An Illusion of Thieves Read online

  “Did they find the rubies in your father’s possession or in his house?”

  My heart died a little. “No, Padroné.”

  A long silence. Then, “Did they discover evidence that he had paid his debts or did they question others who might have done the crime?”

  “No and no.” I had watched him trip up petitioners who answered one query of a pair and not the other, believing it a way to avoid a lie.

  Another silence. I held still.

  “Did they bring in a sniffer to seek evidence of perverse practices?”

  My eyes remained fixed to his boots. The butter-soft leather was lovely. The feet within were fine, as well. Those elegant bones … “No, Padroné.”

  I near shed my skin when his hand touched my face, gentle first and then firm, forcing my head up.

  “By Reason’s bright center,” he said, quietly insistent, eyes dark and unyielding as smoked steel, “why did you strike Micola?”

  And that significant question I could not answer fully without condemning myself and Neri, and every person who shared our blood. So I closed my eyes and shut him out. “I was afraid. More than that I cannot say, Padroné. Forgive me, I cannot say.”

  He took his hand away and retreated toward my dressing room. His withdrawal left me cold and shivering. From the distant stillness, he said, “Remain here, Mistress Cataline. In one hour I shall return and render judgment.”

  Years had gone since I’d experienced such an hour. I dared not think, which meant I had to move. But everything in my chamber, from the porcelain cups that waited on the low table beside an atlas of the world, to my bed pillows, to the terrace overlooking a flower garden, spoke only of the Shadow Lord. Since that first night, he had given me everything I could ever want and more. And in return, I was begging him to ignore the First Law of Creation, infused into every man and woman in the Costa Drago from the first drop of mother’s milk, and sworn to at one’s coming of age, included in wedding vows and contracts and every public celebration: sorcery is the certain taint of Dragonis and must be obliterated.

  After the small eternity, the dressing room door opened again, and I sank to one knee. He did not raise me up. Did not touch me at all. My bones hardened to ice.

  “This is the judgment of il Padroné.” His voice was empty. No anger. No accusation. No anguish. “Your father has confessed to the crime. That cannot be undone. He will lose his hand at dawn. Because he cannot return the gems to their rightful owner, he must also forfeit his house and his possessions with the exception of one blanket for every member of his household, two pots, ten spoons, and two flasks. At the moment he is released, he will take his wife and eight youngest children and leave Cantagna, never to return.”

  “You cannot—”

  “Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do.” Hard-edged now. “You do not wish me to reopen this investigation, mistress. I am no fool. I have had your brother under observation for several years. He is rash and stupid, and my man has saved him more than once from the consequences of certain unexplainable actions.”

  Neri under observation … Lords of Night!

  He walked away for the moment, leashing the temper he worked so hard to control. The air shifted when he turned back to me.

  “Your concern for the family who did you such ill does you credit, but I cannot and will not allow this incident to pass. Everything I have accomplished in this city, everything I have yet to accomplish, takes its root in the rule of law. If I am complicit in lawbreaking—if I interfere and exonerate a confessed felon because of my personal preferences—then I am no better than my uncle you once named monster. Have you not preached to me how the victim of a crime deserves justice, too? So if I say, ‘This man did not steal because a voice I trust says it,’ then I must permit and encourage every avenue of investigation, including magic-sniffers. Do you wish me to do that?”

  I could not answer. Nor breathe through rushing fear. His hard, hot gaze speared me to the marrow.

  On the floor in front of me, he dropped two canvas bags, one the size of my fist, one the size of my two fists together.

  “You will take these and do exactly as I say. Speak of them to no one. The smaller purse goes to your father, to feed his brood until he can heal and find work, but solely on the condition that he, your mother, and the eight youngest children leave Cantagna as I’ve said. My condottieri will publicly expel them from the city gates, and if they so much as look back, I will reclaim the purse and take his alter hand.”

  His arrogance that usually so pleased me began to rankle. And eight youngest …

  “What of Neri and me?” I said. “Are we to be hostage or made an example of or turned over to—?” I couldn’t speak it. The tenor of his voice, the very air between us spoke his anger and … ah divinities … his horror. By the graces and spirits, did he suspect me of sorcery, too?

  “Your brother has a foul tongue and has been heard repeatedly reviling his betters, myself in particular. It’s what called my attention to him in the first place. I cannot allow the Gallanos name—my father’s and grandfather’s name—to be sullied in such fashion. Our peace is too tenuous. As he is underage, I shall request a Sestorale parole to allow him to mend his behavior. You, mistress, are now responsible for his every action and will bring him to the parole administrator every Quarter Day to report on his progress. Whatever punishment he earns from this day forward will be yours as well. It is not fair. It is not righteous. It is not what I would choose for you had I the freedom to shape the world as I do this city. But for now, it is all I can see to do. You must hammer this understanding into him, or bring him to me and I’ll do it. I would not have you dead. Thus, the larger purse is for you, to keep you, to—to—allow you to make a life of your choosing, and to ensure your future should your brother allow you to have one.”

  The moment’s stumble tore at my heart. But it did not last.

  “None of this bag’s contents will be shared with your parents, your brother, or any other person, else I will have your brother arrested by a nullifier and tested by his sniffer. From that day, I could and would do nothing more on your behalf.”

  “Sandro—”

  “Silence! It is no longer your privilege to address me by that or any other name. You will leave this house by midnight, taking only these purses, garments sufficient to cover you, and whatever possessions you brought with you when you came to my house. From that hour, this house is closed to you. My protection, my notice, and my interest in you and yours is ended. Cataline of the Moon House is dead.”

  The doors between his rooms and mine slammed shut, one and then the other. Bolts, long unused, clattered.

  My head sank to the carpet.

  On my first night in the Moon House so long ago, once the attendants had stripped me, shaved off my dirty, knotted hair, scrubbed and oiled my skin, and scraped my teeth with willow sticks, they shoved me naked into a windowless closet to sleep alone for the first time in my life. As she locked the door, one of the women said to scream and cry all I wanted, for beginning on the next day every tear or whimper would earn me a beating. She said the child I had been was dead.

  Indeed, I had screamed and wept all that night, clawed at the door, banged my shoulder and head on it. And certain, tears had made no difference at all. I’d felt as if I’d fallen into a well of tar. Looking upward, I had seen my familiar life as a tiny circle of color, receding faster than I could climb after it.

  This night was very like, save that the colors of the receding circle were so very much brighter, and the pain of the impossible distance so much sharper. I had shed no tears since that night and I was not going to start. But, divine graces, the hurt …

  * * *

  The world did not end. When the passing hour proved I would not die, either, I climbed to my feet, exchanged my green silks and brocades for Micola’s soiled blue overdress that I had worn earlier, and stuffed the two purses into the linen apron. I had brought the pearl-handled dagger from the
Moon House, so it remained strapped to my thigh. My necklace, bracelets, earrings, and finger rings I dropped into the overflowing jewel box that would stay behind. But as I closed the lid, the thumbnail-sized bronze disk tucked into the corner caught my eye. The luck charm. That, too, was mine.

  On my first stolen visit home when I was thirteen, five-year-old Neri had given it to me. He’d said a metalsmith in a market stall gave him one of the disks, saying that anyone with skills like his should carry a luck charm every hour of every day. When Neri told the old man that his lost sister Romy had strange skills, too, the man gave him a second charm like to the first, just in case his lost sister was ever found.

  Strange skills. Magic. My sole talent was this ability to steal a fragment of someone’s memory by instilling a lie in its place. A perverse skill. And paltry. My courtesan’s training could make a man forget his own name and the events of half his life, so Sandro had told me.

  A coal in my belly heated as I thought of it. Even my paltry magic could not make il Padroné forget the great lie I had lived. Yet neither could I forget that he had known of my danger for as long as his man had watched Neri. He had never asked, yet neither had he warned me. I could have sent Neri away … done something that would not involve mutilation of an innocent man.

  How could I grieve for a mother who had sold my childhood into degradation or a father who had left me there? How could I grieve for sisters who begged Lady Fortune every day to strike me dead? But it was not righteous that a law scribe should lose a hand to protect a foolish son born with abilities he did not ask for.

  I snatched up the luck charm and left my chambers by way of the garden doors. Halfway across the fragrant beds of fruit trees and flowers, a dark shape darted through the trees. My rogue heart leapt, naming it Sandro pining for me already.

  Reason crushed that idiocy instantly. Yet someone trespassed upon the Shadow Lord’s private garden, and habit raised my defenses. So I raced after and grabbed an ankle, just as the intruder started up the stone wall. A body thudded to the turf facedown, and I straddled the slender frame, knees on the gloved wrists, my knife in hand.

  Certainly not Sandro. And not Neri—my second suspect. This one wasn’t even as tall as I.

  “Any night is a dangerous night to be sneaking about the Shadow Lord’s garden,” I said, growling, ensuring the hooded villain could see my dagger in the flare of distant torchlight. “But my blood rages this particular eve, so speak quickly or die.”

  “I expected you would slice my throat long before. But your papa’s gone to the axe, and you—the concubine who blinds il Padroné to his duty—are banished from his presence. I dare you cut me now.”

  So small a voice, so young a soul to express such hatred and defiance and ugly enjoyment. Sandro’s little wife!

  I leapt up and stepped back, gripping my knife hard.

  “Silly child. Never … never would I harm you.” No matter how I might wish to. “He chose you to marry. To bear his children.”

  “He chose my father’s treasure.”

  That was true. Gilliette de Manvile’s father had no noble blood, nor was he even the most powerful man in Argento, the northernmost and smallest independency of the Costa Drago. But the silver scraped from the mountainous demesne had made her father very rich indeed. Her dowry had provided the funds for Cantagna’s new coliseum that had drawn architects, builders, artists, and artisans to Cantagna from all over the Costa Drago. It provided good work for our own citizens as it rose from the rubble of hovels and stews, and would do so in the future. When completed it would be a wonder of the world.

  Gilliette scrambled to sitting, a dark tight bundle backed to the wall.

