The Spirit Ring (10 page)

      
"Are you sure you don't mean us two to carry him?" Master Beneforte, dismayed, asked the gelding's owner. Fiametta petted its wide velvety nose and listened. She'd never had a horse before.

      
The villager launched into a lengthy list of the beast's great strengths and manifold virtues, ending with a declaration that the horse was practically one of his family.

      
"Yes, your grandfather," muttered Master Beneforte in his beard. But after further negotiation, the deal was struck: a jewel and the boat for a horse. Master Beneforte prised a jewel from the hilt of his dagger under the man's suspicious eyes. He drew the line in outrage at the villager's request for a second jewel for a saddle. The subsequent crescendo of argument almost broke the deal again.

      
Still, the horse trader offered them bread, cheese, and wine. Master Beneforte denied being hungry, though both he and Fiametta drank a little wine. They packed the bread and cheese along.

      
The rising moon had just cleared the eastern hills when the peasant helped boost Fiametta up behind her father on the horse's warm, wide back. The bare-back's downward curve was practically a saddle in itself. The night was clear, and the moon still near-full, its light sufficient for them to make out the road in front of them. At the speed they were going to be traveling, it would be quite safe. Master Beneforte clucked and beat the horse's fat sides with his heels, and they ambled off. As they left the environs of the village the horse seemed to perk up at this break from its usual routine, and stepped out... well, vigorously was too strong a term. Normally, perhaps.

      
The heavy red wine, combined with the gruesome day just past, made Fiametta's eyelids droop. She laid her head against her father's back and dozed, lulled by the horse's steady rocking
clop-a-clop
. The horse trader had earnestly warned them of demons abroad in the dark. After today demons seemed homey to Fiametta, compared to men. She didn't fear the dark at all, as long as there were no men in it....

*****

      
Her blood was beating raggedly in her ears as she jerked awake at a sudden jounce of the white horse, under her. Her father was slapping the beast into a trot, hissing. And no, the thrumming noise wasn't inside her head, but outside. Hoof beats on the road behind them. Jostled and sliding, she clutched Master Beneforte around the waist and cranked her aching head around to stare over her shoulder.

      
"How many?" Master Beneforte demanded in a strained voice.

      
"I'm not sure." Horsemen, yes, dark shapes on the road behind them, cold light glinting off metal. "More than two. Four."

      
"I should have bought a black horse. This cursed beast shines like the moon," Master Beneforte groaned. "And this country has no cover worth a whore's spit." Nevertheless, he yanked the horse off the road and headed them across a silver-misted meadow toward a coppice of spindly trees.

      
It was too late. A shout went up behind them, catcalls and hooting as their pursuers, seeing them, belabored their horses into full gallop.

      
Three-quarters of the way across the meadow, Master Beneforte pulled the white horse's head back around. He drew his dagger.

      
"Get down and run for the trees, Fiametta."

      
"Papa, no!"

      
"You're more a hindrance than a help. This needs my undivided attention. Run, damn it!"

      
Fiametta huffed out her breath in protest, but she was half-sliding off the horse's slick back anyway. She fell to her feet and skipped backward. The four dark horsemen were turning in to the meadow and spreading out in a frontal charge. Actually, not quite a charge; their horses bounced in a hesitant, reined-in canter, as if the idea of attacking a master mage in the dark was beginning to lose its appeal with proximity.
They do not know how sick he is
, Fiametta thought.

      
The leader pointed at Fiametta and shouted to one of his men, who peeled off from the rest and started forward at a much more convincing pace. Fiametta picked up her skirts and sprinted for the trees. The coppice was close-grown; if she reached it first, he would not be able to force his mount in among the lashing branches. If she didn't... A panicked glance over her shoulder showed the other three closing in on Master Beneforte, who waited for them, dagger raised, the drama of the tableau slightly spoiled by the fat white horse fighting to put its head down and eat grass.

      
"Pigs!" Master Beneforte's shout echoed in her ears. "Scum! Come and be slaughtered like the vile herd of swine that you are!" Master Beneforte had often maintained that the best defense was a good offense, most men being cowards at heart. But his labored breathing drained much of the threat from his tones.

