ELEVEN

 

 

By late evening Nim was in a mood of relentless play, bounding from one corner of the chamber to the other, up over the high bed, dragging the richly embroidered pillows to the floor. The young dog had been out with Dario twice, but he didn’t like to leave his post for long, and refused to take her again. Elayne sacrificed one large gold-threaded tassel that the pup had already chewed off the bed—no doubt worth a year’s living to one of the miners here—and used it for a toy to save the fine carving on the back of the door from Nim’s raking claws.

Elayne threw the tassel and played tug until suddenly the pup pulled back, her eyes alert. Nim abandoned the tassel and bounded to a window, scrabbling at the base of the wooden seat. Her deep-throated bark seemed to rattle the glass lights.

"Hush! Hush!" Elayne sat down on wood as cold as stone, trying to quiet the enthusiastic pup.  She let Nim scramble up, heavy paws sinking into Elayne’s stomach, a warm furry bulk in her arms.

Nim put her black nose to the open window crack, trembling all over as she sniffed at the cold air flowing in. She thrust her nose against the window, batting at it with her paw. The glass swung open with a draft of freezing air. Nim barked and lunged, bracing her paws on the sill and staring down into the street.

It was empty of people, but the snow had stopped falling. Under breaking clouds, evening light picked out the gold on the houses and glowed on the gray walls of Maladire. Nim barked again, the sound echoing in the street, taken up by distant dogs. A motion caught Elayne’s eye—she looked across at the tiny alley between two houses and saw Matteo staring up at them.

He turned instantly away as Nim flew into a frenzy. Elayne jerked the pup back and locked the window closed. She ran to the door, but Dario was already opening it.

"Your Grace, you must not let the dog—"

"Matteo!" Elayne hissed, running to him. "He’s outside!" She barely grabbed Nim back from flying through the door.

Dario froze. "Where?"

"In the alley across the way! Hurry! You’ll see his tracks!"

The youth didn’t hesitate. He vanished out the door.

Elayne flailed about the prancing pup, trying to buckle the dog’s leash onto its collar. She was pulling on her mantle, trying to keep Nim from grabbing the hem and make certain that she had the veil to cover her face, when the dog yanked free and ran back to the window, trailing the leash.

Nim jumped onto the seat, circling and sniffing at it. Elayne thought there must be a mouse behind the wood; she called the pup and started toward her, then shrank back, smothering a shriek as the seat bumped visibly under Nim’s heavy paws.

The pup leaped free. Without a sound the seat rose like the lid of a chest as Matteo crawled out.

"Nim!" he whispered, falling on his knees while the puppy leaped all over him and licked his face. "Your Grace! I didn’t know you were in the town!"

"Matteo." Elayne couldn’t find another word in her throat. She strode to the window and looked down into the hole that emanated cold air and the scent of rock and dust. She could see the rough stone inside the wall, a single stair and hand-hold—the rest was blackness.

"Oh, child," she exclaimed, "I’ve been so afraid for you! Where have you been?" Then she had a dread thought. "Did you find your father?"

"Not yet!" He looked up at her, a brown-haired, gray-eyed boy with rosy lips and a pointed chin that gave him a fey look. His sturdy soft-soled boots and leggings were damp with melting snow. "But I’ve been nearly in the castle!"

"You must not!" Elayne dropped her mantle on the floor. "Wait here for Dario."

"No! He won’t let me go! He’ll stop me! Please, Your Grace, don’t tell him."

Elayne paused on the brink of speech. She fell on her knees beside the boy and took his small cold hands into hers. "Matteo! I don’t know how—I can’t—" She couldn’t find words to tell him what Allegreto meant to do. "You must not go!"

"I know I’m Riata, and no one can trust me." He looked up at her with wide eyes, with a plea that tore her heart. "But please—Princess—"

"It’s no shame that you’re Riata," she said. "Never think so."

"It is," he said. "But I can be trusted. I have a plan that my father won’t guess. Dario will think I can’t do it myself," he said, lowering his face shyly. "So I didn’t tell him. But I can!" He lifted his face with a childish excitement. "I found my way under the castle! I could even look a little into it, though I haven’t found the way inside yet. This warren connects to that building across the street, where they keep the silver. I know all the Navona tokens—I followed them—they’ve tried to block some of the passages, but there are others they can’t see. I can do it!"

Elayne stared at him. "Do what?"

"I can kill Franco Pietro," he said, his rosy face intense. "I know I’m not yet grown, but my lord killed a man when he was no older than I. I heard him tell you so. I’ll kill my father for him. And then he’ll trust me."

She closed her eyes. "Oh, God save, Matteo," she whispered.

"Don’t tell Dario, I pray you!" he said. "I only came because I saw you and Nim in the window, and I wanted—" He grabbed the puppy and hugged it to him. "If I should not return."

"Your return isn’t at issue. You will not go," Elayne said sharply. "Do not think it."

"Please don’t tell!" He let Nimue go. "I must do this! It’s my only chance."

"No," she said.

"I will!" he cried, pushing out his lower lip. He scrambled to his feet. Elayne had seen a child attempting escape often enough to reach for his collar, but before she could grab him, he kicked her, a blow that struck her just below the throat so hard it knocked her back to the floor, all the air escaped her lungs.

She gasped for air as she scrambled upright, but he was already into the window seat and dropping in one swift leap out of sight. Elayne gulped another breath and leaned over the black well. She ran to the door, but Dario was yet gone. She had no time to call on Donna Grazia. Nim stood over the opening, leaning her head down as far as she could reach, searching with her hind paw for purchase. With one light spring, she leaped into the hole, trailing her leash.

"Avoi!" Elayne muttered frantically. The candle lantern by the door was already lit; she yanked it from the hook and held it down into the opening. She could see a set of stairs between stone walls, barely wide enough to pass, descending into shadows. Nim and Matteo were lost from sight.

She gathered her skirts and put her feet over, sitting for a moment on the edge of the window seat. With a deep breath she let herself slip down, holding the lantern before her. The space was narrow enough that she couldn’t turn, only look straight up to see that the wooden cover was still open above her. When Dario returned, he would at least know where to follow.

By the time she reached the bottom, the rough-cut stone blocks had given way to a passage hacked into the mountain itself. Rock bulged from the walls, colored in rusty reds and strange vivid greens in the light of the lantern. The way led in three directions into utter blackness.

Before she had to choose which one to follow, Nim came trotting out of the dark. Elayne crossed herself with a prayer of thanks and reached down to grab the trailing lead. She ducked her head, avoiding the overhangs and distorted walls, making her way as fast as she could in the direction Nim had come, with the puppy dragging her avidly ahead.

It seemed an endless passage. She thought it led toward Maladire, but there was no way to trust her sense of direction. The boy had no light, but he’d been taught to move silently and hide well, she knew. No doubt he could make his way swiftly in the dark.

A bronze gleam flashed in the darkness ahead. Elayne stopped, lifting the lantern, while Nim tugged insistently at the lead. She moved cautiously forward. A door blocked the passage, a solid buttress sealed in the stone. The familiar imprint of the Navona motto—the dogs and shepherd and bear—glimmered dully in the lantern-light.

She drew a breath, set down the lantern, and crossed herself again for guidance. She was surprised that Matteo would know the secret key; she doubted Allegreto would trust the Riata boy with it. But Nim had pulled her unerringly down this passage. To go back now as far as the fork would mean to lose him entirely.

The panel slid back smoothly on her first attempt at the opening sequence. Holding Nim up close on the leash, she slowly turned the latch and allowed the door to swing open. A quiet, eerie melody and chant made the hairs rise on her neck. In the faint thin line of candlelight, a set of stairs led upward. There were unmistakable footprints on them in the dust.

Nim strained to go up. Elayne stood in the doorway, breathing a little easier as she recognized the sound of compline prayers from somewhere above. She didn’t think she was yet in Maladire itself.

If Matteo had come this way, she’d fallen well behind him. She judged it best to return to the widow’s house and Dario, who would have far better skill than Elayne at stealing through tunnels and walls in pursuit of a foolish and unhappy boy.

Nim ceased her pull suddenly and came down from the step, her tail wagging. She gave a deep bark. At the same instant something hit Elayne hard from behind, out of the tunnel. She stumbled forward, cracking her knees on the first stair as a child’s figure lunged past her through the door.

