The Spirit Ring (26 page)

      
"Oh, for a dove now," mourned Ambrose.

      
"They would not fly in the dark. And there's no time to launch a bat, nor could it see or hear much more than this. Sh!" Monreale waved him to silence as the tambourine spoke again.

      
"Well," said Ferrante's voice. "Shall we conjure Beneforte now, and compel him to tell us the secret of this saltcellar of his?"

      
"I'm certain I understand the secret of the salt, my lord. Our trials with the animals and the prisoner were most convincing. Alone, its ability to detect poison would make it a treasure for your table, but its ability to purify as well—pure genius!"

      
"Fine and good. But I do not understand the secret of the pepper. And I am not inclined to trust my life to something that holds secrets from me. Salt is white and pepper is black. What more logical than that the salt embodies a white magic and the pepper a black?"

      
"Slander!" Fiametta hissed. "Fool! Does he think Papa would —" Monreale's hand on her shoulder tightened, and she swallowed her outrage.

      
"Possibly," allowed Niccolo. "Beneforte would have had to smuggle it past inspection by that prig Monreale, though."

      
"Monreale should have been an Inquisitor. He has the long nose for it."

      
"He lacks the stomach for it."

      
"So he would have men believe," said Ferrante sourly.

      
"I
know
that voice," muttered Monreale by Fiametta's ear. "Niccolo. Niccolo what?"

      
Ambrose offered, "Lord Ferrante has a secretary named Niccolo Vitelli, Father. He's said to be Ferrante's shadow. I was told he's been in Ferrante's employ for about four years. Ferrante's men are wary of him—I thought it was for his slyness, but now it seems there's more to it."

      
Monreale shook his head. "That's not what I... But I suppose this Vitelli could be the reason that Ferrante, who was never rumored to have any use for magic in his condottiere days, seems to be up to his ears in it now."

      
"The pepper did no harm to the animals." Lord Ferrante's voice came persuasively from the parchment.

      
"Of course not," Fiametta muttered. "They have no power of speech."

      
"— and the spell engraved on the bottom of the saltcellar worked fine for the salt," Ferrante continued. "The second one
must
work for the pepper. I think we should try it again, upon a subject more capable of reporting subtle effects than Lady Julia's lap dog."

      
"We?" said Vitelli in a suspicious tone.

      
"I will speak the spell," said Lord Ferrante, "and you shall place the pepper on your tongue. But don't swallow it."

      
"I see." An unenthusiastic silence was followed by a "Very well. Let's get it over with. There are more urgent tasks waiting tonight."

      
Now Fiametta could picture the chinks and thunks as Ferrante squinting at the bottom of her father's saltcellar by candlelight, returning it to its ebony base, and installing a bit of pepper in the little Greek temple under the golden goddess's hand. In a rapid whisper, she interpreted the sounds for Monreale and Ambrose. Sure enough, Ferrante's voice soon intoned the Latin prayer of the pepper-spell.

      
"Try it now," ordered Lord Ferrante.

      
After a moment, Vitelli's voice reported, in the odd muffled intonation of a man trying not to dislodge a pinch of pepper from his tongue, "I feel nothi'g, my lor'."

      
"It
can't
be doing nothing. Pepper. Tongues. Do you feel inspired to eloquence, perhaps?"

      
"No."

      
"Hm. Do you feel you could sway men's minds? Tell me a lie, and convince me of its truth. What color is my hair?"

      
"Black, m'lor."

      
"Say, 'red.'"

      
"Rrr... black." This last was sputtered out so as to almost lose the pepper.

      
"But say red."

      
"I
can't
. Black!"

      
A brief silence. "My God," whispered Ferrante. "Can the pepper compel truth?"

      
"Took you long enough," muttered Fiametta.

      
"Truth is not something that much springs to his mind, it seems," observed Ambrose.

      
"No, don't spit it out yet," Ferrante's voice ordered firmly. "I must be sure. What... what is your age?"

      
"Thirty-two, m'lor."

