Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) (15 page)

“Not a problem,” Livia replied.

“Livia,” Dante said, “we need those troops to secure Mirenze. You
promised
—”

“And I will keep my promise,” she said, holding up her hand and looking from him to the general. “I owe Signore Uccello a political office. I realize it’s a bit early to ask for favors, but seeing as Mirenze is under Imperial governance, would you be amenable to seeing his installation there?”

Baum snorted. “Sure, if he wants to rule a smoking pile of rubble. Mirenze stands in open revolt. As far as we can tell, Lodovico Marchetti pulled a coup, killed the old governor, and installed himself as a duke.”

“What?” Dante’s jaw dropped. “He’s insane!”

“The last stand of a revolutionary. He probably hopes we’ll decide a siege of Mirenze is too much trouble to bother with and negotiate for peace. There was a time when I might have, but that was before Marchetti sabotaged the crusade
and
armed the rebels in Belle Terre. He’s got gallons of Imperial blood on his hands, and he will pay dearly for it.”

“And the city?” Dante asked.

“It depends on the citizens. If they give us Marchetti and surrender, we can do this with minimal casualties. If they dig their heels in…” Baum shook his head. “We’ve already lost most of our territory in Belle Terre, thanks to Marchetti’s schemes. We
won’t
lose Mirenze too. There might not be much of the city left by the time we’re done. But if you really want the governorship, it makes no difference to me. One paper pusher is the same as another.”

Dante pursed his lips, thinking.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

“I’ll draw up the paperwork before I leave,” Baum replied. “I won’t be joining the Mirenze expedition. I have to go west and lead the counterattack on the Terrai.”

“Once you’ve stabilized things, we’ll meet again,” Livia said. “We’ll have more time to discuss how the Empire and the Church can support one another’s aims. And, once Dante is overseeing Mirenze—Gardener willing, with minimal rebuilding required—he can negotiate a few trade concessions with King Jernigan. That’ll keep Itresca happy and quiet. Everyone wins.”

Marcello eased back in his chair, still wearing that faint reptilian smile.

“As much as I appreciate my stay of execution, and your gracious benevolence in overlooking my past transgressions, I’m still waiting to hear how
I
win.”

“You’ve got some nerve,” Amadeo snapped, jabbing a finger across the table. “After everything you’ve done—”

“Amadeo,” Livia said, “please. Cardinal, I’ll deal with you next.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Livia pictured her brother’s tear-stained face as the Browncloaks took him away. She swallowed a fleeting ache in her chest, thinking of Carlo all alone in the world. Somewhere in the wilds, running and hiding just to stay alive. He’d been pampered and spoiled his entire life. Could he survive on his own?

She meant what she had said. If he surfaced, if her enemies tried to use him to tear another schism in the Church or challenge her authority, she’d have no choice but to see him dead. She prayed she wouldn’t have to.

But everything her brother had done—imprisoning her, sending killers after Amadeo and her father’s spy Rimiggiu, and the rampage that saw hundreds dead and the Alms District in flames—all of it had started with a worm whispering poison in his ear. And now that worm sat at her council table. Marcello Accorsi’s life was hers to take, and she wanted, with every fiber of her being, to strangle him with her own two hands.

Instead, she folded her hands before her, steadying herself with a breath and a slow count to five before she spoke.

“I have great plans for the future of the Church and its mission,” she said. “There will be changes under my leadership. Hands reached out to the poor, to the hungry, to those who have languished for far too long while we spent their tithe money on picture frames made of solid gold. To push my reforms through, I
need
the College of Cardinals on board with me.”

“And you know I’m the man who can deliver that support,” Marcello replied, looking smug.

“I believe you might be. Or maybe I should kill you now and take my chances. You called this a ‘stay of execution’ earlier. That’s about right. Only a stay, to be revoked at my pleasure. Now tell me what you’ll do to earn a full pardon.”

“I can keep your dainty hands smooth and clean, for starters.” Marcello propped one elbow on the conference table and rested his chin on his fist, leaning past Baum to make his sales pitch. “I have a secret file on every man in the College. Their sins, their nasty little habits, the right strings to pull if you want to see them dance. Hell, I even know which ones are honest.”

“I’d like to read those files,” Livia said.

“I’m sure you would, but we’ll call it my trade secret. Work with me, and I’ll be your ambassador to the College. We’ll find compromises. Little perks and pleasures we can hand out to keep them happy as pigs at a trough, and I’ll ensure they follow your lead. And should anything…morally questionable need doing, I’ll take care of it. Nothing ever ties back to you.”

“Livia, you can’t be serious.” Amadeo fluttered his hand, gesturing across the table. “How do you know he won’t betray you? He already did once before.”

Marcello chuckled. “I’d say, but I think the lady already knows.”

Livia nodded, grave, and looked to Amadeo.

“Marcello has the information and the contacts to keep the College in line. I don’t. To accomplish my goals, I need him, and he knows it.” She turned to Marcello. “You don’t really want to be the pope. You just want the power that comes with the job. By serving as my whip hand—my
irreplaceable
whip hand—you get all the resources and influence you could dream of. Oh, and you’re not a target for any would-be assassins, unlike me. It’s the best of both worlds.”

“Got it in one,” Marcello said. “I enjoy playing the kingmaker, sitting just behind the throne. It’s a role that suits my temperament. You know, you’re not the naive girl I remember.”

“No,” Livia said, “I’m not.”

She turned back to Amadeo.

“And you see the added bonus? If I die, that’s the end for both of us. The good Cardinal Accorsi will have an incentive to
stop
conspiracies against me, instead of instigating them. I can’t imagine a man better suited to the task.”

Marcello put his hand to his heart. “I will be your faithful watchdog, Your Holiness. Your loyal guide in the darkest of woods.”

Livia rose, her chair sliding back on the polished white marble.

“Unless anyone else has something to add, we can call this meeting adjourned. Or we could, if it had ever happened. If you gentlemen will excuse me, I would like to see my new throne now.”

*     *     *

The siege of the papal manse hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed by the sleeping city. One man, standing watch at a darkened window in a dusty, roach-infested garret, lowered his spyglass as Livia’s troops swarmed across the lawns.

“We are all dead men,” Kappel murmured under his breath.

He and his fellow Dustmen, the last of the mercenaries stationed in Lerautia to keep watch over Lodovico Marchetti’s investment, had fled on the night of the Imperial takeover. Scrambling out the back of the papal manse while a column of knights marched in through the front, and leaving Carlo to their tender mercies. Under Kappel’s direction, they stashed their counterfeit armor, disguised themselves as artisans, and went to ground for a few days, hoping for an opportunity to make amends for their failure.

Weiss wouldn’t care that Kappel and his handful of fighters had no chance against a regiment of veteran knights. He wouldn’t care that standing their ground would have been suicide. They had failed their mission. There was a word for a Dustman who failed in his duties. That word was
corpse
.

And now, crumpled on the floor at Kappel’s feet, lay the letter that had arrived at their safe house a few hours ago.

“
Trouble in Mirenze
,” read Weiss’s terse script, “
but the client has a plan. Grab Carlo and bring him here at once—we’re relocating the seat of the Church. Avoid Imperial patrols at all costs. They’ll be looking to stop you. Expect to see you presently. In strength, W
.”

“Grab Carlo,” Kappel muttered. He lifted the spyglass and trained it on a lit window in the papal manse, squinting at the fuzzy image. Blood splashed across the glass, an Imperial soldier going down at the hands of a cutlass-swinging madman in brown burlap. “I think somebody just beat us to it.”

He’d kept an ear to the ground the last few days, picking up the latest rumors. The Imperials were here in force and he wanted to know why. Word had it that Livia Serafini was coming home.

Kappel’s second-favorite vice, just after murder, was gambling. He came at the problem like a bookmaker and ran the odds in his head.
Chance Carlo is dead by dawn, four to one. Chance Livia keeps him imprisoned in the manse in case she needs him later, two to one. Decent odds on her making an alliance with the Imperials and taking the throne, which makes Carlo useless to us
.

He looked back over his shoulder at the slumbering men, lumpy shadows on bedrolls laid out on the bare wood floor. “Up and at ’em,” he said. “Let’s go. Everybody up. Meeting time.”

One of the Dustmen shoved himself up, groaning as he rubbed his eyes.