Matteo scrambled up the stairs like a silent cat. Elayne threw herself after him, managing to grab him by one ankle. He kicked and squirmed, but Elayne held on with the strength of desperation. She rose just enough to fall upon him with her full length, pinning him to the stairs as they struggled in silence while Nim danced around.

The weak light winked out. With Matteo panting and wriggling beneath her and Nim snuffling at her shoulder, Elayne realized with horror that the door had closed behind them, with the lantern on the other side.

"Be still!" she hissed in Matteo’s ear. "Matteo, Matteo, listen to me for the love of God. You must not go!" She wanted to scream at him, but she kept her words next to his ear. She wanted to plead with him to understand the hideousness of what he thought to do, but she had no time or reason to reach a child’s heart that had been twisted so badly. Instead she whispered, "Do you want your father’s men to catch Il Corvo? Do you care nothing for Zafer and Margaret? He’s in there now to save them, and it will take every atom of his skill to do it. Every instant is a danger to him. To all of them. Do you understand? You can’t help, but only hinder. You can’t earn his trust this way, but you might be the cause of his downfall. He doesn’t expect you, or know what you intend—Matteo, I pray you, I pray you, don’t put him in such danger."

Her voice caught, for the unexpected strength of what she felt. Matteo ceased his fight, suddenly going limp beneath her. He lowered his head, his small shoulders shaking. "I want to help!" he whispered. "I only want to help."

Elayne sat up carefully, making certain she didn’t lose her hold on him. There was a tiny amount of light from somewhere above; she could barely see the pale shape of his face as she pulled him close into her arms. For a moment he resisted her and then pressed his face to her shoulder.

"I knew I couldn’t do it," he said brokenly. "I c-can’t do anything right. He’ll never trust me now."

He does not deserve it, she thought fiercely. Allegreto never deserved such love, not for what he had made of this boy. But she didn’t speak past the ache of anger and fear and love in her own throat.

As she held him, there came a sound, a huge low boom that seemed to reverberate through the very stone around them. Nim gave a nervous half-bark. The evening hymns ceased. Elayne turned to look up the stairs, clutching Matteo as the boy twisted to see. Above them was nothing but shadow. From a great distance shouts of alarm filtered down.

"We must go back," she said urgently. She pulled him with her toward the door. He did not resist—the depth and strength of that sound was warning enough that something beyond their grasp had happened above.

Elayne blindly explored the door, searching for a latch or carvings. But the metal was a blank wall under her hands. She could find neither handle nor symbols, and no way to force it open, not under all her strength.

 

* * *

 

From a spy hole under the parapet walk, Allegreto watched the drawbridge and the outer gatehouse burn, pouring black smoke against the last glow of twilight on the snowy mountains. One jostle of the two glass vials that he’d carried through the tunnels to the bridge, and he would have seen Hell himself far sooner than he wished. But he wasn’t yet blown to pieces, and the arrows shot by Philip’s best marksmen had ignited the powder of fulminating gold in a crack of thunder that echoed off the walls and soared instantly into flame along timbers anointed with resin and sulfur. The only known way out of Maladire was a sheet of unquenchable fire.

There were others, but he was already certain that the Riata had not discovered them. What secret ways they’d found had been blocked or destroyed. Allegreto had spent the past day and night surveying passages and traps that he well-remembered—his father’s exacting tests had burned the mysteries of Navona into his mind and his bones. He knew where Zafer and Margaret were chained; he knew where Franco Pietro slept with five guards around him and a mastiff at his feet.

He knew that Franco would comprehend at any moment that he had fallen into a trap. Allegreto left the spy hole and slipped lightly down a set of stairs between the outer walls, counting his steps in blackness as he made his way across the trusses of a storehouse roof. He had a cold exhilaration in him now, to move silently above the confusion he had caused below. He found the opening into the false ceiling as if the hidden ways of Maladire were drawn on some map within his blood. 

He was near the courtyard—outside the shouts were louder and the fire rumbled. An orange-tinted glow illuminated the barred window in the door of the storeroom below. He could just see Zafer sitting on a bare floor, looking up, one fist gripped around the chain that held him to the wall, the other holding Margaret’s arm.

Allegreto pushed a straw between the boards and let it fall. Zafer gave the clear signal and leaped to his feet, urging Margaret up silently. Allegreto laid back a sham ceiling plank and dropped through the hole.

 

* * *

 

It was the sound of evening service that befooled Elayne. When they couldn’t return through the bronze door, she had guessed that they must be under the church that overlooked the piazza. The smell of bitter smoke began to fill the stairwell, ominous enough to drive her up toward the faint light and some hope of another way. But the smell of smoke and the shouts grew stronger, sounding almost as if they were overhead. She swallowed a rising sense of terror.

She much feared that they were under Maladire itself, and the castle was burning.

"Your Grace," Matteo whispered. "Look at this."

She could barely see as he tugged her skirt, turning her back toward the stairs. But there were no stairs now. There was only wall, until he moved his arm quickly up and down. She nearly leaped backward as she saw a pale shape in the wall move with it.

"Mirrors, set to fool the eye," he said. "Like the castle at Il Corvo."

Elayne stared. She put out her fingers and found nothing where she expected wall to be. But when she took a step forward, she found it an arm’s length beyond, where she touched the silver reflection of her hand in a series of small glassy plates set at angles in the stone.

"This way!" Matteo said confidently, and led her into a passage where it seemed no passage should be.

The narrow steps went into darkness again, the walls closing upon Elayne’s shoulders as they climbed blindly. She began to feel smothered, as if the whole weight of the towers and fortress above pressed on her throat and lungs. She gripped Nim’s leash in one hand and Matteo’s shirttail in the other, not to hold him back now but to know she wouldn’t be left alone in this crushing darkness.

The boy stopped suddenly. "This is the end of it," he whispered.

"The end?" Elayne felt a spurt of dismay as she looked up, seeing nothing. The shouts had faded, more distant now.

Matteo moved up a step. "I can see a little. There’s a peephole. I think it’s a church."

"Let me look!"

They stumbled over one another, trying to exchange places in the tiny stairwell, while Nim entangled herself between Elayne’s feet. She found the crack and looked through into a tiny candlelit chapel.

They seemed to be close to the altar, opposite a pair of choir stalls. In the steady glow of the candelabras, Elayne could see painted frescoes covering the walls and the golden gleam of a large crucifix. She glimpsed no priest or congregation—the service abandoned while everyone ran to the fire.

She felt over the wooden barrier. Her fingers touched metal, and without a sound, the panel before her sprang open. The sensation of being freed was so strong that she barely glanced around before she gathered her skirts and crawled through.

She emerged onto the seat of another choir stall. The empty chancel and nave were small but richly decorated, painted over every inch of the walls with gilded saints. She took a madly struggling Nim as Matteo lifted her through the open back of the stall.

Elayne wished now that she had her mantle and veil; in the confusion of the fire, there might be some chance they could reach the widow’s house without notice. The smell of smoke was dense and peculiar here, a sharp foul scent overlaid on the sweet incense of the candles. With Matteo and Nim close at her heels, she hurried down the vaulted nave and pulled open the door a crack.

In the last of twilight, the tower of Maladire loomed directly over them, a turreted silhouette against black smoke that billowed across a rose and steel-blue sky.

Elayne stepped back and let the door fall shut.

They were inside the fortress.

Matteo stood looking at her expectantly. She had seen no one outside, only the tower and a snow-covered court that looked as wild as the mountainside, full of steep outcrops of gray rock, with the castle walls and buildings rooted into them as if the stone had grown up naturally into shapes of man’s desire.

She was certain that Allegreto had caused the fire—he had made sure the garrison was lightly manned, and now diverted by the blaze. He was here somewhere, hunting Franco Pietro. If he succeeded—when he succeeded—he might see the open window seat in the widow’s house and search the secret tunnels and find them.

She thought of the dark, and the walls pressing upon her. She could not do it. Nothing would make her go back into the narrow passages between the walls, trapped into the lightless tunnels by dead ends and mirrors.

"There must be a crowd of townspeople at the gate," she whispered. "We’ll try to look as if we’ve come to gawk."

Matteo nodded, wide-eyed now and willing enough to take her direction. She grabbed his hand and pulled the door open quickly before she could be paralyzed by second thoughts and guesses.

