Chương 12: The Selvadego

"You have a Class." Corso said it too loudly, gesturing as he spoke so that wine spilled from his glass. The woman at the next table stopped arguing with her husband and looked across at us, curious. Corso smiled at her, raised his cup, and waited until she returned to her argument before leaning back over the table.

"You have a Class," he repeated, in a whisper loud enough to carry into the kitchen.

"That is what I just told you," I answered.

"Keep it down, will you?"

"I thought you were going to tell me you killed someone."

"You seem disappointed?"

"I know what to do with a killing. I've been looking forward to it all afternoon. Thinking about it. Wondering where you stashed it, and who it is. Is the corpse already in the Misericordia, or do we need to transport it? And then we would wash the body and put him in the coemeterium. You'd write a report, and if Sinon asks where he comes from you could send him to me. I have at least four good stories to explain it. We can't wait for next black-day… That's too far out.

We'd red-tag him and tell the parish to collect him in the morning. It's Chiesa San … San… Is it San? I almost remember. Help me out here, Marek."

"Chiesa dell'Eterno Ordine," I answered. Corso's small digression gave me a sufficient moment of clarity to realise I was really not used to this amount of wine.

"That's it! Those sanctimonious bastards couldn't count corpses if their lives depended on it. Which is really odd if you think about their obsession with order." He took a long pull from his glass.

"A Class, though? That's some serious shit." The Selvadego was still standing. Its sign still showed a green man carrying his own severed head under one arm, a sheep under the other. Rain had taken most of the face and all but three fingers on the sheep-hand. Inside, the room was low, warm and crowded with people avoiding their homes. Corso had found us a table against the back wall, beneath a shelf of onions and by now we had been here long enough that the smell of the Misericordia had given us some space.

Corso had also bought the first wine, as promised. I had bought the second. A third and then a fourth had somehow arrived. I had not slept since Friday morning.

"Show me," he said. I kept my right hand beneath the table.

"No." It was illogical to want to keep the ring hidden. There was no reason for anyone to believe it was anything but a normal ring, but still I clung to its obscurity.

"Then say the name again. Your class."

"Relic Hunter." His eyes widened in delight.

"That sounds like a proper Class."

"As opposed to what?"

"Registrar. Assistant Registrar. Deputy Assessor of Drainage."

"Are those real classes?" I asked.

"Who knows," he said, gesturing again with the hand holding his glass.

"But Relic Hunter though? Fuck, Vale. How did you end up with that?"

"The ring, I told you. The class came with the—""Not that way. More like… Relic Hunter sounds like somebody delving into old ruins, hunting ancient treasures, fighting monsters. Not like—""Somebody who examines the dead."

"Exactly. You have spent twenty-two years filling in boxes. Have you even been outside Varenza? Seen one of those monsters?" I drank. The wine was red, sour and substantially better than it had been on the first cup, and I was becoming deeply suspicious of the way it changed. I looked down, then got serious for a moment.

"Corso… There is something else."

"What is it now?!"

"The Mandate did not recognise the class. There were… oddities." That removed the grin from him.

"Start again," he said. So I did. I told him about cutting open the beggar's arm, as it had happened. About the failure of my skill, and then the Mandate Ledger. About the eventual appearance of the class prompt, and of the strange writing. And I described the class to him, attributes and skills and all. Corso interrupted me then.

"How much Might?"

"Eight." He sat back with a perplexed look on his face.

"I am stronger than you."

"Before, yes, probably."

"I carry the other end of the fat ones, and that tells me…" Corso's perplexity broke into an even wider grin.

"Eight. You must be… I don't know by how much, but so much stronger. We need to arm-wrestle, Vale!" I begged off, and continued my tale to ward off his requests. I told him about Relic Sense, and about my attempts to use the ability on objects in Sinon's office. Screwing up my face, I tried to remember them, and told Corso what the different prompts had said for each of the objects.

"Relationship: site," Corso repeated.

"Target type: funerary chamber. Bearing: west and below. Estimated salvage: eighty to three hundred florins."

"Yes."

"And you left the mask in Sinon's office."

"I had a dead man lying open in the tavern."

"You left a four-florin mask in Sinon's office, and it points toward as much as three hundred more." He held out his hand.

"What?"

"Show me your hand. The ring."

"No."

"Marek, it's just a ring."

"It is soulbound." His hand withdrew at once. He looked at my right arm beneath the table with a new respect.

"So it cannot be taken from you?"

"I do not know."

"Can someone buy it from you?"

"I do not know."

"Can the Mandate strip it at the Auction? I know you asked, but my… My knowledge as an advocate, when you asked, was perhaps not completely precise."

"I do not know."

"Who knows you have it?"

"You." He watched me for a moment.

"Sinon?"

"No."

"Amalia?"

"No, and not Nello, and not the carter from this morning, and none of the dead ones in the tavern. Only you."

"Whoever left that notice in Sinon's tray?" I took another drink and paused. That was a good point.

"They knew to watch for the dead beggar. That does not mean they knew about the ring."

"So, maybe. Maybe they know?" I did not answer him as I considered this possibility. Corso emptied his cup, took mine from my hand and set both beyond my reach. Then, after a moment's thought, he slid mine back.

"There. Your first act as a wealthy man is nearly being cut off by a porter."

"I am not wealthy."

"No. You are a man earning three hundred florins a year, which in Varenza is a tidy sum if all a man needs is a few square feet to sleep on and two meals a day. And for that, it takes you a year of washing the dead." He emptied his glass, before continuing.

"That was you, yesterday. Today, you are a classer, and you already know where to pick up another three hundred florins." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Or eighty," I muttered. He pulled the wooden salt box toward us and turned it over. With one wet fingertip, he drew a line through the spilled grains. The line wandered slightly. He corrected it with drunk concentration.

"The Misericordia," he said, tapping the middle.

"West is the river. Where do we find this mask?"

"In Sinon's office." Corso was amusing when he had drunk. I struggled to understand why I had not done this more often.

"Right. Whatever it… links to. Where is that."

"A funerary chamber, in this direction," I answered, drawing an uneven line in a western (I think) direction from the Misericordia.

"So, in a building?" I shrugged.

"Inside Varenza, outside?"

"Perhaps."

"Saint's niche, fountain, tomb, privy?"

"Funerary chamber. Somewhere…" I pointed down below us.

"Somewhere below."

"An educated Class, then. It has learned how to say nothing with impressive precision. There is nothing down there."

"According to the skill, there is, and it… It feels right."

"Feels right? How can we hunt for treasure in vague feelings? Aren't we supposed to have a treasure map or somesuch?"

"I think…" I swallowed.

"I think the skill improves. Perhaps it gets more accurate… Easier to read?" His finger stopped in the salt.

"It improves?"

"The ability does. It's not like my old skill, this one has… ranks. The Class has something called levels." The grin returned slowly. I knew that grin.

"How does it gain Levels?"

"By finding relics, presumably."

"And that's whatever is linked to this mask?"

"I think so."

"And it told you what it may be worth."

"Yes." He went quiet, reached out for his glass and brought it to his mouth. The disappointment when he discovered it was empty was clear, but his mind stayed on its task. Eventually, he spoke.

"We are finding that thing, whatever it is. A hundred and fifty florins each should pay to refill these glasses." I looked down at the salt map. Corso had added the river, the western wall and three crosses which might have been churches or wine stains. One of the crosses had drifted into the river.

"It is beneath the city, Corso."

"So, it's in a cellar or basement. We just need to… We just need to ask whoever lives above, nicely."

"It may belong to someone."

"Then they may pay us for finding it."

"It may be sealed behind a wall."

"You know masons."

"I know dead masons."

"They generally charge less." I laughed, more from failing to manage a thousand confusing emotions, than from the joke itself. It was loud, and it lasted unreasonably long. The woman at the next table looked over again, and this time her husband joined her in staring. I could not remember the last time I had laughed in a tavern, and then Corso joined me with a cascade of belly laughs that shook the table.

He pointed, face contorted in laughter, at the salt map (which was growing blurred by the shaking of the table), then at me. Eventually, we calmed down. At this point our table-neighbours had gone from pointedly staring to pointedly ignoring us, and Corso looked at me with a strange expression as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. The room had grown warmer. Or I had.

The shelf of onions above us had acquired a slight tendency to drift when I moved my head too quickly, and that portion of my mind which dominated my every waking moment was trying to tell me that it was far past the time when I should head home. I had not slept at all the night before, and even if I left now tomorrow would be agony. But at the same time, some other part of my mind, which I had not heard from in too many years, and which brought colours other than blue, kept me here.

"Why did you tell me?" Corso asked. His voice had changed. The joke had gone out of it without becoming solemn, though the wine had put a slight softness around the edges, so that he had to shape each word a little more carefully than the last.

"I said I would."

"People say such things, and then they grow wise. And find ways to avoid sharing… Sharing that they have changed, and that everything has changed." I considered telling him that I needed someone to know. It was true, but it was also an explanation that mostly came from loneliness. I didn't just need someone to know, I needed Corso to know.

"You put the kettle on," I said. Corso nodded, apparently considering the explanation sufficient. The big oaf liked to bumble around with his grin and his hum, and it was easy to consider that… That was all there was to him. An easy silence sat between us for a while. We both played with our empty glasses, both wanting them refilled and both waiting for the other to suggest it. Eventually he broke the silence.

"Not telling you what to do, Vale, but this… This needs to be kept… Carefully. Right now, if I have the right of it, you are one of the most dangerous men in Varenza."

"Dangerous?"

"Look around you," he said, throwing out a hand and nearly striking a maid who had approached to take our glasses or our order. She scurried away instead.

"The families spend all year buying every worthwhile Class and relic they can reach. Then you appear, and you can just… Just touch something, and head directly to a relic." I looked at him, my head tilted to one side. I was beginning to see where this was going, and I picked up.

"And…" I said.

"And if I am right. If what we are hoping is true…" He nodded, and concluded.

"They would do anything to stop you."

"So—" I said, but was interrupted.

"So hear this: We do not speak of this inside the Misericordia. I know nothing, you know nothing. We went drinking, and we turn up hung over. So if something is strange, if our workmanship is off, that is the reason."

"Well, it will be," I said flatly.

"That will make the lie easier. And outside the Misericordia… Do not run around and touch objects you think may be valuable. Don't start walking into cellars. Do not speak to anyone, until we know more." I was about to speak, but he held his hand up as he finished a thought.

"You know, Vale. We need an advocate. A real one, who can be on our side. If this comes to a head…" I nodded.

"You seem very persistent in this, Corso. Why?"

"I am protecting my new investment." I looked down at the salt because meeting his eyes would have required an answer. I reached for my empty cup, to have something to hold.

"So, the mask," he said.

"Tomorrow, after work. Sinon won't notice it being missing." I groaned inside at the thought of a third night with little or no sleep, but I didn't speak against his suggestion.

"We don't even know where it will lead us. It could be far outside Varenza for all we know."

"Perhaps, or perhaps it is close. We won't know before we try, will we?"

"Still, what if we are late to return it?"

"Some risk is necessary, Vale. That is how every great Varenzan fortune begins."

"I believe most of them begin with an inheritance built on inheritance, and if you trace that back to the source you will mostly find land."

"So, let's find some land." I tried to answer and found that the argument had moved a little to my left. I turned to follow it and struck my elbow against the wall. Corso regarded me gravely.

"Agility nine."

"The wall moved."

"Then Perception twenty has failed you as well. You should demand a refund." The taverner appeared beside us. He was a narrow man with forearms like bundled cord. He looked at the salt, the empty cups and us, in that order.

"No refund," he said.

"We did not ask for one," I told him.

"You demanded one loudly. You have also poured my salt over the table, drawn a map in it, and put one of my spoons… in the river." I looked down. The spoon lay across Corso's salt map where a bridge should have been.

"That is excellent work," Corso said.

"We were missing the Ponte."

"Gentlemen, I think it's time for you to find your way home."

"We are conducting business."

"Then you can continue your conducting outside." The couple at the next table looked at us with satisfaction as the taverner collected our cups and said, "Two florins." That sobered me by perhaps half a cup.

"Two florins?"

"You ordered food. And a bottle." There was an empty plate between us. Neither of us remembered it arriving. A small bone lay on the salt map near the western gate. There was also a full bottle of red stoppered at the edge of the table.

"What was it?" Corso asked, pointing to the bone.

"Eel."

"Was it good?"

"And when did you order that?" he asked next, gesturing to the bottle.

"I didn't—" I began.

"Never mind. Your ideas are not always the best, Vale, but this was excellent initiative." He grabbed the bottle, and placed a florin in the taverner's open hand. I reached into my pocket and found another which I placed beside it. We were guided to the door with a hand on each of our shoulders. I had vague recollections of being thrown out of taverns when I was young, and even though this seemed remarkably similar, that could not be the same.

We were two grown men, with respectable professions and carrying the wisdom of age. Outside, the hand gave a small push, and when I turned to thank the man for the evening he was already back inside. The night had gone cold, and I knew that the drink had provided dangerous insulation against a chill which had put several men on my slab this week. Corso carried the bottle in his hand, and we walked in silence through the alleys of the Arti Vecchie, the old guild district.

We had chosen the Selvadego because it was close to my home, but now we were walking away from it. Towards the river. Our next chance to do the sensible thing came at the next square, where I could turn left and circle back to my apartment. Corso lived south, in a room above his sister's bakehouse, and could also make it home fairly quickly. Instead, we continued west, and Corso explained which tools were necessary for entering an unknown funerary chamber. His list began with rope and a lantern.

It expanded to two crowbars, a hammer, chalk, three days of water, a mule and an advocate.

"The advocate will not fit in the pack," I said.

"That is why we need the mule."

"Are you coming into this chamber? Is the mule?"

"Absolutely not. I carry dead men out of rooms. I have no intention of entering a room designed to make one."

"Then what is this we?"

"I will hold the rope. Above ground. Near help, and near the mule. And the advocate."

"And if I pull twice?"

"I pull you up."

"Three times?"

"I go home. You are clearly playing with the rope." We reached the Ponte delle Botteghe without deciding to. By day, the bridge was a market with a river inconveniently running beneath it: goldsmiths, appraisers, gem-cutters, notaries and relic dealers packed into shops along both sides. At that hour every shutter was barred. Painted signs creaked above us, and the central opening in the rows of shops gave us a narrow view of black water moving under the city. We stopped there and Corso produced the bottle.

The taverner had sold us his worst red, which by then was no obstacle at all.

"Three hundred florins," Corso said after drinking.

"What would you do with it?"

"Pay my rent."

"For how long?" I tried to calculate it and discovered that the numbers had become somewhat uncooperative.

"A long time."

"Paying rent. You are truly destined for the palace hills, Vale. A man of refined and luxurious tastes."

"All right, then. I would buy proper equipment. For the next one." He went near-quiet at that, but I could hear him muttering, the next one. I took the bottle and rested my forearms on the stone parapet. Three hundred florins would not make me one of the men whose shops lined the bridge. It would not buy a Class at the Auction or a house on the Palace Hills. It would buy time, equipment, and perhaps breathing room.

I had not had that conversation with myself yet, but I suspected my not-so-comfortable wage as the city's quaesitor was coming to an end. Because the mask did not point to every relic beneath Varenza. It pointed to one.

"We need that advocate, Vale." Corso suddenly broke the silence.

"I could not afford one."

"Nobody can. That is how they know they are advocates. But… I think we need him, before anything else." We went quiet again, and I knew he was right. I tried to consider the path of events that had led me here. Their legal consequences. But inexperience and drink led me nowhere useful.

"What else may be out there," Corso said. I looked at him, and only smiled. The bottle passed between us. We watched the river carry broken reflections of the bridge lamps eastward. Corso began to hum a tune, and for once it did not sound like someone had stepped on a cat. I should want to go home, but I did not. I was cold, I was drunk, and I was starting to get hungry. But the blue mood was nowhere. My heart was beating hard in my chest, excited about tomorrow.

He reached the second verse before a bell rang upriver. Corso stopped singing.

"Was that the second night bell?"

"It may have been the first." We waited. Another bell answered from the cathedral quarter, then another farther up the hill. Corso counted them on his fingers and arrived at a result he disliked.

"We begin in four hours," he said.

"More than four."

"Four hours and a little."

"That is more than four."

"We still have to walk home." I considered the river, the distance east to my rooms and the bottle in my hand. The night had been an excellent idea. In four hours, under the coemeterium lamps, it would become a terrible one. Corso took the bottle back.

"We should finish this," he said.

"It will weigh less on the walk." There are arguments which only become convincing after midnight. We remained on the bridge and finished it.