      
The man detailed to pursue Fiametta was clearly not in the least frightened of her, however. She crashed into the coppice just ahead of him; he made his horse rear to a stop and dismounted to follow. He didn't even draw his sword. His boots were heavy and his legs were long. She dodged around the tree boles, the ragged ground catching at her light slippers. He loomed closer—with a lunge, he caught her flying skirt and yanked it up, dumping her on her face. The ground came up like a blow, knocking her teeth painfully. She spat dirt. He landed on top of her, pressing her to the ground. She twisted around to claw at his eyes. He was winded, but laughing, teeth and eyes gleaming in his shadowed face. He pinioned both her wrists in one hand. Her lungs burned, too breathless to scream. She tried to bite his nose. He jerked his head back barely in time, and cursed.

      
Methodically, one-handed, he began to pull off her jewelry. Her silver earrings and necklace, of no great value except for their delicate design, he stuffed into his doublet. Luckily the wires gave way before her earlobes tore; her ears stung where they'd twisted free. He had to lie across her chest and use both hands to pry up her thumb and strip it of the lion ring, while her legs kicked, unable to reach a target. He held the ring up to the moonlight and uttered a "Ha!" of satisfaction at its weight, but then rather absently laid it on the ground. He pushed up on his hands and looked down her body. The faceted green eyes of the silver snake glinted in the leaf-dappled moonlight.

      
"Oh, ho!" he said, laid his free hand on the belt, and jerked. The belt held fast. He jerked again, harder, lifting her hips from the ground. Intrigued, his hand left the belt and closed over her crotch, and he pinched her hard through the thick velvet.

      
The snake's eyes glowed red. The silver head rose, waved once from side to side, curved around, gaped its mouth wide, and sank silver fangs deep into his groping hand.

      
He screamed like a man damned, a ridiculously high-pitched shriek to come from that big throat. He clutched his hand to his chest and rolled off her, folded into a ball, and kept screaming. The howls became words—"Oh God, I burn, I burn! Black witch! Oh God I burn!"

      
Fiametta sat bolt upright in the dirt and leaf litter. He was rolling from side to side like a man possessed; his back arched convulsively. She patted the ground all around, groped up her lion ring, stuffed it back on her thumb, scrambled to her feet, and clawed her way through the spring vegetation.

      
Surely they would expect her to run away. She circled back toward the meadow instead. An opening slashed through the branches of the coppice proved to be from a large old beech tree, fallen slantwise, with its roots ripped up. She burrowed under its shadow into a leaf-filled depression, and went as still and quiet as her heaving chest and raw whistling breath would permit.

      
She could hear the men shouting to each other, but not Master Beneforte's bellow. The snakebite victim, still howling, finally found his way back to his fellows, and the hideous din diminished. Their hoarse, coarse voices blundered no nearer to her, anyway.

      
Her command of her own breath slowly returned. Finally, multiple hoof beats faded into the distance. But had they all departed, or just some of them? She waited, her ears straining, but heard only the whisper of branches, a few insects, and the call of a nightingale. Leaf-shadows wove a brocade with the moon, now at zenith.

      
With her eyes wide, she picked her way quietly back to the edge of the meadow. No bravo jumped from ambush. Only the white horse was visible, halfway across, its head down in the milky mist. She could hear its teeth ripping up and grinding the juicy meadow grasses. She crept out into the cold, dew-soaked clumps.

      
She found her father's body not far from the horse. He lay tumbled, silvered beard pointing upward, open eyes blearing in the moonlight. The Losimon bravos had stripped him of the saltcellar, cloak, gold chain, jeweled poniard and scabbard, and his rings, as she'd expected. They'd also taken his tunic, hat, and shoes, leaving him only his ripped linen shirt and black hose, points half-untied. It was terribly undignified. He looked like an old man overtaken by death on the way to the garderobe.

      
Fearfully, she patted him for sword wounds, but found none. She laid her ear to his dew-dampened chest. What could you hear, if a heart had burst? Who would hear hers, if it burst now?