They slipped and slid down uneven steps carved in the rock. Once they found the crowd, they would see where the townsfolk came into the castle and escape that way. Elayne went down the steep court, following a path of footprints in the snow, keeping her eyes on the ground to avoid twisting an ankle on the icy surface.

Nim had no such concerns. She ranged at the end of the leash, threatening to pull Elayne off her balance at every step. Elayne managed to keep her feet until the puppy lunged forward with a happy bark. Elayne slipped and skidded and shrieked as her feet flew from under her. She hit the cold ground hard, an impact that sent pain from her back to her teeth. As she sat stunned, Matteo slid past her, chasing the loose dog. A pair of men strode around the corner below, their torch flaring light over the court.

Elayne scrambled to her feet, trying to back up and turn away. Her heels slid without purchase; she was only saved from another fall as one man took her arm roughly, his mailed hand digging into her skin to hold her up. She kept her eyes down, watching Nim roll in submissive ecstasy under the nose of a great brown mastiff, her plumed tail flinging snow. The other man had caught Matteo.

"Lying bitch!" he roared, and reached to grab Elayne’s jaw while he held the boy tight.  "I’ll—" He jerked her chin up, and then as suddenly let go.

She didn’t look up, but she’d already seen the dark patch over his left eye. Her heart was pounding frantically.

"It’s not the infidel’s whore," Franco Pietro snarled. "God send they’re still locked up, then." He made a gesture, as if to order his man up the court, and then paused. Under the glare of the torch, his face was distorted and puckered along a scar from his lips to the eye-patch, the shadows making it an evil mock of Matteo’s delicate features. But they were frighteningly alike, the boy wrenching and struggling and the father who gripped him easily in an unknowing grasp,

"Hold her," Franco said to the guard. He caught Elayne’s chin again with a brutal hand. "You aren’t from the castle. Who are you?"

She kept her eyes down, afraid that even in the dark their color might betray her. She answered nothing.

"My lord," the guard said, his hand so tight on her arm that her fingers tingled with pain. He lifted the torch. "My lord—look at this boy..."

"He’s my brother!" Elayne said quickly. "He ran away from me at the fire, chasing the pup."

But Franco paid her no attention now. He was frowning at Matteo.

"He was only following the dog, my lord!" Elayne said, her voice high-pitched with strain. "Let me take him home, and he’ll suffer our father’s wrath!"

Franco Pietro was staring hard, his big hand clutching the boy as he strained to pull away.

"It’s no child of the town," the guard said. "They must have been inside before the blast at the gate. They’re some of his."

"No." Franco’s voice held a peculiar note. He grabbed the boy by both shoulders, turning him toward the torchlight. He put his mailed gloves on either side of the child’s face and leaned close over him. "Matteo?" he whispered.

Matteo wrenched at his father’s grip. "I hate you!" he cried. "I hate you!"

"Matteo." The Riata stared down at him an instant. "What miracle is this?" He looked suddenly more fretted than angry or amazed, glancing quickly around the walls. Then he glared at Elayne. "Your brother, eh?" He spit into the snow. "Are you another lying Navona whore?"

Elayne could think of no reply that could retrieve this disaster. She could think of nothing now but to struggle foolishly like Matteo, shrinking back as Franco Pietro turned his face aside, moving near her and jerking her by her hair. He looked intently down at her face with his good eye.

"Blood of Christ," he muttered. He let go of her as abruptly as if he’d just seen a specter. He started up the court, hauling Matteo with him as his boots sank in the snow. "Bring her to the Turk," he commanded. "If they’ve swindled me, they’ll all die for it, and curse the bastard of Navona to the lowest rung of Hell!"

 

* * *

 

Allegreto rose to his feet at the creak of footsteps in the fresh snow. In the faint wavering glow from beyond the barred door, he stood alone in the storeroom, dressed in Zafer’s infidel clothes. The youth had wound his own turban around Allegreto’s head with swift skill, then balanced upon Allegreto’s shoulders to hike himself through the false ceiling and follow Margaret into the secret passages.

From the sound of the footsteps outside the door, there were more than two coming. Torchlight danced and twisted on the walls, but Allegreto kept his gaze averted from it, preserving his night vision. He placed the open manacle of the chain around his wrist and gripped the links in his left hand. As a key fumbled into the old lock, he turned aside in the corner, hiding the long length of steel that he held behind his leg.

The door scraped open. Allegreto did not turn. He staked everything on foretelling Franco’s fury, that the Riata would not send some minion but come himself, fast and enraged, when he realized that Zafer had lied.

The shadow of a figure fell across the walls.

Allegreto ducked his head and lifted his arm, as if he hid his eyes from the glare of the torch. Over his sleeve he saw flickering light fall on the familiar torn features, the patched eye, while Franco Pietro shoved the smoking torch into a wall ring. In the instant that the Riata turned and took in the details of the room, in the moment before he would realize there was something amiss, Allegreto moved, dropping the chain and sweeping his sword upward, lunging to make the kill.

He seized himself short in the midst of it, barely driving aside the point of his sword as a woman stumbled into his path, shoved through the door by another man. Allegreto’s body and mind froze as if he had been struck by a storm-bolt. Elena stood between him and Franco. And Matteo, his cheeks bright red, his small body resisting the soldier’s hand with every step.

Allegreto did not drop his guard. Under the cruel discipline of a lifetime, he held still, taut, facing them with his blade at the ready.

No one spoke. Elena stared at him with her eyes wide and unblinking, terrified. Allegreto felt the wall and the corner at his back, all of his advantage evaporated in the instant he had hesitated.

Franco gave a sudden bark of laughter. "Of course!" he said, in a voice that was strangely mild. "It’s Gian’s godless bastard. I smelled the rot from your stinking fire." He drew his sword with a hiss, thrusting Elena and Matteo back toward the guard.

Allegreto made a slight feint, a twitch toward the wall, to draw him further from her. But Franco Pietro was no fool to run himself wildly on an enemy’s sword point. They knew one another.

"Has your scheming gone awry?" Franco grinned, his lip pulled back like a dog’s snarl, a distortion in his scarred face. "By chance you didn’t mean for me to discover Matteo, or this maiden with the pretty eyes. This noble maiden. This bride that you thought to steal from me!"

Allegreto closed one eye in the same instant that he hurled a glass vial to the floor. A flash and a brilliant light filled the room as Franco leaped forward in murderous reaction. But he was blinded by the flare; Allegreto slapped the point aside with his blade and slipped past, heading for the guard.

While Franco’s man stood dazzled under the failing torchlight, Allegreto slid a dagger between his ribs, thrusting hard through the links of chain mail, straight up into the heart. The guard’s head snapped back and struck the stone wall. He crumpled to the floor, releasing his hold on his prisoners.

"Elena," Allegreto hissed. "Get out! Now!"

"I can’t see!" she cried.

He grabbed her arm. She scrabbled for the boy’s hand as Allegreto dragged them together and pushed them toward the door. Already Franco had found them through the afterimages, still blinking, but he swiftly marked his target. Allegreto brought his sword up to guard, covering Elena’s escape.

"Bastard!" Franco lunged forward, feinting to the left and then thrusting toward Allegreto’s right side. Allegreto made a backward leap over the guard’s body as he parried. He realized the trap too late as he collided with the wall, his feet restricted to a narrow space behind the dead man. He could retreat no further as Franco renewed his attack.

Allegreto made a sweeping parry, knocking Franco’s sword aside. He dived forward under the return cut, tucking and rolling to his feet. In one unbroken move he pivoted toward Franco’s back with a killing thrust. Franco just managed to turn and beat the blade aside.

Allegreto paused as his enemy did, both of them shifting their footing, seeking advantage. There had been other ways to murder Franco, simpler ways. But it was long since they had fought in duello, well-matched as they had always been, long enough to brood on every offense and dream of taking retribution face-to-face, to count every insult in blood.

Franco grinned and made a quick cut towards Allegreto’s face. He blocked, but the Riata drew a long dagger and drove forward. Allegreto swept his left arm down and caught the stabbing attack on his arm guard, but he felt a fiery sting as the tip of the dagger scraped along his stomach. He back-handed Franco with his left fist, knocking the man half off his feet.

