An Illusion of Thieves Read online

  “Good enough,” I said, even while acknowledging that no solution was unbreakable. “By the time the false statue is presented, the rightful owner will have the true one in hand.”

  Dumond kissed his wife’s hand with a rueful sigh. “It’ll be all night, my vaiya.”

  “Cittina will bring you kailing and tea before she sleeps,” she said and bustled him out the door.

  I rose to follow him out. “I must be off, too. Thank you for the tisane, dama. It saved my life.”

  “You’re welcome to sit a while, Romy-zha,” she said, filling another cup. “It’s late to be rushing about, and I’ve a yearn for company. I’d think it most pleasant to talk with a woman who appreciates all of my husband’s gifts, so I need not fret my words.”

  If her yearn for company ran as deep as my own, we could talk a very long while.

  “Someday I would love to sit down with you,” I said. “To learn how you came to meet a most unusual artist from the Costa Drago. To hear if the fantastical stories of your own land are true. But this work I’ve hired Dumond to do is part of a complicated endeavor, a worthy endeavor that could save many lives and make a better future for all in Cantagna. I’m a juggler trying to control all the pieces to make it work. Tomorrow, I must draw a map, devise a costume to hide me from a man who knows me well, write the script for some playacting, and rehearse it with a man I trust, but scarcely know, knowing that the slightest slip or wrong word could see us both dead.”

  She did not seem impressed by the list that daunted my spirits.

  “Basha says what you’ve asked him to do is risky. And he didn’t fully trust you at first—though clearly that has changed. He never brings anyone untrustworthy into his home.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Truly. I’m doing my best to shield him from extra risk.”

  “All life is a risk. Born with his gifts, he understands that, as do I. Among the Shadhi of Paolin, there are some, called the Enlightened, who deeply reverence the power you and your brother and Basha carry. Our understanding of it is no better than yours. No sorcerers are born in our land. Indeed, Basha found his power much weakened when he lived there. Yet still our leaders spread the fear of magic and quench its fire. But life is hard in Paolin—harder than here—and short, thus in secret the Enlightened teach that we should welcome evidence of realms beyond those we experience every day.”

  Her story stirred the continuing mystery. Did the First Law have its origin in divine commands or was it some human reasoning that decided extermination was the gods’ will? Why were we born in the Costa Drago and nowhere else? Did a monster truly lurk beneath our mountains?

  I took off Dumond’s cloak, smoothed it, and laid it across Vashti’s outstretched arm. “Do your children know what Dumond can do?”

  “They’ve seen many things that they accept as natural—as they are. Cittina knows that certain of those things should not be spoken of carelessly outside our walls. We’ll tell the younger ones when the time is right. As for now … well, you see, if anyone asks them if their papa can do magic, they would answer certainly so. And if they are asked what is his great magic, they would say why, he can make a bronze bird fly!”

  I laughed and touched his soaring lark. “And who, seeing this, would disagree?”

  “What kind of costume are you thinking? As you see, my needle is fine. Also experienced and quick; I clothe four daughters. I’ve some materials that are unusual. Perhaps I could help with the juggling?”

  My hand came off the door latch and I let her lead me back to her cushions and teapot. Eventually, as the night wore on, I told her everything.

  16

  DAY 2—MID-MORN

  I shoved a stained chemise, an old black skirt, and a gray bodice I’d found in a rag shop half a year ago into the cloth bag to join the bloodstained green shirt, moth-chewed doublet, and a torn cloak Placidio had delivered a half hour since. I had promised Vashti to deliver what bits and pieces we had before noontide so she could create new garments suitable for a modestly successful scholarly adventurer and his sister.

  I had just thrown on my summer cloak when Neri burst into our house like a spooked horse. “It’s come!”

  The fold of stiff ivory paper he waved stifled my question. Breathing deep, I snatched it and broke the seal—the serpent-coiled pillar of the Sestorale, imprinted in the dark red wax of the Commission on Public Artworks. So much hinged on this message. Justice and enlightenment, or the cruelties, turmoil, death, and destruction of civil war … and now this deeper mystery of magic that I could not begin to estimate.

