The Medieval Hearts Series

by Laura Kinsale

  She thought, too, of the way her journey might have gone. Should have gone. A regal procession; a cavalcade with the green-and-silver banner overhead and a man she had never yet seen to be her bridegroom. Or perhaps she would have arrived by water, in one of the glittering galliots, these pretty replicas of seagoing galleys made to ply the lake.

  She felt very small, staring across to the walled towers. Someone else held it, Monteverde. Someone who could not be weak-willed or defenseless to rule this place. The citadel rose in unyielding splendor, a fortress within a fortified city. The very idea that from this little boat there could be any chance of unseating the possessor of that power was beyond her imagination.

  "His ensigns fly at the water gates," Allegreto said quietly, standing beside her, his legs braced. "He means to conceal that he’s left the city."

  Elayne didn’t have to ask who he meant. "He’s left?" she said under her breath. "Can you be sure?"

  He gave a slight nod toward the distant walls. "The last standard by the western quay."

  The green-and-silver banners rose and unfurled in lazy waves in the fitful breeze. She squinted, and only then perceived that the westernmost flag wasn’t quite raised to the full height of its pole. The difference was so subtle that she would never have noticed if he hadn’t told her where to look.

  "One banner only," he said softly. "He left this day, by the western gate." He turned his bruised face toward the city, his teeth showing in a faint smile of mockery. "I knew he couldn’t forgo to be in at the kill."

  Gerolamo made a wordless grunt and jerked his chin toward the great harbor.

  "Yes, he’s full prepared for attack," Allegreto said. "I count at least two dozen masts inside the harbor walls. I want the number of his hired companies, and who leads them, and what he’s contracted to pay."

  The man assented. With the push of an oar, they drifted into the deep shadow below the headland. Their small vessel rode up onto a tiny space of sand under the cliff. Allegreto leaped lightly ashore and turned, reaching for the bundles and staves that Gerolamo was already handing off. She made the jump, comprehending their haste to be out of plain sight of the city walls.

  * * *

  Elayne was the straggler. She sat with her head down, hardly able to distinguish the sound of a pouring waterfall from the ringing in her ears. The steep paths had become agony for her; she couldn’t seem to find enough breath to fill her lungs. Her legs burned with exhaustion. She rested on a boulder beside the misting waterfall, panting, with sweat trickling down her neck and back and soaking her chemise. If not for the vision of Margaret and Zafer in the hands of Franco Pietro’s men, there was nothing that would have made her stand up again.

  What easy ground there was, they had covered in the night, under cloud-glow and a fading moon. A few hours of sleep in a thatched shed and then just before dawn a young shepherd woman had come to lead them. They climbed, taking paths that led upward, up and up past the vineyards and apple orchards into the fir trees, up until fingers of mist clothed the tall trunks in gray, up until Elayne’s head was pounding and she could think of nothing but how to lift one foot in front of the other. A pair of the white guardian dogs ranged alongside, loping through the pine trees and up the rocky slopes, trotting ahead and returning like pale shadows in the woods.

  Allegreto turned from an outcrop that overlooked the valley below. They were still within view of the city. Elayne could see it between the trees when she found strength to lift her head, a mass of red rooftops, the towers like tiny child’s toys amid a patchwork of green. A river curved across the cultivated valley, running languidly to the silver slip of lake still visible beyond the city walls. The blue mountain crags sprang up to cloudy summits, white drifts that seemed to hang so close she could touch them if she reached up her hand.

  "He’s invested the eastern pass to Venice with his troops," Allegreto said.

  Elayne could see scraps of color strung in lines along a white strip of road. They might have been tents or crowds of people, though she could make out no individual parts from this distance. The shepherd girl had brought details of the mercenaries in Franco Pietro’s hire; fifteen company of foot soldiers and eight troops of horse. To Elayne it had sounded enough to conquer the entire north of Italy.

  She tried to think through the pounding in her brain, blinking wearily at the peaks on the far side of the valley. "I shouldn’t mind an elephant to ride across this mountain," she said.

