Masks

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Is this everything?” Mircea asked, looking around.

It was the next night, and he and Marte were in the room on the ground floor, which was usually used to store casks of wine. It was now holding the bottles and jars that had been rescued from the remains of the sugar house. Most of which Marte was having to try to identify by sight, since the labels had been singed off.

“So far.” She sighed and wiped her dirty hands on her apron. “They’re still bringing them in.”

As if in reply to her comment, a couple of servants staggered in under the weight of several huge baskets of once expensive perfumes, lotions, and cosmetics. They now looked like ancient artifacts, covered in ash and, in some cases, melted together. They were dropped with a chiming crash onto a pile of similar baskets, making Marte sigh.

“Are these all from the work room?” Mircea asked, picking up a still-warm jar of something that might have been olive oil, before the fire reduced it to a blackish sludge.

“Mostly.” Marte sorted through the nearest basket, giving a small yelp when her fingers encountered one of the hotter specimens. “They’re trying to get to the storeroom behind it, which we think may have fared better, since it wasn’t as close to the center of the blaze.”

“Trying?”

“The roof fell in, and the door’s completely blocked.”

“One of us could clear it for them.”

“If one of us had a death wish,” she said sardonically. “I was out there as soon as the sun set, and almost ended up being baked alive for my trouble. There’s smoldering piles all over the place, plus I’m pretty sure the center is still burning.”

Mircea glanced out the open window behind her. To where the blackened ribs of the sugar house clutched at an almost full moon. The spectral quality was increased by the faint wisps of smoke that still rose from what was essentially a giant banked fire.

The blaze had burned most of the night, while the local militia and the Arsenalotti—workers from the Arsenal shipyard—argued over who had jurisdiction. The militia usually handled small fires, and tended to be territorial since it gave them a chance to parade their skills in front of the local girls. The Arsenal workers, on the other hand, who were used to dealing with fires at the great shipyard, were normally only called out when a blaze looked likely to spread.

But neither had arrived until the fire was burning completely out of control, and it had been more of a contest to get the other group to take responsibility than to claim any glory for themselves. Eventually, they’d had to join forces, although not to save the house, which even Mircea had been able to see was a lost cause. But to use hooks to pull down sections of the building that looked likely to fall on its neighbors, and to drench the outer edges with water drawn from the canal to douse errant sparks.

No one had tried to go inside what by then had resembled a gateway into hell.

“What about the courtyard?” Mircea asked, picking up a small jar. It was the right size and shape for the one Sanuito had handed him, and colored about the same, a milky green.

But it opened to reveal only half melted cold cream.

“What about it?” Marte asked, cautiously sniffing something in a jar.

“I’d think a courtyard would be easier to get to.”

Marte’s lips twisted. “It would be—if the building hadn’t collapsed on it. There’s no door into the storeroom on that side, anyway, but even if there were—”

“How is it going?” Paulo asked, bustling in the door.

“Even if it were?” Mircea persisted.

“It’s buried under about eight feet of rubble, much of which is still smoldering,” Marte told him.

“So what’s the verdict?” Paulo asked. He looked like he’d been sorting through the wreckage, too, his usually impeccable clothes exchanged for a stained linen shirt draped over a pair of old hosen, both of which were dusted with fine black soot and white ash.

“Dismal,” Marte said, proffering a jar.

Paulo peered inside and his nose scrunched up. “What is that?”

“Saffron, or it used to be.”

Paulo took a pinch between his fingers, and watched it crumble away to nothing in the air. He scowled. “Are they all like this?”

“Mostly. Half the stuff was wiped out when the roof collapsed, and much of the rest was spoiled in the heat. I’ve found maybe half a dozen jars so far that look to be all right, but that’s out of forty.”

“Damn.” He flipped through his book, his forehead wrinkled under a stray lock of blond hair. “Martina is not going to be happy. Replacement value, even for the ingredients is . . . unfortunate.”

“It may look better when we get to the storeroom. The ambergris was back there. And most of the musk—”

“Cinnamon oil?”

“Some, although much was in the front. I’d just been using it.” She grimaced. “But the Indian sandalwood—”

“Did either of you noticed anything unusual about Sanuito?” Mircea cut in.

They both stopped to look at him.

“What?” Paulo asked.

“Sanuito?” Mircea repeated, forcing his voice to remain pleasant. “The man who died last night?”

“Sanuito was always unusual,” Paulo said, frowning. Apparently, Mircea’s tone hadn’t been as pleasant as he’d thought.

“In what way?”

“In every way.” He tapped his head. “He wasn’t all there.”

“He’d been starved,” Marte protested. “Can you imagine? Being that age and going without feeding for weeks?” She shivered. “I don’t know how he was sane.”

“Well, clearly he wasn’t,” Paulo said testily.

“He always seemed all right to me. A little timid, maybe—”

“Sane people don’t go running into a crowd, steal a boat, and promptly get themselves blown up.” Paulo’s notebook shut, a little more forcefully than necessary. “And put all of us in danger in the process!”

“The only person he endangered was himself,” Mircea said angrily. “Bezio and I chose to go after him—”

“And very nearly got yourselves killed. But that wasn’t what I meant.”

