Demon Knight Read online

  "He has always fought the way a demon would!" Barrafranca agreed. "He is crazy! He uses treachery, tactics no honorable man would—" Belch! "—countenance!"

  One could turn one's head and smile at the olive trees. D'Anjou took another swig of the wine. "Right from the start. One saw it oneself. His very first condotta was with Verona. Venetian gold had bought Tyrolean allies, and the Veronese were so desperate for men that they hired this new, untried Don Ramon Company to guard the northern borders." The Tyroleans, of course, had already signed a condotta with the Marquis Baldassare Barrafranca, but it would be too unkind to mention that. "The Tyroleans sent a force south along the shores of Lake Garda, a force far outnumbering the men Longdirk had. It was hopeless! Yet this maniac took it upon himself to give battle, far exceeding his instructions. And his tactics—"

  "I am aware—"

  "His tactics, I say, were total madness, against all the rules, suicidal. He not only dismounted the cavalry—a mistake becoming distressingly popular these days—but he left the horses and baggage unguarded so he could throw every man into an assault. Cooks, grooms, teamsters, farriers, and similar trash, he armed them all! He had led this untrained, inexperienced rabble on a long march in pitch-darkness, can you believe? It made us weep, we who knew how it should be done. Had the enemy even suspected, there would have been a most terrible massacre, and that would have been the end of the upstart right then. But no. He has demons' own luck. He pounced on the Tyrolean camp in the middle of a moonless night, with no warning. Shameful! It was sheer butchery, hundreds of men murdered in their sleep. Thousands more fled or surrendered, leaving all their arms to the victors. By the terms of the condotta, the loot was his, of course."

  "Of course," Barrafranca growled. He had been one of the prisoners.

  "Oh, it worked," D'Anjou admitted. "Tyrol changed sides, and Verona was ecstatic. The Veronese paid up without complaint, although the condotta had lasted less than a month. They wanted to renew it indefinitely, but no, the arrogant barbarian went off in search of richer employers. But it was on the field of Garda that the don knighted him. I saw it. Sir Tobias! Sir Turd!

  "It is not easy for men of honor to serve under such a man," he added waspishly. How could Barrafranca endure it? The rout at Lake Garda that had made Longdirk's name had blackened his forever. Rather than ransom him, his city had deposed him. "The foreigner upset all the rules by which your condottieri had been operating for so long. I expect one day someone will seek retribution—stick a knife in his ribs, perchance."

  "Revenge, messer, is a dish best tasted cold."

  "Even a cold dish must lose its flavor if it sits around too long." D'Anjou wondered if the men were listening, but very few of them understood French. They were almost at the camp now. He would shed this obnoxious Italian upstart and take a little rest to ease his back. "What was it you wished to discuss, messer?"

  "Mm?" The Italian drank and belched again. "Apparently the podestà has received a letter from Naples. An emissary of the Khan has landed there."

  The Chevalier straightened suddenly in his saddle and suppressed a gasp of pain. "You jest!"

  "No, messer." Barrafranca sounded amused by his companion's shocked reaction. "After so many years, our esteemed overlord has at last noticed that something is amiss in his realm!"

  "Did he send an army? I mean, is he sending one?" Tartars were horsemen. If the Golden Horde was going to oppose Nevil and try to recover the lands he had stolen, then it would have to come from the east, by land. But perhaps this was a sign that it was coming! "What good can one emissary do?"

  "Spirits know, Chevalier. They said he brings special powers."

  "A darughachi?" It had been many years since D'Anjou had even thought about the Khanate, that rotted relic of an empire whose claim to rule Europe the Fiend had exposed as utter pigswill. "He has perhaps authority to appoint another suzerain?"

  Barrafranca snorted. "Very useful! The Fiend has slaughtered the last four, so—"

  "Last five." Three of those five had been relatives of D'Anjou's. Two of them Nevil had taken alive, poor devils. "It will have to be an Italian, because there is no one else left, and a suzerain has always been a red rag to the Fiend. Nothing will make his invasion of Italy more certain."

