by Eric Flint
“Reputation and fear win wars,” said Carlo Sforza. He had used his to great effect. “I hadn’t thought about it before, Francisco. I would have thought it right up my predecessor’s sneaking alley.”
“From what I can gather, the late duke dabbled in magic once, as a young man. The experience, whatever it was, left him deathly afraid of direct contact with it. And he was scared it might be used in the plotting against him. So the Strega and the Jews were persecuted. Or so I heard in Venice, from one of the stregheria. They’d have it he was gulled, and it had nothing to do with them.”
Carlo rubbed his chin. “He didn’t frighten that easily, nor was he entirely a fool. I must admit I want no part in it, personally.” He sighed. “We need the reputation, at least.”
“I would deny utterly that we have any magic workers, or that we are looking to recruit them.”
“That should work in the meanwhile,” said Carlo, amused. “So how was Venice, otherwise?”
“Smelly as ever. Better in winter than in summer, though. Less soft than she looks, and I gather Admiral Lemnossa is seeing to her defenses, but you would know that. The Council of Ten are betting on whom you are going to marry.”
“Now that I did not know, but should have guessed. And just whom are they betting on?”
“Eleni Faranese, mostly. Although Violetta de’ Medici is, I would guess, Petro Dorma’s bet.”
The self-styled protector of Milan sighed. “They know more than we do. There is the third possibility, of course.”
“Lucia Maria del Maino?”
“She has the most legitimate claim,” said Carlo with a wry twist of his lips at the legitimate part. “Just not the wealth and influence of the other contenders. So, obviously, she is not high in the betting, but the odds raise day by day.”
“So you have heard nothing, m’lord?”
“No. I know from secondhand experience that these decisions are not taken quickly or easily. Or cheaply.” He grimaced.
Francisco had over the years been subjected to his commander’s opinion on dynastic marriage and the women involved in somewhat pithy terms before. “So the sanctimonious negotiations over the price continues?”
“That’s what happens when you have pimps posing as aristocrats,” growled Carlo Sforza, who might pose as an aristocrat, but did not have to like them. “But they’re being unusually coy about it. One message from Cosimo, and that is it. The fat girl is being contrary, it seems.”
“Sometimes the woman is even consulted,” said Francisco dryly. “That can add some time, m’lord.”
“True with Cosimo, by all accounts, which adds considerably more time and expense to the process. Whores by any name and description price themselves high, so they can afford to come down. It’s a waiting game, and they know that time is on their side, since I will need some illusion of right to rule. In the short term, sword and cannon work well enough, but people forget.”
“So I assume we will remind them, m’lord?” said Francisco.
The protector of the Duchy of Milan nodded. “You know me too well, my friend. A border action, merely to remind Da Corregio of Parma that a relation by marriage is more pleasant than a wolf on your doorstep. And a reminder to the people of Milan of what the wolf can do. They forget too fast and too easily.”
“Nothing like the sound of cannon to remind them.”
Carlo Sforza nodded. “And it’s a long way from Venice, and they’ve not been on the best of terms with Ferrara. Now that I have met him in the field, I want to annoy my son even less.” He smiled wryly. “It is odd to find myself not wishing to annoy him. But it is not a fight I would choose, for several reasons. And yes, Francisco, I like being in that position.”
“It has the charm of novelty, if nothing else,” said his personal physician. In all the years they’d campaigned together, he’d yet to see Sforza shy away from a fight. Plan, choose his time and place, yes. But back off, no.
Constantinople
Benito Valdosta simply wanted to go home, to his wife and baby daughter. The once great city of Constantinople, the bridge between East and West, the gateway to the immensely profitable trade in the Black Sea, had no appeal for him at all. Victory, delivering the Ilkhan Mongol ambassador to the lands of the Golden Horde, and retrieving Prince Manfred of Brittany with the remainder of his escort of Knights of the Holy Trinity from the same place were achievements. Lives and great power were affected. What Benito wanted, however, was his daughter’s arms around his neck.
