Demon Knight

by Ken Hood

  The record of suzerains' survival was not very encouraging, but their families had done somewhat better. The nightmare of the skinning knife was perhaps the worst of all. What choice had she had? None. Sartaq was overlord, and Lisa was his ward. It was no more than courtesy on his part to ask Blanche's consent.

  A scarcely audible tap on the door barely preceded its opening, and in strode the duchess of Ferrara, magnificently attired in scarlet and emeralds. Perhaps no one so petite could be described as striding, but her habitual no-nonsense air was even more marked than usual. She eyed the anonymous bed curtains, then looked inquiringly to Blanche.

  "She is still a little upset, Your Grace."

  Lucrezia shrugged her elegant little shoulders. "You can see why our Florentine laws leave marriage entirely to parental judgment. When I threw tantrums as a child, I was birched. My husbands were all amused by the scars. I should have thought Her Majesty was a little old for that, but I can certainly arrange to have it done now if you wish, monna."

  "Oh, no!" Blanche said hurriedly. "I am sure that once the shock wears off she will be restored to her usual self." Was Lisa's usual self adequate for the present situation?

  "Well, by all means let us give her another five minutes." The duchess settled on a chair, arranging her skirts. "My brother is a patient man, but even he cannot tolerate a wife who throws hysterics. I know he chastised Filomena a few times when they were first married. Now his friends are pouring in and will naturally wish to congratulate the future bride."

  "Just a few minutes." Blanche wanted to sit down also, but her body refused. She took a few more paces, turned, paced again... Like the nightmare of the snakes...

  "I cannot see," said the duchess, "how we can possibly have everything ready by the end of the month. Normally it takes two years to arrange a Marradi wedding. Lisa? Are you likely to be bleeding around the thirtieth?"

  There was no reply.

  Lucrezia looked to Blanche, who felt herself blush.

  "I believe that date will be acceptable." Lisa was quite right—this wonderfully delicate, suave, civilized duchess was also a ruthless and callous bitch. Her brother, Blanche's future son-in-law, was known as the Fox, and vixens were vicious.

  "Lisa, dear," Lucrezia said, raising her voice to address the four-poster, "you realize that you are making a terrible fuss to avoid something that you will be absolutely begging your husband for once you have tried it?"

  The bed uttered an audible wail.

  A ruthless, callous, and vulgar bitch.

  Lucrezia tutted in annoyance. "By her age I had experienced two husbands and several lovers. There wasn't anything about men I didn't know. Is she really a virgin?"

  "Certainly!" Blanche had gone so far as to ask, and Lisa never lied to her.

  "Amazing!" Lucrezia studied the bed curtains with amusement. "So her previous romances have all been pure and platonic?"

  "What previous romances? This is slander, madonna!"

  "You are not going to tell me that a woman of Lisa's age has had no male friends whatsoever?" Lucrezia's smile flowed into a simper. "Have you not noticed how frequently she mentions Constable Longdirk?"

  "Oh. Well, she is young, and he is an impressive figure of a man."

  "Only if your taste runs to blacksmiths and quarry workers. So there was a, shall we say, friendship between them? Nothing improper, of course, but a... an interest?"

  Cornered as in the nightmare of the giant cat, Blanche conceded the possibility. "If you imply no more than that, well, yes I do believe that Lisa and Constable Longdirk were, um, attracted to each other."

  Lisa uttered a wordless howl of protest from behind the curtains.

  Lucrezia laughed. "Stubborn, isn't she? I do hope you explained the impossibility of such a match?"

  Blanche nodded, although she recalled that she had once brought up the subject with Lisa, and it had not seemed so impossible then.

  "And what were Longdirk's feelings?"

  "He behaved perfectly. But you could see by the way he looked at her that he was... drawn."

  Lucrezia sighed and smiled again. "So tragic a tale! We must give some thought to the guest list. Normally the families... I do hope, madonna, that you are not planning to invite your husband!" She trilled a laugh.

