The Spirit Ring

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Thur fitted the bricks for the furnace floor and plotted his escape, as soon as he reached the end of this row, by excusing himself to go to the garderobe. A pounding noise came from the heavy timber gate to the stables at the end of the garden. Someone was unblocking it with a mallet. Thur looked up. A couple of big, loud Losimon soldiers in steel and leather backed through pulling on a rope. Their whoops seemed too good-natured to go with some combat, and Thur's work mates, after first freezing at their shovels, relaxed and leaned on them to watch.

  Following the Losimon soldiers came a train of mules, roped together pack-saddle-to-halter. The first mule was a distinctive gray, the second honey-brown with a cream-colored nose—the gaily-striped saddle blankets were all too familiar. Oh, Jesus, it was Pico's mule train. Would the packmaster blurt out recognition of Thur? Would Thur be dangling by his neck from the castle wall, hanged as a discovered spy, within the half-hour? Thur crouched down in his half-built furnace and stared wildly. Damn it, Pico had said he was going to cut over the hills to Milan. What bad angel had inspired him to bring his load of copper to sell in Montefoglia, instead? Now, of all times?

  But the eighth mule walked stiffly through the gate with no sign of Pico, or of his two boys. Only a quartet of dismounted Losimon cavalrymen tugged the animals along. Thur stood up from his crouch, wary and confused.

  "Hey, Foundryman!" shouted the lead soldier. "Where do you want us to put this?"

  Thur almost answered, Stack the pigs in pairs over there, but gulped down his mistake and said instead, "Put what?" He walked toward the mule train.

  The mules were sweaty and dirty under their harness. Iridescent green flies were already plaguing new pink raw spots showing under the edges of the leather straps. One mule had been limping, and now stood with a hind hoof held gingerly tiptoe. All dove their heads to the grass and weeds at their feet, smacking dry and thirsty lips.

  "My lord's new copper." The soldier flicked up the canvas of a pack-saddle and pointed proudly to a thick metal bar.

  Thur stared at the lathered and exhausted animals. Pico would never have permitted—"Where is Pi—is the packmaster?" Thur demanded. Dread lent his voice an unaccustomed harshness.

  "Gone to God," grinned the soldier. "He left us these in his will, eh?

  Thur swallowed. "Where did you find them?"

  "We were on patrol, foraging up north of the lake yesterday. Too damned far from home. We were just about to quit and go back, when we came upon this fellow's camp in the hills. Our lieutenant fancied this'd be a gift to my lord's taste, so we took 'em. We ran them all night to get here. Stubborn beasts, we had to beat 'em with the flats of our swords to keep 'em moving, toward the end."

  Yes, several of the animals' haunches showed long bloody welts. Thur had to allow, Ferrante's cavalrymen were just as cruel to their own beasts, and to each other. The sweat-stained, filthy soldier's features were lined with a fatigue scarcely less than that of the drooping mules. But the mules lacked his greedy elation.

  "Pi... didn't the packmaster... I take it the pack-master objected?" Thur struggled to keep his voice cool, disinterested.

  "A length of my officer's Spanish steel settled the argument soon enough." The soldier paused thoughtfully. "Didn't much care for what he did to the boy. The lad wouldn't stop trying to fight us, after it was over. Half-mad, I think, though his elder brother had a better head, and tried to hold him. Well, t'was no worse than some of the things that happened after the last siege of Pisa."

  "Did he... what did he do to the boy?"

  "Half chopped off his head. It stopped the screaming, right enough, which was a relief.

  "Killed him?" Thur choked.

  "Outright." The soldier spat reflectively. "Could've been worse."

  Thur gripped his hands behind his back to hide their trembling. "Did he kill both boys?"

  "Naw. The smarter one ran off." The soldier glanced up. "Ah. Here we go."

  Thur followed his gaze to the doors to the castle. Just descending into the garden was Lord Ferrante, dressed in the same fine mail tunic and leather leggings as yesterday morning. A clean white linen undercollar shone at his neck, and a gold badge in his green hat winked diamonds in the sun. Flanking him stamped another dirty and fatigued cavalryman. A dusty black beard framed a dark smile missing several front teeth. Thur stiffened—but there was no reason to suppose the man would recognize him from Catti's inn. It had been dusk in the inn yard, and Thur had hung in the background till things went so terribly wrong. I should have recognized the man from his methods, though, Thur thought wearily.

