This Rough Magic (92 page)

Benito wished he could just turn away. But Caesare had always taught him:
Finish it. Be sure.
 

And then the dying man spoke. The voice sounded . . . ecstatically joyful.

"Benito. Thank God! Kill me. Kill me, please. Kill me before it can get to me again. Please. Please! If you ever loved me—"

Suddenly something huge, black and slimy with a barbel-fringed long-fanged mouth launched out of the water. Benito barely managed to dodge aside, cutting at it.

Caesare didn't dodge and it seized him. The water closed over the monster and the blond assassin.

There might be a battle going on, but Benito sat down. There wasn't much of a battle left anyway. Caesare had been lying with his "I surrender," but the Hungarians had been similarly fooled. Unfortunately for them, it had been a case of "No quarter," after Caesare's treacherous about-turn.

Some time later—probably somewhere near midnight, Benito guessed by the height of the moon—they were taking stock. Erik lay wrapped in a blanket beside Svanhild. His wounds were bandaged and the stump of one finger cauterized. He lay as still as death, his breathing weak, bloody and bubbling, his pulse, which could only really be felt in his throat, tremulous and faint. The physical wounds, even the one to the lung, he might survive. The greatest physical danger was that he had nearly bled himself white. But everyone knew it was that final magical blow that left him in the coma from which Benito doubted he would ever wake.

He looked dead. Svanhild was. It had seemed right to put them beside each other.

The cost to the insurgent camp had been high. All but one of the guards had been killed. Of the fifteen men and three women left in the camp—besides the Vinlanders—one survived. Of the Vinlanders—only Bjarni and Kari and two of the
duniwassals
might yet live. The youngest of Kari's brothers had been one of those who'd been in camp as part of Svanhild's guard.

There were some dead and some injured among the raiding party too, but by comparison they'd suffered lightly. Erik's berserker attack had cost the Hungarians dear in sheer numbers and in panic—trapping them between a human threshing machine and guarded exits. The Vinlanders had cost the enemy at least thirty men.

It would take daylight and a collection of body parts to say just how many Erik had killed in his frenzy.

Of the hundred Magyar who'd galloped into this place, not one had escaped. Some thirteen were wounded. Some would die. A number had retreated into the store cave. They were still holed up there. The Corfiote irregulars were collecting firewood while they watched the cave mouth.

And there were three prisoners. Two who had surrendered to the guard on the upper way out. And Ambrosino.

Giuliano Lozza had bandages around his chest, but he'd very much taken charge of the camp. And now he came to his uncle.

"I always looked up to you. Trusted you, Uncle," said Giuliano quietly. "But my Eleni didn't. And neither did Thalia. They both tried to warn me in their ways. And both of them saved my life from the results of your treachery." He took a golden locket—a large one—perhaps three inches by two. There was a gouge through the gold-plate, revealing the harder metal underneath. The locket was so indented that it would never open again.

"One day I'll have her picture repainted. It was all I had left of her. There's a piece of my baby son's hair in there, too. You babbled on about family, about blood ties, about how important it is to support your own, no matter what. And then you betrayed us to the people who killed your kin."

"I . . . asked them to spare you. I tried to save you."

"And you killed our comrades. And now I am your judge, jury, and executioner. I find you guilty, guilty by all the gold in your pockets. Gold was worth more to you than blood. More than honor. I find you guilty of treason, of murder. Do you want to make your peace with God before I carry out the sentence?

Ambrosino looked disdainful. "You'll never kill me. You haven't got the guts. You don't even kill rabbits on the hunt. You'll get someone else to do your dirty work."

"I'll do it," said Thalia.

Ambrosino gave her a look that was full of more contempt than if he had spat on her. "Peasant slut."

Giuliano put a hand on Thalia's shoulder. "It is a pity in a way that I am going to execute you. Otherwise I would challenge you to a duel and cut you into doll rags for insulting a good woman. And you know I could do it. But I am going to execute you as the ranking officer of this unit of the Venetian Corfiote Army. I am giving you a last chance to pray."

This time, Ambrosino spat.

Giuliano Lozza drew his sword and ran him through.

Ambrosino's mouth gaped wide widened. "You did it! You bastard! You—"

He coughed blood; his eyes rolled up. Giuliano withdrew the blade and turned away from the dying man.

"May god have mercy on his soul. Throw his body with the other carrion." His voice was hard. "Our own we will bury with honor. This lot we will dump outside their camp."

"There are the wounded. And the ones in the cave," said Benito. "What are we going to do with them?"

