A Brightness Long Ago, page 26
Ricci was a man who prided himself on reading people well. He decided he ought to have a conversation with this young bookseller. At the very least, someone who’d attended the school in Avegna ought to be diverting. He found himself to be lacking in certain kinds of intelligent conversation. It wasn’t important, but of course it was.
* * *
My cousin, now my business partner, was a kind man. You could call him sweet, he was willing to be teased about it. At the same time, Alviso was no fool. He mentioned to me, shortly after I joined as an owner of the bookshop, that a man examining unbound coastal maps in our stock, on a morning when I’d been out riding Gil, hadn’t looked like a mariner, and had asked a not-entirely-casual question or two about me.
He’d bought a map of Sauradia and left.
I’d expected this. Seressa prided itself on being a free republic, but it watched its citizens carefully. You didn’t only monitor threats from abroad if you were the Council of Twelve.
I was no threat to anyone, but they’d want to decide that for themselves. Guarino had told me, when I stopped in Avegna on the way home, that there might be an election coming within the council for a new duke, that I should pay attention to it.
“I’m planning to be an owner of a bookshop, Teacher. Why would I pay attention to such things?”
“Because you live there, and because you spent many years here. They will know you, Guidanio, or want to. Best if you learn what you can about them.”
We had already spoken of Mylasia and Morani di Rosso. That happened on my first night back at the school. I told my teacher about killing a man in a palace on the night the count died. I didn’t tell him what I did six months after, killing another, in revenge for Morani.
Guarino was honest and virtuous. I didn’t want to burden him with that second murder. We choose what to tell when we tell a story.
He wept when he heard about Morani and his family. We went to the sanctuary and prayed for them. It didn’t ease me very much, to be truthful.
I didn’t tell him about seeing Adria Ripoli, either, in Mylasia or in Bischio, or what she’d done in either place. Not my secrets to share. If Folco wanted to visit his old teacher and tell him that story for some reason—he could.
It felt odd, being cautious with Guarino, the man I trusted most in the world. It felt like yet another moment of transition, an entry into responsibility—because I was doing it to protect him, and others, not myself. And it came as I decided to turn my back on the wider world, to sell books on medicine, poetry, texts of holy Jad.
The world can come to you, however, even if you ride away from it. I’ve learned that.
I rode away from Guarino after kissing him goodbye and promising to return. I did not tell him how fear had been a part of what made me turn for home. There, I was protecting myself, my pride. I don’t know what he would have said. He had been the one who wanted me to go to Mylasia. He felt his pupils had a duty to serve the world and the god, that everyone had such a duty.
I went home.
I gave my cousin Alviso what he asked for a half share of the business. It was a very fair sum. We then made an offer for the shop next door, which sold an odd collection of goods—writing implements, soap, spectacles. We broke down the wall between the two shops, cleaned up the dust and damage, and expanded our stock. Alviso and his family lived upstairs.
At my suggestion we continued to sell the pens and spectacles. They seemed to belong with books. We discontinued the soap but I took a box of it to my mother. We found a supplier of good candles and added those. We used the larger space to better display the loose sheets of books we sold and the leather bindings we could put them in. We had a number of books already bound, for those in a hurry (visitors to Seressa often were), or less concerned about the colour of the leather than they were about the words inside.
At the port, over by the armoury, I had a boy hand out information about our shop to merchants with ships headed across to ambitious Dubrava, or down the coast. There were markets for books beyond our lagoon, and nowhere in the world was better placed to service them than Seressa, where all the ships of the world seemed to come.
I placed Gil with two brothers who stabled horses outside the city, inland. I walked out that way and rode him three or four times a week, even in winter.
I stayed with my mother and father and sister for a short time, then found a place on the top floor of a three-storey building not far from the shop. It was the first time I’d ever lived alone.
I was well-off after Bischio, and I had funds left after buying my share of the business. We were making money, as well. You might not grow wealthy in Seressa with a bookshop, but if you were good at what you did (including binding the books) you would not starve, unless everyone starved. I began to think about one day investing in shares of a merchant voyage. I was Seressini, after all.
I bought a small painting by Viero Villani, of Jad as Warrior, pictured in the sky above Rhodias. I hung it on the wall beside the chair in my apartment where I read in the evenings by the light of one of the candles we sold. It made me feel I was arriving somewhere in the world, to own a work of art. I ate, most often, at one of two establishments on my street. One specialized in pork, the other in dishes from the east. You could find many things in Seressa, including varieties of food. I set about locating friends from childhood. Some, it turned out, I still liked. Some still liked me. We talked politics and trade; everyone talked about those things in Seressa.
I was happy enough. There were taverns towards the artists’ quarter (rougher, more interesting) where they served decently priced wine or ale, unwatered once they knew you as a regular, and one or two of the girls were agreeable to me.
Once a week I ate at home. My mother’s cook was the same one we’d had when I was growing up, before I went to Avegna. It seemed a long time ago.
