Ignoring both, Cazio strode through the covered way to the inner courtyard of his villa.
Like the rest of the place, it was a mess. The garden had gone to weeds, and grapevines crept out of control on casement and wall. The copper basin and sundial that had once marked the center of the yard was lying on its side, as it had been for two years. The only orderly element of the house, in fact, was the small area set aside for the practice of dessrata— a cleared place on the flagstones, with a small ball dangling from a string, a battered practice mannequin with the various humors and crucial points of the body marked in faded ink. Near that, stretched out on a marble bench, a man snored fitfully.
He was perhaps fifty, his face covered in coarse black and gray stubble, save for a long white scar that marred one cheek. His long hair was an unruly mess. He wore a tattered brown jerkin stained copiously with red wine, and no pants at all. An empty carafe of wine lay near his half-opened hand, which rested on the floor.
“Z’Acatto.”
The man snuffled.
“Z’Acatto!”
“Go, or I kill you,” the man snarled, without opening his eyes.
“I have food.”
He cracked his lids, then. The eyes within were red and watery. Cazio passed him a hempen bag. “There is cheese, and bread, and cloved sausage.”
“And what to wash it down with, then?” z’Acatto asked, a murky spark appearing in his gaze.
“Here.” Cazio handed him a ceramic carafe.
Z’Acatto immediately took a deep drink. An instant later he spat, howled like a damned soul, and hurled the container against the wall, where it burst into a hundred pieces.
“Poison!” he shrieked.
“Water,” Cazio corrected. “That substance that falls from the sky. The grass finds it most nourishing.”
“Water is what they drink in hell,” z’Acatto groaned.
“Well, then you should begin building up a tolerance now, for there is no doubt that you will be the guest of Lord Ontro and Lady Mefita in the next life. Besides, I had no coin for wine.”
“Ungrateful wretch! You think only of filling your own belly.”
“And yours,” Cazio corrected. “Eat.”
“Bah,” he groaned, levering himself slowly into a sitting position. “I—” His nose suddenly twitched, and suspicion knotted his forehead. “Step closer!”
“I don’t think I will,” Cazio told him. “Water can also be used on the outside of the body, you know,” he added.
But z’Acatto stood and advanced on him. “I smell wine on your breath,” he accused. “Last year’s vino dac’arva, from Troscia.”
“Nonsense,” Cazio replied. “It was from Escarra.”
“Hah! It’s the same grape!” z’Acatto shouted, waving his arms like a madman. “The blight destroyed the Escarran vines ten years ago, and they had to beg their cuttings from Troscia.”
“Interesting. I’ll try to remember that. In any event, the wine was not mine; it was Alo’s, and it is gone, now. Eat something.”
“Eat.” He frowned again. “Why not?” He returned to his bench, fumbled in the bag until he brought out the bread. He tore a hunk and began chewing it. Speaking through the paste thus formed, he asked, “How many fights did you get into today?”
“Duels, I take you to mean? Only one, that being the problem. It was too hot, I think, and there weren’t enough strangers. So not enough coin.”
“You do not duel,” z’Acatto grumbled. “You brawl. It is a foolish waste of the art I teach you. A prostitution.”
“Is it?” Cazio said. “And tell me, how should we live, if not like this? You scorn the food I bring, and yet it’s the only food you are likely to see. And where does your wine come from, when you get it? You buy it with the coin you filch from me!”
“Your father never stooped so low.”
“My father had estates, you fool. He had vineyards and orchards and fields of cattle, and he saw fit to get himself killed in one of your duels of honor, and thus pass his property to his killer instead of to me. Besides his title, the only thing my father left me was you—”
“And this house.”
“Yes, and look at it.”
“You could make income from it,” z’Acatto replied. “It could be rented—”
“It is my house!” Cazio shouted. “I will live here. And I will make my money as I please.”
Z’Acatto wagged a finger at him. “You will get killed, too.”
“Who here can best me at swordplay? No one. No one has even come near in nigh on two years. There is no danger in this, no gambling. It is pure science.”
“I am still your better,” z’Acatto replied. “And though I am perhaps the greatest master of dessrata in the world, there are those who approach me in skill. One day, you will meet one of them.”
Cazio looked unblinkingly at the old man. “Then it is your duty to make certain I am ready when they arrive. Or you will have failed me as you failed my father.”
The old man’s head dropped then, and his face pinched ever more sullen. “Your brothers have put it behind them,” he said.
“I suppose they have. They would let our good name blow away in the sea wind to which they’ve fled. Not me, not Cazio. I am a da Chiovattio, by Diuvo!”
“I do not know the face of the man who killed your father,” z’Acatto said softly.
“I care little about that. My father dueled the wrong man, for the wrong reasons. I will not make that mistake, and I will not mourn him. But neither will I pretend to come from common birth. I was born to fight and to win, to reclaim what my father lost. And I will.”
Z’Acatto grabbed him by the sleeve. “You think you are wise. You think you know something of the world. Boy, Avella is not the world, and you know nothing. You would rebuild your father’s estates? Start with this house. Start with what you have.”
Cazio brushed the hand from his sleeve. “I have nothing,” he said, rising.
Z’Acatto did not reply as Cazio went back outside.
Once back on the street, Cazio felt a pang of regret. Z’Acatto wasn’t much, but he had raised Cazio from the age of five. They had had their share of good times.
Just not lately.
Avella at night was darker than a cave, but Cazio knew his way around it well. He found the north wall as easily as a blind man feeling about his own house, and after ascending the stairs stood in the night wind looking out over the moonlit vineyards and olive groves, the gently rolling hills of the Tero Mefio, the heartland of Vitellio. He stood thus for more than a bell, trying to clear his head.
I’ll apologize to him, he thought to himself. After all, there are secrets of the dessrata he still holds to himself.
Returning to his house, Cazio felt an odd prickling at the back of his neck, and his hand strayed to Caspator.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
All around him he heard the soft kissing of leather on brick. Four, maybe five of them.
“Cowards,” he said, more softly. “Lord Mamres spit on you all.” Caspator made no sound as he slid from his sheath. Cazio waited for the first rush.
3
Flight and Fancy
Anne pushed open the wooden shutters, wincing as they squeaked faintly. Outside, the night air was warm and strong with the scent of woodfire and the stink of horse manure. The moon wore her scantiest gown and fretted the slate rooftops of the hamlet with dull pearl light.
Anne couldn’t see the ground—the street below was sooted with shadow—but she knew from earlier that it was only a single story down, that just beneath her window a narrow eave jutted, and under that was the front door of the small inn. She had jumped from higher places, in her life.
Twenty long days had come and gone since they left Eslen—Austra, five Craftsmen, and she. Anne didn’t know where they were or how far they had to go, but she knew her best chance to escape when she saw it. She had been able to lay aside enough hard cheese and bread to last for a few days. If she could but find a bow and a knife, she was certain she could live off the land.