  Allegreto leaned back against a tree trunk. "An elephant?" He frowned for a moment, and then raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You’ve read Titus Livy, then."

  "Lady Melanthe sent it with some Latin texts. I liked the elephants. I was sorry Hannibal didn’t win." She gazed down at the city and valley laid before them like a giant map. "I suppose Franco Pietro doesn’t study ancient history. It doesn’t occur to him that you might march from the north."

  He gave a short laugh. "As well you weren’t here to suggest it to him. How do you fare? We’ll move more slowly, if you wish."

  Elayne lifted her face. "We must arrive in time. I can do it."

  He observed her narrowly for a long moment. "I don’t want you to expend yourself too far." He pitched an apple core into the roaring cascade. "There’s time."

  "How long?"

  He looked away from her. "There is time." He tied the food bundle to the end of his stave.

  "You can’t be certain," she said. "Think of Zafer and Margaret, and what you’ve forgotten—"

  "I think of it every moment," he said curtly. "Waste no more of your precious breath." He stood up over her. "Rest until I command you otherwise."

  * * *

  On the summit of a mountain pass they paused at a tiny wooden shrine. They’d climbed up out of the trees into blowing snow, where the only plants were grasses and lichen and a few miniature flowers clinging to the crevices of rocks, whipping in the wind. Elayne kept her head down, facing away from the gale and huddling within her mantle, holding her hands under her arms. The rock she sat upon felt like a block of ice.

  She could see Allegreto’s figure a distance away, where he stood alone on the broad open saddle of the pass, staring down into the valley that lay ahead. The wind whipped his hair and tore at his cape, but he seemed heedless of it.

  The ridges rising to either side of them were almost lost in gray fog and snow, the landscape utterly barren. Elayne shook inside her mantle. She was too tired to stand, but the cold was sinking into her very bones, making her shudder helplessly. She had gripped her staff, trying to force her unsteady legs to obey her, when one of the dogs suddenly looked up. They both hurled themselves to their feet, barking feverishly as they raced toward the dark shape of a man that materialized out of the blizzard.

  Elayne made it upright, squinting through the snow toward the stranger.

  He stood still, held at bay by the furious dogs. "I’m here to warn you, fools!" It was a young man’s voice, shouted over the barking and the wind. "There are bandits in this pass." He pointed up onto the far slope. Upon the rise stood another man, silhouetted in the fog. A second appeared beside him. Elayne held back her hood to look at the ridge above, and saw armed men there, too, stationed amid the clefts and rocks.

  The boy—he was hardly yet a man—came up boldly, though he kept his distance from the dogs. He was tall, dressed in rags that could hardly have kept out the cold, his head wrapped in a dirty black cloth. "I know them," he said urgently. "They can be satisfied with enough gold."

  Allegreto drew a single coin from his purse and flipped it to the young man. "Take this, then. Say that I send health and all honor to the dread and invincible Philip Welles, and this is how much I offer to see us safely through the pass."

  "A piccolo—" the tall boy objected, his wind-chapped face turning redder still. "I dare not! This will only enrage him!"

  Allegreto grinned in the teeth of the gale, the snowflakes wetting his dark eyelashes and collecting on his hood and shoulders. "Then tell him tha
t the Raven invites him to take drink and meat with us this eve, for the sake of bygone adventures together."

  * * *

  The light of campfires glowed on tall tree trunks, highlighting the white scars of cut limbs. Under a shelter made of pine boughs, Elayne sat on a log bench, breathing the sodden smell of smoke and wet forest. Rain dripped from two places in the makeshift roof and made puddles at her feet. She was still trembling with fatigue, but her clothes were new and dry and the fires gave out a cheerful warmth.

  Philip Welles was an Englishman. He had the strong laugh and pink cheeks of the northern isle, though there were deep lines engraved about his eyes and his hair had gone to gray. He held council under the pine boughs like Robin Hood, with a tree stump for a throne. It was difficult not to like him. Elayne had to remind herself several times not to blurt out her replies in English when he used his painfully awkward Italian to address her.

