"The Barbary corsairs and the Genovese are uneasy allies, Grand Duke," said Count Mindaug. "They're traditional enemies. Of course, both sides hate the Venetians like poison but still . . . It is a fragile alliance. Alexius may be a weak reed, but he is being a very effective stopper to the Dardanelles."
"And what news have you from the Holy Roman Emperor, Mindaug?"
It didn't surprise Mindaug at all that Jagiellon knew of his secret messenger from Germany. His communications with Hungary were far more carefully orchestrated. "The Emperor is worse. He took the news that his nephew is trapped on Corfu by Emeric's men as reason to find more energy, to organize things. But now he is sliding again. His campaign against Emeric is a measure of the man."
"Why? It seems quite a small campaign."
"It is meant to be. The Emperor knows he is dying. He doesn't want his heir to take over with a huge war on his hands. A conquest of Hungary would be an immense war, even for the Empire. This one is designed to cost Emeric a great deal—but it will do so only if he doesn't react to it. The Emperor knows that Emeric simply cannot leave such an incursion alone, when it becomes clear what ignoring it will cost him. Frankly, in my opinion, because Emeric believes himself the greatest commander alive, he would be unable to ignore any challenge, however insignificant, that threatened what he holds. The effort, I should guess, is to get him to withdraw from Corfu to protect assets closer to home."
Jagiellon's black eyes stared into nothingness. Then he turned to Mindaug again. "And have you progressed at all with your researches into the magic of Corfu?"
"In one respect, yes. I have been investigating the works of one Trigomenses Commensus. He has recorded various nonhuman interviews, attempting by virtue of their long lives to piece together early history. It appears that, back when Corfu was part of the mainland, it was the center of a fertility cult, long before the area was overrun by invaders—perhaps the Dorians. The nonhumans he questioned—dryads, undines and satyrs—regarded the place as sacred, too. It is an old place."
"I know that it is an old place, once regarded as being of great power. I can feel no trace of any great power there now, myself, though. Yet my slave and the shaman are not succeeding in their quest there. They are being magically hampered, but I do not know by what or exactly how. It is like wrestling smoke! I need to find the source of this and know if it can be harnessed. This began as an exercise in attempting to flank the Holy Roman Empire. It has become a search for whatever it is that can even thwart the magic of the shaman. He is an adept of great strength."
"I was coming to that, Grand Duke. Commensus' interviewees all agree: Power there requires a connection to the earth."
"You mean I would have to physically go there?"
"At least in spirit, my lord."
Mindaug held his breath, doing everything in his power to keep his mind blank. This was the moment for which he and Elizabeth Bartholdy had schemed for so long.
"Yes," grunted Jagiellon. It was all Mindaug could do not to let his breath explode in a gust. There had not been a trace of suspicion in the sound.
"Yes," Jagiellon. "I think you're right. Risky, but—worth it, to shackle that power and bend it to my will."
"It's infuriating, mistress," snarled Bianca Casarini. "And I don't have any choice—I have to hide Fianelli's men from the Venetians, even if it's in my own house."
Elizabeth laughed. "Having three louts lounging about your house would try the patience of a saint. Which you are certainly not." The countess cocked her head sideways. "I assume you've taken steps to bring them under control."
The last words served to ease some of Casarini's foul temper. "Oh, yes. One of them—Papeti's his name—has been lusting after me for some time. So now he thinks he's succeeded—and the one whom I did seduce is furious about it. The right two words from me, and they'll cut each other up."
"And the third?"
Bianca shrugged. "He's just a slug. Seems interested in nothing much beyond sleeping, drinking and eating. I haven't bothered with him, since I need to keep my magics to a minimum. I have to be careful here, mistress, sharing a small island with Eneko Lopez and his damned priests. They can't do much because they're afraid to work without their wards. But they're still accomplished adepts, especially Lopez."
"Yes, I understand. Well, that should be enough. My plans look to be coming to fruition. For the moment, just stay out of sight."
Before she'd even had time to finish erasing the traces of the ritual, Bianca heard a ruckus erupting in the rooms downstairs. A brief one, but very loud, ending in a cut-off scream.
"Those idiots," she hissed, hurrying from her bedroom. "They'll make the neighbors curious."
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Bianca saw that her "two words" wouldn't be necessary after all. Papeti's body was lying on the floor, bleeding all over the tiles. Saluzzo, red-faced, was crouched over the corpse cleaning his knife on Papeti's blouse.
He hadn't even heard Bianca arrive. The Florentine's eyes were fixed on Zanari, the third of Fianelli's thugs. Zanari was standing in a nearby archway, with a very nervous look on his face.
"She's my woman," Saluzzo growled. "Don't forget it, or—" Angrily, and despite having already cleaned the blade, Saluzzo drove the knife into Papeti's ribcage again. The corpse jerked under the impact.
Saluzzo spotted Bianca then. Leaving the knife stuck in the body, he rose and took two strides toward her.
