All the Plagues of Hell

by Eric Flint

  Then, standing there, looking at the letter again, she realized that being just that close to her goal was going to be more difficult than being far off and striving for success—because she would be so close that the smallest misstep would take her down completely. Lucia also knew she was going to be much further from that which gave her power, that which lurked in the darkness below the Castello di Arona.

  She took the key from its hiding place and made her way down to the cellars. Familiarity had not bred contempt, but at least she felt less in the way of sheer terror as she walked down the stairs in the darkness now.

  “And now?” asked the sibilant voice in the darkness. There was a kind of terrible languor about the way it spoke, something that would make the listener abandon all hope and give over to the serpent.

  “I go to Milan. Your killers have worked well.”

  There was a long silence. Then it said: “They are not dead yet.”

  “Oh?” Had she gone through all that expense and difficulty for nothing? “Well, I go to Milan. But I may need you there. Is there any way I can reach you while I am in the city?”

  There was a long drawn-out hiss. “I will go there. But I need more time before I can move out of the pit. It is still too cold. Summer, stinking summer is when my little ones thrive. But I can send one of my serpent lackeys with you, if you will carry it between your breasts and keep it warm and safe.”

  “A snake? You want me to carry a snake? Carry it there! Are you mad?”

  Again the scales shifted under her. “A serpent. Not a mere snake, but a part of me. He can bite and poison for you, give you that which you desire, and send word to me. But yessss, you will have to carry him. Feed him. He likes his mice trapped and helpless. But he does not require many.”

  Lucia paused at the thought of having a snake nestled up against her. She wanted to scream just at the idea. But…but she had come so far. And she knew she would need to go further still, before it was all done.

  “Very well.” And then she screamed and clawed at her leg. Hauled at her skirts.

  “It is your little helper. Do not hurt him or he may bite you,” said the great serpent as the snake wound its way up her leg and thrust under her girdle, cold scales slithering against her skin. Almost rigid with fear, Lucia stood and panted…but controlled her hands as the snake slid up between her breasts and stopped, resting there like a vast weight on her heart.

  “I can’t breathe,” she panted, resisting the urge to tear at the fabric. Firstly, she knew she must not, and secondly, it might bite her.

  “You will grow used it. You will even assume it is normal, soon,” said the serpent, unconcerned. “Others have told me so, the last time, and the time before.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But you must. Or you will die.”

  Eventually, she got to her feet and began the long walk up to the cellars. With every step she could feel the scales move against her flesh. It must be a very small snake, really. That didn’t stop her flesh wishing to crawl away from it.

  She went to inform her mother about the letter. Her mother had once been something of a beauty, in a slim, childlike way, but all that was gone now. All that was left was a shrunken, sad-eyed woman. A woman who had given up. Even with a snake in her bosom, Lucia felt anger and scorn seeing her like that. She’d let herself come so close to power and then let it get away from her.

  “Milan. I don’t think I can, again,” her mother said weakly. “The expense. Yes, I know we would be fed, but court clothes will cost. And the noise. No, Lucia, I don’t think so. No, it would be better if we stayed here, where we are safe and it is quiet. Why would you have anything to do with some lowborn soldier anyway?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Mother. Our living here is at his whim. Yes, the court clothes will cost us, but stay here? What is there here for me? A bare half-dozen servants and a rotting old stone pile. We have no power and no influence. The local great families pretend we do not exist. At least in Milan they will bow. And afterwards, the families here will grovel before us.”

  “Lucia, it is not as simple as that. You don’t know the court. I do. I was raised there. I can’t do it.”

  As Lucia drew angry breath to harangue the stupid woman, a woman who had known full well what her father had done, when a little voice from her breast, or possibly within her head, said: I will deal with this.

  Lucia knew the woman reposing on the daybed was as good as dead. That did not worry her. But she would need a chaperone, and the letter had invited her mother to come back to the court to present her there. Even without her, with someone compliant in her place, a funeral would take time to organize, and then there would be the mourning period to further waste time she did not have.

  “Not dead,” she said hastily.

  “What?” said her mother, and then she gasped, her eyes going round with fear, as the serpent slithered out of Lucia’s bodice and, as Lucia watched in the wall mirror, balanced itself upright, swaying slowly, and staring cold-eyed at her mother.

  The snake did not lunge or strike. Just swayed slowly and steadily. Tell her what to do, said a quieter version of the voice of the great serpent below. She will obey now.

  So Lucia gave her mother instructions. In two days the household would be packed up and the castello closed, with just old Aleta left behind as a caretaker, and they would go to Milan. To the Palazzo Ducale, where she would present her daughter.

  Her mother had not answered back, but had nodded obediently, all the while looking at the swaying snake’s eyes, not at her daughter.

  Later, back in her chamber, Lucia asked the serpent in her bosom. “Who are you and just what can you do?”

  I am the asp. I serve those who are in a pact with the great wyrm. I have served others. I have served queens. I have bitten ones, too, at her command. Octavian would have had her killed.

  “You are not to bite me, I command you.”

  I am yours to command.

