by John M. Ford
"Yes," Caterina said. "He practically tore down the door for me."
"We can grant him that little bit of humanity then, even if he was Imperial," Hywel said philosophically. "And once more we've forgotten about Guido the hedge-wizard. Before we forget him forever, consider that there must have been some reason to kill him. Why did you kill Nottesignore, Agent della Robbia?"
"He knew I'd killed the Byzantine courier, and threatened to expose me to the Empire. I still have a mission to perform."
"I don't believe either of those things," Hywel said. "Why should he threaten you with that, instead of simply doing it? You couldn't pay him more than the Empire would, and you could and would kill him. No. Tommasi knew something, that much is true, but it was a threat right here, right now."
Hywel got up, tapped his fingers idly on the stair rail, went to stand near Caterina. "My lady, did you tell Claudio Falcone you were Dottorina Cynthia Ricci, the Medici physician?"
She smiled grimly. "Is she so famous as that?"
"The family is well known in the schools of medicine. And your alessand.ro gown suits your natural hair color much better."
Cynthia said "You're much more observant than the Byzantine was. No, I didn't tell him, and he didn't guess."
"Is it suddenly all right to kill Byzantines and nameless wizards, just because they are those things?" Hywel said with sudden force. There was a silence. Then, in his former tone, he said "I think he did guess, Dottorina Ricci. But too late. If he had known it in the coach, he would be alive. Now, this is very important: did you make the cuts in Falcone's body, or did you only instruct Messer Antonio?"
Cynthia looked at Hywel, at della Robbia, a confused glance at Gregory. "I—"
Delia Robbia said "I learned the cuts from a book. In the inn library."
"There is no such book," Hywel said. "The only medical book there is a treatise on the gout. By Doctors Vittorio and Cynthia Ricci. Their portraits appear in the frontispiece."
Cynthia stared at della Robbia, who said gently, "There is no reason to tell them anything. They cannot prove or prosecute "
Hywel put his fingers around Cynthia's wrist. His hand did not tighten, but the fingertips probed. Cynthia's head snapped up, her eyes wide. "No! Stay out!"
"She did nothing," della Robbia said angrily. Dimitrios was halfway out of his chair, and even the innkeeper took a step. Only Gregory remained still, his eyes invisible.
"I only told him what to do," Cynthia said brokenly, "and knocked on the bastard's door. Is that what you want? Is that what you want?"
Hywel stood wholly rigid, sweat dripping from his face. Then he staggered, took his hand from Cynthia's, sat down hard. His breath came shallowly and fast. Gregory poured a small glass of brandy and handed it to Hywel, who drank it down. Cynthia bent forward in her chair, hands cupped over her right eye.
Hywel reached into his belt pouch, took out the enameled ring with the six red palle. He held it out. "Have you ever seen this?"
Della Robbia said "Why, that's mine. Where did you—" He reached for the ring.
Hywel gave it to him. "Before you put that on, let me warn you that I put a small magic into it. If anyone but the owner puts it on—it will tighten and pinch off the finger."
Delia Robbia looked at the ring. "Now who doesn't believe whom?"
Hywel mopped his face. "No one always bluffs."
"If it isn't mine, then whose is it?"
"Falcone's," Hywel said. "He had taken it out to show the Dot' torina when she came to his room."
"What?" Cynthia cried.
"He recognized you, sometime during dinner," Hywel said gently, "and took the ring from his pouch as proof of his identity."
"Then why didn't he show it to me?" della Robbia demanded, still holding the ring but making no move to put it on.
"Spies have signals to recognize one another; words, gestures. When you didn't respond to his, he knew you weren't what you were claiming. You said you still have a mission to perform, and I said I didn't believe you; your mission was to kill a disguised Medici courier, and you have. Using Nottesignore and Charles and Signorina Ricci as your stalking horses."
Delia Robbia laughed out loud. "That's incredible! Then what am I—a Sforza agent?"
"Byzantine, I should think, but Ludovico the Moor probably thought you were his."
"Incredible. And of course beyond any proof."
"Nottesignore had proof. Remember, he'd carried your bags. He'd worn your clothes."
