The Ruined City Read online

  Then she thought of the tales she had so often heard of Aureste Belandor’s support of and cooperation with Faerlonne’s conquerors, and for the first time in her life, she felt the force of those accusations. Her father, people claimed, was party to outrageous crimes against his own country and compatriots. He was a traitor and an outcast. So many tongues had repeated these stories, with such certainty and anger, that it was becoming all but impossible to dismiss them. Even Falaste believed the worst of Aureste. He never came right out and said so, but she knew.

  Falaste was unlikely to be thinking anything at all about Aureste Belandor, just now.

  “Have you heard any news about the Rione trial?” Jianna turned her head to discover her companion already gone, anonymity forever intact.

  She walked on toward the Cityheart, and presently her way was blocked again by a second barrier of recent construction, this time a fence of iron bars surrounding the building. Beyond this fence neither she nor any other member of the general public was permitted to set foot. Evidently the Deputy Governor Gorza did not intend to repeat the errors of his predecessor.

  A group of masked idlers loitered at the barrier, and she took a place among them. A few seemed to wait there for want of anything better to do, but most shared her interest in the trial of the Governor Uffrigo’s assassin. Despite their curiosity, they knew next to nothing. It was a sure thing, they unanimously insisted, that the trial had not yet actually begun. It would begin shortly, perhaps even upon this very day, but was likely to prove a brief, perfunctory affair. Apart from this they had little to offer beyond speculation. The gloomiest among them prophesied prolonged and torturous interrogation sessions for each defendant, culminating in a double public execution of spectacular and inventive savagery. The most optimistic ventured to hope for a short trial followed by a mercifully quick death for the siblings. Grim or sanguine, however, all seemed to express a certain discreet affection and respect for “the Little Faerlonnish Lioness,” as they dubbed Celisse Rione.

  Jianna was far from sharing their admiration. “The Little Faerlonnish Lioness” had brought Taerleezi wrath crashing upon hundreds or thousands of helpless Vitrisian heads, destroying herself and her wholly innocent brother in the process. The Little Faerlonnish Lioness had killed Falaste. Did she suffer an instant’s guilt and remorse, or did she deem his life an acceptable sacrifice? The Little Faerlonnish Lioness could twist on the torsion tower, and welcome.

  But no, that was bad thinking. Her mind was working as if Falaste had already been tried, condemned, and executed. In truth, the trial had not even begun, and he still had a chance. A good chance, she told herself stoutly. No matter what these doomsayers all around her might think about it. And she wouldn’t really want to see anyone die by torsion—certainly not Celisse Rione, who always said and did what she truly believed to be right.

  Time passed. Around midmorning some nameless drone emerging from the Cityheart passed through a gate in the fence into the Clean Zone, where he was surrounded at once by the curious and importunate. The drone—a clerk in the Office of Public Records—had little news to offer. The Rione trial had not yet commenced. He had heard that it should start very shortly, but he couldn’t say exactly when. Having nothing more to offer, he was permitted to depart.

  More time. Some of the loiterers drifted away, their place taken by others, equally devoid of identity. Jianna waited. When at last she grew hungry, she bought some cheese and apples from a nearby vendor, then resumed her place at the fence. Lowering her vizard, she began to eat.

  “Are you mad, woman?” a neighbor inquired.

  Confused, she regarded his black oilcloth visage and membranous eyepieces in silence.

  “You’re not going to eat that?” A male voice, indeterminate age, high-pitched. “Please don’t tell me that you’re going to eat that.”

  “Very well. I won’t tell you.”

  “Listen to me. You must never, never eat food sold on the street. You don’t know where it’s been, who’s been touching it, what’s been touching it. It could be riddled with plague, permeated with plague! You must only eat food purchased from good, sound farmers, fresh from the country, in the morning markets. That’s the only way to know that it’s wholesome.”

  “How am I supposed to know who’s a good, sound farmer? Anybody could sit around the market selling infectious produce.”

