From a young adult novel
by Vance BricelandThe balcony atop her family’s residence was one of Risa’s favorite places in all the caza, especially at this time of day. In the distance, over the Bridge of Lena, the sun caressed the horizon with its bottommost edge. A colored glow rippled across the city’s criss-crossed network of canals. Water and light both streamed toward where she balanced on the wide stone rail. It was almost as if the setting sun was reaching long fingers in her direction. She had often before seen that same deep red intensity in molten glass, plucked from the heart of a furnace.
As twilight gathered, the balcony’s limestone rail felt warm and comfortable where she sat. Just below her perch stretched the upper branches of a gnarled old olive tree. If she dangled her feet, she could tickle her soles with its leaves. Far below, its roots twisted among the rocks of the slope dropping down to the canal. A gondolier sang a slow, sweet tune as he punted by. Beyond the lone figure lay the piazza and its cream-colored buildings.
Where he stood beside her, leaning on the rail, Risa’s father caught the gondolier’s tune and hummed it to himself while he watched the city. Her mother, deep in concentration, sat nearby on a bench erected upon the red and black tiles. Giulia Divetri always seemed to be smiling. Her long, dark hair, tamed by a silk cord woven throughout and around its length, fell like rope over her shoulder and down the front of her embroidered gown. In her hands she held her sketching board and a length of red chalk. Her fingers busily danced across the paper.
“Buonochio blood,” said her father, nodding at her mother’s drawing. From across the balcony he gave Risa a private wink. “Fiery and artistic!”
“You married me for that blood, Ero,” replied her mother, amused. She continued her sketching, capturing an image she later would render in one of her famed windows. “Would that I had more of it. See—I never capture the palace dome quite right.” She held out the board. Perfectly placed lines outlined the rounded roof over the palace’s throne room. A few more caught the two moons hovering above it, nestled in two similar constellations.
“You have enough talent and fire for the both of us, love,” he murmured. “I recognized it the first day I saw you—when you leaned from that window and called to catch my attention!”
“I felt bold.”
“You were enchanting, my dear.”
“I knew a good man when I saw one.” Her mother’s lips curved in recollection as she returned to her drawing. “Even if he did just happen to be a stranger passing on the street.” The familiar story made Risa smile, happy to hear it once more. Evenings on the balcony always made her feel a part of something larger than herself. They always concluded the day here, as a family. It made her feel secure to belong among them.
A chill traveled up her spine as a horn’s plaintive peal cut through the air. Some nights, Risa swore she could see the King’s hornsman atop the palace dome. Her father said she imagined things. Though the throne room dome was Cassaforte’s highest point, the palace was simply too far away for her to spy such details. “Risa?” Her father extended his hand.
Her face lit up at the invitation, though she had known it was coming. Risa slipped down from the rail and joined her father at the pole. The dry heat of the tiles that seared her bare feet seemed to warm her heart as well. She loved this moment of the day more than any other.
Ero loosened the ties holding the banner aloft. After handing her the taut ropes, they together lowered the rippling streamer to the ground, keeping pace in the nightly rite with Caza Portello to the east and Caza Catarre to the west. Once they were in her hands, Risa folded the rich purple and brown silks of Pasecollina into their box. With respect, she slid the banner into its space beneath the pedestal, atop which lay the Divetri horn.
It was her final night, she thought to herself with excitement—the last time she would help her father with the rite of fealty. Where there could have been sadness, she felt only joy. It frolicked inside her like one of the sacred deer in the royal forest, making her want to leap to her feet and sing out her joy. Tomorrow evening she would have a new home.
She would no longer be merely Ero and Giulia’s child once she was declared a daughter of the moons. She would not be a child at all. Finally she would be accepted at one of the insulas, where she would learn things. Important things. She would be living her life, like her older brother and sisters, instead of merely waiting for it to begin.
Scarcely had she climbed to her feet when a blow from behind sent her reeling. She staggered into her father, dimly aware of the giggles echoing from across the courtyard. “Petro!” shrieked Risa at the top of her voice. “Maniac!” Wild and sudden excitement propelled her back to her feet. With a scream of laughter she took off and bounded after her younger brother in crazy circles around the courtyard. She had this one final night to play with her brother as children, she reminded herself. It might be her last chance. “I’ll strip you bare and throw you to the canal buzzards and let them shred you to the bones!” Her brother yelped in mock terror.
Giulia laughed. “She takes after you. A Divetri with a mission is fearful to behold.”
With a wink at his wife, Ero proclaimed, “And thus our little lady transforms back into the lionkit we know and love so well.”
Hearing the comment, Risa only laughed. Her father had called her a lionkit so often that she wore the title as a badge of pride. People often commented on the similarities between Ero and his daughter. Like his, her long chestnut hair seemed almost copper-colored in the sunlight. While Giulia communicated anger with flashing eyes and a dangerous tone of voice, both father and daughter shouted their passions to the skies. “Come back here, slimy wart!” she yelled after Petro.
“Never!” he caroled with defiance.
Around the balcony courtyard they chased each other. Petro dove headlong into Mattio, the chief craftsman of Ero’s workshop, just as the man emerged into the cool evening air. “By Muro’s foal!” the man exclaimed, laughing in surprise.
“Sorry,” huffed Risa as she dodged around the large-framed foreman to snatch at her brother. He dashed behind the skirts of the residence’s housekeeper, Fita, but she was too busy to notice, while she quietly scolded one of the maids for wearing a dirty apron to the rite.
“Ah-ah-ah. Gently, gently,” chided the middle-aged man behind Mattio. His nose was crooked from an old break. “This is a solemn part of the day.” Cousin Fredo’s expression was, as ever, pious and weary of their behavior.
