"THE SPIRIT RING" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bujold Lois McMaster)

Chapter Three

Ruberta the housekeeper helped Fiametta lift and slide the heavy red velvet gown over her head, and smooth it down over her fine linen underdress. Fiametta brushed at the folds of its wide-cut skirt, so profligate of cloth, and sighed pure satisfaction. Hie dress was far finer than anything she'd dared hope for. Master Benefbrte had produced it, quite unexpectedly, from an old chest when Fiametta had complained of the sad figure she would cut at the Dukes banquet in plain gray wool. The dress had once belonged to Fiametta s mother; Fiametta and Ruberta had spent a week cutting it down and resewing it. Judging from the measurements, Fiametta was now nearly as tall as her mother had been, though more slender. Strange. She remembered her mother as tall, not short: tall and dark and warm.

Fiametta held out her arms, and Ruberta pulled on the sleeves and tied them to the dress at the shoulders, and fluffed out puffs of the underdress for contrast at the elbows. The red velvet sleeves were embroidered with silver thread, echoed by a silver band running all around that wonderful hem.

"Don't bounce so, girl," Ruberta complained mildly, and pinched her lower lip with her teeth in concentration as she knotted the bows just so. She stepped back and regarded Fiametta with judicious pride. Now for your hair."

"Oh, yes, please." Fiametta plunked down obediently on the stool. No little gins cap today, nor hair in a mere simple braid down her back. The dress had come with a matching hair net of silver thread and pearls, magically untarnished with age. Ruberta parted Fiametta's hair in neat, if wavy, wings, wound it up on the back of her head, and fastened the net over the mass of it, except for two dark ringlets she made to bounce artfully in front of Fiametta's ears. Fiametta stared greedily into her little mirror, delighted, turning her head back and forth to make the ringlets jump. "Thank you, Ruberta!" She flung her arms around the housekeeper's aproned waist and hugged her. "You're so clever.'

"Oh, your slippers#8212;they're still in the kitchen. I'll go get them." Ruberta hurried out. Fiametta tried the mirror at various angles, and ran her hands again over the soft sumptuous cloth. She sucked on her lower lip and, on impulse, rose and went to the chest at the end of her bed.

She pushed aside linens and found a flat oaken casket. She opened it to reveal her mother's death mask. Many people kept death masks of wax; Prospero Beneforte had recast Fiametta's mother's in bronze, darkened by his art to a rich brown close to her original skin tones. The alert dark eyes were closed, now, like sleep, but a strangely sad sleep, above the soft curves of her nose and wide mouth. Fiametta held the mask up to her dress and peeked over it into her mirror, held out at arm's length. She squinted, in an effort to weld face and dress in the blur. Then she lowered the mask to her chin, and compared the two faces. How much of the paler one was Prospero Beneforte, how much this lost woman? Fiametta's nose had a definite bridge, and her jaw was more sharp cut than this dark visage, but otherwise ... Who am I? And whose am I? Where do I belong, Mother?

Ruberta's step sounded on the gallery, and Fiametta hastily replaced the mask in its casket and locked it away again. Ruberta handed the polished shoes in through the door. "Hurry, now. Your Papa's waiting downstairs."

Fiametta jammed her feet into the shoes, and skipped out of her bedroom and around the upper gallery overlooking the courtyard. She took up her skirts to descend the stairs, then shook them out and walked more sedately, as befit her lady's hairstyle. No slave's gown, this, nor mere servant's, but obvious proof that her mother had been the true Christian wife of a great artisan. Fiametta held her chin up firmly.

Master Beneforte was standing in the stone-paved hallway. He looked splendid too, Fiametta decided. He wore a cloak of black velvet that swung to his knees, and a big hat of the same fabric, wound round like a turban with a jaunty fall of cloth to the side. His tunic was of honey-brown cut velvet, high to his neck where a bright white line of linen showed, with a pleated skirt to his knees and black hose. Despite his graying hairs Master Beneforte still resisted the long gowns of the aged, though the sober colors he'd chosen suggested a suitably powerful maturity. He'd set off the tunic with a gold chain of his own workmanship, displaying his art.

He turned at Fiametta's step. "Ah, there you are." He looked her up and down, eyes going strangely distant, muttered "Huh," and shook his head as if to clear his vision.

"Do I look well, Papa?" asked Fiametta, alarmed.

