The Nascenza Conspiracy (16 page)

“What?”

Petro felt blindly around the little tent. His arms flailed into something that seemed to be a cot of sorts. His friend was trying to rise. When Petro ran his hands over the boy’s face and shoulders, he was relieved to feel short hair and a small frame. This was Adrio, all right.

“Who—?”

“We don’t have time.” On the floor, Petro managed to find a pair of sandal-like foot coverings that he pressed into Adrio’s hands.

“Where’s Brother Narciso?”

It was obvious there was no one else inside. Petro remembered what Emilia had said about escaping with all due haste, Narciso or not. “They’ll be checking on you in a minute,” he urged Adrio, searching for his arm and pulling him to his feet. “We’ve got to go.”

The air outside felt cool and fresh on his face. Petro took a deep breath. He’d have to be to Adrio what Emilia had been for him. “Hold onto my vest,” he instructed, guiding his friend’s hand to one of the loops in the back. “I’m going to take you somewhere safe. We’ll have someone meeting us.”

Poor Adrio seemed stunned. He didn’t say a word, but Petro felt him hang on tight as they moved forward into the woods. The ground around the camp had been picked clean of fallen branches, for kindling, so it wasn’t until they were many strides out that Petro found his steps fumbling. Like a blind man, he continued to jog forward. His hands were out in front, warding off branches and tree trunks. Every step was uncertain. The only indication he wasn’t about to lead them straight back to the camp was the smaller of the moons, bobbing in and out of view. He kept it slightly to his right and kept stepping doggedly northward.

They could still hear the shouts and cries from the camp as they fled deep into the forest. Just when Petro thought the loyalist’s commotion would fade into the night, it roared afresh, sparked by noises that at first Petro associated with nights in the insula. Sometimes in the winter, when the fires were roaring in the dormitoriums, the boys would sneak a covered pan from the kitchen and fill it with dried kernels of
grano
, heating them in oil over the embers until they popped. But it seemed impossible that they should be hearing popping
grano
at this distance, and why would it make the men shout and yell even more loudly? Perhaps Emilia would be able to tell him. “Let’s keep moving,” he said, determined to put as much space between himself and the camp as possible.

For how long they plodded along in the near dark he never knew. It seemed like hours, yet also like not enough time to give themselves a head start. Adrio did not say a word. Petro limited his speech to encouraging him onward, from time to time, or talking him around a particularly treacherous nest of fallen branches. The ground here was rockier and less even than it had been immediately outside of Campobasso.

They had reached a section that was beginning to stretch uphill when Petro first heard the sound of a whistle behind them. He turned to see the bright flare of a torch making its way through the trees toward them. His first instinct was to protect Adrio by stepping in front of him, but there was no need. It was Emilia, her face pink and warm from the flame.

“You’re all right,” she said. Petro flushed slightly at her greeting, pleased that those had been the first words from her mouth. “And the cazarrino?”

“I got him,” Petro panted, stepping aside to reveal Adrio. “I don’t know where Brother Narciso is. He wasn’t in the tent. You don’t think he’s … ?” Petro didn’t want to think about a sad fate for Narciso, not now that he was excited about seeing Emilia again. “Great Muro’s foal, how did you make that fire burn so fast? You’re a marvel, Emilia. I found these,” he said, holding out a few of the moon charms he’d stuffed into his pocket. “I don’t know why they were in that bucket by the campfire, but I thought you’d want me to investigate. I did just as you said. Jab and slice. Your weapon is amazing.”

He remembered to hand it back to her hilt first, his hands carefully wrapped around the sheathed blade. Emilia accepted the weapon, but remained curiously silent.

Petro asked, “Is everything all right? Did I do something wrong? Was it the bucket? I didn’t mean to tip it over. It fell. But I don’t think
…
”

“Where,” said Emilia, staring at him, “is the cazarrino?”

“Right here.” Hadn’t she noticed him? Petro put his hand on Adrio’s back and pushed him forward into the torch’s pool of light, so that she could see him more clearly. “Safe as houses.”

“That is not Petro Divetri.”

A moment passed before the guard’s words sank in. Only once they had did Petro turn to look at the boy he’d rescued from the loyalists’ camp. It was a boy, to be sure, small and narrow with short hair, but now it was obvious that the hair was fair, and that he was Petro’s junior by at least five or six years. His skin was as pale as the moons themselves, as if he’d not seen sunlight in some time. He blinked sleepily, as if being walked through a waking nightmare, and stared at them both with wide blue eyes.

Petro staggered back, heartsick. All that trouble and distance, and he hadn’t even managed to come away with his friend. “Who are you?” he managed to ask.

When the boy replied, it was in a perfectly formed sentence of their own language, though obviously the heavy syllables of his accent were of Vereinigtelände. “I am Vico, son of Prince Berto and the Baroness Clothilde von Rasch.” He drew himself up proudly, despite his disheveled clothing, and stared at them both. “I will soon be crowned King of Cassaforte. And who are you?”

