The Instruments of Control (20 page)

We regret that we must refuse…

Carlo paced the green-veined marble floor of his throne room, ranting under his breath, throwing punches at the air. He’d screamed until his guards cleared the hall, leaving him alone behind the tall brass doors.

…refuse the Holy Father’s request…

Scattered around his slippers, crumpled scraps of the letter his messenger—no his emissary, his
holy emissary
—had returned with.

…request for the return of Livia Serafini.

No explanation, no excuse, no
obedience
. The open skylights in the vaulted ceiling sent down sunlight in ornate, calligraphic swirls, feeding the flowerbeds that flanked the papal throne. The light flickered in Carlo’s eyes as he stormed back and forth, washing him in sun and shadow with every step.

There was only one reason they’d refuse. Only one reason Itresca would dare harbor his traitorous sister.

They believe her
, he thought and swallowed hard as hot bile rose up in his throat.

She knew about his partnership with Lodovico Marchetti, though how much he could only guess. She knew about the Dustmen. And most damnably of all, she’d seen, firsthand, the massacre in the Alms District. Whatever she’d told them, whatever filth she’d planted in Rhys Jernigan’s ear, it was enough to make Itresca’s king refuse a direct decree from the Holy Father.

Carlo snatched up a silver goblet from the arm of his throne and hurled it across the room. It hit the floor, bounced, and spilled a tepid mouthful of wine, then rolled to a feeble stop.

He balled up his fists and screamed at the skylights, “I am the
most powerful man in the world!
”

The hall fell silent. The sky was not moved.

He slouched into his throne, propped his chin against his hand, and stared at nothing.

The throne room doors rattled and chunked open. Lodovico Marchetti poked his head in, hesitant.

“Your Grace? I received your urgent summons. Is…this a bad time?”

Carlo jumped from his throne, snapping his fingers, waving Lodovico inside. “No. No, I need you. Close that door.”

Lodovico obliged him, giving Carlo a wary stare.

“The first crusaders haven’t reached the desert yet, yes?” Carlo spoke so fast he tripped over his own words. “Send runners. Send runners to every column, every field commander. New orders. We’re changing the crusade’s target.”

“No,” Lodovico said, “we aren’t.”

Carlo grabbed his lapels, pulling him close.

“
We are attacking Itresca!
” Carlo raved. “They’re heretics! Outlaws! The lot of them. I want Itresca burned to the ground and its fields salted. I want it made into an warning for future—”

Lodovico calmly tugged Carlo’s hands away and shoved him back a step. “Carlo. Breathe. Deeply. What’s wrong?”

Carlo crouched down to gather up a pair of torn scraps, waving them in Lodovico’s face.

“
Livia
. She’s corrupted them. That
witch
.”

“Carlo. Carlo.” He held up one hand. “If I take care of Livia, if I
promise
you she’ll be eliminated, will you please stick to our agreement?”

Carlo blinked. “You can do that?”

“I can. Keep the crusade on target. Do as we agreed. I will handle your sister.”

It would be nice
, Lodovico thought as he left Carlo to his madness,
if I actually had a means of fulfilling that promise. Simon could have done it—would have done it for me, once—but he’s either dead or soon to be dead.

He had one more option. His final remedy, for his worst-case scenario. Not a choice he enjoyed contemplating. But with Carlo capable of sabotaging his entire plan on a drunken whim, what choice did he have?

*     *     *

Brackish swamp water swirled around Lodovico’s feet, and the clammy chill in the air dampened his heavy footman’s cloak. The sun had forsaken him on his journey. He traveled by starlight now, mud sucking at his boots with every step.

Twisted trees rose up around him, black and ropy silhouettes that looked like shapeless monsters, frozen in the midst of some ecstatic dance. Every now and then, at the corners of his eyes, the silhouettes seemed to move. Just an inch. Just a twitch.

Lodovico carefully cradled the bundle in his arms, wrapped in blue linens. He turned his ears, concentrating on the sounds of the swamp at night. Bluebottles droned and the waters churned as plump snakes slithered by.

Now he saw the shadowed figures all around him. They slipped down from hanging boughs and stepped out from behind tree trunks, keeping a silent watch. Their arms and legs were too long for their bodies.

“I seek the Sisterhood of the Noose,” he called out. His voice came out softer, meeker, than he meant it to.

