Chương 27: The Serravalle Gate

We went straight from Isabetta's bakehouse to Dast's basement offices, looking over our shoulders the entire way. The early morning was flooded with the sunlight of a yellow dawn reflecting off the tall ochre buildings, but a chill was creeping in. Dast greeted us with his usual reserved smile and led us inside, where we sat down.

As quickly as I could, I told him about the morning's conversations and revelations (this was apparently a morning for retelling stories), and when I shared Sister Amalia's story from the Misericordia, Dast's eyebrows drew together and formed a single uninterrupted band across his forehead.

"That star again," he said, and I nodded in response. He was still pensive, and I let him finish whatever chain of thought he was linking.

"The boy," he said eventually, still stroking his chin idly and looking into space.

"Which boy?" Corso asked, but my thoughts had already arrived at the same destination.

"Yes!" I exclaimed.

"The boy, the one who brought the mask." Dast looked at us, refocusing.

"I will find Sister Amalia and see if we can find something out together. There is something about that mask — beyond the obvious fact that it led you to the funerary chamber. But I think it is even more imperative that you leave as soon as possible. And try to stay away for a day or two while we investigate." Dast pushed a handful of florins across his desk, looking wistful as he did so.

"After this," he said, "I eat porridge for the next week." Then he smiled and added, "Unless you find something out there. Use this to purchase some supplies for the expedition." We hurried onwards, up and out of Dast's offices. As we crossed the Piazza di Santa Cavallia, the sunlight which had woken us before was quickly yielding to a fog rolling down from the Calvana, like a river of grey bringing the chill of winter.

It did not take long before we were enveloped in a blanket of mist, and even as I should have been reassured that we were mostly hidden from view, my shoulders tensed. When I hurried my steps, Corso did not ask why, only kept pace, and soon he spoke.

"I don't like this, Vale." I heard him, but I did not immediately answer.

"Somebody is looking for you. They know about the mask. By now, they will know about the relics and the funerary chamber. I would not be surprised if rumours from the Collegium have spread already." Again, I did not answer.

"It's a good thing we never told them where we intended to go." I nodded, more at the direction of my own thoughts than at Corso's statement.

"What is the Mandate, Corso?" I asked.

"What?" He looked confused.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Maybe nothing," I answered.

"But maybe… I don't know, Corso. But I've been going over the last days in my thoughts. Very, very strange days. But perhaps…" I was hesitant to name this out loud, and I forced myself not to look around for any hidden watchers surely only conjured by my imagination. Then I continued.

"Almost everything that has happened is within the bounds of a certain reason. Explained by what we know. Nothing new about ancient ruins. They have been found inside, underneath and outside Varenza for centuries. There is nothing new about relics. They have been hunted and found and purchased since before Varenza was built. Everything," I gestured, "has been built on top of and because of those ruins and those relics. Yes, the class is…" I swallowed, and this time I did look around.

White mist, everywhere, and a chill that went straight through my coat.

"The class is fantastically strange and awesome. But it's a class. Nothing really new about a class as a… As a general concept. The Mandate has auctioned off classes for centuries, and our rich families have purchased and flaunted them… That is what Varenza is. Classes, and magic, and the Mandate."

"Go on," Corso said when I paused again. We had paused to cross the street, waiting for a small group of city guards to pass. We heard their muffled marching long before they appeared as silhouettes. When we were alone again, I continued.

"But that ring… My old skill could not work it out, remember. The skill bounced off like water on oil. And the text that eventually appeared… The text that described the class? It looked different. Did I tell you that?"

"You mentioned it, but… Does that matter? Words are words, surely. And this was a Unique Class, perhaps it is different. More ceremony."

"Maybe. But maybe not. In some way… Something about that ring. Something about that old man, the beggar… It stood…" I looked straight at Corso and lowered my voice.

"I have a distinct memory of a sensation that has only grown within me since, that these items and these concepts were in opposition to the Mandate. The Mandate refused to work with the ring, and the prompt… the class… Did not work with the Mandate. I do not think it was the Mandate. It was something else."

"How can that be?" Corso asked.

"Vale, you are not making sense. Yes, the ring is strange. The class is strange and everything about this is strange. But the Mandate is… The Mandate." He paused, and I could see him thinking. Corso had never been one to let his own instincts and preconceptions persist.

"And how would you know? It's not like you had a class before. You got lucky, and now you opened a door to something else. To something new, that every classer already knows about." I struggled to respond. My thoughts — my world — had always been ruled by facts and by knowledge and by reasoning I could trace from beginning to end. This was something else, a knowledge that appeared in my gut with no foreknowledge or observations to support it. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road.

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"I know," I said eventually.

"But I still want to know: what is the Mandate? Is it not strange, how all we talk about is what the Mandate does and what it gives, and never what it is?" Just then, we arrived at the piazza just inside the Serravalle gate. It was perhaps the largest square in Varenza, planned and constructed for efficient commerce. The Serravalle was the only gate in the Varenzan walls that could handle two wide wagons abreast, and inside the walls there were deep ruts carved into the cobblestone over centuries.

Coming in through the gate, the ruts swung in a lazy arc to the northern side of the piazza where a row of warehouses for storing the goods coming in and going out made an imposing wall of stone and timber, only interrupted by wide doors along the ground level and strong cranes that stuck out of openings higher up on the walls. From there, the ruts continued in a full circle around the piazza before leaving out the same gate where the travellers would leave east for faraway lands.

Istria, Dalmatia, or even the Northern Cities. When I was a boy, in the few short years between the ignorance of infancy and the accumulating duties assigned to me by my parents, I would often sneak away to the Piazza Serravalle. I would find a corner hidden by shadows, sit down, and simply observe the goings-on. Caravans arrived and left, their wheels rumbling as they wore into the ruts, and they would park their carriages and wagons along the northern side.

Large men would strain and struggle, lifting down crates laden with goods from faraway lands. And while the goods were unloaded, the caravan guards, the adventurers and the caravan staff, would take their leave and trickle up through the streets heading north towards the palace hills. Wearing armour and weaponry, sometimes scuffed and damaged and even bloodied, their boisterous voices had always carried above the din and clang of the other activities in the square.

It had been many years since I was last here, but the smells hit me like a punch to the gut and conjured that boy from my memories vividly and without mercy. The endless hours spent just watching, and wanting. His dreams of travelling and exploring what was outside Varenza. When did I stop dreaming? When did I forget those dreams? I wondered and realised that the excitement which had been building inside me over the last few days was nothing new.

It was that same excitement; it had spread through my entire being and found the long-ago-forgotten seed. And now I was standing at Varenza's threshold to what lay beyond her walls. I stopped, without intending to, and closed my eyes.

"Vale, you all right?" A hand on my shoulder, and I nodded. Breathed in, breathed out. Squeezed my closed eyes hard, and turned away from Corso to hide the hand wiping at the wetness. The hand on my shoulder snaked around and squeezed me, and then we walked on. Where the northern side of Piazza Serravalle was all warehouses, the southern side was all about the shops catering to caravan traffic.

Not with large stone buildings with wide heavy doors, but with an expanse of stalls and tents and rickety wooden structures that shifted every day. Following an intricate system of favours owed, rank and prestige and intrigue, the shop owners would compete for the best places. Eventually the shops would creep too close to the ruts for the leaving wagons, and the city guard would come and push everything back. Like a wave coming and going.

I once knew that place well, and had met many of my best childhood friends there. We would run between the stalls and tents, hiding and seeking, shouting and laughing. We now headed towards the Serravalle bazaar, as it was called, and soon found ourselves standing outside the warren and looking in. It was the same place it had always been, but I had changed. I no longer knew the people here, but I also expected the customs to remain the same, and I smiled to myself.

"Where do we even begin?" Corso asked. I relaxed my shoulders. A very strange familiarity of purpose and meaning had settled on them.

"We should start with something to carry equipment in, right?" Corso asked.

"That would be a good idea," I said.

"So, a leatherworker?"

"Or something like it. Perhaps something with canvas would be better?"

"Maybe," he said and looked at me, then back at the chaos in front of us.

"So, where do we find one?" I smiled at him. I had started an internal count. One, two, three, four…

"You'should get somethin' water'proof," a new voice spoke up. Young, eager, confident. There!

"So'leather, no'canvas," the voice then added. I turned to Corso, to see his reaction. He had tensed up at the appearance of a young woman. Her hair was nearly white and worn short, almost in spikes, and she was dressed in well-worn and well-made cotton in muted colours. She had appeared suddenly and without notice from the fog, and I had expected her — or someone like her. She gave a short bow.

"Not familiar with the bazaar?" she asked.

"No problem. I'm Mia; pack, right?" She reached out and grabbed Corso's arm, and pulled on him to follow.

"Whatcha'you guys up'to?" she asked.

"We—" Corso began, but I laid a hand on his other arm.

"It's ok, Corso," I said, and turned to Mia.

"A pack, yes. For supplies and equipment. No more than two or three days' worth."

"Doesn't look like you've been out'f 'Renza much. Ever? Why are you goin'? Where?" A beat.

"Here!" We had arrived at a low stall, the roof hanging so low we stooped to look inside.

"Enzo!" Mia said.

"A travellin' pack!" Then she looked at me.

"Or two?" I held up a single finger and smiled at her.

"Certainly, lass." A dark-skinned man had been sitting on a stool. Now he stood up, bent over, and shuffled around. Soon he reached out for something in the darkness and held it out to me. I took it from him: a sizeable leather backpack, made from good sturdy leather that appeared to be cured expertly. It had straps both for carrying on a back and over a shoulder.

"Looks good," I said.

"How much?"

"Oh…" he said, looking up and out.

"Call it a florin and a half?" I looked at Mia, who shook her head at me. Then she spoke.

"Enzo!" she said.

"Luz's is right there." And she pointed to a stall not far from us. The shopkeeper shrugged his shoulders, then made a gesture with his left hand.

"Luziano's work is… Is Luziano's work. But all right, lass. For your friends, make it a florin-and-five." She just stared back.

"All right, all right. A florin then, and that's as low as I will go. The leather alone cost me near fifteen coppers." She looked up at me and nodded, and I handed over the coin. The pack, I gave to Corso. Then we asked Mia to help us find a solid rope, and she led us deeper in. Around us, children ran, and laughed and bragged. I was submerged in the smells of my childhood. Our pack was filling up, and we soon reached the end of the list we had designed.

Without a word we navigated the maze back to the openness of the square, and looked at each other, and grinned.

"Whassthat grin'for?" Mia asked me. And something about the morning made me stop and think of a good answer.

"Why are you here, Mia?" I asked her.

"Huh?" she responded.

"Whatsha mean? In 'Renza?"

"In the Piazza Serravalle."

"Huh," she said. And then she appeared to give the question some consideration. Eventually, she gestured to a wagon which was rolling past us, headed out the gate.

"Where'd'you think they're goin'?" I smiled.

"Outside. Somewhere. That one sits heavy on her wheels, so someplace far away is my guess." She nodded.

"Next year," she said, more slowly now.

"I will join her. Or… Or one like her." And I nodded to her, and fished out five copper pieces and handed them to her. Paused. Thought. Then handed her another five.

"The grin?" I said.

"Now, finally, it is my turn to leave those gates." Corso laughed, hitched the pack higher on his shoulder, and together we walked beneath the arch and out of Varenza.