Her brows arched. "The Bacchus? You know that was—"
I shook my head. "The Endymion."
"Oh." Erytheia of Thrasos touched her lips with paint-stained fingers, studying my face. "The model… ?"
"Dead, my lady," I said.
"I am sorry," she said simply.
"So am I," I said. "Is it available?"
"Well, there is a—" A flicker of calculation crossed her strong Hellene features, then vanished. "Yes. For you, yes."
The artist named a price and I agreed to it without bartering. It would have felt unseemly. As it was, it was strange to be in the atelier once more, filled with slanting afternoon sunlight and the strong scent of linseed oil. Wishing to retain my composure, I didn't dare glance at the painting. I paid her in hard coins. Her assistant Silvio was wrapping it in burlap when Claudia Fulvia arrived, enfolded in a thick woolen cloak.
Entering the atelier, Claudia drew back her hood. By accident or design, a shaft of light turned her glorious hair to a blazing crown. She didn't speak, merely tilted her head toward the door. The sunlight caught her eyes, turning them amber. Erytheia nodded, beckoning to Silvio. They departed with alacrity. I supposed we were past the point of dissembling.
"So." Claudia smiled. "You wished to see me?"
All the old yearning returned. Ah, Elua! It would have been good, so good, to lose myself in her. To purge myself of all the horror of battle, the shrouds and remnants still clinging to me, in the glory of her naked body. We were well matched, Claudia and I, at least in the bedchamber.
"Yes." I took a deep breath. "Tell me about my mother."
"Your mother!"
It caught her by surprise. I watched her carefully. Her voice was untuned, and a brief flare of outrage surfaced in her fox-brown eyes. Claudia was older than me. She thought it was some cruel game I played.
"My mother sent Canis," I said.
The outrage vanished and comprehension dawned. "Canis," Claudia murmured. "Your philosopher-beggar."
"Yes." I drew up Erytheia's paint-encrusted stool and sat, still watching her. "You lied to me in Lucca, Claudia. You may not have known who he was, but you knew he was Guild. You knew from the beginning."
She gazed at me unflinching. "And you knew there were things I was forbidden to tell you. I'd already erred once. I couldn't afford the risk. I'm sorry."
" 'Do no harm,'" I quoted. "It was the medallion, wasn't it?" The color drained from Claudia's face. "How did you know?" "Canis told me before he died." I'd rather risk lying to Claudia than putting Asclepius' priest in danger. " 'Do no harm.' And he told me my mother sent her love, and then he died with a javelin stuck through him that was meant for me. So I'm asking you, Claudia. It means my mother's in the Guild, doesn't it?"
Claudia sighed. "Imriel, I don't know. I'm just—" "A journeyman," I finished. "I know. Is my mother, Melisande Shahrizai, a member of the Unseen Guild?"
She looked away. "If she sent Canis, yes. Or she's learned our secrets and is using them to get us to do her bidding. From what I know of her, either could be true." Claudia looked back at me. "I truly don't know, Imriel."
"What did the message mean? 'Do no harm'?" I watched Claudia begin to pace back and forth in the atelier, passing easels with rude charcoal sketches, half-finished paintings. "Name of Elua, Claudia! Canis died before he could explain it to me. A man died for my sake, and I'm owed answers. Do you want me to raise a fuss and start asking questions? Because I will."
"No, don't. Please." Claudia flung herself into the chair in which I'd posed as Bacchus, sighing. "Imriel… the message on the medallion simply meant that a powerful Guild member had placed you under the seal of his or her protection. That you weren't to be harmed by other members. I heeded it and passed it on. Does that satisfy you?" She regarded me. "When you told me about Canis, I assumed someone had appointed him to guard you."
"Someone did," I said. "My mother. He did a good job of it, too, although I don't think he reckoned on having to deal with a riot." I stared at her, thinking. "That's why you didn't think I was in mortal danger from Caccini's thugs? Because of Canis?" Claudia nodded. "How did you know the medallion held a message?"