As Franco staggered, Allegreto slid his own dagger from its sheath. He could feel sweat down his back. His throat burned with smoke and exertion. The shallow cut bled in profusion, soaking his infidel’s sash. They had trained together under the same masters; they knew each attack and parry. It would be a match of endurance soon enough if he didn’t alter his stratagem, and he had no aim to let such chance decide the outcome.

He made a quick, direct lunge, a common attack. Ever loyal to their teachers, Franco responded with the fitting downward parry. Allegreto spun suddenly away from the block and slashed with his dagger. The point slid across Franco’s torso, scored through leather and cloth, drawing blood. Only Franco’s good speed allowed him to avoid a serious cut.

"Gutter-born bastard," Franco snarled. His breath was coming hard.

Allegreto panted, letting his body slacken, feigning weariness. He held his arm across the bleeding cut and made a weak thrust. Franco’s eye widened in triumph as he moved in to take advantage. Allegreto shifted his grip on his dagger, ready to finish with a thrust to Franco’s undefended throat.

Something metal glinted at the edge of his vision. And suddenly, from nowhere, Matteo was lunging toward Franco with a naked blade.

Allegreto twisted wildly, pulling his thrust to keep from stabbing the boy. As he was thrown off balance, Franco struck. In the slow crystalline moment of ruin, Allegreto saw the tip of Franco’s blade moving in a line toward his heart. He brought his rapier up, just deflecting the thrust, but the blade sank into his shoulder, an instant of numbness and then pain as if a flaming brand pierced him through. He sucked air between his teeth, jerking back, his sword hand falling useless.

"My lord!" Matteo shouted, standing between them with the guard’s sword in both his hands.

"No!" Elena’s cry came from the door. She stood panting, her skirts covered in snow and her hands on the frame. Allegreto tried to lift his blade, but his arm would not obey him. He couldn’t feel his hand, but blood streamed down his sleeve and he heard his sword clatter to the floor.

"Do you want him, Matteo?" Franco asked savagely. "Do it then! Be blooded on him—a fine vengeance for Riata!"

The guard’s sword was almost too heavy for the boy to lift but he raised the point to Franco’s chest. "Stay back!" he cried. "I won’t let you near him. I’ll kill you!"

Franco Pietro stood still, his gaze passing from Allegreto to his son and the trembling blade at his heart. For a long moment his scarred face held no expression. Then his mouth curled down, his disfigured face grew stark and reddened. "Kill me?" he whispered in hoarse disbelief. "I’m your father."

"I hate my father. I hate you! I’ll kill you!"  Matteo leaped forward, aiming the sword’s tip at Franco’s heart.

His father easily slapped the blade aside, overbalancing the boy and sending him sprawling. He turned on Allegreto. "God destroy you and your cursed house! Destroy it!" he roared. "What have you done?"

Allegreto stood glaring at Franco. His right arm hung limp, his shoulder blazing with pain. Blood dripped from his fingers to the floor.

"You’ve turned him from me!" Franco shouted. He squeezed his one eye closed, raising his face, his teeth bared in anguish. "Merciful God, let me kill you; let me tear your heart from your foul chest—" He came rushing at Allegreto with his sword, flinging Matteo aside as the boy tried to stop him.

Allegreto brought his left arm up with a snap, releasing his poison dagger in a sidearm throw. Franco knocked the blade from the air with a sweep of his sword. As it hit the floor, Allegreto already had his throwing knife from his right bracer. He flung it hard, aiming low even as Franco raised his sword to protect his chest. The knife struck home, halfway to the hilt in the top of Franco’s thigh. He gasped and stumbled, losing his grip on his blade. It flipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. Matteo leaped forward, brandishing his sword as his father lurched to one knee.

"Stop!" Elena yanked Matteo back by both shoulders, barely saving Franco from a sword through his throat. In the instant Allegreto knelt to retrieve his rapier left-handed, she set her foot across the blade. "You will not. Enough!"

He could hear voices outside, Zafer and Philip’s men. He let go of the hilt, pressing his hand over his bleeding wound. He looked up at her, his vision hazed. "Philip comes." With an effort he made his feet again, turning to the door. "Here!" he shouted, without taking his eyes from Franco.

Philip entered first with a brace of his men at his flank. His glance took in Elena and Matteo and the Riata struggling to stand, his hands gripped over the blade in his thigh. "Bind him," the bandit ordered. "Secure the weapons." He gave Allegreto’s wound a passing look and raised his grizzled eyebrows. "We’ve occupied the mint. The garrison is yielded. A messenger stands ready to signal the citadel that—" He paused, with a frown toward Franco Pietro.

"Signal them," Allegreto said. "He’s as good as dead." 

"Signal what?" Elayne asked sharply.

"To take the city in your name, Princess." Allegreto leaned against the wall to hold himself up. He cradled his arm, resting his head back on the stone as he smiled. "Monteverde is ours."

 

* * *

 

In the sputtering torchlight, blood spilled down Allegreto’s white sleeve and covered his torn tunic. It spread in a dark scarlet pool beneath the guard’s body on the floor. It dripped from Franco’s leg. Even Matteo was spattered with it. Elayne turned toward the door, drawing a deep breath of the frigid night air to possess herself. She held the frame, and then reached down to grab Nim and the mastiff as they tried to nose curiously past her.

"Matteo. Take the dogs." She forced a tremor from her voice. The boy hurried to obey her, dragging the animals out into the snow. When she looked back, Philip’s bandits surrounded Franco Pietro, holding him up as they made fast the bonds. He didn’t struggle, but his face was a hellish vision as he stared with his one eye at Allegreto.

In Zafer’s clothes and white turban, Allegreto seemed a stranger, propped against the wall with his face half in shadow, a bloodied foreigner, as hell-born as his enemy. But he was alive.

She had seen the blade aimed for his heart, seen it pierce him.

He was alive. Zafer was alive. Margaret was safe.

Instead of relief, a rank fury boiled up in her. She closed her eyes, struggling to contain it.

"What do you want done with him?" Philip asked.

Elayne’s eyes snapped open. He meant to address Allegreto, she knew, but she answered him instead. "Detain him," she said coldly. "And Navona, too. They are both under my arrest."

The old bandit turned around to her, his shoulders straightening. She saw Allegreto drop his bloody hand from his wound and look up.

"I am Ligurio’s only living heir," she said, lifting her head. "I am Monteverde. And I won’t let them destroy it like this. Take both of them."

No one moved. They all stood looking at her with a baffled horror, as if she had burst into flame before them. Elayne glared back, her eyes stinging with fierceness, with the force of her grandfather’s vanquished dream.

"Take both of them," she said again. She didn’t look at Allegreto; she could not, but she felt him there, a motionless shadow at the edge of her blurred vision.

The Englishman made a sound, half a laugh and half a grunt. "Do you mean it, Princess? Because I’ll end with my head on a stake if I follow you and you draw back from this."

"I listened to what you said in camp," she said. "I will not have war against ourselves. And that is what will come of it."

"She speaks true," Franco Pietro said hoarsely. "Kill me if you will, but all of Riata will rise against you for it. We’ll never let a Navona sleep easy in the citadel."

Allegreto sprang upright from the wall, holding his arm against his chest. "Brave words!" His lip curled. "See what’s left to rise when I’m done with you. I’ve never slept easy since I could say my father’s name or yours—that will be no great burden to bear."

"You won’t sleep in possession of Monteverde one night, easy or not." Franco wrenched at his bonds and went halfway to one knee as he tried to step forward. "We’ll burn it to the ground before we let you take it!"

Allegreto grabbed his throat, grimacing as he dragged him up. "I’ll see you swing from the gates long before you can burn anything, Riata. Before morning I’ll see it!"

Elayne reached down for the hilt of his sword. The handle turned in her fingers, slick with his blood, but she held it tight as she straightened. "Philip," she said sharply. "Arrest them both."

Allegreto dropped his grip on Franco and glanced at her as she raised the sword. "Elena," he said, almost below his breath. "Do not."

"Both of them."

Philip jerked his chin. One of his men moved hesitantly, lifting his hand toward Allegreto.

"Elena!" There was no fear in his voice, or even anger. It was disbelief.

