The Nascenza Conspiracy (18 page)

Vico seemed to buy the reassurance. Impressed, he lifted the bottle, took a healthy glug before swallowing, and wiped off his mouth on his sleeve when he was done.

“Your highness?” Petro was surprised to hear Emilia addressing the boy with a deference he never expected to hear from her mouth. “What does your uncle look like, exactly?”

“Don’t you know?” asked Vico from where he knelt.

“I haven’t had the
…
ah
…
pleasure of an audience with him quite yet,” Emilia hedged. “Is he tall? Is he short?”

“He is neither tall nor short.”

“Is he stout? Or lean?”

Vico shrugged. “In between.”

“Fair of hair? Or dark? No wait,” Emilia said, when Vico opened his mouth. “Let me guess. Somewhere in the middle.” When he turned and nodded, she crunched her eyebrows together. “When was the last time you saw him, exactly?”

“Oh, some years. When I was three, perhaps.” Despite his youth, Vico must have anticipated some sort of reaction to his answer, because almost immediately he bolstered the statement with, “My uncle says that many of the greatest men are raised in isolation because it builds character. He sends me letters every month to instruct me about my future and remind me of my affection for him.”

“Isn’t that nice,” murmured Emilia. Even she seemed to be weakening in her resolve to thoroughly despise the boy. She removed the rucksack that had been bothering her shoulder and hefted it to the ground. With a little bit of stiffness, she slipped out of her surcoat, dropped it onto the rock, and then proceeded to unlace her tunic.

Her head disappeared briefly as she drew it over her head. Petro was astonished to see nothing but her milky white skin underneath. She wore no chemise, no shift—nothing but a band of cloth wrapped around her breasts, presumably to keep them from interfering with athletic duties. The narrow band left next to nothing to the imagination, however, and he couldn’t help but look at the girl’s slim, flat stomach and the perfect flare of her hips.

“Oh. Oh my,” Petro sputtered. He looked away, then was horrified to find himself staring yet again. When his eyes finally flickered upward and met hers, he wanted to throw himself into the finger’s depth of water running nearby and pray to be drowned. “You can’t—you can’t do that,” he told her.

“Do what?” Without a trace of self-consciousness she inspected the edges of her mottled bruise. “I shouldn’t need to dress the wound, true, but I think the strap of my sack is making it worse. Perhaps I’ll pad it.” She glanced up at a paralyzed Petro and shook her head. “What is wrong with you?”

“You’re
naked
,” he gasped, appalled that he had to explain it to her. Vico, suddenly interested, stood up and looked as well.

“Ventimilla.” Emilia shook her head. Instead of covering up like any decent person, she leaned over and rummaged in her sack, giving Petro a direct line of sight down her cleavage. He clenched his eyes shut, and then turned around so he wouldn’t be tempted to look. “I’m not naked. I know you’ve seen a stomach before.”

“Not—” Petro waved his hands, trying to convince her to make them—
it
—go away. He didn’t know what he was trying to say. All he could feel was the astonishing heat of his face, as if he’d leaned into one of his father’s furnaces. “Not like that!”

“You wouldn’t last very long as a guard,” she continued, matter-of-factly. “We’re in each other’s business all the time. In a guard’s tent we all wear much less, male and female alike, and no one says a thing about it.”

“I’m not a guard,” Petro said, sounding strangled.

“It’s just a body. Everyone’s seen naked bodies before.”

“I haven’t,” Vico volunteered. Only when he spoke up did Petro recall that the lad was there at all. He reached out, put his hand on the top of the prince’s head, and gently swiveled him until they both faced in the same direction—away.

“I didn’t know your sensibilities were so delicate, Ventimilla. You’re blushing like a virgin cazarrina on her wedding night.”

“I really am not.” Petro tried to wrestle his voice from an outraged falsetto down to his usual reedy tenor. “Blushing, or delicate, or a cazarrina.”

