The Spirit Ring (8 page)

      
"I must get my husband!" The castellan's wife dropped her ewer, picked up her skirts, and ran for the garden. The lieutenant looked up at the noise, frowned, and started toward Fiametta. His eyes were very cold. Dizzied with shock, her heart hammering, Fiametta whirled and sprinted after Lady Pia.

      
She was almost blinded by the sunlight. Halfway across the garden, the castellan's wife was hanging on her husband's arm and screaming warnings; he was shaking his head as if he found incoherent the cries that made perfect sense to Fiametta. She looked around frantically in the white afternoon for her father's big black hat.
There
, nodding to some man. The pursuing lieutenant turned his head in the doorway, then plunged back inside. Fiametta flung herself onto Master Beneforte's chest, her fingers clutching his tunic.

      
"Papa," she gasped out, "Lord Ferrante just murdered the Duke!"

      
Uri Ochs spun backward through the door. There was blood on his sword. "Treachery!" he shouted. Blood sprayed from his mouth with the words. "Murder and treachery! Montefoglia, to arms!"

      
Ferrante's men, as surprised as Montefoglia's, began to gather together in knots. Ferrante's lieutenant, pursuing Captain Ochs through the door, cried his comrades to his aid.

      
"The devil," hissed Master Beneforte through his teeth. "There goes my commission." His hand clamped on her arm and he wheeled around, staring. "This garden is a death trap. We have to get out of here
now
."

      
Men were beginning to draw swords and daggers, and the unarmed to snatch up table knives. Women were screaming.

Master Beneforte started, not for the door, but toward the high table. Captain Ochs and Ferrante's lieutenant were also heading that way at a pell-mell run. Ferrante's lieutenant leaped and aimed a sword swing across the linen at little Lord Ascanio that would have taken off the boy's head if Captain Ochs had not knocked the blade aside with his own. Abbot Monreale started up and dumped the table over on the gap-toothed Losimon as he stumbled and turned for another strike.

      
With a wild lunge, Master Beneforte caught his saltcellar as it arced glittering through the air, bundling his cloak about it. "Now, Fiametta! For the door!"

      
Fiametta yanked convulsively at her skirt, pinned under the edge of the heavy table. "Papa, help!"

      
Duchess Letitia clutched her daughter and half-jumped, half-fell over the back of the platform into the tapestries. Uri, leaping up, grabbed Ascanio and shoved him toward Abbot Monreale. "Get the boy out!" he gasped. The abbot swirled his red robe around the terrified child and parried a bravo's sword thrust with his crozier, followed up quite automatically with a powerful and well-aimed kick to the man's crotch.

      
"Saint Jerome! To me!" Monreale bellowed. His prior and brawny secretary sped to his aid. Another bravo's descent on Ascanio was met with an odd motion of the abbot's staff; the man's face grew abruptly blank, and he wandered off over the side of the dais, sword drooping. He was struck down by one of Montefoglia's guards joining the fray. Master Beneforte, halfway to the door, heard Fiametta's cries and started back.

      
Uri, guarding the group now growing about the abbot and Ascanio, was locked in murderous swordplay with Ferrante's gap-toothed lieutenant. Uri's breath bubbled strangely. In a thrust-and-parry, Uri kicked Lord Ferrante's footstool-chest over the edge of the dais. It bounced on its side and spilled open. It was packed with rock salt, which cascaded across Fiametta's feet.

      
Pickled in the salt curled the shriveled corpse of a newborn infant. Fiametta screamed and ripped her caught skirt out from under the table in her recoil. Uri glanced aside, his eyes widening; Ferrante's lieutenant lunged and thrust his sword through Uri's new doublet. Fiametta could see five inches of blade sliding out of the captain's back. The gap-toothed man turned the blade, put his foot to Uri's torso, and yanked it back out with a dreadful sucking sound. Blood gushed from both wounds, front and back. The captain fell. Fiametta wailed, stooped, and flung a heavy platter at the Losimon lieutenant with all her strength. Master Beneforte grabbed Fiametta's arm and dragged her toward the exit.

