Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) (35 page)

Livia slumped back in her chair. She stared at Josef, dour, swallowed by her thoughts.

“Your Holiness? Is…is that all?”

“What would fix things, Josef? What would tear out the corruption at its roots?”

He spread his open hands. “You’d have to be an insider, to start with, to know who the biggest problems are. More inside than me. Someone with Cardinal Accorsi’s knowledge. But to know what he knows, you’d have to be just as corrupt as him.”

“Thank you,” she said, “you can go now.”

He rose slowly. He crossed her room in the dark but lingered at the door.

“Your Holiness?”

She turned to face him.

“If I may ask,” he said, “what are you going to do?”

“My job,” she said. “Thank you. You can go now.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The next evening, as fireflies danced in the gathering gloom, Livia paid a visit to Marcello’s estate. One of his servants, shocked to find the Holy Mother on the doorstep—alone, no less—ushered her inside and fell all over himself escorting her directly to the library. As he opened the door for her, she heard the cardinal’s voice.

“I told you that you were obsessed. At least it all worked out in the end, and now you can get your head right.”

“You could say I’ve learned from my mistakes,” Dante said, standing with Marcello by the windows. He looked over and blinked. “Livia. I wasn’t expecting you here.”

“Nor was I,” Marcello said, “but it’s a pleasant surprise. Welcome to my home.”

“Marcello. Dante. Close friends now, are you?”

Marcello chuckled. “We’ve managed to find some common ground.”

Dante approached, took her hand, and bowed to offer it a graceful kiss. Still, there was something different in his eyes. His usual suavity felt more like a cheap affectation than the real thing.
He looks…shaken
, she thought.

“Just as well,” he said. “I was coming to see you next. I’m leaving, as of first light. Word’s just come back: Mirenze is back under the Imperial flag.”

“Your throne awaits.”

“That it does. And it sounds like there’s a great deal of work to be done. Rebuilding may take years.”

“Vices are driven by idle hands,” Livia said lightly. “A bit of hard work might suit you.”

“It would be the first time, but one never knows.” He gave her a wink. “I’ll send word as soon as I’ve settled in.”

“Very good. May the Gardener’s grace travel with you.”

He offered a farewell wave and slipped out the door.

“So,” Marcello said, “why the social call?”

“To thank you. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of soul-searching. And I realized…I was wrong. And you were right all along.”

The cardinal blinked. “Well,” he said, “not that I’m asking for a prolonged
mea culpa
, but I’d love to hear what you mean by that.”

“That’s why I’m here. You don’t have any wine, do you? This autumn weather makes my throat sore.”

Marcello held up a finger and hustled over to his little bar by the bookshelves.

“As a matter of fact, I do. A new bottle was just sent over this morning. A Carcannan red, by the looks of it, and a rare vintage. Let’s share it.”

While he uncorked the bottle and reached for a pair of cups, Livia stepped up behind him.

“I was angry when you told me I needed to play the game,” she said, “to be more like my father.”

The wine splashed into the glasses, thick as heart blood.

“Well, I was a bit harsh, but I think you needed a bit of harshness to wake you up. I meant it, Livia: your father was a good man. The best of us.”

He turned and offered her a glass. She lifted it in salute, holding it lightly by the stem, and clinked it against his.

“True.” She turned her back to him, lifting the glass to her lips as she strolled along the bookcase. He took a sip, swishing the wine in his mouth, gave it a nod of approval and followed her.

“So what changed your mind?” he asked.

She lifted the glass again, then turned to face him. “Reality. Everything I’ve tried has failed. I can’t force the College to do what I want. I can’t build the world in a day. Sometimes, failure is the impetus you need. The drive to try something new.”

She sat on his sofa. He sat beside her, almost grandfatherly as he listened, sipping his wine.

“It’s not easy to come here and admit I was wrong,” she said. “Not easy on my pride. A wise friend once told me that most people value their pride more highly than they value their flesh and blood. But she said there would come a day when I’d be tested, and if I remembered my past challenges, I’d find the strength to push through.”

“A wise friend indeed,” Marcello said, lifting his glass. “The sort of friend I’d hope to be to you.”