“I would agree that he is blushing fairly deeply,” Vico offered. He turned to look over his shoulder again, forcing Petro to turn him around once more. “I am not blushing, though.”

“Oh, you’re at that age where body parts are embarrassing, aren’t you, Ventimilla?” It infuriated him slightly to hear Emilia compartmentalize and dismiss him so easily, when she wasn’t close to the mark at all. “It will pass.”

“That’s not it,” he said, trying to warn her with his tone to drop it.

“Then what?”

“It’s just that
…
it’s that
…
”

“I believe it is that he likes you.” Petro heard the words coming from Vico’s mouth, but he could scarcely believe them. His jaw dropped as he stared at the little prince.

“Pardon me?” Emilia asked. Now Petro really couldn’t face her. He might not be able to ever again.

“He told me so. Well, you did!” said Vico, when Petro tried to scowl him into silence.

“What do you mean, he likes me?” Petro felt a hand on his arm. He resisted when she tried to turn him around. “Ventimilla, tell me what’s going on.”

“Leave me alone,” was all that Petro could growl. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Shamed as he was to admit it, hot tears welled beneath his eyes. A lump was forming in his throat. He didn’t know what had possessed Elder Catarre to send him on this journey. It had felt like a chastisement of sorts when he’d heard her pronounce his fate, but chastisement would have been mild compared to everything since. Apparently even now, painful as it was to be suffering for the poor choice he’d made on the outskirts of Cassaforte city, someone, somewhere, seemed to think it fit he be humiliated on the most personal of levels, as well. He couldn’t remember anything he’d done in his life so horrible to deserve such retribution. What atrocity could he have committed?

“What?” Petro struggled, but Emilia was both bigger and stronger than him in the end, and she turned him around.

“Gods,” she swore, looking at his reddened face. “You like me? Like a boy likes a girl?”

“Yes. I like you.” Petro’s voice sounded as if it had been forced through gravel when it finally emerged. “Is that really so awful? You’re a girl. I’m a boy. I thought I’d
…
”

He’d intended to say that he thought he’d earned her friendship on his own merits, but it was too revealing a thought. Besides, Emilia finished his sentence for him. “I’m four years your senior!” Her laughter, thankfully, was from astonishment and not scorn.

She was so close to him that he found it impossible to look anywhere else but at her. While his back had been turned, she’d managed to loop some kind of fabric over her shoulder blade and beneath her arm, cushioning the bruise so it would be less tender. She was still far more exposed than Petro found comfortable, though. For lack of anywhere safe to rest his glance, he looked into her eyes. “My parents have a difference in ages greater than that.”

“It doesn’t seem as big a gap, when you’re older. Where we are, four years is an eon.” She seemed embarrassed by her earlier response, and had subsided into a more sober pose. Almost apologetically, she returned to the rock and picked up her tunic. “I’m sorry, Ventimilla. I’m very sorry.” Once covered, she tried to make amends. “I thought you were sweet on that girl. The pretty one you were traveling with.”

Pure astonishment made Petro react. “Elettra Leporis? No!” Had he shown any partiality for Elettra that might have been misleading? Emilia had barely seen them together.

“I’m sure she’s sweet on you.”

It felt very much as if he were being offered a consolation prize after being publicly humiliated in an insula bocce competition. “Don’t say that. Why would you say that?” he asked. Suddenly he remembered Elettra’s unexpected kiss on his cheek before they parted, and Emilia’s expression of amusement that followed. She must have thought—but perhaps Elettra meant—no, it was all too confusing to think about now.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a girl sweet on you.” After some consideration, Emilia added, “Or having a nice boy sweet on you, either. I’m flattered, Ventimilla, but you’re four—”

“Four years younger. Yes, I know.” He’d had enough. He turned again and knelt to splash water on his face. The water was indeed almost ice cold, especially when splashed on his steaming face. “I’ll be reminded of it every time I look at you from now on—which, don’t worry, I won’t be doing.”

“That’s a fifth of my lifetime, youngster.”