She made an impatient gesture. "It's one of the signs they use. The Cynics' lamp, only reversed. It pointed left. Most people never notice. You didn't."
"So all this business about the Unseen Guild's threats…" I shook my head. "It was a lie, all a lie. I was never in any danger from the Guild."
"Ah, well." Claudia smiled wryly. "It depends on how powerful is the Guild member who placed their seal on you."
I thought about that, and I thought about Canis. "Powerful enough to send a man willing to die to protect me."
Claudia shrugged. "I'm told men have died for Melisande Shahrizai's sake before."
"Not wittingly," I said. "And not smiling." The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. In the midst of all the Guilds intrigues, there was my mother, cursed and inevitable, squatting like a spider in a web. No wonder they had wanted so badly to recruit me. There was a cold fury singing in my blood. I rose from the stool and paced over to her, putting my hands on the arms of the chair and leaning forward until our faces were mere inches apart. Claudia shrank back in the chair, trapped. I could see her pulse beating under her jaw and smell fear in her sweat. "Where is she?"
"I don't know!" Wet voice broke. "Imriel, please."
"Where?" I shouted.
"I don't know." Closing her eyes, Claudia swallowed. "I swear to you by the Triad, on the lives of my family, I don't know. Only what I've told you."
"But you know who does," I said grimly. "Erytheia, perhaps? Artists travel. Or perhaps the princeps' wife. Or Lady Denise, Terre d'Ange's own ambassadress?" Drawing back, I fished the scrap of parchment out of my purse and thrust it below her nose. "Tell me, is there a hidden message on this!"
Opening her eyes, Claudia took it from me. "No." Her voice was taut as she felt at the edges. "If there was, it's been torn away. I don't… I don't believe Lady Fleurais is involved. I don't know. Not for sure."
I believed her. Abruptly, my anger drained away, leaving me tired. I took the scrap back from Claudia and sat down heavily on the stool, putting my face in my hands.
"Imriel." A softer tone. I lifted my head. "Go home," Claudia said gently. "Go home and wed your Alban princess, and forget about this. You can't win this game. Above all else, the Guild protects itself. You'll lose if you try, and whatever power your mother wields, it won't be enough to save you. Or me. Or the people you love."
"Are you so sure?" I asked bitterly. "Elua! What if she's… what is it? A Heptarch?"
"She's not." Her gaze was steady. "Trust me, if she had that kind of power, her dog Canis would have had a vast Caerdicci army marching on Lucca at a day's notice. As it was, it took all the influence Deccus, Lady Fleurais, and I could muster to get seven hundred Tiberian soldiers under way in less than a week's time." A hint of smile curved her generous mouth. "And you're welcome, by the way."
A reluctant smile tugged at my lips in response. "Thank you."
Claudia inclined her head. "You're welcome." She paused. "Why are you so angry?" she asked curiously. "Your mother did no harm. She sought only to protect you."
I opened my mouth and found I had no answer; or at least none that wouldn't sound childish. My mother was a villainous traitor. She had borne me out of sheer ambition and bequeathed me a heritage of treason and mistrust. And when I had gone missing, she had swallowed her pride and sent the one person in the world capable of finding me to do so.
I would be dead if she hadn't.
And I would be dead, spitted through by Domenico Martelli's first javelin, if she hadn't sent Canis to protect me. For once, she'd given me no cause to hate her.
"I don't know," I said honestly.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Since there was nothing left to say, Claudia Fulvia and I said our farewells in Erytheia's atelier. It was fitting. I'd bid her good-bye once before in this place.
There were no recriminations this time, no cruel words. When all was said and done, we had been through too much together. I had seen much to admire in her and much to despise. A great deal to desire. I had learned from her, as surely as I'd learned from Master Piero.
The bright mirror and the dark.
I bowed over her hand and kissed it, remembering our first meeting. Her hand, bold and sure, reaching for me beneath the blanket. Her husband's salon in the darkness, her mouth on mine and her urgent, probing tongue.
"Good-bye, my lady," I said. "Elua's blessing on you."
