The Spirit Ring (15 page)

      
Fiametta hung on tightly as Thur and the horse picked their way across a rocky brook at the bottom of the hill. The hazard cleared, she asked, "What is your magic, Thur? Your brother must suspect you of some talent, or he wouldn't have sought to apprentice you to a mage."

      
Thur's mouth screwed up in uncertainty. "I'm not sure. I've never been tested by a real master. I can find water with the dowsing-stick. And I have a knack for finding things, Mother says. I once found a little girl, the millwright's daughter Helga, who was lost in a snowstorm. But we were all out searching, so maybe I was just lucky. And I've long thought..." He cleared his throat, as if embarrassed, "Thought I could sense the metal ore, in the rocks. But I was always afraid to speak, for if I was wrong, the men would have been very angry with me. A false stringer is the devil to work." He hesitated, then added shyly, "I saw a kobold once, not long ago." He seemed about to add more, twisting the lion ring around his finger, but then shook his head. "And you, Madonna Beneforte? You must be skilled."

      
Her brow puckered. She
should
be skilled, yes. But. "I'm
very
good with fires," she offered at last. "Even Papa has me light his. And my Latin pronunciation is good, Papa says—said." She brightened in memory. "The best thing I got to work on so far was, Papa let me help cast a spell for fertility for Madonna Tura, the silk-merchant's wife. She'd had no children, though she'd been married for four years. The spell required a balance of male and female elements, you see. We made it in the form of a belt of little silver rabbits. He let me design and shape the rabbits, all different. I got to keep two real rabbits for models. White French. Lorenzo and Cecelia. They had baby bunnies, which I adored—they were so soft!—it was part of the spell. But then they had more baby bunnies, and they kept digging out of the run in the back garden, and they ate all of Ruberta's herbs, and left rabbit droppings all over the house, which Papa made
me
clean up. So when the spell was finished, Papa said we had to eat all the rabbits. I suppose thirty-six of them really were too many, but I didn't forgive Ruberta, our cook, for weeks. Rabbit stew, rabbit ravioli, rabbit sausage... I went hungry," she said virtuously, but then rather spoiled the impassioned account of her pets' martyrdom by adding, "Except I helped eat Lorenzo, because he always bit me."

      
She frowned at Thur's grin, which immediately muffled itself. "I sneaked Cecelia out and let her go at the edge of town."

      
“And did it work?" Thur inquired, as she fell silent.

      
"What? Oh, the spell. Yes. Madonna Tura was delivered of a boy just last month. I hope they're all right." A silk-merchant's shop would be a likely target for looters. But perhaps Madonna Tura had escaped to other relatives.

      
He held up the lion ring to the sunlight, wriggling his fingers to make it sparkle. "And is this a magic ring, Madonna?"

      
His words gave her a chill, nearly identical as they were to those of his—dead?—brother. "It... was supposed to be. But it didn't work, so I just wore it as jewelry."

      
She glanced down at him warily, but he merely remarked, "It's very beautiful."

      
She had been surviving hour to hour, not looking ahead. As a result here she was, alone in the wilderness, or at least passing through somebody's wood lot, with almost-a-strange man. A week ago, she would have thought it terribly compromising. Those careful social safeguards seemed as flimsy and false as a stage-setting, now. Yet what fate was she riding toward?

      
Her marriage portion was supposed to have come from the great bronze Perseus, which Master Beneforte had not lived to cast, nor Duke Sandrino to reward him for. She would inherit the house, presumably, though it was surely stripped by now. Unless Papa's creditors sued for it, and wrested it from her and divided the money among themselves, leaving her destitute.... Worse had happened to unprotected widows and orphans in the courts of law. That free future she faced was a frightening thing without money. A rich young woman had a control over her life equal only to her control over her funds. A poor young woman... the same. Only different.

      
But if Lord Ferrante's conquest of Montefoglia succeeded, all hope was futile. Only if Ferrante fell did she have a chance of regaining any of her inheritance.

