her grandfather’s book, she sat again on the stool and turned the pages, trying to read, trying to resurrect the feeling that Ligurio stood with her and guided her. The book itself was a guide—it held her grandfather’s exact vision of the laws and functions of the new republic, and warnings of how to circumvent those who would pull it down. But there was nothing to tell her what to do in this moment, how to cross the yawning chasm before her. Nothing to give her the words to persuade Franco Pietro to relinquish his power, nothing to protect her, no plan for escape if the people voted tomorrow for Riata, and left her and Navona to his mercy. Nothing but what she knew Allegreto had meant to do—kill him.

“Dario,” she said. “I must speak to your master.”

“If you mean Allegreto Navona, Your Grace, he is no longer my master,” Dario said. “My allegiance is wholly yours.”

She glanced at him, a little shocked, though she knew he had devoted himself to her safety since the camp. “Grant mercy,” she said. “I need you now.”

His square, strong face was grave in the lamplight. “I would warn you of Zafer, Your Grace. I cannot say what is in his mind, or Margaret’s. I watched them close when they were near you.”

She could not think of Margaret as an enemy. “Surely not…”

“Zafer is dangerous, my lady; I beg you will never forget it. Il Corvo commands him, and always will. Margaret—” He shrugged. “I cannot say of her. She seemed to have true affection for you, but she is great in love with Zafer, and she is devoted to her master, too.”

Elayne looked down at the book before her, rubbing the green velvet sheath under her fingers, more shaken by this division of loyalty within their small company than by anything yet.

“Philip Welles will stand by you, I believe, my lady. And I owe my life to you. I think the people will accept you. But the houses will not be broken easily. I beg you will be careful. Welles was right to warn you not to set them free of the fetters in their chambers. I am certain that Navona can escape the tower if he is not chained.”

Of course. It would impossible to imprison Allegreto in a Navona stronghold.

Imprison him. She bit her lip and frowned down at the book.

“I must speak to him,” she said. “Come with me through the tunnels.”

She and Dario had an argument outside the door in Maladire’s tower. He did not want her to enter alone, not even if she kept her distance from Allegreto. But she ordered him to stay outside with Philip’s man on guard, leaving him red-faced and angry with her, his hand resisting the door even as she closed it behind her.

She stood with her back to it for a moment, holding the lamp against her skirt. She half-expected to find the chamber empty, after Dario’s warnings of how easily he could escape. But Allegreto was there—he lay propped on a cot beside the rough wall, bare-chested but for the sling and a dressing around his torso, watching her through slitted eyes.

He did not move, or speak. When she saw the heavy chain on his ankles, she wished that he had escaped.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He said nothing.

“I cannot let it go as you intended,” she said, and sounded foolish even to herself. “I’m sorry for this. But I cannot. Do you understand?”

Still he did not reply, but turned his head a little, as if he could not look at her.

She held herself against the door, quelling a frantic urge to turn and fling it open and insist that they remove the chains. At least the chains.

“Put down the light,” he said. “I can’t see you.”

Quickly she set the lamp on the floor and moved away from it. “Did they leave you no candle?”

He made a sound of bitter amusement. “I am a prisoner, Elena.”

She stepped in front of a little arched wall shrine with a crude painting of Madonna and child inside it—the only thing in the room besides the cot. “I did not mean for you to be treated as a common criminal. It’s near to freezing in here. I’ll have them bring a furnace and some blankets.”

He only looked at her, a lift of his dark lashes over his perfect sullen mouth.

“Dario thinks Zafer might try to kill me,” she said, all in a rush.

“He will not,” Allegreto said.

Elayne took a step toward him. He seemed to reject her without moving, a faint shift back against the wall, that subtle withdrawal from any contact.

“I am not certain what to do next,” she said.

He lifted his eyebrows. His lip curled. “You do not expect me to help you.”

She clasped her arms around herself and turned away.

“I could not help you if I wished,” he said. “You said the truth. You have no allies. You must have none—most particularly not me.”

“I know,” she said desperately. “I know.”

The simple Madonna had a blank, wide-eyed expression, as if a child had painted it. Elayne felt as stupid and stiff as the dull figure, with no words for the tangle of feelings inside her.

“If they vote for Riata tomorrow, I’ll see that you escape,” she said suddenly, with no notion of how she would do it. “You can go back to the island. And I can join you there.”

She heard him exhale a long breath. The island seemed a paradise to her now, a distant vision of safety.

“That will not happen,” he said. “They will choose you.”

She made a little shake of her head, half-turning, afraid to look at him.

“The things you said out there—they love you for it already,” he said. “Is it not what you wanted?”

She wanted only to go to him and touch him and make certain again he was alive. “Did Philip’s leech see well to your wounds?” she asked, still not looking toward him.

“I will heal. I always heal.”

“I’ll give him a recipe for a compress,” she said. “If the herbs can be obtained here.”

She dared a glance at him. He closed his eyes and laid his head back with a black and ugly smile. “A compress.”

She looked at the curve of his shoulder, the bandages lit by the soft gleam of the lamp. They had given him clean woolen hose, but his hands were still stained with blood. She went to him and knelt down on
the floor before him
and took his unwounded hand into hers. The fetters rattled as she pressed her forehead against his fist. “I could not do else!” she cried. “I know you cannot understand.”

He let her hold his hand, but he did not open his fist. She turned his wrist and kissed his hard-closed fingers.

