The Spirit Ring

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  THE SPIRIT RING

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  www.dendarii.com

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 1992 by Lois McMaster Bujold

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Books by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Vorkosigan Series

  Falling Free

  Shards of Honor

  Barrayar

  The Warrior's Apprentice

  Borders of Infinity

  The Vor Game

  Cetaganda

  Ethan of Athos

  Brothers in Arms

  Mirror Dance

  Memory

  Komarr

  A Civil Campaign

  “Winterfair Gifts”

  Diplomatic Immunity

  CryoBurn

  Chalion Series

  The Curse of Chalion

  Paladin of Souls

  The Hallowed Hunt

  The Wide Green World Series

  The Sharing Knife, Vol. 1: Beguilement

  The Sharing Knife, Vol. 2: Legacy

  The Sharing Knife, Vol. 3: Passage

  The Sharing Knife, Vol. 4: Horizon

  FOR JIM AND TRUDIE

  THE SPIRIT RING

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Chapter One

  Fiametta turned the lump of warm reddish clay in her hand. "Do you think it's done yet, Papa?" she asked anxiously. "Can I break it open now?"

  Her father closed his hand over hers, testing the heat. "Not yet. Set it down, it won't cool the faster for being juggled."

  She sighed in impatience and laid the clay ball back down on the workbench in the patch of morning sunlight falling through the window's iron grille. "Can't you put a cooling spell on it?"

  He chuckled. “I'll put a cooling spell on you, girl. You have too much of the element of fire in you. Even your mother used to say so." Master Beneforte crossed himself and bowed his head, when naming the dead. The laugh faded a little in his eyes. "Don't burn so fast. It's the banked coals that last the night."

  "But you stumble in their dark," Fiametta parried. "What burns fast, burns bright." She leaned her elbows on the bench and scuffed her slipper across the floor tiles, regarding her work. Clay, with a golden heart. In his Sunday sermons, Bishop Monreale often said Man was clay. She felt a melting sense of union with the object on the table, brown and lumpy on the outside—she sighed again—but full of secret promise, if only it could be broken open.

  "Maybe it's marred," she said nervously. "An air pocket... dirt...." Could he not sense it? A pure, high hum, like a tiny heartbeat?

  "Then you can melt it down and do it over till you get it right." Her father shrugged. "It will be your own fault, and just what you deserve, for rushing ahead and pouring before I came to watch you. The metal will not be lost, or it shouldn't be—I'll beat you like a real apprentice if you manage such an apprentice's trick as that." He frowned ferociously but, Fiametta sensed, not altogether seriously.

  It wasn't the metal she was worried about losing. But she had no intention of confiding her secret, and risking disapproval or derision. When she'd heard her father's step in the hallway she had hastily rubbed away the chalk diagram with spit and her sleeve, and swept the recipe sheet, carefully copied in her best hand, and the set of symbolic objects—salt, dried flowers, a bit of unworked gold, wheat seeds—from the workbench. The apron into which she'd bundled them sat on the end of the table looking dreadfully conspicuous. Papa had, after all, only given her permission to cast gold. She hitched her hip over a tall stool, rubbed at the leather apron over her gray wool outer dress, and sniffed at the chill spring air slipping through the workroom's unglazed window. But it worked! My first investment worked. Or at least... it didn't back-blow.

  A pounding penetrated from the house's heavy oak outer door, and a man's voice. "Master Beneforte! Hallo the house! Prospero Beneforte, are you awake in there?"

  Fiametta scrambled up to the table, to mash her face against the grille and try to see around the corner of the window frame into the street. "Two men—it's the Duke's steward, Messer Quistelli, Papa. And"—she brightened—"the Swiss captain."

  "Ha!" Master Beneforte hastily pulled off his own leather apron and straightened the skirts of his tunic. "Perhaps he brings my bronze, at last! It's about time. Has no one unbarred the door this morning?" He stuck his head through the workroom's other window, which opened onto his house's inner court, and bellowed, "Teseo! Unbar the door!" His graying beard pointed, left and right. "Where is the useless boy? Run and unbar the door, Fiametta. Tuck your hair under your cap first; you're all awry like a washerwoman."

