The Spirit Ring (19 page)

      
Monreale composed his face into stern lines. He pointed at the lion ring. "Did you make this, Fiametta?"

      
She glanced from Monreale's face to Thur's and back again, and said faintly, "Yes, Father."

      
"Under your Papa's supervision?"

      
She swallowed. "No, Father. Well, yes and no."

      
Monreale's gray brows rose. "Which? Yes, or no?"

      
"No." Her sculptured chin lifted. "But he knew of it."

      
"It seems to be a Beneforte trait, to dabble in questionable rings," said Monreale in a dry tone. “You know Master Beneforte had not licensed you as his apprentice."

      
“I've been learning the jeweler's craft for years. You know that, Father Monreale."

      
"The metalwork is not my concern."

      
"You knew I assisted him in his spells."

      
"Such assistance as was proper, under a licensed mage. This, however, is not a work of assistance. Neither is it the work of a clumsy amateur. How came you to know so much?"

      
"I
often
assisted him, Father." After a long, expectant silence, she added reluctantly, "I found the spell written out in one of Papa's books. Investing it in the ring was no problem—I already knew the gold-casting part. I just followed the directions very carefully. There didn't seem to be much to it. No flash. I was disappointed, at first, because I didn't think it had worked, because... because Uri didn't put it on. I tried to give it to him."

      
"Ah!" said Monreale in a professionally interested tone, which he converted to a more neutral throat-clearing noise.

      
"But then I gradually realized that no one could put it on. That soldier and the thieving innkeeper both tried hard to steal it for its gold, but they couldn't." She glanced covertly at Thur, "Um... is it working, Father?"

      
"We will discuss that later. So, you read your Papa's books. With his permission?"

      
"Uh... no."

      
"Fiametta, that is the sin of disobedience."

      
"No, it wasn't! He didn't forbid me. That is... I didn't ask. But I found out later he was watching me all the time, and he didn't stop me. So that's almost like permission, isn't it?"

      
Thur could have sworn that Abbot Monreale suppressed a smile at this sophistry, but the flicker of expression in the stern visage was gone again almost at once. "Master Beneforte never applied to me for your license."

      
"He was
going
to. He was just so busy, lately, with the saltcellar and the Perseus and all his other commissions. I'm sure he was going to."

      
Monreale raised his brows again.

      
"All right," Fiametta sighed, "I'm not sure. But we did talk about it. I begged him to, countless times. Father Monreale, I want to be a mage! I can do good work, I know I can! Better than Teseo. It's not fair!"

      
"What it is not, is properly approved," said Monreale. "Not properly supervised. I've seen souls lost to such hubris, Fiametta."

      
"So approve me! Papa's not here to ask for me, so I suppose I can ask for myself now. Who else? I want to be good, let me be!"

      
Monreale said mildly, "You run ahead of me. First comes contrition, confession, and penance. Then absolution. I haven't even finished my sermon on contrition, yet.”

      
Fiametta's brown eyes heated with a sudden glimmer of anticipation, at the leakage of humor and hope from behind Monreale's firm facade. She straightened alertly, almost bouncing. "Oh, get to my penance, Father, quickly!"

      
"Your penance will be to go to the altar of Our Lady in the chapel and pray, on your knees, for patience and obedience. When you feel your prayer has been answered, go eat your noon meal, then come back to me here. I urgently need a talented assistant in addition to Brother Ambrose, who is as exhausted as myself. I have a project to complete this afternoon, before Compline."

      
"In magic? You're going to let
me
help
you
?" Her voice thrilled.

      
"Yes, child."

      
She danced around him and hugged him hard, habit and all. He fended her off, smiling despite himself. "You must truly compose your mind in prayer first, remember. Demanding, 'Mother Mary, grant me patience and grant it right now!' won't do."

      
"How do you know?" Fiametta's eyes sparkled.

      
"Hm. Well. You can try it, I suppose. Who am I to say what the Mother of God can't do, in her infinite mercy? The faster she speeds you to patience the sooner I can put you to work. Ah. One other thing, first. I'm sending your friend Thur here on an errand, and I fear that big gold ring would be too conspicuous on his hand. I can draw it off with a little spell, but you can just draw it off."

      
"But it's stuck. I saw it. How can I draw it off if he can't?"

      
"Put simply, he doesn't want to."

      
"But I really tried, Father!" Thur said.

      
"I know you did. I will discuss the inner structure of the Master of Cluny's spell with you in some less hurried time."

      
Frowning in puzzlement, Fiametta turned to Thur. Obediently, he held out his hand. Her tapering brown fingers closed over the lion ring; it returned to her palm as smoothly as if greased. "Oh," she said, startled.

      
Monreale handed her a long thong. "I suggest you keep it around your neck, out of sight, Fiametta. Till you come to give it back." He gave her an indecipherable look.

      
Thur's finger felt empty, light and cold without his—no,
her
—ring. He rubbed at the lonely spot, already missing the reassurance that touching the lion had given him.

      
The shuffle of sandaled feet came from the outer room; a monk knocked politely on the doorframe, then stuck his head through. "Father? Lord Ferrante's herald is at the outer gate."

      
"I come, I come." Monreale waved him out. "Thur, I want you to rest in the afternoon. I'll send a brother to rouse you when it's time. Fiametta, I'll see you here after the noon meal. Go along now." He herded them ahead of him, out through his office, pausing to attend to something at the desk with Brother Ambrose. Thur followed Fiametta down the stairs into the shade of the cloister walk around the courtyard. A few doves paced solemnly about on the lawn in the sunlight, pecking vainly for food bits in the grass.