"You look well. Here." He thrust out his hand to her.

Draped over his palm was a silver belt of cunning workmanship. Fiametta took it up, surprised. It was in the form of a silver snake, round and flexible as a rope. The gleaming scales were as fine as a real snake's, their overlapping plates concealing whatever linked its skeleton. Its head was solid silver, modeled as in life, with green chips#8212;emerald? glass?#8212;glittering for eyes.

"Put it on," said Master Beneforte.

"How? I see no clasp."

"Just loop it. It will stay."

"It's enchanted, isn't it?"

"Just a little spell for your protection."

"Thank you, Papa." She fitted it around her waist, curling the tail around behind the head, and indeed it held last. Only then did she think to ask, "Does it come off?"

"Whenever you wish."

She tried it, and looped it back on. "Did you just make this?" She thought he'd been working night and day to finish the saltcellar.

"No, I've had it for some time. I just cleaned it and renewed the spell."

"Was it Mama's?"

"Yes."

Fiametta stroked it, her fingers sliding over the scales. They emitted a faint musical vibration, almost too thin to hear.

The Duke's saltcellar sat waiting on a bench against the wall. Its new box was satin-lined, ebony to match the base, with gold clasps and gold handles on the ends. Fiametta had helped assemble and polish it. She would not have guessed her father to be nervous, but he opened the box and checked its contents one last time, and rechecked the seating and security of the clasps, then wandered into the workroom and peered out the window.

"Ah. At last." His voice drifted back to her, and he returned to the hall to unbar the door for the Swiss captain and two guards. The guards' breastplates gleamed like mirrors, and Captain Ochs was dressed in his best and cleanest livery, with a new doublet with gold buttons issued in honor of the betrothal.

"All ready, Master Prospero?" the captain smiled. He nodded to the ebony casket. "Shall I have my men carry it?"

"I'll carry it myself, I think," said Master Beneforte, lifting the box. "Have them walk one ahead and one behind."

"Very well." And they started off so ordered, the captain and Fiametta flanking the goldsmith.

"Keep the door barred till my return, Teseo," Master Beneforte called back, and the apprentice bowed awkwardly and closed it behind them. Master Beneforte paused till he heard the bar slide into place, nodded, and marched down the cobbled street.

It was a bright day two weeks after the holy feast of Easter, just barely cool enough for velvets to be comfortable. Trees had budded into new leaf in the weeks since Fiametta had cast her ring. She clutched the lion mask on her left thumb, and let the#8212;sigh#8212;garnet catch and wink back the midday sun. That light glowed, too, off the yellow brick and stones and red tile roofs. Sad dun in winter, Montefoglia almost looked like a city of gold on long summer afternoons. They passed from the street of big houses flanking her fathers home and workshop down into older, more crowded construction.

Crossing a side alley leading down to the water, Fiametta glimpsed boats and the docks. A few lazy lake gulls swooped and squawked. Perhaps when Papa took her fishing again this summer, he'd finally teach her the secret spell he used for baiting his hook. The narrow lake extended eleven miles north from Montefoglia, toward the foothills of the Alps beyond which lay Captain Ochs's home. The first pack train of the season had come down over Montefoglia Pass a week ago, Fiametta had heard. Higher and more difficult than the great Brenner to the east, the route yet served the needs of the little duchy. Montefoglia was hard hill country, and would have been poor indeed without the trickle of trade and the fishing of the lake.

On the east shore, north of town, the monastery of St. Jerome kept grape vines, spring wheat in terraces, orchards and sheep. The main road ran up the east side of the lake past its stone walls, the west side being too sheer, rocky, and wild for any but goat paths. Fiametta could see a few figures on horses and a slow ox cart moving on the dusty white ribbon. St. Jerome's scriptorium also supplied illuminated books for the Duke's library, pride of the castle that dominated the bluff at far end of town. It was the Duke's boast that his library held none of that cheap modern printed matter, but only proper calligraphed manuscripts bound in rich decorated leather#8212;over a hundred volumes. It seemed a constrictive stipulation to Fiametta's mind, but perhaps it was because Duke Sandrino could read but not write himself that calligraphy seemed so significant to him. Old people were ridiculously conservative about the oddest things.

"And how go the betrothal celebrations?" Master Beneforte inquired of the captain. Fiametta, lagging, quickened her step and closed the gap to listen.

