J. Cheney - The Golden City

Nela picked up her tea and took a slow sip, eyeing Oriana over the rim. After a moment, she set the cup aside. “Lit how?”

“The symbols themselves glowed. I think they were metal set into the wood.”

Nela’s dark eyes were wary now. “That sounds like necromancy, needing death to feed it. What have you gotten yourself involved in, child?”

“It was not by choice,” Oriana said with a quick shake of her head. “I need to find the person who made this spell. I need to stop him before he does it again.”

Nela gazed at her appraisingly and gave one sharp nod. “You need to talk to the Lady.”

“Which lady?” Oriana asked, baffled.

The old woman leaned over and set a hand on Oriana’s arm. “ The Lady. She doesn’t have a name. She’s an expert on human magics. She would be able to tell you what this is.”

That sounded promising. “Where can I find her?”

“You can’t,” Nela said. “No one finds her.”

Now it didn’t sound promising. “But . . .”

“I’ll tell a few well-placed people that you’re looking for the Lady. If she wants to, she’ll find you. Can you give me your direction?”

Oriana hesitated. She didn’t want to give Nela the address of the boarding house on Escura Street. Not just because she was afraid of being tracked there, but she already knew she would have to find somewhere else to stay. She was running out of funds and had no intention of paying for her room in the fashion Carlos had in mind. “I’m not sure where I’ll be.”

“Then come by here in a few days, and I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.” The old woman rose, rubbing her hands together as if they ached.

Oriana realized that meant their interview was over. She set down her cup, folded up the sketch, and tucked it into her notebook as she got up. She opened her handbag to dig out her payment. “We agreed . . .”

Nela laid a wrinkled hand atop Oriana’s mitt-covered ones. “Don’t bother. Consider it a favor, for your grandmother’s sake. You look like you need it more than I do.”

“Thank you,” Oriana mumbled. She took in the shabby apartment one more time. “If there’s anything I can do for you . . .”

The old woman pushed her gently out the door. “Go on, child. If there’s a necromancer out there, he needs finding and killing.”

Oriana nodded helplessly as she went down the stairs to the building’s front door. She paused at the landing, her stomach churning. Was that what she was doing? Hunting a necromancer?

If so, she had wandered into a shiver of sharks.

On the southern shore of the Douro River, Duilio waited on a low wall in the shade of an old olive tree next to one of the wineries that crowded Vila Nova de Gaia. The vintner had sold him a case of brandy, giving him ample reason to sit in the shade and sample a leisurely glass. He gazed across the river at the Golden City, tapping one foot against the wall.

He wished his contact would hurry. If this appointment hadn’t been set the previous week, he would have put it off. He had a woman to find. Despite having a couple of friends in common with Marianus Efisio, it had taken Duilio the better part of the day Friday to find someone who knew what hotel the man was fixed at in Paris. He’d sent a telegram to Mr. Efisio, explaining briefly that Lady Isabel was missing. He hadn’t revealed what he suspected, not wanting to cause the man grief until he had proof. He hoped he would find Mr. Efisio’s response waiting when he got back to the house. He’d spent much of Saturday hunting down every boarding house on Joaquim’s list, scouring the old town for the elusive Miss Paredes, to no avail.

On the opposite side of the river, the painted walls of the Ribeira rose above the quay, a jumble of reds and yellows, creams and grays in the afternoon sun. Houses had been crammed into every inch of space, sometimes at odd angles, on the ancient riverbank. The red-tiled rooftops rose layer after layer up the hills. From his vantage point, Duilio could see the Clérigos tower crowning one hill and the fanciful palace topping another. The tower had been the higher—as had been the power of the Church—until the current prince’s grandfather, Sebastião II, built the ornate palace. To ensure his structure would be the taller, the second Sebastião had the hillside built up, an effort to put the Church in its place, no doubt.

Duilio had always loved the city. It had changed since he was a child, but not as much as it should have. Part of that was the stultifying influence of the Absolutists so powerful in the north, but even normal progress had ground to a stop here.

Prince Fabricio had halted all his father’s and grandfather’s plans for modernization. Many projects started in the 1880s had simply been abandoned or had idled for the two decades since he ascended the throne. The new port north of the city at Leixões was left half-built, accessible to the navy but not practical for shipping. The funicular at the base of the Dom Sebastião III Bridge had never been finished. The trams that climbed the city’s steep streets had been electrified only through private funding.

Prince Fabricio’s refusal to change had left Northern Portugal and the Golden City behind its contemporaries, with Liberal-led Southern Portugal becoming more powerful every day. The current prince of Southern Portugal—Dinis II—had made many improvements there, and Lisboa had become a destination for vacationers. Just in June, the city had announced that all Lisboa now had electricity. In the north, the Golden City’s infrastructure had begun to fall into disrepair. Duilio had never taken much interest in the politics of the country, but he found he sided more with the Liberals and their desire for progress than he did with the Absolutists, who wanted everything to stay as it was.

He turned his eyes toward the Dom Sebastião III Bridge, an elegant creation of iron that stretched between the Golden City and Vila Nova de Gaia. Two levels of traffic moved over the river there, one atop the grand iron arch coming from the heights of the city to the mount on the far shore. The other traveled across at the level of the quay. And from that direction, a tall and gangly Englishman approached Duilio’s perch on the low wall, striding up the lane under the shade of the olive trees.

Duilio held out the bottle when he got closer. “Would you like a taste?”

The Englishman, one Augustus Smithson, took it and downed a healthy drink before he folded himself onto the wall. “I’ve made inquiries, Mr. Ferreira,” he said in English, “but I can’t find any information on your footman, Martim Romero.”

Smithson was the fourth investigator Duilio had hired in the past year, hoping an Englishman might be able to bring fresh connections to the search for his mother’s pelt. Duilio answered the man in his own tongue. “Any idea who hired him?”

“None,” Smithson rumbled, shifting as if the stone wall was digging into his bony backside. “There are people who collect magical artifacts. Most of them are secretive about it. They don’t want the others to know what they have.”

Duilio didn’t actually believe that his mother’s pelt was in the hands of a collector , but it was a possibility he had to consider. “Do you have any names or not? I’ll pay what you want.”

Smithson’s shoulders hunched as he leaned closer. “What I have is a neatly worded note, Mr. Ferreira, left on my desk in my own sitting room, informing me I was to drop the matter. Whoever left it easily entered my home without leaving any trace behind.” He glanced about nervously. “A witch. It had to be. That means I might wake up dead one morning.”