by Ken Hood
"Sì, messer."
"You are most kind, Constable!" The lady offered her hand to be kissed and paraded solemnly out of the yard, with Lisa floating blissfully at her back.
"How much priority do I assign to that last instruction, Your Magnificence?" Arnaud inquired acidly.
"Don't move a finger on it," Toby growled, staring after the disappearing visitors. "Spin her all the tales you like, but do nothing."
Lisa was far too valuable a card to be allowed to float around loose. At least, he hoped that was his motive. He hated the idea that he might no longer trust Hamish.
PART THREE
April
CHAPTER ONE
The Marradi villa at Cafaggiolo was more of a palace than a family farm, but its formal gardens blended into fields, vineyards, and olive groves; it grew herbs and vegetables and raised some of the finest livestock in Italy. The greatest artists of Europe had decorated its halls. Now Toby had unwittingly turned it into a barnyard. An intimate meeting of a few had exploded into a conference of hundreds. It seemed as if every city and town north of Sicily had sent its captain-general or collaterale, then backed him up with most of its signory, either because the politicians did not trust him or just because they wanted the honor of being guests of the Marradi. All these cavalcades of dignitaries had brought trains of attendants and guards. The Tartars were going to come later, perhaps even the prince himself, if they could lure him away from his romantic pursuits.
The villa had space for only a tenth, nay a fiftieth, of this multitude. They overflowed into the stables and outhouses, they set up camps in the fields and orchards, they filled up the nearby village and colonized the hills. When hunger bit, they were sure to start looting. Even before he reached the gates that first morning, Toby sent a squire galloping back to Fiesole to summon a hundred more lances to help keep order. Arnaud went with him to organize more provisions.
Making excuses was not in Toby's nature, but again and again during those terrible three days he found himself repeating, "I did not plan this!" The men he really wanted to see had all come—the top military leaders of Italy, all men he respected even if some of them he could not like, and he was proud that he could now regard himself as one of them. So he had invited them to a conclave and landed them in a bear baiting.
Even as he was trying to reach the main door with Hamish and half a dozen others at his heels, pushing his way up the steps through a yabbering, screaming, hand-waving mob of soldiers and civilians, he saw a face he knew looming over the throng and changed direction to reach it. Ercole Abonio, the Duke of Milan's collaterale, was a gruff, rawboned man, almost as tall as Toby himself, more than twice his age. Lombard ancestors had bequeathed him red hair and fighting skills second to none, but he was also a true knight in the finest traditions of chivalry, as if all that was honorable in his bloodlines had come to him, and all that was tawdry and larcenous had gone to his brother, the ambassador. Ercole had taught Toby much of what he knew, and yet at Trent he had steadfastly refused to accept the supreme command, pleading Toby's case instead of his own on the grounds of ill health. He had then fought like a maniac, being wounded twice and having three horses killed under him. There was no one that Toby admired more than the big Milanese, and the quirk of amusement that lit up the man's craggy face was a knife twisted in his heart.
As the two full-sized warriors were clearing a path toward each other through the shrubbery of stunted clerics and burghers, Toby realized that Ercole's companion was Giovanni Alfredo, Captain-General of Venice. That made a difference. Alfredo was not a personal friend, so this cozy little meeting of the three military powers of the north was going to be business, and it was also going to be conducted in the presence of their respective followers and a riot of onlookers. One careless word might overturn many apple carts.
Then Ercole was within reach and could grab Toby in a ferocious bear hug, roaring out his delight at their meeting. Toby gave as good as he got; they exchanged massive shoulder thumps as they parted. He turned to offer a more restrained greeting to Alfredo, who was already shaking hands with Hamish. They were cast from the same mold, those two—slim, dark, and quick of eye—and not far apart in age, either. Alfredo had been the unquestioned rising star of the younger condottieri until Toby had come on the scene. On paper he was still ahead, for he was captain-general of a richer, greater city than Florence, but he was ambitious and would not be satisfied to fight for others all his life. His brilliance at maneuvering around his opponents to turn up on their flanks or in their rear had earned him the name of Stiletto. He was reputed to have similar skill at politics, which many soldiers of fortune did not. Present company included!
