An Illusion of Thieves Read online

  “Two statues.” The words blinded me like an errant sunbeam. So simple. So obvious.

  As the pieces of the puzzles spun in my head, some connecting, some colliding and bouncing off each other, my fingers unsnarled the knotted twine that bound the heavy bundle Gilliette had given me. Layers of canvas and silk wrappings fell away and I stood the cast bronze statue upright on its base.

  The dull green-gold bronze stood no taller than my forearm, elbow to wrist. The sculpted metal was wrought with more angular sweeps and curves than lifelike details of god or monster, but there was certainly no difficulty in identifying its subjects. The naked male was Atladu, for he wore earrings shaped like the coil of a wave and his sigil-marked hand carried a barbed spear. The sleek, faceless suggestion of a winged creature that loomed over the god was surely Dragonis, whose spiked tail had carved out our twisting ragged coastlines to the south and shattered the tip of the Costa Drago into the islands of Mercediare.

  It was the depiction of the two that was unusual. Every image of Atladu and Dragonis, whether drawn, painted, carved, sculpted, or assembled in mosaics so ancient the sun had leached their color away, recreated the ferocious duel that purportedly lasted a millennium. But this sculptor artist had depicted the two figures side by side, facing the same direction, the god’s muscular shoulder touching the beast’s extended haunch, the monster’s wings fully spread, as if the two were hunting partners chasing down the wind. A powerful image. Enthralling in its peaceful energy.

  Every story I’d heard or read claimed Dragonis had hated the gods from the moment of its creation, jealous because its beauty and brilliance was so far superior to humankind and yet somehow not enough to make it one of the gods. Why did this artist see something different in the story? Likely not because he was Antigoneas, the gods’ own smith, who cast it in his mighty forge in Sysaline under the sea, as my father’s lost tales had told.

  More important to me just now—why did the grand duc of Riccia want it so badly? Sandro had never told me. So there was no undoing Fermi’s plot from that end. But if there were two statues …

  “If we could come up with a good copy of this,” I said, “we could do exactly as you said. We could return the copy to Boscetti and Fermi, and they could present it to the grand duc. We give the real statue to il Padroné and he can make his gift as well. It would be up to the grand duc to decide which was the one he wanted. At worst it would leave a stalemate.”

  I dragged my gaze from the bronze to my brother. “I would need your help to make it happen.”

  Neri’s eyes widened, as if he knew what I was hinting at.

  “Can you do it for me? You know … walk into Palazzo Fermi and leave something like this behind?”

  “Certain.” He didn’t even blink. “And I would. Gladly.”

  “I know I’ve said we can never—”

  “Describe something inside the house well enough, and I can get there, put the thing down, walk right back out.”

  “But what about the wanting? You said you had to want some object so badly your head spins.”

  He leaned back against the wall and crowed. “Well, since I stole those cherries, I’ve wanted to do magic so bad it makes my head spin.” Happily he’d lowered his voice again. “And I prefer to keep both my hands. And I want you to keep yours. I think that’s enough wanting to make it work.”

  “Can you focus on a place, instead of some particular object?”

  “You just have to tell me about it exact enough I can see it in my head.”

  I would have to think about that. I’d visited Palazzo Fermi and could describe many of the rooms and artworks, but the right placement for the statue was critical; somewhere it could have been mislaid and overlooked … somewhere they could find it. But first we must deal with the question that could end the attempt before we began. Neri was sixteen. He believed he could do anything he set his mind to.

  “I suppose we need to make sure you can really do the magic whenever you want. Last time you tried, in the Temple…”

  His grimy, scarred fingers, witness to months of rough learning, twisted his wine cup, which seemed to have drawn his intense interest. “Won’t be a problem. That was a poxy case … the luck charm. Evidently, the charm is made to stay hid. Magic don’t work on it.” He glanced up from under his eyebrows. “Dumond told me.”

  “Dumond! You’ve spoken with him?”

  “Had to know why it didn’t work. Had to be sure I’d not lost the skill. And I haven’t.”