  Neri was near splitting his jaque, so I read the missive aloud.

  Professoré Vincenzio di Guelfi,

  The Cantagnan Sestorale Commission on Public Artworks maintains an abiding interest in the display of artistic antiquities of the classical and pre-classical periods of the Costa Drago for the edification of our citizenry. We would be pleased to view your samples and hear your proposal for further exploration.

  “By the Sisters!” A grinning Neri slammed his fist to the door. “We’re on!”

  “Wait,” I said, sinking to my stool, appalled. “Listen.”

  Prior engagements will prevent our commissioners from meeting with you tomorrow evening or the following day as you suggest. Instead, we invite you to appear before this evening in the library of the Palazzo Segnori at the Hour of Gathering—also known in Cantagna as the time of the evening anthem.

  With respect,

  Beatrice di Mesca, for the Sestorale Commission

  on Public Artworks

  “Nine hours from this!” I groaned. “How can we possibly be ready?”

  “What’s to do?” argued Neri. “You know what to say to people like these, and you said Dumond’s wife would fix your disguise. There’s plenty of time to do that … dress up Placidio … talk about what he’s to say. He’s no dunce.”

  “It’s the statue itself. We’re supposed to convince the Shadow Lord that we have the real one and are willing to let him have it. But we can’t leave it with him tonight. Dumond needs the original at hand every step of the way to make sure he gets the coloring, the marks, the wear, everything as close to perfection as he can. Merchant Boscetti is no dunce either, and he’ll be suspicious finding the statue after it’s been lost. There is no possibility Dumond can have the work completed in nine hours. To get it done by tomorrow evening was already going to be difficult. So how, in the marches of time, are we going to walk out of the Palazzo Segnori tonight still in possession of il Padroné’s prize?”

  “If he takes it, I’ll just steal it back.”

  To explain the myriad ways that could get us dead would use too much precious time. “Find Placidio. He left here not an hour since. Bring him to”—I shoved panic aside—“to the Leguiza Hospice gate at noontide. I’ll meet you there. If Dumond and Vashti approve, I’ll take him on to their house so Vashti can dress him. We’ve no time for fittings.”

  * * *

  This time when I arrived at Dumond’s workshop, two bronze images of Atladu and Dragonis awaited me. The original stood watching as the metalsmith chiseled the last remnants of the sprues—the bronze that had filled the channels where the molten metal had been poured in and had pushed the air out—from the copy.

  “I’ll polish away the tool marks,” he said, pointing to the few scratches, “and these few other blemishes; still looks like the god has a boil on his bum right here.”

  But so much else was right. He had already removed the lines where the mold had joined, sharpened details, and tooled the wear marks. Atladu’s torso, the beast’s haunch, their toes and claws, the god’s face … all were astonishingly exact, right down to the worn spot where the barb on the lance had been broken off centuries ago, and the more ragged edge where we assumed another entire image had gone missing.

  Where the two statues did not match was the color. The new piece, right out of the mold, shone uniformly golden-brown, while the original wore green and black scabs of age.
Dumond had no doubts that he would be able to induce similar changes in the finish of the new casting—with the slight exception of the forged Atladu’s vulnerable balls. There he would paint on the needed color, so I could easily remove it to prove the forgery.

  “I’ll need to borrow the original for a few hours and perhaps a few of your natalés or a copper bowl to present as other treasures for sale.” I told him of the timing difficulty. “If all goes well, I should have everything back to you by the Hour of Contemplation. Will that set you back too much?”

  “Don’t go much beyond. This fellow”—he patted his creation—“will need to spend some time in the ovens up to the Asylum Ring along with some compounds I’ve made, and I’ve got to mask him proper first. But I’ll say I could use a few hours’ sleep. The finish might be the better for it. Have you considered … if these commissioners and your righteous owner agree that this is the real Antigonean bronze, what’s to prevent them keeping it? Then all this is a waste, and you’re just as like to be arrested for stealing it from the thieves.”