"Paulo, what—"
Saluzzo was a powerful man. His slap sent her sprawling on the steps. The next slap, on the back of her head, dazed her.
Fortunately, perhaps, since the pain when he seized her by the hair and began dragging her up the stairs would have been considerably more agonizing otherwise.
"Bitch. I'll teach you!"
By the time they reached her bedroom and Saluzzo flung her onto the bed, Bianca had recovered her senses. Furiously, she began muttering the words that would destroy the man. Saluzzo didn't even hear them, he was so consumed with anger combined with lust.
Before she finished the incantation, though, Bianca had suppressed her anger. The situation, she realized, was ideal for a different use of magic. Someday, she might well have to flee her house in a hurry—a task that would be made considerably easier if Saluzzo remained behind to attack her pursuers with demonic fury.
That, of course, would require turning him into a demon—the shape of one, at least—which could be done, under the right circumstances.
These were the right circumstances. Rage and lust, combined, were the key raw ingredients.
"I'll teach you to fool around with anyone else," Saluzzo snarled. He'd already hoisted her skirts and forced her legs apart. Now, he slapped her again and started untying his breeches.
"Paulo, please!"
Another slap. "Time for your lesson, slut."
The period that followed was unpleasant. Even painful, toward the end, as Bianca's murmured incantations began effecting the first transformations of Saluzzo's form. But Bianca had been through worse in the past, and would face still worse in the future. Immortality, as the countess often remarked, had its price. Many prices, in fact.
Fortunately, Saluzzo was raping her on the bed—still better, on a bed in the upper floor of her house, almost twenty feet above the soil of Corfu. Had he been assaulting Bianca on the ground itself, her magics would have drained away. The more so, since the sort of transformation she was carrying out on him was closely connected to earth magic. It was not quite the same as making a golem, but close.
"What's the matter, Eneko?" asked Francesca, leaning forward in her chair. "You look suddenly ill."
"You cannot sense it?" The priest's voice was brittle; his temples held in both hands.
Puzzled, Francesca shook her head. "Sense what?"
"The magic. That is a hideous spell being used. The one who uses it—it's the female, this time, not Fianelli—is reckless beyond belief. I'd never dare use a spell that powerful here on Corfu, without wards—not that I'd ever use that spell anyway—because . . ."
He croaked. Surprised, Francesca realized it was the sound of strained laughter.
"Of course, I imagine she's not concerned with the danger of attracting demons. Since she's one herself, in all that matters."
Magic was something Francesca knew very little about. So she focused on what, to her, was the key point. "You're sure it's a woman? Not Fianelli?"
Eneko raised his head slowly, staring at her through eyes that were nothing much more than slits. "Oh, yes. There's a succubus—of sorts—loose in this fortress, Francesca. And she's even more dangerous than Fianelli. More powerful, at least, when it comes to magic."
Francesca leaned back in the chair, her lips pursed. "A woman. Could it be Sophia Tomaselli?"
Before Lopez could respond, Francesca raised her hand. "Yes, Eneko, I know the fetish she placed in Maria Verrier's house was a fake. But perhaps that was just a subterfuge—a way to protect her from charges of practicing real witchcraft, in case she ever got caught." Francesca chuckled, throatily. "It's the sort of thing I'd have thought up."
Eneko's smile was thin. "At a rough estimate, Francesca, you are eighty times more intelligent than Sophia Tomaselli. But it doesn't matter. You forget that Pierre went to see her in her cell, after she was arrested. The Savoyard's the best witch-smeller I've ever met. He says, quite firmly, that while the Tomaselli woman is evil enough, in a multitude of small and petty ways, she's got no more demonic power than a carrot."
Francesca must have looked a bit dubious. Lopez's smile became still thinner. "Please, Francesca. I have learned not to second-guess you when it comes to intrigue and espionage. Please don't try to second-guess me when it comes to magic. Whoever the female is, it is not Sophia Tomaselli."
Francesca spread her fingers in a gesture that, subtly, indicated assent. More precisely, that she was beating a demure but hasty retreat.
"I wouldn't dream of questioning you, Eneko!"
The two of them laughed, abruptly.
"Still," Francesca continued, "I think we should start with Sophia Tomaselli. We should question Morando again also, of course, but I doubt he'd say anything. If this mysterious woman—"
"Female, Francesca—not 'woman.' Trust me. The distinction, if you understood it, would be even more important to you than to me."
" 'Female,' then. If this female is an accomplice of his, at this point he'd never tell us. Even that she exists, much less her identity."
"Why? He seems eager enough to tell us everything else."
"Because Morando is expecting he'll be executed, when he's returned to Venice. A traitor's death, too, his legs broken first." For a moment, she glared. "Thanks to those idiot men! That includes you, Eneko! A lesson: Never tell a man you're going to execute him, if there's any chance he might still have information you want. You just eliminated any motive for him to keep talking."
