The Seat of Magic (7 page)

A
fter passing through the densely wooded park that surrounded the palace grounds, the coach stopped before the first gate. Duilio stepped down, tucking the paper-wrapped book under one arm. He gazed up at the walls of the palace, asking himself whether he wanted to walk inside and practically proclaim himself a Sympathizer . . . but it was a moot point. He had no other way to seek out information about Oriana, so to the ambassador he would go.

The palace rose above him, its fanciful turrets and walls painted in red and gold. Merlons topped each wall, suggesting a military usefulness that this palace had never actually exercised. It was decorative rather than defensible. It was also a maze, Duilio had heard, with several different levels, dozens of stairwells, and patios that looked out over the Golden City. The newest addition to the palace, built by the current prince's father, was a square structure rising two stories above the clock tower that had once been the palace's highest point. Its whitewashed walls failed to capture the whimsical spirit that the older parts of the jumble displayed.

Duilio cast a glance up at the ornate entry gate with its tiles and arches. The source of the emblem on the Special Police's badge, an open hand on the arch's keystone, warned the intruder of the palace's magical properties. Whatever those were, their secret remained unknown to the general populace. Not swayed, Duilio walked up to the gates to present himself to the guards.

Unlike the building, the guards
did
have a martial air, making Duilio glad he hadn't attempted any weapons. Their blue uniforms with red sashes and gold braid hailed back to the previous century, the cutaway coats revealing very businesslike sabers and formal daggers. He wouldn't be surprised if each guard had a pistol secreted somewhere on their person as well.

His request went over more easily than he'd expected. One of the guards eyed him narrowly from under the brim of his shako, escorted him through the tunnel and up to the next level, and then through the next two gateways. The main terrace surrounding the palace afforded a view of the city to the south, although he would have had to go to the very edge of it to see the Street of Flowers. Instead, they crossed the terrace and walked under an archway set in the middle of that part of the palace, leading to the patio on the opposite side of the building.

A frightening bust supported the bay window over that archway—a depiction of the sea god on his clamshell. He had wild hair and wide, pained eyes, and his mouth seemed frozen in a grimace. Duilio almost asked the guard to stop so he could get a better look at the thing, but decided the guard must see it every day and would think him easily awed. So he followed the man up a small spiral staircase on one side of that arch and out into a second-floor hallway.

“If you'll wait in there, Mr. Ferreira,” the guard said in a cool voice, “the secretary will get to you eventually. That may be a while, though.”

In there
proved to be a long hall, the sitting area for all petitioners. Chairs lined the walls, with a thick runner between them leading up to a large desk at the far end of the room where the secretary held his court. Duilio inclined his head, aware that he had a long wait ahead of him. He counted two dozen other petitioners there. He sat obediently in one of the chairs while the guard went up to the front to give Duilio's name to the secretary.

The chair was hard—no doubt intentionally so—and the hall over-warm, but since removing his coat would be inappropriate, Duilio sat back and sweltered without complaint.

The hall's ceiling and upper walls were ornately tiled in blue and white, with arches and keystones in gray granite. Workers for the court occasionally strode past, intent on this or that task. Most of the petitioners were of a common stripe, wearing their best church garb, dark and serious save for the occasional red sash. A white-haired man sat to Duilio's right, clutching a sheaf of papers and rolling them in nervous fingers. His thin frame hinted at frailty and a lack of wealth. An issue of unpaid taxes, Duilio suspected, and when he spoke to the old man, he found that confirmed. Ignorance of the law, the man claimed, a likely thing as their tax laws were often convoluted.

His gift supplied confirmation that the man's cause would prove just, so Duilio took a slim notebook from the inside pocket of his coat and made a note of the man's name and direction, thinking he might check on him later.

“Are you a lawyer?” the old man, a Mr. Bastos, asked upon seeing that, brows drawn together in a worried knot.

“No,” Duilio told him, sliding the notebook back into his pocket. “But I know someone who is willing to help with issues like this. I'll give him your name if you wish.”