"I won’t hurt you. No one will hurt you or Franco. You’re both in my protection." She had no way to enforce her words, no guard or garrison at her command, but she said them. She said them with Prince Ligurio’s will, from the power of his vision of what Monteverde could have been. Could still be, if she had the heart and resolve and good fortune of a thousand angels at her back.

She had bound him once in a game before her, a defeated warrior at her command. In stark reality he was bleeding, and she was only a girl, untried and outrageous in what she asked, the sword tip trembling in her hand. She could not force him—she did not think all of Philip’s men could, or would, prevent him from walking out the door if he willed it.

His mouth was set. With each breath the muscle in his cheek drew taut—pain or fury, she couldn’t tell. He looked at Franco Pietro and Philip and bared his teeth. His dark gaze passed to Elayne.

He stared for a long moment at her. His look held all the truth between them, that he had trusted her, when she knew he had never trusted anyone before. That he had let her take his defenses and put his life in her hands and love him.

"Allegreto," she said. "Help me."

He blinked at the sound of her voice, turning his head a little, as if he heard it from a great distance. And with the same bewilderment, the same blank pain, he lifted his face upward like a prayer. "Ah, God," he said in a helpless voice. "Don’t do this to me."

"For me," she whispered, serving him a betrayal that went deeper than Franco Pietro’s blade.

"Monteverde bitch," he said softly.

Franco made an incredulous sound as the fetters clattered in the bandit’s shaky hand and closed on Allegreto’s wrist. The Riata looked up at Elayne, scowling.

"You’ll have what is rightfully yours," she said to him. "Navona will have again what was his. As it was under my grandfather. Will you accede to it?"

Franco wet his lips. He glanced at Allegreto and back at Elayne. "I don’t comprehend this." He thrust out his chin. "What of our betrothal?"

"There is no betrothal."

"You forswear it?"

"There is nothing to forswear. I have given no consent." 

"That contract!" he exclaimed, instantly understanding her.  "Damn the English pig, is Lancaster behind this?" He grunted as he shifted on his wounded leg. "Have you sold us to the English?" 

"I have not," she said.

"Better the English than Navona," he sneered. He was breathing deeply, his face creased in pain and hate as he looked at Allegreto. "Has he got another bastard like himself on you?"

In the half-light Allegreto lifted his eyes from the fetters on his wrist.

"No," she said bluntly.

She saw the faintest brush of Allegreto’s lashes, an instant of some expression that passed over his face, impossible to comprehend before it was gone. He stared at her coldly. Elayne felt her heart break inside her throat, tear into pieces that would never mend.

"What of my son?" Franco Pietro asked. His voice rose. "I want my son."

Elayne thought of the boy with a blade at his father’s throat. "Matteo will stay with me, until I deem otherwise. He will not be in Navona’s power."

"I don’t trust you, that you come here this way," Franco Pietro exclaimed. "In secret, and at his hand."

"Then we must wait until you can," Elayne said. "I’ll do my best to be just. But Monteverde is first. Before Riata. Before Navona. Monteverde is what we all are, before we are anything else."

 

* * *

 

With a troop of bandits she took d’Avina. It all happened swiftly, like a spark in a dry field of corn. Philip held the mint, easily seized when everyone in town had run to the fire, and easily defended once his men closed the great outer doors in the massive wall. The fortress of Maladire was hers, the small remnants of the Riata garrison surrendered to Philip’s men, cut off to anyone who could not pass the secret entrances.

She ordered Philip to have the bell rung in the piazza. In all of their blood and battle wounds, she took her prisoners. She allowed Zafer to bind up Allegreto’s arm in a sling with his turban. Franco had to be half-carried, unable to walk on his leg. But Philip’s bandits were efficient jailers. They moved their injured captives through the underground ways, up through the mint, and out onto the torch-lit dais in the piazza with speed.

She still carried Allegreto’s sword. She stood foremost on the dais, overlooking the uneasy crowd of people gathering below. The freezing air burned her cheeks and turned her breath to frost.

Be clever. Lady Melanthe had said it. Be bold if you must, and act on the edge of a moment.

Prince Ligurio would approve it. She felt so sure that he would approve that it was as if he stood beside her and whispered what words to say.

"I have come here first!" she shouted, her voice a cry that died away in echoes in the night. "I am Elena of Monteverde, and you are my father’s and my grandfather’s people." She looked down into the eyes of a man who stood just below her, a young miner from his clothes. "And my people."

He stared up at her, his grimy face intent in the firelight. His mouth opened, and he gave a little bewildered nod as she held his gaze.

Elayne nodded back to him. She lifted her face. "Tonight in the fortress, while the bridge burned, the leaders of Riata and Navona fought." She gestured back to Allegreto and Franco Pietro with the sword. "Look at them."

The miner looked, wide-eyed. The crowd around him looked, murmuring, and saw what she wanted them to see—two men bloodied and torn by their combat.

Below her, there were richly dressed men in fur, and thin-clad miners mixed with women and children. They filled the piazza now, a sea of faces fading into darkness. She knew there were Riata among them, and others loyal in secret to Navona. She knew the Riata would lose from what she did, the Navona would rise. But there were others, too, all those who belonged to neither house, those her grandfather had written of who only suffered from the endless discord.

"This is what Monteverde has been," she said over the crowd, holding up the bloody sword. "A battleground for wolves! And I’ve come to put an end to it. I’ve come in the name of Prince Ligurio and my father, to rule in peace, and with equal justice. I have no allies. I am not of Navona, nor Riata. I have nothing to overpower you—only these few outlawed men who stand beside me." She raised her voice in fierce emotion. "But it isn’t bandits who have bled Monteverde of concord or peace!"

She looked down at them as her shout died away. There was utter silence in the piazza, only the hiss of torches and the soft groan of the snow underfoot as people stirred.

"By chance you will not have a woman over you," she said into the quiet. "It will be your choice. Tonight I hold the mint and the castle and these two men by my small force. Tomorrow, in the morning, you’ll each bring a stone, every man and woman of you, and place it in a pile. This is how you chose your leaders long ago, under the old republic. There will be one for each of us. Franco Pietro della Riata. Allegreto della Navona. Elena di Monteverde. So look at us here—at what we are—and think of what you want for yourselves and for your children."

She stepped back, lowering the sword, turning away. In the silence Allegreto stood in fetters, gazing at her like a man watching a comet cross the sky.

The young miner raised his fist. "Monteverde!" he yelled. Someone in the back took up the shout. People pushed forward, reaching their hands toward her. She felt a spurt of fear, but they weren’t enraged—they were smiling as they pressed and shouted, taking up the chant.

She dropped the sword and knelt down and touched their hands.

 

* * *

 

It was not until the bells tolled midnight that she had a moment to stop and feel the magnitude of what she had done. To feel fear. Philip and Zafer and Matteo and Margaret and even Donna Grazia had demanded her notice. She’d conferred with the bandit on where to place the prisoners, she had put Matteo and the dogs in Margaret’s care, and exchanged a hard hug with the freckled maid that needed no words. Dario hovered near, standing over them with his blunt jaw set. He stayed close as a tearful Donna Grazia begged a moment that became near an hour to pour into her ears the story of how the Riata had killed all her brothers, and yet she had forgiven them for her late husband’s sake, and how terrified she had been of Allegreto’s plans, but she could not deny her aid to him for the sake of her brothers’ name. She ended in a confused and joyful pledge to Monteverde, above any house, holding Elayne’s hands in hers until they were wet with tears.

It was while Donna Grazia wept over her fingers that Elayne began to know her own fear. The woman was so grateful, and unquestioning, so afraid that Elayne would think her a Navona or a Riata and punish her for either—Elayne began to see all the peril of being caught between—of what could happen now. Dario already saw it, she realized; he had shadowed her from the instant she had left the dais, so close to her that he wouldn’t even allow Zafer near. He was afraid of her assassination, she realized with a jolt. Afraid that even Zafer might attempt it.

She sent them all away, but Dario. In the rich chamber that held her grandfather’s book, she sat again on the stool and turned the pages, trying to read, trying to resurrect the feeling that Ligurio stood with her and guided her. The book itself was a guide—it held her grandfather’s exact vision of the laws and functions of the new republic, and warnings of how to circumvent those who would pull it down. But there was nothing to tell her what to do in this moment, how to cross the yawning chasm before her. Nothing to give her the words to persuade Franco Pietro to relinquish his power, nothing to protect her, no plan for escape if the people voted tomorrow for Riata, and left her and Navona to his mercy. Nothing but what she knew Allegreto had meant to do—kill him.