Then the formalities were over, all the underlings acknowledged—
"I had not anticipated quite so many fellow guests," Ercole remarked. His expression was superbly innocent, but his eyes were twinkling.
"I did not plan this," Toby protested—for the first time, but knowing it would not be the last. "I don't know where they all came from." The entrance to the villa was now plugged solid by this meeting of the three warriors, their followers having packed in close around them to hear the exchange. Onlookers were openly eavesdropping on the outskirts.
"You should have learned by now, Sir Tobias," Alfredo said, "how rare a thing in Italy is a secret meeting." The glint in his dark eyes spelled satisfaction. He would not be human if he did not resent this brash foreigner who had upstaged him at Trent and was now looking very foolish.
"I should have known." Toby sighed. "Especially I should have known if you did, for you have only to deal with Venetian politics, whereas I am faced with the Florentine variety, which are so much more... er, how do you say 'Byzantine' in Italian?"
"Milanese," Alfredo countered.
Ercole and his Milanese were not afraid to join in the laughter, but the Venetians at Alfredo's back remained carefully wooden-faced, recognizing that the joke was really directed at the Most Serene Republic and frightened they might be thought to be enjoying it. Venice was notoriously more Byzantine than Byzantium had ever been. Soldiers of fortune might be allies this year and next year enemies, but as professionals they bore no grudges. They all shared a healthy contempt for civilian rulers, whether they be the merchants of Venice and Florence, the aristocrats in Milan and Naples, or the acolytes of Rome. They would bleed or even die for those men's gold if they had to, but only courage and fighting skill would buy their admiration.
"Possibly in the next day or two we can arrange a private chat apart from the main meetings," Toby suggested.
"If a secret meeting is rare, one from which politicians are excluded is like the phoenix." Stiletto's eyes conveyed warning. Venice was always suspicious of its condottieri and had been known to chop off their heads. So, of course, had Florence. If those limp-eyed flunkies behind him had been sent along to keep an eye on him, who was keeping an eye on Toby?
"My dear brother is around here somewhere," Ercole remarked, including himself in this unstated brotherhood of the sword against the poison pen. "But I am more worried by the real foe. How many spies do you suppose the Fiend has sown in this conference?"
The three men exchanged grimaces as if they had all heard footsteps walking on their tombs. Alfredo smiled thinly. "Perhaps that's where everybody came from, messer Longdirk?"
CHAPTER TWO
Fiesole was a dull, dull place without Hamish. Lisa had her lady's maid for company—Beritola knew some wonderfully scandalous stories but not much else—and Sister Bona could be entertaining when she was not occupied being dam to her litter of children. All the other women had duties and interests that left them no time for frivolities such as conversation. There were men, some of them mildly amusing at times, but men just reminded her of Hamish and increased her misery. And of course there was Mother, who was admittedly much more endurable than she had been a few weeks ago. She had mellowed so much that she sometimes laughed now and would talk of her childhood and marriage—astonishing!
But the villa was dull. Life itself was dull without Hamish. Every moment they shared was as precious as rubies because they both knew their idyll could not last. The war would come; Maud would drag Lisa off to some safe refuge. Hamish refused to commit himself on what he would do then, but what could life hold for them but more agony? Their love was doomed. She had offered many times to renounce her royal heritage and marry him, and he would not hear of it. Men were stupid!
As she trotted her horse back to the villa on the second day of Hamish's absence, with her escort following, she was disturbed to see a large and impressive carriage standing at the door. Real glass in the windows, gilded moldings and bright enamels—a very splendid vehicle indeed, and the eight matched grays in the traces must be worth a king's ransom. Half a dozen saddle horses were being held by two men in blue-and-yellow livery. She ought to know that livery. Hamish had pointed it out to her in the city. Who had come calling with an escort of six men-at-arms?
