“Are you lot done?” shouted Orso irritably from down the lane. “We’re burning daylight!”
Sancia and Gregor exchanged one last haggard look, and then rejoined the others. But Sancia felt sure she’d known what Gregor had been about to say: And I am not sure if Valeria has truly granted you freedom either.
“Finally,” said Orso. They started back off toward the Lamplands. “Let’s hop to it. Day is the one advantage we have. I mean, I know it’s Crasedes Magnus we’re talking about, but…without his privileges, I doubt even he can get much done before nightfall.”
14
Armand Moretti strode through the halls of the Michiel Hypatus Building, feeling faintly worried.
It was not exactly extraordinary for the Dandolo campo ambassadors to reach out to him for an emergency meeting: emergency inter-house meetings were unfortunately quite common these days, with all the houses losing so many scrivers to the Lamplands and the revolts in the plantations going on every week. But he was concerned that they were reaching out to him just days after he’d finished his deal with Orso Ignacio. That posed a number of troubling questions.
Damn it all, Ignacio, he thought as he turned the corner to his meeting room. If you sold me something that belonged to Ofelia, I will wade into the Lamplands and gut you myself…
He came to the doors to the meeting room, stopped, and tried to swallow his rage. He’d been in a poisonous mood ever since the deal with Orso: the bit with the sun cloud still smarted—both to his pride and his body—and he had not quite gotten over his bedchambers burning up like a torch. He’d had the guards responsible locked up and their families evicted to the Commons, but he still found himself sulking over the whole thing.
He carefully composed his robes and arranged his hair. I will get through this meeting, he thought, and then I shall ply someone young and pretty and stupid with wine at carnival, and get my candle thoroughly dipped. That should put me aright.
Moretti thought, very briefly, of that girl Orso had hired to play scriver during his presentation: the tall one with the cool eyes. Perhaps I shall come upon her at some gala, he thought idly, and put a whole pot of wine in her—along with a few other things…
Then he cleared his throat and opened the door to the meeting room to greet the Dandolo ambassadors.
He stopped short.
There was only one person waiting for him at the table: a skinny young man who looked rather sweaty and anxious. He didn’t even have any papers with him.
This made Armand relieved: if the Dandolos had come here looking for blood, they’d have sent a much more formidable team.
But if they aren’t here for blood, he thought, then…what are they here for?
For a moment there was no sound but the time lantern in the corner—a cunning little scrived rig that allowed tiny, luminous beads to tumble out into a glass chamber like sand in an hourglass. They ticked and ticked as they fell into the glass.
Moretti cleared his throat again, walked in, shut the doors behind him, and approached the table. “Good afternoon,” he said, bowing. “I’m sorry it took me so long to respond to your summons, Master…”
“P-Participazio,” said the Dandolo ambassador with a slight stutter. The young man stood and bowed as well. Both of them went about the usual gestures of mutual recognitions of power, though the young man was not particularly well versed in them. Moretti noticed that this Participazio was sweating quite heavily…and trembling too.
“Now,” said Moretti as he sat, “I must admit I am…a bit befuddled. Usually houses do not begin business when it’s so close to carnival, but—how may I be of assistance to Founder Dandolo today?”
The young man tried to clear his throat, but succeeded only in making an awkward, squelching quack sound. “We…would like to open negotiations,” he said. “For acquisitions of properties.”
Moretti’s mouth fell open. “I’m sorry?”
“And…we would like to close negotiations today, and complete the purchase.”
He stared. The buying and selling of campo