Masquerade in Lodi (Penric & Desdemona Book 4) Read online

  There had been no discussion at all. For one thing, no one had asked him if he wanted to take on the escort of this young woman. Saint. God-vessel. On the other hand… if she were with him when he found Madboy, the god’s demon-removal could be performed at once, saving a great many hazardous steps. Hm…

  Riesta, watching her swiftly receding back, sank to the bench with an oof. Pen perched beside him.

  “Did the god just speak through her?” Riesta asked Pen plaintively.

  No? Yes? “Our god speaks in mysterious ways. Usually maddening riddles, to be frank. So I’d hesitate to say no.”

  “She knows that, you realize.” Riesta vented a sigh. “It’s not that she’s not god-touched. It’s not even that she’s not all there, but that she’s not all… here. Sometimes. And at others she’s a trammeled and difficult young woman much like any other her age. The trouble is, I’m never sure which one I’m talking to, or is talking to me. When she figured that out, I was never in control again, yet I remained in responsibility.”

  Pen offered a sympathetic nod. “Did she grow up here in your orphanage?”

  “Yes, she was a foundling. Probably bestowed at our gate by one of Lodi’s prostitutes. We get a steady supply of such. She seemed an ordinary enough girl, on the quiet side, just fair in her studies—she was supposed to have been apprenticed to a dressmaker, was about to leave us, but then this other thing happened.”

  “Not the apprenticeship you expected, I take it?”

  “Nor anyone else. After the archdivine inspected her, we were ordered to keep her here and give her theological instruction, and hold her at the disposal of the Temple. This… has not always gone well.”

  It finally dawned on Pen that the man’s anxiety was not for Chio, but for him. Trying to delicately warn that this girl would lead her escort by the nose if she could, without actually saying anything rude about his saint? Penric considered Des’s two centuries of female experience. Think you can handle her, Des?

  The girl, yes. The saint… At least, unlike Riesta here, I will be able to tell which one is talking.

  “I think it will be all right,” said Pen, more out of hope than experience. “The god wants his demon back. Through her, He may even be able to help speed my search.”

  “No doubt the god will protect her.” Riesta didn’t sound all that confident.

  With reason. However god-touched, saints were ultimately human beings, frail flesh like any other person. Without which, Pen was reminded, the gods could not reach into the world at all. The gods do not save us from death. They only catch us when we fall from life. Pen also translated that as, Don’t lose my saint in a canal! Fair enough.

  A tabarded dedicat ventured up, ostensibly to ask her superior some question about arrangements for tomorrow’s festivities; more, Pen suspected, to get a closer peek at the mysterious visitor from the curia. Riesta sent her off for tea. It was served cool and sweetened with honey, along with a plate of grapes, cheese, and bread, for which Pen realized he was ravenously grateful—lunch had been mislaid somewhere in his day’s travels.

  By the time this refreshment was consumed, they were still waiting for Chio. Pen hoped his boatman was faithful. Although if the fellow had given up and poled off, Pen supposed there would be another one along. The basin was busy this time of day.

  At last the saint tripped back, looking suspiciously satisfied with herself. Her braid had been wound up and secured on the back of her head with some fetching hair sticks, cut-glass balls on their ends glittering as she moved. Her white coat was buttoned up to her throat, though a different skirt hem fluttered at her ankles. A lumpy linen bag swung from her hand. Pen eyed it in some bafflement.

  “Let’s go, then!” she declared.

  Pen was willing, though beginning to wonder what they would do when they reached the city shore. He needed a better plan than randomly, or even systematically, continuing to quarter Lodi with his uncanny sense being battered by every soul in it but the one he sought. With old Idau in his mind as the model for a saint, he supposed he’d been vaguely counting on some sage, avuncular advice here at the chapterhouse to direct his steps further. Though if he’d wanted to be led, he now had it—Chio grabbed Pen’s hand to drag him off. She walked backward a moment to wave a cheerful farewell to the glum Riesta, who called parental-sounding cautions after her as they made their way around the old mansion.

