by Eric Flint
“I suspect the quality of the scallops,” said Petro. “Anyway, you were not quite called. I started feeling better soon after.”
“Which did not affect any other person present at the meal. No, Petro, I’m afraid we have to consider that the damage may be long-lasting.” Marco did not say “permanent.” He didn’t think Petro was ready for that! “Anyway, I have come to talk to you about a message from the physician who assisted me with treating you, when you were poisoned.”
“You really need to be less cryptic in your letters. The Council of Ten got quite worried about what it might mean.”
“It wasn’t them I was trying to confuse. Seriously, it is time medicine was above such spying. Disease knows no borders and does not care if the victim is rich or poor, a friend or a foe.”
“A nice idea, Marco. But that would simply be viewed as a window to all the spies.”
When Petro used that tone, there was no point in debating the matter. Marco had heard him use the same finality in dealing with his sister. The subject was closed. “Anyway, he had also heard that the coming season would be bad, and says they have taken various measures to prevent it, including magic. I’ve asked for help in getting that protection for Venice.”
Petro pursed his lips. “I don’t think we wish to be beholden to Milan, or to be seen to be. There have been developments, not encouraging ones. I will say no more now, but we’ll be glad to see your brother back soon with the fleet.”
“I was wondering whether Maria could go back to Corfu and meet him there. I think, by a few things she’s said, that she is not too happy here in Venice. And it’s a healthier place than Venice in high summer.”
“I want no reason for Benito Valdosta to linger on Corfu, or to think he’s not wanted in Venice,” said Petro, also in tones of finality. “The sooner he and Enrico Dell’este get back, the happier I will be and the safer Venice will be.”
Marco attempted to direct the discussion towards taking some preventative measures against the bad air which was reputed to carry disease. But that, too, was not a subject—as it involved cleaning up Venice’s canals—that he got very far with, either.
He had to hope Francisco would come up with some form of magical charm against the disease.
Chapter 12
Rimini
Duke Umberto Da Corregio of Parma had not yet managed to outstay his welcome with Count Andrea Malatesta. He was trying, though. It was, however, a case of him being too drunk by midday to make much of an impact besides passing out and spewing his host’s red wine. The planning of the campaign against the usurper Sforza had not gotten very far as a result.
Viscount Lippi Pagano of Imola had returned to his city, and not a day too soon, reflected Malatesta. He’d rather put up with puking drunks who had all the decent women of his court locking themselves in, than the smart-mouthed Lippi. Still, he had committed troops to the coming war.
Money was, of course, still a problem. They really needed Florence. And for that he needed allies, because for all that Cosimo de’ Medici was scrupulously polite, Count Andrea was very certain he still held a grudge about his cousin’s death at Faenza.
Count Andrea had been fairly certain that today would bring more of the same as yesterday. However, the morning brought instead a messenger who had ridden in haste from Parma, and demanded to see Duke Umberto as soon as possible. When that failed, as the duke was still abed, and the count’s majordomo was under no delusions that waking him would be a good thing, the messenger begged for an audience with Count Andrea. That, too, would have failed, but as it happened, the count had been on his way back from the stables just then and overheard the request. As he had seen the man’s exhausted horse being led away in the stables, Andrea knew the messenger had plainly ridden far and fast. That was worth finding out about, even if Umberto would be hung over and unpleasant when he woke naturally, let alone at this time of day.
“Spit it out, man,” he instructed.
“My lord, I beg that you would have the duke woken. It’s rather grave news about his niece.”
Count Andrea was in some doubt that Duke Umberto would care if a messenger brought him news even of his mother’s demise at this time of morning, let alone grave news about a niece. Then something occurred to him. “Which niece?”
“Lady Eleni, my lord—she’s dead,” the messenger blurted hastily. “Poisoned!”
“Go and wake Duke Umberto,” said Count Andrea to his majordomo, rather pleased at the news. That put a whole new complexion on the day.
Umberto shambled forth from his chambers some half an hour later, his cotte askew. His cameriere must have had a great deal of difficulty dressing him. He had a large flagon of wine in one hand. “One of your footmen woke me,” he said blearily. “Said there was an important message.”
Count Andrea was already dictating letters to his scribe for the various allies, paused at the interruption, and stood up. “I will take you to him,” he said, as if he normally conducted his guests in person. “I told my men to put him in one of the salons off the great reception hall.”
He went along to see the reaction. It was as furious as he had expected. “That dog Sforza! Next he will try to poison me! This means war! War!”
“Absolutely despicable,” said Count Andrea. “Is there no end to the depth of his depravity? A woman refuses his unwelcome advances and he has her killed. Tell us exactly what happened?”
The messenger looked to the duke, who nodded. “We’re not sure how the poison was administered, Count. Her tirewoman heard the lady calling out, and went to her. She was in great distress in her bedchamber, panting and sweating and thrashing about on the bed, although the weather was cool. She was delirious, and a physician was called to cup her. During the process, she had some kind of spasm and died. She was fine and healthy when she retired to her chamber. The physicians all declared it had to be poison, my lord.”
“What else could it be?” said the duke, gulping his unmixed wine so hastily it slopped down his chin.
