Turning the Storm (29 page)

“If they find us anyway, you know, this is pretty much not defensible,” Giovanni whispered as we settled down in the dirt and scattered straw. “They could burn this place down around us.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I really needed that image to think about. Do you have any alternative suggestions?”

“Not really,” he said.

It was almost evening. Giovanni unpacked apples and cheese from the horse's saddlebags to hand around, since we could hardly expect Celia's family to cook for all of us. I kept watch through the crack in the door, though as Giovanni had pointed out, there wasn't much we could do if the guardsmen came other than to pray that Celia's parents were able to convince them there was nothing to look for.

We dozed as the sun went down. A few hours after sunset, we heard a noise that brought Giovanni and me to instant alertness—hoofbeats. I bit my lip, hoping that none of the musicians would instinctively summon witchlight when woken and give us away. The barn was very dark around me, and although I could hear some people snoring, I had no way of seeing who was awake and who was asleep.

Someone banged on the door of Celia's parents' house. The silence went tight around me; all but the most determined sleepers were awake now. I peered out the crack in the door. The moon was full tonight, and the rider carried a globe of witchlight. One rider, alone. He knocked again.

Celia opened the door. She was wearing a yellow
dress, her hair combed neatly; I hoped it didn't make him suspicious that she didn't look like he'd dragged her out of bed to answer the door. She shook her head.

The rider dismounted. He was close enough that I could see the insignia of the Circle Guard on his uniform. Celia said something over her shoulder, and a moment later her father joined her. She slipped her boots on and stepped out into the yard. Demurely and with perfect calm, she strode toward the barn, the guardsman a step behind her.

I caught my breath; Giovanni's hand closed on the hilt of his sword. Giovanni and I could almost certainly kill him,
if
he was alone.

When Celia was steps away from the barn door, I saw her father make a sudden move, and the glint of metal in the moonlight. The guard cried out once, very loudly, and I wondered with a sick feeling if the other guards were anywhere in earshot. In the darkness behind me, I heard someone whimper. Celia's father brought the knife down again, twice more, and the guard was still.

Celia opened the door. “It's all right,” she said. “Don't be afraid, we've taken care of him.”

I stepped out into the moonlight, looking down at the guard's motionless body. “What about the others? There were twenty—what if the other nineteen come looking?”

“Well, we'd have had to kill him regardless,” Celia said. “He was planning to search. My brother ran out to tell the neighboring villages about the guardsmen, right after you arrived. My father thinks you should wait here a day or two, to let the other villages take care of the rest.” She looked disdainfully down at the body. “They shouldn't have split up. Father says the Fedeli would have known better.”

I looked at Celia's father. He had the same chest
nut hair, though it framed a tanned, hardened face. He knelt, as I watched, to wipe the knife clean on the man's clothing.

“Did the Fedeli come through here last winter?” I asked.

Celia's father looked up, and his eyes were cold. “There was a burning,” he said. “A foolish boy who opened his mouth at the wrong time. The Lady, and the Circle, had friends here once. No more.” He sheathed his knife. “We are glad to help you, Generale.”

“Would you like us to take care of the body for you?” Giovanni asked, stepping noiselessly out of the barn.

Celia's father nodded shortly. “You can bury him in our west field. We were planning to let it lie fallow this year, anyway.”

Giovanni wrapped up the body in its cloak, and we carried it together to the field Celia's father had sent us to. We took turns digging; the ground was cold and difficult to shovel.

The blood had soaked into the dirt of the barnyard when Giovanni and I returned. No more guardsmen came, and after another day of waiting, Celia's father came to tell us that messengers had returned from the neighboring villages. Twenty guardsmen lay buried in shallow graves in the fields of Verdia.

“Let's move,” I said. Celia's father moved the horse into the stable as we vacated it, and I thanked Celia's parents for their hospitality. Celia fell into step beside me, still wearing her sister's dress. For whatever reason, she didn't try to flirt with Giovanni again.

