An Illusion of Thieves Read online

  Assuming Dumond could make a competent duplicate in time.

  Assuming Neri could get the counterfeit in place.

  Then, perhaps, we could win out and live another day.

  14

  DAY 1—NOONTIDE

  “Placidio will do it.”

  Neri’s blurted pronouncement shattered my concentration. I glanced up from the mess of ink and parchment on my writing table, my head spinning with words—polite words, precise words, words clever enough to intrigue the eight members of the commission, deferent enough to keep them at ease, strong enough to ensure respect and hearing. Trials and scraps of messages lay everywhere, dusted with scrapings from cleaning parchment to retest my phrasing and sand from drying two completed letters. I’d locked my shop door and missed out on three clients as I wrestled with it.

  “Do what?” I snapped.

  Neri seemed taken aback by my annoyance, but his abrupt arrival had jolted a last perfect phrase from my head.

  “He’ll play the adventurer—Vincenzio. He’ll go with you to the Artworks Commission.”

  The whirling puzzle pieces in my head settled into a new arrangement. “Placidio? Is he mad? Does he have any idea how dangerous—?”

  “I told him that we were working a scheme to save your life and prevent a war and that we needed some playacting done in front of il Padroné. He asked if there was silver involved. I said it was possible, but not sure—not wanting to give your word to it. He said it wasn’t necessary, but that he would need some clothes, as his only decent suit is his dueling rig and that wouldn’t hardly do. I guess he drinks up most of his fees.”

  “Placidio?”

  The terrifying thing was that it made good sense. A man so robust would certainly be more convincing as an adventurer than the best disguise I could imagine for an adventurer’s sister. Cleaned up, in good leather and velvet. The duelist was no fool. His whole life was dangerous playacting.

  “But why, Neri? Why would he? He doesn’t need the risk. He’s shown no particular loyalty to Cantagna. He has no family here that we know of. I’ve seen no signs of attachment to any of his clients. If war came and he didn’t care to fight for one side or the other, he could just move on to somewhere else. How can we trust him?”

  Neri downed a flask of weak ale and two aged apples in the span of a heartbeat, and then cut a length of sausage that had cost two days’ writing fees.

  “He said he couldn’t afford to lose two paying students. But I think he decided to do it when I mentioned the scheme was about a very important man’s birthday gift for the grand duc of Riccia. He said, ‘Certain I owe Eduardo a favor.’ But it was mumble and I don’t think he meant for me to hear it—or even knew I had. For certain he never told me who Eduardo was or even mentioned him again.”

  The name made everything clear and added questions at the same time.

  “In the match Placidio lost on purpose to prevent people noticing his magic,” I said, “the one that knocked him off the dueling list in Tibernia, he lost to the conte of Tibernia’s champion, which enabled the conte to retain his title. The conte then banished his cousin the chancellor. The sister of that banished, disgraced cousin who believed he had legitimate claim to the title is Eduardo di Corradini’s wife.”

  Understandably, Neri’s confusion was not yet satisfied. “But who is Edu—?”

  “Eduardo di Corradini is the grand duc of Riccia.” But who was Placidio di Vasil to be calling the grand duc of Riccia by his personal name?

  “I’ll have to speak to Placidio before we go forward.” Though I would be hard-pressed to find a reason to avoid so fine a solution.

  “He’s fighting today midafternoon. But he says he’ll not take any more challenges for three days, if you decide to have him. And he says he’ll not get drunk for three days neither, if you should be worried about that. I’m to leave a message with Fesci at the Duck’s Bone as to when you want to meet with him.”

  “Evening bells at the Duck’s Bone. Three hours should give time enough for his fight and whatever he does after.” We would see if the man stayed sober. “Then we go to Dumond at half-even to decide what flaw he’s going to mold into the false statue.”

  “I’ll tell Fesci the time.” Neri drained another mug of ale.

  “And find Fesci’s boy Aldo,” I said, as he wiped his eating knife. “Tell him I’ve a delivery needs to be made. He should wash his face and clean his nails, put on a clean shirt, and be here when the next hour bell rings.”