“What’s the deal, Kappel? Ain’t time for shift change.”

“We need to move. Looks like Livia Serafini just came home and reunited with her brother, which changes our situation from ‘grim’ to ‘utterly fucked.’” Kappel turned back to the window, raising his spyglass. “If we can’t make the client happy, one way or another, Weiss
will
find us. You know what he does to people who break his trust. So, who’s up for a suicide mission?”

One of the mercenaries ambled up, standing at his shoulder.

“Don’t know about you, boss, but I’d rather die fast than die slow. What’s the plan?”

“If I’m reading the situation right, as of tomorrow morning, there’s a new pope in town. The client wants to relocate the seat of the Church, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

He adjusted the spyglass, watching as the lights of the papal manse died one by one, the sprawling estate going dark.

“If Carlo’s dead or locked in irons, we can work around that,” he said. “We’ll just kidnap his sister instead.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Under heavy hooded cloaks—for Renata, to protect her identity from Aita’s bounty hunters, and for Sykes, Lydda, and Achille, to hide their Murgardt features—they traveled down-city through sleepy night streets. Only Gallo could move undisguised, passing for any other native son of Mirenze. He took the lead, watching out ahead for militia patrols or the
partigiani
.

The
partigiani
reminded Renata of the bands of stick-toting youth who took to the streets on city holidays. The revelers were mostly known for getting blind drunk, celebrating their heritage at the top of their lungs, and subjecting wayward citizens to elaborate quizzes about the history of Mirenze—with humiliating but mostly playful consequences for giving the wrong answers. That rough-and-tumble show of patriotism had changed in the wake of the governor’s death, twisted by the same fear that had spread its slow shadow over the city.

They’d slipped past three of the partisan gangs tonight already. This time, looming orange light from around the corner was the only warning Renata got as their Murgardt companions scurried back up a crooked alley and took cover. A gang of men toting clubs and coils of rope on their belts rounded the bend and blocked Renata and Gallo’s path.

“Hold,” their leader said, lifting his lantern and studying their faces. “Block watch. Identify yourselves.”

Renata put her hands on her hips. “Renata Nicchi, which you know damn well, Filippo, seeing as I serve you drinks five nights a week. Did all that rum addle your memory?”

“Oh. Yeah. Ain’t seen you in weeks, though. Where’ve you been?”

“My aunt was sick. Had to tend to her.”

Filippo moved the lantern alongside Gallo’s face. “I know you, but I don’t know him. What neighborhood are you from?”

Gallo froze up, shooting a nervous look at Renata. He had the right blood, Verinian-born, but this was his first visit to Mirenze. Renata spoke up quickly.

“He’s dockside, like me. Now get that light out of his face.”

One of the men stepped up, shouldering Filippo aside, and stood toe-to-toe with Gallo.

“I live there, and I’ve never seen him before. Okay, if you’re from dockside, answer me this: what street is the Drunken Mermaid on?”

They locked eyes. The gang of men shifted uneasily, some reaching for their truncheons like they’d been aching all night for a chance to use them. Renata bit back a surge of panic and looked to Gallo.

Gallo raised his hand, put his fingers under his chin, and flicked them.

“It’s on Screw Your Mother Street,” he snapped, leaning in over the smaller man. “I was a loyal son of Mirenze decades before you were a twinkle in your father’s ball sack,
boy
. Who do you think you are, questioning your elders like this?”

The man took a halting step back and held up his open hands. “I…I meant no offense, signore. It’s just, with the Imperials coming, we can’t be too careful. There are spies everywhere.”

“Is that something you know for a fact?” Renata asked. “Or is it what Lodovico Marchetti told you?”

Filippo glowered at her. “Duke Marchetti is a good man. He exposed the governor
and
he brought the Ducal Arch bombers to justice. He’s making this city
strong
.”

“Really.” Renata nodded at the pack of men behind him. “You’re prowling the streets when you should be home with your families. Jumping at shadows and finding Imperial agents under every flowerpot. Is this what strength looks like?”

“You should be grateful,” said a man behind Filippo. “We’re out here to keep you safe.”

“Well, if you’re done keeping us safe, we’d very much like to continue our walk in peace. Thank you for your service.”