      
She watched Thur, marching along. His hair gleamed brighter than the lion ring as they emerged from the insect-humming woods into the sun again. She felt a flash of guilt for worrying about money when his brother Uri's fate was still uncertain. Was it really so uncertain as she had made out, in her anxiety to soften the news? The thrust had looked mortal enough. At least the uncertainty had them both heading in the same direction. If he'd known his brother was dead, what reason would he have had to accompany her? She scarcely believed her ring's testimony.
How can you be my true love? You don't even know me. You must be dazzled by some magic illusion of me, and when you find out what I'm really like, you'll hate me.
Her eyes blurred with tears.
Idiot child. Stop your blubbering
, she thought sternly to herself.

      
Late in the morning they came to the meadow and coppice where Master Beneforte had been murdered, or died. The horse ate grass while Thur rested his legs and Fiametta walked about. But she gained no sense of Papa's presence here now. The meadow seemed only innocent and beautiful in the daylight. They went on.

      
Thur told her a little about his own life as he walked through the warming noon. There didn't seem to be that much to tell, though clearly Thur was not naturally voluble. He'd had some schooling with the village priest—Fiametta was relieved to learn he could at least read and write. A younger sister had died of plague, possibly, judging from the dates, in the same bad year's outbreak that had carried off Fiametta's mother. His father's death in the mines had cut short his schooling and sent Thur to hard work in the valley, and his brother Uri off to the more glamorous life of a mercenary. The mines sounded tremendously tedious. She'd never guessed so many men's hands, so many steps, so many trees burnt, were required to bring the little shining bars of metal to their final destiny in her father's workshop. Thur had never seen a city—never been out of the valley of Bruinwald before. He seemed astonished and awed to learn that she'd lived in both Rome and Venice. He stared around at the rolling hills and ordinary little farms as if they were wonders. For practical purposes, the man was a babe, Fiametta realized with dismay.

      
Uri had made an excellent Perseus. She studied Thur, wondering what statue he'd make a model for. She couldn't think of a matching Greek hero. Ajax was too warlike, Ulysses too crafty, Hercules maybe
too
dim. Hector had been a solid family fellow, unlucky in his brother... that would be a bad omen, considering Hector's unfortunate end. Some northern hero, then, Roland or a knight of Arthur's? A Biblical figure, a saint? No, that would be even more bizarre. Somehow, Thur resisted the heroic mold. Fiametta sighed.

      
In the early afternoon the valley broadened, and they neared the northern end of the lake and the village of Cecchino. Thur declared himself willing and able to push on. Fiametta was reluctant to stop at the village, lest she be recognized, though at this point she had little left to steal and no reason to think any ranging bravo or anybody else would have an interest in her beyond the usual idle malice. Fiametta held the horse's reins and let it graze out of sight from the road while Thur went into the village to buy food. He came back with cheese, bread, new radishes, boiled eggs, and wine. It was almost like a picnic, in better times; he encouraged her to eat up, and in truth, she did feel better afterwards. But sleepiness lost to anxiety, and they took to the road again soon after their meal.

      
As evening came on, they were still six or seven miles short of Saint Jerome. They stopped to nibble the remains of their food, sharing the last of the watered wine.

      
"It must grow more dangerous, from here on," Fiametta said in doubt as the shadows deepened. "Lord Ferrante's sure to have a guard posted on the road somewhere between here and the monastery."

      
"Yet his men were spread thin, you thought?"

      
"He only had fifty to start with. He may have called more horsemen from Losimo, but his main body of foot soldiers can't possibly have arrived yet. And he’ll have to keep some in the town."

      
"It sounds like tonight is the best time for us to try to get to the monastery, then. If we can't see them, they can't see us."

      
"I don't know.... There's a little postern door in Saint Jerome's east wall, near to the woods. I think it's our best chance. The main gate will be better watched. We can circle around through the sheep pasture and the vineyards."

      
"Lead on, then."

      
"Yes, but I don't know how soon to get off the road. The later, the better, but..."

      
Thur sniffed the air. "Not yet, I think. I smell no campfires."

      
"Oh."

      
They trudged wearily onward. The lake was a darkening gulf beyond the trees on their right. The little farmsteads to their left were shut up dark and eerily silent. Frogs croaked in the reedy margins of the lake. The cooling air grew clammy with the moisture from the water. The old horse was getting balky and stiff, and Thur had to practically tow it. Fiametta dismounted and walked, her own legs aching. This trip had certainly been easier by boat. She sniffed, experimentally, from time to time. She and Thur stopped short at the same moment.

