They heard footsteps behind them, clambering up the stone stairs to the bastion with an oddly arrhythmic pace. Before they even turned their heads, they knew it was Lopez. The Basque priest had been tending to his two companions in the fort's infirmary below. Diego and Pierre had both survived the encounter with Ursula and the Woden monster, but they had been badly shaken.
Lopez limped over to stand next to them. He spent no more than a moment or two studying the distant scene, with eyes which had clearly seen more than one battlefield in times past.
"Stupid," he pronounced. "We have no idea what is transpiring in Venice itself. While Ferrara obtains his revenge here, the city may still be lost."
That neatly summed up Erik's assessment. Manfred's also, judging from his nod.
"Come," commanded Lopez. "If we can reach Dell'este in time, we may still be able to convince him to forego his pleasure." He turned and began limping off.
"What can we--" began Manfred, but Lopez's impatient wave of the hand stifled the rest.
"You are the Emperor's nephew, young dolt! And I have a certain talisman which may help. Now come!"
* * *
"I'm not entirely sure I care for that man," said Manfred sourly, as he and Erik followed the Basque toward the fort's stables.
Erik smiled. "And I, on the other hand, am entirely sure that Father Eneko Lopez doesn't care in the least what you think of him."
"He should," grumbled Manfred. "I'm the Emperor's nephew, dammit!"
* * *
By the time they reached the Ferrarese lines and were able to negotiate their way through to the duke's presence, the battle was well underway.
Not that it was much of a "battle" yet. Clearly enough, from what they had seen as they approached, the Old Fox hadn't lost any of his tactical acumen. Since he had Sforza trapped, he intended to bleed him with gunfire as long as possible before ordering any direct assaults. Dell'este's own soldiers were mercenaries, for the most part. Professional soldiers--highly experienced Italian ones, especially--had little use for commanders who wasted their lives in premature assaults.
The duke's field headquarters consisted of nothing more elaborate than a simple open-air pavilion erected on a small hill overlooking the battleground. They found Dell'este standing just under the overhang, studying Sforza's lines with a telescope. Like all the optical devices of the day, the telescope was a heavy boxlike affair mounted on a stand. The old duke was slightly stooped, peering through the eyepiece.
Hearing their footsteps, he stood erect and turned to face them. He gave each of them a quick study in turn. Perhaps oddly, he spent most of his time studying Erik and Manfred, the two men he had never met before.
"Knights of the Holy Trinity?" he asked, his lips quirked into a wry smile. "Not wearing full armor? I think you might be excommunicated, if you're not careful."
Manfred frowned; Erik chuckled. "I'm from Iceland, Your Grace. Spent time in Vinland also. Full armor, in today's world, is just stupid."
The duke's eyes fixed on Manfred. "And you, large one? Do you agree?"
Manfred was clearly struggling not to glare outright. So all he managed in reply was a muffled grunt which could be taken as a form of agreement.
"I declare you honorary Italians," pronounced the Old Fox. Then he faced Lopez, his smile disappearing. "There's no point in discussing the matter, Father. I know perfectly well why you came. Venice is Venice, Ferrara is Ferrara. I've done enough for Venice this morning. The rest of the day--and tomorrow, and the day after, if that's what it takes--belongs to me and mine."
He turned his head, his fierce old eyes glaring at the distant Milanese lines. "I will have Sforza's head. And spend the rest of my days planning to reap Visconti's."
"Me and mine?" demanded Lopez. The priest reached into his cassock and drew forth a small object. When he presented it to the duke, Erik could see that it was a miniature portrait. He had wondered what the object had been that he'd seen Lopez tucking into his saddlebag when they left the fort.
"Do you remember what you said to me when you gave me this, so-called 'Old Fox'? 'Old Boar,' more like. Dumb as a nearsighted pig."
Erik was surprised to see that Dell'este did not bridle under the sarcasm. Indeed, for a moment his lips even twitched, as if he were trying to control a smile.
"Lamb of Christ, is it?" murmured the duke. " 'Lynx of Christ,' more like. Feral as a starving cat."
Lopez ignored the riposte. He simply held the portrait up in front of Dell'este's face.
After a moment, the old man looked away. "Most of all, you must remember the mother."
Eneko lowered the portrait. "Exactly so." He pointed toward the Milanese. "It was not Sforza who murdered your daughter. Other crimes can be laid at his feet, I've no doubt. But not that one."
"Had he not abandoned her," hissed the duke, "Visconti would never have dared to strike at her."
"The same could be said of you," retorted Lopez instantly.
Dell'este's face turned white as a sheet. His hand--old and veined, but still muscular--clenched the hilt of the sword buckled to his waist. The eyes he turned on Lopez were hot with fury.
Erik held his breath. Next to him, he could feel Manfred tensing.
Eneko--
Never flinched. The little Basque priest returned the Duke of Ferrara's glare with one of his own. Which, in its own way, seemed just as hot.
Indeed, he rubbed salt into the wounds.
"The father condemns the lover?" he demanded. "For the same deed which he committed himself?"