"Well, the Duchess had an illumination in the garden last night, with a tableau and madrigals. The singers sounded very pretty."

"I'd have been doing the costuming for that set piece, but for the Duke's insistence upon this." Master Beneforte lifted the ebony box. "I'm surprised that dolt di Rimini didn't botch the effects. The man couldn't design a doorknob."

The captain smiled dryly at this aspersion upon Master Beneforte's most notable local rival in the decorative arts. "He did all right. For your consolation, there was a bad moment when the candles set fire to a headdress, but we doused the lady and got it out, with no injury but to her feathers. I knew I was right to insist on having those buckets ready, backstage.'

"Ha. I understand the future bridegroom rode in on time this morning, at least."

"Yes." The captain frowned. "I must say, I don't like the retinue he rode in with. A hard-bitten bunch. And fifty men-at-arms seems excessive, for the occasion. I don't know what Duke Sandrino was thinking of, to allow my lord of Losimo to bring so many. The honor due his future son-in-law, he says."

"Well, Uberto Ferrante was a condottiere, before he fell heir to Losimo two years ago," said Master Beneforte judiciously. "He hasn't really been there long enough to establish local loyalty. Presumably these are men he trusts."

"Fell heir, my eye. He bribed the Papal Curia to overturn the other cousin's claim, and again for dispensation to marry the heiress. I suppose Cardinal Borgia wanted to be sure of a Guelf in Losimo, to oppose the ambitions of Venice and the Ghibbellines."

"From my experience of the Curia, I'd say you guess exactly right." Master Beneforte smiled sourly. I do wonder where Ferrante got the money, though."

"The ambitions of Milan seem a nearer threat, to me. Poor Montefoglia, sitting like an almond between two such pincers."

"Now, Milan's an example of how a soldier may rise. I trust Lord Ferrante has not been studying the life of the late Francesco Sforza too closely. Marry the daughter, then make yourself master of the State.... Take note, Uri."

The captain sighed. "I don't know any heiresses, alas." He paused thoughtfully. "Actually, that's exactly what Ferrante did, in Losimo. I trust he does not seek to duplicate the ploy in Montefoglia."

"Our Duke and his son are both healthy enough to prevent that, I think," said Master Beneforte. He patted the ebony box. "And perhaps I can do my little part to help keep them so."

Hie captain stared down at his boots, pacing over the stones. "I don't know. I do know Duke Sandrino is not altogether happy with this betrothal, and Duchess Letitia even less so. I cannot see what pressure Ferrante can be putting, yet I sense .,. there was hard bargaining, for the dowry."

'Too bad Lord Ferrante is not a younger man, or Lady Julia older."

"Or both. I know the Duchess insisted it be put in the contract that the wedding not take place for at least another year."

"Perhaps Lord Ferrante's horse will dump him on his head and break his neck, betimes."

"I will add that to my prayers," smiled the captain. It almost wasn't a joke.

The conversation lagged as they reserved breath for the final climb to the castle. They passed through a gate flanked by two sturdy square towers of cut stone topped by the same yellow brick common in most of Montefoglia's newer construction. The soldiers escorted them across a stone-paved courtyard and up the new grand staircase the present Duke had installed in hopes of softening the austere and awkward architecture of his ancestors. Master Beneforte sniffed at the stonework in passing, and muttered his habitual judgment. "Should have hired a real sculptor, not a country stonecutter...." They passed through two dark halls and out another door to the walled garden. Here among the flowers and fruit trees the tables were set for the betrothal banquet.

The throng was being seated, just the timing Master Beneforte had hoped for his grand presentation. The ducal family, together with Lord Ferrante and the Abbot of Saint Jerome and Bishop of Montefoglia (two offices, one man) occupied a long table raised on a platform. They were shaded by awnings made of tapestries. Four other tables were arranged at right angles, below and beyond, for the lesser guests.

Duke Sandrino, a pleasantry bulky man of fifty with nose and ears of noble proportions, was washing his hands in a silver basin with rose petals floating in the steaming water, held by his steward Messer Quistelli. His son and heir, the ten-year-old Lord Ascanio, sat on his right. One of Lord Ferrante's liveried retainers was adjusting a footstool with a padded leather top beneath his master's boots, in the shape of a chest carved with Losimo's arms. The portable furniture was evidently for some idiosyncratic comfort, for Lord Ferrante's legs were of normal shape and length. Maybe his silk hose concealed an old war wound that still pained him. Fiametta schooled herself not to gawk, while trying to memorize as many details as possible of the overwhelming display of velvets, silks, hats, badges, arms, jewels, and hairstyles before her.