  Shock yielded to a rising fury. “By the Sisters, Neri, you worked magic behind my back.”

  “I have.” Damn Placidio and his training; my anger no longer intimidated Neri in the least.

  Of course anger was wholly illogical, given what I was asking of him, but I couldn’t let this pass. “You put us at risk after we agreed we—”

  “I didn’t agree!” The lamplight sculpted his narrow face with unflinching determination. “I just didn’t argue the point. But I wasn’t stupid about what I did. Only tried enough times to be sure. I was careful, Romy, and I put back everything I took. But someday I’m going to do more. Learn more. You felt the magic when Placidio healed his wound and when Dumond opened that door. That is not a demon thing, or if it is, then I’m a demon and glad of it. You were glad of it, too, when you stole our names and faces from that raping lawyer. Looks like you’re going to be glad of it again, now it could serve that person you won’t talk about. That person who had Da chopped. That person who owned you. Will it make him take you back to your rich life?”

  My hands pressed my temples, trying to crush the conflicting urgencies that threatened to crack my skull. “This isn’t about pleasing il Padroné or going back to him. It’s about stopping a war. It’s about a vision of the future. About Cantagna. About justice.”

  But how could he understand, a boy—a young man—who had never seen beauty or justice or imagined a future past the next day?

  I lowered my clenched hands to the table and forced them open. “Twelve families, Savilli and Fermi and their ilk, want to go back to Cantagna’s old ways. Before il Padroné’s grandfather stopped it, these families could arrest anyone with whom they had a grievance and try him before their own family courts. Their segnorés or segnoras could require the marriage of any girl or boy from a tribute town with someone in their family, or someone who held their debts, or anyone at all. If you stole from the Fermi, they could execute you. There was a custom called boons—exorbitant fees above your rent or taxes. If you wanted to build a warehouse you had to yield House Gavonti a boon amounting to a quarter of everything you stored in it. In his Cantagna—Fermi’s Cantagna—the half-blind weaver who sold us our blankets would have to pay a boon amounting to half of every solet she earns to House Malavesi, as they own all the market land in the Beggars Ring. Traders would have to pay a boon to House Longello every time they wished to have the city gates opened for their caravans. These ordinary citizens, and all those like us who benefit from their work, would be driven further into poverty to enrich these dozen families who believe it is their right to do as they please. Only last year was il Padroné able to rid Cantagna of the last of those monstrous boons, because he believes all citizens will prosper if merchants and artisans, laborers and shopkeepers are allowed to flourish. He will fight any attempt to overturn our laws. This means war. And who suffers most if powerful families go to war?”

  “Everyone else but them.” Neri sighed heavily. “I just don’t see how a statue is going to stop it.”

  “Nor do I. I’ve no idea what might prompt a devout and scholarly grand duc to switch his support to Fermi. You’d think it would have to be more than this statue, no matter how rare it is. But Fermi’s not a stupid man—and he’s younger and more patient than Savilli. And now he’s risked putting himself in direct confrontation with the Shadow Lord, so I have to assume he believes he’s going to reap what he wants from the duc’s gift.”

  “And you really think the Shadow Lord’s bette
r, even though some call him the tyrant?” Neri wasn’t convinced, but was no longer angry. That had to do for now.

  “I do. Someday I’ll tell you more of him. But we’ve only three days to get this done. And yes, it’s good you’re sure of your magic, but above all things, we have to trust each other, be honest with each other. Every day. Every hour. Our danger is real—and everything either of us does affects the other.”

  “Should have told you,” he said, drumming his fingers on our table. “Knew it. Just … didn’t want you all blistered about it. So I’m to take this thing into Palazzo Fermi where they can find it and think it was lost, not stole…”

  So easily Neri left our rupture aside—as he had when he was a child. Why could I not let things go?

  “… but you don’t want the statue I leave to be this one.” He touched the ancient metal.

  “That’s right,” I said. “While you place a false statue in Palazzo Fermi, I get the real one to il Padroné. There will need to be witnesses who can vouch that il Padroné has obtained it from a reputable source other than Boscetti. When Fermi’s statue is revealed to be a counterfeit, Fermi will be proved a fool, and il Padroné will have a chance to strengthen his friendship with Riccia.”