  “I’m working on a plan.” Which consisted of exactly nothing so far. “I’m sure Vashti told you she offered to help me with disguises. With this shortened schedule, I thought to bring my partner here…” I gave him a quick description of Placidio.

  Dumond had reservations about admitting another stranger to his home. I couldn’t blame him. Vashti had joined us by then, and I told them of our year’s relationship with the swordmaster and how Placidio was the only other person in the world I had entrusted with the secret of Neri’s talent and mine. I implied that Placidio had entrusted my brother and me with dangerous secrets as well; if Dumond and Vashti drew some conclusion about Placidio’s particular secret that I had vowed not to reveal, it was unfortunate … but inevitable. They ought to know each other, it seemed, two sorcerers embroiled in this strange scheme. If something went wrong, they might need to help each other—or Neri or me.

  In the end Dumond left the decision to his wife. She said she knew nowhere other than her own house where she would be comfortable measuring a strange man for breeches. Her daughters would be safely out of the room lest the gentleman be embarrassed to be seen in his netherstocks. “Now come, Romy-zha. Sounds like we must be quick.”

  “I mustn’t stand out,” I said as we left Dumond to his work. “The Shadow Lord, the man who owned me, is one of the commissioners. He must not recognize me.” Only my experiences meeting actors who’d presented plays and mimes in Sandro’s house led me to believe such a disguise could work. “I’ve brought what rouge and eye paint I could find on the way here…”

  “We shall confound him. Trust me.”

  I did. I’d never been more certain of anyone after such short acquaintance. Nor had I ever seen such facility with a needle or such an eye for design as that of Vashti Saryali di Paolin. Within an hour she had remade my plain black cotton skirt into a pleasing garment with a scalloped hem, slashed in the front. Behind the slash what appeared to be a full underskirt was a simple panel of apricot-and-gold Paolin silk, woven with an intricate design of cockatoos and their trailing plumes. The scrap of silk came from one of Vashti’s own treasured robes brought from a home she was unlikely to see again. Not all of Sandro’s silver could repay such a gift.

  Her needle transformed other pieces of the silk robe into flowing sleeves. She had marked a matching design on the gray bodice and set Cittina to filling in embroidery, promising to take it up when she was finished with the larger projects. My mostly white shift she threw in a boiling pot with herbs she promised would produce a color to harmonize with the silk. Then, to my dismay, she picked up the blue summer mantle I had worn through the midday shower, cut out the armholes, and reshaped the neckline to make a proper sleeveless gown, the better to show off the new silk sleeves. No seamstress in Sandro’s employ could have a devised a more suitable garment for a scholar-adventurer’s sister.

  She could work no similar wonders with Placidio’s breeches, shirt, or cloak until she could see what figure of a man he was. So she gave my most un-nimble fingers a plain hem to stitch—after bathing them in some kind of salts that removed the ground-in stains of a year’s writing—and then set to drying the peach-hued shift and gathering it into a modest ruffle to peek out of my bodice. A smaller daughter named Lelah made us jasmine tea, while a pair of tiny dark-eyed twins chased each other in and out of the family sleeping room.

  At the first chime of the noontide anthem, I left Vashti finishing up the exquisite embroidery on my bodice and sped down the lane and around the corner to fetch Placidio. He had acquired a flat, brimmed cap that sported a clump of feathers surely plucked from a long dead grouse, and tilted it to mask his facial scar. It looked more like he’d been in a fight at the Duck’s Bone.

  “So is this seamstress shy of men that you must escort me?” he said, before I could think of what to say first. “Or must her husband be got out of the way?”

  “You didn’t tell him?” I asked Neri.

  “Didn’t want to step in the wrong hole,” he said. “My swordmaster has taught me to watch my ground.”