Lopez pointed a stiff finger at the unseen figure of Carlo Sforza. "What that man did was give you a grandson. A grandson who is--today; now; this minute--fighting for his life in the streets of Venice."
The Basque dropped his arm contemptuously. "Like father, like grandfather. No doubt you will abandon the grandson as you did the mother. Nothing may be allowed to interfere with a petty lord's overweening pride. A sin which he will try to mask by giving it the name of 'honor.' "
Erik's eyes were on the duke's hand, clutching the sword hilt. The knuckles were ivory white, and the sword was now drawn an inch out of the scabbard. So he couldn't see the expression on Dell'este's face or that of Lopez. But he couldn't mistake the sneer in the Basque's voice.
" 'Old Fox.' Was ever a man more badly misnamed? To give up his chance for vengeance on Visconti--who did murder his daughter--in order to salvage his pitiful dignity on the body of a lover?"
Erik glanced up quickly, seeing the twitch in the hand holding the sword. The fury in Dell'este's eyes seemed . . . adulterated, now. Filling with cunning--surmise, at least--instead of sheer rage.
The duke's teeth were clenched. His next words were more hissed than spoken.
"Explain."
Lopez, once again, demonstrated what Erik was beginning to believe was an almost infinite capacity for surprise. The priest's face suddenly burst into an exuberant grin.
"Finally! The Italian asks the Basque's advice on a matter of vendetta! About time."
He rubbed his hands, almost gleefully. Then, crossed himself. "I cannot speak to the point concretely, you understand. I'm sworn to the work of Christ. But, at a glance, it seems to me that the son is better suited to settle accounts with the father than you are. At the appropriate time. And--given some sage advice and counsel from his grandfather, in the months and years to come--is certainly the best choice to settle accounts with the mother's murderer."
Again, he crossed himself. "God willing, of course. But, on this matter, I suspect the Lord will smile kindly." Again, he crossed himself. "Provided, of course, that the son is alive tomorrow. And provided"--again, he crossed himself--"that he manages to avoid falling into the pit of sinfulness the day after."
More sedately: "Um. To be precise, manages to clamber out of the pit. Being, as I suspect he is, already halfway into it."
The sound of the sword hilt slapping back into the scabbard jolted Erik a bit. The duke's harsh chuckle even more so.
"I'd ask you to become his counselor," said Dell'este, "but I suspect that would fall into the category of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse."
Lopez managed to look aggrieved. Not much.
"How soon do you need me in Venice?" asked the duke.
The priest shrugged. "The sooner the better. But--" He glanced out at the Ferrarese forces constructing their own fieldworks. The quick assessment was that of a man who had once been a veteran soldier himself. "Under the best of circumstances, you cannot manage the task sooner than the day after tomorrow. That should be good enough. Even if the enemy wins the battle in Venice today, they will not be able to fortify their position in less than a week. Not in Venice, not without Sforza."
The duke nodded. "Very well. I'll start today. But I intend to bleed Sforza--and Visconti--of everything I can before leaving."
"Goes without saying," agreed Lopez, nodding sagely. "Drain every lira from his pay chest. Leave his mercenaries moaning their lost money but savoring their salvaged lives. They won't be able to do anything about it anyway, since you will naturally demand their guns and their pikes." He pursed his lips, considering the problem. "Probably best to leave the officers their swords. Except Sforza's, of course. You'll want to break that over your knee in front of him."
The Duke of Ferrara was smiling thinly, now. "Fierce, you are! Father Lopez, the days when I could break a sword over my knee--a good Ferrara blade, anyway, and be sure that's what Sforza possesses--are long gone."
"Allow me the privilege, then," said Manfred forcefully. He extended his huge hands. "I won't even need a knee."
"Oh!" exclaimed Lopez. "How rude of me. I forgot to make the introductions. Enrico Dell'este, Duke of Ferrara, meet Manfred of Brittany. He's the Emperor's nephew, by the way, and has some incredible list of titles. I can't remember them all. Earl of something, Marquis of whatever. Baron of this and that."
Dell'este's eyes may have widened a bit, but not much. Mostly, he seemed interested in Manfred's hands. "You'll need a pair of iron gauntlets," he mused.
"Damn things have to be good for something," growled Erik.
* * *
Manfred snapped Sforza's sword like a twig. The commander of the Milanese forces, Italy's most famous condottiere, did not so much as flinch at the sound. Whatever else he was, Carlo Sforza was no coward.
"You look just like your son," commented Manfred mildly, as he handed Sforza the point end of the broken blade. "Except Benito's not reached his full growth yet, and he isn't as mean-looking."
Sforza's round, hard, muscular face registered surprise. As much at the return of the blade, perhaps, as the mention of his son.
"You've met him?"
"Yup." Manfred held his right hand above the ground, about an inch lower than the top of Sforza's curly hair. "So tall; don't think he'll get any taller." He gave Sforza's stocky form a quick once-over. "But I think he's going to wind up even thicker than you. The kid's already got the forearms of a small bear."
For a moment, a shadow seemed to cross the condottiere's face. That was the first expression other than stoic resignation Erik had seen Sforza exhibit since the surrender ceremony began in mid-afternoon. And it was now well into sunset.