  After a goodly feast, if rough, men lay about under what cover they had, gulping large swigs of excellent Tuscan wine. A few women and children worked at clearing the meal, while the giggles of less industrious females sounded from unseen places.

  Even Allegreto appeared to be in a congenial humor. His face seemed relaxed in the firelight, his hair still damp and his jaw clean-shaven. But when Philip dismissed most of his men and turned to the pirate, demanding to know what purpose was afoot, Allegreto’s dark eyes came alight.

  "I have need to penetrate a castle," he replied.

  "Where?" Philip asked instantly. "What defenses?"

  "Maladire. The old Navona fortress at d’Avina."

  "Hah!" The outlaw sat back. "Let’s take London and Paris as well! I’ve thirty good fighting men!"

  Allegreto smiled. "Don’t tell me you’ve not guile enough, old fox. I require a diversion."

  For a moment Philip seemed aloof, as if he had been offended. Then he grinned, the lines about his eyes creasing deeply. "And how much would you be offering for this diversion?"

  "One thousand marks of Venetian silver."

  Sadly Philip shook his head. "Divided among thirty? Hardly worth our time on the muddy roads, my friend."

  Allegreto lifted his eyebrows. "The traffic through this pass must be prosperous of late."

  The outlaw rubbed his lower lip with a stout finger. "Yes, we’ve had some luck." He frowned. "D’Avina, you say?" He glanced over at one of his lieutenants.

  The man nodded, as if in answer to an unspoken question.

  Philip ran his tongue over his lip. He jerked his chin. "Bring me those chests with the silver coins."

  The man rose quickly and spoke to someone standing outside the shelter. In a few moments he returned, both of them lugging large metal-bound boxes. The chests hit the ground with a heavy chinking. Their tops were painted with the emblem of Monteverde, a castle upon a green mount.

  Philip leaned over and unlocked them. With a heave, he pushed an opened chest toward Allegreto. "Examine that," he said.

  Elayne could see the glint of silver coin inside—a very great deal of it. She could perceive why the offer of one thousand marks had not been judged overly generous. Allegreto scooped up a few pieces and turned them in his palm. He shaved the edge of one with his dagger, then bit the coin and shook his head. He glanced at Philip, who said nothing.

  Allegreto looked down again at the coins. He dipped a handful from the chest, sliding them one over the other with his forefinger. Suddenly he paused. He let the silver shower back into the chest and then picked up one piece at a time, setting them side by side on his open palm, rotating each as he looked closely. He reached over and took a handful from the second box. Finally he made a soft snort.

  "All struck with the same burin. There’s an extra prong on the crown." He looked up. "Did you rob these direct from a minter’s bench?"

  "Not I," Philip said.

  "Who?"

  "We escorted a fellow of Germany through the pass," Philip said innocently, as if they had been hired for the task. "This was the payment."

  "Luck indeed," Allegreto said with a dry smile. "I’d expect an armed company to convey such as this, and no deal with the likes of Philip Welles, begging your indulgence."

  "You would think so, eh?" The outlaw nodded slowly. "And yet he was a young man, with only two pack mules and a servant, and the coins hid among bags of onions." Philip shrugged. "Saint Mary, we wished the man no harm, and he went upon his way." He grinned. "Back home, I believe, as his traveling funds were a little low."

  Allegreto smiled dryly. "Take care how you spend these coins, my friend," he said. "The alloy is bad, as you know well enough. Now if you’d like good Venetian silver that will pass anywhere without a question—my offer stands. Make it fifteen hundred marks."

  Philip seemed to ponder, as the firelight warmed his grizzled face and gleamed on the coins. He shook his head. "I’m tired," he said slowly. "Tired of this life."

  Allegreto said nothing. Beside Philip, he appeared timelessly youthful, as if age could never touch him.

  "It’s not enough," Philip said. "We’re thirty here. Three of us share half, and divide the rest by each man. Even with another fifteen hundred marks, after we split fair among us...not enough." He sighed heavily. He looked down at his open, callused palms. "I’m weary, boy. Weary of the rain in my bedroll and the weapon always in my hand."

  "Tell me what you want, then."