A crowd had gathered at a respectful distance to stare—soldiers, women, children. With so many of the senior men in the Company currently absent, she did not doubt for a moment that this ominous intrusion concerned her. A strange knot was tightening in her insides, palms damp, heart pounding. Hamish! She needed Hamish, but he was leagues away at that fatuous conclave he admitted wasn't going to achieve anything. Even Longdirk, she decided. She would not mind at all seeing that overgrown lout planted near the coach, because he always got his own way, and so far he had provided her with admirable protection and hospitality, even if he was a merciless butcher and his manners would shock a rookery.
Her approach had been noted. Down the steps came Mother and several other people—saturnine Marshall Diaz, madonna Anna, and three others not recognizable. Behind them strode the six guards, glittering bright and dangerous.
She could not avoid the encounter. When faced with the inevitable, pretend it's what you want. That was what Hamish said when she warned him she was going to have to kiss him again. Or he would insist that no true lady would kiss a man of her own volition, and he would not allow it. In either case he would then crush her in his arms and preempt her kiss with one of his own, long and lingering and passionate. How dare he be missing when she needed him!
She reined in behind the coach and jumped down from the saddle before there could be any nonsense about bringing stepladders. She shook her skirts out, straightened her bonnet, and walked around the vehicle to face the group now waiting for her. One look at Mother's face was enough to confirm her worst fears.
Maud held out a hand to her. Lisa moved quickly to take it before anyone else could notice how it was shaking.
"We have company?"
"Elizabeth..." Her mother's voice was a croak. Her eyes were as round as a trout's. "We are honored by a visit from Her Grace, the dowager Duchess of Ferrara..."
Lisa had never met a duchess before and to be greeted by this first one with a full court curtsey, skirts right down in the mud, was shocking. Ferrara? Hamish had mentioned that name. She was petite, face rather childish, hair bright red but apparently natural, magnificently arrayed in a gown of deep blue satin with a daring décolletage and padded epaulettes. Its slashed sleeves displayed golden lining, and at least a hundred pearls adorned it. There were another fifty on her balzo cap. A duchess did not go down in the mud like that to anyone less than a queen. The bag was now catless, obviously.
"Please do rise, Your Grace."
Who had betrayed them?
"And, er, His Magnificence, um, messer Marradi, her brother," Maud said.
Ugh! Lisa felt as if she had just fallen off a horse. Backward. Now she realized. This insignificant middle-aged man in drab brown doublet kneeling to her was the Magnificent, despot of Florence! His sister was the notorious Lucrezia Marradi. Hamish had told some stories about her that had made Lisa's hair stand up, or try to. Beritola had told others that curled it.
"Oh, please rise, Your Magnificence."
Maud did not present the third visitor, an elderly, portly man, but his threadbare garb and the way he lingered in the background indicated that he was of no importance. And Marshal Diaz would be no help. He always looked as if he had been carved out of oak. Today he had been cast in bronze.
She did not attempt Italian. Mother had been speaking French.
"Your Grace, Your Magnificence—I am most honored to meet you, although you catch me at an unfortunate moment. Dishabille! Had I known in advance of your coming, I should of course have been most delighted to enjoy, er, share your visit. I have heard so much about... I mean next time..." It was not going to work.
"You poor child!" said the duchess. "How can you have endured this horrible place? Tonight you will sleep in silken sheets on a swansdown bed, as a queen should." Her smile would melt a portcullis.
"But..." But she was about to be taken away and locked up, and she would never be allowed to see Hamish again. She turned to glare at her mother. Why had she admitted her identity after denying it for so long? Had Lisa been here, she would have stiffened her backbone for her. Deny it! They could prove nothing!
"I have accepted Her Grace's invitation, Lisa."
"Well, I have not! Go if you wish, Mother. I will stay here. I am the guest of Constable Longdirk, and it would be most discourteous of me to leave when he himself is absent, and without thank—"
The notorious Lucrezia laughed most gaily. "Longdirk? I don't think that overgrown brute will cause—"
"Be silent," the Magnificent said sharply, stopping her instantly. He turned a pair of alarmingly sharp eyes on Lisa. "Your Majesty, we learned of your presence here and your identity only this morning, and we came at once. What we have learned, others will. I confess that our interest has now made this inevitable, but it would have happened anyway. You are no longer—"
"Learned how?" Lisa demanded. "From whom?" She was digging nails into her palms, desperately trying to dream up some valid defense, some way of staying here until Hamish returned.