“Which is what I want. More than that.” She lowered her glass and looked into his eyes. “I want you to guide me.”

His eyes widened.

“Guide you?”

“Teach me. Teach me how to play the game. Make me your student and mold me. I’ve come too far, Marcello. Too far to fail. I want to be the pope my father was, but I don’t know how. And you are the only man I can trust.”

He swallowed, nodding slowly.

“Livia, I…I’m honored. I didn’t expect this from you.”

“And if you’d asked me a week ago, I wouldn’t have believed it either. But I
need
you, Marcello. Will you teach me?”

He reached over and put his hand on her knee.

“Of course,” he said.

She rested her hand over his and slid it an inch higher up her leg as she gazed into his eyes.

“I think we’ll work well together,” she said.

“Agreed,” he said and eased his hand a little higher. She let him.

Then he coughed. Winced, like something had stuck him in the belly.

“Marcello?”

He set his glass down on the floor, his hands suddenly trembling.

“I think—
oh
,” he said and slid off the sofa. His arm hit the glass, knocking it over, splashing red wine as he collapsed at Livia’s feet.

She was on her knees in a heartbeat, at his side, eyes wide as she squeezed his hand.

“Marcello? What’s wrong? Talk to me! How can I help?”

Sweat streamed down his brow, his face going ashen in the span of seconds. His breath came in labored gasps as his muscles twitched and convulsed.

“Poison,” he said. “Must have been in my dinner.”

“Oh no,” Livia gasped. “What can we do? Is there an antidote?”

His throat clenched, and he shook his head.

“Know these symptoms. Hangman root. Bad…bad way to die. Give it to someone you really hate. No cure.” He coughed again, blood speckling his pale lips.

She grabbed a pillow from the sofa and propped it under his head, mopping at his sweaty brow with the sleeve of her cassock.

“Who would do this to you? Why?”

“Someone in the—in the College, no doubt. Jealous of me. So stupid. I should have been more careful.”

Frantic, Livia clutched at his robes. “The files. You said you had files on every member of the College. Where are they?”

He forced a strained laugh. “Told you…trade secret.”

“Marcello, you’re going to
die
. Don’t leave me alone in the woods. Don’t
do
this to me. I will find the person who did this to you. I’ll avenge you. I swear I’ll avenge you.”

He struggled to take a breath, squinting as he looked her in the eye.

“You’re right.
Hhhh
—” His hands shot to his heart as he thrashed on the floor. “
Hurts
. Shove back the sofa. Floor safe, under a wood panel. Spin lock. Left, left, then right. Anyone who comes to you trying to replace me, that’s your best suspect. Watch Cardinal—Cardinal De Luca. I know he was planning something.”

“It wasn’t Cardinal De Luca,” Livia said.

She stared down at him, her feigned panic replaced by icy calm.

Marcello’s gaze snapped to her wine glass. The glass just as full as when he’d poured it for her. The glass she’d only sipped from—or pretended to sip from—when she had her back turned to him.

Marcello smiled.

He shook, racked with a sudden fit of hoarse laughter that faded into a weak, hissing giggle.

“Look at you,” he wheezed. “Just look at you. Who…who could have possibly imagined…that Livia Serafini would become my greatest student? Well played, girl. Well played.”

Marcello took one last rattling breath, and died.

Livia rose gracefully, stepped around his corpse, and shoved the sofa back one grating inch at a time. The wood panel lifted, the wheel of the floor safe spun, and she gazed upon her treasure: bundle after bundle of papers scribed in a tight hand, each one a catalog of sins and secrets, each one bearing a name.

She gathered them all up, clutching the bundles to her chest, and walked away.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Belle Terre was lost. The Terrai storm front surged across the broken land, the rebels’ lightning war laying waste to Imperial fortifications, their numbers swelling with every village they liberated. And now, just as General Baum had predicted, they’d come to the borders of the Empire itself. A small army forded the waters, laid down stakes, and claimed a crimson swath of Murgardt coastline.

It was the first time in six generations that anyone had dared plant a foreign flag on Imperial soil. Reprisals were in order.