The Lady Julia, seated between her mother and her bridegroom-to-be, wore spring-green velvet with gold embroidery and#8212;ha!#8212;a girl's cap. Though indeed, the green cap was embroidered with more gold thread and studded with tiny pearls. Her hair was braided with green ribbons in a blonde rope down her back. Did Duchess Letitia deliberately seek to emphasize her daughter's youth? Julia's slight flusterment made a vivid contrast with the Lord of Losimo on her other hand. Dark, mature, powerful, clearly a disciple of Mars: Lord Ferrante's lips smiled without showing his teeth. Perhaps his teeth were bad.

The abbot-and-bishop was seated to Lord Ferrante's left, no doubt both for the honor and to give Ferrante an equal to talk to if Julia's girl chatter or bashful silence grew thin. Abbot Monreale had been a flamboyant knight in his youth, when he'd been severely wounded, and made a deathbed promise to dedicate his life to the Church if God would spare him. He'd kept his promise with flair; gray-haired now, he had a reputation as a scholar and a bit of a mystic. He was dressed today as bishop, not abbot, in the splendid flowing white gown and gold-edged red robe of his office, with a white silk brocade cap over his tonsure. Monreale was also the man who yearly inspected both the workshop and the soul of Prospero Beneforte, and renewed his ecclesiastical license to practice white magic. Master Beneforte, after making his leg to the Duke, his family, and Lord Ferrante, bowed to the abbot with immense and unfeigned deference.

As they'd practiced, Master Beneforte knelt and opened the ebony box, and had Fiametta present the saltcellar to the Duke with a pretty curtsey. The snowy linen of the table set the gleaming gold and brilliant colored enamels off to perfection. Master Beneforte beamed when the occupants of the. table broke into spontaneous applause. Duke Sandrino smiled in obvious satisfaction, and asked the abbot himself to bless the first salt, which the steward hurried to pour into the glowing boat-bowl.

Master Beneforte watched in breathless suspense. Now was the time, he'd confided to Fiametta in their private rehearsal, when he'd hoped the Duke would fill his hands with ducats in a magnificent gesture of generosity before the assembled guests. He'd hung a large purse, empty, beneath his cloak in anticipation of the golden moment. But the Duke merely, if kindly, waved them to places prepared for them at a lower table. "Well, he has a lot on his mind. Later," Master Beneforte muttered in his beard, concealing his chagrin as they settled themselves.

A servant brought them the silver basin to wash their hands#8212;one of Master Beneforte's own pieces, Fiametta noticed#8212;and the banquet commenced with wine and dishes of fried ravioli stuffed with chopped pork, herbs, and cream cheese rolled in powdered sugar. Baskets of bread made entirely from white flour appeared, and platters of veal, chicken, ham, sausages, and beef. And more wine. Master Beneforte watched the upper table with sharp attention. No blue flames flashed up from anyone's plate, though. Fiametta made polite conversation with the castellan's wife, a plump woman named Lady Pia, on her other side.

When the castellan's wife rose for a moment, beckoned by her husband, Master Beneforte leaned close to his daughter and lowered his voice. Fiametta braced herself for more grumbling about the Duke's ducats, but instead he said, unexpectedly, "Did you notice the little silver ring Lord Ferrante wore on his right hand, child? You stood closer to him than I."

Fiametta blinked. "Yes, now that you mention it."

"What did you think of it?"

"Well ..." She tried to call it up in her mind's eye. "I thought it extremely ugly."

"What form had it?"

"A mask. An infant, or putti's face, I think. Not ugly, exactly, but ... I just didn't like it." She laughed a little. "He should commission you. Papa, to make him something prettier."

To her surprise, he crossed himself in a tiny warding gesture. "Say not so. Yet ... how dare he wear it openly in front of the abbot? Perchance it came to him secondhand, and he doesn't know what it is. Or he's muted it, somehow."

"It was new work, I thought," said Fiametta. "Papa, what bothers you?" He looked disturbed.

"I'm almost certain it's a spirit ring. Yet, if it's active, where can he have put the ..." He trailed off, lips thinned, staring covertly at the upper table.

"Black magic?" Fiametta whispered, shocked.