“Indeed it is,” agreed the housekeeper, agreeing with their cousin. She turned to the red-faced servant. “Go change into something clean immediately.”
“Sorry, cousin,” called Petro, slowing down. “I’m sorry, Fita.”
“A-ha!” Risa cried in triumph. She seized him by the collar. Petro’s yap of protest was caught short as she dragged him back. “I’ve got you now, bloody scab on a beggar’s behind!”
“Cazarrina,” said cousin Fredo, addressing her by her formal title with deep dismay. “Cazarrino! Please. My nerves. . . .”
“My dears,” said Giulia from her bench. “It is nearly time. Grant your cousin’s nerves a small period of rest. You may yell yourselves hoarse later.”
The brother and sister exchanged glances. Cousin Fredo’s nerves were his favorite topic of conversation. Smothering their amusement, they turned their gazes to the ground in an attempt to appear solemn. “We’re sorry, cousin,” they intoned. Fredo nodded stiffly and straightened his broad collar as they darted past him to the far end of the balcony.
“You’ve got something in your hand,” said Risa, still giggling at Fredo’s pomposity. “Give it to me.”
“It’s private,” said Petro in a taunting voice. “A private letter for you . . . from you know who.”
“Who?”
“You know,” said Petro. With meaning he looked over at the craftsmen gathering near the doorway. She followed the direction of his glance. Emil, youngest of the men in her father’s workshop, stood behind Mattio and Fredo, his nose deep in a book. “He loooooves you. He wants to pay court to you.”
Risa stiffened, torn between screaming with horror and laughing outright. Emil was fine enough as the craftsmen went, but the loves of his life were sewn into folios and bound with leather. “He does not!” she hissed.
“Pardon me.” Petro pitched his voice up a half octave and pretended to toss imaginary hair over his shoulder. “I am Risa Divetri, Cazarrina. When I marry, my husband must be a man of the Thirty and Seven.”
“I am not like that!” With a deft snatch, Risa seized the folded paper clutched in her younger brother’s palm. “Hah!” she exulted, unfolding it. Though her brother had attempted to disguise his handwriting with the fancy italics of his elders, his authorship was painfully obvious from the blots and bits of quill feather stuck to the ink.
Dearest—
When I think of you I could
die, so deep are my feelings for you.
I love your eyes, the arc
of your brow, the quick
smile that comes to your lips when
I walk into the room. You are so
beautiful—a near goddess!
Marry me, please, please, please!
—You know who
Risa let her eyes run over the letter. To anyone other than herself or her brother, the message might seem innocuous enough, but with Petro, she knew better. She scanned the note quickly for its buried message. With a squawk of outrage and no courtesy for cousin Fredo’s nerves whatsoever, she yelled, “Duck nose?”
Petro was giddy with glee. Before Risa could strangle him again, he dashed off in the direction of his parents, gaining enough of a head start to turn a triumphant cartwheel.
“Someone is going to have a broken nose!” shouted Risa. She was not really angry at all, of course. She just enjoyed the noise of the roar as it flew from her lungs. Admittedly, there was also a particular joy at the sight of Fredo instantly clasping his hands over his ears.
“Gently, gently,” he pleaded as she passed. “My nerves. . . . Cazarra, please.” he added, appealing to Giulia.
“Risa, what is this silliness?” said her mother as she approached. She held out her hand for the crumpled paper, then smoothed it out on her drawing board while restraining Risa’s arm. “Your cousin is a sensitive man. . . .”
Privately Risa knew her mother no more believed in Fredo’s nerves than did anyone else in the caza. Giulia was always polite to her husband’s cousin, however, even in the most trying of circumstances. “That brat you call your son called me a duck nose,” she said, pointing to the letter.
“The note seems quite complimentary, though the handwriting could stand improvement,” said Giulia. “Where does it call you a duck nose?”
Risa ran her finger along the right side of the paper, pointing at each of the last letters on each line.
d u c k n o s e
“It’s our secret code,” she said. “See?.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow. Risa could tell she was trying not to laugh and give Fredo reason to complain. Though he could not overhear them at this distance, he studied them closely. “Very clever,” said Giulia at last. “Quite ingenious. As a courtesy to your father’s cousin and his . . . nerves, however, if you could restrain from murdering your brother until after the rite, I would take it as a personal favor.” She folded the note and slipped it under her drawing, where neither of her children might be tempted to filch it.
Once more a horn’s rich cry resonated from the palace. It seemed to shimmer through the air as it drowned out Cassaforte’s evening noises. The clop-clop of donkey hooves on the pavements, the cries of the gondoliers on the canals, and the friendly babble of the crowds all seemed to cease at its musical tone. Risa’s playfulness halted as well. The rite of fealty had been set into motion; it was time once more to think of herself as a sober young citizen, and not a child.
Each of the cazas belonging to Cassaforte’s seven great families had been built upon islands around the city’s coast, Risa knew. The complex of bridges and canals that united them to the mainland, however, made it difficult to tell where the seven cazas began and the city left off. The cazas were separate from Cassaforte, yet of it, all at once.
From the farthest caza east, well beyond sight, came the silvery answering cry from the oldest family of the Seven. “Sweet Cassamaggi,” breathed Risa, enchanted by the sound, as she was every night. Instinctively she reached for her younger brother’s hand. It was their last night in Caza Divetri. If it was the two gods’ will to separate her from Petro on the morrow, it might be the last evening they spent together for years to come.