On one of those evenings, as spring returned that first year, my father told me, proudly, that he’d received a commission to fit and cut a robe for the brother of the temporarily appointed duke. It was possible, he said, that if this was a success, he might even be asked to tailor something for Ricci himself.
Tailors went to their clients; the best known were welcomed in the finest palazzos in Seressa. It was a relationship, a reason my father’s was a trade of some respectability.
“What did you talk about?” I asked.
My father smiled, stroked his beard. “You, some of the time,” he said.
I was not, because of this, entirely surprised when I received a request to attend upon Duke Ricci a few days later. I knew the ways of my city, even then.
The surprise came the night before I was to go to the palace, when I very nearly walked in on someone looking for me, and carrying a sword.
* * *
• • •
I HAD HEADED towards the artists’ quarter at the end of the day, after closing the shop. I seldom went all the way to that district. Few did, if they didn’t have to. That part of Seressa was also the tanners’ quarter and the smells were noxious. A reason artists lived there, of course, inexpensive rooms in an expensive city.
But halfway between our shop and that district lay a sequence of taverns and brothels I liked, a little back from the Great Canal. I crossed the arched bridge just before them, walking past the barrel used by the young, blind one-time mariner who begged there every day. He had gone to wherever his dinner and bed were by then, but he did a decent begging trade, sitting on his barrel. He told good stories, was a splendid gossip, knew people by their voice and even their tread. His name was Pepolo. I spoke with him often, gave him coins when I did.
The story he never told was why he’d been blinded. It was almost certainly for a crime at sea; blinding was a punishment for something grave. I wasn’t inclined to ask, or judge. I’d killed men myself.
I saw three new friends and another from boyhood in one of the taverns, and went in to join them. I joked with the women as we drank, but decided not to go upstairs that night, so I left earlier than I otherwise would have.
Who can know which idle decisions we make will play a role in our lives? That feeling of randomness is surely a reason we pray, or carry objects meant to bring protection or good fortune, why we live in terror of demons.
I was going to the palace in the morning. I suppose my vague thought might have been to stay sober, get a night’s sleep.
I accompanied a friend as far as his own building, not far from mine. It was always wise to go with someone at night in Seressa. I walked faster when alone. I entered my building and started up the stairs. There was a lantern lit on each landing, it was a better sort of building. A windy night now, moving clouds hiding stars. I rubbed my hands to warm them as I went up. There was a smell of cooking on the first floor. We weren’t supposed to cook, the horror of fire in a city, but people did—and were reported for it if someone didn’t like them.
I heard voices above, on my floor. Loud enough that I slowed to listen. Then I saw that Maurizio, on the second floor, had his door open. He held a finger to his lips. I raised an eyebrow. He gestured—the drawing of a sword.
I shouldn’t have, but I went halfway up, careful where the stairs would creak, to hear better.
“I told you, Signore Cerra is not here! You are intruding and will be reported for it. That’s probably happening right now, someone down below. This is a respectable building!” That was Petronella, who lived next to me with her husband and small child.
I looked back down. Maurizio had come as far as the stairway. I pointed outside, made a gesture of handcuffs. He nodded and started down—to find the night watch.
“I have done no harm and intend none,” said a voice I didn’t know.
“You are a stranger in a building after dark, with a sword, demanding to know about a resident. People don’t do that at night if no harm is meant. If you were Seressini you’d know it. You aren’t, are you?”
Petronella was a spirited woman. Perhaps too much so just now, facing an armed man at night. I wondered where Ilario was, her husband.
I couldn’t see them from where I stood. It occurred to me that if this man did turn to leave and come down, he’d find me on the stairs. I had no idea why anyone would be looking for me at night.
He said, “I will leave, signora. I mean you no evil. Just tell me, has a letter been given to you, to hold for Signore Cerra?”
“You asked that, I answered! No, and I’d not have opened my door for anyone wanting to leave one! I mean it, go! People will have heard us, the watch will be on its way.”
“In that case, I must also be on my way. Here’s a doppani for your trouble.” I heard the clink of a coin hitting the floor.
“Fuck you!” said my neighbour Petronella.
“A kind offer, but you aren’t my sort,” the man above replied. “I like more flesh, myself.”
I heard the floor creak. I spun and went down quickly, then along the second-floor corridor. I flattened myself against the wall halfway along, in the darkness there. I saw him walk past, continuing down.
He walked straight into Maurizio—and the watch.
I heard it happen. So did Petronella. I saw her go past, down to the entrance. Her voice was loud, angry. He ought not to have tossed that coin, I thought.
I went to join them in the small square outside our door. Perhaps not the wisest thing—he was looking for me, after all, whoever he was—but his crudeness had also angered me. I had no idea what letter he was talking about. I had received none besides the duke’s summons two days before, by way of a palace courier to the bookshop.
There were three of the night watch in the courtyard before our entranceway. One held a torch and Maurizio had another. The wind was blocked a little here, they flickered but held.
“Good,” I said, stepping outside. “You have him. This man was threatening a woman, refused to leave, demanded after me, insulted her honour. You may want to question him.”