  "So," said Ferrante bluffly, coming up to Thur. "What value have we here, German?"

  Thur walked to a saddlebag and pretended to examine its contents. "Finest Swiss copper, my lord."

  "Is it fit for our needs? Is it sufficient?"

  "More than sufficient." Thur fingered Master Kunz's mark, stamped on the soft red bar. "I've... heard of this forge. Very pure."

  "Very good.” Lord Ferrante turned to his men and took a purse from his waist. He poured gold coins into his hand, held them up for all to see, poured them back, and handed the purse to his gap-toothed minion for distribution. The men cheered.

  "Unload these beasts, then send your men to eat," Ferrante directed his lieutenant. "Deliver the mules to my quartermaster's constable, outside the walls." Ferrante frowned, walking down the line of mules. "See that they get water and hay, and their harness off, before you eat. Tell my head groom to check that dun's off-hind hoof. My mules must be made to last."

  Ferrante wheeled away and strode back into the castle. Under Thur's wooden direction, the hungry men made short work of unloading and stacking the copper pigs on the ground beside the furnace. Laughing and joking about their new-won gold, the soldiers led the mules back into the castle stable.

  A bird trilled from the white blossoms of a plum tree espaliered to the garden wall. The workmen returned to their digging, shovels scraping through the hard-packed earth. The line of light creeping across the ground as the sun rose higher reached the stack of copper, edging it with blinding red fire. Thur swallowed nausea.

  "I'm... going to the garderobe." He turned and stumbled from the garden.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thur really did go to the garderobe, a slit cut into the castle wall at the back of the stables that was used by the grooms and the workmen. But he exited again without, as he had at first feared, being violently ill. He leaned shakily against a stall partition and listened to the steady munching of a horse eating its hay. The presence of the big animals soothed him, a little. The dumb beasts were innocent. Though God had made Balaam's ass speak out against injustice, or so Brother Glarus had told the story. Why not Pico's mules?

  An unfamiliar trembling shortened Thur's breath. Hatred. Wrath, as the list of the seven deadly sins had it. The murder of Pico's boy Zilio, so bluntly described, burned in his imagination, angered him almost more than the death of Uri. Uri had been a man, taking a man's risks. The Losimons hadn't any call to kill a child. They could have knocked him aside, or tied him up, or something.... His righteousness died as an image of the whey-faced boy groom across Ferrante's saddlebow troubled his mind. He shook his aching head in bewilderment.

  He made his way to the stable door into the main court. A couple of grooms had taken Pico's mules outside and tied them to ringbolts in the wall in the narrowing shade. They had watered them and stripped them of their harness, and now were rubbing them down and daubing goose grease on their sores. The mules snatched at little piles of hay, and grumpily laid their long ears back and nipped at each other. Thur squinted into the heat of the courtyard and the light reflecting blindingly off the bulbous marble staircase. The sun was higher. Did it always climb this fast, of a morning? Across the pavement at the base of the northern gate-tower, two guards stood flanking a small entry arch.

  Thur felt in his tunic for the two remaining ears, studying the men. They looked harder-faced, more alert than the fellow who'd been
sitting tiredly by the dungeon door last night. Dare Thur try his thin story about checking the bolts and bars a second time?

  While Thur stood trying to muster up his courage, the little door swung inward and the guards came to attention. A Losimon officer exited, followed by three women who stood blinking in the light. Two women and a girl, Thur corrected himself. The first was a dark-haired, prettily plump matron of perhaps twenty-five, wearing a crocus-yellow linen gown. The second, older woman wore black and white silk. She was a little, faded blonde; sandy-haired, sandy-complexioned, her face drawn and stiff in the shade of a brimmed hat. The girl, almost as tall, wore pale green linen and a close cap, a braided rope of gold hair falling from her nape. She clung tightly to the faded woman's arm.

  The officer gestured them onwards, palms open like a man herding sheep. Frowning at him, they scuffled across the courtyard and up the marble stairs, disappearing into the castle. Thur bit his lip, then walked quickly back through the stable and climbed over the rear gate into the castle garden. His work mates made a few sharp comments about shirkers as he hurried past the brick pile. But he had not strode half the length of the garden when the women reappeared at its main entry and then descended into the open, still dogged by the officer. Thur hesitated, then bent to pretend to knock a bit of gravel from his shoe. The silk-gowned woman went to sit on a marble bench under a grape arbor, the tender green leaves making a woven shade. The girl and the dark woman in crocus-yellow linked arms protectively and strolled upon a gravel walk. The noble prisoners were being aired, it seemed.

  For how long? Dare he just walk up to them? The officer lingered close by, within hearing. Confused by this ambiguous near-opportunity, Thur retreated to his brick pile and made to lay on another course, all the time watching down the garden. The Duchess's hat turned toward him once, then away; the strollers paused by her bench. Then they strolled toward him. Thur held his breath. The officer made a step to follow, but then changed his mind and waited near the Duchess, leaning on an arbor post with his arms crossed.

  The two young women drew nearer. The girl must be Lady Julia, the matron some sort of lady-in-waiting. One of the workmen made a coarse comment under his breath.

  "Lamb or mutton, it's all for my lord's table," his companion murmured back with a sour grin. "Not even a scrap for us, I'll wager."

  "Shut up," Thur growled. The laborer frowned back but, perhaps daunted by Thur's size, swallowed whatever insubordinate jape was on his tongue and bent again to his shovel. Thur walked around his furnace-base with a judiciously measuring glance, trying to look like the man in charge. He evidently succeeded, for upon coming up the dark-haired woman inquired of him, "What are you doing here, workman, tearing up our poor garden?"

  Thur ducked his head in a clumsy half-bow, and immediately trod nearer to her. "We're building a furnace, Madonna. To repair that bombast yonder." Thur pointed to the green pot.

  "By whose order?" she asked, stepping back.

  "Lord Ferrante's, of course." Thur gestured expansively, stepping close enough at last to lower his voice. He blurted out quickly, "My name is Thur Ochs. Brother to your guard captain Uri Ochs. Abbot Monreale sent me. I'm only passing myself off as a foundryman."

  The dark woman's hand tightened on the girl's arm. "Go fetch your mother at once, Julia."

  "No," Thur began to protest, but the girl was already scampering away. "We mustn't be seen to be conversing in secret, it will give all away." He turned and began pointing at various parts of the foundry operation as if still explaining its function. The workmen, just beyond earshot, turned their curious eyes away to follow the gestures, and Thur slipped a little ear from his tunic and whispered its activation spell into his palm. He let his concealing hand drop casually to his side, flashing it briefly toward the woman. "This is a magic ear. When you talk into it, Abbot Monreale and his monks at Saint Jerome will be able to hear you. Hide it, quickly!"

  Staring at the bombast, she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and touched it to her face as if she were feeling the heat. It fell from her hand. Thur bent to retrieve it. Ear and handkerchief disappeared into her sleeve again. She gave him a polite nod of thanks, but stepped back as if repelled by his peasant stench.

  Or perhaps she really was repelled by his peasant stench. His gray tunic was stained with the sweat of the hot morning's labor.

  Duchess Letitia arrived in tow of Lady Julia. The older woman at least had the wit to gaze out over the work site first, instead of directly at Thur.

  "This foundryman claims to be an agent of Bishop Monreale's," the dark-haired woman murmured. Thur swallowed and made an unfeignedly awkward bow, Work-lout Introduced To Duchess; the play might well pass, at a distance.

  Letitia's red-rimmed, faded blue eyes grew hard as steel. She stepped to Thur and gazed up into his face. Her hand clutched convulsively at his sleeve. "Monreale?" she breathed. "Does he have Ascanio?"

  "Yes, Lady. Safe at the monastery."

  Her puffy eyelids closed. "Thank God. Thank the Mother of God."

  "But the monastery is besieged by Losimons. I have to get back there, to get help. My brother is killed, and Ferrante and Vitelli are trying to enslave his ghost to a spirit ring. I have to stop them, but I don't know how."