"Not ... not necessarily. I once, er . .. saw such a thing that was no grave sin. And Ferrante is a lord. Such a man should be easy and conversant with forms of power not so appropriate in lesser men, yet proper to a ruler. Like the great Lord Lorenzo in Florence."

"I thought all magic was either white or black."

"When you've grown as old as I have, child, you will learn that nothing in this world is either all white or black."

"Would Abbot Monreale agree with that?" she asked suspiciously.

"Oh, yes," he sighed. His brows rose in a sort of eyebrow-shrug. "Well, Lord Ferrante has a year yet, to reveal his character." His fingers curled, suppressing the topic as Lady Pia returned.

The meats, what little was left of them, were taken away by the servants, and platters of dates, figs, early strawberries, and pastry confections were set before the guests. Fiametta and Lady Pia collaborated on selections and did great damage to the dried cherry tarts. Musicians at the far end of the garden began to play above the chatter and clink of cutlery and plates. The Duke's butler and his assistants poured out sweet wines, in anticipation of closing toasts.

Messer Quistelli hurried out of the castle and stepped under the tapestries shading the high table. He bent his head to whisper in the Duke's ear. Duke Sandrino frowned, and made some query; Messer Quistelli shrugged. The Duke shook his head as if annoyed, but leaned over, spoke to the Duchess, and rose to follow his steward back inside.

The castellan's wife entered into a negotiation, across Fiametta, with Master Beneforte to mend a little silver ewer of hers that had a broken handle. Fiametta could see her father was not flattered to be bothered by such a domestic trifle, apprentice's work, till his eye fell on her.

He smiled slightly. "Fiametta will mend it. It can be your first independent commission, child."

"Oh. Can you do it?" Lady Pia looked at her, both doubtful and impressed.

"I ... suppose I'd better see it first," Fiametta said cautiously, but inwardly delighted.

Lady Pia glanced at the high table. "They won't start the toasts till the Duke returns. What can be keeping him away so long? Come to my rooms, Fiametta, and you can see it right now."

"Certainly, Lady Pia." As they rose, Messer Quistelli returned, to speak this time to Lord Ferrante. Ferrante grimaced puzzled irritation, but evidently compelled by his host's command got up to follow the steward. With a jerk of his hand Lord Ferrante motioned two of his men to fall in behind him. If she'd seen them on the street, Fiametta would not have hesitated to dub them bravos. The senior of them, a tough-looking bearded fellow missing several front teeth, had been presented as Ferrante's principal lieutenant. Captain Ochs, leaning over to chat with some lady at one of the lower tables, looked up, frowned to himself, and followed. He had to lengthen his stride to catch up.

The two women waited for the men to clear the doorway, then the castellan's wife led Fiametta within. Fiametta glanced aside curiously as they crossed the chamber. Through a door at the far end into a cabinet or study she could see the Duke standing at his desk, with two travel-stained men, one a grave-faced priest, the other a choleric nobleman. Lord Ferrante and the rest of the retinue then blocked her view, and she followed Lady Pia,

The castellan had rooms in one of the square towers. Lady Pia took the ewer from a shelf in her tiny, thick-walled bedroom, crowded with her bit of furniture#8212;a bed and chests#8212;and waited anxiously while Fiametta carried it to a window slit to look it over. Fiametta was secretly pleased to find it not a mere soldering job, but one requiring more expertise; the handle, cast in the form of a sinuous mermaid, was not only loose but cracked. Fiametta assured the castellan's wife of a swift repair, and they wrapped the piece in a bit of old linen and returned with it to the garden.

Passing again through the large chamber, Fiametta was startled by Duke Sandrino's angry shouting, coming from the cabinet. He was leaning across his desk on his clenched hands. Lord Ferrante stood facing him with his arms tightly folded, his jaw set and features darkening to a burnt brick red. His voice rumbled in reply in short jerky sentences, pitched too low to be clear to Fiametta's ear. The two dusty strangers looked on. The noble's face was lit with malicious glee. The priest's was white. Captain Ochs leaned with his back to the doorframe, apparently casual, but with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Lady Pia's hand tightened on Fiametta's shoulder in alarm.

Duke Sandrino's voice rose and fell. "... lies and murder ... black necromancy! Sure proof... no child of mine ....nsult to my house! Get you gone at once, or prepare for a war to spin your vile head, condottiere bastard!" Spluttering with fury, Duke Sandrino bit his thumb and shook it in Lord Ferrante's face.

