“Boat races, too?”
An amused smirk, which looked well on her lips. He was beginning to suspect the girl hid more wits than she displayed. “Of course.”
Of course. As far as Pen could tell, there was no event in Lodi that was not considered pretext for the population to show off their boats and boat-prowess to each other. High holy days. Low holy days. Weddings. Funerals. Ship-launchings. Guild anniversaries. High appointments in the ducal court or the archdivine’s curia. Pen understood that the oarboat races among the more athletic ladies of the bordellos on his god’s day were particularly popular with the spectators.
“I was let to ride in the chapterhouse parade twice, when I was younger,” Chio went on. “All the children chosen to go get wildly excited about it. If we made ourselves look especially well and clean, we all imagined that someone in the crowd would pick us to go home with them as apprentice or even, highest prize, adoptee. Which did happen sometimes, though not to me.” Her smile turned wry. “I was horribly disappointed. But then a better Adopter found me, and I was glad for my sadness in hindsight.”
The faintly defiant way her chin rose made Pen wonder if this last statement was quite true.
As they came to the landing, where Pen was relieved to find his boatman still reclining under his broad-brimmed hat, she suddenly asked, “Do you have much money?”
“Er, the archdivine pays me a generous stipend?”
“I mean on you.”
“Oh. Enough, I suppose. Should I encounter an unexpected expense, I could return to my chambers for more.” He wondered if his vestments and braids and high employment would buy him trust for temporary credit. With his tranquil life inside the curia, it wasn’t a problem he’d needed to test, yet.
“That’s all right, then.” She gave a sharp, satisfied nod, making her hair ornaments splinter tiny rainbows.
Unfolding from his paid repose, the boatman tried to not look too amused at Pen’s sudden acquisition of a young lady on his arm; their garb hinting, correctly as it happened, at some mutual Temple business. The man handed her down into the boat with no more banter than a few helpful directions. They found their balance and started off again across the basin. The slanting sun painted the busy waters with shimmering liquid gold.
Pen’s appreciation of the beauty of the light was undercut by his unease at time getting away from him. Where in Lodi might the deranged demon choose to hide his ridden partner? In some obscure corner? Or in the holy eve crowds, which were going to be out in force tonight?
He turned back to find Chio unbuttoning her pale coat. The dress revealed beneath was much lower-cut across the bodice than the demure maiden’s pale blue she’d been wearing earlier, set about with bits of lace and ribbon, and woven in sophisticated dark blue and cream vertical stripes. In fair condition but not new—orphanages often acquired overfine if damaged garments from the wardrobes of wealthy women patrons. Pen wondered if she’d mended it with her own needle, and if she regretted her lost chance at becoming a dressmaker.
She folded the coat and stuffed it into the sack, exchanging it for a holiday half-mask in silk decorated with sequins, a fringe of white and blue feathers lending it visual clout. She held it up to her eyes and grinned at Pen under it. It turned her visage mysterious, older. How alarmed should he be with this transformation? Des remained merely amused, though, so maybe it was all right?
“I was going to wear this dress for my birthday tomorrow,” she answered whatever taken-aback look Pen was sporting. The mask came down, and the usual Chio returned. “But if we’re off to the Bastard’s Eve, I thought I’d start tonight.”
“Your birthday is on our god’s day? That’s supposed to be lucky.” Which flavor of luck, good or bad, usually left unspoken.
She shrugged. “It’s not that special. All the foundlings who arrive around midsummer without any other identification get assigned the Bastard’s Day as their birthday. We always got sweet custards at dinner together anyway.”
“Ah,” Pen managed.
They arrived back at the Temple precincts boat landing with Penric no more inspired as to his next move. As he helped Chio up the steps, Pen asked, “Does our god give you any clues how we should shape our search?”
She shook her head. “Nothing yet.”
Pen was unsurprised; if the god had so much as whispered to her, Des would have reacted, strongly. This was still only Orphan Chio, not Blessed Chio.
“I’d better check in at the curia first, in case any messages have arrived.” It was, he supposed, entirely too optimistic to hope for news that their quarry had been captured and was being held for them by the causeway guards.
Ordinary guards could not restrain him, Des noted.
Pen wasn’t sure how able that demon and its confused, ridden host would be to fight armed men—Des could make short work of such opponents, if they were not too many—but it had been adept enough to readily escape the hospice. Best not underestimate. Worse, the demon might be careless of the life of its mount, since it could just jump to another host if poor Madboy were, say, run through with a sword. Ngh.
Offering his arm to Chio, which she took with a small smile, he chose a different route back to the curia building, his Sight again extended. He realized his mistake as they circled through the main city square, which would take them past the gibbet. To his relief, it was empty, no raucous crowd around it being more entertained than edified by the price of crime.
Nor would it be used tomorrow. There were no executions on the Bastard’s Day: not in reprieve for the condemned, but to grant holiday to the hangmen, one of the many questionable callings that came under the fifth god’s cloak. And, in theory, under Pen’s care as a seminary-trained divine, but such pastoral duties usually fell to more regular servants of his Order. If they weren’t sundered into dwindling ghosts, the souls the executioners sped might go to any god at all, to the frequent confusion of the onlookers.
Ordinary living folk hurrying across the square to duties or dinner pressed upon him hard enough. Chio looked up shrewdly at him, and asked, “Does your Sight hurt you, Learned?”
“Um…” He didn’t want to admit Yes to her. “It’s a strain, but bearable.” It would be a lot more bearable were it rewarded with some results, but he felt nothing more than too-complicated humanity all the way to the curia doors.
Chio’s bright soul could not be the least complex of these, but Des’s Sight seemed to slide around her.
Is the god keeping you out?
No, she said shortly. Would you walk on the edge of a precipice?
Yes, if I wanted to see over.
Ugh. You canton mountaineers and your heights.
Des’s aversion to altitude had been hard-earned, so Pen didn’t quibble with her metaphor. Demons were more durable than humans in their fashion, and Pen had become all too familiar with Des’s fearlessness, but perhaps the absence of risk should not be mistaken for the presence of fortitude.
Don’t be rude. You have your own sources of helpless terror. A thoughtful pause. In your case, frequently moral rather than mortal, but deadly all the same. Scars on your arms faded yet?
Yes. Thank you. And my apologies.
That’s better.
The ornate colonnade of the curia was flushed dusky pink in the fading light. At Bizond’s chamber, they found the senior secretary gone home for the day, his place taken by a night clerk.