  “Right.”

  “And Neri…”

  He looked back from the open doorway, confident, handsome, clever, generous, trusting, a man now, and worthy of a destiny so much more than he was likely to find. My heart ached for his promise and for his danger.

  “… go with care.”

  His grin flashed bright and he slammed the door.

  As I finished the message to the Arts Commission, the image of my brother’s face would not leave me. Few people in the Costa Drago prayed. Those who did so were hopeless optimists who believed the Unseeable Gods were yet capable of influencing human affairs if you just spoke to them often enough with rituals of fire or water, pain or lovemaking—anything that might breach the boundaries of the Night Eternal. But no matter how they tried, we yet suffered plagues and wars and the earth yet shook and the mountains yet fumed.

  Supposedly Lady Fortune and Lady Virtue, merely the daughters of gods, could not change the ordering of human events, but offered guidance to those who heeded the workings of the world. Fortune revealed her secrets through augury, though finding diviners who could truly hear Fortune’s true whispers and not just their own venal hearts was ever a challenge. But Virtue bestowed her gifts of wisdom, generosity, and courage randomly on worthy souls—thus we painted tributes or erected statues or held processionals to honor virtuous men and women to show our appreciation and keep the Lady’s bounty coming. We also devised story after story of how we might influence the direction of Lady Virtue’s gifting.

  When the message to the Arts Commision was sent, I grabbed a loaf of bread and hurried down to the riverside. Sitting on a lonely rock, I scattered crumbs until I was surrounded by a legion of warblers and swifts, buntings and martins—Lady Virtue’s favored creatures—and I whispered my petition in hopes they would carry it to through the blue skies to their beloved mistress.

  “Please, any divinity who will listen, let me not be foolish in pursuing this enterprise. It is not for me. It is not for my onetime friend of the heart Sandro, who declared me dead. This is for Alessandro di Gallanos’s vision that a city of enlightenment might live long after us. And this is for Neri, that he might live.”

  DAY 1—EVENING

  “When will we get the commission’s answer?” Neri kept his voice low, though the twirling pipes, clattering tabor, and inharmonious chatter of the tavern’s patrons left no risk of us being overheard. “I don’t understand why you didn’t send the letter to him direct.”

  Neri always bulged his eyes and bobbed his head when he referred to Sandro, as if I might miss his meaning elsewise.

  The corner table where I sometimes met clients was situated far enough from the hearth to be out of the way when patrons helped themselves to a mug of Fesci’s mysterious bone-and-scrap soup, while near enough to be warm in the winter—certainly warmer than my shop which had only a tiny brazier. Neri had joined me from time to time through the last hour, as he roamed the common room, the alley, and the horse yard behind, making sure no patron overstepped Fesci the taverner’s rules.

  “It will take the head of the commission awhile to contact the other members,” I said. “I hope to get an answer by midday tomorrow. And my sending the application to anyone else—no matter how powerful that person is—instead of those officially in charge, would be seen as terribly rude and cast a venal light on Vincenzio di Guelfi’s motives. But if Placidio doesn’t get here soon, we’ll have to rethink the whole scheme.”

  The evening anthem bells had rung a
half hour since with no sign of the duelist. I kept envisioning him slumped in an alley spewing vomit or gouting blood. His willingness to join us had relieved me of a huge burden, and now …

  “Don’t fret,” said Neri. “He’ll come.”

  Two boys’ jostling devolved into a grapple as they sniped at each other in the usual dialect of ancestry, cowardice, and male appendages. Neri moved off to drag them outside. The chilly draft from the open door flickered the smoky lamp and swirled sparks from the hearth.

  Giggles from several customers distracted my attention from all the ways I could murder Placidio di Vasil. Someone had come in as Neri hauled his charges out.

  Yet another curse on Placidio’s head rose to my tongue when I saw the newcomer was just a tall, awkward, clerkish sort of man, whose deep-set eyes roamed the common room uncertainly. His short hair and out-of-fashion gray cloak and doublet marked him above the common for the Beggars Ring. Sure as nightfall, two girls descended on him like ants to honey.

