This Rough Magic

by Mercedes Lackey

  So much for keeping his passage quiet. Still, with any luck he hadn't betrayed who he was or where he was from—or even where he was headed.

  "Well, how much did he pay you?" Benito said grimly to the captain. "I should have smelled a rat. It was too easy. You weren't planning on going to Livorno, were you?"

  The captain shook his head. "We only go to Naples, signor. Never been further. But word was out to agree to take you wherever you wanted to go."

  Benito smiled wryly. "I'm getting old and getting soft. Well, Captain. Just how soon do we sail? Because these parts are going to be very unhealthy for a while. You might be wanted for questioning, about why you allowed a man with the Church's blessing on him to be attacked on your ship."

  The captain looked about nervously. "We're not supposed to sail at night."

  Benito just looked at him. Then looked at the water. You couldn't actually see a corpse there.

  "However there's a good breeze," said the captain hastily. "Stilo. Cast us off, boy!"

  "But, Captain . . ."

  "Don't argue, Stilo."

  The seaman did as he was told. When he jumped back on board he asked Benito: "Is it true about the medals?"

  Benito nodded. "The Siblings were going over this afternoon to fetch home the rest."

  The seaman took a deep breath. "Di Scala is a big man, and he's got connections. But this time he's gone too far. You don't mess around with the Hypatians here. The people, especially the women, won't stand for it. He'd know that, if he could get a woman without paying double for her." Then he snickered. "Actually, after this, he couldn't get the worst puttana in town for the price of a prince's courtesan."

  Benito pulled a face. "Besides, no matter how big a man you are . . . someone else is always bigger. There were some Jerusalem pilgrim medals, too. One of them belonged to a fellow with a reputation big enough to make even princes nervous. And when he finds out . . ."

  He sighed. Having Carlo Sforza for a father had been the kind of thing that had made a boy wonder about himself, sometimes. He was finding that to be just as true, now that he was a young man.

  "I think, Captain, you'd be very wise to stay away a long time. At least as long as the trip to Livorno is going to take you."

  Chapter 55

  Aldo Morando approached the secondhand merchant Fianelli with a smile. "I believe I've got some information that might be of interest to you."

  "I deal in old clothing and cheap medicines," said Fianelli, disinterestedly. "Not information."

  Morando wasn't fooled. Fianelli didn't want it known that he was the kingpin. His underlings did the legwork, bought and brought in the information, delivered it to the drop point, and collected their money from the same. But Fianelli was less professional than he thought he was. Morando had been a spy for Phillipo Maria once, in Milan. Now there was a son of a bitch who really understood underhand dealing. Fianelli was a provincial amateur by comparison.

  Aldo Morando knew how the money worked, too. A lake at the top; a stream to the next tier; and drops to the actual sources. Well, that wasn't how it was going to work here. He was going straight to the lake.

  "The details of who blew up the magazine out there might just be worth buying. But they'd be expensive."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  Morando raised his eyebrows. "I have a source to the captain-general's innermost secrets. For a price I can let you into them. It's as simple as that."

  Fianelli shrugged. "And why would I want to know his secrets? Now do you want to buy, or just talk rubbish?"

  "I'm not buying. I'm selling." Morando turned and walked out. The next move would be Fianelli's.

  It wasn't long in coming.

  * * *

  Petros Nachelli wasn't a man whom Aldo Morando would have chosen for a go-between. A short, fat, glib little man who oozed greasiness and dishonesty in equal proportions. The Greek was a rent collector for the landed gentry of Corfu's Libri d'Oro. Cockroaches came higher on the social scale of things. Spying was a big step up for Petros.

  He knocked on Aldo's door with a smile of false bonhomie on his podgy face. "Ah, my friend Morando. I received a message that you had some . . . merchandise you wished to sell. You can entrust me with it. I'll see you get the best possible price."

  "I deal directly or not all, Nachelli. You can tell him that."

  The smile fell away from the pudgy face. "I was informed that you were either to sell or I was to take it." He twitched his head over his shoulder, in what he apparently intended for a menacing gesture. Across the road, two of Nachelli's men were loitering. Rent collection sometimes required a beating or two.

