Scarlet From Gold (Book 3) (34 page)

“So watch and listen to your Doge, and if he makes the proper decision to fight on behalf of the freedom of others,” Marco was feeling tired – he could tell that he had used the power of his hand for great purpose for an extended period, “if he makes the right decision, you all will harvest the fruits of his wisdom.”  And with that, Marco strained to send out one last wave of his energy, so that the flowers dropped off, and bright red cherries immediately swelled to ripened maturity upon all the trees.

There was profound silence, as Marco closed his eyes and deeply inhaled.  Cheers and clapping burst into the silence, making Marco open his eyes in time to see a surrounding crowd of alchemist charge at him, mobbing him with congratulations and accolades.

“That was extraordinary, Marco,” Algornia strained to be heard over the thundering applause that surrounded them.  “I had no idea you were so profound, I apologize for admitting.”

“I had no idea either,” Marco said truthfully.  He hadn’t ever thought he could do something so theatrical and meaningful, let alone do it in such a public setting.

“Should we go into the Doge’s palace now?” he asked.

“There will never be a better time,” Algornia said.  He raised his hand over his head and pointed at the gate, sending the mass of alchemists surging towards the gates of the palace, while they jostled to position Marco at the head of their phalanx.

The movement stopped when they reached the squad of Palace Guards who stood as a human chain across the opening.  The Palace Guards were a different organization from the Guards of the city; they wore armor, and wore it in a way that projected an image of military competence.

“This is the good sorcerer Marco, who seeks to address the Doge,” Master Sty spoke up to introduce Marco.

“We have a pretty good idea who he is,” the ranking Guard said in a wry tone.  “I’ve not yet received orders to allow him to enter the palace,” he held up his hand, a veteran who knew how to handle situations, as he heard rumbles of indignation start to rise, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if a note isn’t on its way down here within five minutes to invite him to an audience.”

Marco stood in place, assuaged by the Guard’s comfortable manner and words.  A minute later there was a disturbance to his right, and moments later a quartet of women, all dressed in white, appeared, passing through the crowd in the plaza as easily as a knife cutting through butter.  Marco watched as the alchemists and others hurriedly scrambled out of the way.

“Who is that?” Marco asked Algornia.

“I am the Holy Priestess Laris, young man,” the woman in the middle of the group spoke to Marco in passing, as the guards at the gate automatically moved aside to allow her and her escort to enter the palace grounds immediately.  She had teeth that were as white as any that Marco could remember ever seeing, and her hair was deep black, framing her oval face as it was pulled into a bun atop her head.

“Who is she?” Marco asked.

“She is presumably your ally; she is the high priestess of the temple of Ophiuchus in the Lion City.  Have you never met her before?” Algornia answered.

“No, I’ve never been to the temple in the Lion City before,” Marco answered.  “Is she always allowed to immediately enter the palace?”

“For the past few nights she has been granted immediate and unquestioned access to the Palace and the Doge,” the Guard at the gate unexpectedly spoke up, in a neutral tone of voice that conveyed disapproval.

Ten minutes later, a messenger came to speak to the officer who presided over the squad at the gate.  The officer looked quizzically at the messenger, who shrugged, then left.  The officer stood still for a moment, then walked forward to stand among the guards at the entrance.

“The Doge will receive no visitors today.  You all are advised to disperse immediately,” he said, then he gave an order to the surprised-looking Palace Guard members, and they pulled the gates shut.

“How can this be?” Algornia asked in astonishment.  A buzz rippled through the crowd, rising in indignant tenor as word of Marco’s rejection spread through the plaza.

“What should I do?” Marco asked, stunned by the inexplicable rejection.

Sty looked at the crowd around them, growing loud in its indignation on Marco’s behalf.  “You don’t want to be credited with starting a riot by arguing,” Sty advised.

“Of course, you’re right,” Algornia agreed.  “Tell them you will come back tomorrow Marco,” Algornia advised.  “Tell the crowd and tell the guards, and then leave peacefully, so that no one gets hurt today.”

“But what if the Doge just says ‘no’ tomorrow as well?” Marco asked.