Constantinople seemed determined to thwart this. As he peered glumly out over the city from his perch on a balcony, Benito was beginning to wonder how the Republic of Venice, would take to “I wanted to get home” as a reason for burning the place to the ground.
Hungary, a castle once part of the extensive estates of Elizabeth Bartholdy
Count Kazimierz Mindaug, the former castellan of Braclaw and voivode of Zwinogrodek, master mage, and aide-de-camp to various powers, had spent a great deal of his life making sure he was not around when things finally fell apart. In this he excelled, both in his own schemes, and in those of others. Thus he had fled the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after the failure of his attempt to destroy both Jagiellon and the demon Chernobog—the demon that his then-master Jagiellon had attempted to use and then had been consumed by. He had fled to the protection of the satanically empowered Elizabeth Bartholdy. Through the compact she’d made, she had access to vast magical powers. When, as was inevitable, that had caught up with her, it had been sensible and easy to flee, as he had from Jagiellon’s wrath. He’d left before she’d known he had engineered the possibility of her downfall.
Then he’d taken shelter with King Emeric of Hungary. That had been a mistake, as the military power and the vast lands he ruled were no substitute for the king’s weakness in magical and spiritual matters. Kazimierz Mindaug admitted he’d been overconfident at the lack of response from Jagiellon or his demon master. He’d thought that he could assume the position of power Elizabeth Bartholdy had occupied, without paying the same terrible price, by using his magical skill.
Now as he lay, groaning, bruised, and drawing desperate, painful shuddering breaths on the stone floor of the abandoned old castle where he’d done his best to hide, he knew that he had been wrong.
Chernobog had neither forgotten nor stopped hunting for him. And now the demon had found Mindaug’s magical escape route. The demon had waited for him, entrapped him, and very nearly killed him, when he had fled through the spirit worlds. That had been a battle on Chernobog’s home ground, where knowledge and subtlety had counted for little. He’d learned that he’d been stalked and hunted, that every spell he’d used had been visible to his foe like a fire on hilltop in the netherworlds crying “Here I am!” Mindaug had known that magics had their signature, but he had not known how precise it was. He did now, and he wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The count still could hardly believe that he was alive. He had only escaped in the end by pretending that he was dead. Yes, he’d managed to hurt the demon, but not enough to win. That was almost certainly beyond his power.
Eventually he sat up. It was probable Chernobog thought him dead. He would do nothing to disabuse the demon of that delusion…at least until he had a new protector who could deal with that kind of raw power. And a new way of escape.
Venice
Maria, like Benito, was perched on as balcony and overlooking a city. In her case, the city was Venice, and the balcony was part of the house owned by Marco and Kat. More like a mansion, really, even if it had still not fully recovered from the ill-fortune into which Kat’s Montescue family had fallen over the years.
She itched to return to Corfu. It was said that a prophet was not without honor, except in their own country. Venice and her canals were busy proving that held true for the high priestess of the Goddess too. It wasn’t that they didn’t respect her as Maria Verrier. She’d earned that, working in the canals. Her relationship with Benito was also well know
n and quite accepted. But the stregheria of Venice had no place for foreign goddesses, or their priestesses. They had their own hierarchy and their own internal politics and she was not a part of it.
Chapter 1
Hungary
Count Mindaug had grown his mustache in the Frankish fashion, suitable for sieving the solid particles out of beer. It did little to improve the magician’s face, but it did help to hide his filed teeth. It might possibly have improved the beer, too. The beer was one of the soft Western details he would once, as one of Grand Duke Jagiellon’s inner circle, have felt irrelevant. Survival was important, good food or drink, irrelevant. But there was no doubt that having fled Lithuania for the West had softened him too, he thought ironically. Now he was a man with a large library of magical tomes, accustomed to such things, and with no means here in the Kingdom of Hungary of supporting either a liking for good food and drink, his library, or his personal safety. Elizabeth Bartholdy was safely dead, and paying back her debt to the devil. King Emeric of Hungary hung on a gibbet near the Dniester. The result was the lawless breakdown that was happening across Hungary. And in the chaos…the Black Brain, the demon Chernobog who ruled his former master Jagiellon, would be seeking him if he showed any sign of still being alive.
