A Shadow All of Light (46 page)

Cocorico was execrating the plants at length as I departed. I judged that the rehearsal was stalled, perhaps for hours, and I was a-weary of footing about. I trudged to the livery stable, mounted, and rode back to the manse and put me to bed supperless.

*   *   *

When Sterio, our shy client, told us he would never again put on the harlequin costume, that he was finished with the Society and the Tumulus ritual and all that it entailed, his little black-eyed dog seemed to regard him mournfully, as if he had lost his true master. He had arrived driving a cart with the effigy and stick-puppet to be buried. The puppet, Dirty Bennino, was tucked into the left hand of the effigy.

“Do you fear for your life?” Astolfo asked.

It was the mild mid-afternoon and the four of us stood by the paddock fence, watching as the groom forked orchard-grass hay into the feed troughs. The season was too early for foddering with hay, but the horses had been put up here so long they had denuded the enclosed turf of grass. A wisp of hay rode the breeze to where we stood and Sterio plucked it from the air and slid it into a corner of his mouth. “I am fearful,” he said, “but I think they dare not take my life. My role in the Feast ritual is too prominent. As the Ministrant, I am central to the proceedings.”

“Is not the purpose of our antagonists disruption?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “but if the disruption comes from an outside force, the agents would give themselves away. It must appear to be missteps of my own or of the others involved.”

“Well then,” said Mutano, “we must make them show themselves. Let no fault of ours be used as excuse. Would you like to inspect the coffin and cart?”

Sterio followed us to a shed on the upper side of the paddock, where Mutano peeled away the canvas wrapping. He looked over the coffin, paying close attention to where the angle of the harlequin diamonds met the edges of the oblong box. With the coffin he seemed content, but the cart brought a hint of frown. “Is this not a little overdone?” He pointed to the design on the wheel spokes.

“We wanted to stand out from the others,” Mutano muttered. He was disappointed that his artistry was challenged.

“It will do well,” said Sterio.

“Perhaps it would be good to make sure that you have settled in mind all the proper steps of the ritual,” Astolfo said. “We must not let the blame fall upon you. Let us watch your progress through them.”

“If you insist,” he said. “So … The approach must be made in this fashion.” He breathed deeply, then took a slow step forward and after a hesitation carried on as he had been taught the tradition commanded. It took no longer than the third part of an hour for him to complete his role, but then Astolfo requested him to repeat the whole, and then again several small passages within it. He answered to every suggestion, though obviously puzzled about the maestro's reasons.

“I thank you for your patience,” Astolfo said. “You have provided us with a safeguard against our carelessness. We shall be able to know if you have gone amiss at any point.”

“I shall be watched closely by many sets of eyes, if I were to perform. But I think I shall avoid that danger. I have hoped that I might hide myself here with you until the Tumulus hour has passed.”

“If you do so,” Mutano objected, “the ritual will not take place and our opponents have won the day. The Feast will fall into confusion and the people's discontent may well turn into riot, as happened in ancient time when the traditional Saturnalia was forbidden by a new cult of overly ascetic priests. The invaders would love to see that happen.”

“I did not accept the assignment at risk of my life, only of my shadow.”

“You will be protected,” Astolfo said. “Mutano is there beside the cart; Falco is in the forefront of the crowd at the site. They are both armed and ready to defend you. I too shall be nearby, taking stock of the spectators, looking for anything untoward. Osbro must stay to watch the villa, but he can be called for if necessary.”

“You must judge me a craven,” said Sterio. “Yet if I meet a foe face-to-face, I bear my part without qualm. In this affair, I do not know whom to trust or from what quarter attack may come.”

“We shall be doubly, triply alert,” Astolfo said. He turned to Mutano and me. “Shall we be prepared?”

“We shall,” Mutano said, and I nodded.

“If so you say.” The tone of his voice betrayed Sterio's doubtfulness.