  Fiametta hopped down, untied the strings of her plain white linen cap, and with her fingers pushed and combed back strands of her crinkly black hair, which had escaped unnoticed in her absorption with her morning's work. She tightened her cap smoothly over her head again, though in the back a wild cushion of ringlets defied order, cascading over her nape and a third of the way to her waist. She now wished she'd taken the time to braid it at dawn, before racing off to lay the fire in the little cupellation furnace in the corner of the workroom before Papa woke and came down. Better still if she'd put on the real lace cap from Bruges, that Papa had given her last spring for her fifteenth birthday.

  The pounding resumed. "Hallo the house!"

  Fiametta danced into the stone-paved hallway and slid back the bar of the main door, opened it, and swept a curtsey. "Good morning, Messer Quistelli." And, a breath more shyly, "Captain Ochs."

  "Ah, Fiametta." Messer Quistelli gave her a nod. "I'm here to see the Master."

  Messer Quistelli wore long dark robes, like a scholar. The guardsman, Uri Ochs, wore the Duke's livery, a short black tunic with sleeves striped red and gold, and black hose. He bore no metal breastplate nor pike nor helmet this peaceful morning, only the sword at his hip and a black velvet cap with the Duke of Montefoglia's badge on it, perched on his brown hair. The flower-and-bee badge was Master Beneforte's own work, copper-gilt, appearing solid gold, keeping the secret of the captain's relative poverty. The Swiss sent half his pay home to his mother, Master Beneforte had whispered, shaking his head, whether in admiration for this filial piety or dismay at his financial fecklessness, Fiametta had not been sure. Captain Ochs's legs filled his hose neatly, though, no sad drooping bags to them like the leggings of skinny young apprentices or dried old men.

  "From the Duke?" Fiametta asked in hope. The leather purse hanging at Messer Quistelli's waist next to his glasses bulged in a most promising manner. But then, the Duke was always promising, Papa said. Fiametta ushered the men inside and led them into the front workroom, where Master Beneforte advanced on them, rubbing his hands in greeting.

  "Good morning, gentlemen! I trust you bring good news about the bronze Duke Sandrino promised me for my great work? Sixteen pigs of copper, mind you, no less. Are the arrangements made yet?"

  Messer Quistelli shrugged against this importunity. "Not yet. Though I'm sure by the time you're ready, Master, so will the metal be." His raised brow had a faint ironic tilt, and Master Beneforte frowned. Her father had a nose like a hunting dog for the faintest slight or insult; Fiametta held her breath. But Messer Quistelli went on, touching the purse at his belt. "I do bring you my lord's allowance for your wood and wax and workmen."

  "Even I am not so great a conjurer as to be able to make bronze from wax and wood," growled Master Beneforte. But he reached for the purse anyway.

  Messer Quistelli turned slightly away. "Your skill is unquestioned, Master. It is your speed my lord has com
e to doubt. Perhaps you try to take on too many commissions, to the detriment of all?"

  "I must use my time efficiently, if my household is to eat," Master Beneforte said stiffly. "If my lord Duke wishes his wife to stop ordering jewelry, he should take it up with her, not me."

  "About that saltcellar," said Messer Quistelli firmly.

  "I have pressed it forward with incessant industry. As I have said."

  "Yes, but is it finished?"

  "It lacks only the enameling."

  "And, perhaps, the functionary spells?" Messer Quistelli suggested. "Have you laid them on yet?"

  "Not laid on," said Master Beneforte in a tone of injured dignity. "This is no hedge-magician's spell of seeming your lord requires of me. The spell is integral, built-in, worked along with each stroke of my chisel."

  "Duke Sandrino requires me to observe its progress," said Messer Quistelli a shade more diffidently. "The news is not general yet, but I am to tell you in confidence, his daughter's betrothal is being negotiated. He wants to be sure the saltcellar is finished in time for the betrothal banquet."

  "Ah." Master Beneforte's face lightened. "A worthy debut for my art. When is it planned?"

  "The end of this month."

  "So soon! And who is the fortunate bridegroom to be?"

  "Uberto Ferrante, Lord of Losimo."

  There was a distinct pause. "I see my lord Duke's urgency," said Master Beneforte.

  Messer Quistelli made a hands-down gesture, blocking further comment.

  "Fiametta." Master Beneforte turned to her, taking a ring of keys from his girdle. "Run and fetch the golden saltcellar from the chest in my room. Mind you lock both chest and door again behind you."

  Fiametta took the keys and exited at a ladylike walk, no childish skipping under the eyes of the Swiss captain, until she reached the stairs in the courtyard to the upper gallery, which she took two at a time.

  The big iron-bound chest at the foot of her father's bed contained a dozen leather-bound books, several stacks of notes and papers tied with ribbons—anxiously, she tried to remember if she had indeed replaced them last time identically to their previous arrangement—and a polished walnut box. The chest was redolent with the aromas of paper, leather, ink, and magic. She lifted out the heavy box and relocked both chest and room with the complex filigreed iron keys. She could feel the spells of warding slide into place along with the bolts, a tiny jolt up the nerves of her hand. Most potent, to be sensed at all, given Papa's incessant drive for subtlety in his art. She returned to the downstairs workroom. Her light leather slippers padded almost silently across the flagstones as she approached. A chance word in the captain's voice caught her ear; she stiffened and listened outside the workroom door.

  "— your daughter's mother Moorish, then, or Blackamoor?"

  "Ethiope, surely," Messer Quistelli opined. "Was she a slave of yours?"

  "No, she was a Christian woman," replied Fiametta's father. "From Brindisi." There was a certain dryness in his voice, whether with respect to Christian women or Brindisi Fiametta could not tell.

  "She must have been very beautiful," said the Swiss politely.

  "That she was. And I was not always so dried up and battered as you see me today, either, before my nose was broken and my hair grew gray."

  Captain Ochs made an apologetic noise, implying no slur intended on his host's face. Messer Quistelli, also aging, laughed appreciatively.

  "Has she inherited your talent in your art, Master Beneforte, while avoiding your nose?" asked Messer Quistelli.

  "She's certainly better than that ham-handed apprentice of mine, who's fit only for hauling wood. Her drawings and models are very fine. I don't tell her so, of course; there's nothing more obnoxious than a proud woman. I have let her work in silver, and I've just started letting her work in gold."

  Messer Quistelli vented a suitably impressed Hmm. "But I was thinking of your other art."

  "Ah." Master Beneforte's voice slid away without actually answering the question. "It's a great waste to train a daughter, who will only take your efforts and secrets off to some other man when she marries. Although if certain noble parties remain in arrears on the payments an artist of my stature is properly owed, her knowledge may be the only dowry I can afford her." He heaved a large and pointed sigh in Messer Quistelli's direction. "Did I ever tell you about the time the Pope was so overwhelmed by the beautiful gold medallion I crafted for his cope, he doubled my pay?"

  "Yes, several times," said Messer Quistelli quickly, to no avail.

  "He was going to make me Master of the Mint, too, till my enemies' whispers got up that false charge of necromancy against me, and I rotted in the dungeons of Castel Sain' Angelo for a year —"

  Fiametta had heard that one too. She backed up a few paces, shuffled her slippers noisily on the tiles, and entered the workroom. She set the walnut box carefully before her father and handed him back his keys. He smiled, rubbed his hands on his tunic, and with a word under his breath unlocked and opened the box. Folding back the silk wrappings, he lifted the object within and set it in the middle of the grid of sunlight falling on the table.

  The golden saltcellar blazed and sparked in the light, and both visitors caught their breaths. The sculpture rested on an oval base of ebony, richly decorated. Upon it two palm-high golden figures, a beautiful nude woman and a strong bearded man holding a triton, sat with their legs interlaced. "As we see in firths and promontories." Master Beneforte enthusiastically explained the symbolism. A ship—Fiametta thought it more of a rowboat—of delicate workmanship near the hand of the sea-king was to hold the salt; a little Greek temple beneath the earth-queen's gracefully draped hand was meant for the pepper. Around the man sea horses, fish, and strange crustaceans sported; around the woman, a happy riot of beautiful creatures of the earth.

  The Swiss captain's mouth hung open. Messer Quistelli pulled the spectacles from his belt, balanced them on his nose, and peered hungrily at the fine work. Master Beneforte swelled visibly, pointing out meaningful details and enjoying the men's astonishment.

