The Ruined City (6 page)

He had never been allowed to see those letters, and could only speculate as to their contents; just as he speculated endlessly as to their origin. Beyond doubt they were forgeries, planted in his study by some enemy bent upon his ruin. An enemy enjoying access to Corvestri Mansion, probably by way of a servant or Sishmindri. The suspicions scuttled through the dark of his mind as the rats and insects scuttled through the dark of his cell, but always sought the same recurring conviction. The woman Brivvia, who had been spied entering and leaving Belandor House more than once; the woman who was personal maid to his wife.

He thought about his wife now. It seemed he could not stop himself from thinking of her. The Magnifica Sonnetia, with her beautiful, fine-boned face that he could not read. Sonnetia, with her perfect composure, perfect manner, and perfect deportment covering … he knew not what. Sonnetia, with the mind and heart he could not fathom. Had she dispatched her maid to Belandor House?

His shivering intensified, but that was natural enough. His naked flesh was still wet, and it was very cold in his cell.

“This has continued too long. You must wake up now. It’s your duty, and you are needed. Wake,” Aureste commanded.

There was no response. Innesq lay still in his bed, unconscious, unreachable as ever, neither dead nor truly alive. Unlike those around him, he suffered nothing of fear or grief. Aureste resisted the impulse to drive his fist into the peaceful white face. But he needed to drive it somewhere. His dark eyes, burning within their deep sockets, lifted from the bed to the form of the nearest victim.

“You have failed,” he observed, with a sensation almost approaching pleasure.

“No,” replied the Sishmindri called Zirriz.

“No? My brother is awake, then? He’s conscious and mentally whole? Somehow I failed to observe it.”

“More time. Find magic dust. Then good.”

“You’ve had time enough. What did I tell you would happen if you failed? Well? Do you remember?”

A deep tremor rippled the amphibian’s facial muscles.

“I see that you do. Speak, then. What did I promise?”

“Hunger and death.”

“You have earned both.”

No reply. The Sishmindri simply stared at him, eyes goldenly blank, and Aureste’s ire heated. Zirriz did not beg or bargain. Offering neither excuse nor self-justification, he simply awaited his doom with the quiet impassivity of his kind. There was no satisfaction to be had from him. The threatened execution was largely bluster—a healthy, well-trained Sishmindri was simply too valuable to kill outright. But there were lesser punishments perhaps affording a certain measure of enjoyment.

A braided leather whip armed with a cluster of lead pellets at the tip lay coiled on the chair beside the bed. Aureste had absently dropped it there some twenty-four hours earlier, in unconscious anticipation of this very moment. The whip seemed magically to leap to his hand. He plied the lash with vigor, and the lead pellets ripped a long gash across Zirriz’s brow.

The Sishmindri instinctively threw a protective arm across his eyes. A vicious rain of blows tore his livery to shreds and beat him to the floor, where he crouched in shuddering silence.

And still no satisfaction. The creature refused to cry out. His blue-green blood was streaming from dozens of crisscrossing cuts, he was swaying upon the verge of collapse, but no sound escaped him.

Some demon stirred to life in Aureste’s brain then, a deadly resolve to break his victim, increasing the speed and force of his blows. The lash was now tearing long strips of greenish flesh from Zirriz’s back, no doubt marring him forever and considerably reducing his value on the open market, but the Magnifico Aureste was beyond caring. For a time, his awareness of his surroundings all but lapsed. And then came a
sound refreshing as springtime rain—a muted croak of agony—followed by Zirriz’s collapse into unconsciousness.

The world resumed reality. His chest heaved and his arm ached. The Sishmindri lay motionless in a blue-green pool at his feet. He did not know whether the amphibian still lived, and for the moment did not care. A sense of weary disgust filled him and he tossed the whip aside. Then, with reluctance, almost as if afraid of what he might confront, he turned his eyes to the bed.

He
was
afraid, Aureste realized. For reasons best known to himself, Innesq Belandor valued and esteemed the Sishmindris. To see one of his favorites so savagely abused would shock, grieve, and offend him. He would disapprove; he might even withhold forgiveness.

That last possibility was insupportable.

He might have spared himself the worry. His brother lay comatose as ever, and disappointment twinged across Aureste’s mind. Some part of him below the level of consciousness had hoped that a violent outrage, an assault upon his deepest sensibilities, might blast Innesq from slumber. But violence was as useless as pleas, commands, and exhortation.

He had seriously damaged or destroyed a costly piece of property, to no purpose. Zirriz lay motionless as Innesq, a silent embodiment of reproach.

Aureste yanked the bellpull and a Sishmindri answered the summons promptly. Another male, clothed in livery, and—but for the brown mottling upon the skin of his pate—a near double of Zirriz. He did not recall the creature’s name and did not want to know it.

“Remove him,” Aureste commanded, pointing at the fallen amphibian. “Tend to him if he is still alive, dispose of the remains if he is not. Call such assistance as you require, but get him out of here.”

There was no answer. The Sishmindri was staring at the limp form on the floor, and his great eyes were full of something that few humans knew how to read.

“Well, do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Then look to it.” Aureste exited the chamber, stalking swiftly through the north wing corridors to the sanctuary of his makeshift study, where he seated himself at the worktable with a sigh. His body, mind, and spirits all seemed iron-weighted. A draught or three of strong spirits might have lightened the load, or at least distanced it, but he resisted the impulse. What if Innesq awoke, to find his brother—distanced? Better by far to lose himself in work.

The binder containing Nalio’s lists of destruction lay on the table before him. He opened it and tried to apply himself, but the catalog of ruined rugs, burnt bedding, and shattered chandeliers soon sent his mind wandering along uncharted paths. He was a little uncomfortable with himself, he realized; an unaccustomed sensation. Inappropriate as well, for he had every right in the world to beat his own Sishmindri, and Zirriz had deserved a good hiding or worse. He had failed his master, after all.

