The Nascenza Conspiracy (15 page)

It must have been a pebble, from the sound it made. Petro heard it clatter onto the ground below, but not before striking something softer first. The soft wheeze that Petro had assumed came from a summer tree frog sputtered and spat and rumbled into angry human words. “Oy, leave off!”

Petro froze. They were only a dozen steps away from one of the loyalists—very likely the lookout who had been neglecting his duties. Emilia too was motionless, leaning forward from their spot behind an elderberry bush to watch and listen.

“What’s that?” he heard from beside the bonfire. “Fatty, is that you?”

From the area of the rock, they heard a shifting of weight and the clatter of a bottle against stone as the lookout recalled his circumstances. “No!” he said to himself. “Say I haven’t spilled the wine!” They heard the bottle scrape once again as the man in the camp repeated his call. “Yes, it’s me, y’arse,” the lookout bellowed, finally settled. “Who else would it be in this gods-forsaken spot?”

Emilia laid a hand on Petro’s shoulder, directing him to look back at the camp. All three of the men not sleeping had drawn together and were standing outside the tent that had received the chamber pot. Not only did they flank the tent closely, but the man who’d spoken had drawn out some sort of heavy wooden club that he held at the ready. “What’s going on out there?” he called.

“Just doing me rounds,” called the lookout known as Fatty. To himself, he grumbled, “Me and the damned coneys. Why not mind your own business, y’high and mighty son of
…
” He yelled out, in his deep voice, “Goin’ on another circuit.”

By now the trio had visibly relaxed. The leader put down his bludgeon. “See that you do.”

Fatty mumbled obscenities as they heard him slide back down to his napping spot. “See that y’do,” he repeated in mocking tones. Once more they heard the sound of the bottle clinking, followed by wet gulping noises and finally a sigh. Moments later, he was once again snoring softly.

Not until the lookout’s slumber deepened did Emilia finally move forward, catlike, still in a counter-clockwise direction around the camp, padding softly until they were well away from Fatty and his beloved wine. She guided them to a place a little farther away from the camp than they had been previously, and pulled Petro down to the ground so that they were both sitting. “See what I meant?” she asked, once again centering her lips directly above his ear so that she could speak in the merest of whispers. “When they thought there might be an intruder, the three of them huddled around that tent.”

“Whatever was coming for the tent would have to get through them first,” Petro replied, after he moved his own mouth to her ear. Once again, he was beginning to think of the intimacy the two of them were sharing, so close in the darkness. For Adrio’s sake, though, he forced himself to concentrate.

She grunted in agreement and put her hands and mouth to his lobe again. “It’s Petro Divetri,” she said. “I’d wager everything I had on it. Now all we have to do is get him out.”

“Oh, is that all?” Petro muttered, more to himself than to her. Emilia made it all sound so easy. “We can’t possibly overcome three big men.”

“I was privileged enough, when I began with the palace guards, to attend a lecture presented by Camilla Sorranto herself,” Emilia said, removing some article of clothing, though in the near-dark it was difficult to tell exactly what she was doing. “She was bodyguard to the late King Alessandro at the time.” It wasn’t necessary for her to explain—Petro had been to the palace enough times in the last four years to get to know Camilla Sorranto, one of the most-decorated guards in the country. “One of the most important things I learned from her is that as a female guard, I’m unlikely to have the raw strength or body mass of some men. It was a bit of an awakening for me, since I’d always assumed I was as good as any of the boys training alongside me.” Off came the hooded cape she’d been wearing. Petro heard her open her rucksack, presumably to stuff it inside. “Fighting’s not all about strength, though. See? It’s smarts, too.” She grabbed Petro’s hand and curled the fingers into a ball so that she could pull them up and rap them against, first, her skull, then his own. “High Guard Sorranto taught me that one person with the intelligence and alertness of three men could far outmaneuver muscles, when outnumbered. And let’s be frank, Ventimilla. None of these men look particularly clever.”

She sounded defiant, as if challenging him on behalf of her own gender to contradict her. “No, they don’t,” he agreed.

“So. Hold out your hand and be very, very careful.” Before he knew exactly what was happening, Emilia had turned up his palm and, using her sense of touch, wrapped his fingers around something hard and heavy. “It’s my poniard,” she explained, restraining his curious fingers from exploring the blade. “The sheath’s on, but it comes loose very, very easily.” She wrapped his fingers around it and pressed him to keep it close. “It’s a Dioro blade, so it can slice through anything.”