      
The doorway was clotted with struggling men. Master Beneforte fell back, dismayed. He shoved the bundled cloak containing the saltcellar into Fiametta's shaking hands and snarled, "Don't drop it! And stay on my heels this time, damn it!" He snatched up a bottle from one of the tables and drew his own showy dagger with its jeweled hilt. The mirror-polished blade, never yet used, flashed in the sun.

      
Master Beneforte tried again to force his way through the garden's only exit. A knot of men exploded outward as more of Montefoglia's guards charged through. Master Beneforte darted forward into the brief breach. Just inside, one of Ferrante's men cut at him. Yelling, he parried and splashed the contents of the little jug into the man's face. The Losimon yowled and swiped at his eyes with his free hand, Master Beneforte knocked his sword aside, and they were through.

      
"Magic?" gulped Fiametta.

      
"Vinegar," snapped Master Beneforte.

      
There was another vicious struggle going on at the despised marble staircase. Master Beneforte practically tossed Fiametta over the balustrade, vaulting after her. They pelted across the courtyard toward the tower-flanked gate, now being hotly contested by Ferrante's men and Montefoglia's.

      
Lord Ferrante was there in person, gesturing with a sword and shouting encouragement. "Hold the gate, and we’ll have the rest at our will! Hold!" Almost casually, his sword licked out and tore open the throat of an attacking soldier in Montefoglia's livery. The man had ribbons in Ferrante's colors tied to the flower-and-bee badge of his cap in honor of the day's festivities, and they bounced wildly as he fell.

      
"Christ Jesus, it's going to be a massacre," Master Beneforte groaned.

      
Lord Ferrante turned and saw Master Beneforte. He stepped back a pace, his eyes narrowing, then raised his right fist with the silver ring face-out. Master Beneforte growled "Stupid!" in his throat, and raised his own hand in a peculiar rapid wave, fingers moving very precisely. Fiametta's belly wrenched with the tilted gut-feel of clashing magics. There was no subtlety in this. The silver ring began to glow, then suddenly emitted a brilliant flash and an earsplitting crack.

      
Lord Ferrante, not Master Beneforte, screamed, dropped his sword, and clutched his right hand with his left. A distinct odor of burnt meat wafted beneath another sharp tang Fiametta could not identify.

      
"Kill them!" Lord Ferrante roared, stamping his boots in agony, but the soldier facing Master Beneforte gave way in confused panic. Master Beneforte skipped backward a few paces, dagger brandished, as Fiametta picked up speed, then they both ran from the castle gate as hard as they could.

      
At the bottom of the hill Fiametta glanced back. Lord Ferrante was pointing her way, holding up a purse, and yelling something; a pair of bravos sped out the gate. As the houses grew more crowded, Master Beneforte darted between two shops and into an alley, then dodged into another alley. They fought through someone's laundry hung out to dry and vaulted a sleeping dog. Fiametta was gasping for air; it felt as if someone had stuck a dagger into her side, so sharp was the pain of her laboring lungs and banquet-laden stomach.

      
"Stop, Fiametta...."

      
They had come to the edge of the buildings, by the shoreline of the lake. Master Beneforte sagged against a wall of dun brick. He, too, was gasping, his head bent to one side. His right hand kneaded his belly, just below his chest, as if to push back pain. When he looked up his face was not flushed, as Fiametta's was, but of a gray pallor, sheened with sweat. "I should not... have gorged so well," he blurted. "Even at the Duke's expense." And, after another moment, in a strange, small voice, "I can't run any more." His knees buckled.

Chapter Four

      
"Papa!" She wouldn't, daren’t, let him fall. She might not be able to get him up again. She twisted up under his armpit, pulling his arm across her shoulders one-handed, juggling the bundled cloak under her other elbow. He was incredibly heavy, draped over her. "We have to keep going. We have to get back to the house." Her throat clotted in panic, more frightened by the weird gray color of his face than by the bravos seeking them through the alleys like a pair of hunting dogs.

      
"If Ferrante takes the castle... he will take the town. And if he... takes the town... our old oak door won't stop his soldiers. Not if they think there's treasure inside. And if he takes... the town... he'll take the duchy. No place to run."

      
"With fifty men?" said Fiametta.