“It’s not to take Monteverde from you,” she said. “Can you believe that? I don’t want to rule; I never wanted it. I don’t know how. But I cannot let it be torn asunder.”

She lifted her face. He looked down at her. An ironic smile touched his lips. “You know how to rule, my lady. If you did not, I would not be here.”

She bowed her head and pressed his hand to her mouth. She tasted blood and smelled the cold scent of steel. “I thought he killed you. I saw his blade—I thought you dead then.”

“Not yet.”

She gripped his hand with an unhappy sound. “Why do you always speak so?”

He gave a heavy sigh and relaxed his fingers open. He let her kiss them. He lifted his hand and brushed her cheek with icy fingertips.

“I want to tell you something,” he said. “I want to tell you about your grandfather.”

Elayne looked up at his face.

“I knew him well, Elena. While I was still beardless, he used me to protect Melanthe. After your own father was murdered, and Ligurio was growing feeble, he made an accord with Gian for me to come into the citadel. I played the eunuch, so that I could sleep beside her, and act her lover.” He had no expression as he looked down at her and let his fingers trace down her cheek. “She suffered me, because Ligurio said she must. But she despised me. Everyone in the citadel did. And feared me for what I could do.”

Elayne held his cold gaze, pressing his hand between hers, trying to warm him. She could feel his ring still on her finger.

“Only Ligurio gave me welcome there,” he said. “He taught me there was another kind of man beyond my father. That there was something in love that was not wholly dread. That there was reason in the world. And kindness. He taught me alchemy and astrology. He gave me a way to be something beyond what my father made of me.” He scowled, his mouth hardening. “When Ligurio died, I went down in the pit under the citadel, where I knew no one would come, and wept until I was sick with it.”

He sounded angry. He lifted his hand away from her and rubbed it across his mouth, the fetters clashing.

“I see him in you,” he said. “I read his book. I heard what you said out there. We are all Monteverde first.” He dropped his hand beside him with a chinking noise. “But you cannot do it while I live, Elena. Not I, and not Franco. There can be no point to rally around that is not Monteverde. Tell Zafer to slay Franco tonight, and then let the guard step away from the door long enough that a Riata can get to me. There is one somewhere now, awaiting his chance.”

“No,” she whispered in horror.

“You came to ask my help. That is all the help I have to give you.”

She pushed away from him. “No.”

“It will happen anyway,” he said. “Do it now, and you will be safe.”

“Safe!” she cried. She stood up and turned away. “Do you think I care so much to be safe?”

“I care for it,” he said quietly.

She shook her head.

“It would be a favor to me.” His voice grew harsh. As she looked back at him, he lifted his hand and gripped the chain in his fist. “I’ll die like this. You know it. Let it be sooner than later.”

“You will not die,” she said fiercely. “It is only for a little while, until you and Franco agree that your houses will cease this vendetta. Then I will set you both free.”

He laughed, an echo in the cold stone room. “Are you mad?”

She let out a deep breath. “By chance I am mad,” she said. She walked across the small chamber, standing before the shrine. “You asked me once, what choice you had. You said Cara had no answer for you.” She blinked down at the crude painting, the awkward child and misformed mother, the colors gray and chalky. She turned to him. “This is my answer.”

He stared back at her. Then he closed his eyes as if he had seen something that he could not bear. He shook his head and sat forward, leaning over his injured arm with a deep grimace. He sat with his head bowed. When he lifted his face, he had a helpless look. “Elena, he’ll kill me. I’ll be in Hell and you won’t be there.”

Her eyes began to blur. She did not move. “I won’t let that happen.”

“How will you stop it?” He swung himself upright, standing with a clatter of the manacles, holding the sling against his chest. “Give me the ring.” He reached for her hand. “You cannot be seen wearing Navona’s motto.”

Elayne covered her fingers, but he caught her arm, his grip hard and cold.

“You’re Monteverde alone now.” He dragged at the gold band, yanking it over the bone without mercy as she tried to pull back. She gave a cry of pain and dismay. The door flung open, with Dario standing in it, his hand on his dagger.

Allegreto glanced at him and stepped back, holding his hand away in clear withdrawal. He nodded toward the young man. “She is safe,” he said coolly. “But do not let her from your sight again.”

“Where is my son?” Franco Pietro struggled from his cot and fell on his knee, clashing the fetters. He dragged himself upright against the wall, with a sharp breath between his teeth. The wound on his thigh still seeped fresh blood through a bandage. “Is he alive?”

“He is alive, and safe,” she said. “Do not fear for Matteo.”

He paused, breathing through his nose. The scar below his eye patch was livid purple as he watched her warily. He glanced at Dario standing behind her.

“Have you thought on what I said?” she asked. “That I mean to return to the houses what is rightfully theirs, as in my grandfather’s day?”

“I heard what you said.” He held himself on the wall with one hand. “You said more than that.”

“Yes. And meant it. If the people elect you tomorrow, then I have no intention to gainsay them.”

“And if they don’t?”

She gave a slight shrug. “If it is Navona they choose, then I suppose you will fight him to the death, and let Monteverde bleed. If it is I—then there will be the same election in the city and all the towns.”

“You are mad, girl,” he said.

Elayne smiled bitterly. “So I am told.”

He shifted, lifting his lip in a grimace of pain. “What is this hold you have on Navona?” he demanded. “I’d be dead by now if he had his desire.”

“Indeed, you would.” She made a dry sound, not quite a laugh. “But he appointed me his conscience.”