Caza Portello, just east of their own island, was the second oldest in all of Cassaforte. As the call of Cassamaggi’s horn swept across the darkening sky, Portello’s red and white silks climbed the flagpole. Just as Cassamaggi was known for its research into the discipline of enchantments, Portello was known far and wide as a family of architects. The walls of its caza rose high and proud. Its enchantment-strengthened bridges and spires rivaled the palace in grace and delicacy. When the Portello colors reached the top of their pole, the answering cry from its tenor horn poured from the caza’s heights.
The sound quieted Risa while Ero began pulling the rope that would take Divetri’s blue and green banner into the skies. He grinned, as he always did, to see the family’s colors flying against the deepening twilight and to hear the silks snapping crisply in the sea breezes. With two strides of his muscular legs, he crossed to the pedestal. He removed its large domed lid, green-blue with patina, and placed it on the ground. A brass horn lay atop the purple cushion within. Its length was wrapped three times into a coil.
One of Ero’s hands clutched the horn’s flared bell and pointed it up to the heavens. He faced in the direction of King Alessandro’s palace. Risa watched with admiration as he took in a massive breath. Chest enlarged and feet braced, he blew into the Divetri horn.
Though she had heard the same velvet peal every evening of her life, its beauty and force always astonished her. As the single note grew in volume, it seemed to cast out a cord, invisible yet sparkling, that tied together the inhabitants of the caza. Around them all it tightened, then flew out in the direction of the palace itself, over the city and its buildings. To Risa it was almost a tangible sensation, that cord. She wondered for the first time if anyone else ever felt it. The others, however, seemed merely attentive. Not enchanted. Why was it so vivid for her?
The velvety sound faded, though they all remained still for another moment. The ancient rite of fealty had been completed. For another night, as it had for centuries, Caza Divetri would stand.
Soon would sound the horns from Buonochio and Catarre, artists and bookmakers, then Piratimare and Dioro, shipmakers and crafters of weapons. Seven cazas, through their nightly rite united by the country’s most sacred relics—the Olive Crown and Scepter of Thorn.
As the moment faded, everyone perceptibly relaxed. The craftsmen began to file out. The last to leave, of course, was cousin Fredo, who lingered over his prayers to the god Muro and his sister, the goddess Lena. Neither of the two moons adorning the night sky seemed to notice his muttered entreaties. When the family was alone once more, Giulia ran her hand through her son’s hair. “My youngest have grown up too swiftly,” she sighed. Risa inwardly disagreed with her mother. She was not being allowed to grow up quickly enough.
“I’m not grown up,” Petro asserted. “I’m only nine. Next year, though!”
Ero laughed. “You’re old enough, my boy. Old enough. Did you enjoy your last evening? Yes?”
“Papa.” Petro sounded suddenly frightened. He was still young, thought Risa. Perhaps he was only now realizing that on the morrow he would be taken from the caza to live with the Penitents or the Children, depending upon whose blessing he received. “What would happen if you fell ill after tomorrow? Who would blow our horn at sunset?”
From behind, Risa pounced on him and tickled him lightly. The solemnity of the rite had faded, and she once more felt playful. “No one!” she growled. “No one would blow the horn or raise the banners, and then demons would devour the caza and it would no longer be ours!” Petro shrilled out at the attack.
While she and her brother still laughed, her father shook his head. His chestnut-colored curls glinted in the dancing light of the raised brazier. All night its flames would illuminate the family’s banner. “That won’t happen. Petro, you know very well that your brother, Romeldo, would come from the insula to take over my duties until I felt better. Remember how I had the sun sickness once when you were younger? He came then.”
“What if Romeldo was sick?”
“Are you worried that we’ll fall to pieces when you leave, tomorrow?” Petro hesitated, then nodded. “We’ll be fine, my boy! When you are big enough,” said Ero affectionately, kneeling down and grabbing his son’s nose with his fingers, “you may perform the rite and keep us all safe in our caza.”
“I’m older than Petro!” Risa protested, not for the first time. “I could perform the rite!”
Without even looking at her, Ero commented, “The protection of a caza is not the responsibility of women.”
“Now, Ero,” said Giulia, her gentle voice a contrast to his stubborn tones. It was an old argument between them. “You well know my good kinswoman Dana raises the flags as cazarra of Buonochio. Buonochio’s cazarra has always done so, since the house’s founding. In the past, Cassamaggi. . . .”
Ero raised a hand. “In Caza Divetri, the rite of fealty is the cazarro’s responsibility. It has always been so, and will always be.” He stood to his feet and winked once more at his daughter. “Women are good for other things, eh? Bewitching men’s hearts, primarily. You’ll learn.”
He grinned broadly at his wife, who shook her head while returning the smile. “By Lena, you are an old-fashioned bull,” was her only comment. Still talking, they moved toward the door that led down into the residence.
Risa stood staring after them, defiance dancing in her heart. “I am good for many more things than bewitching men’s hearts,” she said, voicing the opinion she dared not utter in front of her father. “After tomorrow I’ll prove it.”
“I don’t think you could bewitch a toad, with your duck nose!” Petro cried gleefully. Before she could catch him, he dashed away after his parents, laughing at the top of his lungs.
— —
“Who do you think will grant you their blessing, the Children, or the Penitents?” Petro asked. They were lying on the matted floor of Risa’s own chambers, staring out at the night sky.
“It’s the god or the goddess who grants the blessing during the Scrutiny, silly,” she said automatically. His question had been on her own mind for some days now. Who would choose her?
“Mamma and Papa were trained by the goddess’s Penitents,” Petro reasoned. “So won’t we be blessed by them too?”