Dear Uncle Gustophe, thank you for the little sword. It is very shiny. I am studying my books. They are tolerable. Mostly they are very long. I am speaking the language of my father with the servants, like you have ordered. When am I ever to see you again? Goodbye.

—A letter to Gustophe Werner from his nephew, Prince Vico

When Petro awoke some hours later, the first thing he noticed was birds chirping in the trees above. They were so loud and raucous that, for a few seconds, he imagined he was back in his own bed in the dormitorium, listening through the open windows to the sparrows squabbling over crusts of bread thrown from the buttery. But no, he had curled up beneath the eastern face of a shoulder of rock, looking out upon towering spires of pine. The trees cast long shadows, but from the sun’s height it was apparent it was not early.

His head was resting on something soft, covered in a well-weathered fabric. His eyes attempted to focus. It was a knee. Emilia’s knee, to be precise. With a swiftness that astonished every aching muscle in his body, he bolted straight upright.

“It’s all right,” she said. “We’re safe for now.”

“Your knee,” he stammered. “I’m so sorry.”

Obviously the fact that she’d been his pillow was of so little importance that she didn’t understand what he meant. “Oh, it’s all right,” she said, rubbing it absently. “I banged it somewhere. It will be fine. It’s this I’m more worried about.” She pulled down the tunic she was wearing to expose her right shoulder and upper arm, where a yellow-green bruise had formed. When Petro winced and turned his head, it wasn’t at the sight of the spreading discoloration, but because she had exposed a good deal of milky-white breast as well. She fingered the bruise, seemingly unaware of Petro’s embarrassment. “It’s an ugly hue.”

With a sudden sense of panic, Petro rose to his feet and looked around. “Where’s
…
where is the boy?” He couldn’t bring himself to use his proper name, much less refer to him as
the King
. Milo was the King of Cassaforte, sworn in and granted the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn by the Seven, two years prior. And to the best of Petro’s knowledge, everyone assumed that the late Prince Berto had died childless after his attempted coup.

“Calm down. He’s there.” Emilia nodded toward the forest’s edge, where Petro saw Vico sitting on a fallen tree and staring at something between his feet. She had been sewing, repairing some of the tears in her surcoat with a mending kit concealed in one of its seemingly endless procession of hidden pockets. She shrugged back into her tunic and resumed her careful stitching.

“What if he runs off?”

“He’s nine,” Emilia pointed out. “I think we can catch up with him, don’t you?”

For a split second, Petro thought of apologizing once more, but closed his mouth. They had both assumed that Adrio was the only person of importance that the loyalists would be interested in, and that he had been the one within that tent. They’d gambled on what they’d thought was a sure bet, and lost. Apologies accomplished nothing. They would have to play the hand they’d been dealt. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Her answer was flat and almost lifeless. The utter lack of drive she displayed was so much a change from her usual vigor that Petro was a little chilled. Keeping the boy named Vico in his sights, he sat down close to Emilia so they could talk. “I honestly don’t know,” she continued, keeping her attention on her stitching. “I was ordered to guard the cazarrino. Instead he was kidnapped and two of my comrades died. I was ordered to wait for Giles to return with assistance, but instead I chose to hare off after tracks in the woods that I thought would lead me to the cazarrino. Instead I found you.”

Briefly, Petro considered telling her everything—that she had found the cazarrino after all, though she hadn’t known it. But no, he couldn’t. Despite losing hope, he still wanted to find Adrio. Being carted back to Cassaforte wouldn’t get him any closer to that.

“And last night, what did I get for all my efforts to find the cazarrino again?” Emilia was saying. “Not Petro Divetri, again, but a brat who claims he’s the true king of Cassaforte.”

“He might be,” Petro said, then backtracked. “Not the true king, of course. But the one the loyalists think is the true king, if he’s really the son of Prince Berto and a ’Lander woman. And if you have him—if
we
have him—what have they got?” He let her think on that for a moment. “Nothing. They’ve got nothing. How can they put their king on the throne if they don’t know where he is?”

He seemed to have made an impression, but Emilia was still shaking her head. “If he’s the real thing, then yes, you have a point. I suppose. I don’t know—I can’t think.” She curled her hands into balls and pressed them against her eyes. “Gods, I wish I had clear orders for dealing with this mess.”

“This is life. It’s messy.” As he spoke the words, Petro wished he knew whether they were more for Emilia or for himself. “You make mistakes. Then you try to make amends. There’s no manual for it. No protocol. Make up your own orders as you go along.”

“Perhaps.” She squeezed her face for a moment, then blinked her eyes. “I’m so tired. I can’t think straight.”

“Get some sleep.” Petro didn’t know how long it had been since Emilia had last taken some rest. Very likely she’d stayed awake the entire time he’d napped. He jerked his thumb in Vico’s direction. “I’ll watch after him. If I see anyone coming
…
”

“You won’t,” she assured him. Already Emilia was beginning to curl up like a cat in the sun, resting her head on her arm. Had she been waiting for some kind of permission before she dared take some rest for herself? “Our tracks are covered. They’ll be looking for us near the road, not out here.” She yawned.