“And the Sisterhood greets you,” hissed the voice at his back. He spun, water splashing under his boots.

The three sisters standing behind him hadn’t made a sound as they approached. He thought they must be the same ones who had visited his office, but behind the heavy veils and layered robes, it was impossible to tell.

“I need your services,” Lodovico told them.

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t,” said the sister in the middle.

“Not the target we discussed, though. Her name is Livia Serafini, daughter of Pope Benignus. She’s a refugee, hiding in Itresca. She might be a personal guest of the king. Is that a problem?”

“Challenges,” she said in a rasping whisper, “are not the same thing as problems. Did you bring our payment?”

Lodovico froze. He looked down at the bundle in his arms.

“Is there no other coin you’ll accept?” he asked.

“Not from you. Every client is set a unique price, just for them. This one is yours.”

He swallowed, hard.

“And if I refuse?”

The woman waved a gloved hand, inhumanly long fingers curling. “Then leave in peace, and do not return. Stay or go, we do not care. But if we are to discuss business further…payment must be rendered in full.”

Keeping the bundle cradled in one arm, Lodovico peeled back the linens, showing the apple-cheeked face of the infant slumbering inside.

“A girl child,” the sister said.

“As you instructed.”

“The source?”

“A foundling house,” Lodovico said, “with a distressingly unscrupulous housemother. The child will not be missed.”

She nodded to the sister on her left, who approached Lodovico. Her footsteps made no ripple in the ankle-deep water, nor the slightest sound. She held out her arms in silent expectation.

He hesitated a moment longer before handing the baby over to her. He looked to their leader as the second sister stepped back with the child in her arms.

“What will you do with her?”

“The girl child? You don’t care.”

“Of course I do,” Lodovico said.

Her veil rippled as she let out a hissing laugh. “No. You don’t. If you cared about her fate, you would never have stolen her from her crib, and you would never have brought her here. What
you
desire is a salve for your conscience. Some comforting reassurance that the child will not be harmed.”

“We have no such balm to give,” the sister on her right said. “We are in the business of murder. Comfort is not a service we provide.”

“Even killers can have consciences,” Lodovico said.

“Not,” the first woman said, “if they want to be any good at it. You are not the same man we spoke to before. There are cracks in your crusade. Your strength…wavers.”

Lodovico tried to shrug it off, but his gaze dropped to the water at their feet.

“The massacre at the Ducal Arch. It…threw me off a step. I never intended for my own people to be harmed. I never wanted that. I’m doing this, all of this,
for
Mirenze.”

The sister with the baby, still slumbering in her too-long arms, let out a faint snicker. “Quit now. You made grand plans, but you don’t have the strength to see them through.”

“Pathetic dreamer. You’ll fail and you’ll fall, betrayed by your own weakness,” said the sister on the right.

“I am
not
weak,” Lodovico’s gaze snapped upward. He pushed back his shoulders.

“Then prove it,” said their leader. “Cut out your heart and replace it with a stone, for that is the only way you’ll see your dream realized. Here. You’re worried about this child? This sweet, innocent babe you stole for us? You can have her back. Just say the word. We’ll let you take her and go.”

“What will you do with her?” Lodovico asked. “If I don’t.”

“Something,” she said slowly, musing, “
unspeakable
. Save her, if you truly care for her. Or let us keep the child as your payment, and we will silence Livia Serafini for you. Decide, Signore Marchetti. Decide, and show us
who you truly are
.”

If Livia survives
, Lodovico thought,
Carlo will commandeer the entire crusade for his insane whims. And without the war in the Caliphate, my plan is ruined.

One innocent life, to secure Mirenze’s shining future. To change the world. To prove my father was right. Just one innocent life, that’s all it will cost
.

“Take the child,” he said, “and kill Livia Serafini.”

“You see, my sisters,” their leader said, “you were wrong about this one. He is kin to us.”

The three of them shared a deep-throated chuckle, stepping backward as one, the stagnant water parting under their feet. Lodovico watched silently until the shadows swallowed them whole and left him alone in the swamp.

“You want Simon
Koertig
,” the plump greengrocer said, gesturing toward her front porch. “That description matches him perfectly. Odd fellow, but friendly enough, and polite to a fault.”

“Thank you,” Felix said, talking over the butterflies in his stomach. “And have you seen him today, by any chance?”

