The Nascenza Conspiracy (6 page)

Though the girl from the other insula was regarding Petro with something akin to sympathy, the boy sniffed and pursed his lips. Obviously he was a Narciso-in-training.

“I must say, Elder Catarre is more lax in keeping her aspirants clean than I’d heard,” Narciso announced. “Though given the boy’s background
…
”

“Yes, hard to believe he’s of the Thirty,” Adrio confided to him. “Barely above the level of a pig farmer, that one. I think of him as my charity case
…
”

Their voices faded as the cart lurched forward. Petro grinned. This was fine. Already the itchiness was disappearing from his skin. A little heavy lifting and a bad reputation was but a small price to pay for two weeks of invisibility.

It is my misfortune that the stairwell nearest my dormitorium and I did not see eye to eye as I rushed to my lecture last week.
I will miss seeing you at Nascenza this year, I fear, for they have seen fit to send an inexperienced popinjay in my place.

—Sister Beatrize Buonochio, in a letter to her sister, Amali

The journey to Nascenza, Narciso had announced shortly after their departure, would take nigh on a week. The length of time had puzzled Petro greatly, for when he had consulted the map hanging in the insula library, the journey appeared as if it would take but three or four days of walking at most.

What he had not counted upon, however, was Brother Narciso’s propensity for side trips away from the Great Traverse. “This is a pilgrimage, after all,” the priest confided to Adrio on their second day, as Petro and the two other aspirants straggled along behind. Their names were Elettra Leporis and Amadeo Martelli, he’d learned, and both he and they were as grimy as laborers from the dust kicked up by the cart’s wheels. “We must pay our respects to the shrines of the gods along the way.”

“Did Sister Beatrize stop at every temple?” Petro made the mistake of asking.

“What Sister Beatrize did or did not do, poor woman, is not your concern, Ventremiglia. I am your escort on this trip, and it is not a race, nor a pleasure jaunt. It should be … ” Narciso paused and frowned at Adrio. “Do sit up straight, Cazarrino, as befits your station. It should be somber, and thoughtful, and put us in a worshipful frame of mind, to prepare us for our prayers at the Midsummer Rites.”

Adrio, who had spent the previous evening at the campfire making up terrible whoppers about how he had assisted his famous sister Risa during Prince Berto’s attempted coup four years ago, looked grumpy at being chided. The sight of his friend being held to the higher standard of the Seven gave Petro no little satisfaction. And now that Adrio knew what a real snob looked like, perhaps he’d stop accusing Petro of elitism.

“It most certainly is not a pleasure jaunt.” Amadeo, the junior Narciso, sniffed in Petro’s direction. He superstitiously touched a few of the religious medals weighting down his robes.

“Do I look like I’m obtaining any pleasure?” Petro grumbled to Elettra, who always pulled faces at her mate’s pious parroting as well. “Am I jaunting?”

It did indeed seem that Brother Narciso intended to halt at every local shrine, no matter how small or far from the road it might be. Outside the farm settlement of Montebrosa, their group detoured in order to pay tribute at what was little more than a natural hollow of earth and a pair of rough-hewn stone bowls that still carried the rain waters of the previous days. Despite the audible grumblings of the palace guards, that same day they diverted themselves to Contelabbate, a settlement of the Insula of the Children of Muro, so that they could pay homage within the walls of its shrine in the woods. They spent the night sleeping outside along the riverbank—or rather, the rest of the group slept, while Petro’s nerves had crackled and jolted him awake every time he heard the snap of a branch or the falling of a twig.

A herder, whose sheep shared their road the next morning, informed them that the nearby hamlet of Cetone was home to a most unusual place of worship. His recommendation turned out to be correct, as the tiny shrine there had been constructed in front of a pair of trees joined at the trunk that had grown outward from each other. Over the years, the locals had filled the V-shaped space between them with resinous pinecones laid in neat and even lines. It provided a natural backdrop that even Petro had to admit was fairly spectacular, but it sent Narciso into absolute raptures.

At each location they visited, they left the small sacrifices—a few pinches of aromatic herbs for the god and clear water for the goddess—before moving on. Their party didn’t spend much time at any one shrine, but the traveling seemed to add to the pilgrims’ progress. Not that it was solitary or uninteresting in the least. In addition to the sheep herder, they had met any number of travelers along the roads. There was an elderly couple from Cassaforte city who were making the pilgrimage to Nascenza by themselves, taking the direct route. The woman had confided to Petro, as they walked behind Narciso’s cart, that she and her husband had met at the High Rites forty years before and had made the journey every ten years since. There had been a small group of young children gathering wildflowers for Midsummer wreaths who had skipped alongside them for a league until finally the priest shooed them away. And on the third day they met a number of gray-gowned devotees of Lena who were making their way on foot along much the same route as they. Brother Narciso had declined their kind offer to break bread at a shared fire that evening, choosing instead to make camp well off the road, close to the banks of the Sorgente.

“Common as dirt,” he said that night, as he slurped up another meal of stew. “Not really the type I should think any of the Thirty should associate. Nor especially the Seven.”

“I should think not,” said Amadeo, shocked at the idea.

The priest nodded. “Am I right, Cazarrino? I believe I am.”

“Right-o, Brother Narciso,” Adrio said without any real enthusiasm. The haunted look he shot Petro seemed to indicate that he was wearying of the priest’s special attentions. The never-ending diet of honeyed words, peppered with blandishments to improve, was beginning to become as unwelcome to him as the three meals a day of bread and dried fish. When they’d readied themselves for bed, he’d growled to Petro, “We wouldn’t want to be associated with anyone interesting or anything like that.”