  They were delayed at the gate by an ambush from the children, who demanded Chio inspect and approve their boat-decorating. Pen, taking his cue from her, strove to come up with a few admiring comments as well. It was plain Chio’s words were more treasured.

  She smiled over her shoulder as they left the walls of the chapterhouse compound. “I used to do that, help decorate the boats every Bastard’s Day.”

  “To be part of the ceremonies tomorrow, I take it?” At her puzzled glance up at him, he added, “I only just arrived in Lodi a few months ago.”

  “Oh. Yes. All the chapterhouses and orphanages have a boat parade around the canals in honor of the god. Isn’t your chapterhouse…?”

  “I work directly for the curia, so no.”

  “The archdivine does come out and bless us at the start.”

  “Boat races, too?”

  An amused smirk, which looked well on her lips. He was beginning to suspect the girl hid more wits than she displayed. “Of course.”

  Of course. As far as Pen could tell, there was no event in Lodi that was not considered pretext for the population to show off their boats and boat-prowess to each other. High holy days. Low holy days. Weddings. Funerals. Ship-launchings. Guild anniversaries. High appointments in the ducal court or the archdivine’s curia. Pen understood that the oarboat races among the more athletic ladies of the bordellos on his god’s day were particularly popular with the spectators.

  “I was let to ride in the chapterhouse parade twice, when I was younger,” Chio went on. “All the children chosen to go get wildly excited about it. If we made ourselves look especially well and clean, we all imagined that someone in the crowd would pick us to go home with them as apprentice or even, highest prize, adoptee. Which did happen sometimes, though not to me.” Her smile turned wry. “I was horribly disappointed. But then a better Adopter found me, and I was glad for my sadness in hindsight.”

  The faintly defiant way her chin rose made Pen wonder if this last statement was quite true.

  As they came to the landing, where Pen was relieved to find his boatman still reclining under his broad-brimmed hat, she suddenly asked, “Do you have much money?”

  “Er, the archdivine pays me a generous stipend?”

  “I mean on you.”

  “Oh. Enough, I suppose. Should I encounter an unexpected expense, I could return to my chambers for more.” He wondered if his vestments and braids and high employment would buy him trust for temporary credit. With his tranquil life inside the curia, it wasn’t a problem he’d needed to test, yet.

  “That’s all right, then.” She gave a sharp, satisfied nod, making her hair ornaments splinter tiny rainbows.

  Unfolding from his paid repose, the boatman tried to not look too amused at Pen’s sudden acquisition of a young lady on his arm; their garb hinting, correctly as it happened, at some mutual Temple business. The man handed her down into the boat with no more banter than a few helpful directions. They found their balance and started off again across the basin. The slanting sun painted the busy waters with shimmering liquid gold.

  Pen’s appreciation of the beauty of the light was undercut by his unease at time getting away from him. Where in Lodi might the deranged demon choose to hide his ridden partner? In some obscure corner? Or in the holy eve crowds, which were going to be out in force tonight?

  He turned back to find Chio unbuttoning her pale coat. The dress revealed beneath was much lower-cut across the bodice than the demure maiden’s pale blue she’d been wearing earlier, set about with bits of lace and ribbon, and woven in sophisticated dark blue and cream v
ertical stripes. In fair condition but not new—orphanages often acquired overfine if damaged garments from the wardrobes of wealthy women patrons. Pen wondered if she’d mended it with her own needle, and if she regretted her lost chance at becoming a dressmaker.

  She folded the coat and stuffed it into the sack, exchanging it for a holiday half-mask in silk decorated with sequins, a fringe of white and blue feathers lending it visual clout. She held it up to her eyes and grinned at Pen under it. It turned her visage mysterious, older. How alarmed should he be with this transformation? Des remained merely amused, though, so maybe it was all right?

  “I was going to wear this dress for my birthday tomorrow,” she answered whatever taken-aback look Pen was sporting. The mask came down, and the usual Chio returned. “But if we’re off to the Bastard’s Eve, I thought I’d start tonight.”

  “Your birthday is on our god’s day? That’s supposed to be lucky.” Which flavor of luck, good or bad, usually left unspoken.