“Not for a few days, no, but you might try him at home. He rents a room just a street away from here. Go left at the corner and look for number twenty-six. It’s the big boarding house with the salmon-tile roof.”

He said his thanks and went on the hunt. The knife in his pouch slapped against his hip with every brisk stride, reminding him it was there. As if he needed reminding.

Ten minutes later he stood at the end of a dour gray corridor lined with shabby doors. In the corner of the window to his right, a fat and furry spider spun a glistening web.

What now?
Felix thought.
Knock?

An image flashed through his mind. The door swinging wide. Simon’s shocked face. The knife in Felix’s hand plunging into his gut.

It appealed. Still, he pushed the thought aside. Killing Simon, closing the book on his murders, cutting the tie between him and his master…that was exactly what Lodovico Marchetti would
want
him to do.

It’s you and me now, Lodovico
, he thought.
And as much as I want to see Simon dead, I’m not going to kill him
.

I’m going to use him to bring you down
.

He knocked on the door.

No response. Felix tried the handle. It jiggled loosely, but the cheap lock held it shut.

He took three steps back, brushing the opposite wall, and charged. He slammed into the door with his shoulder, wood splintering, the door swinging wide and sending him stumbling into Simon’s lair.

He caught himself, knees bent, heart pounding as his senses screamed. He looked for movement, an attack, the slightest stir as the
thud
of the door rocking on its hinges echoed in his good ear. “Keep it down out there!” shouted a neighbor down the hall, but nobody poked his head in to investigate.

Slowly rising to his full height, Felix registered what he was seeing all around him.

Paper.

Every surface of Simon’s rented room, every wall and cupboard, was festooned with nailed-up sheets of parchment. Every page was filled with a madman’s scrawl, words flowing wildly, some too cramped to read and others written so frenetically that a single underlined phrase took up an entire sheet. Felix turned in place, taking it all in, his eyes catching snatches of Simon’s handiwork.

“
…
defenestration at two floors did not work, dragged him up to the roof and tried again. Target died, but was already gravely injured. Must try three floors to start with…”

“…used recipe on stray dog. Dog died. Tried on beggar. Beggar lived but now blind. Must alter the…”

“…Alchemist of Death? Alchemy of Death? Alchemist of Death? Alchemy of Death?
…”

He turned, and the breath caught in his throat as he saw the newer-looking pages tacked up around the door he’d just come through. The same frenzied scrawl, over and over again.

“Felix Rossini”

“Felix Rossini”

“Felix Rossini”

“RUINING my LIFE’S WORK”

A second, smaller room lay beyond an open archway. Nothing to see but a straw bed, a narrow dresser, and three more walls papered with Simon’s lunatic scribbles. Felix checked the dresser drawers—slowly, carefully, keeping his head back, in case the assassin had rigged some kind of trap.

Nothing sinister waited inside. A few changes of clothes, a stray coin or two—and in the bottom drawer, under folded linens, a pair of heavy, bound books. Felix pulled them out and flipped though the pages.

Ledgers. Copies of the Banco Marchetti’s ledgers for the past two years. Apparently the title of “accountant” wasn’t just a cover for Simon’s real job. Felix ran his finger down carefully lined columns, tracing the ebb and flow of his enemy’s fortune.

Nothing illegal
, he thought,
nothing blatant that I could use against Lodovico, anyway. But still…anything I could want to know about his business is right here. Associates, contracts, dates. It has to be useful, somehow
.

He clutched the books to his chest, poking his head out the door. The coast was clear. He slipped out with his purloined treasure, thinking hard about how he could turn the information into a weapon.

Not much longer now
, he thought. Basilio’s threat was neutralized; he couldn’t hurt Renata without hurting his own wallet, the one price he wouldn’t pay. Now Felix just had to take care of Simon and Lodovico.

He pictured Renata’s face, imagined the touch of his fingertips against her cheek.

Wherever you are, Renata
, he thought,
just stay safe and warm.

*     *     *

Days passed among the Seven-Fingered Men. Renata and Hedy continued their role as Marco’s personal cooks, much to the grumbling of his followers, and every night brought a fresh hell as Renata dosed herself with Hedy’s poison.

“Don’t think this is working,” she wheezed as she convulsed on the ground inside their tent. As she struggled to keep from crying out, her bare foot kicked at the air and her toes clenched.