"Dario," she said. "I must speak to your master."

"If you mean Allegreto Navona, Your Grace, he’s no longer my master," Dario said. "My allegiance is wholly yours."

She glanced at him, a little shocked, though she knew he had devoted himself to her safety since the camp. "Thank you," she said. "I need you now."

His square, strong face was grave in the lamplight. "I would warn you of Zafer, Your Grace. I can’t say what’s in his mind, or Margaret’s. I watched them close when they were near you."

She couldn’t think of Margaret as an enemy. "Surely not..."

"Zafer is dangerous, my lady; I beg you will never forget it. Il Corvo commands him, and always will. Margaret—" He shrugged. "I can’t say of her. She seemed to have true affection for you, but she’s great in love with Zafer, and devoted to her master, too."

Elayne looked down at the book before her, rubbing the green velvet sheath under her fingers, more shaken by this division of loyalty within their small company than by anything yet.

"Philip Welles will stand by you, I believe, my lady. And I owe my life to you. I think the people will accept you. But the houses won’t be broken easily. Welles was right to warn you not to set them free of the fetters in their chambers. I’m certain that Navona can escape the tower if he’s not chained."

Of course. It would be impossible to imprison Allegreto in a Navona stronghold.

 

* * *

 

She and Dario had an argument outside the door in Maladire’s tower. He didn’t want her to enter alone, not even if she kept her distance from Allegreto. But she ordered him to stay outside with Philip’s man on guard, leaving him red-faced and angry with her, his hand resisting the door even as she closed it behind her.

She stood with her back to it for a moment, holding the lamp against her skirt. She half-expected to find the chamber empty, after Dario’s warnings of how easily he could escape. But Allegreto was there—he lay propped on a cot beside the rough wall, bare-chested but for the sling and a dressing around his torso, watching her through slitted eyes.

He didn’t move, or speak. When she saw the heavy chain on his ankles, she wished that he had escaped.

"I’m sorry," she whispered.

He said nothing.

"I can’t let it go as you intended," she said, and sounded foolish even to herself. "I’m sorry for this. But I cannot. Do you understand?"

Still he did not reply, but turned his head a little, as if he couldn’t look at her.

She held herself against the door, quelling a frantic urge to turn and fling it open and insist that they remove the chains. At least the chains.

"Put down the light," he said. "I can’t see you."

Quickly she set the lamp on the floor and moved away from it. "Did they leave you no candle?"

He made a sound of bitter amusement. "I’m a prisoner, Elena."

She stepped in front of a little arched wall shrine with a crude painting of Madonna and child inside it—the only thing in the room besides the cot. "I didn’t mean for you to be treated as a common criminal. It’s near to freezing in here. I’ll have them bring a furnace and some blankets."

He only looked at her, a lift of his dark lashes over his perfect sullen mouth.

"Dario thinks Zafer might try to kill me," she said, all in a rush. 

"He will not," Allegreto said.

Elayne took a step toward him. He seemed to reject her without moving, a faint shift back against the wall, that subtle withdrawal from any contact.

"I’m not certain what to do next," she said.

He lifted his eyebrows. His lip curled. "You don’t expect me to help you."

She clasped her arms around herself and turned away.

"I couldn’t help you if I wished," he said. "You said the truth. You have no allies. You must have none—most particularly not me."

"I know," she said desperately. "I know."

The simple Madonna had a blank, wide-eyed expression, as if a child had painted it. Elayne felt as stupid and stiff as the dull figure, with no words for the tangle of feelings inside her.

"If they vote for Riata tomorrow, I’ll see that you escape," she said suddenly, with no notion of how she would do it. "You can go back to the island. And I can join you there."

She heard him exhale a long breath. The island seemed a paradise to her now, a distant vision of safety.

"That won’t happen," he said. "They will choose you."

She made a little shake of her head, half-turning, afraid to look at him.

"The things you said out there—they love you for it already," he said. "Is it not what you wanted?"

She wanted only to go to him and touch him and make certain again he was alive. "Did Philip’s leech see well to your wounds?" she asked, still not looking toward him.

"I’ll heal. I always heal."

She looked at the curve of his shoulder, the bandages lit by the soft gleam of the lamp. They had given him clean woolen hose, but his hands were still stained with blood. She went to him and knelt down on the floor before him and took his unwounded hand into hers. The fetters rattled as she pressed her forehead against his fist. "I could not do else!" she cried. "I know you can’t understand."

He let her hold his hand, but he didn’t open his fist. She turned his wrist and kissed his hard-closed fingers.

"It’s not to take Monteverde from you," she said. "Can you believe that? I don’t want to rule; I never wanted it. I don’t know how. But I can’t let it be torn asunder."

She lifted her face. He looked down at her. An ironic smile touched his lips. "You know how to rule, my lady. If you didn’t, I would not be here."

She bowed her head and pressed his hand to her mouth. She tasted blood and smelled the cold scent of steel. "I thought he killed you. I saw his blade—I thought you dead then."

"Not yet."

She gripped his hand with an unhappy sound. "Why do you always speak so?"

He gave a heavy sigh and relaxed his fingers open. He let her kiss them. He lifted his hand and brushed her cheek with icy fingertips.

"I want to tell you something," he said. "I want to tell you about your grandfather."

Elayne looked up at his face.

"I knew him well, Elena. While I was still beardless, he used me to protect Melanthe. After your own father was murdered, and Ligurio was growing feeble, he made an accord with Gian for me to come into the citadel. I played the eunuch, so that I could sleep beside her, and act her lover." He had no expression as he looked down at her and let his fingers trace down her cheek. "She suffered me, because Ligurio said she must. But she despised me. Everyone in the citadel did. And feared me for what I could do."

Elayne held his cold gaze, pressing his hand between hers, trying to warm him. She could feel his ring still on her finger.

"Only Ligurio gave me welcome there," he said. "He taught me there was another kind of man beyond my father. That there was something in love that was not wholly dread. That there was reason in the world. And kindness. He taught me alchemy and astrology. He gave me a way to be something beyond what my father made of me." He scowled, his mouth hardening. "When Ligurio died, I went down in the pit under the citadel, where I knew no one would come, and wept until I was sick with it."

He sounded angry. He lifted his hand away from her and rubbed it across his mouth, the fetters clashing.

"I see him in you," he said. "I read his book. I heard what you said out there. We’re all Monteverde first." He dropped his hand with a chinking noise. "But you can’t do it while I live, Elena. Not I, and not Franco. There can be no point to rally around that is not Monteverde. Tell Zafer to slay Franco tonight, and then let the guard step away from the door long enough that a Riata can get to me. There’s one somewhere now, awaiting his chance."

"No," she whispered in horror.

"You came to ask my help. That’s all the help I have to give you."

She pushed away from him. "No."

"It will happen anyway," he said. "Do it now, and you’ll be safe."

"Safe!" she cried. She stood up and turned away. "Do you think I care so much to be safe?"

"I care for it," he said quietly. 

She shook her head.

"It would be a favor to me." His voice grew harsh. As she looked back at him, he lifted his hand and gripped the chain in his fist. "I’ll die like this. You know it. Let it be sooner than later."

"You will not die," she said fiercely. "It’s only for a little while, until you and Franco agree that your houses will cease this vendetta. Then I’ll set you both free."

He laughed, an echo in the cold stone room. "Are you mad?"

She let out a deep breath. "Perhaps I am mad," she said. She walked across the small chamber, standing before the shrine. "You asked me once, what choice you had. You said Cara had no answer for you." She blinked down at the crude painting, the awkward child and misformed mother, the colors gray and chalky. She turned to him. "This is my answer."

He stared back at her. Then he closed his eyes as if he had seen something that he could not bear. He shook his head and sat forward, leaning over his injured arm with a deep grimace. He sat with his head bowed. When he lifted his face, he had a helpless look. "Elena, he’ll kill me. I’ll be in Hell and you won’t be there."

Her eyes began to blur. She did not move. "I won’t let that happen."

"How will you stop it?" He swung himself upright, standing with a clatter of the manacles, holding the sling against his chest. "Give me the ring." He reached for her hand. "You cannot be seen wearing Navona’s motto."