  Morando gave them no more than a glance. Fianelli's three goons were, in their own way, fairly impressive fellows. Genuine professional thugs. Nachelli's "enforcers," on the other hand, were about what you'd expect from such a lowlife. From the looks of the two scrawny fellows, they were just some relatives of the rent collector pressed into service here. Reluctant service, from the expressions on their faces. They'd be accustomed to bullying long-suffering peasants, not someone like Morando who had a somewhat scary reputation of his own. Aldo suspected that a loud Boo! would send them both packing.

  "I think not," Morando sneered. "I have taken precautions, Nachelli. His name—Fianelli's—and the names of his three errand boys. Due to go to the podesta, the captain-general, the garrison commander and this newly arrived imperial prince, if I disappear. So go away and tell the boss I don't deal with intermediaries."

  Morando smiled nastily, before closing the door. "And remember that your name is on the list now, also."

  Aldo Morando was in fact delighted by one aspect of Fianelli's choice. The use of Nachelli fingered several of the Libri d'Oro families who'd been enriched by the feudal system the Venetians had imposed on the island—and were now conspiring against the Republic. A potential source of much income, for a blackmailer.

  * * *

  Fianelli came to see him after sundown. When he left, Morando went to the flagstone that served as a trapdoor to the "satanic cellar" and lifted it up. Bianca Casarini emerged from the stairs.

  "I still don't understand why you didn't pass the information on to him yourself," he grumbled. "This is a bit dangerous for me, Bianca. Nachelli's just a toad, but Fianelli—crude as he may be—is something else again."

  Bianca gave Morando her most seductive smile and chucked him under the chin.

  "Surely you're not afraid of him? Aldo Morando? A veteran of Milanese skullduggery? Quaking at the thought of a criminal—ah, not exactly mastermind—on a dinky little island in the middle of nowhere?"

  Irritably, though not forcefully, he brushed her hand aside and stumped over to the table in the kitchen. "Save the silly 'manly' stuff for someone stupid enough to fall for it, Bianca." He lowered himself into one of the chairs. "I survived Milan by not being foolhardy. So please answer the question."

  Bianca came over and slid into a chair next to him. She took her time about it, to consider her answer. Morando was a charlatan, true, but it wouldn't pay to forget that he was also considerably brighter than any of the other men she was dealing with on Corfu.

  She decided the truth—most of it, at least—would serve best.

  "I can't afford to become too closely associated with Fianelli myself. Even more important, I can't afford to let him start getting the notion that I've become indispensable to him."

  Morando arched a quizzical eyebrow. From long habit, he did so in a vaguely satanic manner. "Satanic," at least, as he—a charlatan and a faker—thought of the term. Bianca, as it happened, had once gotten a glimpse of the Great One, in her dealings with Countess Bartholdy. So she knew Morando's affectation was silly.

  The real Satan had no eyebrows, nor could he. They would have been instantly burnt to a crisp, so close to those . . .

  Not eyes. Whatever they were, they were not eyes.

  She shuddered a little, remembering.

  Morando misinte
rpreted the shiver. "Fianelli's not as bad as all that, Bianca." He chuckled. "I would have thought you'd want to be indispensable to him."

  She shook her head. "You're misreading him. No, he's not that bad—but he is that sullen. Fianelli is the kind of man who hates anyone having a hold on him, especially a woman. If he gets sullen enough, he'll cut off his nose to spite his face. The nose, in this instance, being me."

  Morando looked away, thinking for a moment. "Probably true," he mused. "He does remind me a bit of those crazy Montagnards in Milan, even if he hasn't got a speck of political loyalties. But . . . yes, he's got that somewhat maniacal feel about him."

  "I don't think he's entirely sane." Confident now that she had Morando diverted down a safe track, Bianca pushed ahead. "He murdered that woman of his, you know—had her murdered, anyway—and for what? She was docile as you could ask for, and so dumb she posed no threat to him whatsoever. Didn't matter. At a certain point, she irked him a bit. Why? Who knows? Probably asked him to wipe the mud off his feet before entering the kitchen she'd just cleaned."