Her mouth, smiling. "So it has been."
And so I left her to carry out my last errand, carrying a painting wrapped in burlap. I navigated the narrow streets of the students' quarter. The sun was sinking beneath the hills of Tiberium, filling the streets with blue shadows. It was growing cold, cold enough to turn my breath to frost.
I went to the insula.
A fit of cowardice overcame me and I nearly turned back. It would have been easy to have the painting and the cruel news delivered. I'd already spoken to Lady Denise about my intentions, and she had agreed freely to lend her aid. No doubt she would see it done with every courtesy and kindness.
But she hadn't known Gilot.
The courtyard was empty. No one was drawing water from the well, emptying chamberpots into the sluice. Drawing a deep breath, I tucked the painting beneath my arm, mounted the rickety stairs, and knocked on the door of the widow Anna's apartment.
"Yes?" It opened a wary crack. "Your highness! Forgive me."
She opened the door.
"Anna…" I said raggedly.
She knew. I saw the knowledge break over her like a wave, and she turned her face away. A pleasant face, ordinary and pretty. She closed her eyes as she turned, not quickly enough to hide the tears. Her shoulders shook.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so sorry."
"Mama?" Her daughter's voice, high and frightened. "Mama?"
Anna Marzoni dashed away her tears and faced me. "Come in. Please."
I entered quietly. It was a quiet place, neat and tidy. A table, two chairs. A single oil lamp, an unlit brazier. A dish of olives. A pallet with clean linens, the child Belinda huddled in it, her eyes wide and scared. She had known me, once. All that mattered now was that I had made her mother weep. I set down the painting, leaning it against the wall.
"What is this?" Anna asked me. A quiet voice.
I swallowed. "For remembrance."
She unwrapped it with steady hands, then knelt before it, her palms resting on her knees.
"Gilot!" Belinda crowed.
Gilot as Endymion, sleeping. His face half-averted, lashes curling on his cheek. Brown hair curling over his brow. One arm outflung, moonlight silvering his flesh like a lover's caress. The other hand, the splinted hand, hidden from view.
He's so beautiful, Anna had said.
"Yes, darling," she said now; softly, so softly. "That's Gilot."
"He died…" I paused, hearing the rawness of my voice. "He died a hero—"
"Stop." A quiet fierceness. Anna covered her eyes with her hands, then lowered them. "I don't want to hear it," she said to me. "Not here. Not now. I don't care."
I nodded and withdrew the banking house's letter of credit from inside my doublet, setting it on the table. "A beginning," I said quietly. "For you and Belinda. It was his wish. There will be more soon. If you have need of aught, you need only ask. There is a standing order at the embassy."
"Need!" Anna drew a long, shuddering breath, then loosed it, her shoulders slumping briefly. "Thank you, Prince Imriel," she said formally, rising to her feet. "It was good of you to come."
"Anna…"
"Please go." There were tears in her voice. "Please go, now."
I went.
I heard a single sharp, choked sob as the door closed behind me, and then the low murmur of Anna's voice attempting to explain to her daughter that Gilot was gone, that Gilot, like her father, was never coming back. I leaned my brow against the door and wept.
So it was done, my last errand and the hardest one. I gathered myself and walked away from the insula. Away from a young widow's grief and a child's incomprehension. Away from the self that had lived in this place. Only a lingering scent of myrrh from Master Ambrosius' shop followed me, and within a block, that, too, was gone.
At the stable, I reclaimed the Bastard, tipping the stable-lad a silver denarius. He gaped so widely he nearly forgot to thank me. I didn't care. Anna was right, money meant nothing. Tomorrow, after the worst of grief's blow had been absorbed, it might. Tonight it didn't.
I rode slowly through the streets of Tiberium, alone with my thoughts. Gilot would have scolded me for it. If he hadn't been so damnably worried about my safety, he'd never have gotten hurt in the rioting, never had sustained the injury that killed him. He was always trying to protect me.
I carry a lot of guilt, I'd said to Valpetra.