Elayne covered her fingers, but he caught her arm, his grip hard and cold.

"You’re Monteverde alone now." He dragged at the gold band, yanking it over the bone without mercy as she tried to pull back. She gave a cry of pain and dismay. The door flung open, with Dario standing in it, his hand on his dagger.

Allegreto glanced at him and stepped back, holding his hand away in clear withdrawal. He nodded toward the young man. "She’s safe," he said coolly. "But don’t let her from your sight again."

 

* * *

 

"Where’s my son?" Franco Pietro struggled from his cot and fell on his knee, clashing the fetters. He dragged himself upright against the wall. The wound on his thigh still seeped fresh blood through a bandage. "Is he alive?"

"He is alive, and safe," she said. "Do not fear for Matteo."

He paused, breathing through his nose. The scar below his eye patch was livid purple as he watched her warily. He glanced at Dario standing behind her.

"Have you thought on what I said?" she asked. "That I mean to return to the houses what is rightfully theirs, as in my grandfather’s day?"

"I heard what you said." He held himself on the wall with one hand. "You said more than that."

"Yes. And meant it. If the people elect you tomorrow, then I have no intention to gainsay them."

"And if they don’t?"

She gave a slight shrug. "If it’s Navona they choose, then I suppose you’ll fight him to the death, and let Monteverde bleed. If it’s I—then there will be the same election in the city and all the towns."

"You are mad, girl," he said.

Elayne smiled bitterly. "So I’m told."

He shifted, lifting his lip in a grimace of pain. "What is this hold you have on Navona?" he demanded. "I’d be dead by now if he had his desire."

"Indeed, you would." She made a dry sound, not quite a laugh. "But he appointed me his conscience."

"Madness!" Franco said, with a bewildered shake of his head. "If I had not seen it!" He squinted at her. "You don’t intend to ally with him?"

"No," she said firmly.

Franco Pietro looked at her with doubt. "He abducted you." 

"He did," she said.

"I suppose you can have no love for him for that." 

"It was vile, what he did."

The cot creaked as he lowered himself onto it painfully, his injured leg thrust out before him. "Did he force you to bed?"

"Yes," she said. "But there’s no child of it." She stared at him, refusing to lower her eyes.

"God succor you, Princess," he said. His voice softened a little. "It was ill-done. I should have sent my own escort for you."

"Perhaps," she said. "I will bear the shame. You need not make it a public concern, but I tell you because I wish you to have such truth as matters."

He gazed at her, his head tilted a little aside. "You’re a remarkable woman, for one so young."

Elayne wanted to laugh in irony. Her ring finger throbbed, aching, but she held to a perfect and cool countenance. "My godmother Lady Melanthe taught me a little of what is required to rule."

"To rule!" he said ruthlessly "You suppose you can rule? As a woman? A mere girl?"

She glanced down at his chains and up again. When she met his look, his one eye squinted and he lifted his eyebrow.

"Aye, you have me, for now," he acknowledged. "Unless Navona is behind all this in secret."

"What would it gain him?" she asked. "He had his plans, until I prevented him. And you know what they were."

He pressed his hand over the wound on his leg, shifting with a grunt. "It was you who stopped Matteo from—" He looked down at his hand. He began to breath harder. "My own son," he said viciously. "He set my own son to murder me!"

"He did not. Matteo schemed to do it himself."

He flung his head up. "No, that’s a lie!"

"Matteo hates you," she said bluntly. "I’ll bring him to tell you to your face, if you wish. That’s why we were in the fortress, because I’d chased him to prevent him from such a deed, when he told me what he planned. Navona did not know of it. You know he would make no such stupid errors of his own accord."

"Navona. God wither him, and let dogs eat out his heart!" Franco’s voice was shaking. "My own son!" he shouted, slamming his fist to his chest.

Elayne took a step forward. "Listen to me now," she said coldly and softly. "It’s Navona’s doing, but it is your doing as well." She stood over him, her jaw taut. "It’s the sum of what Riata and Navona have come to. It is hate for the sake of hate, and fear for the sake of fear. You sit there and grieve and rend your breast for yourself, when it’s Matteo who knows nothing of love but that he should kill for it! You’ll reap what you sow—did you suppose you could escape it? That you could hound the house of Navona to death and feel no retribution?"

He glared at her. "He stole Matteo from me."

"As Riata stole me!" she hissed. "An infant, from a nunnery. And well you know why."

He narrowed his one eye at her. "It was my father who did so."

"It may be that his sin is visited on you and your son, then, by God’s justice," she said. "I don’t care. Leave that vengeance in His hands." She stood back, drawing a breath. "It’s time to leave such things and heal ourselves. I’ll bring Matteo with me to you, so he can see you and begin to know who you are in truth. His love for Navona is a child’s devotion, because he was afraid, and too young to understand."

Franco’s broad shoulders slumped a little. "You’d bring him?" He touched the eye-patch and then gripped his torn tunic.

"Not now. Not like this. When I can. But I’ll keep him safe until then."

He sat looking down at the floor and shook his head. "In truth—it seems that I have some debt to you." 

"I’ll do nothing to harm you. I’ll protect you from Navona if I can. I ask that Riata makes no move against him either. I wish to reconcile the houses, and have peace."

He lifted his head and gave her a curt nod. Without the scar and the patch, he would have been a handsome man, gray-eyed and fair-skinned like his son. "I’ll consider what you say. I promise you that much. I will consider."

 

* * *

 

The pile of stones lay before the dais, under three boards, one roughly chalked with a castle, one with a dog-and-bear, the third marked with a crude dragon shape. The rocks nearly obscured the castle drawing, tumbling down from the steep sides of the pile. Val d’Avina had elected Elena di Monteverde to rule.

Elena. Not Elayne anymore. As she stood and accepted the oaths of the people, wrapped in a fur-lined mantle, she felt herself altered—as if with each murmured pledge, each kiss upon her hand, she lost Elayne of the summer fields at Savernake, of the island of Il Corvo, of Navona’s tower above the lake, and became another—a stranger—Princess Elena di Monteverde.

Her finger still hurt where he had taken the ring. She could feel it, a slight throb with each pulse, a spike at her heart.

Franco Pietro leaned on a crutch, scowling while the stones piled up. Allegreto stood silently, apart, both of them under guard and still manacled by hand and foot. Dario held fast to Elena’s side, scanning every person who came near, tense and alert to protect her.

Couriers had gone out to the city. D’Avina was only one town, there was still the whole of Monteverde before her that must choose. She had written out the message to be read in the streets, using Ligurio’s words. She promised reunion, and a republic under her grandfather’s laws. She used his name with brazen authority; a return to a dream of better days.

Philip had read it, and nodded once. "You’re a sweet-tongued rogue, Princess," he said with approval, and set his men upon the road. A message and a generous gift of her grandfather’s emerald-studded goblet went to the commander of the French condottiere lying at the pass to Venice, informing him courteously that Elena held the mint. Philip seemed to think that the Frenchman could reason from that to the strings of his purse, and would do so promptly.

When she had greeted the people, down to the last broken beggar, she turned. "We will talk together now," she said, sweeping a glance over the two men under guard. "Come."

To a thousand cheers and balls of snow that soared in the air and splashed against the ground, they left the piazza and walked under the heavy archway of the mint. They passed through walls ten paces thick into the inner court and the powerful mass of the mint itself, Phillip’s keys jangling as he opened guarded, lead-bound doors. They entered a chamber supported by carved arches and lined with chests, the silver hoard of Monteverde. The old bandit waited until Franco and Allegreto were inside, and then ordered his men out. Only Dario remained, standing behind Elena as Philip closed the door.

She sat at the head of the broad table. She was tired, her insides shaky from spending the whole night in conference with Philip and Dario over how to proceed. She had a document before her, and pen and ink set upon the board. There was a seal of sorts hastily created from a Monteverde ducat attached to a stub of wood. She looked up at the two men before her. Neither of them had taken a seat at the benches along the table.

"I give you joy of your victory, Princess," Franco Pietro said dryly, leaning one hand heavily on his crutch. "May you not live to regret it."

Allegreto took a step toward him. The chain at his feet rattled. He stopped, staring darkly at his enemy.