The old man grasped Duilio's hand with papery-skinned fingers, his grip light. “Oh, bless you, sir.”

Duilio was about to return the blessing when he was forestalled.

“Ferreira?” The deep voice belonged to a tall man who stood on the burgundy runner in front of Duilio's chair. Glossy black hair was brushed back from a widow's peak, framing a pensive face with an aquiline nose. It was his visitor from Sunday—Bastião—only today the man wore a blue and red sash about his chest, an acknowledgment of his station as a member of the royal house of Aviz. Two guards waited behind him, escorts from their stance.

Duilio gazed at him for a second, trying to decide how to react, but good manners outweighed his annoyance. Now he knew why his gift had viewed the man's visit to the house as an important one. He rose and bowed properly. “Your Highness.”

Infante Raimundo de Bragança Angeja, Duke of Coimbra, shot a cautionary glance at his guards and then said, “Walk with me.”

Duilio shoved the wrapped book into a coat pocket and fell into step with the man, wondering where he intended to go. The infante was under house arrest.
Where exactly is he allowed to go?

“I walk,” the infante said as if in answer to Duilio's thoughts. “It's all I can do. There are days when I walk every floor of the palace, every wing, the terrace, the patio. I am allowed visitors on rare occasions, but as I have no power, I am not worth anyone's time.”

Perhaps this man's doppelgänger had visited him instead. But no, this was the man who'd come to his house on the Street of Flowers, so clearly the house arrest wasn't as effective as was widely believed. “I'm certain that must not be the case, Your Highness,” Duilio murmured.

The infante snorted. They stepped out of the long receiving hall and walked down the hallway that looked out over the patio. The two guards had fallen back, possibly a courtesy. “Tell me, Ferreira. What brought you here?”

“I came to speak with someone.”

They turned another corner and headed into the new portion of the palace, a section that was—judging by the abundance of guards—not open to visitors. The infante stopped. His two guards were now more than a dozen feet away, and none of the ones stationed in the hallway stood close enough to overhear. “Who?”

Duilio had stopped; he could hardly keep walking. As the infante had all but told him he found the ban on nonhumans insupportable, Duilio took a chance. “Ambassador Alvaro.”

“An odd choice, but I think I can arrange it,” the infante said gravely. “May I ask a favor in return? I used to talk to Alessio often. I found his perspective refreshing.”

“I expect you did, Your Highness,” Duilio said.
Refreshing
might be the most benign term ever applied to his brother.

“I tried to keep him apprised of Paolo Silva's doings. In return he told me what he knew, what he foresaw, and more recently, he helped with other matters,” he said vaguely as a bespectacled court functionary passed them in the hall, eyes politely averted. The infante waited until the man was several feet away to continue. “Now with Silva out of favor, I have no such trade to offer. But I might be able to get you in to see the ambassador.”

“Silva's out of favor?” Duilio hadn't heard anything about his bastard uncle since the last time their paths had crossed.

“Because he helped bring down Maraval,” the infante said. “My brother punished him by turning him out of his room in the palace. Thus the prince has lost two of his more rational advisors. Despite his infernal plans, Maraval did give my brother sound political advice.”

Prince Fabricio rarely made decisions of state any longer, the majority of power in Northern Portugal having been slowly appropriated by the various government ministries instead. It actually made for a more stable government, but there was always the possibility the prince would attempt to retake his lawful powers and make some new nonsensical decree like the ban. “I see. And what favor can I do for you?”

The infante crossed his arms over his chest. “I feel as if the palace is ill. Is it?”

Ill?
A bizarre question.
But if the palace had magical properties, then perhaps it wasn't so strange after all. Duilio closed his eyes, trying to ask himself the correct questions. His talent supplied him only with a sense of danger. Vaguer than normal, it was still unformed—a
nascent
danger. He let loose his breath and opened his eyes. “I have no specific answer for you, Your Highness. You are right, though. There is something wrong.”