      
"Your birthplace?"

      
"Milan."

      
"Your—oh, your name."

      
"Jacopo Sprenger."

      
"What?" Ferrante's voice from the tambourine blended in astonishment with Monreale's, as the abbot slammed his fists to the table and cried, "
What?
It can't be!"

      
Fierce sputtering sounds emanated from the parchment circle, and muffled noises as of a man frantically wiping his mouth out with a cloth.

      
"
Does
the spell compel truth?" Ferrante's voice demanded of his secretary.

      
"It seems so, my lord," said Vitelli/Sprenger in a distinctly surly tone. After a short pause filled by who-knew-what boiling glance from the Lord of Losimo, the secretary went on reluctantly, "I took the name Vitelli in my youth. After a... little difficulty with the law in Bologna."

      
"Well... so it is with half the scoundrels in my army. But I didn't think you had any secrets from me, my pet." Ferrante's tone was judiciously forgiving, but with a dangerous hint of steel underneath.

      
"All men conceal something." Fiametta could picture Vitelli shrugging uneasily. His voice went bland. "Would you care to try the pepper for yourself, my lord?"

      
"No," said Ferrante. The irony in his voice matched his secretary's. "I do think I believe you. Or believe Beneforte, anyway. But God! What a treasure! Can you imagine how valuable this could be when questioning prisoners? Or people who are attempting to hide their gold or goods?" The excitement of this vision sharpened his voice.

      
"God," Abbot Monreale moaned, in quite a different tone. "Is any magic, any intention of men, ever so white that it can't be perverted? If even truth itself isn't godly..." His lips drew back on a grimace of pain.

      
"Who is Jacopo Sprenger?" Brother Ambrose whispered, apparently, like Fiametta, unable to quell the secret conviction that if they could hear Ferrante, Ferrante could hear them.

      
"Is it possible...? The fellow on the tower—but he's grown so thin! I'll tell you—later. Sh." Monreale bent his ear to the tambourine again, trying like Fiametta to guess what the rustling noises of Ferrante’s and Vitelli's next preparations meant. This time the occasional muttered word or order, or scraping sound, seemed to convey more to Abbot Monreale than to Fiametta, for he began to murmur interpretive guesses for Ambrose’s and Fiametta's benefit.

      
"I believe they are drawing a sacred diagram upon the floor. Lines to contain the mystic forces of the planets, or of their metals... sacred names, to compel or contain the forces of their spirits. A peculiar combination of higher and lower magics, I must say."

      
"Are they going to try and enslave Papa's spirit to that awful putti ring now?" asked Fiametta unhappily.

      
"Not tonight, I think. I don't hear anything that sounds like them setting up a furnace, do you? The ring must be new-cast from molten metal at the time of the investment, you see. The metal must be fluid to take up the internal form of the spirit."

      
Fiametta, remembering the making of her lion ring, nodded.

      
"They could not recast that putti ring for your father anyway," Monreale went on. "Silver is for a female spirit. They should use gold for Prospero Beneforte, ideally. If they have any idea of what they are doing. Which, unfortunately, they seem to. If Vitelli is Sprenger, that's no surprise.... He was a brilliant student of —" Monreale broke off as voices began again.

      
"The black cat for the sorcerer, the black cock for the soldier," said Vitelli. "Hand me the bag with the cat, my lord, across the lines, after I enter the square and close it." His voice went off into another string of Latin, far more purely intoned than Thur's or even Ferrante's.

      
"He enspells his blade," Monreale muttered.

      
"What is he going to do with it?" asked Fiametta tensely.

      
"Sacrifice a cat. Its life—I hesitate to call it its soul, but anyway, its spirit—will be given to your father's ghost, to... strengthen it. Like a meal."

      
"Is it still alive?" demanded Vitelli's voice uncertainly.

      
A weak and piteous meow, full of suffering and pain, was made to answer him. "Just barely," said Ferrante.

      
Fiametta and Ambrose exchanged a look of horror. "Unlucky cat," said Ambrose. His thick hands wrung.