"Kill the lot of them," said one of the peasant-recruits. "Cut the throats of the wounded and the prisoners. Best way of dealing with vermin."

"What do we want?" asked Benito calmly. "A few more dead Hungarians? Or a lot of frightened ones? If you ask me, scared ones will make them weaker than a few more dead bodies. They sent their best, with a traitor, to ambush us. They were outnumbered by a smaller group of men. I don't see them telling their commanding officers that, though! By the time they get back, there will be thousands of us in the hills. I reckon we offer them a choice. They can live, stripped bare-ass naked, or they can die and we'll strip their bodies."

"Strip them?"

Benito grinned nastily. "They all wear those stupid helmets and that sash over their cuirasses. I suppose we can be grateful this wasn't a full-armor mission—they'd have been harder to kill—and I don't think armor is easy for people who've never worn it. I need a group of men in those clothes. I want anyone who sees us to take us for Magyar. And if we do that once, is there any reason for the Hungarians to assume we won't do it again? Fairly good chance we'll get some of them to shoot at each other. And they'll never be sure that patrol they see over in the distance . . . is it really their men over there?"

Giuliano nodded. "It makes every kind of sense. We'll make them nervous about everything. There'll be accidents."

"Tell me about it!" said Benito. "I nearly got shot by our supporters for wearing a Croat hat."

Giuliano sighed. "Well. We must get to it. Get those uniforms, get out of here. We need to get this camp broken and moved before dawn. My traitor uncle might have told them how to find this place as well as just showing them, and they might come looking. Moving our wounded is going to be difficult."

He sighed again. "Most of them are going to die, I'm afraid. We lack medicines or surgeons and quite a few, like Erik, can't ride. We can't abandon him. He is our leader. And he's a symbol of some fear to Emeric, or he wouldn't have sent this Aldanto hunting."

Benito shook his head. "Giuliano, Erik is not ever going to get better. Neither are a good three of the others, in their case for simple medical reasons. But Erik . . . My brother is the physician, and I wish he was here now, but I'm sure that what is wrong with Erik is magical. There is only one person that I know of on this island who could treat that: Eneko Lopez, or his companion Francis. And they're inside the Citadel. Erik meant a lot to you men out here, didn't he?"

Giuliano nodded. "He is a legend. More now, I suppose. The peasants refer to him as the ice-and-fire man. Or the hand of God."

"Right. I want to break into the Citadel—again. I'm beginning to feel like a ball tossed between inside and outside! I'll need at least fifteen, maybe twenty volunteers who are prepared to do something insane to keep Erik and the other badly wounded alive."

"Signor Valdosta, you always do the insane," said Thalia, who had come up quietly behind them. "I will volunteer. I owe you and Erik my life. I was not sure if I was grateful at the time. But I have decided I am glad to be alive after all."

"I wish you'd call me Benito. Everyone else does."

"She insists on calling me 'master,' " said Giuliano. "No matter how often I have said that we're comrades-in-arms now. And of course, yes. I am with you too. I owe him my sanity, my life, and it was my blood-kin that betrayed him."

"The bad news is that I won't take either of you. You've got to take over here, Giuliano. Recruit to replace what we've lost. And you, Thalia, you've got keep him tough. He's too nice for this. But he is also too valuable to waste. He's a good man."

"I know," she said quietly. "You and Erik saved my life. But he gave me back myself. My dignity."

"I'm an olive-grower," said Giuliano irritably. "Not a saint or a soldier."

"You're also the best man for the job. And as Doge Dorma was silly enough to invest me as a captain in the army of the Republic, I hereby give you a field-brevet to lieutenant. I'd do more, but as a captain I am limited to promoting you to below me. And I wish the two of you would stop wasting time and get a priest to marry you, as I don't think either of you will settle for anything less."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

Thalia looked down and wrung her hands. "It is too soon. Master Lozza will mourn his wife and child. I will mourn my man. Someday he will marry someone from his own order."

Giuliano looked Benito in the eyes. "I'll thank you to keep to your own business, Benito. Thalia . . . and I, both lost precious people."

Benito shrugged. "You both also nearly died tonight. And I'm not blind or stupid. This is a war. You could both still be killed while you fuss on about not hurting the other one's feelings. I don't think either of you didn't love your spouses. I just think you're hurting each other now. As for this difference in rank: Worry about it if you're still alive at the end of the war."

Giuliano put a hand gently onto Thalia's arm. "I don't wish to hurt you, Thalia. You were hurt enough."

"You are hurting me now," she said with a sniff. "You . . . all the other men in the camp. They make suggestions. