The Spirit Ring

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The hairs stirred on the back of Thur's neck as Vitelli's dark aura disturbed something subtler than his senses. There was neither heat nor flash, sound nor scent, yet it was as if an aroma of magic rippled through Thur's belly, without first passing his nostrils. Vitelli was maintaining a spell, not invested and constrained and supported in some symbolic object, but held in his own liquid thoughts, a spell powerful and oppressive. And yet he was still able to walk and talk, smooth and ordinary. The impression faded even as Thur grasped at it, giving him hallucinatory vertigo. Maybe it was just another aftereffect from his beating. He squeezed his eyes shut, and blinked rapidly, and the dark aura receded to linger on only in Vitelli's dark eyes.

  The man behind Thur grasped his lank blond hair and pulled his head back, and the second stepped forward to force a stick between his teeth and pinch his nostrils shut. Vitelli unstoppered his flask and sloshed its contents into Thur's aching mouth. It was a sweet dark wine with a bitter undertaste. Thur choked and sputtered and bucked and gagged. And swallowed.

  "Good." Vitelli stepped back and turned his emptied bottle upside down. A last drop shivered on its lip, then fell like a starburst of blood upon the cell floor. "That should do it, even for so large a lout. Return in half an hour and cart him downstairs." He exited the cell, leaving his men to lock it; the dark distracted look spread out from his eyes across his face again as he turned away. Their scuffling footsteps faded again down the corridor, leaving only the sitting guard. Thur's head, sinking inexorably, met the cool stone.

  The castellan's face came up, and he giggled, quite distinctly. His giggles became hoots, then high screams. He jumped to his feet. "A bat's the thing!" he cried, snatched up the slops bucket from the corner of the cell, and skipped around the little chamber. With a cunning grin, he stopped by the door, yanked off the bucket's lid, and flung the reeking urine upon the startled guard.

  The guard came up off his bench with an outraged yell, unfortunately meeting rather than dodging the vile wash. The castellan leaned through the bars, his hands opening and closing, then danced backward as the soldier drew his blade and lunged at him. Lord Pia pounced upon the sword arm, wrested the blade away, and waved it in the air, striking sparks from the ceiling. Swearing and screaming for the prison sergeant to bring him the key, he was going to kill this madman despite all, the guard retreated up the corridor, brushing at his tunic in disgust and almost crying.

  "Quickly." Lord Pia dropped the sword and turned to the swooning Thur, who had watched the whole performance from a numbing huddle on the floor. Strange patterns, like watered silk, swirled and wavered across his vision. Lord Pia slapped the slops bucket upright under Thur's nose, yanked his head back by the hair rather less gently than had the Losimon bravo, and thrust his thick and filthy fingers deep into Thur's throat. He kneed Thur's belly for good measure.

  "That's it, boy, bring it all up," he crooned encouragingly, as Thur retched into the smelly bucket. Thur didn't even need a second stimulus to empty his stomach altogether. The sickly sweet wine, bile, and poisonous acridity of the drug filled his mouth, and he spat wildly, eyes watering, nose running. Lord Pia turned his head, listening, then grabbed the bucket away to toss its revolting new load quite accurately and neatly through the bars of the outside window.

  "Before they get back. Listen to me!" Lord Pia pulled Thur up by the hair again, hissing. Thur's eyes still swam with tears. "Lie still! Pretend it is yet working upon you. Go limp as a slug, don't cry out even if they stick an iron needle into your flesh, and they will carry you out of here themselves. Then keep pretending, till I call you to rise and strike! Do you hear? Do you understand?" His red eyes were fierce. Thur nodded dizzily. It took no effort at all to pretend to swoon; a dark haze fogged his brain. At least the numbness muffled the pain of his bruises and knocks. He wiped his lips on his sleeve, eliciting another, "Lie still!"

  Lord Pia snatched up the sword and bounced from wall to wall, waving it and ululating, as the guard and the sergeant returned. The sergeant peered through the bars, looking very annoyed. "Stupid fool, to let him disarm you! Now how d'you think I'm supposed to get it back for you from a howling lunatic? Ha? Wait for him to cut his own throat? I ought to —" Both men jumped back as the castellan on his breathless circuit clattered the sword across the bars. The iron continued to ring faintly as he stopped, tilted his head cunningly, and blatted his lips in the direction of the Losimons. The guard, wild, grabbed for the sergeant's key ring, but the sergeant slapped him down. "Witless nit, I'll have you flogged if you don't obey orders. Here, you!" This last was directed at Lord Pia who, with a weird snicker, danced to the window, stuck the sword out through the bars, and let it go.