“Romeldo and Vesta are just as much their children as we, and they were both chosen by the god,” Risa pointed out. Her older brother and the younger of her two older sisters had been highly studious, one of the defining traits of those chosen to study with the Children of Muro. Their oldest sister Mira, however, had followed in their parents’ footsteps by being selected to join the insula of the Penitents of Lena, where she was now a master glass maker in its workshops. Many of the bright new colors of sheet glass the caza had been using in its work were Mira’s artistic innovations.
From a plate of snacks between them, Petro plucked a flat cracker spread with fresh honey. “I’m going to miss Fita’s cooking.”
“I’m going to miss Mamma and Papa.”
“I’m going to miss my room.”
“I’m going to miss my studio,” said Risa, thinking of her workroom next to her father’s workshop, far away from the furnaces and hot glass workers. “At the insula I’ll never have a private workspace until I’m a master craftsman.”
“You’re going to miss Emil,” Petro teased, licking honey from his fingers and reaching for another of Fita’s crackers.
“I am not.” Risa kicked her heels up into the air. “I think you’ll be chosen by the Penitents,” she said at last, popping a nut-stuffed fig into her mouth. “Don’t you?”
There was a long pause before Petro spoke again. “If I am, I hope you are too.”
“Oh Petro.” Risa felt a sudden rush of affection for her little brother. He was only nine. Though they often played and teased as equals, at times she knew that the five years between them made her very nearly an adult in his eyes. “I hope so too. Just remember you have family at both insulas. Romeldo and Vesta and Mira love you too.”
“But I hardly know them,” Petro said in a very small voice. “They were gone before I was born. You’ve always been here.” He reached for the plate.
“That’s enough honey for you,” she told him, taking it away. “You’ll never sleep.”
“I think you’ll be chosen by the Penitents, too. You’re artistic.” He gestured to the cabinet in which Risa kept the finest of her own works. The cabinet once had displayed the mosaics at which Divetri children began their training in the glass arts, but of late they had been replaced by a number of beautiful round bowls Risa had created in the Divetri furnaces. They were not blown from hot glass, like the objects created in her father’s workshops. Nor were they pieced together bit by bit and held with cement or channeled lead, like the mosaics and windows for which her mother was famed. They were, in fact, altogether different from anything else the Divetri family had produced throughout the centuries.
Some had geometric shapes in simple and colorful patterns; others were more complex renderings of glass cut into floral shapes and pieced together before being melted and fused in the furnaces. They were uniquely her own, and Risa was proud of it. She smiled at her brother. “Do you really think so?” When he nodded, she hugged him tightly.
“All you need to do is learn the container enchantments and you’ll be a junior craftsman. I’ve got a lot more to learn than you,” he said.
“I want to learn a lot more than container enchantments,” she said, feeling the excitement build up in her once more. “More than protection enchantments, too.”
“But those are the enchantments the insulas teach glassworkers.” Petro stretched his mouth wide in a yawn. “Bowls and goblets have container enchantments. Windows have protection enchantments. Even I know that.”
Because the natural purpose of a window was to protect people from the elements, Giulia’s creations of lead and glass were reinforced with insula-learned enchantments to protect them from outside harm. No Divetri window of stained glass had ever been broken or broached since their creation, not even by a projectile or hammer. “Yes, you’re right,” Risa told him. “It’s just so boring! I can’t believe objects can hold only one kind of enchantment, that’s all.”
“Enchantments only work on an object’s primary purpose. That’s what Papa says.”
Frustrated slightly at not being able to explain what she meant, Risa struggled for words. “Catarre’s books are enchanted to aid learning, which is a book’s natural function, but if I used it for, oh, I don’t know. . . .”
“If you hit me over the head with it, it would be a weapon and you could put an attack enchantment on it,” said Petro.
“You are so very silly!” She tickled him until he screeched with laughter.
They lay there side by side on the floor until their quickened breath subsided. “Risa?” Petro’s voice was small and quiet. “I’m scared.”
“I hope we are chosen together by the Penitents. If we are, I’ll watch over you, I promise,” she whispered in his ear. She was rewarded by his tight and sticky embrace. “Now. Off to bed. Lena will never bless us if you’re snoring on your feet!” Together they rose from the matting and wiped cracker crumbs from their clothing.
“It’s the last night we’ll be sleeping here,” Petro said, just before he left the room.
Risa already knew that. Though she loved the caza and all the people within its walls, she was anxious to begin her new, important life. Once more she had to quell the excitement that built inside her at the very thought. With hands she had to force to stop shaking, she opened the balcony doors. The scent of night lilies, blooming on the opposite bank of the western canal, filled her lungs. As she twisted the key that extinguished the wall lantern, she caught a glimpse of herself reflected in one of her bowls. It was the last night she would see herself wearing her own comfortable clothes—a child’s clothes. Tomorrow night she would be wearing the robes of an insula initiate.
After tomorrow, she thought with a glow, everything would be very different.
— —
Blue and green banners flew from every window of Caza Divetri the next day. Leaning over her balcony rail early in the morning, Risa watched as servants decorated the tops of the canal walls with bunting. Gaily arrayed were the servant docks immediately below, where bobbed a dozen gondolas. The day even smelled festive. From the kitchens below wafted so many fragrances that it was difficult for her to identify one before it was replaced by another. Duck. Roast pork. Lamb and roast apples. Crushed olives. A fruit tart. Baked custards. A hundred delicacies for the feast to be served after the Scrutiny.