He’d used magic to achieve the first part of his flight. Never again! The second journey, to one of Elizabeth’s smaller manors in Slovak lands, he had undertaken in disguise, with no trace of spellwork, and there he’d dispensed of the physical witnesses too. The manor had only had half a dozen servants and a majordomo, with a handful of guardsmen and an elderly knight. They were dead after drinking poisoned wine, now. That had required him to load and pack the wagon himself, and pole up the horses. It was not something he was accustomed to, but then, he’d wanted there to be no one left to say when or how he’d left. Somehow, he needed a safe place for himself and his library, and he was unsure where that might be found. It had to be well beyond the reach of Jagiellon, or his sendlings. Right now, he was not sure where that would be, except not in Hungary. Possibly in the Holy Roman Empire—where he doubted they would welcome Count Kazimierz Mindaug.
Filed teeth would be no help against magical pursuit, or even the physical. He did not need them distracting the peasants or the soldiery into trying to kill him as a man-witch or a cannibal either, thus the mustache. It was easier than maintaining an illusion, which he was capable enough of, but would have showed his spellwork.
The mustache was a fine short-term solution. In the long term, he needed far better protection, both in the physical and magical sense. And money to provide beer, servants and good food. Of course he was capable of using magical means to provide those, but right now he cherished the fact that he was officially dead in Mongol lands, and as far as any magical watcher might be informed, dead in the netherworlds. Besides, he had almost a thousand books to look after. That was difficult, without using magic.
Thus he made his way south, doing his best to avoid calling attention to himself. The wagon was very ordinary-looking, with a canvas and wood cover. It was uncomfortable and slow, but the books needed it.
Unfortunately, the party of Magyar cavalry who had been doing a little freelance marauding in the neighborhood decided they also needed it. Count Mindaug had a moment to reflect that perhaps disguising himself as a merchant had been less than clever.
“Here’s loot!” shouted their leader.
They surrounded the wagon in a clearing, and the air was full of their savage laughter. The elevation was low enough here that the area was dominated by beech trees, whose height and dark foliage imparted a sense of gloom to an already gloomy situation.
A sword was held to Mindaug’s throat; several more menaced. “Where is the money box, you thieving rogue?” They seemed to find nothing odd in engaging in thievery themselves, while saying this. “Janos, Laszlo, Radul, pull the old fool out of the way, search the wagon. We’ll make him sing before he dies if we don’t find his gold.”
The last thing Count Kazimierz Mindaug wanted was to use magic in close proximity to himself. It would be like lighting a beacon in the netherworlds. And even if there was no watcher now, it would leave a trail, which would show his passage, his direction, and worst, the fact that he was still alive.
Unfortunately, these fools might ensure that he was actually not alive, anyway. And, almost as bad, they might damage the books. He raised his hands weakly. “Spare me,” he said in a tremulous voice. “Spare old Jusep. I will show you my master’s strongbox. It is hidden and has a magic trap on it. If you break it open, you will die. But I will open it for you. You can take all my gold, my life’s savings, just spare me and my old books.”
The blade had pulled back, but two of the men had dismounted and grabbed him by the elbows. “Give it to us, you old fool.”
“He’ll have more hidden somewhere,” said one of the men, as they pushed him into the covered wagon’s darkness, into the narrow gap between the carefully packed and corded oilcloth-covered boxes.
Giving them illusionary gold would not work, then, thought the count, quite coolly. To someone who had survived in the court of Grand Duke Jagiellon and then with Elizabeth Bartholdy, these were merely dangerous puppies.