  But it would lie, part of her mind said. Had she been in the same position she would have lied. She would plan to kill it…in time. For now. “What can you do…and what can’t you do for me?”

  I can kill, slowly or fast. I can induce paralysis, either in the whole or in any part. I can cause great pain. I can hypnotize, as I have done to your mother. I am but a small part of the great wyrm. I cannot deal with more than one foe at a time. There are some who can resist my hypnosis, but they are few. I can help heighten your own charms. That magic, too, is in your grasp.

  * * *

  The great wyrm was correct. She did get used to having the asp in between her breasts, although she had been afraid to sleep the first night.

  Two days later they left for Milan. For her goal.

  Chapter 10

  Florence, Tuscany

  Francisco had been—as was his habit—observant and taking mental notes during his journey to Florence. The first observation was that this principality had become rich pickings under the de’ Medici. The second observation was that even for Sforza, it quite possibly wouldn’t be worth the cost of taking it. Someone had put a fair amount of thought into the fortifications and defenses. And there were many soldiers drilling. These had the look of levies about them, but when it came to massed harquebus fire, a well-drilled squad of levies could still do a lot of damage. Less than the same number of well-drilled professionals, but still, a great deal, especially if they could choose their own ground and time. The fortifications had also been built recently, and for cannon. They weren’t the showy tall stone towers of many castles. Instead they were low, broad-walled structures, built in a star shape with triangular ravelins on the star points. Francisco wished he had the liberty to walk and measure them, but no doubt Carlo would have had his spies do so.

  Two days later he arrived in Florence, presented his credentials, and requested an interview with Cosimo de’ Medici. He knew it was perfectly possible that he would be refused, or be left to cool his heels for weeks on end. That could happ
en, but there were worse places to have to do so than Florence. The beer wasn’t bad and there was, of all things, a library which was open to the public, where a man could sit and read. The city was cleaner than Milan and smelled far less than Venice. Its citizens seemed reasonably fat and happy.

  Francisco repaired to the library, to see what books the benevolent master of the city had seen fit to let the people read. The stock of some two thousand books and a great number of manuscripts was enough to make Francisco green with envy. Books were expensive to produce, and even the twenty-eight books Francisco owned added up to a year’s wage for a manservant. The use of woodcut presses had brought the price down a great deal though, from when the books were handwritten. Now a press could do two thousand pages a day!

  The downside of the place was that they would not let him drink beer in the reading room, or eat there, for that matter. Still, there were benches, with the backs to serve as reading desks, and the smell of books. Two librarians kept an eye on the place, and kept it quiet, and there must have been a good forty people inside.

  He was engrossed in Plutarch when someone coughed, delicately, in front of him. Looking up, Francisco saw a man in a large loose cap, and what was probably a false beard, looking at him and smiling. He had not lived as a soldier for all these years not to realize that the two men on the flanks, also in very ordinary clothes, were almost certainly bodyguards—and good at their work, for all they were pretending just to be there.

  “I am glad to see you enjoying a book, Caviliero Turner,” said the one in the middle. “You do realize I cannot meet with you, so perhaps you would walk to the back of the stacks on your left and take the small door on your right. I will join you shortly.” He walked past and pulled down a book from the shelf.

  Francisco calmly returned the Plutarch to its place and went down the stacks to the small door. It led into a room which had considerably more books in it than the library, but most of them were piled against the wall, except for those on the large table obviously in the process of being repaired. “His Grace said that he would be here presently, so find yourself a book that isn’t too badly damaged,” said the librarian, who was painstakingly stitching the pages back into a book.

  “A lot of them get damaged, do they?” asked Francisco.

  “Sadly, yes. We also buy and repair damaged ones for the library. Some books are very popular.”

  As a way of increasing the popularity of a ruler with his subjects, too, Francisco had to approve. He would suggest it to Carlo, if they could brush through the next few years.

  Cosimo came in with his bodyguards before Francisco had comfortably settled into a damaged copy of Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris.

  “Your reputation, Caviliero, appears to be accurately derived,” said the duke. “How worrying!” But it was said with a disarming smile.

  Francisco rose and bowed. “Yes. If we are to start believing all these reputations…I am very impressed by your library, Your Grace. Florence is a great city, but nothing I have seen here could delight me more than this.”

  “It needs a bigger building. And more books,” said Cosimo disparagingly. “My wife says we should rather spend the money on a great public camerata for the musical arts, or a theater for drama to rival Rome.”

  “I’m sure that would be popular, but for me, this is the finest gift to the people. But then, I like to read.”

  “And to drink beer,” said Cosimo.

  “The simple joys of life, Your Grace. I blame it on my English ancestry, if I have to excuse my tastes. But then, I am a soldier and it is not expected that I be refined in every direction or, indeed, any.”

  “I envy that freedom at times. I myself am not musically inclined, but it is expected of me. Anyway, Caviliero, we could discuss books for hours, but I am expected to give an audience shortly. So let us come to the point. I know why you are here, and you know that I will not be meeting with you…officially. You must also know that I have no real desire for conflict with your master.”