  “Is the woman stupid? Has she never heard of a Troxius medal? You touch the medal to your food. If it’s poisonous, or plaguey, the gold turns black. Try it now on that apple. It’ll be the Black Trox, you mark my words.”

  “I don’t have a Troxius medal.”

  “Are you in earnest? Are you insane? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  “Not at all. I just don’t really believe that all those medals, and charms, and amulets, and so forth actually do any good. Washing, now—that really helps. I don’t know why, but it does.”

  “You are a reckless and sadly misguided person. Another few days and you’ll find yourself dead and Wandering, see if you don’t. In the meantime, I don’t want to stand anywhere near you. With an attitude like yours, you’re probably radiating morbid humors.” Turning pointedly from her, he marched away.

  Jianna’s frown shifted from his back to her provisions. Was he right? Not about the Troxius medal, that was nonsense, but the food? Perhaps she should proceed with caution. Drawing forth the tiny bodkin that served a variety of purposes ranging from self-defense to cleaning fingernails, she pared the apples, sliced a thin outer film from the cheese, and continued the interrupted meal. But now she could not help but wonder. She had removed the possibly contaminated outer layers, but what if the tree whose fruit she now ate had sunk its roots into soil rich and rotten with the buried bodies of plague victims? What if the cheese came from goats fed and milked by diseased hands? Nothing in the world was altogether trustworthy. If she let herself think about it, she would soon find herself unable to eat anything at all.

  More time, indescribably slow and weary. The empty hours limped by like cripples. When Jianna grew tired of standing, she sat down on the ground, heedless of the filth and ash of the Clean Zone. When she could no longer bear standing or sitting, she walked about a little, then returned to her place at the fence. Thrice more, servants or messengers emerging from the Cityheart were waylaid and questioned, but there was nothing to be had from them.

  And then it was past midafternoon, too late in the day for a new trial to begin, too late even for a travesty of a trial to begin. The idlers at the fence gradually dispersed. Jianna was the last to depart. Torn between disappointment and relief, she returned to The Bellflower.

  She was back in the Clean Zone the next morning, and her second day of waiting repeated the first. The same endless hours, the same collection of idlers and stragglers barren of knowledge, the same tedium, the same suspense.

  It would start very soon. They all said so.

  It did not start that day.

  The third morning, shortly before noon, a masked nonentity emerged from the Cityheart to inform the faithful at the fence that the trial of the Rione siblings had commenced. Instantly the atmosphere was charged. The nonentity—personal lackey to one of the three judges presiding over the Taerleezi tribunal—was surrounded, besieged, and hammered with pleas for news reports. Evidently flattered by the attention, the young man—the voice emanating from the mask sounded young—promised to oblige, and kept his word.

  Repeatedly throughout the ensuing hours he returned to relate events of the trial. The two defendants, he reported early on, appeared healthy and adequately nourished. Evidently neither had suffered physical abuse; at least, nothing to speak of. The doctor fellow, Falaste Rione, was bruised a bit about the face, but that was trifling. His sister was unmarked, respectably attired, and quite handsome, for a murderess.

  Bruised about the face?

  Not long thereafter, he returned to announce that the public prosecutor was now presenting his case, and doing so magn
ificently, with thundering grand oration and splendid, majestic attitudes. Anyone hearing him speak was certain to perceive the accused as a pair of the lowest, filthiest, vilest criminals ever to pollute the suffering world. No defense attorney in the world stood much of a chance against such a prosecutor, in the reporter’s opinion. But that question was academic, for the Faerlonnish Riones, unlike Taerleezi nationals, were not entitled to legal representation. They would eventually be given the chance to speak up for themselves, if they could think of anything to say.

  Then came the prosecutor’s heartrending description of the martyred governor’s manifest virtues—his integrity, industry, and high courage, his unswerving sense of duty, his generosity, tender heart, and general benevolence. Truly, his murder had robbed the world of a noble ornament.

  The response of the largely Faerlonnish audience to this interpretation was tepid.