He stood up and pushed past her. “It’s like you said. In another thirty years you wouldn’t even notice the difference. It doesn’t matter.” He leaned over and grabbed her rucksack. “I wasn’t going to say anything, ever, and you shouldn’t have found out. Come, your highness.”

“I’m sorry,” said the prince, with what sounded like genuine contrition. With better spirits, he added, “I have never seen lovers quarrel before, though I have read about it in tales.”

“We’re not lovers,” said both Emilia and Petro simultaneously. It was impossible to tell which one of them meant it more. “What are you doing?” Emilia added, trying to catch Petro before he skipped off with her bag.

It was too late, though. He’d already stomped through the stream and begun pressing east. “I’m carrying your bag so you can give your shoulder a rest,” he snapped. Before she could protest, he said, “I’m not doing it to prove my undying affection for you. Or because I
like
you. I’m doing it so you won’t hurt. It’s what a gentleman does for a lady. I’m sure it’s what one guard would do for another guard, too. All right? Any objections? Come on, your highness. We’re moving on.”

“No objections.” It was with a great deal of humility that Emilia replied. After a moment, after she’d slipped back into her surcoat, she managed to catch up and mumble, “Thank you.”

A long time passed before any of them spoke again. Vico broke the silence. “My uncle said in one of his letters that it’s best to treat lovers as one would a hunting dog—with a firm hand and an air of authority, not sparing the riding crop if necessary.”

Automatically, Emilia and Petro again both snarled, “We’re not lovers.” Then they arranged their grim faces, shouldered their burdens—both the kind that fit into a rucksack and the type that did not—and pressed on.

My sister, why must you pester for news? I shall give you none. You were amply rewarded for your part in this deception with your marriage and title, both far higher than any such as we, born of a chambermaid, could ordinarily dream for. The boy is not your poppet, nor your porcelain doll. He is not your son any longer.
He is a tool of the emperor. Forget him altogether,
or forfeit the luxuries in which you now wallow.

—Gustophe Werner, the spy, to his sister, Clothilde

The first warning came in the middle of the night, when a light blanket of cool, moist air had settled across the forests, bringing them relief. Even the hum of the insects had subsided by the time Petro heard the first slight
pop
. Though it barely had the volume of a breath of air released through sealed lips, it was out of place enough to waken him from his deep and dreamless sleep.

He felt one hand pressed against his chest to prevent him from sitting up all the way. Another lay gently across his mouth, to stay him from speaking. Emilia, who had been keeping watch beside him for the early hours of the night, kept him from bolting to his feet. Petro could sense her beside him, sitting with her legs stretched out. On Petro’s other side lay the little prince, still lost in slumber after his long trek.

Once she was certain he was conscious and not liable to shout out, Emilia let go of her grip, touched Petro on the shoulder, and pointed to the west. Back in the direction from which they had come, it looked as if the stars were falling from the sky, dying before they reached the treetops. But no, Petro realized, before the last of them faded—he was seeing the traces of a Scillian candle, much like the ones the guards themselves carried. “Is it your partner? Is it Giles?” he asked, barely whispering.

Having her face so close to his now seemed more of a mockery than a pleasure. He tried to receive as little satisfaction as possible from the familiar tickle of her voice in his ear. “That wasn’t our signal,” she told him.

He understood immediately. Somehow the loyalists were on their trail, and signaling to each other. For the next several minutes they watched, as, at two distinct points in the dense woods, Scillian candles flickered up, sparked into life, and then dissipated. “Two groups,” Emilia said to him. “Two groups keeping track of each other.”

“I don’t like it,” he whispered, unable to tear his eyes away.

“They’re not very close.”

“I still don’t like it,” he said.

“At least we know where they are. If they begin to head this way, we’ll decide what direction to take. Let’s stay put until we know their strategy.”