"From a source I trust too much to reveal, madonna." He was amused by her resistance and barely managing to pretend otherwise. He gestured at the third member of the group, the elderly fat man. "For many years messer Minutolo was my family's agent in London. He was present at your parents' wedding, and we brought him along to confirm your mother's identity, so we should not cause trouble or distress to anyone if our information was false."
Marshal Diaz took up the cudgel. "My lady, His Magnificence also brought a warrant from the signoria. The Don Ramon Company is in their employ, my lady. I shall inform Constable Longdirk immediately of what has transpired, but in the meantime I respectfully counsel you to be guided by Her Grace and His Magnificence."
Stupid, stolid, stagnant Diaz! He should have been an acolyte, not a mercenary! The footman and postilion had opened the coach door and dropped the steps. The guards had closed in around the group.
"Come, dear." Maud laid a hand on her arm.
"Where are we going?"
"My house is at your disposal, Majesty," Marradi said.
She had seen that gloomy pile. Hamish had pointed it out to her. It looked like a fortress. "My clothes—"
Lucrezia laughed. "You will have all the clothes you can stand to try on, child, garments more suitable for a palace, I daresay."
"My maid! Beritola?"
"We can send for her if you wish, but I can give you a dozen better."
Reluctantly—oh, so reluctantly!—Lisa let her mother urge her toward the coach. Hamish would rescue her! No. Disloyal though it seemed, she did not believe that. The only person she could imagine who might be able to rescue her from the Marradi's clutches was Toby Longdirk.
Unless he had been the one to betray her.
CHAPTER THREE
The conclave was a disaster. Hour by hour it became more obvious that the cities would never agree, and the Khan's intervention had only made things worse, because Sartaq knew nothing, his advisors were incompetent, and every one of them wanted to meddle.
Nevil would be receiving very encouraging reports from his agents.
The agony was that it should have worked. The men Toby had invited had all come: Giovanni Alfredo, Ercole Abonio, Bruno Villari from Rome—whose only good quality was that he fought like three rabid badgers—and from Naples, Egano Gioberti, Jules Desjardins, and even Paride Mezzo, the collaterale, who had ridden all the way in agony, knowing he was dying but anxious to do his duty to the end. All for nothing! Even the Swiss had responded. On the second day Beltramo di Nerbona rode in at the head of a delegation from no less than ten of the thirteen cantons, which was an astonishing show of cooperation. They left before dawn. They knew a lost cause when they saw one.
At first Toby assumed that the senior delegates would be able to meet privately together, ignoring all the hangers-on and political parasites, but even that proved to be impossible. Every man had a spy or two at his shoulder put there by his own government, quite apart from the dozen or so others assigned to him by other states—at times the gramarye in the air made the hob itch so much that Toby could hardly think. Hundreds of minor condottieri and would-be condottieri swarmed like mosquitoes, all trying to gain promotion by signing on with one of the major states or larger companies, while the Tartar officials and innumerable Italian politicians just kept getting in the way. It was a madhouse, worse than juggling beehives.
The meetings and conferences were all held in public. No one knew who was supposed to be included, so everyone turned up rather than insult the Khan's representatives. Neguder was brought all the way from Florence in a litter and carried back again three days later, having not sobered up once. He slept on a throne as his interpreter read his speech again, the same speech he had given in Florence, while all the senior soldiers in Italy and half the second-string politicians crouched with their noses on the floor.
On the second day there was almost a riot. Nevil would certainly be told about the two cardinals who turned up and were very nearly hanged on a tree by enraged mercenaries. The Don Ramon Company was far from alone in being short of hexers, but the College remained obdurate. Rome's own Captain-General Villari admitted that he lacked adequate spiritual protection and did not intend to move his forces far from the walls of the Eternal City itself.