"I need no preparation!" Lord Ferrante raged back, leaning toward him. "Your war can begin right now!" As Fiametta watched open-mouthed, Lord Ferrante snatched his dagger out left-handed. In the same continuing upward arc he slashed it across Duke Sandrino's throat, so powerful a blow it half-severed the neck and bounced off bone. Ferrante struck so hard he unbalanced himself, and he and his victim fell into each other across the desk as if embracing, smeared sudden scarlet.

With a shocked cry that was almost a wail, Captain Ochs ripped his sword from its scabbard and started forward. In the confined space of the cabinet a sword was little more effective than a dagger, though, and both bravos had their daggers out. The gap-toothed lieutenant took the choleric nobleman through the heart with a blow almost as sudden and powerful as his master's first stroke had been. Aged Messer Quistelli, unarmed, ducked, but not fast enough; the second bravo's knife blow knocked him to the floor. Uri, lunging forward, deflected a follow-up blow, then found himself wrestling the man.

As the priest raised his hand, Lord Ferrante gestured toward him with his bunched right fist; the silver ring glared and the priest clutched his eyes and screamed. Lord Ferrante stabbed him through his unguarded chest.

"I must get my husband!" The castellan's wife dropped her ewer, picked up her skirts, and ran for the garden. The lieutenant looked up at the noise, frowned, and started toward Fiametta. His eyes were very cold. Dizzied with shock, her heart hammering, Fiametta whirled and sprinted after Lady Pia.

She was almost blinded by the sunlight. Halfway across the garden, the castellan's wife was hanging on her husband's arm and screaming warnings; he was shaking his head as if he found incoherent the cries that made perfect sense to Fiametta. She looked around frantically in the white afternoon for her father's big black hat. There, nodding to some man. The lieutenant turned his head in the doorway, and plunged back inside. Fiametta flung herself onto Master Beneforte's chest, her fingers clutching his tunic.

"Papa," she gasped out, "Lord Ferrante just murdered the Duke!"

Uri Ochs spun backwards through the door, There was blood on his sword. "Treachery!" he shouted. Blood sprayed from his mouth with the words. "Murder and treachery! Montefoglia, to arms!"

Ferrante's men, as surprised as Montefoglia's, began to gather together in knots. Ferrante's lieutenant, pursuing Captain Ochs through the door, cried his comrades to his aid.

"The devil," hissed Master Beneforte through his teeth. "There goes my commission." His hand clamped on her arm, and he wheeled around, staring. "This garden is a death trap. We have to get out of here now."

Men were beginning to draw swords and daggers, and the unarmed to snatch up table knives. Women were screaming.

Master Beneforte started, not for the door, but toward the high table. Captain Ochs and Ferrante's lieutenant were also heading that way at a pell-mell run. Ferrante's lieutenant leaped and aimed a sword swing across the linen at little Lord Ascanio that would have taken off the boy's head if Captain Ochs had not knocked the blade aside with his own. Abbot Monreale started up and dumped the table over on the gap-toothed Losimon as he stumbled and turned for another strike.

With a wild lunge, Master Beneforte caught his saltcellar as it arced glittering through the air, and bundled his cloak about it. "Now, Fiametta! For the door!"

Fiametta yanked convulsively at her skirt, pinned under the edge of the heavy table. "Papa, help!"

Duchess Letitia clutched her daughter and half-jumped, half-fell over the back of the platform into the tapestries. Uri, leaping up, grabbed Ascanio and shoved him toward Abbot Monreale. "Get the boy out!" he gasped. The abbot swirled his red robe around the terrified child, and parried a bravo's sword thrust with his crozier, followed up quite automatically with a powerful and well-aimed kick to the man's crotch.

"Saint Jerome! To me!" Monreale bellowed. His prior and brawny secretary sped to his aid. Another bravo's descent on Ascanio was met with an odd motion of the abbot's staff; the man's face grew abruptly blank, and he wandered off over the side of the dais, sword drooping. He was struck down by one of Montefoglia's guards joining the fray. Master Beneforte, halfway to the door, heard Fiametta's cries and started back.