  Messer Quistelli recovered first. "But does it work?" he demanded doggedly.

  Master Beneforte snapped his finger. "Fiametta! Fetch me two wineglasses, a bottle of wine—the sour wine Ruberta uses for cooking, not the good Chianti—and that white powder she uses to destroy rats in the pantry. Quickly now!"

  Fiametta scampered, glowing with her secret. I designed the dolphins. And the little rabbits, too. Behind her she could hear Master Beneforte bellowing again for Teseo the apprentice. She flung across the courtyard and into the kitchen, meeting Ruberta's protests at her flurry with a breathless, "Papa wants!"

  "Yes, girl, but I wager he'll want his dinner as well, and the fire's gone out in the stove." Ruberta pointed with her wooden spoon at the blue-tiled firebox.

  "Oh, is that all?' Fiametta bent over, unlatched the iron door, and turned her face to look inside the dark square. She ordered her thoughts to an instant of calm, "Piro," she breathed. Brilliant blue and yellow flames flared up like dancers on the dead coals. "That should do it." She tasted the heat of the spell on her tongue with satisfaction. At least she could do one thing well. Even Papa said so. And if one, why not another?

  "Thank you, dear," said Ruberta, turning to fetch her iron pot. By the aromatic evidence on the cutting board she was about to do splendid things with onions, garlic, rosemary, and spring lamb.

  "You're welcome." Quickly, Fiametta assembled the items needed for the demonstration upon a tray, including the last two clear Venetian wineglasses from the set the carters had broken in their move here to Montefoglia, almost five years ago. Papa had forgotten to mention the salt or the pepper; she snatched their jars from the high shelf and added them to the array as well, and marched it all to the workroom, her back straight.

  Smiling to himself, Master Beneforte tapped a little salt into the bowl-hull of the ship. For a moment, his face took on an inward look; he whispered under his breath and crossed hims
elf. Fiametta touched Messer Quistelli's arm as he started to speak, to keep him from interrupting what she knew to be a critical step. The hum from the saltcellar that answered Master Beneforte's whisper was deep and rich, but very, very faint, musical and fine. A year or so ago she could not have sensed it at all; Messer Quistelli clearly did not.

  "The pepper, Papa?" Fiametta offered it.

  "We shall not use the pepper today." He shook his head. He then placed a generous spoonful of the rat powder into one of the wineglasses and tied a string around its stem to mark it. Then he poured the wine into both glasses. The powder dissolved slowly, with a faint fizz.

  "Where is the boy?" Master Beneforte muttered after a few more minutes of waiting. Fortunately, before his master could work up to true irritation, Teseo slammed through the front door and appeared in the workroom, his cap askew on his head and one hose sagging with points half-tied, a towel bundled in his nervous hands.

  "I could only catch one in the midden, Master," Teseo apologized. "The other bit me and ran off."

  "Huh! Perhaps I'll use you for a substitute, then." Master Beneforte frowned. Teseo paled.

  He took up the towel, which proved to imprison a large and wild-looking rat, its teeth yellow and broken and its fur mangy. Teseo sucked on his bleeding thumb. The rat snapped, hissed, writhed, and squeaked. Holding the beast firmly by the scruff of its neck, Master Beneforte took a fine glass tube, drew up some now-chalky-pink wine from the glass with the string, and forced the liquid down the rat's throat. After another moment he released the animal onto the tiles. It snapped again, started to run, and began whirling in circles, biting at its sides. Then it convulsed and died.

  "Now observe, gentlemen," Master Beneforte said. His two guests leaned closer as he took a sprinkle of salt between his fingers and dropped it into the plain wineglass. Nothing happened. He took a second, more generous pinch, and dropped it into the poisoned wine. The salt flared, grains sparkling orange; a blue flame, like ignited brandy, breathed up from the surface of the liquid and burned for fully a minute. Master Beneforte stirred the mixture slowly with the pipette. The contents were now as clear and ruby-bright as the other. He lifted the stringed glass. "Now..." his eye fell on Teseo, who squeaked rather like the rat and apprehensively stepped back. "Ha. Unworthy boy," Master Beneforte said scornfully. He glanced at Fiametta, and a strange inspired smile curved his lips. "Fiametta. Drink this."