  The guard yelled in incoherent rage, shaking the door bars, and the sergeant cuffed him. "Ninny! Go and get it. You can wash in the lake while you're down there. In fact, you'll have to. That steel will be sunk ten feet down at least. And don't take all day!"

  "I'll get him," snarled the unhappy guard, but was driven off with a stream of vicious invective and personal abuse from the sergeant, who then stared at the castellan, shook his head, and plunked down on the bench in weary obedience to his orders to keep the elusive madman under continuous observation. Lord Pia, wheezing and sweating, gray hair disordered, flung himself back down upon his straw pallet and stared at the ceiling with empty eyes.

  Vitelli's two big bravos came back before the disarmed guard returned. The castellan ignored them completely as they stopped by Thur. One kicked Thur in the belly, not viciously, just testing; Thur could not help flinching, but he let his eyes roll back, and he stayed limp. It wasn't that hard. Trying to stand up, that would have been hard.

  Night was falling. The light from the window was a strange salmon-pink afterglow. The sergeant held up a lantern like a smoky gold animal eye in the growing shadows. One Losimon took Thur's shoulders, the other his feet. It was good to be carried. He felt waterlogged, every breath an effort. As he was hoisted up Thur let his glazed eyes pass across Lord Pia's, who lay on his side and stared back expressionlessly, his fingers tracing and trapping out an odd little rhythm on the stone floor, as formlessly compulsive as his blanket chewing.

  Why am I going along with this madman's plan? If he even has one. But here he was, just as Lord Pia had forecast, being carried out of the cell. His porters bumped him down the narrow stone stairs in the black dark to the familiar under-level with its four doors. Too much to hope they would just lock him in with the wine casks... no. They lugged him through the door into the magic workroom.

  "Leave him there." Vitelli waved in the general direction of the room's center. They dumped Thur down ungently.

  "Is there anything else, Messer?" one of the soldiers asked, cautiously deferential.

  "No. Go."

  They did not linger to be told twice. Their boot steps scuffed up the stairs in double time.

  Thur lay sprawled, his face mashed to the floor, and let one eye slit open. Vitelli was turned away, lighting a few more bright beeswax candles to add to an already brilliant array. The little man had exchanged his red robe for a gown of sable velvet. Gold embroidery glittered here and there in its folds. Symbols? Magical or merely decorative?

  Lord Ferrante entered, swinging a small leather bag in a way that suggested it did not contain wildlife this time. The cut on his neck had been cleaned and stitched closed with silk threads of extraordinary fineness. He wore a clean shirt, unstained with blood, but had donned his chain tunic and sword belt again, and leggings of black leather. "Do you have everything?" he asked Vitelli.

  "Did you bring the new bronze?"

  "Yes." Ferrante let the bag twirl on its strings.

  "Then we have everything."

  Ferrante nodded and bent to lock the door. He placed the big iron key back in the pouch hung on his sword belt. Thur almost moaned aloud. How the hell was he supposed to get out of here this time? Pretend, till I call on you to rise and strike. How the devil did Lord Pia think he was going to get in?
>
  "Stay," said Vitelli, as Ferrante started toward the salt crates. "I must divest this damned awkward sleep spell into something that will hold it for a little."

  "Can't you just let it go? Even bound, it must distract you."

  "Not nearly as much as Monreale would distract me, should he recover quickly enough to interfere at some critical moment. And it is easier to maintain than it would ever be to recast. Prudence. And patience, my lord."

  Ferrante grimaced, hitched a hip on the tabletop, and let one black-booted foot swing. He frowned down bleakly at the little footstool-chest, beside him, then shoved it away. After a moment he drew a slagged silver ring from his belt pouch; brooding, he turned it in his hand. His right hand was no longer bandaged, Thur realized, though it still looked red and barely half-healed.

  "For all your troubles, Niccolo, Beneforte set the spirit of this ring free most readily. A wave of his hand. And none of your antics with the corpse or ring since have sufficed to call the power back."

  "Yes, I've told you we must find Beneforte's hidden notes on spirit-magic. I have said it repeatedly."

  "I think it was no bargain," said Ferrante quietly, "to trade my damnation for so brief and volatile a power." He closed his hand over his palm.