F
rom my tent, a few months later, I could hear the drums even when I couldn't hear the singing, like a distant heartbeat. When the wind shifted, I could hear the voices of the dancers, the flutes, the other violins. With Giovanni, I hiked to the crest of the hill and sat down to watch. Flavia stood in the center of the circle, and Lucia led the dance to the drumbeat. Flavia had cut her hair short; she still wore her conservatory robes, but had belted the robe with a red sash. “She's ready,” Giovanni said.

It was hard to argue with that. I crumpled Demetrio's letter in my hand. “I don't like Demetrio thinking he can set our timetables for us.”

“Granted, but he's right. We can't wait forever. The Lupi are getting restless.”

Our army was camped on the shores of the Anira River. Thanks to the Imperial supply lines, we had real tents now and were generously supplied with food, but we were growing so quickly that space and food kept
running short anyway. Demetrio's letter had urged me to send out musicians
immediately
to test their skills against magefire, to ensure that the ability wasn't limited to me.

“I had an uncle who thought the best way to teach children to swim was to throw them in the deepest part of a pond and let them figure out how to keep from drowning,” I said.

“That
is
the best way to teach children to swim,” Giovanni said.

I had sealed each of the musician recruits as Redentori, starting with Flavia, Celia, Quirino, and Valentino, but I knew that many still believed in the Lady. “We don't even know if you have to believe in order for it to work,” I said.

“Magery was supposed to be a gift from the Lady, right?” Giovanni said. “But Redentori can still summon witchlight. Even if it's a sin,” he added as an afterthought.

“You know, on our trip back from the conservatory, I used magery to light the fire one night,” I said. “The tinder was damp; I decided the sin was on the soul of whoever gathered the tinder, which I think was you, Giovanni.”

Giovanni laughed. “If you want to know the truth, when I'm not in the wasteland, I use witchlight whenever I have to get up to relieve myself in the middle of the night. I'll cheerfully endure whatever punishment God inflicts on sinners if it means I can avoid tripping and falling on my ass. So in other words, this is just the latest in a long line of petty sins, and not likely to significantly increase my divine punishment.”

“I'll have to remember that,” I said. “There are all sorts of sins I could probably pin on your soul.”

“Consider it available,” Giovanni said. “Within reason, of course. If, for instance, you are ever provoked to murder Clara and Placido, that sin goes on your own head.”

In the valley below, the dance finished, and Lucia climbed breathlessly up to join us at the crest of the hill. “Flavia's ready,” Lucia said. “As ready as she'll ever be.”

“Take Demetrio's advice,” Giovanni said. “Send them out.”

We arrived back at the main encampment to find a new shipment of supplies. A half dozen Imperial soldiers waited, along with a clerk; I signed for the supplies and some of the Lupi went to work unloading and storing them. Another twenty-five new recruits had also arrived and were being sorted out by Severo.

A message from Michel had arrived with the letter from Demetrio. The makeshift Imperial city had been dubbed
Corte
, Court; Michel's latest estimate was that there were three hundred residents, including nobles, servants, and guards. Several musicians had arrived, but they'd been sent over to join the Lupi. The original army barracks had been added onto six times; the new buildings wound their way across the walled hilltop like a huge misshapen caterpillar. “Everyone but the Emperor and Placido are doubled up,” Michel's letter informed me. “Placido doesn't have to share with anyone because he farts all night, according to rumor. There's talk of another building. They'd send the servants to sleep in tents, but the nobles are too worried that the servants will get fed up and leave, and they'll be left with no one to cook or clean the stables.”

“We'd better finish this war fast,” I said gravely to Giovanni when I had finished the letter. “Or the highest
of our nobility might actually be forced to take up useful work.”

∗    ∗    ∗

There were several small groups of mages just across the border from the wasteland; they'd attacked some of the incoming recruits. We sent out scout teams of dancers, soldiers, and musicians, anticipating little trouble in finding confrontations. The Circle wanted to know the limits of our defensive abilities as much as we did.

“I hate doing this,” I said as I watched the scouts leave.

“But look at them,” Lucia said, pointing at Flavia. “They're eager to do it. They know it's a test and that they're the ones who will determine if it works, but they know they can do it.”