“I don’t know anything about sword fighting!” Petro protested automatically. The mere idea of having to draw blood terrified him, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. If she’d been at the insula, she would have known full well that fencing lessons were not on the curriculum.

The sigh she loosed was disappointed. Apparently she thought Petro hadn’t listened to a word she’d said. “It’s not to fight with,” she explained patiently. “It’s to cut. You are going to go to the tent where the cazarrino is being held.” She adjusted his neck until his head was centered on the tent in question. “You will stand behind it and wait, while I create a distraction on the camp’s far side. Then, while everyone is attending to that, you will slice through the canvas at the tent’s back, re-sheath the blade, extract the cazarrino, and head north. It’s very important that you go directly north,” she told him. “As straight from the back of the tent as you can. Is that clear?”

Her instructions were more than clear. The plan made total sense. The only doubts Petro had were in his own ability to carry them off. “I’ve never cut through canvas before,” was the only way he would allow himself to express those doubts, though.

“It’s a Caza Dioro weapon,” she repeated. “That blade could cut through soft rock without straining your arm. Just jab the point in, and slice down.” To emphasize the technique, she held his arm and repeated the action twice. Petro hadn’t expected her to handle his limbs so freely, but at the same time, he wasn’t objecting to it. “Jab. Slice. All right?”

“All right,” he said, trying to sound confident. Internally, however, he quailed. Why couldn’t he create the distraction while she did the hard work?

Emilia was on her feet once more, pulling him to his feet. Her grip was as strong as any man’s, it seemed to him. He tugged at her arm so that he could speak in her ear one more time. “What if he’s tied up?” he asked. “Or drugged?”

Apparently she had already thought out the possibility. “If he were restrained or too docile, he wouldn’t be able to use a chamber pot.” It was a point he had to concede.

“What about Brother Narciso?” he asked, tugging at her sleeve before she could move away again.

“If he’s still alive, and if he’s in there, take him with you. Just keep them both quiet and head north until I catch up with you.”

“And if—?”

“Ventimilla. Improvise. You’re not entirely without wits.” Her impatience was as sharp as the Dioro blade Petro clutched so clumsily. “Are you going to be able to handle your part? Because if not, I’ll do it on my own.”

“Am I—! Of course I can do it,” he said, bluffing hard. “Just be sure you do your job.” It was impossible to see her face, but for a few seconds Petro felt sure that Emilia was having to restrain herself from a sharp and short retort. Then she planted his free hand onto the back of her belt so she could guide him with her extra-sharp vision, and began moving toward their destination.

With every step toward the tent where his friend was being held captive, Petro could think of a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t be there, in the woods somewhere north of Campobasso. He wasn’t a guard, to begin with. He had no training in anything that mattered. No one before had ever expected anything extraordinary from him, and he’d always had a vague contentedness to fade into the background.

“Stay here against the tree,” Emilia commanded, once they’d moved as close to the tent as she seemed to want to go. It lay only a few steps away, looming taller than he’d thought, and blocked out every trace of the bonfire beyond. The curve of Emilia’s jaw appeared briefly, appearing as a sliver as it passed through the moonlight. “It will be a few minutes. You’ll be all right?”

“Go,” he whispered, glad not to speaking any more loudly—he might have betrayed the fear constricting his throat. Unexpectedly, he felt her fingers around his free hand. She squeezed it briefly, and then vanished without a sound. He waited a moment, half-expecting her to say something else. “Emilia?” he said at last. “Are you still there?”

There was no reply. He was utterly and completely alone.

You worry too much about your baby boy. So what if Petro has no talent or love for glass, like the rest of us? He is a sweet boy. There are many undemanding jobs at the insula that can keep him busy and occupied for the rest of his life, in place of being useful.

—Vesta Divetri, in a letter to her mother, Giulia

Petro’s eyes were accustomed enough to the dark by now that when he moved from the trees and peered around the tent, the light from the blazing fire dazzled him. He could smell it now, dense and smoky with lingering traces of charred meat. When he hunched down and took a step more, the shoulder of one of the loyalists came into view. Though the man had his back to him, Petro still thought it wisest to withdraw from possible sight. His heart pounded in a quick rhythm. It would only take one quick, unexpected turn and his secrecy in the shadows would be uncovered. Once more, he wished he were somewhere, anywhere else.

No. That wouldn’t do. He might not have the training of a guard, but already he’d shown Emilia he could think like one. For Adrio’s sake, and for the sake of all the mistakes he had already made on this trip, he would keep enough wits about him to outsmart three or more men. After all, for how many hours had they already haunted the outskirts of the camp without detection? He could last a few more minutes on his own, waiting motionless.