“Thank you, Ferreira. Glad to know I'm not losing my mind. The palace is bound to the royal family, and lately it's felt . . . upset.”
The infante turned and resumed walking, his expression pensive. “There is a rumor that my mother was a witch and ensnared my father.”

“I hadn't heard that,” Duilio said, an untruth. But if the mother had done so, it hadn't profited her much. She'd lived less than a year after her marriage, dying at the infante's birth.

They came to a halt before the intersection of two hallways. The infante held out one hand, gesturing for Duilio to step back. Duilio obeyed, backing away from that crossroads, the infante moving after him until they stood several feet from the intersection.

And Duilio quickly realized why. Prince Fabricio walked along that perpendicular hallway, a huddle of men following close behind him. The prince, fifteen years Duilio's senior, appeared closer to fifty than forty-five, or older. His hair had once been as black as the infante's, but was now heavily streaked with gray. Worn overlong, it also hadn't been brushed out or tied back, making the prince look unkempt. Under a dark blue velvet dressing gown, he wore what appeared to be pajamas and scuffed along the hallway in felt slippers.

A madman.
The prince rarely appeared in public any longer, but rumors of his madness had circulated about the city for years. If the prince chose to spend his days thus, there must be truth behind those rumors. Judging by the ornamentation that bedecked their purple robes—stars and planets stitched carefully in threads of gold and silver—those sycophants must be the prince's astrologers. Most were older men, white-haired and spectacled, wise men, perhaps. One plain black coat stood out among that bunch, a man of about fifty, still dark-haired and clear-eyed.

Duilio waited for the prince to notice them, waited for one of the followers to ask for his purpose there, but they walked on as if none had seen the infante or Duilio standing to one side. He turned to the silent infante. “Your Highness?”

The infante jerked as if Duilio had startled him. “The
astrologers,” he said, his voice harsh. “And Dr. Serpa. I'm not overfond of any of them.”

It was as well, then, that they hadn't been noticed. Serpa would have been the plainly dressed man, then, as doctors wished to be taken seriously. Black coats were expected of them.

With a sigh, the infante crossed the intersection and they continued on their original tack. “Their stars are in ascendancy at the moment. Whatever one might say of Maraval, he and Silva did keep my brother's superstitious excesses under control. They could reason with him, even if they often tugged him in different directions. These men bow to whatever strange demands my brother makes and tell him whatever he wants to hear.”

Duilio walked beside the infante, his footfalls muffled on the thick runner. In front of a spiral staircase that led up to the next level, the infante stopped again and turned a furrowed brow on Duilio. “I can get you in to see Alvaro without being seen. That should keep your name off the list of Sympathizers.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“That's going to grow tiresome,” the infante said. “Please address me as Raimundo.”

There were levels in society, with the nobility far above mere gentlemen like him, to say nothing of royalty. The familiarity implied the infante considered Duilio an equal, though.

“I am honored, Raimundo,” Duilio managed. It sounded odd to say that aloud, but none of the guards moved away from their posts to arrest him for his effrontery.

The infante gestured at the two guards who followed them—his own personal watchdogs—and they stopped in the hallway, leaving the infante unwatched. A subtle matter, but one of great importance. That told Duilio the infante had control of his guards, whether or not they were legally required to obey him.

He led Duilio up a straight stair and, after holding one finger to
his lips, proceeded in silence down a side hallway. Guards stood unmoving, seemingly lost in contemplation. They didn't respond as the two intruders slipped past.

When they'd gotten beyond the guards' hearing, the infante quietly said, “They only follow Alvaro if he comes out of his suite. Otherwise they leave him alone. He still receives and sends diplomatic correspondences, but little more. No one talks to him. No one listens to him, either, I'm afraid.”

They rounded one more corner, ending up in a cul-de-sac that had only one door leading off it. The infante crossed to the door and rapped on it.

“No, I will
not
let you examine me,” a low voice snarled from within.