If she leaned out and peered around the corner, Risa could see her family’s two bridges spanning the canal waters. The higher one was the grander approach to the Divetri caza; it stretched from the piazza to the gracious formal courtyard used to receive illustrious visitors. The lower bridge was usually crossed by merchants and craftsmen, for it traveled more directly to the stable yard. Accumulating crowds were already on the sides of both bridges. The people of Cassaforte wore their brightest colors to honor the alignment of the moons. Bell-arrayed vendors marched along the bridges and canal walls selling pomegranates and sugared apples, or comic broadsides printed with songs and poems.
Everywhere Risa looked, no matter how far, the city had donned its finest for the festival of the two moons. Caza Catarre flew both the red and green family colors, as well as the purple and brown banners of the country of Pasecollina. From the windows of the less wealthy homes and tiny shops that lined the canals and streets flew colorful streamers and paper flags. The Sorrendi family had gone to elaborate extremes for the occasion, arranging enormous displays of summer flora in boxes hanging from each window. The Sorrendi were of the Thirty—the most elite families in all of Cassaforte save for the Seven of the Cazas—and thus were allowed to display a crest above their door. Even now, Sorrendi servants hung from an upper-story window to polish the impressive brass crest. When the mid-day sun streamed into the plaza, it would shine proudly.
It was finally the day. By night, she would have a new home in the insula of one of the orders. She had been too young for the Scrutiny six years ago, during the last alignment of the two moons with two constellations that periodically captured them as if they were arranged for that very purpose. Every child of the Seven and Thirty was either chosen by the moon goddess Lena or her brother, the moon god Muro, for their insulas. Only those between the ages of nine and fourteen went through the ritual of Scrutiny every six years. Her waiting was near an end, now.
A servant squawked and pressed herself against the wall when Risa dashed down the stairs into the pillared room where the family ate its breakfast. Her feet slapped over the cool tiles of black and white marble. “It’s the day!” she sang at the top of her lungs. The wild animal inside burst free of confinement, and she leapt with joy alongside it. “It’s finally the day!” she cried.
Her mother, who was laughing as she used a tiny spoon to put her grape pits on a flat glass plate, held out an arm. “Restrain yourself, my love. We have company.”
Whirling, Risa found herself facing a large, handsome stranger wearing a silvery helmet. He grinned at her. “Romeldo!” she yelled, as the man’s features resolved into familiarity.
“By Muro, it’s Risa,” her elder brother exclaimed. “Bare feet and all.”
With sudden self-consciousness, Risa looked down at her uncovered feet and legs. Romeldo was family, however, though she had not seen him in several months. He was only joking with her. She launched herself at him with a mighty hug, knocking her brow against his ceremonial headdress. “What are you doing here?”
Romeldo had been chosen by the moon god twelve years before, when he was thirteen. Risa had been only two when he left. She scarcely remembered a time when her brother had not worn the elaborate yellow robes of Muro’s Children. “Why, I’m to scrutinize my brother. And you as well, you imp,” he said. “It would have been a neat trick if Mira could have been the scrutineer for the Penitents this festival. Is she coming?”
“She will be here, but not to scrutinize.” Ero bit into his toasted bread. “One of the Settecordi family will be performing the Scrutiny.”
“Renaldo Settecordi?”
Ero snapped his fingers. “The very one. From the Settecordi family of the upper Thirty.”
“Are you still here?” Romeldo quizzed Risa. “Why aren’t you busy dressing in your festival finery, Lady Barefoot Nightgown?”
Risa laughed at her new title. “But I’ve barely seen you!”
“You’ll see plenty of me at the feast. And don’t you dare make me laugh during the ceremony, young miss!” Romeldo said, winking at her. He reminded Risa of Ero in so many ways, from the red-brown curls covering his head to the broad shoulders and the confident nature. “What news is there of the King?” he asked his mother.
“I’m fashioning a new window for one of his chambers,” she said, sweeping her long dark hair back over her shoulder “But though I’ve been given the dimensions, I’ve not been allowed in the room.”
“No one has seen the King for over a year,” Ero commented. “Alessandro sees only his son.”
“He has ailed for too long! Can no physicians heal him?”
“Not if he refuses to see them,” said Giulia.
“The Olive Crown has granted him a long and prosperous life,” said Ero. “It may be that he simply is ready to step into Muro’s chariot and join his forefathers on the plains of the ascended. Child,” he added to Risa, “run along, lest someone suspect you of trying to sway the opinion of our scrutineer.”
“Only cousin Fredo would suspect that,” said Risa, not bothering to hide her scorn.
Her father’s smile faded. “Our cousin is a good man. True, my uncle’s ill-chosen marriage caused Fredo to be born outside the Seven and Thirty. He is still a competent craftsman and a Divetri, and as such demands your respect.”
Her mother looked at the fruits upon her plate. Romeldo averted his eyes to gaze through the pillars at the fountain splashing quietly in the sunlight. With a certainty she dared not speak, Risa knew they did not share her father’s high opinion of nerve-wracked Fredo. Still, she lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Papa.”
A sigh escaped from Ero’s lips. “When you were born, I thought I would have my little girl forever,” he said, giving her an impulsive hug that squeezed the breath from her. “Today is the day I lose you, little lionkit. You’ll forget all about us once you’re gone, I warrant.”
All her excitement of the last week and all the anticipation for her new life could never erase the knowledge that she was leaving her parents. It was the greatest sacrifice she would have to make to begin her new life. “You’ll never lose me,” promised Risa with a whisper in his ear. Moisture began to wick at the corners of her eyes. “Not ever. I’ll make you proud, I swear. I’ll always be a Divetri.”