“Let us go apart,” Astolfo said to him. “I will give further assurance and you can demonstrate again certain steps of the ritual I may already have misremembered. While we do so, Mutano can unload the effigy and stick-puppet from your cart.”

*   *   *

Next morning the four of us sat at table in the kitchen, Osbro being admitted to our group. He was accounted one of us now, fully a colleague.

“Time is narrowing,” Astolfo told us. He sipped at an herbal brew steaming in a clay mug. Each of us was consigned by the maestro to this drink, with which we nibbled little oatcakes sweetened with honey. “We must set out our purposes; we must plan how to achieve them; we must act.”

“Our worst difficulty is that we are fighting cobwebs and moonbeams,” I said. “Who are our foes? What do they want? How are they to advance against us?”

“If we act upon my small set of premises, our endeavors may be wholly useless. Yet if we do not act at all, we are certain to lose the struggle,” Astolfo said.

“How do you define this struggle?”

He gave me a glance, mildly questioning. “What would result if the ritual were disturbed and the face of Bennio were not discerned within the moon?”

“Nothing of consequence,” Mutano declared. “It is all empty show. The vulgar crowd would be angry at first and then only out of sorts. Survival is not at stake.”

“The people would be dispirited and confused,” I said. “They would be unwilling to join together in any concerted plan of action.”

“The city would be unsecured?” Astolfo asked.

“For a short time,” I replied. “For five, six, seven days, perhaps. Then all would return to the state it is now—except that the usual grumbling would be louder and more acerbic.”

“I will propose that during that time, in the dark of the moon, a pirate force will advance upon the town and be aided by those they have implanted here. Once it is taken, they will use this city as marching armies use small villages—seizing treasure, killing the men and youths, raping, murdering, and enslaving females, usurping the Council duties and taking hold of the governance of the town, despoiling the urbs entirely, and leaving it to the mercies of kites and crows. That is why the ritual performance must fail.”

“Fail?” Mutano and I spoke in concert. Osbro shook his head.

“I shall make certain that it does fail,” Astolfo said.

“But maybe our Misterioso can bring it off correctly,” I said.

“Please be attentive, for the projections I lay before you are intricate, difficult to grasp in the whole, and uncertain of even a partial success. If our schemes prove vain, the result is disaster. I do not request your approval; I count you as already enlisted in the effort. Knowing what you know, you are now active players. The dangers are acute and the plan, I say again, is complex in all its parts.”

Osbro, Mutano, and I looked at one another like men ordered by a trusted mentor to leap from the edge of a tall precipice into an abyss of mist.

Mutano and I signaled our readiness. Osbro hung back a little, then took a breath and said, “I am willing.”

“Very well,” Astolfo said. “Now each of us must take up separate tasks and responsibilities, but all efforts must knit together at the appointed times. Here is what I envision.…”

He was meticulous, even tedious, in his explanations, but we were grateful for every detail he outlined. He had convinced us of the magnitude of the peril and of the urgency of our separate duties.

*   *   *

My first duty, which I had to attend to by myself, was to seek out allies and cement relationship with them. It was to my old friend Torronio that I turned. We had kept in contact with each other as best we could. He was still hiding in exile, and this meeting had been difficult to arrange.

“It has been a long time since we took the plants from the Dark Vale. I had thought you would communicate before now,” Torronio said. He tossed the twig with which he had been toying into the small fire we sat beside. The flame responded with a lick of black smoke. The fire was not for heat; this night was warm, its breezes welcome. We only desired illumination out here at forest edge, away from the trail. Our horses champed the long grass, their brown eyes orange with firelight. An owl sent its challenging halloo across the darkness.

“How so?” I asked.

“The rumors of unrest are abroad. Even an exile like me hears mutterings. And you were seen gathering gossip in Rattlebone Alley.”

“If you have spies in the town—”

“Not spies. Only observant acquaintances.”

“Observers, then. I recognized the Molvorian accent of the old sailor in the tavern in Rattlebone Alley. This conference with me means that you maintain hope of regaining your former station.”