  Vitelli, facing away from Ferrante, rolled up his eyes in exasperation, then carefully composed his features to proper deference and turned. "We've been over this, my lord. The infant was sickly. Its mother lay dying. It would not have lived the night. Would you rather have let that death go to waste? What merit in that? And it was only a girl-child anyway."

  Ferrante said dryly, "I would hardly have let you persuade me to do that to my son and heir, Niccolo, sickly or no." He blew out his breath. "I want no more such sickly girls. You're a magician. How do I assure a strong son next time?"

  Vitelli shrugged. "Tis said a woman's part is to supply the matter, and the man's to supply the form with his seed. All things struggle toward the perfect form, the male, even as metals in the ground strive to grow to be gold; but many fail, and females thus result."

  "Are you saying I should have added more form?" Ferrante's brows rose. "She was too sick. Vomiting all the time. Revolting. I had no heart to plague her. Besides, there were plenty of women in town."

  "It's not your fault, I'm sure, my lord," said Vitelli in placation.

  Ferrante frowned. "Well, I want no child-bride next time. The pale and whimpering Julia is unfit to bear."

  Vitelli said sharply, "With Julia comes a dukedom. Give her a little time."

  "I hold the dukedom now by force of arms, or will, shortly." Ferrante shrugged. "What other right do I require? What other right would even avail, if I had no army?"

  "True, lord, but the Sforza did both, in Milan."

  "And left too many Visconti alive, who now skulk about half the courts of Italy trying to brew trouble." Ferrante turned the ring in his hand, without looking at it, as if wondering if it sought some such subtle revenge.

  Vitelli paused, then said slyly, "Give me the silver ring, my lord, and I will try to see if anything may yet be salvaged."

  Ferrante smiled, not pleasantly. "No," he said softly, but very firmly. "It was fair and just that my dead daughter's spirit serve me. No other. I would not bind one of mine to serve a base-born Milanese... damned dabbler."

  Vitelli bowed his head, his jaw tight. "As you will, my lord. There will be other opportunities. Better ones." He turned to clear a place on the boards to his other side, dusted it with a gray powder, and then wiped it clean. He then arrayed a simple spell-set: a tiny gold cross, facedown, and a gauzy silk cloth. His features sharpened in concentration; he began murmuring. After a few moments, the silk gauze rose in the air like the head of a questing snake, then settled gently over the cross. Vitelli's muttering died away. He took a deep decisive breath and turned to Ferrante. "Done. It will hold Monreale for—long enough."

  "Shall I light the furnace, then?" asked Ferrante.

  "No, I'll do that. Strip the Swiss spy of his clothes. I'll help you hoist his brother momentarily."

  Ferrante tossed him his purse, which he caught one-handed. A little jeweler's furnace sat upon stone blocks near the window. Vitelli had already laid in the fuel. Now he bent to the lower hearth opening and whispered, "Piro!" Blue flames licked the pine and charcoal, which caught and burned steadily. Vitelli emptied the chinking contents of Ferrante's leather purse into a new clay firing pot no bigger than his fist, and popped it into the oven.

  Thur bore being stripped, willing his limbs to flaccidity, his breathing to a deep slowness. Ferrante was quick and businesslike—had he practiced on corpses in the field of battle?—though truly there was little left to take, just the ruined red hose and the gray tunic. The floor was chill on Thur's bare skin. Did drugged men shiver? This play could not go on much longer. He must throw off his seeming sleep and strike soon, or die. Or strike and die. One last chance. He was being given one last chance to be a hero like Uri....

  Vitelli pumped the furnace bellows a few times, then turned to help Ferrante lift Uri's stiff gray corpse from its bed of salt and lay it out, face up, on the floor near Thur. A few dislodged salt crystals fell and bounced, scattering across the stone with a muted glitter. Ferrante returned to arrange Thur face down. And where the hell was the ghost of Master Beneforte while all this was going on? Indeed, if only Beneforte were lodged in hell, none of this would be happening. For a mad moment Thur wished him there with all his heart. No helpful dust-man rose from the floor now.

  "Take over the bellows," said Vitelli to Ferrante. A tense edge to his voice warned Thur that the enspelling was about to start in earnest. Vitelli arranged three sticks of new chalk, green, black, and red, in a fan in his left hand, and stepped forward to crouch beside Uri. His Latin chant sounded almost like a prayer. Thur didn't think it was a prayer, at least no prayer to God. Vitelli took a clay ring mold from his robe, setting it on the floor midway between the quick and the dead. He placed a long-bladed and very shiny knife with a bone handle near Thur's head. What kind of bone? It was getting very, very hard to keep his eyes from focusing and tracking, and Vitelli kept glancing at him.