  “Alessandro plays only tea party with me.” The deepening night masked the pouting face, but not her petulance. “I have my blood already, but he comes never to my bed.”

  I walked away.

  She called after me. “Every night I watch from this garden and you are so much talk, talk, talk, until he … feels needs … and does those things with you to make babies. But now”—triumph threaded the bitterness—“now he will have to turn to me.”

  Why did her smirking triumph make me feel so ancient?

  “You are his honored wife,” I said, reversing my path until I stood over her. “You bear his name, and the dignity, privileges, and respect that name brings with it. You, not I, accompany him on official occasions. You will be mother to his children. This means more to him than any pleasure he and I shared, because the honor of his family name and his family’s great works for Cantagna are so important to him. Women like me don’t bear a great man’s children.”

  Sandro’s own beloved grandfather had seen to that when shaping Cantagna’s laws about sanctioned marriages and inheritance. Not even the Shadow Lord could ever convince the Sestorale to sanction his marriage to a Moon House whore. Not that I ever would have allowed his or any man’s seed to catch in any case. No one knew how a child became tainted with magic.

  “He discards you like the offal you are.”

  “As you say, lady. And he will surely come to your bed as you wish, just not until you’re old enough he won’t hurt you, and old enough to carry a child should Lady Fortune bless you so.”

  “But he will love me. I am darker, prettier, younger. I can tat lace and sing. My hands are small.”

  Suddenly weary, I sank to the ground beside her. The warm garden earth smelled of crushed thyme. “Do you know how to read, little wife?”

  “Some, but—”

  “Here is my advice: Ask him for books. Ask for a tutor. That will please him and you will find great enjoyment for yourself as well. Learn stories. Learn to draw or paint, for he loves to talk about images and what they mean and how they can be used to further his aims. Learn to listen. Listen to everything spoken in your house and remember it, for the least bit of gossip can be useful. Learn history. Il Padroné does not care for singing or lace. But he loves history. He wants historians and philosophers to write about his family and the glorious city of Cantagna and the justice, law, and art that are its foundation.”

  “He said I would stand at his side in a history book, but I thought—I can do these things, watch and listen.”

  She was too young to hate. For now, Sandro valued Gigo more than her. But he would need his wife’s ears … her mind … assuming the little walnut could be cracked open.

  “Il Padroné is not always a good man,” I said. “He will do things you might find terrible. If you choose to become his trustworthy partner, you could help him see the right. I did that for a long time, but in the end I failed him. Never lie to him. If you are fortunate—and learn these things—then perhaps, someday, love may blossom between you alongside honor and respect.”

  She was so quiet for the moment, I thought she’d stolen away. But then she whispered, “You love him.”

  “Just now, I loathe him. But I do believe in him. Here”—I dug into my apron pocket and pulled out Neri’s luck charm—“if you ever need someone to talk to—because you can never, ever speak of il Padroné to anyone else, not your mama or your nurse or your sister or your maid—send a servant to the Beggars Ring to find Romy of Lizard’s Alley. I’ll come.”

  Perhaps I would kill her then.

  “He has cast you off. We will never have need of you.”

  “Likely so.”

  3

  Surely I had been foolish to give the little wife my luck charm. It had served me well. I was a sorceress who had lived with the Shadow Lord nine years, and I was not dead. If Moon House training had done anything, it had made me practical.

  At dawn Neri and I stood at the back of the jeering crowd outside the Pillars prison as the lopsman cut off my father’s hand. I’d no desire to witness butchery, but a respectful presence seemed a small thing to offer a man who suffered such a horror to keep his family alive. Of course, Da was ultimately responsible for our danger. He had not allowed Mam to drown Neri or me when they discovered we bore the demonfire. Most
days I was grateful for the life he’d saved. Certain, he did not deserve this.

  More important than such dry sentiment—all I could summon after a sleepless night choked with guilt and helpless grief—Neri needed to witness the full horror of his stupidity. When I’d delivered Sandro’s judgment and his purse, Neri had immediately started babbling his perennial defense: “We needed the coin from those rubies, Romy. Wallowing in your jewels and fineries, you couldn’t know—”

  “Don’t you dare blame me,” I snapped. “You chose your actions. You failed to think. And it’s only by Da’s grit and sheerest luck you haven’t murdered us all.”

  “They’d never have known it was me.” The fool preened like Sandro’s little wife. “None can follow me where I go with magic. And I wear a rat’s hide under my shirt and lead pellets in my boots. Digo and Fivelli down the Duck’s Bone claim that’s the way sorcerers hide from sniffers.”

  I would have laughed save for the danger of his ignorance. “Alas, your drunkard oracles are incorrect…”

  When I informed him that the Shadow Lord’s men had marked his indiscretions for years, he near swallowed his tongue.

  “… but he’s reported only that you’ve insulted your betters, and he’s made you my responsibility from this day forward. I’ve no choice but to do it, because I heard what he did not say. You step out of line in any fashion, and he’ll send a sniffer after us both. So until you prove yourself trustworthy, you will stay at my side. At the first hint of disobedience, I swear I’ll haul you to il Padroné’s dungeons myself for a beating.”