  Morando grunted. "All right. What you intend, then, is to make sure that the information we feed him comes from both of us. You feed him stuff from the Libri d'Oro, I feed him stuff from the Venetians. And stuff which jibes with each other. That way he'll think he can play one of us off against the other. That'll please his fancy—enough, you think, that he won't start thinking of either of us as a threat to him."

  "Exactly."

  Again, he gave her that false-satanic eyebrow. It wasn't all fakery, though. Bianca reminded herself sharply that Morando hadn't survived Milan without being willing to shed blood himself, on occasion.

  "Just make sure it isn't true, Bianca." The menace in Morando's voice was barely under the surface. "If I start thinking that you're playing me . . ."

  "Don't be silly! Why would I do that?" She didn't try for offended innocence—Morando wouldn't believe that for an instant—but simple cold calculation. "This partnership is proving profitable for both of us. Besides, sooner or later—we're doing our best to make sure it happens, after all—the Hungarians are going to pour into this place. When that happens, I have every intention of being on the best possible terms with you."

  She glanced at the flagstone. Morando, following her eyes, smiled. "It will make a nice hideout, won't it, until the Hungarians have sated their bloodlust?"

  His eyes moved back to her, lingering for an instant on her body. "Simple lust, too, for such as you. Mind you, Bianca, I will expect to be entertained while we're waiting in the cellar."

  She laughed huskily. "And have I ever given you grounds for complaint on that score?" Her hand reached out and began stroking his arm. "Now that you bring it up, in fact . . ."

  Regretfully, he shook his head. "Can't, sorry. Not tonight. The Tomaselli slut is coming over later and she's supposed to bring a friend of hers with her." He rolled his eyes. "I need to save my energy. And other stuff."

  Bianca laughed again. "What are you complaining about? Two women, naked, squirming all over you—most men would think they'd died and gone to Heaven."

  Morando's face was sour. "Most men have never copulated with Sophia Tomaselli in a rut, with paint and ointments smeared all over her body and with her groaning what she thinks are words of passion. I'm coming to detest the woman." The face grew more sour still. "God only knows what her friend is like."

  Discreetly, Bianca said nothing. She knew what the friend was like, as it happened, having been the one who steered her to Sophia in the first place. Like Sophia, Ursula Monteleone had all the vices and the unpleasant personality of a Case Vecchie woman moldering in a provincial backwater; unlike Sophia, who was at least physically rather attractive, Ursula was almost obese and had bad breath.

  "Some other time, then," she murmured seductively. That was a waste of time, with Morando. But Bianca liked to stay in practice.

  * * *

  At midnight, Bianca communicated with Countess Bartholdy. Unbeknownst to her, not five minutes later, Fianelli used almost exactly the same magical methods to communicate with Emeric.

  Both mistress and master were pleased at the reports.

  Others were not.

  * * *

  Eneko Lopez glared out the window of the lodgings he shared with his fellow priests. There was nothing to see, in the middle of the night, except the occasional flashes of cannon fire.

  Hearing footsteps enter the room, he glanced over his shoulder. It was Diego and Pierre, not to his surprise. Of the four of them, Francis was the least sensitive to evil auras.

  "Yes, Diego and Pierre, I felt it also. It woke me up. Twice—and with a different flavor to each. They're using the same rituals but following slightly different procedures. We've got two Satanists, or packs of them, working in this place."

  "Yes. But why two, I wonder? One of them will be Emeric's agent, for a certainty. Who is the other working for? It wouldn't be Chernobog. For his own reasons, the demon avoids satanic rituals as carefully as we do."

  Lopez shrugged. "Hard to say. The Dark One penetrates everywhere, in this wicked world." He slapped the windowsill with exasperation. "This cursed island!"

  "It does not really smell like an evil place to me, Eneko. And I am—you may recall—a rather accomplished witch-smeller."

  Eneko sighed. "Yes, I know. But whether it's evil or not, there's something on Corfu that impedes all of our own magic." He clenched his fist, slowly, as a man might crush a lemon. "Were that not true, we could deal with these Satanists easily. I could sense that they are skilled enough—one, especially—but not powerful."

