Fires of the Faithful (31 page)

The crowd held its breath as I took a moment to retune my violin. My hands shook slightly as I tucked it under my chin, then started playing, sluggish in the damp air.
Da
dat da
da
dat da
wham wham wham. Da
dat da
da
dat da
wham wham wham
. The people were stamping their feet on the down beats, clapping their hands. “Come on!” I heard Lucia shout. “Step—wait—left behind left
turn
, left.”

Slowly, like a vast mill slowly grinding to life, the crowd began to move.
Dancing. Da
dat da
da
dat da
wham wham wham
. My hands were warming; without meaning to, I sped up the music slightly. People responded. All around me, everywhere, they danced, moving in a slow circle around the platform.

The crowd was vast and packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Still, I could feel their energy, like a flame the moment before the log splits into fire. They were angry; their fury billowed around us like smoke.
Da
dat da
da
dat da
wham wham wham
. I started trying to hold the tempo back, but it wasn’t working—they were speeding up, with or without me. The energy swelled. It vibrated behind my eyes like the wood of my violin, or the swarm of bees I’d felt when I played this with Mira and Bella and the others back at the conservatory. It was difficult to breathe.

The crowd’s anger rose with the energy like an unstoppable
tide, like an earthquake. They wanted to see Teleso’s blood. My heart was beating loud enough to hear it in my ears. They were dancing faster. This was nothing like playing with Mira and Bella;
I
was the violin, played by the anger of the crowd.

A few paces from the scaffold, I could see Lucia and Giovanni dancing. Lucia’s eyes were closed; Giovanni’s were wide open, and riveted on me.
Our strength is in numbers
, I remembered Beneto’s voice saying.
If you get people angry enough. We just have to get people angry enough
. This was what he had been waiting for, and now Giovanni was going to make it work. Lucia’s lips were moving; she was singing the words to the song, which I could barely make out over the stamping feet. The dance was almost over. The anger was rising like a flooding river, waters that would smash everything in their path and carry the debris until the water was spent, soaked into the earth. I could unleash that against the camp—drown the keep in the anger like floodwaters would drown a hut—and my head spun with the power flashing through me.

The last fading rays of the day fell across the edge of the crowd. Just beyond the dancers, I saw a glint like the evening star—it was the sun catching on the tip of a crossbow bolt. Staring into the shadows, I realized that there was a ring of soldiers, beyond the dancers, crossbows drawn. Of course; Teleso knew this was coming as well as Giovanni did. From where I stood, though, I could see who the crossbows were pointed at.
Enemies of Ravenna will be dealt with
. This was why Lucia’s name was circled on Teleso’s list. As soon as the riot broke out, they were going to kill Lucia. For a moment my own anger roared in my ears, drowning out the anger of the crowd, and I realized what I could do.
Bastards won’t shoot unless there’s trouble
.

The dance was ending; I couldn’t just stop playing, because people would take that as the signal for the riot to start. Gritting my teeth, I decreased the tempo of the music. I wasn’t sure if this would make the dancers slow down, but it did. I slowed it more. The buzzing in my head became disjointed, confused, but this wasn’t working well enough. I felt like a fragile dam trying to hold back a blinding white river of anger. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Opening myself to the tide, I poured the energy into the earth under my feet, like rainwater into a field.
Down
.

My E-string snapped. The dance ended. Instead of exploding into a riot, though, people stopped, heads bowed, and slowly shuffled off, back toward the tents. Lucia looked around, drained and confused. She didn’t know what had happened, what had gone wrong. But Giovanni did. I could feel his glare burning against me like magefire; if he could have killed me right then, he would have. “Damn you,” he hissed, and I met his eyes for a long moment across the dark sea. “Traitor.”

Something jerked me backward, and I realized that Teleso had come up the steps to the scaffold and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go,” he said, and yanked me back down the steps. “You made the wrong choice.”

“My violin case,” I protested as Teleso dragged me into the keep.

“Shut up!” he shouted, and backhanded me across the face. I didn’t see it coming; the impact knocked me back against the wall. Teleso jerked me toward him again, then shoved me toward one of the soldiers. “Lock her up.” The soldier stared at Teleso. “You heard me! Lock her up.”