“What’s in the boxes, old man?” demanded one of soldiers, poking the oilcloth with his sword, and nearly getting himself killed.
Mindaug controlled himself. “Books. I am a bookseller.”
“Go on! There aren’t enough books in all Hungary to fill that box.”
Mindaug thought, yes, and there lies your country’s weakness, but he said nothing of it, just: “There is my strongbox,” pointing to a small iron box next to the bedding.
They let go of him to haul it out. He could have stabbed both of them. They would not have lasted a week in Lithuania. Instead he took the time to uncork a metal flask which was dangling from the crossbar.
The box was heavy enough to fill them with greed and stop them noticing what he did. Mindaug was almost tempted to let them have the contents. Their fellows would kill them for stealing a box largely full of lead, and something less appealing. He’d seen fit to wrap that particular book in sheet lead. It had been a precaution, but he was fairly certain that the book itself was more than just a book. The lock was to keep it in, not to keep the thieves out.
They hauled it out into the daylight, which was a good thing. What was in the box was best viewed in daylight. Not that he had any intention of letting that particular book out, but still. He climbed down from the wagon after them. “Weighs a fair bit,” said one of the carriers. “I think our luck just turned.”
“Open it, you old fool,” said the Magyar lieutenant who had turned his small contingent loose on the countryside. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
They’d put the box down. Men jockeyed their horses around to get a closer view. The two who had dismounted and gone into the wagon stood peering. A third man was holding their horses. Mindaug made sure he was close to the horse holder, before he started his performance. He bent down behind the box and tapped on the lid. They stared. He began drawing a suitable complex pattern with his finger across the lid. Their attention was all on the box, and on him now.
From the wagon, the creature he had let loose began to emerge. The horses noticed first, of course. First with an uneasy tossing of the heads, a whicker…and then full-blown panic. Mindaug had been ready. The horse holder did not even see the knife before it pushed up into his heart. The lieutenant saw it, but his horse was rearing wildly and even a great horseman had other things to do besides avenge the killing.
Mindaug clung to the reins he’d seized from the horse holder. He had the advantage of being on the ground, ready for the shrieking thing that came gibbering out of his wagon, and besides, he was protected against it. It had been one of Elizabeth’s creations, one of her little experiments in breeding with trapped magical creatures. With any luck, those who might suspect Mindaug was not dead would blame this on looters. It would stink of he
r magic and bear no trace of his workings.
They’d know that she was dead.
Some of the fleeing Magyar would be, too. The ones on foot had fled along with their companions. Someone had managed to loose off a wheel-lock pistol in the distance. And again. That would just make it angry. Now, to take the box and follow the wagon. With luck the horses would stay on the road, even without a driver.
He used the dead man’s waist sash to tie the box to the nervous horse’s saddle. Then, he mounted himself on the second horse. He was, after all, a nobleman and a reasonably good rider, and having organized a lead rein from the tack of the third horse, rode off to find his wagon. He was both luckier and less lucky than he’d hoped to be. It was barely a mile away, but the wagon had suffered a broken pole and the horse was tangled in the traces. The count soon got the horse untangled and calmed, but for the crosspole…he would be obliged to try and effect some kind of repair, and although he was a great master of magical knowledge, practical woodwork had not come his way much. He might have been stuck there, or forced to use some of the magic he had avoided with such effort, if it hadn’t been for two frightened young peasants scurrying along the road like nervous rabbits.
Mindaug saw the opportunity, and realized that in practical terms, he needed them, as much, perhaps, as the obvious runaways needed him. The girl was limping, the husky-looking boy doing his best to support her. He kept looking back warily but plainly did not regard a merchant as a danger—which, Count Mindaug thought to himself, merely showed how wrong ignorant people could be. Not that he was an immediate danger, of course. Still, the presence of three Magyar warhorses—the third having followed the other two—would have alarmed most intelligent observers. But perhaps it was simply that these two youngsters did not recognize them as warhorses. They would have had little experience with such.