      
"Fifty men... and the moment." He paused. "No. He'll take the town at most. Then he'll wait for reinforcements. Then the rest." His face was furrowed with pain. He hugged his torso and stood bent over, swaying. "You run, Fia-mia. God, don't let them catch you. The blood lust will make them crazy for days. I've seen men... get like that."

      
A stone quay served several wooden docks built out into the water. A little fishing boat was just bumping up to the pilings. Its sole, sun-burned occupant tossed a rope around a post to secure his craft, then turned back to his lateen-rigged sail of coarse brown hemp, which he'd half-lowered as he'd coasted in. He straightened its folds and lowered it fully. He climbed out onto the dock and took up the rope to lead his boat around the end to its proper mooring on the lee side.

      
"The boat," breathed Fiametta. "Come on!"

      
He squinted at it, beard pointing. "Maybe..." They stumbled forward.

      
"Master Boatman," Fiametta called as they came near, "would you please hire us your boat?" She suddenly realized she was carrying no coins. And neither was Master Beneforte.

      
"Eh?" The peasant stood and pushed back his straw hat, staring dully at them.

      
"My father has taken ill. As you see. I wish to take him gently across to Saint Jerome's, and see Brother Mario the healer." She glanced back over her shoulder. "At once."

      
"Well, I have to unload my fish, Madonna. Maybe then."

      
"No. At once." At his offended frown, she tore the silver net from her hair and held it out to him. "Here. There are as many pearls in my net as you have fish in yours. I'll trade you even, but
don't argue with me
."

      
The astonished boatman took the hairnet. "Well...! Never before have I pulled pearls from Lake Montefoglia!"

      
Fiametta moaned in her throat, and coaxed Master Beneforte to sit on the edge of the dock. From there he dropped heavily into the open boat, motioning urgently to his bundled cloak. She shoved it into his hands and he clutched it to his chest. He looked worse, his mouth open with pain, his legs drawing up. She jumped in after him, fighting her velvet skirts. The boat rocked wildly. Bemusedly, the boatman standing on the dock tossed in the bow rope, and then, after another glance at his handful of pearls, his straw hat as well. It spiraled down into the bottom of the boat. Fiametta squatted and grabbed an oar, heavy in her hands, and used it to shove them hard away from the dock.

      
A man in Ferrante's livery emerged from the alleys, spotted them, and shouted over his shoulder. He started for the dock. He had a drawn sword in his hand.

      
Fiametta pointed back toward the shore. "Watch out, Boatman! Those two men who are coming will steal your pearls." And beat out his life as well in their frustration, she feared, as casually brutal as wolves.

      
"What?" The peasant wheeled and stared in panic at the two bravos, who had nearly reached the dock. His hand tightened on his new treasure.

      
She found the rope to raise the sail and hung on it, hand-over-hand. The warm afternoon breeze was faint, but steady, and more importantly, from the south, blowing them away from the shore even while she struggled with the sail and had no hand free for the steering oar. They had drifted a good forty feet away from the dock by the time the two shouting bravos reached the end of it.

      
They shook their swords at Fiametta and cried obscene and violent threats. They were just turning back to wreak lethal vengeance on the poor man who had helped her, when the peasant, who had fallen back and picked up a long oar, charged forward with it like a knight at joust. It struck one sword-waving bravo square in his steel breastplate; with a yell, the man fell backward into the water and sank. Swinging the oar around like a quarterstaff, the peasant took the second bravo in the chin with a crack that echoed across the lake. He staggered back, unbalanced, and splashed after his comrade.

      
By the time the two men had saved themselves from drowning, at the cost of abandoning their heavy metal weapons and armor to the lake bottom, and splashed soddenly back onto the beach, the boatman had thoroughly disappeared. The light spring air filled the little boat's brown sail. The angry figures on the beach shaking their fists and impotently biting their thumbs seemed as tiny and feckless as gnomes.

      
Master Beneforte, who had been watching over the side with great anxiety, loosened his white-knuckled grip on the gunwale and sighed, sinking back into the bottom of the boat. His face was still very pale, though his breathing seemed a shade less labored. He must be sick and in pain indeed, not to even be offering criticism of her handling of the boat. She almost wished for a scathing remark, just for reassurance. Was it heart-sickness, or Lord Ferrante's evil magic that had laid him so low? Or some pernicious combination of both?