The Spirit Ring (29 page)

      
"Master Beneforte." Thur made his voice placating, plaintive. "Please let me out."

      
No response.

      
"For Fiametta's sake?"

      
All he could hear was the blood beating in his own ears.

      
"Uri, if you love me!" He swallowed the harsh edge of panic. In the unanswering silence the horror of being trapped in this cell with the dead and the subtle aftershock of black sorcery bore in upon him. "Help me!"

      
This time, the felt presence was not Beneforte's cool, coherent power, but something raw and wild. A strange blue glow like miniature lightning writhed over the iron lock. When the bolt clacked back the presence fell away like something wounded.
Pain.
The action had cost pain, and will. Uri was truly here. Mute, but by no means impotent. And
not
Vitelli's creature, not yet.

      
Thur bowed his head. "Thank you, brother," he whispered. Staggering a little, Thur relit the guard's tallow-candle lantern. It had sat on the floor by the table the whole time, unnoticed. Why should Ferrante's eye be caught by something so humble and familiar as his own army-issue equipment? Thur blew out the remains of the beeswax lights and slipped from the chamber as silently as he could. He pulled the door shut behind himself.
I'll be back somehow, Uri. With a plan. With the abbot. With an army.

      
It took Thur a moment to reorient himself in the hallway. He trod cautiously up the narrow stairs, his ears straining for the slightest breath or creak of a guard waiting in ambush. None waited in the corridor to the prisoners' cells. The stairway twisted around itself like Vitelli's snake, rising into the castle. In the pitchy darkness at the top Thur found a solid oaken door. Locked, of course. He retreated to the corridor on the prison level.

      
It was his aching bladder that finally decided his course of action. From the pungent aroma, the dark space at the end of this corridor had been used as a makeshift garderobe by men before Thur. He relieved himself in the same spot, trying to splash quietly. He then blew out the lantern, tiptoed down the corridor, set the lantern down, lay on the stone floor, pillowed his head on his arm, closed his eyes, and pretended to be asleep. Weirdly distorted images of the night's events flickered through his imagination as he waited for a guard to discover him. He told over his tale to himself for practice, but his thoughts tailed off in darkness....

      
An explosive curse brought Thur awake, blinking. His body ached with the cold and pressure of the stone; his first attempt to lumber up was sabotaged by twinges of pain. A booted foot kicked him, though not very hard.

      
"What? What?" Thur choked blearily, his disorientation only half-feigned. He had slept in truth. The guard sergeant was looming over him with a lantern and a hard frown; his shout brought a second guard running with a drawn dagger. Thur sneezed.

      
"Where did you come from?" demanded the guard sergeant harshly. "Where have you been?"

      
A volley of sneezes delayed Thur's answer long enough for him to get his thoughts in order. "Mother of God," he wheezed, with feeling. "I have just had the
strangest
dream!" He sat up, rubbing his eyes and nose. "Did I fall asleep? I'm sorry, I promised to watch—the madman's not
out
, is he?" Thur clutched the guard sergeant's boot.

      
"No."

      
"Oh. Good. Thank God. For a minute there I..."

      
"For a minute you what?"

      
"For a minute I thought it was real. My dream. What time is it?"

      
"Almost dawn."

      
"It
can't
be. I just went down the corridor to piss a couple of minutes ago."

      
"You disappeared. You've been gone all night."

      
"No! You were just serving the prisoners dinner. I went down the corridor, and I was coming back. I heard the pails clanking. And then... and then..."

      
"Then what?"

      
"I felt so tired all of a sudden. It was as if something came over me—I just lay down here on the floor for a moment. And I had this wondrous dream, and then you found me and woke me."

      
The two guards eyed one another uneasily. "What was your dream, Foundryman?" asked the junior man.