  The Duchess's eyes opened again. "Killing them would do it," she observed dispassionately.

  "I... haven't had a good chance," Thur stammered, only half-truthfully. He'd had chances, they just hadn't been good enough. I bet they would have been good enough for Uri.

  "If I could but lay hands on my ebony rosary, I swear I would make my own chance," Letitia stated. Her eyes turned away, once again concealing the intimacy of this conversation. The woman in yellow folded her arms.

  "Beg pardon?" said Thur.

  "See you, man—do you think you could make your way in secret to my chambers? There is an ebony rosary in my escritoire. Or there was, if it hasn't been looted by now. It's very distinctive, with gold wire flanges. On its end hangs a little ivory ball, cunningly carved. If you could find it and bring it to me —"

  "The cracked bombast itself will be melted down to make up part of the metal," Thur interrupted her loudly. He widened his eyes at her, desperately signaling. Lord Ferrante had just exited the castle. He looked around and spied the women, waved away his officer's salute, and started down the garden; the guard followed to take station discreetly beyond hearing, leaning up against the outer curtain wall. Ferrante held a small, rather scruffy dog with protuberant brown eyes under his arm. Thur continued, "The rest we shall melt new. Lord Ferrante deals us no shortages in our work."

  Julia at first shrank nearer to her mother, but then saw the little dog. "Pippin!" she cried.

  The dog wriggled frantically; Ferrante scratched its ears to calm it, then bent and released it. It ran to its mistress and jumped up on her skirts, yipping, then tore around the garden in circles. It returned to Julia's calling at last, and she picked it up and cradled it in her arms, dropping kisses on its head.

  The dark-haired woman made a scandalized face. "Don't kiss the dog, Julia!"

  "I thought he'd killed poor Pippin!" A fierce glower toward Ferrante identified the accused. Tears sparkled in her eyes.

  "I only said I wished to borrow him," said Ferrante in a reasonable, indeed, kindly tone. "See, here he is back safe and sound. You must learn to trust my word, if we are to get on, Lady Julia."

  All three women gave him identical repelled glares, as if forced to look upon a centipede or a scorpion. Ferrante shifted and grimaced.

  "Are we to get on?" inquired the Duchess coldly.

  "Consider the advantages," Ferrante shrugged. And added with a matching glint of ice, "Consider the disadvantages, if you don't choose to."

  "Strike some devil's bargain with my lord and husband's murderer? Never!"

  "Never is a long time. Life goes on. You have children to provide for. It's very true, we have all suffered an unfortunate accident. It's not one I looked for, and I'm sorry I lost my tem
per, but I was goaded. What would you? Wrath is a man's sin!"

  "Yet you dare still suggest I bind Julia to a life under that threat?" snapped Letitia. "To become the next victim from my family to your wrath? And how did your first wife die, my lord? Truly, you are mad!"

  Ferrante's jaw clamped. He produced a strained smile, and drew a leather ball from the figured purse hung from his belt. "Here, Julia." He turned to the girl, his voice deliberately gentled. "I brought you a ball for, er, Pippin. Why don't you take him down to the other end of the garden, and see if he will fetch it for you? I wager he will."

  Julia glanced uncertainly at her mother, who had locked eyes with Ferrante. "Yes, love," Letitia agreed thinly. "Do that."

  Reluctantly, the girl put down her dog and obeyed, with a backward glance or two. Pippin danced around her, following.

  "My lady? The woman in yellow raised her brows, with a nod after Julia.

  "Stay by me, Lady Pia," said the Duchess. "I would have a witness to this man's next crime, whatever it turns out to be."

  Ferrante rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Think, Letitia! What's done is done, and no one can call it back. You must look to the future, and let the past go!" His hand tightened, then stretched out carefully flat on the leather legging of his thigh, next to his sword. His eye fell on Thur, standing there trying to look invisible. "Go back to work, German." Ferrante waved him curtly away. Thur bowed and retreated to the nearest spot, his broken brick pile, crouched, and pretended to be sorting them by size. Ferrante glowered over the work site a moment, then followed, lowering his voice. "So, Foundryman. When will my cannon be cast?"