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Nerezza will not look at him. She keeps her gaze on the shark-headed woman, and when she mumbles, the rain tramples her words-but Ludo can see her lips move: You don't deserve it.
The two men wade in and drag the boat to the lockhouse, where they lash it to the little dock and haul Ludo and Oleg out. The shark-headed woman is silent, but glances up at the door frame, beaten sea-wood, and seems to judge it fair.
“How can you do this, Nerezza? Are you going to watch them bleed us out? Are you content to make me into Radoslav?”
A fist cracks across Ludo's jaw “Don't talk to her!” one of the men growls. Ludo s eyes roll-when they focus again he sees a huge face purpled in rage, with a line of freckles across the nose. The other one is missing an ear. “If you have to talk,” Freckles growls, “you talk to Ululiro, and show some fucking respect.”
“What's happening?” says Oleg, shaking, uncomprehending, looking from Nerezza to Ululiro to Ludo. “What are they doing?”
“They're Dvorniki.” Ludo snarls. “Street-cleaners. They are going to cut our throats on the door jamb because we're immigrants.”
Oleg opens his mouth and closes it. “Nice word for a mob,” he mumbles.
Ludo grunts agreement. “They think it's magic. That it'll keep us all out. Or maybe they don't. Maybe t
hey just think it's fun.”
No-Ear doesn't see a difference. He wrestles Oleg to the floor, bashing his head against the door frame and jamming his chin upward, exposing his throat. Freckles pulls out a long, curved knife. He looks to Ululiro for confirmation. But Ululiro is watching Ludovico, and she does not move. She does not speak. She is like the people in the church, Ludo realizes. A veteran. She was in the war. On the losing side, from the looks of it. Oh-oh. There is no was. She is in the war. This is the war.
“Your uniform,” Ludovico says gently, knowing his life hangs between them like a thin curtain. “Were you a soldier?”
Ululiro nods.
“Not just a soldier. A general. Even… the general. Generalissima”
Ululiro nods.
“You have to know this won't matter. Not really If it's not us, it'll be someone else. We're coming. Someday, the roads will be full of us, and you'll have to watch us fall to our knees in rapture, in relief, you'll have to watch us grow old and bear children and hang hams in store windows, set our watches by our wives’ hearts, drink coffee on sunny afternoons.”
“General, let me cut that one's throat first, so he shuts his filthy mouth,” Freckles barks.
Ululiro does not move. Ludovico does not stop.
“We're coming. The world is changing. And even if every door frame in Palimpsest runs red, someone will find a way.” Ludo chuckles. “Do you know what a palimpsest is, Ululiro? It's vellum, parchment that has been written upon and then scraped clean, so that someone else can write on it. Can't you hear us? The sound of us scraping?”
“Ludo …” Oleg moans, his neck beading scarlet under the taut knife.
But Ludovico ignores him. He thinks of November's broken hand, her fingers. What she gave up for safe passage. “But, General. If it has to be anyone, why not me? Why not us? Why not someone who is willing to become like you, who is willing to lose a thing he treasures for the sake of this city, for the sake of his friends?”
Ludo slowly extends his tongue. Rain spatters it; he lets it run.
“Take it,” he says. “Take my voice as the toll of this lock. Take my tongue, and I will be silent, like you, like all of them. I will be a monument-better than all the rest because I will bear witness to your suffering. Folk will look at me, setting my watch, drinking my coffee, and they will say: Ululiro snatched victory from her enemies after all. She got to choose. She chose the first one, and marked him as her own. Everyone will know that you had a battle left in you, and bought one last joy in the name of the silent.” Ludo was so close to Ululiro he could smell her fishy, acrid breath, seething between sharp, yellowed teeth. “Mark the frame with my blood, General. I will be silent forever in your name. An immigrant. A veteran. And it will be over.”
Ululiro s throat worked beneath a ghastly scar that marked the join of her shark skin with her human body. She burned to speak and could not. Nerezza reached for her elbow, but the general slapped her away, seizing Ludovico s arm and stalking to the door frame, tossing her head from side to side as though swimming through deep ocean. Freckles and No-Ear backed away from her, pulling Oleg with them, spines suddenly straight with fear and love.
Ululiro snatched Freckless knife and caught Ludo by the throat. She raised the blade, and with a soundless howl slashed through his tongue.
FOUR
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Nerezza sat between November and Ludovico. Her face was a mess of flushed skin and tears. Ludovico shook to see her so, and looked to November to steady himself.
“I don't want to,” Nerezza hissed in fluid, cultured English.
“You don't have to,” November said softly “But I am asking you.”
“Why should this be easy for you? Why? It is not easy for me,” she spat at Ludovico in Italian.
