Fiametta was still bright-eyed and bouncing, reminding Thur of the lid on his mother's kettle. "Abbot Monreale takes me seriously," she chortled. "Wants me to help—I wonder what with?"
"Perhaps those scrying things," said Thur.
"Scrying things?"
"He wants me to disguise myself as a workman and take some scrying things into the castle at Montefoglia, and drop them here and there. His spy-birds aren't getting through, you see."
"He wants you to go outside? Through the siege?"
"We got in through the siege all right." Just barely. "He's going to send me out after dark."
Fiametta went very still. Thur imagined her about to say Be careful, in the tone of voice his mother used every day when he went off to the mine. But instead she said slowly, "My father's house is on the other end of town from the castle. It's not likely you'd have a chance to get over there and see what's happened to it, but if you can... it's the last house on Via Novara. The big square one." She paused again, her voice at last growing worried. "Abbot Monreale doesn't want you to do anything very complicated, does he?"
"No." He looked away from her, into the brightness. Out on the lawn, a very young kitchen cat was stalking the doves. It had big ears, gray and black striped fur, and somewhat outsized white paws. Whiskers cocked forward and eyes almost crossed with the intensity of its gaze, it crouched, hindquarters wriggling in earnest preparation.
Marriage. The heated softness of this girl, all his to possess? But what if... surely Abbot Monreale would have said something if... He blurted, "Madonna Beneforte, you're not betrothed already, are you?"
She drew back and gave him an unsettled look. "No. Why do you ask?"
"No reason," he gabbled.
"Good," she said in a rather faint tone. She rustled to her feet and retreated around the bench. "I must go to the chapel now. Good-bye." She skittered away out the end of the cloister.
In the grass, the cat pounced and missed. The dove burst away in a flurry of wings. The cat stared upward, tail lashing and teeth chattering, till all hope vanished over the rooftops. The cat padded off stiffly, embarrassed, and came and plunked down by Thur's feet. It looked up at him and emitted a loud and piteous meow, as if Thur could produce flightless pigeons from his pockets on demand, like a magician at a fair. Thur felt very far from being any kind of a magician at all, right now.
He picked up the cat and scratched its ears. "What would you do if you caught it, anyway, catkin, hm? The bird is bigger than you are." The cat purred ecstatically and butted its head against Thur's hand. "There are birds in my mountains that would make a meal of you. You must grow up some more." Thur sighed.
*****
Thur spent the rest of the morning offering minor assistances to the harried monks. He cranked the well windless, carried water to the guards on the walls, and helped set up the trestle tables for the noon meal and take them down again afterwards.
He thought he would be too tense to sleep, but in deference to the abbot lay down on his straw bed anyway. The dormitory was cool and quiet in the warm afternoon. The next thing he knew, a monk was shaking him awake from another sweaty dream he was just as thankful not to remember. The last red rays of the sun touching the western hills fingered through the window slits, orange dust motes dancing in their beams.
After an evening meal consisting mainly of fried bread with a thin sprinkling of cheese and garlic, Brother Ambrose led Thur off to the laundry to try on some clothes. They found a short padded tan jacket and real knitted hose dyed red that were large enough to fit. The clothes were not new, but had been washed fairly recently. Thur had never owned a pair of hose before, only the bias-cut leggings his mother made "loose for room to grow." He stared down at his red thighs in unease, feeling gaudy and exposed. A round red cap topped it all.
They left the laundry and passed through the maze of the monastery. Brother Ambrose paused when they came out in luminous twilight into a small courtyard at the foot of the chapel's bell tower. A monk, his robe tucked up into his belt and his white legs scrambling, was clambering awkwardly down the thick ivy growing up the tower's side. He clutched a large linen bag in his teeth. Ambrose caught his breath as one sandaled foot slipped, but the climbing monk caught himself and completed his descent safely.
Gasping from his exertion, the monk straightened his robe and thrust the lumpy bag at Ambrose. The lumps were moving. "Here's your bag of bats. Now may I go eat?"