  “So we need the second statue.” Neri frowned at the bronze. “Where do we find something like?”

  “To copy a bronze casting is not so difficult.” Memory took me to the myriad artisans’ workshops Sandro and I had visited, even as my hand touched the bit of bronze in my pocket—the luck charm brought to my door this very night.

  Another piece of the flying puzzle settled into a tentative position. We knew someone who might be able to help us.

  “When you met Dumond to ask about the charms, was it at his workshop?”

  Neri’s cheeks flushed copper. “Aye. I didn’t tell him anything else about us, names or such.”

  “He’s proved himself trustworthy. And it’s useful to know about the charms.” I laid my charm on the table. Dumond could paint magical portals, but more importantly for this scheme, he could cast identical bronze luck charms.

  “Did you see any bronze castings at his shop? Objects like statues, cups, or bowls? Anything large or complicated?”

  “Certain he sells metalwork,” said Neri, creasing his brow. “Small things like the charms, some silver like the bracelet I tried to steal for you. Some tinwork. Not sure about the rest. Mostly it’s cups and oil flasks and bowls. He has a shelf of those little statues as folk use for grave remembrances like Mam got for Primo, Guero, and Leni. And alongside were some of the Twins, like the ones shopkeepers put above their lintels for luck. None shaped anything like this, though.”

  “Good.” Natalés—the grave remembrance figures—were almost always bronze so they wouldn’t rust. More importantly, their casting told me Dumond knew how to make complex molds.

  To make a mold from the statue, cast the copy, and do proper finishing to make the two almost indistinguishable would be difficult enough to manage in three days. One of the assistants from the city’s art workshops would surely have the skills we needed. But Dumond was a Beggars Ring man, someone we knew, and skilled at keeping secrets.

  “If Dumond can cast and finish a good copy, we can make my plan work. Do you think he’d do it for us?”

  “Pay enough and I guess he would. Says he’s got four daughters, none married as yet.”

  “So where do we find him?”

  DAY 1—FIRST LIGHT

  We were on our way well before first light, ready to set our plan in motion. The Beggars Ring had no central marketplace. It was too crowded and had seen too many fires. Shops and tradesmen’s stalls were stuffed into alleyways and odd corners all the way around the ring; sometimes a few shops were clumped together for efficiency—like Potters’ Lane or Bakers’ Corner. We had to hike halfway around the city to find Dumond’s foundry. Surprising that a metalsmith would set up his foundry so far from the river.

  Dumond’s lack of concern for fire risk was made clear when we arrived. His shop was naught but a three-sided stall built with wooden crates, tucked in between a small stone building marked as a chandlery and a cooper’s yard sheltered by a broad wooden roof. There was no evidence of a foundry at all. Not even a lingering smell.

  A sleepy girl in a smudged apron sat up straight and brightened her lantern as we approached. “Fair morning, dama, young sir. We’re well stocked this morning.”

  She waved her hand at a few pieces of gaudy jewelry that only a boy of six could admire and some charms stamped in tin—none bearing the image of arcs and tightly coiled spiral as our bronze ones did. But, indeed, there was bronzework, too. Some workmanlike bowls and cups sat beside six ugly candlesticks shaped like irises. The natalés, though, the finger-high statuettes that parents placed in the graves of their dead children to distract demons from tender souls, were very well done. From infants to older youths of both sexes, the details of faces and garments were replicated exactly in cast bronze. But lacking a foundry, did Dumond even produce them?

  “Are you looking for something particular, dama?” asked the girl. “I could fetch more from our storeroom.” Though she spoke to me, her smoky gaze rested appreciatively on Neri’s faint bristle of sprouting beard and his broadening shoulders. She was something near his age.

  “We’re looking for Dumond,” said Neri. “Might have some work for him.”

  “Da’ll be out soon.” Her fingers twined ebony braids. “Sure you’ll wait, yes? I’m Cittina.”