"Dottorina Ricci, do you see what this is? These men are all Imperials—"
Hywel drew out the red wax ball. "The last palla," he said.
Cynthia held her gold hairpin as a stiletto. "I will kill the next man who steps near me."
A servant was carrying a leather traveling bag down the stairs.
"Dottorina Ricci," Hywel said, "do you know the significance of particolored hose, the left leg brown, the right white?"
The needle wavered in her grip. "Of course. In Milan, only the Sforza and their favorites could wear those colors."
The servant put the bag on the table near Hywel. Hywel reached inside. "Tommasi surely knew that. He must have felt very grand wearing these." Hywel pulled out the hose, brown and white, exactly like a conjuror producing silks.
"Those are not mine. They could have been put there at any time—"
Hywel felt along the hose. "There is a legend that a murdered wizard curses his killer. I think Nottesignore has left us one last trick." He reached into the stocking. His hand came out holding a large white egg.
Della Robbia kicked at the fireplace. Burning logs rolled out onto the floor. He grabbed at the window curtains, throwing them across Gregory, and slammed his shoulder into the window, crashing through it in a spray of wood and glass.
Gregory literally tore apart the curtains entangling him, ripping the heavy fabric with his hands. He reached inside his gown, produced a very small gun, all of metal; moving like something with clockwork inside, he leveled the gun out the broken window. "No," Hywel shouted, and Dimi's arm struck Gregory's; the shot went high and wild, echoing. Snow fell from the trees outside.
Gregory faced Hywel. His expression was only curious. "The message," Dimitrios said quickly. "Only he knows what the message was."
"Then the next time I will shoot to wound," Gregory said. "Which way will he go?"
"Where we can't follow," Dimi said at once. "Come on." They went through the window, toward the stables.
The light was beginning to go red, a mass of clouds heavy with snow in the western sky. There were no sensations at all but the cold and the sting of windblown snow; no smells, no sound.
Gregory and Dimitrios rode on della Robbia's trail; as Dimi's vision worsened Gregory's improved. Dimi wore a long fur coat and carried a saber. Gregory had only a light cloak fastened at the throat, and two handguns, all the inn staff had loaded.
"You do not want a weapon?" he asked Dimi.
"I have one. I don't like hand-cannon."
Gregory nodded. "And I am a little afraid of knives. How far to the ravine?"
"That mass of trees ahead."
A black horse, the kind mercenaries prefer to ride, stood in the snow at the near edge of the defile. Enormous footprints led up and over the edge.
"You talked about snowshoes," Gregory said.
"Schees. Not ordinary snowshoes. He won't get halfway down the slope with those."
They dismounted, walked carefully to the edge of the ravine. It was very steep, almost a gorge; still, it was crowded with trees in black clumps. Water sounded from somewhere far below.
"I see him," Gregory said.
Della Robbia was a few dozen yards away, his hands braced on a tree, struggling to plant his snowshoe a little further down the slope. Gregory drew one of his guns, pulled the striker back. Dimitrios shouted "Delia Robbia!" It echoed back and forth, and snow fell from loaded branches.
Delia Robbia looked up. He reached to his belt, drew and pointed a long
horseman's gun. Dimi pushed Gregory down as the shot exploded.
Snow shifted. Branches broke. A limb struck della Robbia across the shoulders. He flailed, skidded, started to tumble down, picking up snow as he fell, his shouts rising and bouncing back. Very soon he was lost to sight, and to hearing, and after a few more minutes the snowslide ceased to rumble.
Dimitrios stood up. Gregory pushed himself up on an arm, lying indifferent to the snow, and uncocked his gun. He looked down the slope.
Dimi said "I wonder if we could even have gotten the message out of him."
Gregory said "Perhaps not. But between you, and I, and the wizard and the woman, were there any other kinds of fear to offer him?"
Dimitrios held out his hand. Gregory took it, and got to his feet.
Cynthia Ricci sat in the inn taproom with Hywel Peredur. Neither had spoken since the riders had gone, most of an hour ago.