Her point seemed valid. Being aware of where the two groups searched gave them a tactical advantage. From the spot where they’d made camp on a slope near the forest’s edge, they watched as the parties zigzagged through the trees, sending up flares at regular intervals. Sometimes the firework changed colors. Petro suspected the differing hues meant something—perhaps the loyalists had discovered some trace of their path. But how could they be stalking the three of them at all? Emilia had pointed out that if loyalists had any tracking skills whatsoever, Jacobuci would have done a damned sight better at covering the trail that led Petro and Emilia directly to the camp.

Petro wasn’t at all certain how long they sat there, watching the back-and-forth between their pursuers. The only way they could measure time, sitting there in the darkness, was by the number of deep breaths they could hear Vico taking, or by the shallow breathing they allowed for themselves. Tense heartbeats substituted for the ticking of passing seconds. By those standards, it felt like an eternity. At some point a weary Emilia nodded off, resting her head on his shoulder as she slumbered lightly. Petro was too busy scanning the horizon for traces of the next candle to appreciate the warmth, or the closeness.

It was perhaps an hour before dawn, when the lowest portion of the eastern sky glowed orange with possibility, that he woke her. “They’ve stopped,” he said, pointing toward a spot somewhere to the northwest. “The last flare came from over there, perhaps a league away.”

Emilia’s eyelids were still heavy as she considered the information. “We’ll have to go there.” After a moment, she added, “What do you think?”

Though inwardly Petro quailed at the thought of returning anywhere near the loyalists pursuing them, he suspected Emilia had her reasons for wanting to investigate. “You’re the guard. It’s your call.”

“First of all, we have to know if it
is
the loyalists. Seeing them is the only way to find out.” Was Emilia trying to convince him, or herself? It was impossible to tell. “They’ve never seen me. They might recognize you, though, if they were in Campobasso that night.”

“I am not letting you go by yourself.”

She reached out and used her curled knuckles to pull his hair into bangs that covered most of his brow and eyes. “We can disguise you somehow.”

“What about his highness? Vico, I mean.” Petro nodded at the boy, who was curled up on his side. Though he was barely visible, Vico looked less patrician and stern while in slumber. His fingertips twitched and his lips worked as he strolled through the landscapes of some dream.

“What do you think?”

“I have something of an idea,” Petro said. “But you’re going to have to lie.” Emilia’s lips plumped in displeasure, but she screwed up her resolve and nodded, agreeing.

Within a few minutes, after Emilia had artfully applied dirt to Petro’s face and altered his clothing to suit her purposes, she woke up the prince. “Now listen, your highness,” she told him, once she was certain he was awake enough to attend. Petro noticed that though it still obviously pained Emilia to have to address Vico as royalty, she at least now saw the wisdom of it. “We have reason to believe there are assassins in the woods.”

When Vico’s eyes went wide, Petro couldn’t help but interject, “It’s frightening, yes, but your uncle needs you to be a brave soldier for the next while. Like him.”

“Ye-es,” agreed Emilia, unhappy to hear one of the most notorious spies in Cassaforte’s history described as a brave soldier. Fibbing really did run against the grain with her. “We’re going to have to leave you alone.”

“And you’re going to have to stay hidden,” Petro contributed. “We’ll leave you water, and food, and a little knife to protect yourself.” Vico brightened visibly at the mention of a weapon. When Emilia handed it over, he received it with as much solemnity as if she’d presented him with the Olive Crown itself. “But don’t play with it,” Petro cautioned.

“And don’t cut off your fingers,” Emilia said, trying to sound as nice as possible. “Or bleed to death. Or poke out your eye.”

“Promise me you won’t leave or wander off on your own, or let anyone else know you’re here.”

“Only come out for us,” Emilia warned.

Perhaps it had been a little soon to assault the boy with so many prohibitions and cautions, because he seemed absolutely overwhelmed. After a few long moments, though, in which his eyes darted back and forth between them as he attempted to assimilate everything, at last he nodded. “I understand.”