Uri, guarding the group now growing about the abbot and Ascanio, locked in murderous swordplay with Ferrante's gap-toothed lieutenant. Uri's breath bubbled strangely. In a thrust-and-parry, Uri kicked aside Lord Ferrante's footstool-chest over the edge of the dais. It bounced on its side and spilled open. It was packed with rock salt, which cascaded across Fiametta's feet.

Pickled in the salt curled the shrivelled corpse of a newborn infant. Fiametta screamed, and ripped her caught skirt out from under the table in her recoil. Uri glanced aside, his eyes widening; Ferrante's lieutenant lunged and thrust his sword through Uri's new doublet. Fiametta could see five inches of blade sliding out of the captain's back. The gap-toothed man turned the blade, put his foot to Uri's torso, and yanked it back out with a dreadful sucking sound. Blood gushed from both wounds, front and back. The captain fell. Fiametta wailed, stooped, and flung a heavy platter at the Losimon lieutenant with all her strength. Master Beneforte grabbed Fiametta's arm and dragged her toward the exit.

The doorway was clotted with struggling men. Master Beneforte fell back, dismayed. He shoved the bundled cloak containing the saltcellar into Fiametta's shaking hands and snarled, "Don't drop it! And stay on my heels this time, damn it!" He snatched up a bottle from one of the tables, and drew his own showy dagger with its jewelled hilt. The mirror-polished blade, never yet used, flashed in the sun.

Master Beneforte tried again to force his way through the garden's only exit. A knot of men exploded outward as more of Montefoglia's guards charged through. Master Beneforte darted forward into the brief breach. Just inside, one of Ferrante's men cut at him. Yelling, he parried, and splashed the contents of the little jug into the man's face. The Losimon yowled and swiped at his eyes with his free hand, Master Beneforte knocked his sword aside, and they were through.

"Magic?" gulped Fiametta.

"Vinegar," snapped Master Beneforte.

There was another vicious struggle going on at the despised marble staircase. Master Beneforte practically tossed Fiametta over the balustrade, and vaulted after her. They pelted across the courtyard toward the tower-flanked gate, now being hotly contested by Ferrante's men and Montefoglia's.

Lord Ferrante was there in person, gesturing with a sword and shouting encouragement. "Hold the gate, and we'll have the rest at our will! Hold!" Almost casually, his sword licked out and tore open the throat of an attacking soldier in Montefoglia's livery. The man had ribbons in Ferrante's colors tied to the flower-and-bee badge of his cap in honor of the day's festivities, and they bounced wildly as he fell.

"Christ Jesus, it's going to be a massacre," Master Beneforte groaned.

Lord Ferrante turned and saw Master Beneforte. He stepped back a pace, his eyes narrowing, then raised his right fist with the silver ring face-out. Master Beneforte growled "Stupid!" in his throat, and raised his own hand in a peculiar rapid wave, fingers moving very precisely. Fiametta's belly wrenched with the tilted gut-feel of clashing magics. There was no subtlety in this. The silver ring began to glow, then suddenly emitted a brilliant flash and an earsplitting crack.

Lord Ferrante, not Master Beneforte, screamed, dropped his sword, and clutched his right hand with his left. A distinct odor of burnt meat wafted beneath another sharp tang Fiametta could not identify.

"Kill them!" Lord Ferrante roared, stamping his boots in agony, but the soldier facing Master Beneforte gave way in confused panic. Master Beneforte skipped backward a few paces, dagger brandished, as Fiametta picked up speed, then they both ran from the castle gate as hard as they could.

At the bottom of the hill Fiametta glanced back. Lord Ferrante was pointing her way, Holding up a purse, and yelling something; a pair of bravos sped out the gate. As the houses grew more crowded, Master Beneforte darted between two shops and into an alley, then dodged into another alley, they fought through someone's laundry hung out to dry, and vaulted a sleeping dog. Fiametta was gasping for air; it felt like someone had stuck a dagger into her side, so sharp was the pain of her laboring lungs and banquet-laden stomach.

"Stop, Fiametta...."

They had come to the edge of the buildings, by the shoreline of the lake. Master Beneforte sagged against a wall of dun brick. He, too, was gasping, his head bent to one side. His right hand kneaded his belly, just below his chest, as if to push back pain. When he looked up his face was not flushed, as Fiametta's was, but of a gray pallor, sheened with sweat. "I should not ... have gorged so well," he blurted. "Even at the Duke's expense." And, after another moment, in a strange, small voice, "I can't run any more." His knees buckled.