"Thank you, brother. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
The monk shot him a look of unbrotherly unlove. "Next time," he wheezed, "you try it. I was almost killed grabbing for them, and two bit me." He displayed minute wounds upon his fingers, squeezing them for blood to prove his assertion." 'Sing the song,' you said, 'and they'll fly right into the bag.' Ha! They did not!"
"You have to sing the spell with true loving kindness," Brother Ambrose reproved.
"For bats?" The monk's lips screwed up in outrage.
"For any of God's creatures."
"Right." The monk sketched him a mocking salute. "I'm going to get my supper—if there's any left—before the abbot decides he wants a bucket of centipedes." He marched away.
Brother Ambrose held the wriggling bag carefully, and led on.
Abbot Monreale's workroom was candle-lit. Fiametta sat on an upturned barrel by the center table, resting on her elbows. Thur regarded her anxiously. She looked tired, but not unhappy. The abbot paced.
"Ah. Good," he said as Ambrose and Thur entered. "Thur. I want you to look around the room and see if you notice anything new."
Baffled but willing, Thur walked around the table. The dried crocodile still grinned from its corner; if Monreale had moved his clutter about, Thur couldn't tell. "No, Father."
Monreale smiled rather triumphantly at Ambrose. "What was sitting on the table in front of Fiametta? Don't look!"
"Uh, a tray."
"And what was on the tray?"
"I... I can't say."
"Good." Monreale passed his hand over Thur's eyes. Thur immediately looked again.
Arranged on the tray were a dozen tiny white parchment tambourines, small enough to fit in a palm. Thur could have sworn they hadn't been there a moment ago. "Did you make them invisible, Father?" Thur picked one up and turned it over.
"No. I wish I could have. Or made them smaller, or disguised them as some other common thing. Prospero Beneforte would have thought of something cleverer, I'm sure." Monreale sighed regret. "We ran out of time for experiment. But at least they are very hard to notice. Nevertheless, when you place them, try to place them out of sight. With nothing touching or damping the membrane. They must be free to vibrate."
"What do they do?"
"They are little ears. Ears and mouths, in sympathetic pairs. What each ear hears in Montefoglia castle, its mouth will speak to a listening monk here at Saint Jerome. Since each mouth takes a monk to maintain, please try to put them where something important is likely to be said, eh?"
"I'll try, Father. How long do they last?"
"Only a day or so. I must seek some way to make this spell less volatile. So don't activate them until you actually place them. This is a variation of the scrying spell I use with my birds, but I've never heard of anyone attempting it without a live creature at the other end. I considered cockroaches, but they tend to scuttle away, unless they are crippled, and then they tend to die."
And Thur had thought that remark about the centipedes was a joke.
"I wonder if anyone has tried this before, and failed, or part-succeeded and kept it secret.... There is too much secrecy in this work. If all sorcerers pooled their knowledge for the common good, instead of each hugging his secrets to himself, what practical advances might be made! Even in the Church, pride and fear divide us. I've been mulling this notion for a time, but until it was suggested today to exfoliate the parchment and divide the twinned halves between ear and mouth, to harness their natural congruency, I had not solved the problem of how to get an ear t
o hear with life on only one side. But now the two are one, or the one is two."
"Shouldn't I carry a mouth for you to speak to me?"
"Alas, I wish you could. But you are no trained mage, to continually enspell it to speak loud enough to hear." He frowned in worry. "I hope they will span the distance. We could only try it across the cloister. I pray it will be strong enough to carry from Montefoglia Castle to Saint Jerome."
Monreale began placing half the tambourines in an old canvas carry-bag, nestled in a pile of clothes and other oddments that a foundryman looking for work might own. Gently, Ambrose hung his linen bag from a ceiling beam. Thur spoke to Fiametta.
"Did things go well for you today?"
"Yes," she said cheerily. "Though it was much the same sort of work I used to do for Papa. It seems he'd been using me as an apprentice without paying the licensing fee for quite some time." Thur wasn't certain if she was pleased or annoyed, but a subdued self-confidence glowed in her eyes. He found himself smiling back at her. She whispered behind her hand, "Peeling the parchments apart was my idea. I got it from something Papa used to do with leather, to make a secret pocket in his purse."
Monreale held up the last parchment circle and gazed absently upon it. "What a boon it would be... Suppose, every year, the Church were to publish a book of the best new spells men had devised, and send copies to every Diocese. Men might be willing to give up their secrecy, to compete for the honor of such fame.... Ah, well." Monreale closed Thur's new pack. "So, do you have any other questions?"
No questions, really. It was all plain enough. There wasn't anything Monreale could do for the sick knot of worry in his belly. But the kobold had promised that if he went to the fire, he'd live. What was a kobold's word worth? "Father Monreale, should I trust the word of a demon?"
"What?" Monreale spun around, astonished. "What demon?"
"A kobold. We call them mountain-demons. I spoke with one in the mine."
"Oh." Monreale huffed relief. "Don't frighten me like that, boy. A kobold is not a demon."
"It's not?"
"Not at all. Kobolds—and sprites and dryads and all their ilk—are, er, natural supernatural races. So to speak. They have a command of material magic, each according to its nature, but it is inherent, not learned. None can transcend their nature, as a human mage who combines spirit and material magic can learn to do. The Church Fathers have determined them to be a separate creation of God, but neither of the body of Christ as men are, nor under the dominion of men as, say, horses are. They're just... other. They are long-lived, compared to men, some of them, but they are mortal. Of the nature of their souls, there are several theories and heresies, but no certainty. God made them, they must have a purpose, but then, God made lions, wolves, and head lice, too. We need not allow them to be a nuisance. Fortunately, the Church's spirit magic can banish their material magic at need." Monreale was animated; clearly, Thur had tapped an enthusiasm.
"But then what is a demon?"
Monreale faltered, turning grave. "Ah. I'm afraid demons are to us more as Turks are. Brothers. Demons have a human origin, and so their evil is immeasurably more dangerous to us than the little malicious tricks of the shy folk."
Fiametta glanced up sharply. Fear narrowed her eyes, a fear of something Thur barely dared to guess at. "What exactly are demons, Father?"
Monreale frowned, looking troubled. "Fiametta, understand. You are not to discuss this subject without proper spiritual supervision, lest you fall into heresy or error. You must be very clear in your thinking. If you go on in the practice of magic, as you hope to do, you will be exposed to certain temptations that do not trouble the ignorant."
"Does this have something to do with Papa?" she demanded.
"Alas, yes." Monreale paused. "Demons are ghosts."
"Papa's not a demon!'
"Not yet, no. But he may be in danger of becoming one. You see, shriven spirits go to God. Some fair souls go on even without any such ministrations. But in a few cases—almost always a sudden untimely death, accident or murder—the spirit lingers."
"So Papa said."
"Yes. Of these, most fade in time, like smoke on the wind, lost to man and God. Or at least, to man's sight. Such can be enslaved to a spirit ring or other material matrix for a time, fed and maintained."
"Maintained how?"
"Oh, there are a plethora of rites. What's really effective gets mixed in with a lot of damned nonsense, harmless or horrible—a good bit of the sin of maintaining a spirit ring, besides impeding a soul's ascent to God, is in these rites. When the would-be mage imagines that great crimes will give great powers. He is often addled or mistaken, which must surely make Lucifer laugh. Vast vile nonsense. I hate the rubbish. When the maintenance stops, the ring-bound spirit will begin to fade."
"Doesn't it go to hell?"
"Hell, as the great Saint Augustine revealed, is not a place. It is an eternity. Which is not the same thing as the end of time. Hell is right here, now. As is heaven. In a sense." He took in Thur's and Fiametta's utterly baffled stares, and waved a hand. "Never mind that now. There is one other category of ghost. Somehow, sometimes, a spirit becomes self-maintaining, without a body or a ring or any other material anchor. Some become sin-eaters, feeding on fear, anger, despair—and seek to increase such sins in order to sustain themselves. Some seek out witches and magicians and attempt to seduce them to their aid. That is the origin of the true demon. They are, thank God, extremely rare. Much rarer than the reports of overexcited common folk would have you believe."
