All the Plagues of Hell

by Eric Flint

  “Well, I can see some use for it. But it’s just one more piece of equipment to go wrong and cost a great deal, like all of it,” said Francisco. “How is the development of those colored flares? I could have used those a few nights ago.”

  The bombardier’s expression got very cheery. “Well, Captain, that’s the joy of Master Kazimierz’s ideas so far. It’s the knowing how that counts. It’s not like a harquebus, or armor that’ll take a life of learning to make and some skill to use. I could make most of the devices for a few coppers, in a shed. Most of it is beeswax, paper, black powder, and bits of willow or cheap cloth. I’ve a batch of the flares in different colors and a smoker ready to send off to the commander.” He moved over a few paces, gesturing as he went. “Now, this rocket. I think they’re too inaccurate still, but they’re showy. Come over to the fort.”

  Francisco walked beside the limping ex-bombardier to an earth-walled dugout, with a bench and a stool…and, on posts beyond, a mirror. “The master says the demons struggle to control you if they only see you in the mirror. They do everything backwards. His jokes are sometimes…strange. But it does reduce the chances of flying shrapnel. Mind you, we’ve hardly had any rockets explode.” He pushed a wick through a piece of curved pipe which took it through the wall and attached it to the device, which was a long tube with a conical head. It was pushed in between four bow staves, which in turn had a barrel hoop holding them together, which were lashed to four stout posts in the ground.

  “We’re still working on the best way to do this, Captain Turner. It should hit the hillock over there.” He pointed at a mound some three hundred yards off. “I’m all for a cannon tube, but Master Kazimierz says it’s confining powder too tight that makes it explode, and we want it to burn fast, not explode. Come and sit you down in the fort and look in the mirror and we’ll set her off.”

  The bombardier lit the fuse when they were ready. Francisco noticed he had an almost beatific expression on his face as he did so, and then stared intently at the mirror.

  The rocket did not explode, but it did make quite a roar. It shot off in a huge trail of smoke, fire and sparks, and then flew rather erratically toward the hillock. It didn’t hit it, but did explode quite closely, though.

  “Still need to work more on the fuses,” said the bombardier. “It’s supposed to explode on impact.”

  Kazimierz was frowning a little. “It did not fly straight. I wonder if fletching as on an arrow would make it fly more true?”

  * * *

  Kazimierz excused himself at that point. Turner remained behind and spent considerable time discussing the possible uses of various weaponry with the bombardier. When he finally arrived back at the main house, Kazimierz greeted him with a piece of parchment in his hand that had lines of odd wriggly symbols on it.

  “Demotic, I think from the first century,” he said. “It’s based on a document I have with some Latin in it, which I think is original. There are a few experts in Rome who would be able to read it. It is an invocation of the divine—probably the Christian God of the Copts—to watch and guard against disease. It will require your friend to get it translated and while I very much doubt it will help, it is a real prayer spell. There are instructions for the placing of colors and candles in it.”

  Francisco was left wondering just what, or rather who, this scholar was that they’d hired to pretend to be a magic worker. The world of scholarship must know him and it would be a good idea to track him down at some stage. Still, right now, when they faced foes, he was quite an asset to have on their side. And, yes, this would make an ideal document to send Marco. He thanked Master Kazimierz for it, declined an invitation to eat with them.

  “You’re missing something, Captain Turner. Emma sets a good table,” said the bombardier. “And we have taken to talking the day’s experiments over at the table. You’d be amazed at the ideas that come out of it. Tamas wanted to put rockets on a cart instead of horses last night. Ideal for driving a ram at a city gate, he thought. And faster than horses. We had star lights on kites the night before.”

  “I’ll ask the commander if you can found a military academy, or rather a place where like minds can gather to invent new ways to blow things up, instead of merely studying the arts or religion.” said Francisco. “But I wish to get on to Pavia, to report to him how things have gone against the Scaligeri and their allies to the east.”

  “And how does it go, if I might ask?” asked Kazimierz warily.

  It was no secret. “Goito fortress fell. We hold the Mincio as a border. It’s been a successful campaign there so far.” Of course, the real difficulty would come from the south and west, but there was no need to point that out. To the west, there was no convenient natural barrier, and the borders would have to be held by battle and men-at-arms, with a constant shift of strategy and conflict. That was the hard front to hold, that and the south. At least, right now, they weren’t fighting there yet.

  Soon Francisco and his escort were en route to Pavia, with a box of varicolored flares and smoke producers, and two of the flying star arrows. They reached the town well after dark. Francisco was dead tired, but he still made his way immediately to see Sforza. He was pleased to find that his commander was in town—sitting at a table in a good tavern, to make things still better—and not off on a horse somewhere. Francisco was not pleased to see him looking exhausted, having just gotten in from the ride some minutes before.

  Carlo read his expression well enough. He leaned back in his chair and sighed, as he pushed away a half-eaten plate of food. “Yes. I feel like I’m carrying a hundred-weight of cannonballs. Yes, my back hurts. No, I haven’t much appetite, even though”—he gestured at the plate he’d shoved aside—“the food is quite good.”

  He sat up a little straighter. “But we are in a crucial phase, Francisco. I’ve just been reading young Pelta’s report, which pleased me, except that I don’t recall giving you leave to stick your head into a hornet’s nest.”

  “I’m carrying a bullet burn in repayment for that,” said Francisco, wincing a little. “But generally speaking I thought working for you came with an automatic permission to risk our lives. Young Pelta’s doing well.”

  “He should have taken some of their territory, while they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. But, yes. It’s a weight off my mind, especially if Padua and the Scaligeri fight bitterly and keep each other occupied and broke for a while. One of the downsides of being the paymaster: war is expensive. At least the nobility from Goito will bring us some rewards.”

  Carlo was tired, but the utter exhaustion that had so badly worried Francisco was not evident. “You may have been right to treat me with that purgative. I felt like a weak half-drowned kitten, but I am a little better now.”

  Taking his pulse, Francisco was not that convinced. “I still think you were poisoned again. Arsenic was my first suspicion, but I think it may be something more exotic. Who did you see? And who did you touch or eat or drink with?”

  “Touch? Besides you prodding me all over? Or my dear now-wife allowing me to kiss her perfumed cheek? No one. And I neither drank nor ate anything that old Hellbore or you didn’t give me. And if I can’t trust Hellbore, I can’t trust you either.”

  Hellbore was Sforza’s orderly and had been with the condottiere since he’d been a lowly lieutenant. He could swear the devil out of hell and had no real interest in making his master look like one of the nobility, could get a drink for a thirsty officer at the drop of a hat, always had some spare rations tucked away…and would no more deliberately poison his master than he would give up drinking, which was very unlikely this side of the grave. Of course, there were other possibilities—poisoned clothes, bed sheets, a thin-bladed knife, poisoned air. “I suppose you’d better give up kissing her perfumed cheek,” said Francisco, in jest.

  “A hardship. But she, of all people, should wish me to stay alive. I’m all that is defending the throne she sits on, and she has this dream that a Viscont
i will sit on the ducal throne via her loins. And she needs to make sure she’s pregnant first before that happens.”

  “She probably has no idea how fragile Milan is, or what onslaught it faces. And besides, wouldn’t she still be the ruler with you out of the way? The other claimants are all dead, or as good as dead.”

  “I’d agree about the first part. After my experience with Lorendana, and the women of the various courts I have been in, most of them have no grasp of war or what it means, even if they thrive on intrigue. But the second… It’s only the female claimants who were closer. I wasn’t going to marry Andrea Malatesta or Viscount Palacio of Naples. Milan should thank its lucky stars that it has me instead. But her face powder was not something I ate, and if it poisoned through the skin, she’d be dead. So tell me about your adventures—from your point of view, not Captain Pelta’s. He thinks you are a hero. I think you are a lucky fool.”

