Thorn d-4

by Fred Saberhagen

  The palace on the Via Larga was even busier than I had seen it before. Yet again the leading men of the Medici family welcomed me, and greeted Helen, almost without twitching an eyebrow. They were used to wonders, in that house. And yet again their welcome had a different tone. The first one, more than a year ago, had been strongly tinged with curiosity; the second, last summer, polite. This third reception had in it the wholehearted enthusiasm of men who are being given needed reinforcement on the brink of war. I quickly discovered that Colleoni's plans of conquest were already known here in broad outline, though the details I could provide might well prove invaluable.

  Lorenzo listened appreciatively to the version I gave him of events since I had seen him last—according to which Helen and I had merely gone through a lovers' quarrel, and she had been living with me almost continuously since our separate departures. Doubtless he did not believe it, but understood that it was to be taken as official. By then Piero had rounded up his military advisers, and closeted himself and me with them, to study greedily the lists of material and drawings that I was able to set down pertaining to the Venetian war machine. Interest in Colleoni's new model firearms was intense. While we were relaxing a little later, both men amused me with the account of how Lorenzo had saved his father from assassination in 1466, outwitting ambushers hired by the rival Pitti family. I found out later that the Medici vengeance for that attempt had been prompt, precise, bloody, and discreet.

  Helen and I were domiciled in one of the visitors' rooms. There the painting was again brought in to stay with us, as if it were some antique Roman household god. On the first full day of our stay, the Duke of Urbino arrived at the palace. The Florentine Council, who governed the city generally under instructions from Piero, had found the Duke available and currently an enemy of Venice, and had placed him in charge of preparations against Colleoni's expected onslaught.

  I respected the Duke's military reputation, and found him an impressive figure. He was already dressed in light armor, though by most calculations combat was still some months in the future. Listening as he chatted with our hosts, I was surprised to realize that he too was a serious book collector, or at least aspired to be one, in the same league as the Medici and King Matthias. I thought to myself that the world seemed to be changing drastically. No longer, it appeared, would fighting, praying, and the maintenance of honor be all that were required of a successful man. Very well, I thought, I am going to have to learn to think as well. I have always been able to manage great changes in my lifestyle when necessary.

  One day in the palace, with a group of officers pondering Colleoni's field artillery, I was sketching the weapons from memory as best I could, when some man entered the room where we were gathered but then immediately withdrew. This made me glance up, just in time to recognize the retreating back of one of the Boccalini.

  "There will be trouble, Lorenzo," I said to my young friend a little later.

  Lorenzo had been in the room also, and had noticed the near-encounter. "Perhaps not," he soothed me now. "We will try to prevent it. There are others, too, who, shall we say, do not work well together. Yet Florence must be defended. If the Boccalini and the Pitti can work with us, they can tolerate you as well."

  "Even when we meet face to face?"

  Lorenzo furrowed his swarthy brow, considering. Already he looked forty. "I suppose that you, my friend, are going to take an active part in the fighting, and will be going out into the field shortly?"

  "Yes. The Duke has already asked my help in training and organizing new troops."

  "That is good, because the Boccalini will be staying in town. Meanwhile I advise you, not that you need any such advice, to guard yourself."

  Shortly thereafter, whether because of the Boccalini or for some other reason, it was delicately suggested that Helen and I might want to move out to Careggi, which was now beginning to be occupied by other military guests of rank; and yes, the painting came with us once again. From Careggi I presently departed for an advanced camp in the field. Helen appeared to be concerned as she bade me farewell. My own feelings about leaving my wife behind were fatalistic; I did not ask the Medici to put her into a convent, or to set a watch upon her whilst I was gone. What would be, would be. Somehow I had never got around to deciding upon a suitable vengeance for her earlier transgressions, and now . . . now other decisions were more demanding.

  In the spring, under the direct leadership of the Duke, we mercenaries and the more valiant citizens of Florence met the more numerous forces of Colleoni at the town called Molinella, roughly halfway between Florence and Venice. The land there was marshy, and horses slipped and fell in mud, and some of the wounded drowned. What we fought was certainly not a great battle, by the standards of those combats that have changed the world. But for some hours we fought in earnest, which was not always the case when one mercenary opposed another. The fight began near midday, and went on, with pauses, until after dark, and the dead totalled six or seven hundred on both sides. Colleoni's new cannon served his cause well, until I managed to lead a squadron of cavalry into his rear, where we overtook a pack train carrying his reserve of gunpowder. After the ensuing fireworks he was unable to make headway. By nightfall the Florentine forces had been worn down, but so had the Venetian; still, it would have been senseless for Colleoni to advance against our fortified city walls, whilst our army still remained in the field against him.

  Successful condottieri were nothing if not practical, and did not care to squander today lives that could still be useful to them tomorrow. With much practiced torch-waving, and shouting back and forth, a preliminary truce was worked out, though night had already fallen, making communication difficult. Then by torchlight the Duke and Colleoni embraced each other, exchanging congratulations on their personal survival.

  I was suspicious of treachery, but those with more experience in these parochial wars laughed at the idea; and in the morning both armies indeed retreated, as had been agreed.