  The outlaw looked into the darkness. "Eh. A warm house in town. A plump merchant’s daughter to soften the featherbed. And peace."

  "You’d be fatigued to tears in six months of such a life," Allegreto said.

  "No, not I."

  "What will you do? Eat and sleep and rut and grow fat. You’re not so old. Leave that for when your mind grows dim and you can’t think of a fraud to earn your breakfast."

  The corner of Philip’s mouth turned up. "A fraud!"

  "Aye, a fraud. As your black heart desires, I well know. Set aside the Venetian marks, then." Allegreto nodded toward the chests. "What is it you devise to plunder?"

  The twist of the outlaw’s mouth turned into a grin. "You’re ever one step ahead of me, lad. You tell me, then."

  "How often is this watered coin leaving Monteverde?"

  "It wasn’t leaving. The boy was headed in with it from the north. Claimed his father’s the chief officer of the mines here, if you can credit it. Name of Jan Zoufal, or something like, he said. Seems to be a foreigner."

  Before Allegreto could reply, sudden shouts came from the darkness beyond the camp. The bandit instantly leaped to his feet, ducking outside. Allegreto followed. Elayne rose in surprise as she saw a big white pup run into the clearing, gamboling alongside a knot of men who emerged into firelight from the trees. They held a stumbling figure erect as they marched him forward.

  She recognized Dario in the same moment as he looked up toward Allegreto. The youth’s broad face held a wild expression; he seemed to find his feet and then fell on his knees when he saw his master.

  Allegreto strode forward. Nimue ran to Elayne, leaping on her skirts with big muddy paws, but Elayne could only grab the puppy and hug her close, staring in alarm at Dario’s bowed shoulders and look of agony.

  "Matteo?" Allegreto demanded, standing over him.

  Dario shook his head. He pressed his fists to his forehead, then bent over his knees down into the mud. "Escaped, my lord."

  The bandits gathered mutely around. A silence spread over the entire camp. Even the women stopped their work, everyone held frozen, without sound but for the muted pop of the campfire and Dario’s half-sobs of breath.

  "What passed?" Allegreto’s face had gone to a mask, his dark eyes to ice.

  Dario sat up, his square jaw marked by slashes of mud. He spoke to Allegreto’s boots. "At the cross trail to d’Avina, in the night. We took shelter at a farmhouse. The babe was weeping and I thought to warm him. We had time; we were well in time to pause and rest. The woman was kind. We ate." He bent his head and locked his hands together until the
y shook. "My dread lord—I fell asleep—without securing him."

  Allegreto stepped forward and grabbed the youth’s hair. He yanked Dario’s head back. "You tracked him?"

  Dario swallowed in his bared throat. "I tried. I tried. I lost him at the edge of the town. He’s gone into it, I think."

  For a long moment Allegreto looked down at him. Time stretched to taut infinity, as Dario winced and panted.

  "Are you confessed?" Allegreto asked softly.

  The young man’s face grew still. He wet his lips and clutched his hands together to his mouth like a man in desperate prayer, making a soundless whisper against his fingers.

  Elayne let go of Nimue. The puppy dropped to the ground and bounded toward the remains of the bandit feast.

  She saw Allegreto’s hand reach for his dagger. He had a look of inhumanity beyond any comprehension. Dario ceased his prayer and crossed himself, exhaling, his face and body relaxing into peace, as if he fell asleep with his head forced back and his clasped hands resting on his knees.

  For one instant she saw Allegreto’s face too change; his eyes drifted shut like a man about to lose consciousness—then he opened them, his fingers closing on the dagger as he drew it with a swift move.

  "Do not!"

  Elayne heard her own voice ring like a bell through the clearing in the trees. She stepped forward.

  Allegreto stilled, his knife poised to slash over the boy’s throat, the blade gleaming in the firelight. She could see Dario’s pulse pounding under his skin, but he made no move, no resistance.

  "Let him go," she said.

  No one spoke. Campfire smoke drifted slowly across the sodden ground in tendrils and rose into the trees. From the edge of her vision, she saw that the bandits stared at her, but she did not take her eyes from Allegreto.