  A couple of hours later came the news that various witnesses to the crime’s immediate aftermath had been testifying, with a particularly thrilling account offered by the servant who had actually confronted the bloodstained murderess above the body of the slain governor, survived her knife-wielding attack upon himself, and succeeded in wounding her prior to her flight from the Cityheart. Likewise gripping proved the testimony of the guards who had pursued the killer through the streets of Vitrisi, finally overtaking her at the Lancet Inn.

  Celisse Rione and her brother had surrendered without a struggle—the two of them paralyzed with despair, overwhelmed by the might and fearful grandeur of the Law, opined the prosecutor. Thus they had survived to stand trial, and to pay their debt to the society they had so grievously wronged.

  The afternoon was well advanced before the lackey reappeared to inform his listeners that the testimony seemed to be drawing to a close, and that the two defendants had been granted the privilege of speaking in their own defense. Both had availed themselves of the opportunity.

  Jianna, sunk in a daze of misery throughout the last two hours or more, was suddenly alert again, for this was the news she had been waiting for. Finally Falaste was to be given his chance and, being Falaste, he would make good use of it. He would speak, and he would persuade them of his innocence. For who could look into his clear, grave eyes, and listen to the music of his wonderful voice, and fail to believe?

  They had done surprisingly well, the lackey reported, all things considered. It had been ladies first, of course. That was only manners, and besides, everybody was most interested in hearing what the actual killer had to say for herself. And she had not disappointed.

  Listening to Celisse Rione in that courtroom was sort of like watching fireworks on a very cold night. She’d had plenty to say, and it was all completely incendiary, but delivered in the coolest, calmest, most deliberate-sounding tone imaginable. First off, she’d confessed freely to the killing of Governor Uffrigo, but she refused to regard it as a murder. “Execution,” she had called it. Anzi Uffrigo had been executed for his crimes against the nation of Faerlonne and the city of Vitrisi. She harbored no personal animosity. The governor was a stranger whom she had never met prior to their confrontation in the “Palace Avorno,” as she insisted on calling the Cityheart. She had acted in defense of her country, she had done her duty as any decent Faerlonnishwoman would. She did not repent her actions or wish them undone, nor did she begrudge the price she knew she must pay.

  Only one thing would she desire to change—her brother’s wrongful involvement in this affair. She had acted on her own, with assistance from nobody other than a pair of rogue Sishmindris. Falaste Rione had not been party to the plan, he had known nothing of it. He had simply performed his function as a physician and bandaged his sister’s wound, nothing more. For that he deserved neither blame nor punishment. She herself, on the other hand, gladly embraced punishment. She would die quite content in the knowledge that she had made herself useful.

  Yes, it had been quite a speech. She had held her audience spellbound while she spoke, and at the end of it there wasn’t a single listener who didn’t recognize the young woman as a dangerous criminal, and probably not one who didn’t entertain an odd sort of respect for her.

  After that it had seemed almost anticlimactic to allow the brother his say, but Falaste Rione had surprised them all by holding collective attention almost as effectively as his sister. His style was very different, of course.

  Very, thought Jianna.

  Celisse spoke as if delivering messages penned by some higher power. With Falaste Rione, it seemed more as if he were a friend sitting at your fireside, talking just to you. There was something about him that came across as decent and honorable, and it was easy to believe him.

  That’s it exactly.

  His statement had been brief and, unlike Celisse, he had maintained his complete innocence. He had not been in any way involved in the governor’s assassination. From the day of his arrival in Vitrisi he had actively sought his sister, but he’d not seen or spoken to her prior to the afternoon of the murder, at which time he had offered her medical treatment. He very much respected his sister’s Faerlonnish patriotism, her courage and resolve, but he did not condone her methods, and he had never been party to her plan.

  Just about what Celisse herself had said. It would be easy to believe and tempting to exonerate the attractive young physician. Almost a pity that it couldn’t happen.

  You don’t know that. You can’t know that!