The man was not tall, but he was well built. He was clean-shaven under a hat pulled low to hide his face. I walked closer and looked at him. And I knew who this was.
I opened my mouth to say that, but did not. Instead, I said, “I am meeting with Duke Ricci in the morning, gentlemen, it is possible this person had reasons to prevent that. It should be looked into.”
The guards gaped. With the duke named, a minor incident had suddenly become much more.
“What?” said the intruder. “I know nothing about—”
“Best you come quietly now, you,” said the biggest guard. “And we’ll be taking your sword and that dagger.”
“You will not!” the man exclaimed.
“Wrong about that,” said the same guard, and without warning he threw a punch at the other man’s midriff, then another, also heavy, to his jaw as the stranger doubled over.
Seressa had well-trained civic guards.
“Will you be wanting an escort to the duke in the morning?” the big one asked, rubbing his knuckles. The other two set about taking the stranger’s sword and dagger from him as he lay on the ground. The first guard’s expression suggested he might be testing the truth of my words.
“I will now, thank you,” I said. “This has been unsettling.”
“What is the nature of your business at the palace?” he asked.
I stared coldly at him. “You exceed your rank, I think. Not wise. Hold this one until I speak to the duke about him. No questioning until then. Have men here to meet me an hour after sunrise.”
I was, to be honest, imitating Teobaldo Monticola’s manner of giving orders. How would I have had any experience of doing so?
The guard stared back, but without conviction now. “Yes, signore,” he said, looking away. I believe he was close to saying “my lord.”
It was good enough.
They dragged the intruder to his feet, shackled his wrists, and began walking him towards the canal and the bridge and their station nearby. Or they might take him straight to the palace cells, I thought. Those were not pleasant places, by widespread report.
I stood with Maurizio and Petronella. He held his torch, looked at me by its light.
“Going to the palace?” he said skeptically. I was a bookseller, after all.
“I am,” I admitted.
“Why?” asked Petronella, same question the guard had asked.
I smiled at her. “I’ll tell you when I know,” I said.
She smiled back. She had a good smile. A forceful woman. More evidence of that tonight.
We went in, it was cold outside. We said goodnight to Maurizio at his door and went on up the stairs. Outside my door Petronella said, “Danio, wait.”
She went into her flat and came back out.
“Someone did bring a letter,” she said. And handed it to me. She winked. “You’ll break hearts before you’re done, Guidanio Cerra. Just remember I told a lie for you.”
“Why did you?” I asked.
She didn’t smile this time. “I didn’t like him. I like you.” She paused. “So does Ilario. Come visit us one evening when the babe’s asleep, we might find ways to please you.”
She turned and went into their room and closed the door.
I stood alone in the dark corridor, dumbfounded, fighting a nervous laughter. But I was also holding a sealed envelope with my name written on it in a firm hand.
I knew who had written it. Not hard to work out, once I’d recognized the man who’d come looking for me.
He was one of the two who’d put an arrow in Antenami Sardi last spring.
Which meant he served Duke Arimanno of Macera. Adria’s father. The letter would be from her, and someone didn’t want me seeing it. My heart began beating fast. A year had passed, but some things aren’t changed by a year.
I wondered if the guards would listen to my instruction not to hurt him. It might be a bad idea to interrogate that one, given the duke he served, and noting that he hadn’t actually harmed anyone.
In bed later, it crossed my mind to wonder, belatedly, why I’d assumed he was alone. I didn’t sleep well, but nothing happened before morning other than my keeping a candle burning and reading a letter many times.
* * *
They were well into the rains of winter before she’d realized her father was intercepting her letters.
She was confident that Guidanio Cerra would not be ignoring her. She didn’t know where he lived, but had found out where his parents did. A tailor named Cerra, not difficult. That address ought to have been sufficient to reach him. Her letters to Folco and her aunt in Acorsi had gotten through; she’d had replies from both.
Three letters to Danio had gone unanswered.
At home in Macera, and with time to think, Adria realized it would be a mistake to confront her father’s courier to Seressa. If she did that, he’d lie to her and they’d know she was aware of what was happening. One of the things she’d learned from Folco: when you discovered something, it could be useful if others didn’t realize you knew.
In one way, it wasn’t an important matter, these letters. She was writing to keep contact, let him know that she hadn’t forgotten him, wherever their divergent paths might lead. Danio Cerra was a memory of a life she’d lived for a time. One that was likely over. A vivid memory, yes, but she wasn’t that person any more, or . . . she wasn’t supposed to be.
But she had been away and independent for too long to simply accept the seizing (and reading?) of letters she wrote. Perhaps it was important, after all. Her father needed to know that she might be home again but was still what she was, what she’d become.
She could tell him, or she could use what she’d learned in a different way.
Of course, once she did choose a Daughters of Jad retreat and withdrew behind its walls, acceptance would become her life. But she knew enough about the retreats to believe she could—entering with a position of rank—navigate those requirements, one way or another.