The stern talking-to he gave himself seemed to be helping. The red tide of panic that had been obscuring his vision began to recede, and he began taking in his surroundings. “Directly north,” he said to himself, trying to judge, while he had the leisure, the direction his path should take. The smaller of the two moons hovered close to the horizon somewhere to the right of where he should be going, visible through the distant tree trunks in snatches as he moved his head. Yes, the moon would be slowly moving as it set during the upcoming hour or more, but at least it would give him some kind of bearing. So that was all right.

As for the tent, he listened close for sounds from within. He knew better than to give himself away prematurely, for no good would come of Adrio calling out for help to some unseen champion. He imagined he heard some kind of deep breathing, but that might have been from one of the guards sitting by the fire.

Whatever distraction Emilia had planned was either taking longer than she expected, or else time dragged more slowly with her gone. Though Petro’s stomach suggested that she’d been caught and was now undergoing some exquisite torture, his brain told him that he hadn’t heard a peep from any of the loyalists. Knowing Emilia, she was probably being her normal cautious self.

While he tried to determine exactly how long he’d been standing there in the dark, Petro’s eyes fell upon an object sitting at the side of the tent. It was the bucket he’d seen earlier—the metal container near the fire. It now lay between the tent and a pile of sacks, forgotten and untended. Anxious as he was, Petro’s curiosity was piqued. What could be inside, to arouse so much anger? He’d always wanted to prove himself. Now would be the opportune time.

He could do this on his own, he assured himself as he dropped to his knees. He left the Dioro poniard at the tent’s edge, ready to grasp when the time of need came. He had to get to that bucket even if it meant creeping within the line of sight of the men near the fire.

“She was the prettiest little wench I ever did know.” Now that the tent was no longer completely blocking him, Petro could hear the men reminiscing in low voices. Obviously they were trying to keep themselves awake and entertained without rousing their companions.

“When she weren’t in a bright light, more like,” said another man, chuckling to himself.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The first man sounded offended.

Petro crept another step forward, feeling the earth chilly beneath his palms and knees. He would have to squeeze his shoulders under one of the ropes anchoring the tent in order to reach the bucket—either that, or travel completely around the rope and expose his entire body to the campfire. He judged the tighter route the lesser of two evils, so long as he managed not to betray himself to the tent’s occupants.

“It means she bain’t that pretty. She’s got a gimp leg,” the second man was saying.

“What’s a leg got to do with pretty? Her leg isn’t near her face!”

Petro narrowed his shoulders as his head and neck passed the anchor rope. His right shoulder scraped against the canvas, creating the faintest of ripples across the fabric. When he tried to move forward, his left shoulder sawed against the rope and caused it to vibrate. He didn’t dare twist around to look up; he could tell that every twang of the rope was causing the tent’s peak to quiver.

“Might as well be,” harumphed the man. “Considering her face looks like an arse.”

The pail was close enough for Petro just to reach the edge. Perhaps he could merely move it back.

“Oh!” said the first man, plainly offended. “Oh, you liar! It’s your mother who looks like an arse, and a donkey’s arse at that.”

As Petro’s index and middle finger grasped the pail’s rim, the second man said, “That’s a truth I can’t deny.” After a moment’s silence, they both broke out into chuckles, subdued but very real. “She’s no beauty, my ma.”

The laughter gave Petro his opportunity. Bit by bit he dragged the pail back, surprised at how heavy it was. Though it scraped across the ground and threatened to tip over and spill its contents, he managed to move it a hand’s width before daring no more.

“Your pa’s no looker either,” joked the first man, still rumbling with good humor.

If the pail’s contents turned out to be live bait or chum, it would be awful, but Petro knew he had to reach inside.

“No, he surely is not,” the other man was saying. “It’s a wonder I turned out as handsome as I did, eh?”

“A wonder, all right.” Petro wanted to look away as his fingers inched down into the pail. Every instinct in his body seemed to tell him to screw shut his eyes, that he didn’t want to see what would be oozing through his fingers, but he forced them to stay open and alert. “Of course, mebbe you haven’t looked in a mirror of late,” the man added.

“I know I’ve got to look a damned sight better than you.” the second man proclaimed.

He had to do it. Petro took a deep breath, tipped the bucket, and plunged his hand in. To his surprise, he found himself not wrist-deep in earthworms or beef fat, but touching something cold, hard-edged, and metallic.

“That’s not what your sweetheart said last week when I had her,” rejoined the first man.