  “Carlo Sforza feels likewise, Your Grace. He does not excel at the niceties of diplomacy, but he holds you in some considerable esteem.” That was true enough. “Which is the reason he sought an alliance by marriage with your house.”

  “Nothing to do with seeking to bestow legitimacy on his usurpation?” asked Cosimo urbanely.

  Francisco decided to play it the same way. “There are other candidates for that.”

  Cosimo sighed. “I am very fond of my cousin Violetta. Her father was one of my closest friends, before he embarked on that reckless venture of his. Aside from political considerations which, let us be honest, do not place her in a good position, Violetta is, shall we say, a determined woman. She has made up her mind. I cannot see a great advantage in the short term for Florence, so I will not bring pressure to bear on her, even if I could. I admit, I actually do consider the match favorably, but she does not. Nonetheless, Caviliero, I shall take you to meet her, and you can put the matter to her personally. I am, I will be honest, trying to keep Florence out of war. Now, I am committed until Thursday of next week. You will fail to see me, for obvious reasons. I suggest you petition every day, and spend your days kicking your heels, possibly here in the library.”

  “That will be a great hardship,” said Francisco with a smile.

  “Indeed, I hope it will be as hard for you as it would be for me. And then you will leave on the Friday morning in high dudgeon at being ignored. Do not move too fast, and choose the north road. We’ll overtake you, as I ride out to see Violetta and her mother.”

  Francisco blinked. “That…is very generous of you, Your Grace.”

  “I merely hope to make you understand why this would not work, and that it is not an insult to Carlo Sforza. Violetta is no pawn. I shall see you on Friday.”

  Francisco bowed. “I will enjoy your library and petition to see you with increasingly visible anger.”

  “Excellent. I look forward to talking of books with you. I shall leave now. If you don’t mind, wait for a few minutes before you leave my man to get on with his repair work.”

  He left Francisco Turner with considerable food for thought, and access to a large number of books. Francisco had been around enough Italian courts to know that Cosimo de’ Medici was generally held in some disdain, but that he usually ended up getting what he wanted. Francisco knew Carlo Sforza did not share that disdain, an opinion he now shared himself. Cosimo might try to please everyone. Florence was not worth attacking, because her money was very important. Everyone borrowed from Venice, or Florence, or both. A failed attack might end up in future loans not being forthcoming.

  He did not hold out great hopes of persuading Violetta de’ Medici into a marriage with Carlo Sforza. But at least he could tell Carlo, firsthand, that Cosimo was doing his level best to avoid an armed conflict with Milan. He would probably succeed, barring something exceptional happening, Francisco judged. Of course, exceptional was less rare than you’d think it could be.

  Still, he went through with the charade of being ignored by Cosimo so that the spies of various other states could gleefully report that Sforza’s emissary was being given the cold shoulder. On Friday, he regretfully bade the library farewell and rode out in a suitable display of high dudgeon.

  Nearly two hours later he was joined on the road, relatively close to Croci di Calenzano, by Duke Cosimo de’ Medici. His escort and Francisco’s far smaller one gave them space so they could ride and talk without being overheard. By the way that the duke’s troops needed no instruction for this, Francisco guessed they’d done it before. They were relatively well-drilled cavalry: good, if not of the caliber of Sforza’s men, or Dell’este’s forces for that matter. Those troops had a degree of skill whose final polish came only from being blooded. Often. That, Cosimo’s pacific nature had avoided.

  “I should have specified a time for you to leave,” said Cosimo. “I am more accustomed to midday departures, than ones at first light, Caviliero. You keep military h
ours, and my wife had a soiree which did not end until after midnight last night. We had to make our usual leisurely departure and then ride like hell.”

  “My apologies, Your Grace. I’ve had a lovely ride admiring the countryside. It is verdant and so well-protected,” said Francisco, gesturing at a windbreak grove of chestnuts.

  Cosimo laughed. “The trees or the fortification on the hill?”

  “I had noticed those, yes. They have an interesting design.”

  “Oddly enough, they owe their design to Violetta’s late father. In defensive terms, he was a very good engineer. A genius, you might say. That led him to believe he’d be a great conqueror. Alas, the two did not actually go together. I learned something from his unfortunate demise. I hold my base well. I do not risk all in expensive and dangerous ventures. However, I wouldn’t mention that to the Signoretta Violetta. She can be quite touchy, and she’s well-read on military subjects.”

  “She is? That’s…unusual.”

  “Oh, my little cousin is very unusual. She’s also let herself get sadly fat since her father’s death. I think she ate for comfort, and it became a habit.”

  Further confidences were ended by a rider—not a very good one—who came racing over the brow of the hill towards them. Both Cosimo’s and Francisco’s men took defensive measures, but unnecessary ones, as they could soon see. The rider was waving furiously whenever he could take a hand off the saddle horse. He was, by his dress, plainly a servant.

  “Ah. One of the Lady Calimet de’ Medici’s footmen,” said Cosimo. “She only has two, at my insistence. I wonder what is wrong?”