  I fingered the natalé of a straight-backed, youthful soldier who might have been modeled on my dead brother Primo. “Did your father design these himself?”

  “Aye, dama. He designs all our wares. Tin, bronze, copper, and silverwork, hammered and cast. Have you lost a child, then? Sorry, if.”

  “A brother,” I said. “Could you fetch your da? Our business … our grief … is urgent.”

  She sighed and tilted her head, widening her eyes at Neri, who was assuredly returning her appreciation. The fringe of hair on her brow shone like polished ebony, and slender cheekbones highlighted a smooth, caramel-hued complexion. “Guess I could, if you really want.”

  “We need to get back to our mother,” said Neri, trying very hard to keep his voice from cracking as it still did from time to time.

  “Certain, I’ll help you, segno.”

  The girl leaped from her stool with the willowy grace of a young doe, retreated exactly two steps behind the stall, and bellowed, “Da! Customer!” at the volume of a legion’s trumpet.

  Quick as a hawk moth, the girl darted straight back to Neri’s side, her long lashes fluttering in pained sympathy. “We lost my only brother as a babe. I wept for an entire year after. A friend’s comfort can help.”

  Neri looked as if he might combust. I suppressed a smile that wanted very much to show itself.

  Thankfully, we did not have to wait long for the balding, dusty Dumond. One look at us and he dispatched a sulky Cittina to help her mam with the morning’s chores. Evidently the metalsmith’s home and workshop lay somewhere behind the chandlery.

  “Told you to keep scarce, lad,” said Dumond as soon as we were alone.

  “We’ve a piece of bronzework we need duplicated in a hurry,” I said. “My brother seemed to think you might be able to do such work. The bronze charms … these natalés. But of course we would need a mold made … and a foundry, which it seems…” My hand gestured the rest.

  “I share a foundry up to the Asylum Ring, if that’s your question,” he said, cautious in word and expression. “Have to use it at night, when the bigger shops are shut, but it keeps my expense down. So I could certainly do what you want. Whether I will or no depends on the job and the pay. I’m a busy man. And careful, as you know.”

  I pulled the wrapped statue from a bag strapped to my shoulder and passed the heavy bundle over.

  Dumond unhooked the lantern hung on a post over his shelves and set the bronze atop the stacked crates to get better light on
it. His hands turned the piece slowly, fingers tracing the curves and details of the god and the monster. I imagined I heard the clicking of his mind, assessing the likely composition of the metal and the difficulties of making a piece mold that would replicate the details of the figure without trapping its protrusions inside the rigid clay. He had to plan the tubular openings that would allow air to be pushed out of the mold while molten bronze was poured in, and decide what supplies he might need to replicate coloration and age.

  “It’s had a piece broke off,” he said. “Just here.”

  He showed me a rough edge along the back of Dragonis, as if another being had raced alongside the god and the monster. Time and age had dulled the sharp edge and colored it the same as the rest.

  “Looks as if it was done long ago,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a worry.”

  A jerk of his head acknowledged my judgment.

  From his belt pouch he drew a soft brush and went over the whole thing again, examining the details, including its flat bottom. I’d looked there, too; no maker’s mark was visible.

  My throat tightened, for as he worked, the furrows in his brow deepened from dispassionate evaluation to curiosity. By the time he looked up at me, suspicion had cast deep shadows in those creases.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “A gift,” I said. “Why does it matter?”

  “It’s unusual. The composition of the metal’s not been common for centuries. And the artwork’s old, too; it’s not the Temple revival period, nor even the classic that came before. Never saw anything quite like. There’s something more to it. Can’t say exactly what. This is the kind of thing can be prized by some.”

  “Its age makes the finishing more difficult, I know—the alloy, the patina, the wear you can see on the monster’s scales, the spear where it appears one barb has broken off. But I’ll pay well to have an exact copy, with the exception of one detail.”

  “So you know a bit about these matters.” His gaze held me fixed. “What detail?”

  “I was hoping you might tell me. Something that would prove which was the copy, which was the original. I’d not wish to be deceitful and pass off the copy as authentic.”