— —
Gondolas, flagged and flowered, congested the high-walled canals. Where Risa stood in the shaded garden room, she could see dancing on the water the decorated iron ferri that projected up from their sterns. By this hour there were so many people thronged in the courtyard that scores of servants and well-wishers were forced to observe from the water.
It was fortunate the garden room in which they were concealed was elevated a few steps above the courtyard. Risa and her brother would have been unable to see the ceremony otherwise. Between them and the courtyard’s center stood hundreds of elaborately coiffed women in their summer finery and men wearing brocade and velvet caps. Petro was already standing on tiptoe, and would have climbed upon a chair to see over the heads had Risa not restrained him. Though none of the crowd knew they were in the screened outdoor room, she did not wish to run the risk of anyone inadvertently spotting them before the appropriate moment in the ceremony.
“Your tunic is undone,” she said, kneeling down to fix it.
“It isn’t. I hooked every other button!” Petro replied. “No one would notice the rest weren’t done.”
She finished fastening the rest of his buttons and smoothed down the plain black tunic. “I noticed,” she said. “You look very handsome, though.” Risa pulled back Petro’s curls from his face, where they spilled from under the black cap adorning his head. She was clad in black herself—in a gown, no less. Risa’s aversion to gowns was well known in the caza. She preferred to work and play in simple leggings and a loose over-tunic. Her hair was usually restrained only for hot glass work, when she kept it collected in a net-like reta that fit snugly over the back of her head.
Today her mane had been woven with ribbons and taped into a complex coil around the back of her neck. When she had caught sight of herself in a mirror, an hour before, she barely recognized herself. Even with the snubbed nose and slightly protruding upper lip she fancied made her look duck-like, when richly dressed and arrayed, she nearly looked like the subject of a Buonochio painting.
Petro’s attention, however, was fixed upon the two priests facing each other. Their arms were now raised to the sky, where the sun blazed at its highest point. “This is the day,” intoned Romeldo, “on which the chariot of Muro comes to rest in the Stable of Silver, before he again undertakes his journey of six years.” Romeldo had lowered the faceplate of his helmet for this portion of the ceremony. The face of Muro, the god of the larger of their two moons, smiled fixedly upon the crowd as Romeldo turned in a circle and shook his hands.
“This is the day on which the chariot of Lena comes to rest in the Stable of Gold,” repeated the Penitent, “before she again undertakes her journey of six years.” Like Romeldo, a helmet covered his head to the chin. Its faceplate had been molded in the familiar smiling face of the goddess of the smaller moon.
The crowd gasped as the two priests thrust their ceremonial staffs to the sky. With an immense bang that prompted Petro to cover his ears, sparkling fire shot from them and exploded over the crowd. Above the courtyard, visible despite the blinding mid-day sun, two spheres of golden fire hovered one above the other. Sparks formed constellations that surrounded each. Within an instant, the glittering sparkles disappeared, though their brightness still lingered on Risa’s eyes. Tiny particles of soot drifted onto the crowd. The shock of the sudden sound faded, but from across the city Risa still heard the retorts from other courtyards. It reminded her that in every household of the Seven and Thirty where lived a child between the ages of nine and fourteen, the Scrutiny was even now taking place. She and Petro would be meeting the chosen others that night, at the insulas.
Throughout the crowd, relieved laughter rippled for a moment. A smattering of applause sounded from the gondolas and echoed between the canal walls. Risa considered wiping her sweaty palms on her gown, but decided against it. Why in the names of both moons did ritual dictate she had to wear a black gown at noon on a warm summer’s day? It would be worse when they stepped into the sun.
“Who submits their children for the scrutiny of Lena?”
“Who submits their children for the scrutiny of Muro?” The two masked and helmeted figures turned in the direction of the family at the head of the courtyard, the hems of their long robes drifting around their feet.
“I—Ero, Cazarro of Divetri—ask that my children undergo the scrutiny of Muro. May he look into their hearts and choose them, should it be his will.” Risa’s heart raced as her father stood and spoke the words. Like the scrutineers, he wore a long and old-fashioned houppelande that stretched to his ankles. The turban of woven multicolored silks that enveloped his head made his beard look all the more stark against his face.
Equally beautiful was her mother as she stepped forward. Giulia’s hair, shining in the sun so that it looked like ebony captured by silk cords, cascaded down the back of her patterned green gown. Sleeves of royal blue, embroidered with metallic thread, accented the gold circlet around her brow, from the center of which hung a single opal. “I—Giulia, Cazarra of Divetri—ask that my children undergo the scrutiny of Lena. May she look into their hearts and choose them, should she so will.”
The two priests bowed first to her parents, and then to each other. Risa’s breath quickened as her mother and father returned to their seats. Behind them stood her other sisters. Vesta, wearing the robes of the Children, clasped her mother’s shoulder in excitement. Her oldest sister, Mira, stood to the side, smiling as serenely as the goddess in whose name she had been chosen. She could not see Romeldo’s face through his mask, but he too was present. Over the pounding of her heart, it struck Risa that they were together as a family—all the Divetris. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her siblings all at once.
In a cluster nearby were the chief craftsmen. Friendly Mattio, smiling as broadly as if she and Petro were his own children. Cousin Fredo, piously arrayed with religious medallions. Emil, still dressed in his work clothes and squinting at the crowds in a bewildered manner. All the craftsmen and servants were part of the extended Divetri family as well; she was glad they were there for the proudest moment of her life.