  A few days later, I returned to Careggi. As I approached the villa, I found it difficult to maintain my fatalistic attitude on the subject of my wife. If she should be gone again—I had difficulty in trying to think beyond that point. But I recognized in myself the signs of inward rage.

  To my surprise Helen came running to meet me, in the yard near the stables, having evidently observed my approach from the window of our upstairs room—this time we had not been granted the bridal chamber.

  Before I had dismounted, she was at my stirrup. "You are alive," she said. Her eyes had a look I could not remember seeing in them before.

  "It pleases you to see me so, madam?"

  "Pleases me? Pleases me?" Helen sounded the words. Evidently she would not have thought of putting her feelings just that way. "But you are all I have."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The half-ruined building into which Judy and her three companions were urged at gunpoint was evidently very old. The door was shielded on the inside with a blackout curtain, in the form of a sheet of dark plastic; once that barrier had been passed, Judy, Bill, Pat and Helen emerged blinking in the white glare of a Coleman lantern set on a rough table. They were standing in a large room, walled with old brick in bad repair. Judy could recognize the soft-looking light brown that she had recently learned to identify as real adobe. Three temporary cots had been set up along one wall. More sheeted plastic was suspended overhead, to protect the beds and other contents of the room from the effects of what must be a leaky roof.

  "Sit down. Here," ordered one armed man, pointing to the open space in the middle of the hard-packed earthen floor. "Hands behind you when you sit. Then nobody move."

  The four of them sat down. And nobody moved, or spoke. One man passed behind them, tying wrists. He was quick about it. It was as if he had had cords ready for some job like this, and had been practicing.

  Hasty glances to right and left assured Judy that her companions were looking pretty sick. She herself was not quite as scared as they appear
ed to be; she had an inner certainty that help of a most effective kind was on its way. Judy was sure that he now was aware, at least dimly, of her presence here, near the very thing that had already drawn him so powerfully, and he was coming, at great

  The trouble was that Judy could not be at all sure of how far he had yet to travel, or how long it would be until he got here.

  As soon as four pairs of hands had been tied, the tallest of the masked men, the one who gave the orders, got the prisoners to stand up again and then went along the line going briskly and impersonally through all their pockets, and dumping out Pat's knapsack as well. Judy could see from the corner of her eye that the searcher took no money from Bill's wallet. He appeared to be chiefly interested in ID's, which he looked at and then put back. But Bill's car keys did disappear into the tall man's pocket.

  This quick search completed, their chief captor stood in front of them, looking at them for a moment. "Ralph," he said abruptly then, "better get the Jeep out." And he tossed one of his henchmen the two sets of car keys he had confiscated. "It'll take some towing to get both their vehicles around the hill and under cover, but we'll have to do it, now we've come this far. Ike, you go along and give him a hand. Cover up the tire tracks. I can manage here."

  The other two men went out of the room by a side door that led into some sort of hallway. A minute later Judy could hear an engine starting, as if the Jeep the men had been told to use were parked in some attached garage or shed, with no closed doors between. Gradually the sound of the engine moved away.

  "Sit down," said the ski-masked man who still remained. The four sat, a movement made awkward by bound hands. The Coleman on the table emitted a faint hissing noise, and sent out its glare. The masked man set down his shotgun, where he could reach it easily and at a careful distance from the others, leaning against a stack of crates that appeared to hold foodstuffs. Then he said: "Well, people. We've got some things to talk about, before I can let you go."

  He certainly has no intention of doing that, thought Judy to herself. Whatever was going on here . . . had something to do with that painting. The painting, the old painting showing some woman . . . it was still wrapped in rough cloth. And now Judy could tell there was clear plastic around it too. And it still leaned against a rough adobe wall in darkness—within a few feet of where she was sitting at this very moment.

  Judy opened her eyes with a start. But the sound she had heard was only the wind, scraping a pine branch lightly along the building's ancient roof.

  The standing man had turned his head toward her at her motion. Now slowly he turned back to the girl who had introduced herself as Helen. She was the one getting most of his attention.

  The man said: "A little bird tells me your name is Helen Seabright. How come you're carrying car keys but no license, no money, nothing else?"

  Helen shook her head. She didn't look especially frightened now, Judy realized. Dazed, but almost eager, as if she would like to hear the answer to that question herself.

  "I know you too," Helen answered. "You're Gliddon. I don't think anyone ever told me your first name."

  "You called me by that name outside. I'd like to know why. Also, I want to know just what the fuck you're doing up here at midnight, talking about a radiophone."

  Helen was unperturbed. "I know you have one, in this building. Back in the other room where the stove is. I've seen it."

  Gliddon whistled softly under his mask. He said no more. He stood there looking at them all until the other two men came back from their task of moving and hiding vehicles. It took them the best part of an hour.

  * * *

  Galvanized when his household alarm shrieked that a locked door somewhere had been opened, Ellison Seabright jumped to his feet and hurried at once toward his bedroom, to check the master security console and to arm himself with a Luger that he kept there. Stephanie, with whom he had been arguing in the breakfast room, for once caused no interference, but fell silent and came along. She had to step lively to keep up with him. He could still move quickly, Ellison told himself, when there was good reason to do so.