“And who will be next? We had better warn Cosimo.”
“The Butterball would eat poison and call for seconds,” sneered the duke. “But by all means, let us tell him. It may frighten Cosimo into hiding under his bed. I need to return to Parma, Andrea, to ready my men for action.”
“Quite understood, Duke Umberto. Quite understood.” Count Andrea was quite happy to have the duke gone. Firstly, the troops of Parma were intended to blunt and occupy Sforza’s mercenary troops. They had no hope of beating them, but they would make them bleed. Andrea used enough mercenaries himself to know how little they liked that, even if Sforza’s men were, reputedly, more reliable than most. Secondly, Duke Umberto had two condottierie of a reasonable level of competence to lead his men, so he could safely get drunk in the afternoon without losing a war.
It could be that Sforza had ordered the bitch killed for the slight. It was more likely that the duke’s niece’s penchant for experimentation had gotten the better of her. She had had something of a reputation. It did not matter, for it was all the pretext they had needed. If he’d thought of it, Andrea Malatesta would have ordered her poisoned himself.
It was only three days later, when the news via one of his spies in Tuscany reached him, that Cosimo’s cousin had been bitten by a snake at roughly the same time, that he began to wonder. He did, like all of Italian nobility, take some precautions against poison and assassins. He decided it would be wise to increase these, especially as he was related to the Visconti himself. Quite closely, but he had not pointed that out. The time would come when the duchy was to be carved up.
Chapter 13
Milan
Lucia came to Milan without fanfare and, arriving just after noon, spent a great deal of money on suitable court dresses and all the other items of fashion that a woman might need, especially perfume, before they would proceed to the palazzo. She and her mother would remain, quietly, in a house hired for the purpose until the dresses were ready. It was a w
onderful sign that the asp had her mother under perfect control, in that there was not a whisper of protest at the expenditure which might have kept them in reasonable style back at the Castello di Arona for several years.
The truth was, she was somewhat nervous. She had met Carlo Sforza at her father’s court, as a young woman of fourteen, when many of her peers had already been getting married off. That had been a time when favor from the duke’s bastard daughter could have possibly been valuable. Yet Sforza had made not the smallest effort to acknowledge her, let alone charm her or even show respect. Of course she had done likewise, but that was to be expected. He was a mere condottiere. Rich yes, successful yes, but still not what she had wanted then—and still, she admitted, not what she wanted now—which was a nobleman who desired her because she was who she was by birth.
Had he ignored her then because he was beneath her touch? She doubted it, since he had had Lady Lorendana Valdosta, a duke’s daughter, as a lover. He had exchanged the polite flirtations of court with several well-born ladies. He’d been, to Lucia’s ear, heavy, awkward and unskilled at these, but the comments and flattery had been well received because he was a man of power and wealth, if not noble birth.
This time, of course, she had considerable value to him, even if she intended to see him dead for it. The heir to the ducal throne was already in her belly. She would rule as the regent until the child reached majority. And then…she’d see.
One thing did gall her, though: Milan had forgotten her. She had been shown respect as a customer…up to a point. But the tradespeople had demanded money before the shears cut crisply through the silk. She knew they had not done that when she’d gone to the dressmakers and silk merchants when she had still been known as Duke Visconti’s illegitimate daughter. She and her mother had never dared spend too freely then, but that was because Filippo Maria had not been generous with the allowance he had given their mother, and would have been angry if they’d outspent it. He had been strange that way. Strange in other ways, too, she supposed. Mother had been very talented when it came to making a good showing on a small stipend, buying frugally and seeking bargains. She made no attempt now, and Lucia had not bothered. Now it would be all or nothing. If this failed…
And in the street…no one knew who she was, or gave her any deference.
That would have to change.
It will, said the asp in the quiet, terrible voice that seemed to be inside her head. She hoped so, and it seemed that was true. The first time it had spoken when other people had been present, she’d been afraid.
Now she knew that they should be afraid. That she quite enjoyed.
There were various tasks to be undertaken before they officially arrived in the city—hiring several new servants, as well as awaiting the work of the dressmakers of her new wardrobe of court clothes; and, of course, measuring the response of the citizens to the usurper, while she was still anonymous. It was a shock to discover that Milan did not yearn for her father. About Sforza…feelings ranged from outright fear to a sort of perverse pride in his brutally effective conquest.
That was not what Lucia had expected at all. In a way, she had expected to be welcomed as the returning rightful Visconti ruler to the duchy. She’d never had a great deal of time for the commons but discovering their lack of due respect to her blood lowered their value even further. She did, however, find out that Sforza was away from the city and would only be back later in the week. That suited her fine.
Three days later, when the first of the court wardrobe was ready, with her hair suitably dressed, chopines trimmed with gilt on her feet, her eyes widened with belladonna, and jewels at her throat, she was different from the young woman who had come in from the country a few days earlier. An elegant carriage had been hired to transport them, and they made their entrance in a suitably grand style.