Finally, and a little drunkenly, Cynthia said "Why did you have to... touch me?"
"Falcone's murder was confusing," Hywel said, not looking at her, "because it was partly one person, partly another. The precision of the cuts was yours. Opening the window was della Robbia, thinking he was putting the cap on the scene."
"And tying Falcone down... to bleed him while he was conscious. .. which one of us did you think that was?"
"But Tommasi's death," Hywel went on, "was all one person's doing. An ordinary faked suicide, except for the hose. Tommasi's hose were the only thing linking him to della Robbia—so why didn't he remove them?"
"I don't know."
"Because they were fouled, and he didn't want to. Would the dottorina have been as fastidious?"
"No," she said, with a half-smile. "I think... I could have killed Falcone, that way. For what I thought he was. Is that what you had to know?"
"No," Hywel said tonelessly. "I had to know if you killed Nottesignore. "
She inhaled sharply. "Why him?"
"It could have been... that he was Charles de la Maison, a masquer's joke... and della Robbia a banker, wearing his Sforza hose because he had truly forgotten... and you an assassin.
"If this were so, you enlisted Antonio's help in killing Falcone, not the other way around, and opened the window either as a false clue or just because torture is hot work. But 'Charles' saw you, and you him, and he fled to the barn and his other identity for safety. You were certain that della Robbia would lie to protect the wronged and righteous lady—all you'd killed was a Byzantine, after all!— but the other witness must die; and so let him die in a way that would let Messer Antonio take credit as well."
At length Cynthia said, "And did you believe that? The whole other story was just—"
"There were two possibilities. This one was much simpler."
"But not true," Cynthia said, as if she were not certain.
"No. Not true."
They were quiet again. Then she said "Was there really a spell on the ring?"
He took her hand before she could react, slipped the Medici ring on her finger. "I don't know if della Robbia knocked it from the table... or if Falcone managed it, to keep della Robbia from finding and using it."
"And the egg—was it really Nottesignore's?"
Hywel said "He was a clever conjuror. I should think it would please him to know that his last trick exposed his killer."
Cynthia began to smile, but it crumpled. "But he'll never know, will he? Poor little man, who never hurt anyone. Do they always win, Doctor... Peredur? Does the Empire always get what it wants, no matter what we do?" She put her hand on the table, near Hywel's arm but not quite in contact. "When we touched—I felt how much you hated them."
"That is a danger of the technique."
"Can we hurt them at all?" She stopped, drew her hand back, closed her eyes. She turned the ring on her finger. "Oh... what I've said. A doctor. How could I have said that?"
"People can be hurt," Hywel said. "I don't know if the Empire can. It is strong, and inhumanly patient in pursuing its goals." He watched her for a moment. There was the suggestion of a tremor at the corner of her eye. Her hair showed white at the roots above her high forehead. "But possibly... if we act in a single place, for a single goal... we can stop them."
Cynthia said "There is a place I know of, called Urbino. They can be stopped."
"I know of a place called Britain. Would stopping them be enough, my Lady?"
She looked at her wrist, ran her fingertips over the pulse point, looked at Hywel with the question fully formed in her eyes. But she did not ask him what he knew. She said "No, not enough. There's never enough revenge, is there, Doctor? Once it starts, it just goes on, and on…we have to act for those who aren't yet hurt." She smiled then, like a flower opening. "An ounce of prevention."
Hywel poured brandy from his own glass into hers. He put his hand over his left eye for a moment. Then he uncovered it, blinked, smiled. He picked up his glass. "To the enterprise."
From outside came the whinny and clop of horses. Snow was beginning to fall.
Chapter Six
PASSAGES
BYZANTINE France was quiet under snow on the first day of December, in the dull light of a winter morning. The Imperial road was clear to both horizons, empty except for one fast coach.
The hooves of four horses struck sparks, four wheels dusted up white powder. The coach rocked insistently, a worn leather spring squeaking time. One window was slightly open for air; the others were shut but not curtained. The light on the four passengers was very gray.
Hywel Peredur sat on the left side of the front seat, looking at nothing in particular. Dimitrios faced him; he wore a leather jack and woolen trews, and watched the white fields pass through narrowed eyes.