“Once every six years, when the chariots of the gods come to rest, we their representatives travel through the houses of the Seven and Thirty to bestow their promised blessings upon the children therein.” The Penitent’s voice, strong and clear, would have carried through the babble of any crowd. Before this silent assembly, it seemed to thunder. “By the light of day, they shall be scrutinized. Tonight, bathed in the light of the moons, they shall face the brothers of sisters of their insula and be received into their company.”
Romeldo’s voice, lighter yet equally as penetrating, could probably have been heard from one end of the upper bridge to the other. “Let the children come forth. Let them be seen and judged.” He removed his helmet and shook out his curls, while the Penitent did the same.
“Don’t be afraid.” Risa squeezed her brother’s hand tightly, aware that at that moment she had never been so frightened in her life.
When the priests strode toward the garden room doors, the crowd parted silently. Risa pulled back her brother a few steps just as they reached the doors, and pushed them open. The children stood there for a moment, framed in the entryway. Hundreds of eyes stared in their direction. Even as the priests strode back to the courtyard’s center, chanting, the crowd’s full attention lay upon them.
Risa suddenly panicked. What was she doing here? Why had she thought it would be exciting? Why did she want to leave home? She loved her parents. She loved the caza! Why did she have to leave?
Only Petro’s tug caused her feet to stumble into motion. She remembered herself. Though her jaw trembled with fear, she gathered the skirts of her gown with her free hand and walked through the doors.
The crowd’s smells assailed her nostrils. A hundred perfumes barely concealed heavy, rank odors of sweat and garlic. There was the musk of hair pomades, the sharpness of clove powder upon the breath. Brother and sister pushed through the cloud of aroma, taking step after step across the terracotta tiles until at last they were in the clear space at the courtyard’s center. Everyone smiled at them. Risa knew that no matter in which direction she turned, she would see face after smiling face for as far as the eye could see. She kept her eyes straight ahead until at last she and Petro reached the center of the courtyard.
The Penitent swept his arms with a dramatic gesture to keep the crowd at a distance. “Lena, luminous light of the heavens,” he cried, raising his arms upward but keeping his face low. “Through my prayer I beseech you to grant me sight, so that I might know your will for these children.” After a moment he raised his head and approached on slow-moving feet.
Suppressing a gasp, Risa noticed immediately the change in his eyes. A film covered his pupils, giving him the appearance of a blind man. Yet he moved with purpose and deliberation in their direction. The Penitent placed one hand atop the other and held them above Petro’s head. Her younger brother stared solemnly at the floor, his face a pasty white. Although she tried not to gawk, Risa glanced up at the priest. His lips moved in prayer for a few moments as he shut his eyelids. He fell silent.
It was as if he had heard an answer audible only to his hears. His eyes opened once more to look down upon her brother. They were no longer distant and alien, but very much unclouded and his own. With cupped fingers he lifted Petro’s chin, and then kissed his hands in the traditional manner as he murmured a prayer. “Bless you, child,” he said, keeping his voice neutral. The smile he wore upon his face, however, was genuine. He seemed to gaze upon her brother with affection. Risa would have been willing to wager the entire caza and her family’s fortune that Petro had been chosen by the Penitents.
The man’s eyes glazed again as he moved in front of Risa. She lowered her head and tried not to think of all the attention focused upon her from the mass of people. On the top of her scalp she felt heat from the Penitent’s palms as they hovered inches above. Just as he had with Petro, the Penitent murmured a private prayer to the goddess.
“Bless you child,” he said, raising up her chin at last. Though his smile was kind as he kissed her hands and murmured the prayer of blessing, his face wore an expression different from what it had been for her brother. Oh Petro, she thought to herself, suddenly understanding. You’ve been chosen by the goddess and I’ll be chosen by the god. I won’t be able to go with you.
Once the Penitent had stepped back, Romeldo swung out his arms and lowered his head. “Muro, giver of joy, I beseech you to bring me wisdom, so that I may choose wisely for you.”
His eyes as unfamiliar as the Penitent’s had been, Romeldo prayed over Petro. “Bless you, child,” he finished. His expression was fond as he kissed his younger brother’s fingers, but it held no special joy.
Risa was all the more certain that she and Petro would find themselves, at the end of the day, in different new homes. She would return to the insula of the Children with her brother. Perhaps tomorrow she would find herself working side by side with Vesta, only four years her senior. At the very last moment, as Romeldo’s crossed palms hovered over her, she remembered she was supposed to be humbly looking downward. She jerked her neck toward the ground.
She waited for what seemed a very long time. “Bless you, child,” she heard at last.
She looked up into her older brother’s eyes, surprised at what she saw. He was puzzled. For a long moment he held her chin, his brows furrowed as if he didn’t recognize her. Then he stepped backwards.
“The Goddess Lena has chosen the Cazarrino Petro as one of her own,” thundered the Penitent. “Let him advance and take his place among her Penitents!”
A roar of cheering and applause erupted from the crowd. Risa’s vision clouded slightly with tears, at the sight of her brother’s face. He had looked as if he might be violently ill all over the courtyard, but at the sound of the Penitent’s proclamation, he breathed deeply, shuddered a little, and then stumbled forward. A wan smile tickled at his lips when he realized more fully that he had been chosen.
Finally he grinned in real relief. Had he thought he would be unclaimed? No child of the Seven and Thirty had ever been denied the insulas.
Mira had stepped out to lift high a turquoise blue banner behind the scrutineer, who rested a paternal hand on Petro’s shoulders. Showers of daisy petals filled the air as the crowd tossed handfuls at the newly chosen. From across the courtyard, Petro peered through the cascade of white and waved at her, his little hat askew. Risa thought he looked genuinely happy for the first time that day.
