The Charnel Prince (45 page)

“They don’t seem to do things in a hurry here,” Cazio remarked. “My kind of people, really.”

“Cazio.”

“Also, we don’t have enough money,” he said.

“You’ve money for wine, it seems.”

Cazio took another swig. “No,” he said, “we’re earning that with stories.”

“Well, how much do we need?” she asked, exasperated.

He set the jug back on the table. “He wants twice what we have for an ass and four days’ provisions.”

“An ass?”

“No one around here has a horse—even if they did, we could never afford it.”

“Well, one ass hardly seems worth the trouble,” Anne said. “Just buy the food.”

“If you want to carry it on your back,” Cazio remarked, “I’ll settle that right now.”

“If I have to, I will. We can’t wait here any longer.”

Someone tugged lightly on her hair. She gasped and discovered Tungale fondling it.

“Stop that,” she said, brushing his hand away.

“
Ol panne
?
” he asked.

Cazio glanced at the translator, but he was still busy with Malconio’s tale.

“She’s not for sale,” Cazio answered, shaking his head.

That was a little too much.

“
For sale
?
” she shouted.

Malconio stopped in mid-sentence, and the table erupted in laughter.

“
Ne, ne
,” Tungale said. “
Se
venne se panne
?
”

“What’s he saving?” Anne demanded.

The translator smiled broadly, emphasizing his mostly toothless condition. “He wants to know how much your
hair
costs.”

“My hair?”

“
Se venne se
?
” he asked Tungale.

“
Te
,” Tungale replied.

“Yes,” the translator said. “Your hair. How much?”

Anne felt her face burning.

“Her hair isn’t—” Cazio began, but Anne put a hand on his arm.

“The ass and food for a nineday,” she said.

Austra turned at that. “Anne, no.”

“It’s only hair, Austra,” Anne replied. She nodded at the translator, “Tell him.”

Despite her brave words, she had to work hard to keep from crying when they sheared it off, with everyone in the room whooping and laughing as if they were watching a troupe perform its antics. She kept the tears in, though, and resisted the temptation to rub the stubble that remained on her scalp.

“There,” she said, got up from her chair, and nearly bolted outside. There she did tear up a bit, not so much from the loss of her hair as from the humiliation.

She heard footsteps behind her. “Leave me alone,” she said without turning.

“I just thought you might want this.”

She looked back, a little surprised to find that it was Malconio. He was holding one of the black scarves the women of the village wore. She stared at it for a moment.

“You know,” he said, “you could have asked me for the money. I’ll have to sell off some goods here anyway to get the ship repaired. Cazio’s too proud, but
you
could have asked.”

She shook her head. “I can’t ask you for anything, Captain. Some of your men died because of me, and your ship was wrecked. I owe you too much already.”

“That’s true, in its way,” Malconio said. “But sailors die and ships are wrecked. There is such a thing as fate, and it’s a waste of time to wish you hadn’t done something. Better to learn from your mistakes and move on. I don’t hold any grudge against you, Anne. I took you as a passenger because my brother asked me to, and despite what I said earlier, I do have some idea what to expect from my brother and his—situations.”

“Do you know how hard it must have been for him to come to me? But he did, which tells me something about you. That you dragged him away from the Tero Mefio says even more. The Cazio I knew never did much for anyone but himself. If he’s improved, how can I let him show me up?”

Anne managed a little smile at that. “You do love him, don’t you?”

Malconio smiled. “He’s my brother.”

He proffered the scarf, and she took it. “Thank you,” she said. “One day I will be able to repay you.”

“The only payment I ask is that you watch out for my little brother,” Malconio said.

“I’ll do my best.”

Malconio smiled, but the smile quickly vanished as he lifted his head and his eyes focused behind her. “There they are,” he sighed. “I should have known they wouldn’t sink.”

Anne followed his gaze. There, where sea and sky met, she saw sails.

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

“They aren’t coming this way,” Malconio said after a moment. “They’re probably looking for a deeper port—she’s missing a mast, you see?”

Anne didn’t, but she nodded. Malconio was right, though—the ship wasn’t sailing toward land, but parallel to it.

“If they see your ship—” she began, but Malconio shook his head.

“It’s not likely at that range, not with the
Delia Puchia
in dry-dock and without masts. But even if she did, she couldn’t come in—not through those reefs we passed. Her keel’s too deep.” He turned to Anne. “Still, I would go if I were you, and quickly. If they have seen the
Puchia
, they’ll send men back over land as soon as they find a harbor with deeper water. You could have all the time in the world, but on the other hand, you might have only a day.”

“What if they do come here?” Anne asked. “They’ll kill you.”

“No,” Malconio said. “I’m not fated to die on land. Get the others and make a start. You’ve still got a few bells before sundown.”

———«»——————«»——————«»———

Cazio found his brother with his ship.

Malconio scowled when he saw him. “Are you still here? Didn’t Anne tell you we saw the ship?”

“Yes,” Cazio said. “I just—” He fumbled off, suddenly unsure what he wanted to say.

“Good-byes are bad luck,” Malconio grumbled. “Implies that you don’t expect to see each other again. And I’m sure to see you again, right, little brother?”

Cazio felt something bitter suck in his lungs. “I’m sorry about your ship,” he said.

“Well, we’ll talk about that again when you’ve made your fortune,” Malconio said. “Meanwhile, you let me worry about it. It is my ship, after all.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Cazio said.

