[h1]The Peruscoti Estate, Audre Grani[/h1]

	 Pedro Peruscoti paced across the floor, “This is an attack, a travesty against the family.” he bemoaned, raking his fingers through his hair. He breathed in the cool night hair, but the fire that roared still in his heart only turned it to summer heat again as it bathed his lungs. He felt no cool reprieve, no calm, as he paced the second story veranda. Lit by torch light the rose red granite of the villa glowed a golden hue in the soft orange light of fire light and lanterns. Ivy crawled up the fish-scale columns in gentile curly shoots, white pedals bloomed in the moonlight, capturing the soft cerulean light and glowing softly like diamonds despite the darkness.

	“Pedro, we did all we could. But we have lost this. You gave a good fight, but now our son will have to die.” consoled Pedro's wife as she lounged on a deep forest green couch. Her velvety and purple robes hung off her as she lay, glass of wine in hand. She was in middle-age, her youthful beauty having surrendered long ago. Her hips wide spoke of many children born into the world, a virile woman. Her breasts too had been kissed by many babes in her time, and hung wrinkled and stretched, clearly evident under the robe folded over to cover them. Deep lines had formed around her face, and a uncommonly strong jaw had faded away and sunken in new folds. Her raven black hair too was going ashen and silver.

	Lady Peruscoti, despite being so relaxed, was not the least indifferent to her son's demise. She too was very upset, and more defeated than her agitated husband. She idly ran a finger along the edge of her goblet of wine as sad blue eyes looked into it. She had been too sullen to take a drink she was prepared to take, and the cup was becoming like a prop in an actor's hands, to fill an inanimate role. “But the judge has handed down the sentence, the Serene Council has passed their judgement. If Giovanni will not see the case brought to him again, then it is over. The best we can do now is prepare Raphielo's final arrangements.” she said, sadly.

	“That there is no other apt man in the entire Republic!” Pedro shouted into the night. Audre Grani lay stretched out below him, a collection of waywardly tossed groupings of worker's houses and warehouses and presses that lumbered along across the hills. The main estate itself, the mansion Audre Grani stood atop a hill of limestone and was surrounded by a wall, less of any true defensive nature and more to keep out the wildlife more than anything. It's fine halls and apartments for the servants and even a few distant relations and guest houses stood in the dark of the night faintly illuminated by pathways that glowed by the light of lanterns. In a few windows there and in the halls of the mansions candles and torches burned which lit the glass in a romantic blood-orange light.

	He leaned against the stone railing. “No better man in the Republic. Had he thought to search in the Patrio Gran? That no one in the Republic would not have gone without conducted business with him, whose intuition would be unclouded by bias? I doubt he would say that, had he met with those great old men in their ancient towers in the mountains, or the naked peasants on the terraces. There might even be one overseer at the docks who has never met Fimelo duo Montagonea!” he declared loudly, his voice hoarse and cracking with his anger. His wife lynched at the invocation, she could imagine that there wouldn't be a person who could not hear her husband.

	“It was only a hunting trip, Labella.” he said, tears in his eyes as he turned to her, “They went into the woods to shoot boar. Two go in, and Fimelo comes out dead. It was an accident!” he continued, pleading now to his wife Labella, because she was the only one there. He dropped to his knees at the side of her couch and she reached over with a gentle hand and touched her aged husband's head with the same touch she gave once to all her kids when they were young. It was warm, gentle, and without any threat. She set the glass of wine aside on a table and brought in her husband's head close. With a gentle hushing she kissed him on the brow. “We fought as much as we can. I feel your pain. Do you not think my heart cracks too?” she asked.

	“There has to be more.” Pedro pleaded into her neck, his arms wrapped around her.

	“There isn't. We just have to let it go. Let Raphielo go to the gods.”

	There was a long moment of resigned silence in which the sniffling of tears could be heard. “No.” Pedro said, breaking it. His wife looked down at him shocked, releasing him from the embrace, “There is too much honor at stake here. The gods love justice, therefore they must despise injustice. One way or another, I do demand this to be overturned and our boy released. It was an accident, I plead this to the gods themselves!” he continued, “To Naestoleems, who carries the moon, and Cratocius, who carries the moon; the two of them who patrol the skies and see all. This is the challenge I will set myself to in my laugh to prove myself to them!”

	There was an air of confidence and conviction in his voice. It was sad in much the way it was angry. Terrible, as it was noble. A full embrace of conflicting natures. Labella shuttered, she thought it was a fool's mission Pedro was setting himself on. But the master of the Peruscoti combination believed firmly in what he needed to do. He had been set on this for a while. And the challenges now were only more legendary challenges to surmount to assist him in restoring his families dishonor by having their name pinned to such a tragedy. None of them wanted this, surely. They were good men, so Pedro believed.

	He picked himself up off the tile and began to pace across the veranda. What did he have to start on, and where could he begin? It was a new challenge and a whole new chapter, a whole new book in the saga to him. And for it, he needed fresh resources. He himself had been party to trying to argue the case before the judge and the Serene Council in defense of his son, who remained silent throughout. But this had failed, so he needed a new angle.

	“Labella,” he said. His voice was still cracked from emotion, but it had  become heavy, “Does your brother still know that sorcerer from the academy, the man from the Academio duo Importo?”

	Labella looked shocked and she sat up from her couch. “Why would you ever need him?” she asked.

	“I need a man who can argue, who can bring up a case. He reads the law, does he not?” he felt like he was pleading.

	She thought for a minute, “I believe so.” she answered.

	“Is he still in the city?” he asked.

	“No, I think he moved out to Vèron, half a day's ride.”

	“I will need to get a message to him, I have a task for him. A big one and I must discuss it with him personally. What is his name, where can he be found? Do you know?”

	“Michelia Moor, but I don't know where he lives in that village. You'll need to find out for yourself.”

	“Does not matter, the courier will find him on that!” he declared. His voice rose for the first time in months to something resembling happiness. With a light step he half-skipped down the Veranda to the door, and throwing open the heavy dark wood stepped inside into the haze of candle light. Labella looked on in wonder.

	The study which Pedro entered was a large room. All along one side a wall of windows swung out and looked out at the night. A table of log books and lit candles sat nearby. On other walls, charts and maps dominated and hung from the walls like tapestries and banners. There were maps of the port itself, maps of the water ways between here and the mainland, to at Aepiranto, and even larger more regional maps, all as filled out as man's singular wisdom would allow and edited over in ink to note the locations of additions in varying reds and blacks. There were books too, a shelf of ledgers and log books throughout the generations; personal diaries and copies of contracts nearly a century old. In the middle of the room a great round writing desk sat in the illumination of an overhead chandelier, strewn across its surface were the day's works, legal treatises, law, court procedure; a years work of legal research.

	Sifting through the noise on the desk Pedro produced a blank sheet of paper. Reaching for his quill and ink he began to write. Labella came to the door and leaned against the frame, watching her husband work.

	[center]“The serene Michelia Moor,

	I beseech your honor and your talents for a special task I wish to contract you out for. The matter is of considerable importance and it is in my information that you are a man highly qualified  to carry it out. Perhaps more so than most! I dare not to write out any particulars here, for it is of a delicate matter and best sought out in one-to-one conversation. I am affixing to this letter a down payment on your services, and while I know it is easy to take the money and run, I hope it is in the mercy and wisdom of your heart you take it as a sign of my sincerity.

	Come swiftly to the estate of Peruscoti,  Audre Grani. I request your audience at the earliest possible hour. I will make the abandonment of any dropped duties worth your trip.

	Signed, with utmost respect,
	Pedro Peruscoti”[/center]