  "Of course not!" Vulgar, ruthless, callous, and heartless bitch.

  "Perhaps some of the English exiles," the duchess said, "to balance the parties. Let us decide tomorrow." She rose. "Come out now, Lisa, and prepare to meet the visitors, or I'll have you dragged out."

  Like the nightmare of the sealed tomb.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Toby had little time to worry about Hamish's broken heart or Lisa's sword-point marriage. He had a year's work to do and only days to do it in—days and nights, for he never seemed to sleep now.

  The most urgent need was to enclose the hill of San Miniato within the city walls. He tossed the problem to Hamish, telling him it would help him forget his lust for another man's betrothed. Whether this was true or not, Hamish went to work with his usual zeal.

  The don looked like the next most trouble. The dieci's written instructions forbade both him and Toby to leave the city, but he never read the edict, and Toby forgot to mention that clause. He sent the captain-general off with a hundred lances to scout the roads through the Apennines. The Company itself had to be brought into the city, a move that raised rumbles of mutiny because the only thing less popular than storming a city was being trapped inside one during a siege. Fortunately there were many green areas within the walls to pitch tents.

  Those were all obvious problems. A thousand lesser matters swarmed like midges—livestock and fodder, setting up guns, tearing down every building and uprooting every tree and shrub within a mile of the walls, stockpiling human food and fuel, hanging chains across the river, organizing hospitals and firefighting, establishing a new casa, drilling the citizenry—a clerk or wool carder could drop a rock off a battlement as well as a knight could. Days went by in a blur of questions, demands, and protests. He made each decision in turn and went on to the next. There were many evenings when he could not remember having been off his feet since dawn.

  Antonio Diaz, for example, looming out of the morning confusion and raising his voice almost to a shout: "Another five hundred!" Toby had never seen him so agitated.

  "Another five hundred what?"

  "Gone!"

  It took a few questions to establish that the cavalry was absconding, vanishing into the night, but it was going by squadrons, not just deserting in a rabble. The don had not been seen since he went off to the north. There was a connection there somewhere. The don would never run away from battle, but he would prefer to pick his own ground.

  "Fewer mouths to feed," Toby said. "The only use we're going to have for cavalry is as a source of steak. Let's just keep this under our helmets."

  "We can't draw pay for units we can't locate!"

  "What good will gold do the Florentines when the Fiend arrives?"

  Diaz harrumphed and stalked away in outrage. The poor man had too many morals for his own good.

  Behind all this surface frenzy, the war continued along its own relentless track, always a few days ahead of the news so that every report had to be extrapolated: "If they were there then, they must be about here now..." The vast tide of refugees Toby had feared did not appear, because most people just dived into the nearest town and slammed the gates, hoping the war would go elsewhere.

  Turin had burned. Trent had burned. He had predicted both of those. There had been a minor battle outside Turin, and the Chevalier had been wounded, but no one knew how badly.

  Milan and Verona ought to be next, but after the middle of the month the picture shimmered and steadied again like a reflection on a pool. Nevil had not laid siege to Milan. He had not turned aside to Venice. He was not even trying to link up his two columns—he did not need to, because no serious opposition had taken the field against him. His western army was apparently he
ading for Genoa. The eastern force had bypassed Verona, headed straight south to the Po, and then halted to build a bridge where there had never been one before.

  —|—

  Toby found Hamish on the hill of San Miniato bellowing at a work gang who had unloaded a wagonload of stone in the wrong place. He was using half a dozen languages, but his meaning was quite clear.

  Toby thumped a hand on his shoulder. "This isn't going to work, my lad. You don't have time to finish the wall, and half a wall is as much use as half a head. Pay them off and send them home to their wives."

  Hamish gave him a hard stare. "News?"

  "Bad news. Nevil is still busy building his bridge. Work is going very slowly. His western column has bypassed Genoa."

  "This is absolutely crazy! Has he lost his mind?"

  "No," Toby said. "He's defined his objectives."

  It was amusing to watch the gears turning, the rising incredulity as Hamish worked it out. "The western army is heading down the coast at a forced march?"

  "Looks like it. And when it reaches Lucca, it will turn inland. By that time, of course, the eastern army will have crossed the Po and sacked Bologna. I estimate he'll be here by the first week of May."

  Hamish grimaced as if he were being racked. "We've got to get Lisa out of the city!"

  "Oh, that would not be courteous," Toby said sourly. "She's the reason her daddy's coming to call."

  —|—

  There was little satisfaction in being right. The only surprise in those waning days of April was that the Tartars stayed on in the city, with Sartaq making himself visible, delivering speeches, and generally behaving as a prince should, usually in the company of the new suzerain and his future bride. The Florentines drew comfort from their leaders' courage and resolution, not dreaming that their city had become the Fiend's primary objective. There was no word of Don Ramon and the Company cavalry, but the dieci never asked why he had disobeyed orders.

  Under the best conditions, seven leagues a day would grind down the toughest, best-trained army very quickly. Nevil was famous for forced marches that left a trail of dead men and horses by the roadside. When his western army reached Lucca and turned aside to advance up the Arno, he struck with the eastern force down the old Roman road through the Apennines. Toby had been wrong on only one detail—the Fiend did not destroy Bologna. In his haste to close the trap around Florence, he left it intact.

  The Chevalier was reported to have died of his wounds in Milan, but he had never been relevant. Sartaq made no move to replace him.

  —|—

  As the last day of April dawned, Toby came limping back to Giovanni's inn, which now acted as the Company's casa. From long habit he shared a room with Hamish, and let him have the bed. He himself seemed to have no time for sleep at all anymore. He had been up all night and most of the previous night, supervising the final preparations. As he stripped and began organizing a shave, he was so tired that the world would not stay in focus.

  Hamish duly sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I've seen you before somewhere, haven't I?"

  "Not recently. Do you happen to remember my name? It seems to have slipped my mind."

  "Genghis Caesar." Hamish yawned, stretched, scratched, and reached for his shirt. "Don't throw away that water. Anything happen in the night?"

  "Half a dozen scouts disappeared. Got too close and were eaten by demons, I expect. He'll be here before noon." Razor in hand, Toby turned to peer at his friend. "As of half an hour ago, the Siena road is still open. Nevil's trying to cut it; he's got a column of light cavalry heading across country to San Gimignano. He thinks they're masked by gramarye, but Sorghie found them. They're not there yet, so why don't you go while the going's good? I'm sure Sartaq will make a break for it and take Lisa with him."

  Hamish leaned back on his elbows and studied his friend with a curious expression. "Do you think I'd do that?"

  "No. But I wish you would."

  "Well I won't. And I don't think Sartaq will, either. Or Marradi. You've got the people convinced that Florence can hold out indefinitely. You're the famous Longdirk, who's never been beaten. Everyone's persuaded you have something up your sleeve, that Naples and Milan and the others are marching to the rescue."

  Nauseated, Toby went back to shaving. "I never told anyone that! It's Sartaq, spirits forgive him! Keeping up morale is one thing, but holding people here for no real purpose when the city is doomed—that's criminal!"

  "Have you said that to anyone but me?" Hamish pulled on his hose.

  "Of course not. It would cause a panic. But I don't tell lies, either." He couldn't if he tried. His face would never deceive a blind horse.

  Hamish chuckled. "Doomed, you say?"

  "Doomed. I don't lie to you, friend."

  "Toby!" Hamish had to be very excited for his voice to squeak like that. "Be serious! You do have something up your sleeve, don't you? It's the amethyst, isn't it? You've learned Rhym's true name!"

  Toby forced himself to turn and look him in the eye. "No. No true name. Nothing up my sleeve. I swear."

  Dawning belief made Hamish's lips curl back in horror. "You must have! I've never known you to obey stupid orders before!"

  "I'd never promised to obey them before. This time I did. I have no choice." Toby went back to shaving, having to stare at that failure peering at him out of the mirror.

  "Toby!" Even squeakier. "We've been friends for years. You can trust me!"

  "I do trust you. Hamish, I swear I have no secret plans. I can see no way out of this. Nevil is going to sack Florence. We are going to die. That is the honest truth, upon my soul. I'd prefer you didn't tell anyone else, please."

  After a moment's silence, Hamish said, "I won't breathe a word until after the wedding."

  Toby almost chopped off his nose. "That's still on?" He had forgotten. This must be the last day of April.

  "Yes, it's still on. And we're both invited."

  "Well!" Toby said. "Why not?"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Toby Longdirk was a military genius, but he had some curious limitations. For weeks he had been striding around Florence, organizing the defenses to resist a siege, grinning all the time as if this were tremendous fun, laughing away fears, winking knowingly when asked what was going to happen. Then he professed surprise that people trusted him to work a miracle! He had complained to Hamish a thousand times that he was a lousy liar, when in fact his face was less scrutable than a badly eroded Etruscan terra-cotta funeral monument.

  But he did have something up his sleeve. He must have something up his sleeve! Hamish could not believe otherwise.

  Now he insisted that Lisa's wedding had to be a diversion, a decoy. The Marradis, he said, having made grandiose preparations for a royal marriage and convinced the whole city that it would go ahead as planned, would vanish before the first guests arrived. Sartaq would flee with them, and it was just to be hoped that they would have the grace to take Lisa and her mother and not abandon them to the Fiend's ghastly spite.

  Hamish disagreed adamantly. He had been prying, as was his wont, and although all his efforts had failed to win him a single word with Lisa, he was personally convinced that the Magnificent was going to do exactly what he said he would do—marry Lisa and remain in Florence. Prince Sartaq was not going to sneak out any back doors either. Nor were the priori. The truth was that all those men were just as much under Longdirk's spell as the lowliest weaver. If comandante Longdirk was not worried, then neither were they. Toby had an astonishing air of permanence, an indestructibility that inspired absolute faith. The Fiend's armies were closing in on the town—by nightfall they would have it in their grip—and Pietro Marradi was going to get married regardless.

  Hamish was not going to miss the wedding. This would be his last chance ever to speak to Lisa, probably his last chance ever to see her. The Fiend and all his horrors were not going to stop that.

  "You'd better catch some sleep," he said. "You look as if you haven't shut your eyes in days. Y
ou're out on your feet."

  Toby shrugged. "I'll sleep some other year. Food and then duty—but if nothing goes horribly wrong, I'll come to the wedding, I promise."

  After they had eaten, they went their separate ways.

  —|—

  Just before noon, the Fiend's army came to Florence with bugles and drumbeats, dust and glitter, men and horses streaming down from the hills. Fiesole was burning, and the city gates had been closed. Another column of dust to the west showed where the army from Lucca was hastening up the Arno to join in the siege. The mood in the streets was one of shock and denial. No one had expected this, or not so soon. Even Hamish, who had been privy to all the intelligence reports, had trouble believing that it was really happening.

  When he went back to the inn to change, he found Toby there already, having another shave. If he opened his eyes wide he would bleed to death, but apparently he intended to keep his promise.

  What could be more reassuring to the citizens than seeing their betters whooping up a celebration and ignoring the nonsense outside the walls?

  —|—

  Nothing provoked Italians to ostentation like a wedding. Weddings were political and had very little to do with love or procreation. A marriage was a treaty with an exchange of hostages, and the two families involved were honor-bound to squander money to insanity. In this case the bride's family had no money at all, so the groom's must spend enough for both. Thus it was that, while Nevil's armies gathered like hyenas around Florence, inside the walls the inhabitants held carnival, gala, fiesta, and revelry. Bands played in the piazzas, floats displaying classical themes were dragged through the streets, wine flowed from fountains. The crowds outside the Marradi Palace were being regaled with free wine, food, and music—small wonder they cheered themselves hoarse when condottiere Longdirk arrived in his carriage. They would have cheered the Fiend himself.