      
"Just what are they doing to it?" asked Fiametta.

      
"Enough for two men to burn for. Sh," said Monreale impatiently.

      
The cat's voice rose to a terrified squall, cutting across Vitelli's Latin drone, then went abruptly silent.

      
"Surely Papa would refuse such an unclean offering," said Fiametta. "He wouldn't... eat? The poor kitty!"

      
Monreale shook his head, face grim as granite. But his brows wrinkled in puzzlement as Vitelli's chant started up again. "What are they... can there be
two
?"

      
The mysterious scene was reenacted, but this time it was the squawking and flutter of a cock that fell to silence at the bite of Vitelli's darkly blessed blade. A familiar name flashed past, embedded in Vitelli's pure Latin.

      
"Uri Ochs?" Fiametta repeated in horror. "Oh, no! Is he—is Captain Ochs dead, then?"

      
"He must be," said Monreale blackly, "to be a recipient of that spell. That would explain why he was neither among the wounded prisoners or the dead who were returned.... Ferrante fancies a spare ring, it seems."

      
"Poor Thur..." breathed Fiametta. Where
was
Thur? He'd scarcely had time to escape, between the time his breath had activated the little ear and the time Ferrante and Vitelli had entered the chamber of dread. Yet he must have escaped, or he'd have been discovered by now.

      
"No..." Monreale corrected himself judiciously, "Captain Ochs must have been selected first, by Ferrante, on the very day he fell. He had no known relatives in town to demand his body for burial. It was your father, Fiametta, who was added as an afterthought."

      
"There." Vitelli's voice sounded satisfied; slapping sounds followed, as if he were rising and dusting chalk, and worse, from the knees of his robe.

      
"How much longer must we spend on this pedantry?" Ferrante asked querulously. "I want my rings. Events of State will not wait on your thaumaturgic fiddling."

      
"Beneforte's is a very dangerous ghost to attempt to invest, my lord. He is hostile, and he knows far too much. One little mistake..." Vitelli paused reluctantly, then added, "I think we can invest the soldier as early as tomorrow night. That is the sensible order of things, for then we can use him to help control the mage. You bring the new bronze for the ring. I'll see to the fuel. Then you will have at least one ring, ah, to hand."

      
"I'd rather have the Swiss anyway," Ferrante remarked in a brighter tone. "He's not such a tricksy weasel as the Florentine. As a soldier, he will doubtless understand obedience better."

      
"Perhaps I should keep the mage's ring, then," suggested Vitelli, in a casual tone that did not quite hide an eager quaver. "There are two rings, two of us—it would be difficult for you to manage both."

      
Said Lord Ferrante distantly, "No, I don't think so."

      
The silence after that was distinctly sticky, till Vitelli broke it with a curt, "Let us be done. If you will take down the leather bag with the adder, my lord."

      
The next noises were very hard to interpret, until Vitelli said, "Are you quite certain you have the
head
end pinned through the leather this time, my lord?"

      
"Yes," snapped Ferrante impatiently, "Open the bag and reach in. Or would you rather I did?'

      
"I—well, if you wish, my lord. I'll get the knot."

      
"Ah ha! Got him. Right behind the head. See him grin for you, Niccolo? Heh, heh."

      
"Ah—not so close, if you don't mind, my lord. His venom would be wasted on me. Come along. We're almost done for tonight, and I am weary to the bone."

      
Ferrante grunted reluctant agreement. A clattering sound, like pine boards being wrestled about, was followed by actions Fiametta couldn't even guess at, plus more of Vitelli's Latin, sprinkled with some Hebrew, or perhaps it was outright gibberish. Fiametta could scarcely tell.

      
"What are they doing now?" she asked Monreale.

      
"I believe it is a spell based upon the principle of contrariety." Monreale listened intently. "It seems to be quite original.... I believe they are forcing the puff adder to, er... I'm sorry, Fiametta—bite the corpse, or the corpses. It seems to be part of the preservation spell."