      
He must have been felled by his own illness before he'd even had a chance to defend himself. Perhaps the effort had been the final blow. She'd thought the day had drained her of every possible reaction, but apparently she still had tears left. Her face cried on almost without her, as if she were split in two. Her other part methodically dragged his body to the lip of a small gully that drained the meadow. She recaptured the horse—the Losimons had apparently scorned to steal the old nag—led it down and positioned it in the low spot, and dragged Master Beneforte across its swayed back. The abandoned husk of Master Beneforte. Wherever he was, her father certainly was no longer in there.

      
The horse's fuzzy white ears flicked back and forth, confused by its odd burden. Her father's arms dangled down, and his hair hung lank and strange. She chose to lead the horse from the other side, holding the husk's foot to keep it steadily balanced. Still crying, strangely calm, she coaxed the horse back onto the road and began walking north.

Chapter Five

From winter to summer was but a two-day walk, Thur noted to himself with contentment. He patted the shoulder of the big brown mule he led for Packmaster Pico. Yesterday morning the pack train had crested the snowy heights of Montefoglia Pass, all barren rocks and treacherous ice and biting, clawing wind. This evening they strolled along a poplar-lined avenue, grateful for the green shade against the glare of the westering sun arcing down into the soft rolling hills. He wriggled his toes in his dusty boots. His feet were warm.

      
The mule's long furry ears, aflop to each side, rose to attention, and its tired plod quickened. Up ahead, Pico had paused to let down the bars to a pasture gate. He led his pack train within. Judging by their pulling, the eight mules were familiar with this stop, though it was all new to Thur.

      
"Keep them moving to the grove," Pico, pointing to the stand of trees shading one end of the pasture, shouted over his shoulder to his two sons and Thur. "That's where we'll camp. We'll take their packs off first and then turn them loose."

      
The mule tried to nudge Thur toward the green grass and the little stream, but Thur dutifully dragged it to the grove and tied it to a tree. "You'll be happier to have your pack off first," he told it. "Then you can roll." It waggled its absurd ears at him in disagreement, snorting through its cream-colored nose, and Thur grinned.

      
He pulled off its heavy pack, loaded with copper ingots and hides, and the pack of its work mate who followed on a rope, and turned both beasts loose. They thudded away toward the stream, squealing happily. The pasture's only other occupant, a sway-backed old white horse, regarded the invasion with both interest and suspicion. The look on its long gray face made Thur think of the old scholar, Brother Glarus, presented with a troop of rowdy new students. Thur turned to help Pico's younger boy, Zilio, with his mules' heavy packs, which threatened to crush the lad. Zilio smiled gratefully and sprang about rather like the released mules.

      
Pico, his sons, and Thur lined up the packs and set the bright striped saddle pads atop upside down to dry and air. The boys began to unload their meager camp gear, and Pico started to build a fire in a charred circle from a handy stack of wood. Thur stared around with interest. On the other side of the road rambled a big two-story stucco house, whitewashed a pastel pink, with outbuildings in a yard behind. The whole was surrounded by a high pink stucco wall with broken glass and rusty nails set in its top frosting of cement, but a wide double wooden gate stood invitingly open to the road.

      
"You could take a room at the inn, if you liked," said Pico, seeing Thur's gaze. He nodded across the road. "If you're tired of sleeping on the ground, Innkeeper Catti's beds are good. But I warn you, he's a great greedy-guts, and charges plenty for his linen. He really prefers prelates to muleteers for customers, when he can get them."

      
"Will you sleep there?"

      
"No, I always stay with my beasts and my load, unless it's pouring rain or snowing. He charges me enough for the pasture and the firewood. 'Tis a good stop, though, and good fodder, and the beasts like it. And with an early start, I can usually push all the way home to Montefoglia by dark, in the summer. Catti's wife sets a good table, on the nights when the rain makes my fire too miserable. She smokes the most excellent hams. Which reminds me, I promised to bring one home to my neighbor who watches my place when I'm away. Don't let me forget, when I go over there to settle my charges."