The soldier took my arm, leading me down a narrow staircase. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “One of us will get the case for you.”

“There was supposed to be a riot this evening,” I said.

“Yes,” the soldier said. “I don’t know what it was you did, but thank you.” He stopped where he was and released me to look into my eyes, wincing at the bruise forming across my cheek. “My orders were to shoot Signora Lucia. I didn’t want to.”

“What’s your name?” I asked. “You speak with a Verdiano accent. Does your family live near here?”

“No, thank the Lady. I am Verdiano, but my family lives well north of the wasteland. My name is Tomas.”

My cheek was beginning to ache and I pressed my hand against it, hoping that the cold from my hand would ease the swelling. “So you were supposed to reduce the number of mouths to feed, and take out Lucia.”

“Yes.” Tomas looked angry. “But we’re soldiers, not murderers. We won’t kill unarmed people in cold blood.” He met my eyes hesitantly. “That’s what Mario says.”

Mario. Why was I not surprised?

“Isn’t it just as bad to deliberately provoke a riot, just to have an excuse to kill people?”

Tomas’s gaze faltered. “Probably,” he said. He was young, much younger than Mario, and he suddenly looked tragically sad.

“Never mind, Tomas,” I said. “It isn’t your fault. You’d better take me wherever it is you’re supposed to be taking me. Are you pulling a double shift already?”

“Yeah,” he said with a tired smile. “This way.”

We made our way down a hallway, then down another staircase that led to a row of cells. Tomas hesitated, looking embarrassed to be locking me up. “I heard you play, the other night,” he said. “You’re really good.”

“Thank you,” I said. I considered offering to play for him right there, but I was too tired. It was chilly, deep under
the keep, and I shivered. “Can I have a blanket? It’s cold down here.”

“Oh!” he said, and looked around. “Here, you can have my cloak.” He shrugged off his black-and-red cloak and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“Is this allowed?” I asked.

Tomas shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll get into too much trouble.” He shuffled his feet. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I loosened the strings of my violin and laid it carefully on the stone slabs of the floor, wondering how I was going to get a new E-string. “One thing,” I said. “Am I a dangerous enough prisoner to rate a guard? I’d rather Teleso not visit me unescorted.”

Tomas blushed. “I understand, Signora Eliana. I’ll talk to Mario—he’ll arrange something.” He closed the door to the cell.

Even with the cloak, I was chilled. Without Tomas’s candle, the dungeon was darker than anywhere I’d ever been. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. I wrapped the cloak around me and curled up on the floor of the cell. I could hear my heart beating, and an echo of something else—I imagined I could hear a heart beating in the ground under my ear, or the echoes of the stamping feet earlier. The sound lulled me and comforted me, and I drifted off to sleep.

•  •  •

I closed my eyes, knowing that in an instant I would feel my flesh burn, and there was nothing I could do about it. As I heard the screams of my friends, though, I felt no pain. Unbelieving, I opened my eyes, and realized that as the magefire burned the air around me, it didn’t touch me
.

I turned toward the hill. Five mages—that was all it took. I couldn’t see their faces, but suddenly I knew with utter certainty who one of them was, and that
she
was protecting me. Even as she killed everyone else
.

•  •  •

I woke with a start in utter darkness. I was jumpy and imagining things that I couldn’t see, and without really thinking about it, I cupped my hand to summon witchlight.

To my shock, a dim glow leapt to life and stayed there. In the feeble but steady white light, I could see Mario sleeping in the guard’s chair, on the other side of my bars. I stared at the light and, after a moment or two, let it go out and lay back down.

Our magefire drained the Verdiani borderlands of every drop of energy and life they had
.

Witchlight doesn’t work here. No magery does
.

I thought about the surge of energy I’d poured into the earth. Could this be done, for all of the wastelands? Or would you need the kind of anger that could start a riot? Or was I dreaming? I drifted back to sleep.

I woke later to find Mario shaking me gently. “Teleso wants you outside,” he said. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

“Tomas’s cloak,” I said.

“I’ll get it back to him,” he said, so I took it off and laid it across Mario’s arm.

“My violin,” I said.