Eneko scowled. "He was guilty of—"
"Who cares?" Francesca slapped the armrests of her chair with exasperation. "Why does a whore have to keep reminding priests and devout knights that justice belongs to the Lord? Ours is the province of practicality, damnation!"
Eneko's lips quirked. "I believe it's 'vengeance' that belongs to the Lord, Francesca, though I understand the point. Nor, by the way, have I ever called you a 'whore.' "
She shrugged. "It's just a word. Means nothing to me, to be blunt. And to get back to the point, Morando won't tell us anything because perhaps the only hope he has left—however faint it may be—is that his accomplice, if she remains at large, might somehow rescue him from his predicament. Yes, yes, it's a very faint hope—criminal associates are hardly noted for their personal loyalties and devotion. But, who knows? There might be some deep tie between them. And, even if there isn't, a man expecting a noose will hope for anything."
"Ah. That's why you think Tomaselli would know—"
Francesca shook her head. "We should question her also, but I doubt we'll get anything useful. The problem in her case being somewhat the opposite. Too much talk instead of too little. That woman is driven by spite more than anything else. At one point in her interrogation, you may recall, she named half the women in the fortress as being witches participating in regular Black Sabbaths. She had Maria Verrier copulating with Satan himself, while the podesta's wife—" She threw up her hands. "Ah, never mind! But you see my point. How reliable is the information given to us by a woman who'd insist that Renate De Belmondo—at her age!—was . . . well. You remember. You were there."
Lopez grimaced. He'd been present for most of Tomaselli's interrogation. Sophia, hysterically, had swung from protesting complete innocence at one moment to claiming, in the next, that she was the least guilty of several thousand women in the Citadel. The accusations she'd made regarding Maria Verrier and the podesta's wife had been particularly grotesque.
"I see your point. But, that being true, what do you mean by suggesting we start with Tomaselli?"
"We need to start tracing Sophia's associations. Not by asking her, but others. I'll have Mouse start working on that."
"Mouse" was the nickname Francesca had given to the best agent she'd started employing, since she arrived on Corfu. Eneko had met the man three times, but could never quite remember what he looked like afterward. When he'd commented to Francesca to that effect, she'd simply looked very smug.
"I'll tell Mouse to start with Stella Mavroukis, Maria's friend," Francesca mused. "That woman knows all the gossip there is to know about this island. Kérkira and the Citadel, anyway."
"What would you like me to do?"
"Eneko, would you be able to recall—precisely—when each instance of this 'female magic' took place?"
Slowly, Lopez nodded. "Yes, I think so. Diego sensed it, too—and sometimes Francis and Pierre—so we can compare our memories. Yes. I should be able to reconstruct it. What good will that do?"
"Maybe none," replied Francesca, shrugging. "But you never know. This sort of work is like trying to piece together a broken tile. The more pieces you have, the more likely it is that you will succeed."
Prince Manfred came into the room, at that point. His cheerful smile vanished like the dew under Francesca's glare.
"And you! If I succeed in piecing this all together—I will expect you to exercise your power and offer Morando a pardon. A commutation, at least. So that he can confirm whatever my suspicions are."
"What are you talking about? Piece what together?"
"Manfred!"
"Yes, darling. Certainly."
Eneko laughed. "These are the times when I know celibacy is a blessing."
"Eneko!"
"Sorry, Francesca. It's true."
His lust satiated, Saluzzo's anger had faded also. He sprawled across her limply.
"Paulo, he forced me," Bianca said, in a pleading tone. "He held a knife to my throat."
Saluzzo grunted. The sound was skeptical, but Bianca could sense there was no longer any danger that he would strike her again.
That was good. She was having a hard enough time as it was, restraining her fury. The bastard was heavy.
Her hands began stroking his back. Saluzzo would think she was still trying to placate him. In actuality, she was trying to determine if her incantations had succeeded.
Yes. She could feel the small nubs of the wings, just under the shoulder blades. They'd remain vestigial, until she spoke the words of power.
Double-checking, her left hand stroked his brow. Yes, she could feel the slight nubs there also.
Unfortunately, her apparent caresses were stimulating Saluzzo again. His own hands began moving. Bianca resigned herself to another unpleasant few minutes. There was no way, in the circumstances, to do the rituals needed to allow Saluzzo to wallow in his own sexual fantasies.
So be it. Immortality had its prices. At least he wouldn't be as rough this time.
Although—
"Ow! Paulo, you have got to start trimming your fingernails."
A bit puzzled, he raised his head and glanced at his fingernails. "How did they get so long?" he wondered.
"You're careless, that's how." She took the sting from the reproach by nuzzling him. "Just keep them trimmed, will you?"
She decided it would be best not to comment on his toenails. Those would be getting shorter soon, anyway. Shorter, wider, and much thicker, as his feet began to change. In fact, she'd have to take steps to slow down the transformation. Even a thug—and this one was Florentine, after all—would start wondering why he was walking around on hooves.