  She shrugged. “It’s not that special. All the foundlings who arrive around midsummer without any other identification get assigned the Bastard’s Day as their birthday. We always got sweet custards at dinner together anyway.”

  “Ah,” Pen managed.

  * * *

  They arrived back at the Temple precincts boat landing with Penric no more inspired as to his next move. As he helped Chio up the steps, Pen asked, “Does our god give you any clues how we should shape our search?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing yet.”

  Pen was unsurprised; if the god had so much as whispered to her, Des would have reacted, strongly. This was still only Orphan Chio, not Blessed Chio.

  “I’d better check in at the curia first, in case any messages have arrived.” It was, he supposed, entirely too optimistic to hope for news that their quarry had been captured and was being held for them by the causeway guards.

  Ordinary guards could not restrain him, Des noted.

  Pen wasn’t sure how able that demon and its confused, ridden host would be to fight armed men—Des could make short work of such opponents, if they were not too many—but it had been adept enough to readily escape the hospice. Best not underestimate. Worse, the demon might be careless of the life of its mount, since it could just jump to another host if poor Madboy were, say, run through with a sword. Ngh.

  Offering his arm to Chio, which she took with a small smile, he chose a different route back to the curia building, his Sight again extended. He realized his mistake as they circled through the main city square, which would take them past the gibbet. To his relief, it was empty, no raucous crowd around it being more entertained than edified by the price of crime.

  Nor would it be used tomorrow. There were no executions on the Bastard’s Day: not in reprieve for the condemned, but to grant holiday to the hangmen, one of the many questionable callings that came under the fifth god’s cloak. And, in theory, under Pen’s care as a seminary-trained divine, but such pastoral duties usually fell to more regular servants of his Order. If they weren’t sundered into dwindling ghosts, the souls the executioners sped might go to any god at all, to the frequent confusion of the onlookers.

  Ordinary living folk hurrying across the square to duties or dinner pressed upon him hard enough. Chio looked up shrewdly at him, and asked, “Does your Sight hurt you, Learned?”

  “Um…” He didn’t want to admit Yes to her. “It’s a strain, but bearable.” It would be a lot more bearable were it rewarded with some results, but he felt nothing more than too-complicated humanity all the way to the curia doors.

  Chio’s bright soul could not be the least complex of these, but Des’s Sight seemed to slide around her.

  Is the god keeping you out?

  No, she said shortly. Would you walk on the edge of a precipice?

  Yes, if I wanted to see over.

  Ugh. You canton mountaineers and your heights.

  Des’s aversion to altitude had been hard-earned, so Pen didn’t quibble with her metaphor. Demons were more durable than humans in their fashion, and Pen had become all too familiar with Des’s fearlessness, but perhaps the absence of risk should not be mistaken for the presence of fortitude.

  Don’t be rude. You have your own sources of helpless terror. A thoughtful pause. In your case, frequently moral rather than mortal, but deadly all the same. Scars on your arms faded yet?

  Yes. Thank you. And my apologies.

  That’s better.

  The ornate colonnade of the curia was flushed dusky pink in the fading light. At Bizond’s chamber, they found the senior secretary gone home for the day, his place taken by a night clerk.

  “So you are why I’m here,” the man sighed, sounding not best pleased to be missing the holiday eve, if resigned. But there were no messages yet. It was too soon to mutter frustrated curses in Wealdean, though Pen was tempted. Chio seized the chance to leave her sack with this trustworthy guardian.

  They came back out on the Temple square after a short detour for the saint to inspect the sculptures that graced the main entry, not a little of it war booty. Pen wondered at a world that hanged poor men for thievery, but celebrated great ones.

  “Now what?” said Chio, looking around at the growing shadows muted by a still-luminous sky.

  Pen rubbed his face, mulling. “Go back to the beginning and start over, I think. To the Gift of the Sea. It would at least put one certain end of the trail in my hand. And Master Linatas might have heard something more.” After the threat from Penric and Des had cleared out, could the demon even have slipped back to the place it had been fed and cared for? It seemed unlikely straw-clutching.

  Pen chose a different way back to the farther shore of town, which involved seven bridges, not five, and took them down a few darkened alleys that would have been more daunting were Des not the most dangerous thing in them. The paths alongside the canals were better lit, partly by lanterns bobbing along raised up on the sterns of the oarboats busy with transporting holiday-goers in fancy dresses and masks. Laughter as well as light rippled in their wake across the night-silk waters.

  With full dark, the more restrained parties had withdrawn indoors to the wealthier houses. Also the more randy ones, Des put in. Mira did so enjoy those, in her day. Music drifted down from radiant upper windows overlooking the canal paths. But a few canal-side markets had been given over to neighborhood celebrations, young and old combining to set up trestle tables for foodstuffs and booths from local taverns. It was still early enough in the evening that most of the shrieking came from running, overexcited children, but several tables sent up volunteer choruses of hymns, drinking songs, and at the more inebriated, parodic combinations of the two. The cleverest made Pen grin.

  “Oh, gorgeous, grant me a godly kiss from that mouth,” came a drunken cry from offside. Pen wheeled, preparing to fend off a happy-sounding assault on the saint. Which was how the fellow managed to fall on him. Pen dodged fruity wine-breath—this one must have started celebrating well before sundown, the official start of the Bastard’s Eve. He gritted his teeth and used the fellow’s stumbling momentum to forward him into the nearby canal, where he fell with a mighty splash. His companions, equally drunk but not so amorous, laughed uproariously and lurched to fish him back out.

  “Good work, Learned!” one cried in passing, attempting to congratulate him with a shoulder-bump. Pen dodged that, too. He grasped Chio’s elbow and drew her back through the crowded square to the less hazardous building-side, sparing a glance to be sure the idiot was retrieved. Some Lodi canals could be waded across, but others were ten, twenty, or more feet deep, and swallowed the careless with tragic consequences. It looked like this was going to remain a comedy.

  Chio, at least, was amused, her amber eyes glinting in the lantern light. “Does that happen to you often, Learned Penric?”

  “All the bloody time,” Pen answered, goaded. He brushed down his coat, which was growing too warm as the humid night failed to cool, and tamped his temper. “It’s not
worth my effort to get offended. Although I am sometimes put to it when some, er, suitor takes his rejection in bad part. That can get dangerous.”

  “For you?”

  “For him.” Or her, but peeved females did not usually resort to physical violence. Poisonous words he could endure.

  It was her turn to murmur, “I see,” concealing private thoughts. One escaped: “Do your suitors ever succeed?”

  “Not that sort.” Pen sighed. “And the quiet, bookish types I might actually enjoy talking with are too shy to ask, leaving me only with the others.”

  She looked around, straightened brightly, and dragged him to a nearby booth. “Here’s a solution. Because we wouldn’t want more delay tonight. Buy yourself one.”

  It boasted a display of holiday masks in a multitude of designs, from cheap and plain to much less cheap. Had that been a saintly order? Or did the girl just want her escort to look more the part of half a couple?

  Under the benign gaze of the booth’s proprietress, Pen reached for the plainest linen half-mask on the rack. Chio’s hand caught his wrist.

  “No,” she said in a thoughtful tone, “I think this one would suit you better.” She handed him a mask molded in the shape of a stern white lion, subtly made and convincing, its price reflecting its art.

  Pen knew he’d not told her about the lioness that made up that long-buried layer of his demon. Was this coincidence, or something more unsettling?

  In any case he dutifully acquired the mask, to Chio’s obvious approval. “Good,” she said. “You look more imposing now. There’s still the unfair jaw and mouth, but this should deter all but your worst admirers.”

  He did not escape the square before also purchasing at her demand a posy of fresh white flowers shaped in a bracelet for her slim wrist, stewed meat wrapped in thin pancakes, and candied fruit on sticks. At least they could eat the latter as they walked.

  He kept his senses extended as they continued along the canal, sieving the flux of passing souls: on the path, on the waterway, tucked up in the surrounding houses. So many, so heaped. So not-demonic. Searching, walking, eating, and talking all together was very distracting. He kept as far from the bank as he could while still sheltering Chio on his other side.