“Besides,” Giovanni said. “It's the only way to find out.”

We sent the musicians we were surest of, like Flavia, but we couldn't be certain. If it didn't work, the scout teams would be killed. And we'd have to scramble for another strategy—fast.

“It
will work
,” Lucia said.

The day after our scout teams left, two Redentori priests showed up. I didn't know them, but they carried a letter from Clara. “Generale Eliana,” the letter said. “You mentioned concerns about spies. I have formed a group to combat the Fedeli and to identify their supporters; we call ourselves the Servi d'Arkah, the Servants of God. I have sent these two men to aid you in identifying Fedeli spies; they have been instructed to follow your orders. I urge you to take advantage of their services. You of anyone would realize how devastating even a single spy can be.”

I looked up from the paper. One of the Servi was old, and had hunched shoulders that made him look like a vulture; the other had beady eyes and a shrill voice like a screech owl. “What is it you want from me?” I said.

“Just a few minutes of your time,” the vulture said soothingly. “I beg you, think of us as advisors, not intruders. Sit with us a few minutes.”

I sent Viola, one of my aides, for tea, and waved the Servi into my tent, clearing some of my papers off the table so that we could sit comfortably. “Are those papers of a sensitive nature?” the screech owl asked.

I looked down at the papers in my hands. Sensitive enough. “Why do you ask?” I said.

“Do you always leave them in the open like that?”

“This isn't the open,” I said. “It's my tent.”

“Still, many people must have access,” the screech owl said. “Would anyone notice if someone came in, just for a few minutes, while you weren't here?”

“There is a guard on the tent at all times,” I said. “Even when I'm not here. Do you think I'm a fool?”

“But,” Vulture said, putting a placating hand on my wrist. His fingers were cold and sticky. “Are you certain you can trust every guard?”

“Yes,” I said. “My aides have been with us since the slave camps.”

“Who cleans?” Screech Owl asked.

“What do you mean, who cleans? Why would I need someone to clean my tent for me?”

Screech Owl shrugged and dropped the subject. We sat in silence for a few uncomfortable moments, then Viola came in with tea. She filled three teacups, setting them down in front of each of us. I picked up my cup
and took a careful sip. Viola nodded politely to the Servi and left.

Screech Owl waited until the tent flap had fallen shut before speaking again. “Does she have access to your tent?”

“Obviously,” I said. “And my tea, were she to want to poison me. Look, Viola escaped with me from Ravenna. If I can't trust her, I can't trust anybody.”

“Does she ever use witchlight?” Screech Owl asked. “When you're not in the wasteland?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I said.

“Does that answer mean the answer to my question is yes?” Screech Owl said.

“No, it doesn't mean the answer is yes!” I said. “My answer means I'd like to know why I should
care
whether my aides occasionally commit trivial sins in the name of convenience.”

“No sin is trivial,” Vulture said.

“Do you ‘guard the way to wrong’ on behalf of God?” I said.

The tent was very quiet for a moment. “No,” Vulture said. “We find spies. And we've found that many spies retain loyalty to the Lady, and will honor Her when they can.”

“Being a Redentore was never a requirement for joining my army,” I said.

“Wasn't it?” Screech Owl said. “That surprises me a great deal, Generale. Does that mean that you don't believe?”

“Of course I believe,” I said.

“Then why don't you wish for everyone to share in the true faith?” Vulture said. “Oh, but this is beside the point. The point is, any spies will
definitely
belong to
the Lady. Identifying those who avoid Redentori practices will at least give us somewhere to start.”

“I would expect spies, who knew their own treason, to be among the most fervent Redentori,” I said.

“Were you a fervent worshipper of the Lady when you spied in Cuore?” Vulture asked. “I don't remember you from the chapel.”

“No, I wasn't,” I said. “But I was never a very good spy.”

“You were good enough,” Screech Owl said. “And you knelt in prayer when you could, didn't you? You quietly avoided church.
That's
the sort of thing we're trying to find here—but of the opposite variety.”

I was silent for a moment.