The crowd began to move forward, squeezing Marco closer to the gate.

“We’ll figure that out later.  Call the crowd off now,” Sty advised urgently.

“Listen!  Listen to me!” Marco called out.  He cupped his hands around his mouth, and seemed to use his right hand’s power to project his voice unnaturally far.

“I will listen to the Doge today.  I am going to leave the palace and the plaza, and I ask you to do the same as well.  We will return tomorrow, and seek to speak with the Doge. Now that he has seen my demonstration, he can reflect on the wisdom of listening to the Lady Iasco’s emissary,” Marco broadcast his words, and within moments the crowd pressure seemed to ease.

“Let’s go back to your shop, shall we?” Marco said to Algornia.

“Are all of us going to return tomorrow?” Sty asked Algornia.

“No, there’s no reason for all of us to attend tomorrow.  The Doge has seen us, and plenty of other people will be here tomorrow, as the rumors spread about Marco’s forest,” Algornia replied.  Then he and Marco turned and started working their way slowly through the crowd, as Sty spread the word among the alchemists.

Marco and Algornia made slow progress as Marco was cheered along every step of the way through the plaza.  Once they reached the streets the fans and supporters melted away, and the two had an uneventful walk back to Algornia’s shop.

Marco spent the day inside the shop, helping Algornia prepare potions and items that had been ordered.  Phillippe had finished his apprenticeship and left the shop, leaving Algornia with only the raw new apprentice, Boyd to do the work.  With his supernatural memory and understanding of alchemy, Marco was able to fulfill numerous outstanding orders that earned him Algornia’s gratitude.

He slept uneasily that night, worried about his failure to see the Doge, and doubting his own abilities to carry out Lady Iasco’s command to persuade the Doge to commit his forces to the battle for Athens.  Marco finally rose from his bed well before dawn, and went for a walk in the summertime predawn coolness of the city streets.

After the sun rose, he finally left Algornia’s home, the master alchemist by his side once again.  They arrived at the plaza and found a very large crowd already in place, eager to see what would happen in the next chapter of the drama.  People had even climbed up into the cherry trees to have a better view of the gate to the palace.

Marco arrived at the gate, and found the same veteran Guard on duty as had been there the previous day.  “Your friend just arrived a few minutes ago,” the Guardsman said to Marco when he reached the front of the crowd.

“What friend?” Marco asked.

“The witch – the Lady Laris, from the Temple of Ophiuchus.  She just came in a few minutes ago, and said the Doge would send an emissary down to speak to you,” the man explained.

Marco looked at Algornia, whose eyebrows came together in a frown, a sign that he didn’t like the information Marco had received.

They stood outside the gate for several minutes, until Lady Laris herself appeared with her escort at the main door of the palace, and then casually approached the gate with an escort of plumed Palace Guards.

“The Doge has instructed me to tell you that his advisors do not feel that a meeting with you today will be prudent,” the Lady said.  She gave a smile that was almost a sneer, and then, in a split second that took Marco’s breath away, her facial complexion seemed to change, morphing from its perfect pale tone to a striped pattern that exactly matched the pattern that both the Lady Iasco and her sorcerer brother Iago had worn.  The exposure lasted for only a fraction of a second, but Marco was sure of what he had seen.

He went rigid with anger and fear and anxiety.  “Let us leave now Master, and we will return tomorrow morning at the same time,” he said to Algornia, then turned and walked away from the gate, leaving the crowd bewildered by his exit.

“What is it Marco?   Why are you leaving so quickly?” Algornia asked as they departed from the square.

“That woman back there – she’s a sorceress!” Marco exclaimed.  “She showed her true self for just a second there at the gate.  I don’t know if it was an accident, or if she was warning me, or taunting me,” he said.  “But I think she’s clearly working to prevent me from seeing the Doge.”

“A sorceress!  Lady Laris is a sorceress!  I never heard that before!” Algornia said.

“I don’t think so, Master,” Marco said.  “I don’t think that is Lady Laris!”

Chapter 22- Joining the Cult

Algornia stopped walking, and turned to stare at Marco.

“What are you saying?” he asked his former apprentice.

