Read Online Irenicon by Aidan Harte - Free Book Online Page B

stagnant water. The mildew encasing the outer hall’s pillars like tired ivy and the way the pillars were doubled in the inky cold water made normally unimaginative men see the Speakers’ Chamber as an ancient, mottled crypt within a winter forest, a crypt wherein the quick petitioned the unheeding dead. Sitting in their sodden shoes, they yearned to adjourn even before they had begun, and now meetings were called only in crisis, so loathed was the Chamber.
    Giovanni glanced at the old Rasenneisi crest on the door as they entered. Gold leaf was peeling from the crudely carved Lion, and the red was barely visible. He felt ashamed that his country left vanquished enemies alive only from the neck up, with enough blood to generate income but not a drop more.
    As they came to the Chamber door, the Doctor whispered, “Captain, know that people will say things in here intending the opposite. If you need help—and I think you will—come see me. I’m a good friend.”
    Giovanni had sensed tension talking to the boy and the Contessa. Like this rotting palazzo, Rasenna was on a precipice, and contrary to the Apprentices’ recommendation, he believed he must maintain independence if he was to accomplish his mission. He said nothing but pulled his sleeve from the Doctor’s grasp.
    Amused, the Doctor let him go ahead. “Keep an eye on the wolf cub,” he whispered to Sofia.
    She took Valerius’s arm. “Come along, principino . The town fathers tend to express themselves undiplomatically.”
    Valerius laughed. “About Concord? Now I really want in.”
    To the left of the Chamber door were three high steps leading to a small landing where a bust of Sofia’s grandfather stood sentry. Above Count Scaligeri’s sage portrait hung a swarm of family crests, a checkered field of faded green, scarlet, and yellow overrunby creatures fantastic as griffins, mundane as swine. They belonged to Rasenna’s Families , those whose rarefied blood entitled them to sit in the Signoria and made them eligible to be elected gonfaloniere. This niche had become a shabby shrine to old Rasenna, a reminder of how many once-great towers had fallen. Sofia led Valerius there, just far enough from the Speakers’ Chamber to prevent eavesdropping.
    She was surprised, pleasantly, to find Gaetano Morello waiting there too. She guessed the stout, happy pale-haired boy with him was the Morello’s Contract this year; just like her, Gaetano had been relegated to baby-sitting. She marched over with a lopsided grin, twirling her flag around her arm.
    “Well, well.”
    Gaetano smiled. “Contessa.”
    “If it isn’t the terror of Rasenna.”
    “Don’t start.”
    “So what’s the next stage of the Morello master plan, Tano? Overthrow the Apprentices?”
    “All right, get it out of your system. How come you haven’t been making a nuisance of yourself lately?”
    Sofia leaned against the wall. “The usual. Doc’s got me on the leash.”
    “We should trade places. I think I got demoted to foot soldier this morning.”
    Sofia laughed. “Your brother returned in one piece?”
    “Not quite,” said Gaetano, glancing at his student. The boy was placidly cleaning a set of glass-ringed disks. “Never mind that. Allow me to—”
    The boy perched the glasses on his nose and interrupted, “Contessa! The renown of your noble name precedes you, but of your beauty I heard not a whisper! Count Marcus Marius Messallinus, at your service.”
    Sofia smiled at the round little boy bursting with old-fashioned chivalry. “Pleasure. Don’t listen to a word Tano tells you. The Morello fight like girls.”
    The notary’s ink-stained spidery fingers drifted over the leather cover of the Rasenneisi Signoria’s Book of Minutiae and Procedure. Like him it was a yellowing relic, and he loved it. He opened it with the light touch of devotion. So long had it been since the last session that a dust cloud escaped. He inhaled with relish and let the rest settle on him as he looked