The Ruined City (23 page)

“It is all but impossible to quantify arcane force, but if I were to assess his general ability, I should probably say—”

“I mean, how many armed men does he command?”

“I could scarcely begin to guess.” Innesq’s eyes widened in mild surprise.

“Come, your powers of observation are remarkable. You must have noted guards and weaponry.”

“Truly, I never heeded such things. My attention was elsewhere. If you desire specifics, I suggest that you simply ask Vinz. We should return his hospitality and invite him to dine with us.”

“I would rather lie naked atop a nest of fire ants. Where
was
your mind, then? You mentioned conversation. They angled for information, I suppose.”

“Certainly the boy did. It is only natural, at that age.”

“Boy?”

“Vinz has brought his son with him.”

“Stupidity. We’ve no leisure here to coddle children.”

“Ah, young Vinzille Corvestri cannot be considered a child. He is quite extraordinary—I have never met a lad of such marked talent and promise. Even his appearance is exceptional. His Steffa heritage is quite evident, and his resemblance to his mother is striking.”

“Is it? I should like to see that.”

“Easily arranged. You need only return hospitality. Invite the entire family.”

“Corvestri and son, you mean.”

“And wife. Do not forget the magnifica.”

“Wife?”
He could not have heard correctly. “You’re not telling me that the Corvestri imbecile has dragged his wife along with him into the wilderness?”

“Well, I do not know that ‘dragged’ is the appropriate term. The Magnifica Sonnetia strikes me as a lady of some character, and very much attached to her son. It is my belief that she wished to accompany the lad.”

“Quite likely, but what of it? Corvestri needn’t have consented. He permits his wife to expose herself to hardship, inconvenience, even danger, upon the basis of some maternal whim. What sort of husband is that? He doesn’t protect her, he doesn’t deserve her. Why did he allow her to come?”

“I must confess, I wondered about that. I observed the two of them closely, and almost it seemed that Vinz deferred to the magnifica as if through some sense of debt or obligation. It was an impression, perhaps only my fancy.”

No it wasn’t
. So that was it. Sonnetia had demanded repayment of sorts for the sacrifice of the Steffa jewels and for her part in obtaining Corvestri’s release from prison. No wonder her clod of a husband had found himself unable to refuse her—he was no match for her. A sense of admiration suffused Aureste’s thoughts. She shouldn’t be here, but at least she had won something that she wanted.
What a woman
. Aloud, he inquired inconsequentially, “And how did she look?”

“I am not the best judge, but I should say, very handsome.”

“And did she seem quite—well?” His queries were increasingly inane, but he could not voice the questions that genuinely interested him.
Is she contented? Or is she restless and sick of her idiot husband? Did she ask about me?

“So far as I could judge.” Innesq was regarding him with that calm, straight look that always seemed to penetrate straight to his center. “You might see for yourself, quite easily. But no, I was forgetting, you are firmly opposed, even expressing a preference involving nudity and fire ants.”

“Nor will I alter my decision. Socialize with our enemy if you must. I cannot stop you. But our respective parties will remain separate.”

Two days later the Nor’wilders Way brought them to a narrow defile, where the road was blocked by a fall of rocks. Belandor and Corvestri servants worked together to clear the path, and thereafter the two groups traveled in tandem.
It had been made clear that liberation from her chamber demanded unconditional surrender, and therefore Jianna capitulated, tendering Uncle Nalio her formal acceptance of all his decisions made on her behalf, together with her gratitude for his care and generosity. Thereafter her door was unlocked and she was free to wander about the remains of Belandor House as she pleased. She was also free to resume taking meals with her uncle, and in fact expected to do so, but this was not so difficult as she had feared, for Nalio was awash with magnanimity and disposed to forgive. There were no reproaches, no recriminations. He was still willing to discuss Belandor House repairs and renovations. He was likewise willing to discuss and display the newly arrived communication from the Magnifico Tribari, who expressed dignified delight at the prospect of greeting his son’s bride in the near future.