"I haven't seen him in years." The great captain's words were almost whispered.
"You will," predicted Manfred. He held up the hilt end of the broken sword in his left hand. There was more than a foot of the blade left. "I'll be giving this to him, when I see him next." He nodded toward the Duke of Ferrara, standing stiffly some distance away. "As his grandfather commanded. Some day--don't ever doubt it, Sforza--he'll be coming to get the rest of it."
"And when that day comes," said Erik between tight jaws, "I strongly urge you to have found another employer. Or your guts will be the carpet he uses to get to Visconti's throat."
Sforza's dark eyes swiveled toward him. Erik's grin was quite savage. "Believe me, Carlo Sforza. I'm an Icelander, and I know a feud when I see one. I've met Benito also."
"I'll consider your words." The dark eyes got even harder. "I told Filippo Visconti this was a fool's errand. Damn all dukes and their complicated schemes. But . . . he pays well. Very well."
Manfred snorted. "Idiot. Benito'll spill your purse before he spills the rest of you."
"That's my boy," murmured the Wolf of the North. "Others doubted. But I never did."
Chapter 90 ==========
The grayness swirled thick, carrying the sounds of combat and dying. Despite everything they'd done, some of Aleri's agents had survived. Fire bloodied the fog to the south, and the smell of it was thick in the air.
Marco turned to Kat, a heaviness in his chest, and the edge of despair in his voice. "We're losing. In spite of everything, we're losing. Count Badoero must have brought at least a thousand men. Caesare has made sure the damned militia are ineffectual. The Arsenalotti and the boat-people fight well. But this fog--it confuses everything. There's something wrong with this fog. It's like it's fighting for them."
"It feels heavy. Not natural," said Kat. She'd acquired a cut on one cheek and two ash smudges on the other. With or without them, Marco still thought she was the most beautiful, wonderful person he'd ever met. She lightened the fog around her, and in the face of her hope and determination, he lost some of his despair. If Kat believed in him, in their cause, maybe--
She patted his arm. "You're a good general, Marco. People rally to you."
He pulled a face; he didn't want to be a general, and it wasn't what he was good at. If only there was something he could do to make a bigger difference than merely whacking at people he'd rather be meeting over a glass of wine at a taverna! "Benito is twice the organizer. And I hate this killing."
Someone came running out of the fog. It was Rafael, gasping for breath. "Luciano says . . . needs you . . . the Marciana . . ."
They headed across at a run. They weren't that far from San Marco anyway.
Rafael led them upstairs to a room, and they burst through the door. Sigils and arcane symbols were chalked on the floor and all three of them came to an abrupt halt before they so much as touched a toe to one of those sigils. A complex triple circle with squares at the cardinal points and an internal octagon occupied the center of the room--that wasn't chalked, it was inlaid onto the floor of the room.
This is a--a working chamber, Marco realized. A place for magic, and nothing else. Christian magic? Jewish? Strega? All three, perhaps? There was some overlap--more than just some if Brother Mascoli was to be believed. Emeralds twinkled from the cardinal square nearest them--sapphires from the one across the room--topaz to the left and rubies to the right. The lines of the diagrams were laid out in--gold and silver? Well, for some Strega magic, the magic with the purest intentions that called only great spirits, silver and gold were a good thing, not something to be avoided. Silver for Diana, and gold for Dianus. Or silver for the Moon and gold for the Stars. Or silver for Earth and gold for Heaven. The jewels glittered, and the whole of the diagrams seemed to scintillate. The boundaries weren't fully up yet, but the energies that would create the walls between the realms weren't white, they were opalescent, rainbowed. The air was thick with incense.
Luciano, clad in a long white robe, loomed out of the scented smoke. He looked old and tired--older than Marco had ever seen him before. And frail. His skin seemed translucent, as if the motral part of him was wearing thin and his soul shining through it. "Are we winning?"
Marco sighed, and shook his head, despair once again pressing down on him. "No. We have more men, but Badoero and Caesare are just too damned good. And they have the certainty of more men coming. Kat's grandfather got the message off to Trieste--if that works, at least we won't have to deal with the rest of the Knots. Manfred and Erik and Lopez rode off to try to save the Polestine forts from that nun. We won't know for some time whether Sforza is on his way here with the Milanese. In the meantime, we're fighting fires--and each other, often enough--in this damned fog."
Luciano's
lips thinned with anger. "It is indeed a 'damned fog.' It is caused by Chernobog, working through someone here in Venice. Lucrezia Brunelli, I would think, is the only one powerful enough to do it alone. But she's supposed to have left the city, so perhaps it is several mages working together. The only good thing about it is that it's taking nearly all of their energy. Weather magic is hard, expensive magic."
"They've obviously got gold to burn," said Marco bitterly.
"The expense I refer to is of magical energy," said Luciano tiredly. "And what I have been doing is also--expensive. I had hoped to avoid this, but it seems we have little choice . . . I will perform a summoning. If it works, it will save us. Save Venice. But it calls, of all things, for one of the Case Vecchie blood. One of the longi. And only four families are listed. Two are no more. The other two are Valdosta and Montescue."
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