Of course, Sforza himself did not come to greet them, the great peasant. The courtier—one she knew from when they had come to the court more frequently—was suitably apologetic and made all the excuses she’d heard him make for her father. Still, they were settled comfortably in a pleasant suite of rooms on the third floor, and were presented to Carlo Sforza that evening. He hadn’t changed a great deal. The gray at his temples had increased, and he was somewhat more tired-looking. He was still too broad to wear the current mode, which favored tall slim men. He looked like a big mongrel walking through a pack of carefully bred greyhounds, with the same slight stiff-legged gait. Watching the courtiers, Lucia thought. But she favored him with her best smile, nonetheless.
His response showed that at least he had learned to conduct himself as a pretense of a courtier. He bowed, kissed her hand. “My dear Lucia,” he said, “it seems to have been such a long time since I last saw you here. May I bid you a heartfelt welcome back to Milan? And this is your charming mother. I remember you well, madam, when you were not a great deal older than your lovely daughter.”
That was a lie, of course. At that time, the usurper had been a minor condottiere in the service of Lucca. But her mother favored him with a mechanical smile, as if she had no reason to hate him either.
Lucia’s estimation of his potential rose slightly. Not a great deal, not enough to let him live overlong, but somewhat. He was, after all, behaving as a good Italian noble should.
Sforza did not dance, but he did circulate among the guests. The principal topic of small talk—the new style of lace out of Mantua—was one where he did little more than smile and nod. He did venture the opinion that the current high price of spices was largely due to the Venetians and Genovese having trouble in Outre Mer, which he predicted would resolve itself.
“Or we’ll resolve it for them, eh, Protector?” said one courtier, making a shooting gesture.
“Not at the moment,” said Sforza coolly. “I have other…less spicy fish to fry.”
That caused laughter, although Lucia could not see why. But perhaps laughter was the safe option, and thus the courtiers used it a great deal. If it was real information, it would be worth a fair number of florins. But it could be that he was misleading them.
* * *
When Francisco arrived, tired and somewhat muddy, he made that an excuse not to join the proceedings in the great hall. He had no particular taste for that type of affair and was glad to make the need to get out of his mud and traveling clothes an excuse. He needed to talk to Carlo as a matter of some urgency, but that was not going to happen privately at a grand reception. And he’d prefer it if they weren’t overheard. He got one of his men to carry the message that he was back to one of Carlo’s bodyguards. He did not, despite the temptation, go to bed. He knew Carlo Sforza too well for that.
Sometime after midnight his commander arrived. “Clear the place out,” he said to his bodyguard, “and watch the door. Outside. If I need to watch my back with Turner, I’m several years too late about it.”
“I might have changed my mind,” said Francisco, smiling.
“And you might have stopped running and drinking beer, too. So, to test that, you’d better pour me a tankard and yourself one. It’ll help to wash the taste of that load of two-faced crawlers out of my mouth. Have I told you how much I hate courtiers?”
“Not more than five or six hundred times,” said Francisco, giving his commander a mug of beer and drawing himself one. “You could purge them and get a better mix, you know. These are mostly still Filippo Maria’s cronies and yes-men. Not of much worth.”
“Give me time. When I have a little more stability, it’ll happen.” Sforza took a pull of the beer, sitting down on the table and straightening each leg in turn. “Dress boots. Worthless for campaigning and hell on the feet for standing. So what happened in Florence?”
“Well, Cosimo refused to see me officially, although he was very much more forthcoming in private. But, in short, you should forget marrying Violetta de’ Medici. The girl may well be dying, and she’s in no state to marry anyone, even if she were willing.”
“What has happened
to her? She was reported to be in robust health by several of my courtiers, who had seen her at some Soirée in Florence.” He paused. “Cosimo is playing both ends against the middle again, is he?”
“I’d say he is genuinely reluctant to go to war.”
“That’s Cosimo. He’d rather impoverish his enemies. Or appease them.”
“Florence is well defended, though. It’s wealthy, as I’m sure you saw when you passed through it on your way back from the pilgrimage.”
“They were working on some new fortifications back then. I’ve bought the plans. Some people would sell their own mothers. They’re intended to withstand cannon, and might even do it. I’ve no desire to prove how effective they are, in case the idea spreads.”
Carlo Sforza’s use of heavy cannon was well known. What was not well known—Sforza and, indeed, Francisco Turner hoped—was that the artillery was successful because it was substantially better than that owned by other states or condottieri. Success was not just because Sforza applied more force and larger numbers than others. Carlo went to some lengths not to make the difference in the quality of his guns or bombardiers obvious.
“So he is reluctant to go to war with us, and we, with him.”
“And we will continue, if possible, to let him think he is the one who doesn’t want to fight,” said Carlo with a wry smile. “So tell me what has happened to Violetta de’ Medici. I’d heard she was a fat termagant.”
“She’s certainly not thin. I can’t say much about the termagant part. I don’t know if she’ll recover. But she’s brave enough to take on a snake with a pair of garden shears. Cosimo thinks very highly of her. He values her a great deal.”
“She was his mistress?”
“I doubt it. There was genuine affection, Carlo, but I didn’t get the feeling of anything more. Not from the responses of the servants or…well, anything else. He took me there in person, to see if I could persuade her to change her mind about your proposal. That’s not the act of a lover.”