"We’re here because I wish to parley in private with both of you," she said, ignoring Franco’s words. "I don’t intend to release you until you’ve agreed to end the conflict between the houses of Riata and Navona."

They were both silent, looking at one another with all the fondness and reconciliation they would feel toward toads and worms and pestilence.

Elena allowed the hush to lengthen. She left them standing like a pair of refractory boys on either side of the huge cracked slab of tree trunk that formed the table. The light from a high window-slit fell down between the arches, as if it were a church. Finally she said, "What would be required, my lord, for Riata to agree to this?"

Franco Pietro turned his look on her. "I don’t see how it can be done, Princess. I said that I ’d consider, but I don’t trust him. He’s tried to overthrow and murder me. You didn’t know his father, but Gian Navona’s malice bred true in his bastard whelp."

She looked at Allegreto. "And what would be required for Navona to agree?"

He curled his lip. "To drive every Riata from the face of the earth," he said coolly.

Elena put her fists together and leaned her forehead on them.

"Don’t be naive, Elena," Allegreto said. "This won’t succeed."

"Not while you live, Navona dog," Franco said. "But it’s a rare and noble hope she has. I don’t fault her for it."

Elena looked up in surprise at Franco Pietro, but he was frowning at Allegreto.

"What gallant words!" Allegreto said, with a disdainful flick of his good hand. "Lying whore."

Franco took a noisy step, pounding his crutch on the tiled floor. "No more than you, you murderous harlot. What do you know of honor?"

"Nothing," Allegreto sneered. "I’m Gian Navona’s bastard, what do I know but iniquity? Kill us both, Princess, and be done with it. That will find peace for Monteverde."

She looked at him. "Do you want peace?"

He cast a look back at her, a grim and impatient demon. "Avoi, I would die for it, isn’t that what I’m saying?"

She gripped her hands before her on the table. "That may be, but I will not kill you for it."

He flicked his fingers toward Franco. "He will."

Elena tilted her head, looking toward the Riata. "Would you?"

Franco glanced at her with an uneasy frown. "Is this a game, Princess? What questions are these? Yes, I’d kill him, for he’d serve the same to me!"

Elena spread the pages before her. "I ask you both to reconsider. I’ve written here an agreement between you. It requires that you swear your loyalty first to Monteverde—and whoever is the elected prince of it. It states that you will not spill blood in any contest between the houses of Riata and Navona, or take hostages, or seek to overthrow the chosen prince. I’d ask that you sit down and read it, and sign it, and abide by it, for the good of Monteverde and of yourselves and your own houses."

Silence filled the chamber. Elena could hear Dario breathing deeply at her shoulder.

Franco Pietro moved first, banging his crutch as he scraped the bench back and sat. He reached out his hand for the documents.

Elena handed him one of the copies. She glanced at Allegreto. For an instant, it almost seemed as if there was something besides derision in the shadowed look he returned her, a contact like a passing touch of his fingertips on her skin. But he set his mouth in a mocking smile and took the papers with a sharp sweep of his hand, sitting down across the bench with his back turned to her.

She had lost to him at chess. She doubted she could have defeated Franco, either. She watched their bent heads and thought they could be plotting anything; laughing at her feeble attempts to assert control.

After long moments Franco Pietro looked up, holding the page open with his hand. "I can agree to this. If he will."

Elena felt a surge of surprise and hope.

"No," Allegreto said. He tossed the crisp vellum onto the table. "Don’t trust him."

Even to her, such an easy capitulation by Franco seemed suspicious. "It’s to be signed under solemn oath," she said, trying to keep her voice steady and certain.

"He’ll break his word before a fortnight has passed."

Franco lunged up over the table, his face red. "You question my honor?"

Allegreto made a move, as if to reach for his dagger. The chains rattled over the edge of the wood. Dario stepped forward, his blade singing from the sheath. It came down between them, the point resting lightly on the tabletop.

Allegreto looked at Dario under his eyebrows, and sat back. "I question how much you relinquish by this," he said to Franco in a quieter tone. "It’s all sacrifice and no gain for you."

Franco grimaced as he lowered himself. Dario lifted the sword from the table, but he kept it free and ready.

"She holds Matteo," Franco said. "And what’s to prevent you from poisoning me in my bed? I see no assurance at all to hold you in check!"

"No, I’ve nothing else to lose, do I?" Allegreto said. He looked to Elena with a bitter smile. "Nothing."

Franco narrowed his one eye. "And I question what’s between you and the princess—these telling glances that you give her. I’d be fool indeed to sign this surrender, only to see Navona elevated by some bedroom trick."

Elena pressed her lips together. She had been coming to this moment, inevitably. She had felt it like a great stone that slowly began to turn and roll and gather speed to crush her. She thought of the tower room, and the warm sheets; his body curled and tangled with hers. She thought of him smiling down at her as she counted for a game of morra. A fierce sweetness seemed to break inside her, a pain that drifted down her throat and settled in her heart, a dark silent crystal buried in her blood and sinew.

"There is nothing between me and Navona," she said, in a voice that sounded calm, a little thin, peculiar to herself. "I will be impartial between you."

She heard the words die away in the barren chamber, amid the chests of silver. She couldn’t look at Allegreto.

"Hang us both as traitors," he said in a vicious tone. "That would be impartial."

She bore his anger. He had a right to it. He’d seen this true, before she had admitted it even to herself. Taken his ring. Advised her to kill him.

"I cannot." She did look at him then, but only for a moment, so that she wouldn’t break or show anything before the Riata. One moment, to brand his demon-beauty in her mind. "You’ll both remain under close arrest, as possible conspirators, until you agree to what I have asked. Dario."

The young man strode to the door, rapping on it sharply with the hilt of his sword. The great metal-bound barrier swung open to admit Philip and his men. Elena watched as they came with pikes and swords and clubs to surround the prisoners.

Allegreto paused, under the arm of a guard, and glanced back at her from the door. As his eyes met hers, it was a dread feeling, as if they both knew, as if he were fading from her through a mist, gone already far beyond what she could see.

The guard jostled him. He turned and went through the door.

 

* * *

 

She rode down from the mountains on a gray palfrey, with only ten of the bandits and Dario for an escort, now dressed in Monteverde’s green livery. She left Philip to guard the mint and her prisoners, and approached the gates of the city alone.

But she wasn’t alone, not quite. People from d’Avina had followed her out onto the road. They had cheered her as she passed the burned-out gatehouse and bridge, the gray tower of Maladire. She’d thought they would fall behind, but a crowd of them came with her, walking and riding in her train. Some ran and galloped ahead while she kept the palfrey to a gentle amble. Among them she recognized the young miner who had looked up at her on the dais.  He strode along just after her bandit guard, his white hood thrown back in the sun. As they moved down through the pine forests and left the snow, they seemed to gather followers. By the time they reached the apple orchards and terraced vineyards, the procession was doubled in size, and people had begun to line the road in each village. In the warmth of an autumn afternoon, a girl ran out and offered Elena a sheaf of sunflowers, their great yellow heads nodding gaily as she kissed Elena’s hand.

Elena felt no fear. She felt as if a trance held her, and everyone. Even when she came within sight of the city below, she was somewhere beyond fear, simply moving forward to a fate that seemed inevitable.

When she reached the gates at sunset, she had a great march of common people behind her. Her small banner, a green-and-silver pennon taken from the magistrate’s hands at d’Avina, drooped in the shadow of the city walls. She could see the citadel, a white glitter of towers and crenellations on the mount, rising above the city. The drawbridge was closed, and the smooth rapid water of the river coursed between her and the city, flowing blue and clear into the lake.

She waited. From the gatehouse, she could see faces peering from the windows.

She took the banner from a bandit at her side. She rode forward, into the easy range of arrows and stones, with Dario close behind her.

"I am Elena di Monteverde!" she cried, her voice almost lost against the massive walls. "Open the city! I have come home!"

Behind her, a swell of noise began to rise. She heard the miner’s voice call out her name, and the chant become a bellow from the crowd.

Over the sound of the people came the creaking groan of wheels and chains. The drawbridge lowered, falling into place with a thunderous crash that grew to a roar as the crowd cheered.

With a sheaf of sunflowers, a troop of bandits, and a flood of shouting followers, Elena rode across the bridge into the city of Monteverde.