      
Stone benches lined the walkway between the arched stone pillars. Enticed, Thur sat down on one. Fiametta alighted on the other end. Her fingers touched the stiff new leather thong around her neck, faltered to her lips, then settled to the cool stone.

      
The sighing of wind in the nearby woods, the low twitter and occasional liquid warble of birdsong, and the muted voices from the monastery gave a temporary illusion of peace. Thur wished it were real. The beauty of the day seemed a cruel hoax. Sweating, grunting, stupid menace of the sort he'd wrestled last night patrolled right outside the stone walls. He wanted to keep that menace far from Fiametta.

      
Fiametta was still bright-eyed and bouncing, reminding Thur of the lid on his mother's kettle. "Abbot Monreale takes me
seriously
," she chortled. "Wants me to help—I wonder what with?"

      
"Perhaps those scrying things," said Thur.

      
"Scrying things?"

      
"He wants me to disguise myself as a workman and take some scrying things into the castle at Montefoglia, and drop them here and there. His spy-birds aren't getting through, you see."

      
"He wants you to go outside? Through the siege?"

      
"We got in through the siege all right."
Just barely.
"He's going to send me out after dark."

      
Fiametta went very still. Thur imagined her about to say
Be careful
, in the tone of voice his mother used every day when he went off to the mine. But instead she said slowly, "My father's house is on the other end of town from the castle. It's not likely you'd have a chance to get over there and see what's happened to it, but if you can... it's the last house on Via Novara. The big square one." She paused again, her voice at last growing worried. "Abbot Monreale doesn't want you to do anything very
complicated
, does he?"

      
"No." He looked away from her, into the brightness. Out on the lawn, a very young kitchen cat was stalking the doves. It had big ears, gray and black striped fur, and somewhat outsized white paws. Whiskers cocked forward and eyes almost crossed with the intensity of its gaze, it crouched, hindquarters wriggling in earnest preparation.

      
Marriage. The heated softness of this girl, all his to possess? But what if... surely Abbot Monreale would have said something if... He blurted, "Madonna Beneforte, you're not betrothed already, are you?"

      
She drew back and gave him an unsettled look. "No. Why do you ask?"

      
"No reason," he gabbled.

      
"Good," she said in a rather faint tone. She rustled to her feet and retreated around the bench. "I must go to the chapel now. Good-bye." She skittered away out the end of the cloister.

      
In the grass, the cat pounced and missed. The dove burst away in a flurry of wings. The cat stared upward, tail lashing and teeth chattering, till all hope vanished over the rooftops. The cat padded off stiffly, embarrassed, and came and plunked down by Thur's feet. It looked up at him and emitted a loud and piteous meow, as if Thur could produce flightless pigeons from his pockets on demand, like a magician at a fair. Thur felt very far from being any kind of a magician at all, right now.

      
He picked up the cat and scratched its ears. "What would you do if you caught it, anyway, catkin, hm? The bird is bigger than you are." The cat purred ecstatically and butted its head against Thur's hand. "There are birds in my mountains that would make a meal of
you
. You must grow up some more." Thur sighed.

*****

      
Thur spent the rest of the morning offering minor assistances to the harried monks. He cranked the well windless, carried water to the guards on the walls, and helped set up the trestle tables for the noon meal and take them down again afterwards.

      
He thought he would be too tense to sleep, but in deference to the abbot lay down on his straw bed anyway. The dormitory was cool and quiet in the warm afternoon. The next thing he knew, a monk was shaking him awake from another sweaty dream he was just as thankful not to remember. The last red rays of the sun touching the western hills fingered through the window slits, orange dust motes dancing in their beams.

      
After an evening meal consisting mainly of fried bread with a thin sprinkling of cheese and garlic, Brother Ambrose led Thur off to the laundry to try on some clothes. They found a short padded tan jacket and real knitted hose dyed red that were large enough to fit. The clothes were not new, but had been washed fairly recently. Thur had never owned a pair of hose before, only the bias-cut leggings his mother made "loose for room to grow." He stared down at his red thighs in unease, feeling gaudy and exposed. A round red cap topped it all.

      
They left the laundry and passed through the maze of the monastery. Brother Ambrose paused when they came out in luminous twilight into a small courtyard at the foot of the chapel's bell tower. A monk, his robe tucked up into his belt and his white legs scrambling, was clambering awkwardly down the thick ivy growing up the tower's side. He clutched a large linen bag in his teeth. Ambrose caught his breath as one sandaled foot slipped, but the climbing monk caught himself and completed his descent safely.

      
Gasping from his exertion, the monk straightened his robe and thrust the lumpy bag at Ambrose. The lumps were moving. "Here's your bag of bats.
Now
may I go eat?"

      
"Thank you, brother. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

      
The monk shot him a look of unbrotherly unlove. "Next time," he wheezed, "
you
try it. I was almost killed grabbing for them, and two bit me." He displayed minute wounds upon his fingers, squeezing them for blood to prove his assertion." 'Sing the song,' you said, 'and they'll fly right into the bag.' Ha! They did not!"

      
"You have to sing the spell with true loving kindness," Brother Ambrose reproved.

      
"For
bats
?" The monk's lips screwed up in outrage.

      
"For any of God's creatures."

      
"Right." The monk sketched him a mocking salute. "I'm going to get my supper—if there's any left—before the abbot decides he wants a bucket of centipedes." He marched away.

      
Brother Ambrose held the wriggling bag carefully, and led on.

      
Abbot Monreale's workroom was candle-lit. Fiametta sat on an upturned barrel by the center table, resting on her elbows. Thur regarded her anxiously. She looked tired, but not unhappy. The abbot paced.

      
"Ah. Good," he said as Ambrose and Thur entered. "Thur. I want you to look around the room and see if you notice anything new."