  Placidio snorted. “You should be off heaving boulders, boy. No need for you to peep at my netherstocks, no matter what your sister has in mind. Come first day past this business, I’m taking you up the Boar’s Teeth with long swords. And you, lady scribe, what didn’t he tell me?”

  “The commission has agreed to meet with us.”

  “Good news, then,” said Placidio, “but there’s more?”

  He wasn’t going to like the rest.

  “You cannot carry weapons before the commission.” I nodded at Placidio’s belt. “Your sword—our weapons—will have to stay with Neri. He will hide close to the Piazza Livello with the weapons and an escape route ready should we need it.”

  The duelist bristled like an angry hedge pig. “You said Vincenzio was an adventurer,” he snapped. “What adventurer goes around unarmed?”

  “One who is asking for a stipend from eight of the richest people in Cantagna,” I said. “Many of them nervous people, who have well-armed bodyguards who have never heard of the gentle, scholarly, but bold adventurer di Guelfi.”

  “Pssh.”

  “And indeed my seamstress has small children and her husband is our metalsmith and very protective of his wife. Since your costume will not include your weapons, they would prefer you leave them behind when you come.”

  “Now? You trust the woman?”

  “Yes to both. If you please.”

  Rolling his eyes, Placidio disarmed himself and, muttering, passed his belt to Neri.

  Neri belted it on himself and promised to take care, so Placidio would not have to gut him as promised. “I’m off,” he said. “I’ll be at the Via Mortua gate. If you don’t show by the half-even anthem, I’ll meet you at Dumond’s.”

  As Placidio glared suspiciously, Neri leaned close and whispered in my ear. “Stay alive, Romy. I’ve gotten used to you being around.”

  No words came. I scratched his sprouting chin.

  The glare reverted to me. “Now, lady scribe, what else did the lackwit fail to tell me?”

  “That the commission agreed to meet with us tonight, not tomorrow,” I said. “So we’ve only these few hours to get ready. All the better Neri’s got your sword so he can get in place.”

  “Tonight. So…” A slight choking gargle emanated from his throat. “All that preparation you talked of … the script and all…”

  “We’ll do what we can between now and the Hour of Gathering.”

  “Three hours.” The time might have marked our appointment with a headsman.

  * * *

  No two dogs had ever stared each other down more warily than did Placidio di Vasil and Dumond the metalsmith. They did not quite circle each other or sniff in inappropriate places, nor were there audible growls, but the air between them thrummed with suspicion. Only my pledge to each man prevented me blurting out, We’re all sorcerers here. Let’s be done with that.
But those were not my secrets to tell.

  “Segno Dumond, may I present Placidio di Vasil, a listed duelist and my brother’s swordmaster—a friend who has expressed willingness to aid me in this venture. Swordmaster, this artisan Dumond most generously aided Neri and me on a day when we had foolishly put ourselves in danger from the law. I’ve hired him to make the copy of the antiquity we plan to return to its rightful owner.”

  Dumond made a stiff, shallow jerk of a bow. “Swordmaster.”

  “Segn—” Placidio’s bow looked to match Dumond’s except that Dumond’s motion had exposed the two statues standing side by side just behind him. The sight stopped Placidio short. “Fortune’s dam,” he said softly. “The Antigonean bronze, the relic of Sysaline.”

  Before I could demand to know how a duelist from the Tibernian fish town of Vasil happened to recognize an ancient artwork, he was at the worktable. “This is the one”—he nodded at the mottled gold-green of the original—“the antiquity you told me of—though you didn’t mention it was this particular antiquity. And this other—this is masterful, Segno Dumond. I never imagined … I mean, I’ve seen small things copied. But something so precise. So complicated.” He peered at it from every side, even walking around the worktable to see the back. “And you can make it look old? The same?”

  “I can.” I’d not thought Dumond could scrutinize the duelist any closer. “A careful, side-by-side examination by a knowledgeable person will reveal the difference; details are always lost in a copy. But for this purpose, it should suffice. So you know the piece?”