The work on her wardrobe proceeded apace. Cutting and assembly were finished, fittings and alterations concluded, and the final finicking details of applied ornamentation were all but done. The big wooden chest in her room was now filled to overflowing with beautiful new garments.

It would be hard to leave them all behind. Impossible, in fact, for there were some with which she could not bear to part. The dark blue dress with the scarlet trim, for example. The sweeping woolen cloak. The silk chemises and embroidered stockings. The violet gown with its dramatic underskirt of black brocade.

And there was no reason to lose them all. It wasn’t as if they were Uncle Nalio’s gifts to her; they all came, only a bit indirectly, from Aureste. So she assured herself upon the quiet early-morning occasion that she spent stuffing a purloined pillow case with as many garments as it would hold. The jewelry came last and received special treatment. The little store of modest but good pieces—garnets, pearls, opals, and one fine ruby, set in gold—all went into a small pouch strung on a silken cord worn around her neck and tucked inside her bodice.

Then it was done, her rudimentary preparations completed. She wrapped herself in the fine new cloak, slipped her hands into the handsome new gloves, picked up the bulging sack, and marched out of the room.

It was just past dawn, but the servants were already about their business. One or two watched curiously as the magnifico’s daughter went by, but none ventured to address her. Quietly, but without any effort at concealment, she made her way out of the house, then crossed the yard to the gate, which was locked and guarded. She spoke a commanding word to the sentry, who bestowed a startled glance upon her, but did not hesitate to obey. She went through, and the gate clanged shut behind her.

The air was dark and laced with smoke, but she could see well enough. She made her way along Summit Street at a steady, unhurried pace that she knew she could maintain for hours. Not so very long ago, the distance she intended to travel on foot would have seemed daunting; now, the prospect was hardly worthy of note. No more than an hour and a quarter or so of walking should bring her to her destination.

The Lancet Inn, near the Avorno Hospital, he had said. He would be staying there until he located his sister. Of course, he might easily have found her by this time. Falaste and Celisse might well have departed Vitrisi days ago. And if so?

Then she would take lodgings somewhere in the city. The sale of her jewelry would purchase room and board for weeks or months to come. There she would live quietly incognita, but she would keep her eyes and ears open. Eventually she would hear news of the Magnifico Belandor’s return to Vitrisi. With Aureste reinstated and Uncle Nalio effectively neutralized, she would be free to present herself once more at Belandor House, where she would swiftly persuade her father to grant his word never to send her away again.

All of this was possible and attainable. She would carry it through if necessary, but hoped profoundly that the need
would not arise. With every fiber, she longed to find Falaste Rione still in residence at the Lancet Inn.

The descent from the Clouds was an easy stroll downhill, and the subsequent hike through various neighborhoods of Vitrisi not nearly as bad as she had feared. Any number of workmen or loiterers whistled and chirruped at her as she passed, but she ignored them all, and nobody actually accosted her. Perhaps that apparent restraint simply reflected the current prevailing fear of physical contact with potentially infectious strangers.

She passed many buildings marked with the red X, and twice her progress was impeded by palisades of raw new wood, slashed with scarlet paint, marking the boundaries of quarantined neighborhoods. To her relief, she encountered none of the wandering dead. Only once she passed a swollen corpse, unequivocally down and supine in the gutter, its choicest bits the subject of dispute among a flock of Scarlet Gluttons. Averting her eyes, she quickened her pace.

Street after street, with the smoky atmosphere heavy in her lungs, caustic in her watering eyes. Many of the pedestrians that she passed had elected to shield their faces with protective gear of varying levels of quality, ranging from cheap tallowed rags, to oilcloth vizards with gauzy eye-flaps, all the way up to costly full-face leather masks equipped with herb-stuffed nasal projections and eyeholes glazed with ground glass lenses.

They looked as if they were on their way to some nightmare masquerade.

The morning was well advanced and the streets grimly alive by the time she approached the Avorno Hospital. The austere old structure, built in the last century to house lunatics, idiots, moribund paupers, and the victims of assorted epidemics, normally stood with its door wide open in mute declaration of its charitable function. But today the door was shut. The cobbled pavement before the entrance was littered with the recumbent
bodies of the sick and the dying. From time to time a desperate outcry arose, which drew no response from within. Presumably the hospital was full to bursting.