After a moment of celebration, the crowd grew quiet once more, anticipating another announcement. The Penitent stepped back, gesturing for Romeldo to speak.
Romeldo, however, merely nodded back. His face was blank. After a long moment, he held out a hand toward the Penitent, as if indicating he should continue.The other scrutineer seemed startled. There was a long pause as the two stared at each other. Romeldo still made no move to claim Risa for the god.
At last, obviously confused, they stepped forward and began to whisper. The Penitent shook his head violently when Romeldo pointed in Risa’s direction. The crowd began to murmur with surprise at the break from ritual. Ero shifted in his seat, alert.
Risa grew more unsettled with every second of suspense. What was happening? Why did Romeldo delay? After a few moments the conversation between the scrutineers came to a conclusion. They both seemed dissatisfied with the other. With great apprehension, Risa watched as her brother at last walked forward. The same puzzled look was in his expression, but there was something else as well: It was pity.
He pitied her. Why?
With bended knees, Romeldo lowered himself down to bring his mouth to her ear. His breath tickled at her skin. “Sister,” he whispered, clasping her shoulders. “This is . . . difficult for me to tell you. I cannot believe it myself.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked. Fear choked closed her throat. She could not imagine what had gone wrong.
He sighed, steeling himself to deliver the news. “You are unchosen.”
Despite the heat and the heaviness of her gown, Risa felt icy cold at his words. “What?”
“You have not been chosen,” he repeated. When she tried to wrestle free of his grasp, he held her more tightly. “Don’t make a scene,” he warned.
Her voice, when it came, was cracked with emotion. “Unchosen? No!”
“I am so sorry. . . .”
“What did I do wrong?” This nightmare was impossible. It couldn’t be happening. She had spent her entire life preparing for this ceremony. She had imagined this hour the way some girls dreamed of their weddings. It was supposed to be the most perfect, happiest day of her life.
Her brother’s mouth still pressed against her ear. “You’ve done nothing wrong, little sparrow. Nothing. The gods—”
“Romeldo,” she whispered, ashamed at the desperation in her voice. “Go back and tell them Muro chose me. You can just tell them. It doesn’t even have to be true.” With every word she willed him to obey.
“I cannot.”
“You’re my brother!” she cried, more loudly than she intended. Her throat was tight with pressure. “Please!”
“Risa, I cannot. It doesn’t work that way. My vows—”
“This isn’t happening!”
Ero and Giulia had hastened over to them as they talked. Risa could not miss the expressions of concern and bewilderment on their faces. In the distance, echoing over the canal waters and through the streets, Risa could hear sounds of celebration and cheering from nearby parts of the city. Their own courtyard was deadly silent. Risa scanned the faces around her. So many were familiar—servants, distant relatives, neighbors, family friends. They had all come to see her elevated. Instead they had witnessed her humiliation.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ero in a hushed voice.
“She has not been chosen.”
The words seemed to echo across the silent courtyard. “That doesn’t happen,” Ero countered. His face was pale, so shocked was he. “It’s never happened. Every child of the Seven and Thirty has always been welcomed at the insulas.”
Romeldo cleared his throat and straightened up. “Please, sir. Don’t make this any more difficult—”
“You must be mistaken!” So hoarse and angry were his words that Giulia clutched his arm. “Pray again. Pray again! Or you are no son of mine!”
Romeldo raised an eyebrow. “The gods do not trifle with their priests, Cazarro,” he said, emphasizing Ero’s title to drive home his graveness. “Settecordi and I received the same response to our prayers. Both the god and his sister spoke to us to say the child is not needed at their insula.”
During the argument, Risa’s tears had begun to flow. She realized her face was red and blotched, and that the tears would puddle on her gown and cause the silks to pucker. She knew that weeping so publicly disgraced her family. Yet she felt as if Muro and Lena had reached down from the heavens to tear her still-beating heart from her chest. How could they be so cruel to her at what was to have been her proudest moment? What had she done to them? It was unjust—it was vicious. “If the gods don’t need me,” she shouted, savagely clawing at the tapes woven in her hair, “then I don’t need the gods!”
“Risa!” Romeldo looked thunderstruck.
As she ran into the residence, shoving with tear-blind eyes through the crowd, she heard her father’s sad and heavy voice behind her. “Let her go,” he said. “Just . . . let her go.”
Ribbons and loose hair fluttered behind her in her flight. Let all the people gawk! She didn’t care if they saw her tears. No humiliation was worse than the sadness in her father’s voice when he had spoken those dismissive words: Let her go.
She had failed him badly. She had failed the family and its name.
Through the dining hall she ran, nearly colliding into immense tables laden with all manner of succulents. The Divetris and their friends would feast later to celebrate Petro. It was to have been her banquet too—had the gods wanted her.
They did not. If even the gods turned their faces from her, then no one needed or wanted her.
Through grand hall and vestibule her quick feet took her, up stairs that never seemed to end, then through hallway after hallway until at last she reached the safety of her own chambers. She thought slamming the door would give her satisfaction. It did not. Once it was latched tight, she sank to the floor and once more began to cry. Her face and gown were already soaked with salty tears. Moisture flowed from her nostrils. She did not bother to wipe her face.
“Risa?” A soft knock sounded on her door a few minutes later. Her mother’s voice, muffled, came through the wood. “Risa? My darling. . . .”
She did not answer. For long minutes Risa sat there, face buried in her skirts, scarcely daring to breathe. At last she heard her mother’s slippered feet gliding away. She would never answer, no matter how hard they knocked. No consolation could soothe her heartbreak. Nothing could erase the echo of her father’s disappointed words: Let her go.
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