  Francisco planted his hands on his hips and tried to look as stern as possible. “Just because you are right does not mean I do not think you need to rest, and can hear about it tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, I need you to go back to Milan. There are some matters I can trust no other with, for the defense of the city. You will handle that sensibly. Others would cause panic.”

  “Well, you’ve heard most of it from Pelta. The rest will wait. But I will show you some of the devices that your new ‘magician’ has sent. I want to see them in the dark myself, and hear your opinion of them.”

  In the darkness just outside the encampment where Carlo had chosen to make his resting place, rather than a villa he could have demanded, the flares were very impressive. They came in a distinct green fountain, a red fountain, and a bright yellow one.

  Carlo, sitting next to him, squeezed his sore arm. “Excellent! Your bookseller has proved his worth already. Compared to fires or lamps, you’ll see a lot easier and can signal more. And it doesn’t make the betraying noise of cannon. Those are good enough signals, but rather hard for an enemy to miss,” he said dryly.

  “Well, his other device takes a big crossbow. I asked one of my sergeants to hunt one up for me, but we might do better to save the display for a time when it’s not as easily seen. He tells me he tested them several hours after midnight. Once only, because his servants brought tales from the local village.”

  “I could use a few tales. Let’s see it.”

  So they fired one of the stars up…

  In the dark, they could just see the burning wick rise to the height of two cathedral steeples and then blossom into a sparking yellow light, which eerily spiraled slowly toward the earth.

  The dark was full of the gasps of the watchers. The light was less bright than Francisco had hoped, but it seemed he was the only one who had had such expectations.

  “A lamp aloft! How to wreck a perfectly good sneak attack on a fortification,” said Carlo Sforza, “or to spot an ambush. I see why you said it might be better to do this when there were fewer watchers. I expect there’ll be claims of a virgin birth at best, and witchcraft at worst. And they must have seen that for five miles around in this flat country.”

  “You’d better set it about that you prayed for a sign to ensure that God felt you had just cause to pursue this war.”

  “I think they’d be more inclined to believe in the witchcraft theory. But this bookseller seems to be a man of some ingenuity.”

  “I’d say so. Although he seems to be both bemused and amused by his assistants, it’s their combined effort that produces these contrivances. He has a device called a rocket which could be very intimidating. He talked of a thrower of gouts of Greek fire, and dozens more murderous and strange ideas. They are not magic but they’ll be believed to be that. And I’d say he knows a little more about magic than he lets on. We need to establish who he was. No minor noble, in my opinion.”

  “My spies are supposed to be working on it. That means I may know tomorrow, or never. Most of them are Visconti’s old agents, and I need to get rid of half of them, but I can’t do it right now. If anyone was poisoning me, I’d suspect that lot.” He yawned. “I’ll still sleep better knowing that we’ve some fear and tricks up our sleeve. It strikes me that when you go back to Milan you’d better see this asset well guarded. I wouldn’t put it past someone to kidnap him, poison him, or make him a better offer.”

  “I’ll do that. How many men do you think it justifies?”

  “Get your sergeant to count how many of my men ran away from that flying star. He’s worth that many men to me,” said Sforza, with a wry smile. “Seriously, how many more of these toys do you think he knows of, and why haven’t we heard of him and them before?”

  “I think it’s been a happy accident. We’ve got a gunpowder man, an ingenious young artificer who doesn’t know what is impossible, and an old man with a great deal of knowledge in many fields. I said I would tell you they ought to start an academia where it was not the usual languages and arts studied, but how to make the tools of war. I suppose they’d have other applications, too.”

  “Let us get through this conflict with both the territory of Milan and ourselves intact, and I’ll do so,” said Sforza. “But now I am going to sleep.”