A light tap on the closed door broke his reverie.

“Come,” he commanded, and another Sishmindri appeared. Female, this time. Empty-faced, like all of them, but something in the hunch of her shoulders made him wonder if she knew yet what had happened minutes earlier in Innesq’s chamber.

Of course she knew. By this time every Sishmindri in the house knew. So much the better, the lesson would make better servants of them.

“Woman here,” the Sishmindri announced.

Brivvia again, he supposed. His brows drew together. He had no further use for her at present, and if she thought to extract additional payment from him, she was sadly mistaken. It was on the tip of his tongue to order her ejection, but then he decided to deal with her personally. He would make short work of Brivvia.

“Admit her,” he ordered.

The Sishmindri bowed and withdrew. A moment later a cloaked and hooded woman stepped into the room.

She had been making good use of the money she’d had from him, was his first thought. She had exchanged her cloak of dreary grey-brown frieze for a much better garment of fine wool, colored the almost black-green of pine boughs at twilight. The change suited her, even seemed to lend her extra height and grace.

She pushed her hood back to reveal rich chestnut hair,
not Brivvia
, then his breath caught as she turned to confront him squarely and he looked into a face he had not viewed at close range in half a lifetime.

“Sonnetia?” he murmured, half doubting his own vision.

“Magnifico. It is good of you to receive me, uninvited and unannounced,” Sonnetia Corvestri returned very correctly, as if seeking refuge in formality.

Her voice was a little lower in pitch than he remembered, but still melodic. The hair was a little deeper in color, as if the bright streaks once painted by the sun had darkened with the years. And her face—it had lost something of its youthful softness, the bones were more prominent and the mouth firmer—but it was surprisingly unaltered. Something stirred inside him at the sight of it, a kind of wonder that he thought had fled his mind years ago. For a moment astonishment paralyzed his usually ready tongue and he sat staring at her.

“I should like a word with you, if it is convenient,” Sonnetia prompted quietly.

“Ah, forgive me, Magnifica.” His trance broke and he rose to his feet. “You’ve taken me altogether by surprise, and I neglect courtesy. Pray be seated. May I offer you refreshment?”

“Nothing, thank you.” Choosing the chair nearest his worktable, she seated herself, her back very straight.

He resumed his own seat, his thoughts in disarray. What in the world could have induced her to step over his threshold? Was she really as calm as she appeared, or was her heart beating as quickly as his own? How could she still be so beautiful,
after so many years? Aloud, he inquired simply, “How may I serve you, madam?”

“I know that my visit must be as unwelcome as it is unexpected, but I ask you to listen to me with an open mind. It’s to your own advantage, as well as mine, that you do so.”

“Your visit is not unwelcome, and I’ll listen willingly.”

“Good. Then I’ll not waste your time with preliminaries. You know that my husband has been arrested?”

“All the city knows it.”

“He lies in the Witch, charged with … many things. The sum of all is that the Taerleezi authorities believe him to be deeply involved in resistance activities.”

“While you, his wife, believe him innocent.”

“The question of his true guilt or innocence doesn’t greatly concern me. He’s my husband and the father of my son. I want him freed, and the charges against him dropped.”

“No doubt all of his friends and family share your sentiments.”

“Not to the same degree. The future of my son hinges upon his father’s fate. You’ve a child of your own. I believe you understand me.”

“Your concern for your son, yes. Magnifica, accept my sympathies.”

“It isn’t your sympathies that I’ve come for. I want your assistance.”

“You speak very plainly.”

“I urge you to do the same.”

“As you wish. Plainly then, I am honored to assist you. You’ve only to name the sum.”

“Sum?”

“The Magnifico Corvestri’s absence imposes hardship upon your household. That is a great misfortune. Neither you nor your son shall want, however. You may rely upon me to safeguard your security and comfort.”

“What collateral would you demand, Magnifico?”

“Nothing beyond your goodwill, madam.”

“This liberality exceeds measure,” she returned drily. “Happily, I am not obliged to exploit your generosity. I’ve no need of your money.”

“What can I offer, then?”

“Influence. You’ve the ear of the governor. Use your influence on my husband’s behalf. Liberate him.”

Aureste studied her. Clearly she had failed to identify him as the author of her husband’s ruin. Nor was she aware of the part that Vinz Corvestri had played in the attack upon Belandor House, else she would never have come to him with such a fantastic request. Even so, could she truly imagine for one instant that he would lift a finger to assist his own enemy? Had decades of connubial ennui dulled her once keen wits?

Assuming an expression of benevolent regret, he replied, “I fear you greatly overrate my importance. It’s true that my business dealings with the Taerleezis lend me a certain utilitarian value. The governor is civil enough, because it’s worth his while to be so. But my influence with him is nil, and my words carry no more weight than those of any other Faerlonnishman.”

“I do not believe that.”

“Ah, Magnifica.” He permitted himself a rueful smile. “I know how the world speaks of me, but you mustn’t credit all that you hear. I am only another member of an oppressed population—rather more fortunate than some, yet essentially dust beneath the Taerleezi heel.”

“Never. We once knew each other well, Magnifico. Perhaps you have forgotten, but I have not. Many years have passed, but I don’t think that you’ve changed at all. The Aureste Belandor I once knew could and would have overcome all obstacles to achieve any goal, once he perceived the reason for it.”

“What reason could possibly exceed my sincere desire to oblige you?”

“Oh, I think we can do rather better than that. Tell me, is it not true that your younger brother Innesq Belandor has lain gravely ill for some days now?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Where does one hear anything? Is it also true that Innesq’s malady is arcane in origin?”