Petro heard one of the loyalists throw something onto the fire. Another log, judging by the heaviness of it. He turned his hand to see what he was holding.

At first he couldn’t quite make out what the small curves of metal might be, but it wasn’t from any lack of illumination. Enough silvery light from overhead mingled with the glow of the fire to show Petro that he held perhaps half a dozen small, crescent-moon charms. All of them were fashioned from folded-over circles of soft metal, and were no different in design than the charms he and Adrio had tossed into bonfires on previous Midsummer’s eves. All that fuss, then, merely for a few pounds of tin? It made no sense.

“You’re aching for a fist in your chops, ain’t ye?” growled the second man.

Then disaster struck.

As Petro was trying to decipher the meaning of the bucket of charms, for a moment he released the pail’s lip. Though he caught it again almost instantly, the contents shifted enough so that the bucket teetered, twisted, and then fell to the ground. Charms clattered out in a jangling arpeggio.

“What was that?” he heard the first man ask.

“I don’t know.”

A hot flush of energy spread from the base of Petro’s spine toward the very top of his head and toward the soles of his feet, propelling him backwards. He scuttled through the triangle created by the tent and its anchor rope, moving as rapidly as possible. He heard a tentative shuffle of feet, then a scrape as whatever bench the men had been sitting upon was pushed back. Though he’d rarely uttered a prayer that wasn’t forced from him by someone in his family or the insula, he now found himself uttering the most basic and fervent of intercessions:
Please please please please please.
He couldn’t be caught. He mustn’t be caught.

“Probably just Fatty again, running into something.”

“Don’t know about that.” The voice was coming in his direction. His rear end cleared the tent’s back corner and his left hand grabbed the Dioro blade as his right hand stuffed his fistful of moon charms into his vest’s hip pocket. Petro then pulled the blade flat to his chest, hugging it protectively as he sat down heavily in the tent’s shadow. Even though his heart was pounding relentlessly, he tried to hear enough to decipher what might be going on around the corner.

“Or an animal. Raccoon,” called the man by the fire.

“Could be.” Petro was startled to hear the second man’s deep voice perhaps only an arm-span away. He heard a trickle of metal as the man righted the bucket, then sifted through the remaining charms with either his hands or foot. “Could be something else.”

Please please please
. Over and over again, Petro moved his lips in the most basic and silent of prayers ever uttered. Whether these prayers were answered by the gods, or whether Emilia simply had achieved her goal given enough time, he never knew—at that moment, he heard a cry of “Fire!” from the loyalist further away.

The man near him turned. Petro heard a crunch as the man’s foot smashed several of the hollow charms, then kicked over the bucket again. “Are we cursed?” he cried. Then, even more loudly, “Get some water!”

The moment he sensed that the loyalist had departed, Petro was on his feet. He dared risk a quick look around the other side of the tent to see what was happening. Flames were indeed licking at one of the corners of the largest tent in the camp, to the east. In the space of a few seconds, the conflagration tripled in size, spreading across two of the tent’s panels and reducing a golden tassel to ash. Petro didn’t know what oil or substance Emilia might have thrown to make the flame swallow the tent so quickly, but whatever it was had done the trick. “Water, hells!” shouted the first man. “Help me get everyone out before they burn alive!”

That was enough. Petro retreated into the shadows before any light from the blaze illuminated him. When he gingerly pulled out the poniard, it almost sang as it flew from its sheath. Its edges glinted in the moonlight, and a whispered warning seeming to fall from its lethal lip. As a Divetri, Petro was used to enchanted objects; he’d grown up using them every day of his life and considered them commonplace. Even so, the strength of the enchantments of this particular blade took him aback.

Jab and slice. That’s what Emilia had told him to do. Petro held the blade at eye level and thrust it forward. Thankfully, due to the tautness of the tent’s construction, the canvas didn’t have much give. He felt the point dig in, followed by a certain resistance as the tip followed. With both hands on the hilt, he pulled the blade downward, feeling the thick and heavy fabric part underneath it as sweetly as the wispiest of silks. Another jab followed, at a point roughly parallel to the first, until Petro had created a flap. When he lifted it and attempted to peer within, the air inside the tent felt heavy with heat and odor, as if someone had been ensconced within for a very long time.

“Who’s there?” he heard a sleepy voice say. “What’s going on?”

“Adrio—it’s me. Petro,” he whispered. It was too dark in the tent to see anything at all, but from without he heard the sounds of shouting and scurrying as the awakening camp hurried to put out the fire. “You’ve got to come with me now.”