  Chapter 30

  Milan

  The next morning Francisco rode back to Milan to go and begin the preparations his commander had wished on him. En route he stopped with Master Kazimierz, who came out of the villa to greet him.

  Francisco did not dismount, since he didn’t want to spend much time there. “Protector Sforza liked your devices. He wants twenty of the green and red ones, for a start. And a lot of the whirling star ones. And I am to put a guard of some fifty men on you and the estate, in shifts, of course. In times like these, that says he values your devices.”

  The man blinked. “I had not thought of someone trying an actual physical attack on me. I suppose that guards might be wise. What you ask for is quite a lot of time-consuming labor.” He frowned, and then looked around. “There’s plenty of space here for soldiers to make camp. I would rather I and my men were occupied in developing new things. Can I use some of these troops for the mundane tasks? Under supervision, of course.”

  “I’ll get my sergeant to arrange it appropriately. He’ll get you the right sort of men for the work.”

  * * *

  He had then gone to his quarters in the palazzo—and regretted it. It seemed that Lucia Sforza had not merely settled for ensuring her putative offspring sat as a ruling duke, but had issued orders that, on pain of…well, pain, she would be addressed as “Your Grace.” Overnight, the place seemed to have filled up with her eager toadies. There were courtiers all over the place, demanding to know what soldiers on errands or carrying dispatches were doing. Francisco had a list of tasks to achieve that he really did not want these people to gossip about, so he gave orders to that effect.

  What he hadn’t expected was the descent of the new duchess from on high, as a result.

  “Good evening, m’lady.” He bowed as she, and a wave of strong scent, and two large bodyguards stormed into the rooms Carlo had given him, where he had set up something of an office.

  She looked down her nose at him, not acknowledging his bow by as much as a slight nod of the head. “If you fail to address me as ‘Your Grace,’ I will have my men flog you. In fact, when I have done with speaking to you, that will happen anyway. I need to constantly make examples, it seems. I have come to tell you that your men have been showing insufficient respect for authority. If they are asked just what they’re up to by one of the nobles of this court, they must answer with speed and precision. I will not tolerate anything else.”

  “I was unaware that I was to use that title, Your Grace. I apologize for the oversight,” said Francisco, who had no intention of being flogged. “I do suggest that, before any flogging is done, the importance of my work be considered, and the displeasure that work being interrupted would cause to the Protector, Carlo Sforza. I am here on his direct, personal orders, Your Grace
, doing tasks on the explicit command of your husband, not by my own authority.”

  He left out “or by yours.” Possibly the implication that she was subject to the authority of her husband was less than clever, even if it was true. However, he saw how the two bullyboys looked at each other. Their smug brutal complacency was replaced by a how can I make it you who has to do the dirty work? look at their fellow. Left to them, a hasty retreat would have been in order.

  That did not stop their mistress, but it did give her pause. Not for long, however. “Bah. What work? I manage the affairs of M— of the court in his absence. Do not attempt to usurp one ounce of my authority…you.”

  “My task has nothing to do with the court, Your Grace, but with matters beyond it.”

  “What matters? I cannot have trivia disturbing the smooth running of the palazzo. I should be organizing a musical soiree and I am wasting my time on the likes of you.”

  That was outside of enough. She was young, vain, stupid, and in need of personal hygiene, but surely she could not know in an Italian court what was happening? “It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Your Grace that we are fighting a war on several fronts,” he said.

  She shrugged. “There are always wars being fought. It’s no excuse for unacceptable behavior in my court. I will not have your men telling my gentlemen of the court that what they are doing is none of their business. It engenders a lack of respect. Do I make myself clear?”

  Francisco prided himself on keeping his temper in tough situations, but this was going beyond that breaking point. He could not back down now. “I have orders from your husband to do what I am doing. And that includes having his soldiers maintain secrecy. There are spies everywhere.”

  She stared furiously at him, gathering her bile to spew in a tirade that could well end in off with his head!