      
"Roast mutton," Thur whispered. "South, upwind."

      
"Yes, I smell it too." She hesitated. "That fieldstone wall up ahead is the monastery's outlying sheep pasture. We're almost there. But how are we going to sneak this stupid great horse through the woods?"

      
"Leave it in the pasture," Thur suggested. "It'll be happier there. I don't think anyone in his right mind would steal it to ride. And the soldiers aren't likely to eat it till they run out of sheep."

      
Thur was perhaps as tired of dragging the beast as it was of being dragged. But the idea seemed as practical as any. Senses straining, Fiametta led them off the road to a low place shaded by oaks. Thur made the waist-high wall lower by quietly removing the top couple of courses of stone. At last they were able to coax the reluctant horse to step over. Fiametta removed its bridle and stuffed it into Thur's pack, which he shrugged onto his shoulders. The horse wandered off, sniffing suspiciously at the sheep-cropped grass. Fiametta felt much less conspicuous.

      
Keeping low beyond the wall, she led Thur up the hill and around the vast pasture. Peering over the stones, Thur pointed silently to a dell on the far side. The orange glow of a fire reflected up from it, men's shadows moved, and voices drifted downwind with the smoke. Some of Ferrante's men were at a late supper of stolen holy mutton.

      
With only a few clinks, Fiametta and Thur climbed over the next wall and took to the concealing rows of the vineyard beyond. The long vineyard carried them in turn to the woods, which Fiametta skirted to the east, above the slope. Their cautious footsteps pushing through the weeds sounded like scythes, to her ears. At last, she calculated, it was time to drop down through the trees, hopefully to emerge by Saint Jerome's back door. She peered into the dark leafy shadows with deep unease. There must be more guards concentrated nearer the monastery's wall. Thur, after several tries on deadfall branches, picked up a stout stick with enough sap left in it to lend toughness.
Oh, Mary. Why didn't I run away north while I still could?
Holding Thur's other hand, Fiametta slipped with him into the woods.

Chapter Seven

They were doing well, till they fell over the sleeping guard.

      
The man was lying on the ground with a gray blanket wrapped around him, and in the dim moonlight and shadows looked much like a fallen tree trunk. He was positioned in just the lookout spot for which Fiametta naturally headed, a hollow at the edge of the woods with a clear view of the cut field behind the postern gate. Two lanterns burned brightly on the stone wall above the little door, casting a pool of illumination on the green grass. Clearly, the entry was guarded by men wary of night attack. Fiametta was so fixed on her goal, which was so near, so hopeful, so thank-God easily found, she was already in her mind running across the greensward. She didn't even look down till the log she stepped up on for a better view sank squishily, convulsed, and lumbered up cursing. She fell back with a squeak of fear. The ominous scrape of sword steel drawn from a scabbard skirled painfully in her ears. Images of the banquet massacre flooded her mind, shining metal piercing flesh.

      
Thur dropped his pack and stepped between Fiametta and the swordsman, his grip tightening on the log in his right hand. The swordsman yelled "Losimo! Losimo!" at the top of his lungs, and swung a powerful blow at Thur's neck. Thur caught the blade in the log; it stuck, and he wrenched the sword almost from the man's hand. Then the half-cloven wood broke. Thur leapt within the sword's arc to grapple with the man, his hands clamping around the sword wrist.

      
The guard kept yelling; he must have comrades nearby. Thur, fighting silently, tried to butt the Losimon's mouth with his forehead. As the two men wrestled, grunting, for advantage, another guard came running from a concealed position at the woods' edge a hundred yards to the south. He carried a crossbow, cranking it as he ran. The ratchet clattered like bones. He stopped at near-point-blank range and loaded it with a heavy short bolt that glittered in the moonlight. Raising the crossbow to aim at Thur, he hesitated for a line of flight that would not risk his comrade. Thur, at Fiametta's scream of warning, saw the crossbow and wrenched the swordsman around between them.