Monreale rubbed his face, pressing out the deep apprehensive grooves. "Yet as you describe the apparition, Prospero Beneforte's ghostly strength is already nearly that great. To create a temporary body even from something so insubstantial as smoke was a feat. In Ferrante's hands, enslaved to a ring, fed... the things he would be fed, he could become terrible."
"Papa won't do evil!"
"Prospero Beneforte was a man. A fairly good man, as men go. Little troubled by sloth or gluttony... perhaps a trifle too subject to pride and wrath. And avarice. We are all, even the best of us, still sinners. He may resist Ferrante for a time. But sooner or later the allure of life, or at least, continued existence in the world of will, must prove overpowering. I could not resist such a reward, out of my own strength. I could only throw myself upon the mercy of God and pray for rescue."
Fiametta sat chill and stiff. Thur could see her wrestling with this new and subtle dread. "He called for you," she repeated.
"Yes," Monreale conceded. "I hope he has not mistaken me for God. I shall set you some special prayers, Fiametta. And in the meantime we'll see what we can do to stop Ferrante by all the other means God gives us."
*****
Abbot Monreale took Thur to a spot on the south wall away from both the postern door and the main gate. They had to clamber over the laundry roof to reach it. There was no moon, and Brother Ambrose had darkened his lantern. Thur peered, willing his eyes to see into the nearby woods. If he couldn't see any soldiers, maybe they couldn't see him.
Monreale and Ambrose could have been shadow-monks. Only Fiametta's white linen sleeves made a pale blur. Thur had been hoping Monreale would produce a cloak of invisibility, but Monreale merely intoned a spell over him. Perhaps he was becoming more sensitive, with all this magic about, for this time he felt something, if only a vagueness, settle over him with Monreale's words.
"Can they see me at all?" Thur whispered.
"Not readily," Monreale murmured back. "This is akin to the spell I laid on my little ears. It will pass off in a few hours. If Ferrante's men see a shape or hear a sound, they will attribute it to animals, or nerves. But if you blunder right into one as you did last night, the spell can't help you. So watch yourself."
Had it only been last night they had arrived at Saint Jerome? "Yes, Father." Thur took the rope, tested it, swung his legs up, and sat athwart the stone. He jammed his cap on more firmly. Fiametta stood on the roof, her arms wrapping her tor
so against the chill, skirt a dark billow. Thur could not see her face.
"Thur..." she said. "Be careful. Uh... your new clothes look nice."
Thur nodded, cheered. He let the rope ease through his hands and began his descent.
Chapter Nine
Thur dozed away the last hours of darkness behind a tree near the road, a quarter-mile from Montefoglia's northeast gate. Golden dawn glowed up at last from the eastern hills. He rolled over and watched the dusty road. He did not want to be first through the gate, nor second. Too conspicuous. Third, maybe. The road stayed abnormally quiet for this hour of the day, so near such a large town. Everyone who could was staying as far from the soldiers as possible, Thur guessed. But eventually a horseman passed—likely a Losimon—and then an old man trundling a wheelbarrow full of vegetables. Thur slipped down onto the road in his wake, well back.
Thur swallowed as the town wall bulked up. Squared-off stone and brick of various ages ran down to the lakeshore and up and around, cradling Montefoglia from harm. A mile of wall at least. Was Rome like this? In the clear morning light the city looked magical, exciting—men built this? Then what other wonders might men do? True, the wall was in need of repairs in a few spots, stones starting to tumble down. His heart lifted still. Why had he stayed so long in Bruinwald when this had been waiting on the other end of the road? Uri had tried to tell him....
The thought of Uri, perhaps lying wounded for days among brutal enemies, ill-tended, made Thur lengthen his stride till he overtook the man with the vegetable barrow. The gate was an arched doorway in a tall square tower topped with red tile. The barrow-man was stopped there by three guards, an unarmed man wearing the livery of the city, and two sword-girded Losimons. Both still wore the fancy livery issued for the betrothal procession, festive green and gold striped tunics and green tabards embroidered with Ferrante's arms, now dingy and worse for the unexpected wear of a fight and a week of siege and occupation duties.
The Spirit Ring Page 14
