Seraphina(32)

I had filled half the program with Viridius’s students at his recommendation, sight unseen. His darling Lars got a prime spot, though the old man muttered, “Don’t let me forget to tell him he’s playing!” which was not particularly encouraging. There was a lot of time to fill, especially on Treaty Eve, and I still didn’t have enough auditions lined up. I spent several days reading more petitions from prospective performers and auditioning them. Some were excellent; many were dreadful. It would be tough to fill an entire night unless I repeated some acts. I’d been hoping for more variety than that.

One petition kept reappearing at the top of the stack: a troupe of pygegyria dancers. It had to be the same troupe I’d turned away at the funeral, unless there was some pygegyria festival in town. I had no intention of auditioning them; there was no point. Princess Dionne and Lady Corongi had a difficult enough time condoning our native Goreddi dances, which permitted young women to have far more fun than was appropriate. (I had this on the authority of Princess Glisselda, who found herself greatly inconvenienced by the bad attitudes of her mother and governess.) I could only imagine what they would make of a foreign dance with a reputation for being risqué.

I tore up the petition and threw it in the fire. I remembered doing it, quite distinctly, when a pygegyria petition appeared atop the pile again the next day.





Viridius occasionally let me take days off to keep up my studies with Orma; I decided I’d earned a break three days before Comonot and chaos descended upon us. I dressed warmly, slung my oud across my back, packed my flute in my satchel, and set off for St. Ida’s Conservatory first thing. I all but skipped down the hill, feeling pleasantly unburdened. Winter had not yet found its teeth; the rooftop frost melted with the first kiss of the sun. I bought breakfast along the river quay, fish custard and a glass of tea. I detoured through St. Willibald’s Market, which was covered, crowded, and warm. I let riotous Ninysh ribbons cheer my heart, laughed at the antics of a noodle-stealing dog, and admired enormous salt-crusted hams. It was good to be an anonymous face in the crowd, feasting my eyes upon the glorious mundane.

Alas, I was not as anonymous as I used to be. An apple seller called out laughingly as I passed: “Play us a tune, sweetheart!” I assumed he’d noticed my oud, which hung in plain sight, but he mimed playing flute. The flute was bundled away where he could not have seen it. He recognized me from the funeral.

Then the crowd opened in front of me like a curtain, and there was Broadwick Bros. Clothiers, their stall heaped high with folded felts. Thomas Broadwick himself was just tipping his sugarloaf cap to a wide-hipped matron, the proud new owner of several yards of cloth.

He looked up and our eyes met for a long moment, as if time had stopped.

It occurred to me to approach him, to march boldly up and tell him I’d seen the light and repented my quig-coddling ways. In the same instant, though, I remembered that the lizard figurine was still in my coin purse; I had never bothered taking it out. That consideration made me hesitate too long.

His eyes narrowed, as if guilt were written plainly on my face. My window of opportunity for bluffing him had passed.

I turned and plunged into the densest part of the crowd, pulling my oud in front of me so I could protect it from jostling. The market took up three city blocks, giving me ample scope for vanishing. I ducked around the end of a coppersmith’s stall and peered back between the gleaming kettles.

He was there, moving slowly and deliberately through the crowd, as if he were wading though deep water. Thank Allsaints he was tall, and the sugarloaf hat gave him an additional three inches of bright green. It would surely be easier for me to see him than for him to see me. I started working my way up the arcade again.

I zigged and zagged as best I could, but he was always there when I looked back, a little closer each time. He’d catch up before I found the way out, unless I started running, which would have drawn the entire market’s attention. No one but a thief runs in the market.

I began to sweat. Merchants’ voices echoed in the vaulted ceilings, but there was another sound, something sharper, shrilling underneath the dull murmur.

It sounded like a good distraction to me.

I turned a corner and saw two Sons of St. Ogdo standing on the edge of the public fountain. One pontificated and the other stood alongside, looking tough and keeping an eye open for the Guard. I skirted the crowd and ducked behind a great fat cobbler—judging by his leather apron and awls—whence I might spy Thomas without his spotting me. As I’d hoped, Thomas stopped short at the sight of the black-plumed Son prancing passionately on the fountain ledge. He listened, openmouthed, with the rest of the crowd.

“Brothers and sisters under Heaven!” cried St. Ogdo’s champion, his feather bobbing, fire in his eyes. “Do you imagine that once the chief monster sets foot in Goredd, he intends to leave?”

“No!” cried scattered voices. “Drive the devils out!”

The Son raised his knobby hands for silence. “This so-called treaty—this dishrag!—is but a ruse. They lull us to sleep with peace; they trick our Queen into banishing the knights, who were once the pride of all the Southlands; and they wait until we are utterly helpless. Whither the mighty dracomachia, our art of war? There is no dracomachia now. Why should the worms fight us? They’ve already sent a stinking quig vanguard, burrowing into the rotten heart of this city. Now they walk in, forty years on, invited by the Queen herself. Forty years is nothing to such long-lived beasts! These are the selfsame monsters our grandfathers died fighting—and we trust them?”