Gregory von Bayern had wedged himself tightly into the right rear corner, his head against the gathered window curtain, a dark cloth wound loosely across his eyes. His hands were inside his white sleeves. He seemed to be asleep despite the motion and the noise.
Cynthia sat in the remaining corner, staring out at the departing landscape. Her lips were slightly twisted, and a few white hairs stuck out crookedly from her black velvet hood. A book was open in her lap.
Hywel said "Doctor Ricci, if you'll tilt your head back, you'll—"
"I'm riot sick," Cynthia said flatly. She closed the book. It was Marsilio Ficino's Harmonia Platonica, a cheap Swiss edition purchased five days ago in Geneva.
Hywel, after a moment, began to hum in time with the screech of the spring. "Would you like to sing a bit? It does wonderful things to the time."
She said "I don't sing."
"Oh. A loss. Captain Ducas?"
Dimi said "I don't know any songs suitable for a lady to hear."
Cynthia smiled very faintly, said "You might be surprised at what we..." Then the smile went away, and she did not finish the sentence. "Forgive me, please. I like to travel... but lately there has been so much riding, and so far... before this, I was always needed near Fiorenza."
Hywel said "You are needed where you are going, Doctor."
She looked at him, weary-eyed. "Thank you, Doctor."
Gregory moved without waking. Dimitrios looked him up and down.
Very quietly, Hywel said "Does he make you uneasy?"
"No. I.. .don't know what I think about him."
Hywel nodded. So did Cynthia.
A little after noon they left the Imperial road, and after a few minutes on a side track the coach stopped at what looked more like a farmhouse than a coaching inn. Rabbit pelts were stretched on frames in the front yard, and there was no signboard.
Cynthia touched Gregory as he stirred, said "Stay asleep. I'll bring you dinner, as before."
"No," Hywel said, "it's all right. All of you come in."
Gregory blinked in the semidarkness of the coach, then put on his dark glasses, raised his head, and went in with the others.
They were met by a very tall, muscular woman in an apron and cap. "Hywel!" she shouted, and gave the wizard a hug that nearly
picked him off his feet.
"Juliette," Hywel said. "These are my friends." He introduced them. Juliette cocked her head at Gregory, who took a half-step back; then Juliette said something in a consonantal language, a question or an accusation.
"No, my dear," Hywel said. "He is German. And we are all very, very hungry indeed: we've been on the Empire's roads for a week."
"O-o-oh," Juliette said, shaking with mock horror. "Do you even recall what food looks like? But go inside, warm up." She smiled at Gregory. "There is new blood sausage. Now go in, all of you. Hywel, was Alain driving you?"
"Barre."
"That explains it. Barre won't take a piss until his horses are tended to. I'll send Claude with a platter for him." She paused on her way out of the hall, and said "Stefan has news for you, Hywel. He'll be down very soon." She bustled out.
Gregory looked after her. "I do not understand. She is not..."
"No. But her husband is. Come along; when Juliette says very soon she means it."
They went into a solar, which almost lived up to its name as the sun struggled with the clouds. On the inner walls, cavalry weapons were mounted, and there was a small portrait, tooled on leather in high relief, of a hawk-faced, helmeted man. The leather was somewhat worn, as if it had been rubbed for a long time. There was very little else on the walls.
After a moment, there were sounds of footsteps on stairs; a door opened and a man came into the room. He was broad-shouldered, his gown loose around his waist. His skin was quite pale and a little waxy, with a distinct high flush in his cheeks; there could be no doubt that he was a vampire. Below coarse, dark, curly hair and a lined forehead he wore spectacles with heavy steel frames and glass much darker than Gregory's eyeglasses; they had side panels of black glass, so the man's eyes were entirely covered.
"Good afternoon," he said, in a heavily accented voice. "I am Stefan Ionescu. Hywel I know is here. Will the rest of you introduce yourselves?" He went to the nearest empty chair and sat down, facing straight ahead; as each introduction was made, he turned to face the speaker directly, never nodding.