  "His invasion is already certain, yes? And if this daru... emissary... does appoint a suzerain, whom will he appoint? In the past the Khan always chose a powerful ruler, yes? But they are all dead now."

  Ah! Interesting problem! In Italy—and there was very little else of Europe that Nevil had not conquered—the great powers were the five cities, but Rome was a hierocracy, while Venice and Florence were plutocracies claiming to be democracies. Fredrico of Naples was unthinkable. "The Duke of Milan? This is a choice not to be thought of!"

  The Italian laughed. "He can do better than that, Chevalier. A man who knows war as it should be fought, a man who has fought against the Fiend as long as any, a man whose ancestors ruled France when the Khan's were herding goats?"

  Again a jerk of surprise sent a stab of pain up D'Anjou's spine, but he barely noticed it. Indeed! Was he not the logical choice? "What are you suggesting?"

  "That the emissary ought to be advised of the possibility. A good horseman should be able to reach Naples in a few days, sì?"

  "I shall consider your advice, messer. I thank you for it." He could almost regret mocking the man, for the proposal had possibilities.

  "My pleasure, Chevalier. And when it happens you will give me Longdirk's head in a basket, sì?"

  D'Anjou chuckled. "I will give it to someone. You may have to wait in line."

  "I will settle for his tripes," Barrafranca growled.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The camp in the Fiesole highlands was a minor city of leather and linen spilled down a now-muddy slope, a galaxy of many-colored tents, shaped like cones or sheds or loaves. Many of these were very grand pavilions, striped and gleaming in the morning sun, proof of the success the Don Ramon Company had garnered in the two seasons of its existence, but in among their dazzle crouched others more humble—dingy, patched, and decrepit, even some crude shelters of straw to house men who had gambled away their wealth. This bizarre settlement had been home all winter to three thousand men and boys, plus an unknown multitude of women. The treasurer kept sharp tally of the horses, the mules, the oxen, the wagons, the guns, the beans in the commissary, but for some reason no one ever counted the women.

  Toby often marveled that he could have started this, but it had all sprung from a single evening's brainstorming in a monastery in northern Spain. As a penniless outlaw he had sown dragons' teeth and then ridden the dragon to fame and honor. It ruled him now. It owned him. Florence depended on messer Longdirk to defend her from the Fiend, but these men trusted him not to squander their lives in the attempt. One slip on his part, and few of them would see the harvest. They were cynical, tough as anvils, and many of them brutal, but they were Longdirk's men and proud of it. As he rode through the camp, he was hailed by lancers, pikemen, arquebusiers, and cannoneers. They were not cheering old Chevalier D'Anjou at his side, the rightful King of France; they were cheering Toby Longdirk, and that was worth far more than all of Pietro Marradi's gilt-edged invitations.

  —|—

  Don Ramon emerged from the coach unaided but unsteady. Framed by auburn tangles, his face had a greenish hue, and the copper mustache that normally twisted up in arrogant horns hung over his mouth like an apron. In only shirt and tights, he seemed almost frail, a slender boy. His unfocused, red-rimmed eyes peered uncertainly at Toby.

  "Stand aside!" he muttered.

  "You have a duty to perform, senor."

  He clutched the coach for support and groaned. "Duty?"

  "The condotta must be signed today. The Magnificent and I reached agreement on the essentials. You are Captain-General of Florence, senor."

  The listeners broke into another cheer, for they had not been paid in weeks. The news would be all over the camp in minutes.
That the don was in no state to negotiate with the hardheaded—and undoubtedly cold-sober—Florentine commissioners was very obvious, and there were a million essential details to be settled yet, enough to fill weeks of haggling. But speed was essential, and for all his grandiose illusions, no one had ever accused Don Ramon of lacking courage. An appeal to his sense of duty left him no escape.

  "Today it shall be, Constable." He staggered off in the direction of the house. The mercenaries grinned admiringly, but they did not shout vulgar remarks after him as they would have done at Toby. The don was too dangerous to taunt.

  Good spirits be with him this day! Fighting was much easier than negotiating. That was why most men preferred it.

