Karl Vliomani
HE’D SHAVED OFF his beard. He’d darkened his hair
with essence of blackstone and let his features become obscured
with the dirt of the road. He’d given away the fine bashtas in his
pack in exchange for a beggar’s flea-infested and torn wardrobe. He
stank of filth, and his smell alone was enough to turn people’s
eyes away from him.
He wondered where
Sergei was, and if he’d made his way to Firenzcia and how he might
have been received there.
Karl had originally
intended to make his way back to the Isle of Paeti. He had rested
enough to use the Scáth Cumhacht to heal the worst of Varina’s
wound. Then he and Varina had accompanied Sergei to the woods north
of the city, but there had parted ways, Sergei turning eastward
toward Azay a’Reaudi, while he and Varina followed the forest’s
line westward. They’d crossed the Avi a’Nortegate below Tousia,
then turned southeast toward the Avi a’Nostrosei, hoping to follow
its line into Sforzia and from there find passage on a ship to
either Paeti or one of the northern countries. They’d reached the
Avi at Ville Paisli four days later, only a day’s journey by foot
from Nessantico’s walls.
He’d intended that
they stay one day. No more. He and Varina had taken a room in the
only inn in the village, giving false names and traveling as man
and wife on their way to Varolli in hopes of finding employment.
The older woman who had shown them the room nodded as she took
their money, slipping the coins into a pocket under the apron she
wore over a stained tashta that looked two decades out of fashion.
Her face and body showed years of children and hard work. “I’m
Alisa Morel,” she told them. Karl heard the intake of Varina’s
breath at the name. “My husband and I own the inn and tavern, and
my husband is the village’s smithy. If you’d like a bath—” that
with a significant glance and wrinkling of her nose suggesting that
such would be a good idea, “—there’s a room below for that, and I
can have my children fill two tubs with hot water. Dinner will be a
turn of the glass after sundown.”
The woman left them,
and Varina lifted eyebrows toward Karl. “Morel . . .” she said.
“Nico said that he’d run away from his tantzia and onczio. Could
she be . . . ?”
“Morel’s a common
enough name in Nessantico.” He shrugged. “But there are obviously
some questions we should ask. If we still had the boy . .
.”
Karl was already
certain that the connection was there, though he wasn’t sure how he
knew. He could see from Varina’s face that she was thinking the
same. If he’d believed in any god at all, he might have thought
they’d been led here by divine fortune.
That evening, after
taking the woman’s offer of a bath to rid them of the worst of the
road stink, he and Varina took their supper in the common room of
the tavern, both to avoid suspicion and so that they could hear any
gossip that might have reached the village regarding the escape of
the Regent from the Bastida. The room was—he suspected from the
harried looks of Alisa, her children who served as the waiting
staff, and her husband Bayard behind the short bar near the kitchen
door—more crowded than usual, and the talk was largely of the
events in Nessantico, which seemed to have reached the village only
a few days ago.
“I spoke to the
offizier of the search squad myself,” Bayard Morel was saying
loudly to an audience of a half dozen villagers. “His horse had
thrown its shoe, and so he had me shoe the beast for him. He said
that Kraljiki Audric, may Cénzi bless ’im, sent riders out on every
road from the city to catch the traitor and those Numetodo heretics
with him. The offizier’s squad was to scour the road all the way to
Varolli if necessary. He told me that the Numetodo killed three
dozen Garde Kralji in the Bastida with their awful, blasphemous
magic, killed ’em without a thought even though some of them were
still in their beds. They left the tower where ca’Rudka was held in
rubble, nothing but great stones strewn all over the ground. They
were spouting fire as they rode off, a horrible blue fire, the
offizier said, that slew people along the Avi as they passed, and
then, with a great whoosh—” and here Bayard spread his hands
suddenly wide, knocking over the nearest tankard of ale and causing
his audience to rear back in wide-eyed terror, “—they vanished in a
cloud of foul black smoke. Just like that. All told, there are over
a hundred dead in the city. I tell you, death is too good a fate
for the Regent. They ought to drag him alive through the streets
and let the stones of the Avi tear the very flesh from his bones
and rip off that silver nose of his while he screams.”
The people in the
room murmured their agreement with that assessment. Varina leaned
close to Karl, grimacing as the movement pulled at the knitting
wound on her arm. “By next week, he’ll have it at a thousand dead.
But at least it seems the searchers have already moved through.
We’re behind them. That’s good, right?” She searched his face with
anxious eyes, and he grunted assent even though he wasn’t so
certain himself.
Watching the room, he
noticed that there was another woman helping to serve the patrons:
dour and tired-looking, her mouth never gentled with a smile. She
looked several years younger than Alisa, but there was a family
resemblance between the two: in the eyes, in the narrow nose, in
the set of her lips. She appeared too old to be Alisa’s child, all
of whom were still striplings. When one of the children—a sullen
boy on the cusp of puberty—set a plate of sliced bread on their
table, he pointed to her. “That woman there . . . who is
that?”
The boy sniffed and
scowled. “That’s my Tantzia Serafina. She’s living with us right
now.”
“She looks
unhappy.”
“She’s been that way
for a while now, since Nico ran away.”
Karl glanced at
Varina. “Who’s Nico?”
“Her son,” the boy
said, the scowl deepening. “A bastardo. I didn’t like him anyway.
Always talking nonsense about Westlanders and magic and trying to
pretend he could do magic himself like he was a téni. Everyone had
to waste three days looking for him after he left, and my vatarh
rode all the way to Certendi, but no one ever found him. I think
he’s probably dead.” He seemed inordinately satisfied with that
conclusion, satisfaction curling a corner of his
mouth.
“Ah.” Karl nodded.
“You’re probably right. It’s not an easy world out there for
travelers. I was just wondering why she looked so sad.” Varina was
looking away now, staring at Serafina, her knuckles to her mouth.
The boy scuffled his feet on the rough wooden floor, sniffed and
wiped his arm across his nose, and went back into the
kitchen.
“Gods, it
is her.” Varina gave a nearly
imperceptible shake of her head. “What do we do, Karl? That’s
Nico’s matarh.”
Karl plucked a piece
of bread from the plate that the boy had brought. He tore off a
chunk of the brown loaf and tucked it into his mouth, chewing
thoughtfully. “If we could give her Nico,” he said after he
swallowed, “I wonder if she would give us Talis in
return?”