  Under Taerleezi law, the Faerlonnish defendant’s offer of help to the fugitive murderess established him as an accessory to her crime. His claim of innocent ignorance, even if true, changed nothing. The prosecutor had been quick to point this out, lest it be forgotten.

  And now all testimony and oratory were done. It was time for the judges to rule. Deeming their task difficult, Jianna expected lengthy deliberation. She was unprepared for the promptness with which the lackey returned to announce the conviction and condemnation of both defendants. Celisse Rione and her brother Falaste were to die by simple torsion. No additional tortures had been decreed.

  A murmur of confirmed expectation arose about her, but Jianna did not hear it. For a time she heard and saw nothing, although she remained upright, open-eyed, and more or less conscious. A curious numbness seemed to have dulled all thought and feeling. She had a vague sense that this natural anesthesia would prove temporary in nature, and should be prolonged to its uttermost limit.

  Eventually she became aware that she was standing alone, fists clenched on the iron bars of the fence surrounding the Cityheart. The loiterers had gone, their curiosity satisfied for the moment. The light was failing; evening was drawing on.

  Her feet carried her back to The Bellflower, apparently without instructions from her mind. They carried her up the stairs, along the hall, and through the door into her own room; her expensive private room. It was a worthwhile expense. A place to herself, a solitary refuge right now, was worth any amount of money.

  There was a bed in front of her. She went to it, kicked off her shoes, crawled in, and drew the covers up over her head. For an indeterminate period of time she lay there, eyes shut, neither asleep nor truly awake.

  Pleth Chenno, on duty at Belandor House’s front gate throughout the morning, did not immediately notice the stranger. Time passed, however, and eventually he became aware that the large figure hulking on the far side of Summit Street seemed disinclined to depart, whereupon he took a closer look.

  It was not possible to see much through the smoky mists. The stranger was tall, broad, and ragged. A wide-brimmed hat shadowed his face and hid his hair. He wore no mask. Somehow he did not give the impression of advanced age, but he leaned for support on a staff.

  Chenno did not like the look of him, but so long as the stranger maintained a properly respectful distance, there was no cause for concern.

  The stranger, however, appeared blind to the dictates of propriety. Presently he crossed the street. As he approached, Chenno got a better look, and his initial sense of uneasiness
sharpened to revulsion. Of all the pedestrians roaming the city, this one above all should have made use of a mask. The face visible beneath the hat brim was a ghastly ruin—broken and destroyed, the right eye gone, its empty socket surrounded by swollen, livid flesh. Chenno resisted the impulse to back away.

  Closer yet, and Chenno found himself staring into a single eye the color of slush laced with blood. The eye was inanimate, and he could barely bring himself to meet its lifeless regard. Clearly, however, this was no Wanderer.

  It would not do to appear timid. His grip tightened on his halberd, and he commanded harshly, “Clear off, you.”

  There was no sign that the other understood. The dead eye never blinked. Its owner was a madman or an idiot. A couple of blows should send him limping on his way.

  Before the strokes had been dealt, however, the mouth in the ruined face worked hard, and a couple of words fought their way free.

  “Belandor House.”

  “No beggars allowed here.”

  “Belandor House.”

  “Looking for a drubbing, you crack-brained gargoyle?”

  “Girl.”

  “What?”

  “Girl. Mine.”

  “Yours, eh? She must be a real beauty. But you won’t find her here.”

  “Jianna Belandor. Mine.”

  The name of a Belandor lady upon the lips of this gutter wreck—it was insupportable. Chenno was outraged on behalf of his employer.

  The abrupt disappearance of his niece days earlier had thrown Master Nalio Belandor into fits of quivering wrath. He had harangued the household staff at passionate length, refused nourishment for the space of an entire day, shut himself in his chamber for hours, and finally emerged to stalk the north wing corridors, muttering to himself. The servants privileged to overhear brief snatches of his monologue had caught the words “Magnifico Tribari,” repeated in tones of scandalized grief. At last, Master Nalio had recovered himself so far as to forbid the name of the runaway to be spoken aloud in his presence.