She did not venture to ask directions, but a little searching soon brought her to the Lancet Inn. It stood in a small side street, very near the hospital, as he had described. The inn itself was old and eccentric, with emphatic gables, curious bulbous rooflights, and a brass knocker in the shape of a winged rodent. The place was modest but well maintained, and under ordinary circumstances might even have seemed inviting. She went in.

The proprietress—in keeping with her surroundings, elderly and tidy—eyed the newcomer with instant suspicion, and understandably so. A woman—young, handsome, smartly dressed—gadding about on her own invited but one conclusion. Nevertheless, a possibly solvent customer.

“Yes, madam?” The old lady succeeded in keeping her tone civil.

“Dr. Falaste Rione, please,” Jianna requested, then watched with interest as the other’s face creased in a grimace of disapproval, apparently contracting to half its former size.

“Up the stairs to the second story, door’s on the left. Dr. Rione is quite the gentleman—he has taken a room of his own,” the proprietress confided, adding with a perceptible touch of significance, “You won’t be disturbed.”

“Is he in now?”

“Oh, I could hardly say. ’Tisn’t my place to pry. My guests know that I never meddle, no matter what they do. Just so long as they pay their reckoning and don’t bring the Taers down on me.”

“Then I’ll go on up, if I may.”

“Suit yourself. ’Tisn’t my affair. I never pry.”

Jianna ascended a steep and narrow, old-fashioned stairway that smelled of lemon oil polish. Her heart was beating quickly as she climbed, just as it had throbbed with anticipation days earlier, as she had made her way along Summit
Street toward her beloved Belandor House, whose reality had scarcely fulfilled her dreams.

Quite likely, he wouldn’t be there at all. She would have to wait, probably until he returned in the evening. No, she wouldn’t sit around waiting, she’d use the time to find someone willing to buy her jewelry, and perhaps the violet gown as well. She really had no place to wear it. Decidedly, it was best to focus on practical matters.

Four arched doors opened upon the second-story landing. The one on the left would be his, but there hardly seemed any point in knocking, for she already knew that he would not be there. Her heart was truly racing now.

Her hand moved of its own accord to deliver a weak tap, easily missed or ignored. A quick footfall within, and the door opened.

And
there he was
, lean and pale-faced, regarding her in plain surprise, and her mind froze. For a moment she could think of nothing to say, and stood staring at him.

But her eyes must have been more eloquent than she knew, for he took one look and inquired at once, “What’s wrong?”

“May I come in?” She found her voice.

He nodded and moved aside. She stepped into the room, and he shut the door.

“I didn’t think we’d ever see each other again.” She had no sense of her surroundings. Her eyes never left his face. For the first time she fully realized how much she had missed seeing it.

“Neither did I.”

“Have you found Celisse?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think she knows that you’re looking for her?”

“Why are you here, Jianna? What’s happened?”

“My uncle Nalio has happened. He’s in charge of Belandor House during my father’s absence, and he’s decided to pack me off to Orezzia for a speedy marriage.”

“That’s what you were traveling toward at the time you were abducted, was it not?”

She nodded without enthusiasm.

“And the match was arranged by your father?”

Another nod.

“Your uncle seeks to fulfill the Magnifico Belandor’s wishes. What could be more reasonable and responsible?”

“Reason and responsibility have nothing to do with it! And I don’t think my father’s wishes have much to do with it, either. Uncle just wants to trade me off for the Magnifico Tribari’s pet artists and artisans to work on restoring Belandor House. That, and he wants to put me in my place—he’s wanted to for a long time, I suspect. But he’s not going to get away with it. I’m no heifer to be bartered at market, particularly not by the likes of Uncle Nalio. I won’t go to Orezzia.”

“Stop and think. Is it wise to reject the plans made on your behalf by a father whom you trust, just for the satisfaction of defying your uncle?”

“That isn’t it. My uncle doesn’t matter. I just don’t want to go.”

“You were willing enough once, and not so long ago.”