Hedy sat with Renata’s head in her lap and brushed cold, sweat-drenched tresses from Renata’s eyes. “It is,” she whispered. “I’ve been timing your fits. The same dose is wearing off faster now. You’re recovering more quickly. You’re building an immunity.”

“It
hurts
.”

“Yes.” Hedy glanced at the tent flap. Through a slit in the skins, she caught firelight and raucous laughter from the bandits at the campfire. “It’s supposed to.”

“How much…how much longer?”

“At this rate?” Hedy furrowed her brow. “In another week or two, you’ll be able to shrug off a nonlethal dose. It won’t be
pleasant
, but it won’t slow you down.”

They didn’t have that long.

The next afternoon, after another long day of marching behind the wagons, One-Eye came for them. He unshackled them from the tentpole and led them up a steep hillside, where Marco and a couple of his lieutenants crouched at the top.

“Over there,” Marco said, pointing down into the valley ahead. “What do you see?”

Renata cupped her hand over her eyes and squinted. In the distance below, white plumes of smoke rose from humble chimneys. Fields stood fallow, harvested before the first snows, and she could make out a pair of bulbous clay structures that looked like granaries.

“A village?”

“That’s right. Middle of nowhere, all peaceful and sleepy-like.” He grinned at her, flashing his rotten teeth. “They won’t know what hit ’em.”

Renata blinked. “You’re going to raid an entire village?”

“Tomorrow, at sunrise. Case you hadn’t noticed, merchant caravans are slim pickings in these parts, and the wagons are getting low. Farmers down there gotta be stocked up for the winter. Might not be much plunder, but that food will keep our bellies full for a month. Besides, my boys are getting restless. They need a little fun.”

“What about the people who live there?”

Marco snorted. “Like I said, my boys need a little fun. Think about it this way: if we just took their food and left, they’d starve to death when the snows come. We’re bein’ nice, sparing ’em that cruel fate.”

“Those people didn’t do
anything
to you,” Hedy snapped.

That got a snicker or two from Marco’s men. “They didn’t do anything to you!” One-Eye squealed in a high-pitched imitation of her voice. “You terrible, terrible monsters!”

Marco shook his head, half smiling. He turned toward her.

“Here’s a fact of life you shoulda learned by now, little girl: nothing’s fair. You’re either strong enough to take what you want, or you’re a chicken waitin’ to get plucked. Some people, like me and my boys, are born to win. Some people, like you, are born to be victims. That’s just how it is. Stop whining and learn to live with it.”

“You say that now,” Hedy told him. “It’s easy to be a bully when you’re strong, but there’s always someone stronger out there. I bet if the tables were turned, and you were the one on your knees, you’d
beg
for mercy.”

Marco’s smile faded. He shot a glare at Renata.

“I don’t like your apprentice’s voice,” he said. “Shut the squeaky little bitch up, or I’ll do it for you.”

“Why did you bring us up here?” Renata demanded, trying to change the subject.

“’Cause I ain’t keeping you alive for your cooking skills. Need you to do some magic. Do whatever you gotta do to make sure none of my boys get hurt on the raid. Some kinda…protection spell. You can do that, right? And before you answer, understand this: if the next words outta your mouth aren’t ‘yes, sir, I can,’ there’s gonna be consequences.”

Renata looked out toward the village.

Of course she couldn’t. And from what she understood, neither could Hedy. They could fake it and hope sheer luck kept any of Marco’s bandits from harm, but that was a dangerous risk to take. If his men actually believed they were protected by witchcraft, they’d be
more
reckless, more likely to take stupid chances.

And then there were the villagers to think about. How many people lived in that tiny hamlet? Forty? Eighty? A hundred? How many would suffer and die at the hands of Marco’s gang while she and Hedy stood by and watched?

None
, she thought, making up her mind.
Not one of them, not while I’m still breathing
.

“Yes,
sir
,” she hissed, “I can.”

Marco clapped his hands and waved One-Eye over. “Now that’s what I like to hear. Take ’em back to my tent, so they can get started on my dinner.”

As they trudged back, their chains rattling, Renata leaned over and whispered in Hedy’s ear. “We do it tonight.”

Her eyes went wide. “You aren’t ready!”

“It’s tonight,” Renata whispered. “It’s tonight or never.”