  Diego cleared his throat. "Two things, then. The first is that we should let Francesca know what we know."

  Eneko's lips quirked a bit. He could guess what the second thing was. "I agree to the first, not that I think she'll have any more success than we're having. I will not agree to the second. Not yet, at any rate."

  He could hear Pierre's sigh. "So stubborn! Eneko, this island—whatever lurks on it, rather—is not evil. Not friendly to us either, no. But not evil. So why not try to form an alliance with . . ."

  "With what?" Eneko demanded. "A formless, faceless something? About which we know nothing, really, except that it seems able to absorb all our magic like a sponge absorbs spilled water?"

  Pierre cleared his throat again. For the first time since he and Diego had entered the chamber they all used as a common room, Eneko turned to face both of them squarely. The Basque priest's eyes were perhaps a little wider.

  "Ah. You're right, actually. We do know something about it. It impedes earth magic, in particular."

  "In particular? Perhaps—exclusively." Pierre stepped forward to join Eneko at the window. Looking out into the darkness, he frowned thoughtfully. "I admit, it's hard to prove, one way or the other. None of us can fly and—"

  Cannon fire illuminated the night. "—going out on a boat is probably not a practical idea, these days."

  * * *

  The next evening, the prevailing northwest wind—the maestro, it was called—was blowing hard enough to make the poles of Emeric's great pavilion tent creak, despite their heavy burden. The assembled officers carefully did not look at the two corpses swinging from them. One of those corpses was that of a purported rebel. But the other was that of a former officer in Emeric's army, the man who'd been in charge of the magazine that had been sabotaged—and there were still vacancies on the other four poles.

  "His name is Hakkonsen. Erik Hakkonsen," said Emeric coolly. His men had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off since the destruction of the magazine, trying to find out who had blown it up. It gave him great satisfaction to show them that he could do what they could not.

  "He's an Icelander, a Knight of the Holy Trinity. He's Prince Manfred of Brittany's personal bodyguard, so you can assume he's an excellent swordsman. He stands about six foot two, he is lean and athletic, broad-shouldered. He had fine, blond, straight hair, but it is now probably dye
d black. He's wearing a short, dark Mungo cotte, a gray homespun shirt, and tawny woolen breeches. One of my agents actually sold him the clothes. He is possibly in the company of a blond woman. I want either of them. The woman will do for bait. Him, I want his head."

  A guard came running in. "Sire! Sire! The camp at Patara is on fire. I can see it burning."

  Emeric and his officers rushed out. In the darkness, the arc of leaping wind-driven flames stood out clearly. Some of the flames were easily thirty feet high. In their ruddy light, even from here Emeric could see the tents and the tiny stick figures of soldiers, fighting the fire.

  "Get down there!" shouted the king. "That's the new shipment. That is the horses' hay!"

  Cavalry commanders, particularly, left at a sprint.

  Chapter 56

  The remount guards had their attention on the blaze across the inlet. Stalking them was ludicrously easy, thought Erik, even in the bright moonlight. Would have been, at least, except for the horses. Horses are a lot more wary than men. Still, if the herd guards had noticed, then they put those whickers and ear flattening down to the fire-smoke.

  Erik's five arquebusiers, their fire all directed on the guard tower, cut loose a moment too early.

  The rest had to rush the last few yards, but surprise was still on their side. Erik didn't waste time on finesse. He ran one of the sentries through as the man was attempting to bring his pike to bear. A second blow felled another man. He half-turned to see how the rest were getting on.

  In horror, he saw it was not going so well. One of the men was down. Thalia, thrusting wildly at another sentry, was nearly skewered. The guard had knocked her legs out from under her, even if he'd missed his pike stroke. Erik knew he'd never get there in time.

  Panting, Giuliano did—but there were three sentries, all with pikes, facing a single pudgy swordsman.

  And Erik was treated to a virtuoso display of bladesmanship.

  Erik had been worried about Giuliano. Kari told him that he'd hesitated to cut throats in the magazine-guard barracks raid. Now, however, Giuliano had suddenly become transformed from a plump youth into a whiplash-fast razor. The three, prepared, ready and with a far greater reach, proved no match at all.