“You hate being me, don’t you?” Petro asked, feeling strangely satisfied.

“Not at all,” Adrio replied, trying to sound lofty. “You’re lucky I associate with you, though. Brother Narciso says so. Now get some sleep.”

“Unlikely,” Petro growled as he steeled himself for another night of waking at every unexplainable noise.

“Oh come now,” said Adrio, already half-asleep. “You don’t really believe anyone’s following us with evil intent, all the way out here, do you?”

Petro didn’t think so, no … but he was unused to the absolute dark of the forest-shrouded
pasecollina
. Anything could be out there beyond the ring of light afforded by their campfire. The notion unsettled him.

In the town of Eulo, they planned to pay homage at an unremarkable village shrine constructed of little more than clay walls, a thatched roof, and only the tiniest of windows. They found a score of crones standing vigil outside this hut, ready to welcome any who came to offer their respects to the dead. The old women were dressed in Midsummer black, their elderly heads wrapped in veils. The most bent and hoary of them all tottered forward to greet them. In her knobbled hands she held a number of small straight pins affixed with tiny white river pebbles. Each pebble had been painted to look like a death face. They were Midsummer
mementos mori
, the traditional reminder of the holiday. In Cassaforte city, the little skulls were usually made from boiled sugar or marzapane and were often cheery, even comical. Sometimes the very wealthy had a
memento mori
made into jewelry that could be used every year. These tiny pebble skulls, however, looked as grim as the real thing.

One by one, the pilgrims waited while the old woman grasped their surplices between her trembling fingers and thrust in her handiwork. “Thank you, signora,” murmured Petro, when it was his turn.

As they entered the shrine, the old women crowded in after them. As Petro had suspected, stepping inside the structure felt like inserting one’s entire body into one of the Divetri glass furnaces. The air was very close and pungent, and as the pilgrims settled down to their inevitable prayers, Petro wished for a clove ball to counteract the overwhelming odors of sweat and garlic and musty clothing. Perhaps even Narciso was feeling affected by the heat, because his prayers were unusually brief. The crones kept their questions to themselves until the group had risen from the altar and began to dust themselves off. Then the women who had pinned the
mementos
to their gowns approached Narciso.

“You are from the city?” she asked.

“I and two of my charges are of the Insula of the Children of Muro, signora,” Narciso informed her, not-so-discreetly reeling away from the celeriac-scented cloud issuing from her mouth. “The Cazarrino is from the Insula of the Penitents of Lena. We are on the way to Nas—”

“Cazarrino?” asked one of the others.

“There is a cazarrino among you?” The question echoed among the women. As a group, they crept closer.

Narciso looked pleased. He reached out and grasped Adrio’s shoulders to put him on display. Amadeo, Elettra, and Petro were all dusty from the walk along the road, but Adrio, having ridden in the cart, had managed to keep his surplice relatively unspoiled. Standing squarely in the shaft of light beaming through the tiny window, he seemed some kind of scrubbed, unlikely cherub. “Why, yes. Signoras, allow me to present my protege, Petro, Cazarrino of Divetri. His family—”

“Divetri?” asked the oldest. Her wrinkled face stretched into something that resembled a smile. “This boy, he is the brother of the glass maker’s daughter?”

“Yes, he is.”

The clamor of the old women as they surged forward to chatter and pull at Adrio, for luck, sounded exactly like a flock of starved crows descending upon a field of grain. Adrio squawked and vanished in a sea of black, only one hand visible above the throng. They ruffled his hair, chucked him under the chin, and grabbed at his hands so they could give him their blessings—all while Adrio struggled for space and air.

The real Petro smirked at a safe and uncrowded distance, aware this might be the one incident that finally convinced Adrio that being Divetri could be a little more frightening than anyone thought. He knew that the crones wouldn’t harm Adrio. They were merely superstitious old women thronging the only person of note who had passed through their town in many a year. Adrio wouldn’t know that, though. Brother Narciso did not seem convinced of this either. It was obvious he was struggling between wanting to yank the helpless Divetri pretender out of their hands and not wanting to appear churlish. “Signoras!” he begged from the edge of the crowd, mopping his sweating head with his linen handkerchief. “I beg of you! Manners!”

The noise had attracted some of the villagers as well. A farmer entered with a basket of apples, while a man in dirty breeches and covered with mud poked his head through the window, completely blocking all outside light. Two young women with flour on their faces pushed into the shrine to see what was happening. “All this fuss over a cazarrino?” one of them sniffed, seeming indifferent.

“Oh, listen to her majesty,” said the other. “She has a cazarrino every morning for breakfast.”

“Knowing her, she probably does.” A young man with a slouched felt cap stuck his head through the door and gave the second girl a cheeky wink.

The first young woman swatted at him. “All I’m saying is that he’s just a cazarrino. Not a god. What’s so special about him?”

“Hush your tongue, child. People will think you’re a loyalist,” said another woman, carrying a wheel of hard cheese in her arms. “Shush now.”

“And what if they do? What is the shame in that?”

At that moment, the young women saw Petro observing them. Their mouths shut, and they pushed their way out the door, only to be immediately replaced by several others drawn in by the clamor.

Elettra was appalled at the spectacle. “Does that happen to him a lot?” she wanted to know, as Narciso tried to wedge himself through the press of bodies.