      
"The mad castellan changed into a bat, before my eyes. And then he changed me into a bat, too. We flew south, to Rome. Absurd. I've never been to Rome." Thur ran his hands through his hair in a dazed way. "We could see it all at a glance from the air. Watch lights gleaming on the Tiber... the Pope, all in glowing white robes, was standing on the balcony of a great palace. The castellan—still in the form of a bat, with bat-ears, but he had the face of a man—landed on His Holiness's shoulder and whispered in his ear. And the Pope whispered back, and touched him with his ring. And then we flew home," Thur ended simply. He stopped his tripping tongue just short of adding,
Oh, my arms are tired!
Ferrante's guards had good reason to be credulous of the uncanny, but not infinitely credulous.

      
"But we've been over this corridor ten times!" said the younger guard. "You weren't —"

      
"Quiet, Giovanni!" the sergeant cut across him. He hauled Thur roughly to his feet. The sergeant was shorter than Thur, but strong. He stared at Thur with angry, worried eyes. "Do you think you might have been ensorcelled, Foundryman?"

      
"I... I... don't know. I've never been ensorcelled before. I thought it was a dream."

      
"I must have you checked. By an expert."

      
That
was not in Thur's plan. "Almost dawn? My God. I've got to get to work. Lord Ferrante demands his cannon without delay."

      
"Where will you be working?" inquired the sergeant, narrow-eyed.

      
"In the garden, or back courtyard, or whatever you call it. I must build the furnace tomorrow—today, that is."

      
"Very well. So long as I know where to find you. Giovanni, escort my lord's foundryman to his work, eh? Speak of this to no one. I'll do the reporting."

*****

      
Thur had a strong sense that he had not much time left. He found his work mates from yesterday just rising to go to a kitchen-breakfast of hot mutton wrapped in bread. Whatever Ferrante's other sins, he made sure that his men were well fed. Thur took care not to bring up the topic of where he'd spent the night.

      
Thur and the laborers went out in the cold dawn fog to the foundry site at the end of the walled castle garden, The trampled grass was slippery underfoot. But the moisture was a tease; when Thur looked directly overhead he could see through the mist to the high blue vault of a cloudless heaven, already illuminated by a sun that had yet to clear the eastern hills. Glad as Thur was to see light after the night’s dark doings, he wished time would slow down. Pink rays touched the castle towers, Thur's new goal, all too soon.

      
Thur directed the workmen automatically, all the while trying to figure how to get away from them and into that tower. He stacked bricks around the proper curve of the oven-to-be's walls and tried to think through a throbbing head. He must deliver an ear to the Duchess—hang the extra two—and be gone from this accurst castle by noon at the latest. Then make it, somehow, back to the monastery and demand magical help for Uri. Could they sneak a boat with muffled oars to the base of the cliff wall, after dark? Climb, or levitate, to the tomb-chamber's window? And then what?

      
Or should Thur try to assassinate Vitelli this afternoon, before he could perform the next set of vile rites? Ferrante, though he was involved to the eyebrows, did not seem to be the driving will behind this wholesale foray into the black arts. Thur shivered at the thought of a blade in his hand, driving into the thick resistance of a man's flesh. Was it even possible to murder a mage? Foolish question—think of Master Beneforte. Death came to mages as to other men. Or... perhaps not quite as to other men. Would another murder create another malevolent ghost, or worse? Maybe Monreale could shrive it, and send it on its way. Shrive them all.

      
Thur fitted the bricks for the furnace floor and plotted his escape, as soon as he reached the end of this row, by excusing himself to go to the garderobe. A pounding noise came from the heavy timber gate to the stables at the end of the garden. Someone was unblocking it with a mallet. Thur looked up. A couple of big, loud Losimon soldiers in steel and leather backed through pulling on a rope. Their whoops seemed too good-natured to go with some combat, and Thur's work mates, after first freezing at their shovels, relaxed and leaned on them to watch.