  —|—

  The villa had begun life as a humble farmhouse, but now it was a rambling warren of low buildings, stonewalled and red-tiled, set about with vines and olives. The city placed it at the disposal of successive mercenary captains, and previous tenants had added watchtowers and a crenellated wall, so that it was almost a fortress, but not strong enough to alarm the Florentines.

  The domestic functions of the villa were run by madonna Anna, a formidable widow whose iron-gray eyes had seen uncounted soldiers of fortune come and go. She ruled a diverse population of younger women who came and went much faster, and she treated them as servants. Some were legitimate wives of officers of the Company, some were innocents who believed they were about to become wives, and others would negotiate with anyone. Toby remained firmly celibate, having no choice, and Hamish preferred to hunt wild game in the city.

  The two of them shared an attic room just large enough to contain a hamper for storage, a bed for Hamish, and seven feet of floor for Toby. It was cluttered with armor and weapons, and he was sure that one night he would be killed in his sleep by an avalanche of Hamish's high-piled books.

  He arrived with a bucket of water and his foggy-headed feeling. As he stripped off his finery, he could look down on all of Florence. Seen from this vantage in the Fiesole hills, it was a fairyland of domes and palaces, a cake iced by red tile roofs. The city wall wrapped around it like a cord knotted with towers, and through it flowed the blue Arno, winding on toward Pisa across the fertile plain, between the hills in their olive, vine, and mulberry plumage. It was a jewel among cities, and he was its defender.

  Italians had been fighting among themselves for centuries, but they had preserved the traditions of chivalry much longer than most of Europe had, waging war as a stately gavotte of maneuver and siege, where arms rarely clashed and nobody got hurt—certainly nobody of importance, but even the mercenaries' death toll was usually light. The peace treaty would stipulate reasonable ransoms for the prisoners, redistribute a few castles, and allocate some daughters in marriage to show there were no hard feelings. It was fine sport as long as nobody worried about the peasants whose crops were burned and womenfolk raped—and nobody did, certainly nobody of importance.

  Fourteen years ago, Nevil had changed the rules by abolishing the rules. No rules, no peace treaties, and winner take all.

  To be honest, in Italy it had been Toby Longdirk who introduced the new style of war. Less than three years ago he had landed at Genoa with Hamish, Don Ramon, Antonio Diaz, Arnaud Villars, and Karl Fischart. Even famous condottieri had jumped at the chance to sign up with these mad foreigners who would pay a retainer over the winter, when all sensible employers put their mercenaries out to pasture. The don was young, true, but he had earned a hero's fame in the Battle of Toledo. Diaz was an experienced trainer of infantry. Although Fischart, formerly Baron Oreste, had a gruesome reputation, he was a hexer of international renown, and any fighting man wanted a good hexer at his back. Villars, an obvious scoundrel, was throwing out handfuls of Josep Brusi's gold, smooth and yellow as butter.

  By spring, when the fighting began, the men of the Don Ramon Company had discovered that the methodical Diaz lacked flair and the don had so much that he qualified as a maniac. They were taking their orders from a Scottish yokel who had no qualifications whatsoever—except, as it turned out, a ruthless ability to bring the enemy to battle on the wrong ground and beat him.

  "You sigh?" asked a soft voice. The intruder in the doorway was a haggard scarecrow of a man in the black robe of a penitent, Karl Fischart, formerly Baron Oreste. He would not have interrupted without good cause, and good cause must be bad news.

  "I was thinking that Florence is the fairest city in all Europe and I am a fool. Look at it! Isn't it glorious? Last night I promised to defend it. If I fail, it will be all gone before winter. Am I completely insane?"

  "No, because to die fighting the Fiend is our only hope that some spirit will take pity on our souls. Any other death is ignoble. Faced with paramount evil, the only virtuous course is to die opposing it. We ourselves are so steeped in evil that to survive is evidence of insufficient dedication to the struggle."