  Pipes and tabor rattled into a new tune, inviting all to the dance. I returned attention to my cider; no use giving Placidio an excuse to inebriate himself if the damnable sot ever showed up. And if he didn’t? Curse it all. I had written of Professoré di Guelfi’s sister-assistant in his application, but had dropped my notion to mention a recent bout of illness that might excuse the man himself from appearing.

  Someone smelling faintly of lavender water cleared his throat. I glanced up. The clerkish newcomer towered over me … a man whose hands could enclose an infant’s head entire and who sported a scar that reached from his left eyebrow to his square chin.

  “Placidio?” Even with such distinctive evidence, I wasn’t entirely sure.

  “The scar ruins it, yes? Didn’t think it would stand out so awfully after that barbarian barbering.” He dropped heavily onto the stool Neri had vacated. “Maybe a hat would help?”

  My hand flew to my mouth. No one so genuinely despondent deserved laughter.

  Only when composure returned did I venture, “I know a salve to mask … skin blemishes. It might be of use to lessen if not hide the scar. I suppose an adventurer like Vincenzio di Guelfi might be expected to have experienced some rough encounters in his life.”

  “Indeed so!” The duelist’s face brightened, then immediately clouded again. “Though I didn’t think to ask who might be at this commissionary sitting. It’s not only merchants or guildsmen who’ve hired me. A few nobs like a duel on the cheap from time to time.”

  “Certain I can tell you who’s likely to be there: Beatrice and Piero di Mesca, Hue di Santorini…” I rattled off the eight commission members, ending, naturally, with “… Alessandro di Gallanos, otherwise known as—”

  “—il Padroné. Neri told me. Good. None of them ever hired me. But the lad says you’ve met Gallanos and that he might even recognize you. He wasn’t stretching the story to intrigue me?”

  “No.” I fixed on his cinder-gray eyes and dropped my voice even lower. “And it does pose a risk. I have to be there. To watch him, to listen, to discover what I can of his belief, to know whether to let Neri risk his part of our venture. But if you’re willing to risk partnering with me, you deserve to know all…”

  He bobbed his head, understanding my pause. “You can trust me, lady scribe, as I’ve trusted you.”

  “For nine years I was companion to the Shadow Lord, his favored … courtesan.”

  “Fortune’s dam.” The words dropped like stones in a still pond. But to his credit, Placidio did not gape, sneer, blanch, crow, take a fresh inventory of my body, or run away. He did blink, swallow hard, and signal to one of the disappointed tap girls to bring him a mug of ale, not speaking again until she had withdrawn.

  “Never imagined. I mean I knew you were intelligent and educated, experienced in ways no Beggars Ring woman likely ever was, but such never crossed my mind.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “I’m not ashamed of it. It was not a life I chose for myself, nor would I have done even if I’d known those years would be as good as such a life can possibly be. But our relationship is a year dead and that will not change. I swear to you that this venture is not some scheme to reclaim his favor. I would as soon he never know I was involved.”

  The words flowed easily, jolting me with the certain truth they expressed.

  “Thus—thus you can see my difficulty, as well as the additional dangers of joining me.” I told him of Gilliette and the luck charm, of the stolen statue and her threat to my safety, and of the risk of civil war if Riccia’s favor supported il Padroné’s enemies. The only thing I withheld was how we had come to know Dumond or any hint that our forger shared our demonic taint.

  In honest turn, Placidio revealed that he had wondered about Neri’s boldness at trying the Santorini Thrust at his first lesson, as well as his knowledge of a sophisticated technique. But he had only come to believe Neri was demon born on the night we’d saved his life, when he’d heard Neri ask me if I’d felt Placidio’s magic.

  “We helped you save your own life,” I interrupted. “The power you wielded that night … it made me think the taint not such an evil as I’ve always believed. It’s certainly a divine curse that can destroy lives so easily, but—”

  “It is our human curse, not divine,” he said, harsh as I’d ever heard him. “History corrupts our gift, twists it, forcing us to corrupt and twist ourselves. You are bold indeed, lady scribe, to enlist your brother’s skill in a righteous cause. To enlist your own skill, as well, I think, for if you perceived my power that night, you’re one of us as well.”