      
Following the Losimon soldiers came a train of mules, roped together pack-saddle-to-halter. The first mule was a distinctive gray, the second honey-brown with a cream-colored nose—the gaily-striped saddle blankets were all too familiar. Oh, Jesus, it was Pico's mule train. Would the packmaster blurt out recognition of Thur? Would Thur be dangling by his neck from the castle wall, hanged as a discovered spy, within the half-hour? Thur crouched down in his half-built furnace and stared wildly. Damn it, Pico had said he was going to cut over the hills to Milan. What bad angel had inspired him to bring his load of copper to sell in Montefoglia, instead? Now, of all times?

      
But the eighth mule walked stiffly through the gate with no sign of Pico, or of his two boys. Only a quartet of dismounted Losimon cavalrymen tugged the animals along. Thur stood up from his crouch, wary and confused.

      
"Hey, Foundryman!" shouted the lead soldier. "Where do you want us to put this?"

      
Thur almost answered,
Stack the pigs in pairs over there,
but gulped down his mistake and said instead, "Put what?" He walked toward the mule train.

      
The mules were sweaty and dirty under their harness. Iridescent green flies were already plaguing new pink raw spots showing under the edges of the leather straps. One mule had been limping, and now stood with a hind hoof held gingerly tiptoe. All dove their heads to the grass and weeds at their feet, smacking dry and thirsty lips.

      
"My lord's new copper." The soldier flicked up the canvas of a pack-saddle and pointed proudly to a thick metal bar.

      
Thur stared at the lathered and exhausted animals. Pico would never have permitted—"Where is Pi—is the packmaster?" Thur demanded. Dread lent his voice an unaccustomed harshness.

      
"Gone to God," grinned the soldier. "He left us these in his will, eh?

      
Thur swallowed. "Where did you find them?"

      
"We were on patrol, foraging up north of the lake yesterday. Too damned far from home. We were just about to quit and go back, when we came upon this fellow's camp in the hills. Our lieutenant fancied this'd be a gift to my lord's taste, so we took 'em. We ran them all night to get here. Stubborn beasts, we had to beat 'em with the flats of our swords to keep 'em moving, toward the end."

      
Yes, several of the animals' haunches showed long bloody welts. Thur had to allow, Ferrante's cavalrymen were just as cruel to their own beasts, and to each other. The sweat-stained, filthy soldier's features were lined with a fatigue scarcely less than that of the drooping mules. But the mules lacked his greedy elation.

      
"Pi... didn't the packmaster... I take it the pack-master objected?" Thur struggled to keep his voice cool, disinterested.

      
"A length of my officer's Spanish steel settled the argument soon enough." The soldier paused thoughtfully. "Didn't much care for what he did to the boy. The lad wouldn't stop trying to fight us, after it was over. Half-mad, I think, though his elder brother had a better head, and tried to hold him. Well, t'was no worse than some of the things that happened after the last siege of Pisa."

      
"Did he... what did he do to the boy?"

      
"Half chopped off his head. It stopped the screaming, right enough, which was a relief.

      
"Killed him?" Thur choked.

      
"Outright." The soldier spat reflectively. "Could've been worse."

      
Thur gripped his hands behind his back to hide their trembling. "Did he kill both boys?"

      
"Naw. The smarter one ran off." The soldier glanced up. "Ah. Here we go."

      
Thur followed his gaze to the doors to the castle. Just descending into the garden was Lord Ferrante, dressed in the same fine mail tunic and leather leggings as yesterday morning. A clean white linen undercollar shone at his neck, and a gold badge in his green hat winked diamonds in the sun. Flanking him stamped another dirty and fatigued cavalryman. A dusty black beard framed a dark smile missing several front teeth. Thur stiffened—but there was no reason to suppose the man would recognize him from Catti's inn. It had been dusk in the inn yard, and Thur had hung in the background till things went so terribly wrong.
I should have recognized the man from his methods, though,
Thur thought wearily.

      
"So," said Ferrante bluffly, coming up to Thur. "What value have we here, German?"

      
Thur walked to a saddlebag and pretended to examine its contents. "Finest Swiss copper, my lord."