“No,” Malconio replied. “No, I’m not. You have a destiny,
fratrillo
, I can feel it in my bones. And it’s your own—not mine, not our father’s, not our revered forefathers’. It’s yours. I’m just glad somebody finally got you out looking for it. And when you’ve found it, I expect you to come to my house in Turanate and tell me about it.”

“I’d like to see it,” Cazio said.

Malconio smiled. “Go on,” he said. “
Azdei
, until I see you next.” Cazio clasped his brother’s hand, then trudged back up from the strand to where the others waited.

There was only one road out of Duvre, and it was really no more than a narrow track. Cazio led the way, leading their newly purchased donkey, sparing one glance back at his brother’s ship before they entered the trees above the village. He saw Malconio, a tiny figure, working with his men.

Then he turned his eyes to the road ahead of him.

The forest soon gave way to rolling fields of wheat. They saw a few distant houses, but no village even the size of Duvre. Dusk found him building a campfire beneath an apple tree so ancient its lower limbs had drooped to the ground.

Anne hadn’t said much since she lost her hair. Cazio had never seen a woman without hair and he didn’t like the look. It was better when she wrapped the scarf on her head.

He tried to start a conversation with her once or twice, but her answers were terse and didn’t go anywhere.

Austra was quiet, too. He gathered the two girls had had some sort of fight on the ship, and both were still sulking about it. He wondered if the fight had been over him. Austra was taking very well to his attentions; if Anne was jealous, she wasn’t showing him, but she could be taking it out on Austra.

Which left z’Acatto, who had grumbled drunkenly at having been roused from his stupor, but who by the time they started setting up camp was getting pretty garrulous. When Cazio drew Caspator and began a few exercises, the old man grunted, came to his feet, and drew his own blade.

“I saw you attack with the
z’ostato
the other day,” he said.

“I did,” Cazio said.

“That’s a foolish attack,” z’Acatto said. “I never taught you that.”

“No,” Cazio agreed. “It was something one of Estenio’s students tried on me.”

“Uh-huh. Did it work?”

Cazio grinned. “No. I replied with the
pero perfo
and let him impale himself.”

“Of course. Once your feet leave the ground, you can no longer change direction. You sacrifice all your maneuverability.”

“Yes.”

Z’Acatto made a few passes in the air. “Then why did you do it?” he asked.

Cazio thought back, trying to remember. “The knight almost had Anne,” he said, after a moment. “I might have reached him with a lunge, but my point would not have pierced his armor and the force of the blow wouldn’t have been enough to stop him. But with the whole weight of my body behind my tip, I was able to topple him. I think I crushed his windpipe through his gorget, too, but since he was a devil of some sort, that didn’t matter.”

Z’Acatto nodded. “I never taught you the
z’ostato
, because it is a foolish move when fencing with rapiers. It is not so foolish when fighting an armored man with a heavy sword.”

Cazio tried to hide his astonishment. “Are you saying I was right to use it?”

“You were right to use it, but you did not use it correctly. Your form was poor.”

“It worked,” Cazio protested.

Z’Acatto wagged a finger at him. “What was the first thing I told you about the art of dessrata?”

Cazio sighed and leaned on his sword. “That dessrata isn’t about speed or strength, but about doing things correctly,” he said.

“Exactly!” z’Acatto cried, flourishing his weapon. “Sometimes speed and strength may allow you to succeed
despite
poor form, don’t get me wrong. But one day you will not have that speed and strength, either because you are wounded, or sick—or old, like me. Better to prepare for it.”

“Very well,” Cazio conceded. “What did I do wrong?”

Z’Acatto set his guard stance. “It begins
thus
, with the back foot,” he began. “It must explode forward, and your arm must already be rigid and in line. You should make the attack to the outside line, not the inside, because it’s closer. After you strike, you pass, perhaps to thrust again from behind, perhaps merely to run away. Try it.”

Under the old man’s guidance, Cazio practiced the motion a few times.

“Better,” z’Acatto said. “But the leap should be more forward—you shouldn’t leave the ground so far behind. The more you go up, the slower it is, and above all this must be quick.”

“What is my target, on an armored man?” Cazio inquired.

“The gorget was a fair choice. If the arm is lifted, that’s good, too, right in the pit of it. If you’re behind, up under the helm. The back of the knee. The eye-slits, if you can hit them.”

Cazio grinned. “Didn’t you once teach me that one doesn’t fight a knight?” Cazio asked.

“One doesn’t
fence
with them,” Cazio replied. “That doesn’t mean you can’t kill them.”

“Except, apparently, in the case of our present enemies,” Cazio reminded him.

“Most of them are flesh and blood,” z’Acatto scoffed. “The others we merely need to decapitate. We know it can be done.”

He raised his rapier and held it above his head, hilt up and the tip pointed more or less at Cazio’s face. “If the broadsword is held like this, and he thrusts, don’t parry. Counterattack along his blade and void to the side. Never meet a broadsword with a simple parry. Use your feet—wait for the cut, then thrust, watch for the backswing.”

For the next two hours, by firelight, they played at rapier and broadsword, and for the first time in a long time, Cazio felt a return of the sheer joy of dessrata, of learning and practicing with his mestro.

Finally, panting, the old man retired his weapon to its scabbard. “Enough,” he sighed. “I’m getting too old for this.”

“A few more?” Cazio begged. “What if the blow comes from beneath, but—?”

“No, no. Tomorrow.” z’Acatto sagged down onto a rock, wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow.