by Eric Flint
As Dolor suspected, this was all the stimulus that Borja needed to find renewed energy for putting his verbal whip to his subordinate’s well-flayed ego. How sharp a disappointment it was to him, and to the hopes of Mother Church, that de Requesens could not even keep a small crew of shiftless murderers in line. Was this what passed for firm leadership in the spoiled younger generation of hidalgos, these days?
Which was the opening Dolor had been looking for. Using de Requesens’ habitually meek tone when correcting his superiors, he pointed out that the separation between himself and the assassins made it functionally impossible to control them in any way. If he initiated that kind of contact with them, or attempted to give them orders on his own, he would be blatantly violating the most crucial directive that Borja had given him: to remain out of the decision-making loop.
The dramatic change in the tempo of the signals told Dolor that his explanation had had the desired effect: Borja was now finding the exchange not only tedious, but burdensome. The subsequent bursts of brief activity accumulated into what was essentially a concluding laundry list. Gasquet was impertinent and had to remain patient. The plan and the weapons were being withheld as long as possible to eliminate the possibility of betrayal—either out of greed or a guilty conscience—to Urban’s servitors. There was no use trying to wheedle any details out of Rome because the controller of the Swiss would coordinate the delivery of the weapons and the plan, independent of further instructions. He had been retained due to his familiarity with not only the region and Besançon, but an intimate knowledge of the precise location where the assassination would be carried out. Gasquet would indeed be in command of the attackers, but would be required to follow the plan without alteration.
There was a long pause and then a single cypher: the one indicating that the exchange was concluded. Dolor leaned back.
Rombaldo sat down in the chair opposite. “I heard the last message. Not much to go on.”
Dolor nodded. “Not much at all.” He frowned. Deciding he had no choice left but to use the Swiss themselves to glean some of the necessary information, he peeled a piece of stationary off the pile that had been taken from de Requesens’ suite, and began writing.
“To Gasquet?”
“Yes. Instructions that he contact the Swiss and inform them of his new address.”
Rombaldo shrugged. “But how will that help us learn what attack is being planned?”
“I am instructing him to also ask them for a list of the weapons to be relayed, so that he, and therefore I, can be certain that all the ones intended for his men will be delivered as promised.”
Rombaldo shook his head. “What makes you think the Swiss, or rather, their controller, will respond to that?”
“Because I will indicate that the request originates from our joint patron. Specifically, that Rome has tasked me to make sure that none of the weapons furnished, or funded, were liquidated ahead of time: not an uncommon practice with employees who decide to disappear if an operation looks too dangerous. Of course, the real reason is to learn the nature of the weapons. That may give us some clue as to where the attack will be carried out, or at least, the kinds of environment in which it will not be carried out.”
Gasquet nodded. “Reasonable. I’d certainly be thinking of dodging away with a few extra ducats in my pocket if my employer didn’t provide a convincing plan ahead of time.”
Dolor nodded, but neglected to remark that Rombaldo was in very much the same situation. Until they learned about the attack at the last minute from the Swiss controller, Dolor’s own group also remained without a plan. Instead, he handed Rombaldo the coded message and said, “Have Giulio go to L’Auberge de Boucle and hire a messenger to deliver it upstairs and wait for confirmation.”
Rombaldo sighed. “He’ll probably buy himself a drink while he waits, you know.”
Dolor shrugged. “Of course he will. He’s an amateur.”
As are you all.
Chapter 27
Dusk was painting the west violet and peach when the cloister bell began to call the monks to dinner. Singly and in pairs, they began moving toward the refectory, hands in their joined sleeves, heads inclined. Although this was not an order that required a vow of silence, or even promoted it, their convergence upon the chapter house was as loud as the closing of a dove’s eye.
As Sharon watched the last of them file in and the large double doors close, she sent a sideways smile at Finan. “Thank you, Corporal. That will be all.”
“M’lady?”
Her smile widened. “You may go and see to your own meal and get a little extra sleep. For all we know, we could be called out in the middle of the night to look at yet another murder victim.”
“I’m right as rain and ready as I am, Ambassador Nichols. I don’t need to—”
Sharon turned towards him. “Finan. Thank you. Now, go away. You need some time to yourself.” And so do I.
Finan took a step away, hesitated. “M’lady, guarding you is my duty. I’d not leave you to—”
Sharon laughed. “You will leave me, partly because I want you rested to do your duty properly tomorrow and partly because—well, because I say so.” She gestured at the outward-looking sentries atop the watchpoints that ringed the cloister. “I am quite safe. And we are both quite tired. So, git!”
Finan, expressing his misgivings with a frown instead of words, did finally turn and move off.
Sharon sighed, staring after the bantam corporal, wondered what she’d do without him, turned to look back at the deepening dusk—and saw Ruy approaching on the walkway that traced a diagonal from one corner of the courtyard to the other. Right on time. She began to walk toward him, even though her first impulse was to run into his arms.
Because their jobs in Besançon had been pulling them subtly apart, and not just in terms of time. Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz was a perfect chief of security for the pope not merely because he was smart, tactful, shrewd and an experienced soldier, but because he had considerable familiarity with the way assassins thought and acted. More familiarity than Sharon would have guessed. And every once in a while, when his eyes grew distant while looking at a mutilated corpse or dissecting how an ambush could take place, she found herself asking, Is my Ruy familiar with this because he’s foiled it before, or because he’s done it before? She knew that the life of a Spanish soldier was not a pretty one, that the treatment of prisoners in his time often constituted what were called war crimes in hers, and that sometimes the distinction between an act of war and an assassination was more a matter of word choice than anything else. And so she wondered: how far down this road has he gone, and how often, and where, and why? And just as intently as she asked those questions of herself, she intensely wanted not to have them answered—for fear of what those answers would be.
So she wanted to run to him, to hold him close and feel and say to herself: this is the Ruy I love. This is who he is now, and who he always wanted to be, no matter what he might have been forced to do and be before. But she knew that if she did that, he would detect her desperation, if for no other reason than she was normally very circumspect about public displays of affection in the cloister. And if he felt her worry, he would not stop inquiring as to its cause until she answered. And when she did, then what?
So Sharon Nichols walked to Ruy, who was, as usual, beaming at her, and once they had drawn close enough together, he inclined his head as he asked, “And might fair lady mine wish to take a stroll on this fine night?”
And as her heart leaped up with love and dread, she managed to merely smile, offer her arm, and say, “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
And they walked.
* * *
After they had taken a half turn around the cloister, Ruy murmured into her ear, “Alone at last.”
“Yes, at last. But I have news.”
“So do I. But you first, my love.”
“No, mine can wait.”
“As can mine, and besides,
I would be a cur if I did not both insist and remind: ladies first.”
“Hmm. Nice to know you think I’m a lady after some of the times we’ve shared. I remember the first night in that farmhouse in Lombardy…”
“The marvel of a true lady is that although her abilities and virtues approach the divine, she nonetheless has talents which are delightfully infernal.”
“Ruy, stop it. Like I said, you go first. ’Cause, ‘age before beauty.’”
“And so I am slain by my one love, pierced to the heart by the cruel truth of her insight!”
“Yeah, and when you’re done dying from it, you start. Please.”
“Ah, very well. Some disappointing news, first. To use the parlance common in the books of which you are so fond, the ‘trail is cold’ on landlord Lamy’s attackers. An estranged stepbrother of his could not be questioned; he is just recently out of town. However, by all accounts, he is not capable of the crime himself. He is even less physically fit than was the victim, it seems. Of course, it is not beyond possibility that he retained the services of two or more thugs. At any rate, there is no precise information to be had regarding his whereabouts or probable date of return.
“Now, on the matter of canvassing Lamy’s properties as possible sites where he was murdered, or where relevant clues might be found: three of his rented rooms were interesting, but none gave us any leads.”
“Not even the one where they found some blood on the stairs and on the way to the outhouse?”
“No, and the watch spent a great deal of time speaking to all the tenants in that wretched place. Many of whom made savage accusations against each other, none of which proved to have merit.”
“And the other two?”
“Both were flats vacated without warning. The smaller one was apparently an overcrowded room down on the water, whose changing denizens were perpetually behind in their rent. They disappeared a day or two before Lamy’s body was found, owing a full week.”
“Might he have gone there and got knifed instead of paid?”
“Possible, but I am told the place was a sty. And that to call it such was an insult to most pigs. Which means it had not been cleaned in some time, including any removal of incriminating bloodstains. At any rate, it yielded no evidence.
“The last property was the top floor of a house in the hospital district, rented by laborers. The watch found it emptied of all effects, and left as tidy as the other was filthy.”
“Tidy as in ‘freshly cleaned of evidence’?”
“Alas, the watch was uncertain on that point, or perhaps they simply lied to conceal the shoddiness of their observation.”
“What about neighbors: did they report anything suspicious at either location?”
Ruy sighed. “At the smaller room, the ‘neighbors’ are mostly wedded to the bottle or other vices that would make them unlikely to notice or remember the apocalypse if it occurred in their own bed. As it might, on occasion. At the larger flat, there are only two other residents, one of whom makes his living on the river and was only rarely at home. The other was described as a woman of advanced years, poor hearing, powerful opinions, and questionable veracity. She had much to say about the departed tenants’ lack of consideration when using the privy, but would not budge from that topic—probably because she had no other reasonable source of vitriol against them.”
So the search for leads that might connect the murder of Lamy to some larger plot against the pope had effectively fizzled. No real surprise there. If she or Ruy had had the time to be the first person on site in each location, to bring an experienced and dedicated eye to assess it before it was irrevocably spoiled, then maybe something might have turned up. But the limitations implicit in relying upon the town watch had been understood from the start and there was no other way to follow up on all the leads. Well, perhaps there had been better luck in the follow-up on this morning’s murder victim.
“Any luck in locating people who worked with Parsifal Funker and also knew of the mute?”
Ruy shrugged. “Almost every stonemason in town worked with Funker at some point. Hardly surprising, given all the churches in so small a city. However, only two knew of the mute, and then, only from years ago. And neither of them were ever involved in any of the mute’s—shall we say confidential?—interior work.”
“So does this guy work alone?”
“Firstly, by their account, he is past the age of working safely with stone. But it may very well be as you say, that he worked alone. In addition to being mute and illiterate, he was always extremely reclusive, even secretive. And apparently, he has become even more so. Which is not uncommon, or a bad idea, when one has made a living installing hidden or secret constructions. All sorts of persons may wish to converse with you for all the wrong reasons. Better if they cannot find you.”
Sharon nodded. “Did the prioress give you any information, even rumors, about other tunnels that might be connected to the convent?”
“No. She was unsure that any confidential work had ever been done. Her predecessor never elected to take her into confidence on the matter, which would be particularly understandable if she herself had somehow been involved in the laxity that the archbishop mentioned. However, the Carmelites have recently searched—as well as nuns can be expected to—for any possible points where the convent’s lower areas might be connected to older structures. They found nothing.”
“Do you think the search was, well, sufficiently detailed?”
“Admirably thorough, from the sound of it. They searched all sides of the lower levels, excepting the one that they know abuts on an adjoining cellar in the only building that is built up against their own.”
“You mean that sad old flophouse?”
“The very same eyesore. And before you may ask, oh my brilliant and ingenious wife, no: that building is not built upon older ruins. It is as dull a construction as exists within this city’s walls, I am afraid.”
Sharon reflected that, in the books she favored, there was always a part where the investigators ran into nothing but dead ends. Except that usually happened early in the story. Here, with the colloquium almost over, it felt altogether too likely that whatever assassination plot might exist was probably entering its final, preparatory stages. Sharon was not a fan of how reality differed from the fictional worlds she so enjoyed, which were so intellectually satisfying. This just made her feel a bit panicked and very stupid. “Did anyone have any idea where the mute might live? Any at all?”
“Sadly, no. He often lived on the site where he worked. And his last jobs were not always well advertised, if you take my meaning. But we have recruited men of discretion, including some of St. John’s canons, to make inquiries and visit likely sites.” Ruy took her hand in his, squeezed it gently but firmly. “He will be found.”
Sharon nodded agreement, but her thoughts were: Yes, let’s hope so. But I’m not holding my breath. And: you’re breaking our rule about no PDA in the cloister, and damn it, that’s just fine with me, tonight.
The pressure of Ruy’s hand pulsed slightly tighter. “And now you.”
“‘Now me’ what?”
“You had news for me?”
Sharon grinned as she rolled her eyes at herself. “It’s no fair, Ruy. You’re twice as old as I am, but I have only half your memory.”
“It pains me—in so many ways—to correct you, my love, but you are mistaken in two particulars. Firstly, your memory is quite remarkable. And secondly, I am, alas, more than twice as old as you are. Indeed, I am daily mystified and gratified beyond words to awaken into a world where, for reasons I cannot fathom, you see me as something other than an infirm old goat—”
“Now, stop right there, Ruy,” she said with histrionic severity. “I don’t know many twenty-five-year-olds who are half as fit as you are, and that’s as far as I am willing to be lured into your ploy to have me flatter you. As regarding you being a goat—well, I suppose that’s not all bad.” She was afraid her sly smile might
have veered over the line into an outright leer.
Whether it did or not, Ruy acted as though it had; swiping at his moustaches the way a rooster might preen, he smiled broadly, and then raised a remonstrative finger. “And while I will remember—and return to!—this delightfully audacious banter, I am no more easily distracted than you, my wondrous wife. I ask again: what news?”
Sharon was pleased—or was she?—that Ruy had so swiftly deflected her suggestive remark. “Whoever else is using a radio in Besançon was burning up the airwaves today. And we’re pretty sure it was a single set, in a single location. And it was getting constant messages. They must have drained their batteries at least once.”
“Was any of it decipherable?”
Sharon shook her head. “No. It’s all in the same cypher, but we got a good, clean sample of it today. It’s always being varied, of course, but there are some signal clusters that show up more often than can be explained by random combination. Odo, who’s gotten pretty good at this stuff, insists that there are bigger patterns he can feel as we transcribe what’s being sent.”
One of Ruy’s eyebrows raised very high. “Odo feels this?”
“Look, I don’t pretend to understand, let alone be able to explain what he means. Damned if I understand half the things he does explain. But I trust him. And here’s something that’s a simple fact: there was more activity than I’ve ever heard here down-time. Somebody had a lot to say. And given what’s been going on here over the last few days, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to posit a connection.”