  Puffing, he entered his bedroom and switched on the light over the security console—the sun had gone down a little while ago and the house was full of gathering dimness. From a table drawer beside the bed he grabbed his weapon. Gun in hand, he saw the console's indication that the intrusion had been in the garage.

  He grunted at Stephanie and started out of the room. She followed. They both understood that there could be no question of calling the police.

  When Ellison poked his head into the garage, one of the doors was still standing open to the thickening night, and the inside lights were on.

  The Subaru was gone.

  Ellison looked around, then closed the door to the outside and turned off the lights. He glared at his wife. "You—" he began, sure that whatever had happened was going to be her fault. Then he led the way at a quick walk back to the room where they had left the boy asleep. The young visitor, or intruder, was gone.

  Ellison switched on another light. "He's taken our car," he said. His wife did not answer, and he glared at her. "Well, hasn't he?"

  Stephanie gave him back a strange look. "I don't know. It may not have been him who did it."

  "No?" Ellison was suddenly aware of the gun still in his hand, though it was hanging motionless with muzzle pointing down at the carpet. "There was no one else in the house." At that she looked more peculiar than ever. "Was there? Was there? Stef, why did you do it?"

  His wife only sighed, a sound blending weariness and impatience. "Oh Ellison. Do what?" For some reason she had never adopted any diminutive or nickname for him. Sometimes in the past he had wished secretly that she would do so.

  The gun like a great weight seemed to pull his arm down toward the floor. "Don't pretend to be stupid. You guided him out of the house for some reason—"

  "I was with you when the alarm went off."

  "—and you arranged somehow to give him the keys to the car. You may have done a lot of damage to important plans, plans that you don't begin to understand."

  "I don't begin to understand?"

  "Did it worry you so much, that I might decide to have him killed? Your own daughter was killed and you got through that." Then Ellison thought to himself: I shouldn't have said that.

  "Ellison. I didn't help him. I didn't know he was going to leave. I didn't want him to leave until it could be decided what to do about him. If he had any help it came from someone else. And you don't have to be so secretive, about your plans to sell the painting secretly and make a fortune, you and Del. Del's told me about that. Or your own bombing scheme. Del wasn't too happy about that one." She paused, sniffing. "Oh my God," she said.

  "What?"

  "Don't you smell it?"

  "What?"

  "Very faint, but it's there. The perfume Helen used to like to use."

  "Stef, this is very stupid. You're trying to distract me. There was no one else in this house, and someone helped that boy to get away and steal my car. He couldn't have done it without help. Even if he'd found the keys, how could he have avoided the other alarms?"

  "I'm not trying to distract you, Ellison, I'm trying to explain something. But I suppose I ought to leave it to Del. Oh God, don't you know anything of what's going on?"

  That stopped even Ellison, for a moment. "Now just what in hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "I wish you'd put that gun away. There are no burglars. It'll be better if Del explains to you himself. When was the last time you talked to him?"

  "I haven't seen him since the kidnapping setup, and the last time he called was days ago. It bothers me when he calls, though he keeps assuring me that the phone here isn't tapped by anyone. How can he know that?"

  "Oh." Abruptly Stephanie was almost smiling. "He now has ways of telling, about things like that."

  "That's exactly what he said. I don't understand what it means, and I don't like it. He's taking too many chances."
<
br />   "He did tell you that he means to come here tonight?"

  Ellison was astonished. "Of course, he told me. I didn't know he'd let you in on it too. He talks too much. And that's another thing, his coming here. When I asked him how he knew the house wasn't being watched, he just laughed. He wouldn't even discuss it."

  "If Del says it's all right, then it's all right, Ellison. Believe me."

  "Why? Will you answer that simple question for me?"

  "Del," said Stephanie, in a new voice. Ellison spent a moment trying to make sense of this as an answer, and then realized that it had been a greeting instead. She was looking over his shoulder.

  Beyond a doorway, in the dimness of the next room, towered a figure as tall as Ellison himself, almost as broad. It certainly looked like Del, though Ellison could not at first make out the face in the dim light. It looked like Del, but something had been changed—but it was Del, it was so like him to stand there like that, listening, not saying a word until he was discovered.

  Ellison cleared his throat. "I didn't hear you come in. How did you get here? How do you know the house isn't being watched? What if—"

  The figure came toward them, moving with Del's walk into the light. Del's face, undoubtedly. But vastly changed, young, lean, no longer sagging in cheek and jowl, under a full head of crisp brown hair.

  Del looked at least thirty years younger than when Ellison had seen him last. How? Plastic surgery? More than that. But what?

  "Del. You're . . . you're . . ."

  "Ellison. You're you're you're." Del's rejuvenated voice mocked him, while Del's young face smiled. "You're you're you're. Still as much of an idiot as ever."

  Then the smile, changing as it moved, was turned on Stephanie. "All this ringing on the radiophone would seem to indicate something serious. I was coming anyway, so I thought I'd just come over instead of answering." Del's manner was supremely confident. "What's it all about?"