“I’ll be right over
…
” There was no need to explain. Emilia was already asleep.

It felt odd to be her protector, even if it was merely for a little while. He wondered if he ought to return the favor and let her head rest upon his leg, but the idea of lifting it there filled him with guilty and shameful feelings. He pushed them to the back of his mind, to think about later, and strolled down to the boy he’d mistaken for Adrio.

An embarrassing oversight it was, he could see now, for other than the slightness of form and vaguely short crops of hair, Adrio and Vico looked nothing alike. Adrio’s features were common and easy to appreciate, as if quickly shaped under the hand of a sculptor making the roughest of unfinished busts. Vico bore a much more refined profile, chiseled and honed to an edge that Petro had seen in the paintings of foreign nobles, or in purebred dogs. It wasn’t beautiful, exactly, or even pleasant to look at, but the fine sharp features spoke of polish.

Despite the curled upper lip, though, and the razor-sharp nose, at the moment Vico looked very much like a boy who was enjoying sitting outdoors on a summer morn. The fallen tree on which he sat had lain there long enough to have its bark stripped by wind and weather, so what remained of its trunk was smooth. Runnels left by gnawing insects ran in shallow grooves all over its surface. Vico had kicked off his sandals and drawn his feet up beneath him. “Do you know what?” he asked in his accented and proper intonations, when Petro approached. “Ants are interesting.”

“Are they?”

“I did not think they would be. I thought they scurried around aimlessly.” He stuck his head between his knees once more and looked at the ground. “But then they found a berry and swarmed over it. I thought they were all trying to eat it before the others could. But do you know what? They all carried it back to their lair. Working together. Isn’t that interesting?”

Petro sat down next to him, careful not to squash the insects he’d been observing. “Ants have queens, you know. The rest of the ants are workers, who bring her food and clean out her waste. Sometimes, when a new queen comes into the ant colony
…
”

“When am I to be fed?” Vico wanted to know. He turned his sharp face to Petro. “I’ve not been given my breakfast. Where is my breakfast?”

That had not been the direction Petro was trying to go with his metaphor. “None of us have had any breakfast,” he replied. “King or otherwise.”

“Prince,” said the boy. “I am not King until the Seven and Thirty bestow upon me the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn. Which will be soon. Until then, I’m a prince.”

“All right, Prince Vico, but
…
”

“I’m brought my breakfast every morning at eight,” Vico said. “I’m brought my hot water and sponge at nine so that I might be bathed. I prefer it to be very hot, thank you, and my soap is to be shaved very thin. At ten—”

It sounded as if Vico had repeated this litany of privileges more than a few times. Petro imagined him saying it to every round of new attendants. “We don’t have hot water,” he told the boy, trying to sound more matter-of-fact than apologetic. “Though perhaps we could find a stream to swim in later.”

For a few seconds Petro feared a tantrum, not really knowing what to expect of someone raised to think he was royalty. Then the dark clouds over the boy’s brow eased. “I’ve never been swimming before,” he admitted, seeming intrigued with the idea.

“Where I grew up, there was water on all sides. I could have dived from my bedroom window into cool blue water ten feet deep, if Mama and Papa had allowed it. Which they didn’t,” Petro admitted with rue. “We all grew up swimming, in my family.”

“In the city of Cassaforte?” Vico asked, fascinated by the story.

There seemed a wistfulness to his reaction that encouraged Petro to continue. “Yes, I grew up in a caz—in one of the houses of the Seven and Thirty.” He managed to correct himself before giving away his identity.

“Ah, yes.” Vico assumed a look of knowledge. “You report to me, then.”

“Er
…
” Petro blinked. “That’s not really the way it works.”

“Oh yes,” said the little ruler. “I give my orders to the Seven and Thirty, and you make the people do what I want. That’s what being king is.”

“Who told you that?”

Instead of answering his question, the boy immediately began reciting a rhyme Petro recognized from his childhood—a verse that children had long used during skipping games.

“Catarre’s books make people wise.

Portello’s towers scrape the skies.

Folks worldwide are smart to go

See paintings by Buonochio.

Piratimare makes their crafts

Sturdy from their fores to afts.

Divetri, glass, Dioro, swords.

And Cassamagi charms with words.”

He paused for a moment. “I know all about the Seven and Thirty, as you see. Is she of them?”

Petro allowed his gaze to follow Vico’s. In her sleep was the only time he’d seen Emilia look at all vulnerable. Having the boy gaze on her in that state aroused every protective bone in Petro’s body. “Yes and no. She’s not really one thing or the other. It’s complicated.”

“I don’t know if I like her.”

“I do,” Petro said firmly. “I like her very much. She’s just as good as me, so you mind what she says.”

“Well, I’m glad they have replaced those ruffians tending to me with someone of a better quality.” Vico sniffed. “But I would like my breakfast now.”

“I have an idea.” Petro placed his hand on Vico’s arm to help him from the log. For a moment he thought the boy’s feet might come crashing down on the ant colony, but at the last moment the little prince recollected himself and avoided it. “Have you ever gone berrying before?”