  So much for rhetorical questions. Toby had no doubts at all about his own sanity and felt no repentance for the deaths he had caused in his military career. Regret yes, but they had been necessary. Fischart was living with memories of the horrors he had committed when he was Nevil's premier hexer. No matter how he went barefoot, ate almost nothing, and mortified his flesh in ingenious ways, nothing would ever console him. Although his face was still round, the flesh on it had melted into bags and dewlaps. Stooped and white-bearded, he seemed to have aged a generation since the day he and Toby had come face-to-face in Barcelona and ended their long feud within the hour. The only evidence remaining of his former evil glory was the collection of jeweled rings on his fingers—plus his tedious habit of wailing his remorse to anyone who would listen.

  "What's the bad news today?" Toby splashed water on his face. "Use short words and remember I'm stupid."

  "I know you pretend to be. I was deceived once and have been paying for that error ever since and will pay until my death."

  "The news?"

  "We have been robbed. Gold is missing from the strongbox."

  After a moment Toby realized he was staring like a gargoyle, mouth open. "Explain that! You were supposed to have hexed it."

  "I am the premier suspect!" The old man wrung his hands in agony. "To fail in so simple a task is evidence that I have betrayed you all."

  "Did you take the money?"

  "Of course not! You think I would add to my sins by—"

  "Then don't rant and wail, be helpful! We're cleaned out?" How much? Two days ago Arnaud had reported two thousand, five hundred, seventy-two florins in hand. Less fifty-seven for flour and eight-three for fodder—Toby rattled beads on his mental abacus. "There should have been twenty-two hundred and thirty or so florins there!" That was desperation money to keep the Company fed. Condotta or not, the dieci della guerra might still take weeks to deliver any cash, and it would not be inclined to move faster if the Don Ramon Company sank into debt to the Marradi Bank. Abandoning thoughts of washing, he threw open the hamper and rummaged in it for clothes.

  "No, no! You don't understand! Villars insists only one bag is missing, a bag of green leather, one hundred florins. The rest has not been touched, and a purse of the don's is still there, too."

  "That's absurd! Who can open the chest, apart from you and Arnaud?"

  Fischart's hand rubbing grew more agitated. "Captain Diaz, Don Ramon, Brother Bartolo, messer Campbell. No one else can even get near it without setting off alarms and being trapped in the adytum. No one except a very skilled hexer."

  Toby himself had never even seen the demon-guarded coffer because he never went to the adytum. "Can't you tell?" he asked, balancing on one leg as he pulled hose onto the other. "Don't you know if someone else has used gramarye on it?"

  "There are shadows, only shadows. If it was a hexer, he is an incredible adept, better than I."

  "Is anyone better than you?"

  "No," Fischart admitted glumly.

  "What else can it be except a hexer?"

  "Nothing."

  Morbid and tortured though he wa
s, the old man still had one of the brightest minds in Europe, and it took Toby a moment to catch up with the misery in his crazed eyes.

  "Then you will have to test everyone you just named."

  The hexer looked ready to weep. "I have. Everyone except the don and Campbell, who isn't back yet but wasn't here when the money was taken. I can find no trace of hexing on them. If one of them took the money, then he was acting voluntarily. He would still have had to use gramarye, of course, but he cannot be under a compulsion."

  Needing more time to think, Toby opened the window and tipped out his wash water. Was it possible that the Fiend had managed to hex Fischart himself to spin this tale? No one could be trusted absolutely in this war; but if the baron had been turned, then Toby ought to be helpless already, if not dead. The gold problem made no sense at all. If Arnaud said there had been a theft, there had been a theft. He did not make mistakes. That the Fiend had spies or even potential assassins within the Company went without saying, but why steal one bag of coins and leave the rest? Why should a skilled hexer draw attention to his presence like that? Or possibly her presence, he remembered.

  "Probably the don took it to spend on some woman. And test him for hexing. I suggest you don't let him know you're doing so." If that failed, then the puzzle would have to wait until Hamish came back. He was the one with brains. "Perhaps you'd better test me as well."

  "I can't. I would just find the hob."

  Toby grunted. As far as he knew, being possessed saved him from being hexed, which was like not catching measles because one already had tertian fever. "So we have a traitor in camp, who may or may not be one of the people we've been discussing. That really is not surprising, is it? See if you can tighten your wards on the money, and also would you clear Don Ramon's head so he can negotiate the terms of the condotta today? There's no time to waste."