“We have the case,” he said. “Will you trust me to take care of your violin? I’ll return it to you later.”

I didn’t want to let him take it, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice, so I nodded and gave him the violin and bow. He took the violin gingerly, like he was afraid the thin wood would break, and I laughed and showed him how to hold
it. “Don’t go swinging it around like a club,” I said, “and don’t drop it, but it’s not going to break in your hands or anything.”

He tucked it under his arm. “Ready?” he asked.

“For what?” I said, but he avoided my eyes.

I followed Mario up the stairs; we were joined by a larger group of soldiers and Mario passed my violin off to Tomas. They marched me out the side entrance. “There she is!” someone shouted, and I saw Lucia and Giovanni and a few others. I could tell Giovanni was still furious, even from here, but Lucia just looked worried. The soldiers led me up onto the scaffold to stand next to Teleso. For a split second I was terrified that he was about to have me hanged, but there weren’t any nooses.

Instead of making a speech to the onlookers, Teleso turned to me. He was as angry as he had been the previous evening, maybe even angrier. “I treated you with courtesy and hospitality,” he said. “I offered you comfort and safety. And you spit on the hand I extended. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

I raised my voice slightly. “I averted a riot. Is that why you’re angry? Why does the commander of Ravenna
want
a riot?”

“Shut up!” he shouted, then lowered his voice again. “You could still apologize, Eliana. If you apologize sincerely enough, you might be able to persuade me to reopen the offer I made yesterday.”

I felt my face flush and I drew myself up to my full height, pitching my voice to be heard by everyone watching. “My body is not for sale, Teleso.”

His face slammed shut and he nodded once. Then he turned to the soldiers. “Tie her.”

Mario and the others took hold of my arms, Mario still avoiding my eyes. They bound my hands to the cross beam
of the scaffold. Someone untied my sash, then pulled my tunic over my head, and I realized they were going to whip me.

I could feel Teleso’s eyes burning into my naked back and my face became scarlet. “For insolence,” Teleso shouted to the crowd. “For attempting to instigate a riot. For insubordination. Thirty lashes.”

I couldn’t see the conversation behind me, but I could hear it. “Mario can do it,” I heard Teleso say. Then Mario’s voice: “This is goatshit, Teleso, and you know it!”

“Fine,” Teleso’s voice, gloating. “Wouldn’t want to make you do anything you thought was
wrong
. Niccolo can do it.” I heard a choking gasp from Mario, and someone else coming up onto the scaffold, then everyone moving out of the way. Then Teleso’s voice again: “And I’ll deal with you later, Mario.”

I clenched my hands into fists and tried to brace myself. There were a few moments of silence; Niccolo was letting me get scared, and I wished I could turn around to spit in his face. Then the lash hissed through the air and came down, and I felt my back tear like rent cloth.

I bit down on the edge of my tunic and managed to keep from crying out. There were tears in my eyes, but no one could see them. If I couldn’t spit in their faces, I could deny Niccolo and Teleso the pleasure of hearing me cry out. My blood pounded in my ears; I tried to focus on
not
crying out, like that would distract me from the lashing. I tried to count, but I kept losing track. I could smell my blood, and my stomach lurched; I gagged on my saliva. I clenched my fists, screwing my eyes shut, and waited for it to be over.

“That’s
thirty
,” I heard Mario’s outraged shout, but the whip came down once more.

“Oops,” I heard another voice say smoothly, and knew
that must be Niccolo. Someone cut the rope around my wrists and I fell to the floor of the scaffold. I lay for a moment, my eyes closed, trying to get my legs to obey me. There was a scuffle somewhere near me, and I heard Mario’s voice speaking low and urgently. “Do yourself a favor, Teleso, and
leave her
.” Mario picked me up and lowered me off the scaffold into Lucia’s arms. “Take care of her,” he muttered.

My legs still weren’t holding me up; my head spun, and the edges of my vision were wavering. Lucia eased my tunic back over my head and I nearly cried out as the wool rubbed against my back.

“My violin,” I said.

“I have it,” Lucia said. “Mario gave it to me.” She had slung my arm over her shoulders and was holding me up. Rafi ducked under my other arm. “Let’s get you home.”