“Then what—”

“We exist on the sufferance of the Watch,” Marte explained softly, as if trying to set a good example for the two hotheads she’d been afflicted with. “Martina pays them to ignore our existence, and since we’re not a threat to anyone, they mostly do. But when one of our group starts bringing attention to themselves, like interrupting a major spectacle—”

“Or burning houses down!” Paulo added.

“That wasn’t Sanuito,” Mircea pointed out. “One of the firemen told me it was likely a stray rocket—”

“A stray rocket, yes. And can you think of a reason why a number of stray rockets were suddenly released all at once?”

“That was nowhere near here—”

“A fact which would be pertinent if the damned things had been fired into the sky as intended! But when they’re set off unexpectedly, in many cases while still lying into their boxes, they go where they will. And where they willed was all over town! It wasn’t enough the damned boy had to kill himself, he had to try and take half the city with him!”

“That’s why the firefighters took so long to get here,” Marte explained. “There were a dozen small fires last night—”

“Small?” Mircea repeated.

“Ours was the worst; that’s why we ended up with the Arsenal boys—”

“Much use they were,” Paulo muttered.

“How much worse?” Mircea asked.

“I believe ours was the only structure to collapse—”

“After the damned Arsenalotti pulled it down!” Paulo said indignantly.

“You know they didn’t have any choice,” Marte told him. “The whole street could have gone up—”

“You mean, out of all the rockets fired, ours was the only house destroyed?” Mircea repeated.

Marte smiled ruefully. “If you can call it that when the house in question was ready to fall down anyway.”

“But—” Mircea paused, trying to get his head around that.

“It wasn’t about to fall down,” Paulo protested. “The main structure was solid. Martina had plans to refit it as our main residence eventually, and keep this one as her personal home.”

“It would have been nice to have some extra space,” Marte agreed.

“And a larger dining room. We keep having to limit the number of guests, since you can only expect someone to tuck their elbows so much—”

“Doesn’t it seem strange to either of you,” Mircea interrupted, “that the only major structure destroyed was the one where the man who died happened to live?”

They both turned to look at him again.

“You’re saying Sanuito set it before he left?” Marte asked, surprising him.

“No, I just meant—”

“You know that wouldn’t surprise me,” Paulo said. “Set the damned thing, then go off with us as if nothing was happening, all the while knowing the fire would spread the whole time we were gone!”

“Sanuito had no reason to burn the house down!”

“He had no reason to kill himself, either,” Paulo pointed out. “Except for being a crazy son of—”

“He wasn’t crazy!”

Paulo looked taken aback. “Well, I’d hate to see your definition of the word.”

“Was he acting differently at all?” Mircea asked Marte, exasperated. “Just in the last few days?”

She shook her head. “Not that I noticed. But then, I didn’t work with him that much. Nobody did, really, except for Auria.”

“Auria?”

“Martina’s been teaching her perfume making. She’s getting quite good at it, too. In fact, she’s been making more of the perfumes we use lately than Martina has—”

“And Sanuito’s been helping her.”

“Yes. She might be able to tell you more. Poor Sanuito,” Marte added, looking sad.

“Poor us,” Paulo muttered, going back to his notes. “We never should have taken him in.”

“As opposed to leaving him to starve?” Mircea asked.

Paulo looked up and scowled. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but the Watch isn’t all bad. Yes, half of them strut around, acting like they’re God, and a good percentage are as corrupt as hell. But if it wasn’t for them, the city would be overrun by crazy vampires doing their own version of a Sanuito!”

“It’s true, Mircea,” Marte agreed. “Most of the vampires the Watch pick up aren’t like you—”

“Or Bezio or Jerome?” he asked pointedly.

“Your group was unusual, possibly because the Watch has been extra vigilant lately, leading up to the consul’s visit. Anyone who looked even remotely suspicious was picked up, on the assumption that they could be sorted out later. But most of the time they have to be showing some sort of odd behavior to be taken in the first place—”

She broke off when another servant came in, with a basket dripping some sort of brackish ooze onto the floor.

“Did you just trail that through the whole house?” Paulo demanded.

The man looked at him, blinking.

Marte sighed. “Come on. We’re putting the leaky ones down the hall.”

“The leaky ones?” Paulo asked, following her out. “What exactly are you bringing in here?”

“Martina said everything.”

“Everything salvageable. I don’t think she expected . . .”

Mircea waited a moment, until their voices faded, then hurriedly looked through the baskets. But all the smaller jars he found were cracked and leaking. Ruined.

Which probably explained why the majority of the containers were the larger ones, the kind normally used to refill the smaller vessels. They had thicker walls and had thus survived the heat better, although that didn’t help with identification. They looked more like the ones on an apothecary’s shelves than the one Sanuito had given him . . .

A moment later, Mircea stuck his head in the kitchen, and found Jerome sitting at the main table, shelling more blasted peas. With most of the servants busy on the salvage mission, it looked like he had been pressed into service. A fact that did not appear to be making him happy.

“Have a minute?” Mircea asked.

“Why?” He looked up hopefully.

“I have an errand.”