“I think that is an impostor who has taken Laris’s place,” Marco said.  “King Moraca of the Docleatae uses sorcerers to fight his battles for him, so it’s not surprising that he would use a sorceress as well.

“That would explain why she has blocked me from seeing the Doge, even though Lady Iasco, the head of the Order, is the one who sent me,” he mused aloud.

“I don’t know if the real Laris is dead, or being held captive, or something else,” Marco tried to think his way through the puzzle as they started walking again.

“What are you going to do?  Denounce her?”  Algornia asked.

“I don’t know,” Marco admitted.  “I need to think about it,” he said, and they walked back to Algornia’s shop without speaking further.

Marco sat in the work room, and tried to help produce further potions for Algornia, but his attention was too diverted by the problem he faced, and he could not make any progress, having to start and restart his efforts until he finally gave up.  He got up from the work bench and walked away, leaving the apprentice Boyd to work alone.  He reached the hallway and walked toward the back of the building into the kitchen, where he saw Teresa watching the cook cut freshly baked bread.

He remembered his battles with Teresa over the question of her providing any assistance to him, such as helping prepare a meal for him, and he thought about how angry he had grown because she was able to use her favored status as Algornia’s granddaughter to avoid so much work.  And then he thought of Teresa, and the angriest she had ever made him, when she had trapped him into modeling dresses for her mother, Abrianna.

And as soon as he recollected that event, he grinned.  He spent several minutes working furiously on a collection of alchemy supplies, then he ran upstairs to his guest room and gathered a few belongings before he hurried back down to the kitchen.

“Teri, tell your grandfather I won’t be home tonight,” he spoke aloud, surprising the girl who hadn’t realized she was under scrutiny.

“Don’t call me Teri!” she automatically answered.

“Okay,” Marco said, “but do me a favor and tell him to have the alchemists meet me at the palace gate again tomorrow morning.  I think things will turn out differently next time,” he requested.  “Will you tell him for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” Teresa affected a pose of nonchalance, but Marco sensed that she would do as he asked.

“Thank you,” he said, and then he headed out the door of the kitchen, out the back way into an alley, and he was on his way to a familiar place where he hoped to take a bad experience and make something good out of it.

Marco headed towards the fashionable shop of Abrianna, Teresa’s mother.  He had been there many times, but one of the last times he had been there had been a traumatic event, a trying, embarrassing event in which he had been required to dress like a girl and model dresses for noble and rich women.  Marco had been horrified by the event.  It had been his embarrassment that had been at least partially responsible for driving him to seek refuge in the small hidden room under the harbor pier, so that he had become a part of the story of the Corsair raid that night.

But now, that traumatic story might prove to have a valuable lesson.  Marco had learned that he could be dressed and made up to pass as a girl.  And as he contemplated the secrets that existed behind the walls of the Temple of Ophiuchus in the Lion City, that unpleasant, gender-defying memory suddenly became an asset.  If only women were allowed in the temple, and if Marco was able to pass as a woman, then the way was open for him to try to infiltrate the temple and learn what had become of the real Lady Laris.

Marco entered the back door of the dress shop, anxious to avoid drawing attention to himself, and cautiously moved towards the front of the shop.

“My lord, may I help you?” a seamstress asked calmly, looking up from the sewing she was working on by the light of a window.

“I wish to see Mistress Abrianna,” Marco replied.  “Would you go tell her than Marco the alchemist is in the back of the shop?” he asked politely.

The woman looked at him, clearly perplexed at his stealthy arrival at the back of the shop, yet she decided to humor him, and placed her sewing on her chair as she stood and glided towards the front of the shop.

Five minutes later Abrianna came back into the workroom where Marco waited, and greeted him in a warm but surprised manner.

“I have a favor to ask,” Marco wasted no time in putting forth his request.

“I understand you saved Teresa’s life yesterday.  I’ll not turn down any request you make.  What is it that you need?” the shop owner asked.

“There was a time, once,” Marco began, blushing faintly, “when you used me as a model, and made me look like a girl.”

“Oh heavens!  We still laugh about that sometimes!” Abrianna’s eyes sparkled with humor at the memory.