Baum rode to the front lines. Camps and supply tents stretched farther than his eye could see, and regimental flags bore heraldry from the farthest-flung corners of the Empire. War machines rattled and rolled across the sunlit grasslands, hauled by straining teams of horses and men, while Imperial knights in bold, bright armor mustered with the cavalry. All around him, men were sharpening weapons and seeing to their kits, runners in bright blue caps racing from tent to tent with sealed messages.

It was all very quiet.

He could hear the pennants snapping in the cold breeze, canvas whipping in the wind, but barely a single voice. They were all together, but each soldier stood alone. Off in their own worlds, mentally preparing themselves for the work to be done. Everyone knew what they were up against. Baum had seen it himself, spying the coastline with a glass: the barbarian hordes, in their own ragged lines, making their own preparations for war. Some armed with the masterwork spears gifted by the traitor Marchetti, even more dressed in armor stolen from corpses and brandishing gore-stained Imperial weapons. They’d built tall frames of wood in the night, raising up the naked Imperial dead, putting their mutilations, the torments they’d suffered, on full display.

The general swung down from his saddle, handing his charger’s reins to a groom, and continued on foot.

This inspection, he supposed, was his own way of steadying his nerves. This was no petty skirmish; the rebels were going all-in, a death or glory bid to strike back against the Empire. And so was he. If their lines broke today, if the Terrai swamped them, he’d have no chance to raise more troops in time to stop the advance. They’d claim more than grass and beaches; they’d start taking Imperial cities. And everything he’d done to stop the emperor’s blood-hungry madness and set his nation to rights would have been for nothing.

He glanced at a towheaded young man—couldn’t have been more than fifteen—sitting on the grass with his breastplate in his lap. He fidgeted with the straps, buckling and unbuckling, buckling and unbuckling, a nervous tic. Baum stood over him.

“When you put that on,” he said, “take a deep breath before you buckle the straps.”

The young soldier looked up, his eyes going wide. He jumped to his feet and snapped a salute. “Sir.”

Baum nodded at the breastplate. “It’s tempting to buckle it as tight as you can, but if you inhale first, you’ll make sure it’s not so tight that it keeps you from breathing. I made that mistake in my very first skirmish. Damn near passed out on the battlefield.”

“Sir. T-thank you, sir.”

“At ease.”

The youth relaxed—a little—and Baum looked him over.

“This is your first time, isn’t it?”

“Is it that obvious, sir?”

Baum tapped the corner of his eye. “It’s in the look. It’s all right to be scared, you know. Doesn’t make you any less of a man. The real mark of a man is being afraid and doing your job anyway.”

“I won’t let you down, sir.”

“I know,” Baum said. “I’ve been at this a long time. I know a good soldier when I see one. Carry on.”

As he turned to go, the young man opened his mouth, then closed it again. Baum paused.

“What’s on your mind? Out with it.”

“Sir…” The youth swallowed hard. “Am…am I going to die today?”

Baum tilted his head. He weighed his words in silence.

If you’re in the vanguard
, he thought,
yes. Most likely, unless the Gardener’s smiling today, yes. And I know, because I’ve had this exact same conversation with a great deal of nervous young men who I never saw again
.

“Stay in formation,” Baum told him, “keep your ranks tight, and follow orders. Trust your brothers in arms. They’re here to protect you, and you’re here to protect them. Keep all that in mind, and you’ll be just fine.”

His lie told, the general moved on.

His staff sergeants waited at the heart of the Imperial line, with armloads of dispatches and last-minute questions from the regimental commanders. Baum ignored them for a moment, opting to lift a spyglass and take one last look at the other side.

He ignored the tortured corpses, the gore-spattered armor. That was nothing but basic, textbook tactics. The Terrai used fear as a weapon, doing everything they could to break an enemy’s spirit before a battle even began. Baum looked past all that. He looked at the soldiers in the front line. He looked at their faces.

So many young men. So many of them, and they looked just like his.

“Sir,” one of his sergeants said, “if you’ll give the final approval, we can begin preparations for the assault.”

Baum didn’t answer him. He looked up at the noonday sun. Not a cloud in the sky.

“Bring me a white flag,” he said.

The staff sergeant blinked. “Sir?”