The hiding place they had chosen for him happened to be within a cluster of oleander shrubs growing around the trunk of an old maple tree. Insects had eaten out the tree’s interior, leaving the outermost rings and most bark untouched, leaving just enough room for a small boy to curl up inside. The oleander bushes disguised the opening. “Don’t eat from the bushes,” Emilia advised him, before they left. “We should be back by noon. That’s when the sun’s at its highest.”

“He’s not going to eat leaves from a poisonous bush—you gave him fish and fruit,” Petro reminded her. “And I’m sure the lad knows when noon is. He’s nine. He’s not stupid.”

“I’ll be fine.” Vico’s voice, already small, sounded even more swallowed within the confines of his shelter. “Pray catch the assassins.”

It seemed to Petro a mighty pity to have to retrace their steps over the land they’d crossed only the evening before, particularly when they’d been struggling so hard to put as much distance between themselves and the loyalists as possible. Now, footstep by footstep, field by stretch of woods by field, they were winding their way back. Not that it was difficult to keep their bearings. Every half hour, the loyalists to the north sent up another Scillian candle to signal the second band, who seemed to be roaming through the woods again. “We’ll head for the group that’s staying still for now,” Emilia had announced early on. “That’s likely to be where the people in the know are. I’d wager the other band is a scouting party.”

Petro agreed. “So long as there’s only two groups, and neither is heading for Vico.”

They were on a strip of land free of anything but knee-high wildflowers, so that their travel was relatively fast-going. “I don’t understand what they expect to do with that poor boy. They can’t simply walk him into the city and demand that he be placed on the throne,” said Emilia, her forehead knit with thought and worry. “King Milo has been unanimously approved by the Seven. He carries the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn. Not a single one of those families would suddenly say, ‘Beg pardon, but we made an error. Let’s crown the illegitimate nine-year-old son of the man who almost ruined our country four years ago, instead.’ Would they? Your family would never agree to it, would they?”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Petro said automatically.

Her lips curled in a curious smile. “That’s what I suspected. I mean, there’s no sense to it.” She grabbed his shoulder as she nearly tripped over a stone hidden among the weeds, then released it once she had her balance. “It seems we have a highly organized amateur militia of sorts, guarding a puppet prince. They’re receiving, or at least taking, supplies from some other country—Vereinigtelände, which has always been our ally in the past. When Pays d’Azur sent its war armada against us two years ago, the first thing King Alessandro did was to send a nuncio to Bramen for assistance. And yet for almost a decade they’ve been raising the unholy spawn of Prince Berto in a secret, remote
schloss
. If the brat can be believed, people in the highest reaches of their government knew about it.”

They paused as a flare from the searching party went into the air. Now that it was daylight, the flares were becoming difficult to distinguish against the rolling white clouds overhead. Whenever they heard that distant
pop
when the
yemeni alum
caught alight and propelled the little firework into the air, however, they knew to look up and over the trees quickly, so they could catch the last traces of sparks and the thick black smoke that followed in their wake.

“Perhaps Vereinigtelände is not our ally,” said Petro. Something tickled at the forefront of his mind. Memories from a few days ago, which had receded so far that trying to recall it now was as much an effort as trying to remember details of when he was three years old.

“Allies don’t behave this way,” Emilia agreed. They walked on in silence for a little more. “What do we know of them? They call themselves an empire, though they are not. They’re a highly military country and are known throughout the world for their precision weapon-making. Though I daresay nothing of theirs is as good as a Dioro blade,” she said, not without some pride.

Apparently Petro had not paid as much attention in the insula classes as Emilia. “They’re fond of sausages and pickled cabbage,” he supplied.

“They’re a landlocked country.”

Petro nearly tripped over his own feet. “Landlocked!” he sputtered. It was all coming back, now—the tea with Risa in her chambers, her unhappiness, her fears. “Risa—I mean, Petro’s sister—had a talk with
…
” He was certain to trip over more than his feet this way. He started over. “I know something that Petro told me, before we left. It was supposed to be a secret. Risa Divetri said that an envoy from Vereinigtelände was on its way to persuade King Milo to marry one of the daughters of the Emperor of Vereinigtelände.”