  Bile scalded my throat. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you; you just need to know it’s so minor as to be irrelevant. When touching someone’s skin, I can make that person forget a bit of truth and recall something different in its stead. But that replacement memory usually raises more questions than it quiets. I could make the Shadow Lord believe that a false statue was the real one, but unless I touched every member of the commission, as well as the grand duc of Riccia himself, and told them the same, it wouldn’t solve anything.”

  “Hmph.”

  Silent, he rested his arms on the table, his fingers touching the droplets on his mug’s smooth side as if they were pearls. Then his gaze flicked to me, sharp, as if he’d worked out a puzzle.

  “I was not born a duelist. As a boy, I was considered to have exceptional eyesight, because I could tell my parents how my young brother had unlocked the wine store with a bit of wire or set fire to the stable by tormenting my father’s horse into kicking over a lantern, even though I was found far from the scene of each crime. But of course I had run away when I saw these things happening—not even understanding that I saw them in time to stop the events before they actually occurred.”

  “As you do when you’re dueling. You must use your gift sparingly, lest someone take notice.”

  “Aye, that.” His scarred fingers flexed and twined themselves into a tight knot. “It was a hard road to understand what I could do, and a great deal of work to harness it to be of any use—’tis only a moment’s advantage, not an hour’s. But my meaning is, if you’ve not had a chance to explore your gift, then you might be surprised at how it shapes.” His lips took on a bitter twist. “I might even volunteer to be your subject. There’s a number of things I’d like to forget.”

  I raised my mug in mock salute. “Like yours, my gift offers only a limited advantage. I can erase the memory of a woman you talked with this morning. But I don’t know how to erase the memory of why you were talking to her in the first place, or who she reminded you of, or where you had seen her before, or the thousand other things associated with that conversation. I would leave so many disconnected fragments, it would drive you mad trying to connect them.”

  “Ah. Too bad.” He sipped at his ale and shook his head like a hound shaking off a dousing.

  But I couldn’t let our confessions rest quite yet. “So—you must understand I have to ask, because we’ve no way to know ho
w this may all play out—has any one of those things you’d like to forget something to do with Eduardo di Corradini?”

  Blackness deadened Placidio’s eyes, and his body tensed as if on the verge of flight. For certain the easy part of our conversation was finished. He lowered his gaze to the dregs of cider swirling in his cup. “Yes and no.”

  He glanced up as if to judge if he’d said enough. Then he blew a soft sigh. “Don’t know how you’ve come to know whatever it is prompts you speak about him and me. That frights me a bit. But I’ll tell you I bear the man no ill will. Rather the other way round. I believe him to be a good man on the inside as well as the out, deserving all the honor rumor speaks. The circumstances of that understanding I will keep to myself, despite your having shared your own privacy so frankly. I will not bend in this. But please believe my withholding is not, in any fashion, a matter of my trust in you, nor should it affect this plan of yours in any way for good or ill. Does that suffice?”

  In other circumstances, it might not. But the more I considered my plan, the more convinced I was that I dared not go alone into a room with Sandro. The duelist was a private man, but we had worked with him for a year. He had kept Neri’s secret and his suspicions about mine, and we had kept his. The results of our bargain—the results of his good teaching—had been more than satisfactory, and I’d seen nothing to concern me about his trustworthiness. Almost nothing.

  “Sober until it’s over?” I said.

  “On my mother’s womb.”

  “Then I’ll accept your boundaries for now. And I welcome your help,” I said. The words did not seem enough. I extended my hand and we clasped wrists as is done for the most solemn contracts.

  15

  DAY 1—LATE EVENING

  “Extraordinary, Segno Dumond!” I said. “I never expected to see it so soon. But of course with our short deadline, you had to be quick.”

  On a large littered worktable in a stone shed behind the cooper’s yard stood the Antigonean bronze in all the power of its shaping, and beside it stood a wax model without a flaw that I could see, from the sigils on Atladu’s hand to the silken curves of Dragonis’s wings.