  Murmuring again, Vitelli began to trace his chalk diagrams upon the floor around the two brothers. Thur thought of the cat, and the cock. This floor had been well-scrubbed since last night, and not, he suspected, by any servant, unless Vitelli employed a man with his tongue cut out. The bellows wheezed steadily; the fire's husky sound deepened.

  "The devil!" Ferrante ducked. A bat had flitted in through the window, and was circling the room in rapid, silent swoops, as a child might whirl a toy on a string. Vitelli, engaged in his chant and unable to stop, gave Ferrante and the bat both a glare. Ferrante drew his sword and swung at the flying target, missing three times. He swore, and lunged after it.

  Vitelli came to the end of a stanza, and drew breath long enough to snarl, "It's only a bat. Leave it, damn it!" over his shoulder, then resumed chanting.

  Ferrante grimaced, pausing, but on the bat's next circuit his sword licked up again. Only half-aimed, in a lucky blow it whacked the shadowy animal out of the air. A wing broken, the bat chittered across the stones and one of Vitelli's chalk-lines, smearing it.

  Vitelli's teeth clenched. He broke off his chant. His words felt to Thur like a line of marching soldiers stumbling into each other as their leader stopped without warning. Vitelli opened his hands, letting the terrible tension leak away, before moving.

  "Clumsy —!" he cried to Ferrante in real agony. "We'll have to start over. You get the sponge and mop these lines." Face working, he strode over and stamped on the injured bat, killing it. He picked up the little corpse by one wing, holding it delicately away from his robe, and flung it out the barred window.

  Ferrante was clearly not pleased by this abrupt order to a menial task from his subordinate, but, stiff-faced, he obeyed. Out of his depth in this complex magicking, perhaps. He did a neat job, though, and within minutes the floor was dry and ready a
gain. Vitelli picked up the ring mold and the knife and started anew.

  This time he had Ferrante stand within the lines, by Thur, as he drew them. Thur kept one slitted white eye on that bone-handled knife. He must reach for it before Ferrante did, come what may. He wished desperately he were in better shape. Could he even stand up, let alone fight? The miasma of magic in the room was so thick he could scarcely breathe, as if Vitelli's dark aura had expanded to the walls. Vitelli appeared in the corner of Thur's vision with a pair of tongs clasping the cherry-red clay cup holding the molten bronze. Sweat trickled in shiny tracks down his face. When he poured, the ring would freeze almost at once—trapping Uri's spirit? The chanting rose to a crescendo. Ferrante's leather leggings creaked, as he knelt down behind Thur awaiting his signal to take up the knife. Thur must strike now—a scrambling noise, and puffing, came from the window that faced the lake. Much too loud for a bat —

  "Rise and kill the bastards!" Lord Pia roared.

  Ferrante wheeled and drew his sword. Rise was not quite the word for it, but Thur lurched forward in a sort of frog-flop, fell upon the knife, and rolled. The bone hilt, in his hand, sent a paralyzing jolt up Thur's right arm, not-quite-pain, shuddering along his nerves. His hand spasmed open, and the knife clattered across the floor out of sight under the trestles. The chalk lines burned his skin like whips as he pressed across them. Ferrante's sword struck sparks and a white scar on the stone where Thur had just lain.

  Vitelli bent and choked convulsively. The tongs fell from his grasp. The clay cup cracked on impact, and its molten bronze spattered across the cold stone floor.

  The castellan squeezed from the window and stood, hair waving, eyes alight. The guard's short sword was in his right hand, and an iron bar from the window was in his left. His legs were bare and hairy. His lips were drawn back in a feral snarl.

  Reaching a trestle that held a salt crate, Thur at last pulled himself to his feet. His legs shook, but held him. Ferrante started to lunge at Lord Pia, stumbled across the chalk lines, and recovered just in time to parry Lord Pia's sword with his own blade, then catch the murderously swinging iron bar with an up flung arm. Ferrante stepped back, absorbing the shock of Pia's onslaught in a hastily ordered defense. Pia was a soldier, yes, and a match for Ferrante with the sword. But older, and fatter. Already his breath pumped like the bellows.