“I am not averse to returning to society. I tire of contemplating the objects of nature. The poets may have all my share of the crags and ferny glades and limpid springs and triumphal rainbows.”

“Does your band of robbers share your distaste for the natural world? Are the Wreckers thinking of becoming potboys and horse traders and gutter-muckers?”

“The Wreckers are no more. You remember that the man you named Goldenrod fell victim to those soul-snatching plants. Since that time Sneakdirk, as you called him, took a fall from a precipice as he was gathering samphire. There remain only Squint and Crossgrain.”

“And Torronio.”

“And myself, yes. But three can hardly make up a band, especially as we have little contact nowadays.” He found another trifling twig and laid it on the fire.

“Could you gather them to you to join in a task that entails some danger and good hope of reward?”

“Coin?”

“In abundance—and also a pardon from the Council for all crimes and malfeasances of which the band has been accused.”

He showed surprise. The shifting light on his features gave him an apprehensive expression. His time of exile had worn his spirit ragged. “Do you have the promise of the Council that we are to be forgiven?”

“No. But Astolfo is confident that if our venture succeeds, you and your comrades shall have the freedom of the city, along with handsome emolument and the comforts of female comradeship.”

“You mentioned a danger.”

“In the secret transport and directed igniting of oils and other flammables. We shall face an enemy force unknown in quantity. But you and Squint and Crossgrain have faced perils before and have come off well. All necessary equipage shall be supplied, for there must be digging of fosses also.”

He passed his hand along his forehead as if to relieve the pressure of uncertainty. “When would this action begin?”

“In a few days.” I handed him the little pouch. “Here is coin for present expenses. If you accept it from me, that means you have accepted the offer.”

He paused a long moment, then took it in hand. “Now the night is less friendly than before,” he said. “I seem to feel enemy presence about us in the darkness. It is only my fancy, I expect.”

“It is a fancy worth heeding,” I said.

The owl had quieted. We listened to the silences gathering in the forest until I rose and we stamped out the puny flames. He mounted and rode slowly into the woods and I came back to the villa the long way round.

*   *   *

In the morning Mutano and I were giving cart and coffin a final, slow inspection. All was perfect, as far as we could tell. We spoke guardedly about our roles in the impending conflict. We needed to know in a general way what each was doing, Astolfo had said, but the particulars were best known only privately. If one of us was captured, he could give up only partial intelligence.

Now Mutano was complaining about the arrangement. “By whom are we to be captured? What could they learn from us? Nothing from me, for I have but the flimsiest speculation of what the whole of our strategy is.”

“You have been practicing to regain your cattish tongue of late,” I said. “Are cats to take part in our defense of the town?”

“The maestro assigned me to inquire among the beggars' guild and the cats that gather to 'em about strangers that have come to town and in particular about newcomers to the harbor area. He has convinced me that the invasion is to take place a little at a time. That those who have dispersed themselves within Tardocco will join with others at the harbor near the mouth of the river, and that at a certain signal a ship anchored in the bay will dispatch trained and armed groups to meet with others and overwhelm us all. It will be all of a sudden, a lightning strike. Astolfo desired for me to estimate how large is the number among us already.”

“Have you made a guess?”

He brushed invisible dust off the coffin and replaced the wrapping. “They are fewer than we feared. No more than a hundred, perhaps. These are to be joined by another forty or fifty from shipboard.”

“So few?”

“They are trained and bloodthirsty. If we were not forewarned, this town would be easy prey.”

“Yet Astolfo did not forewarn the Civil Guard or the private guard forces of the nobles and the wealthy.”

“He is uncertain how many are trustworthy. Maybe these groups have already been seeded with turncoats.”

“I do not understand this strategy,” I said. “We are a puny number. There must be schemes in place you and I are ignorant of.”

“Well, look for the
Tarnished Maiden
to play some part in the fray,” Mutano said. “I tell what I was enjoined to keep secret.”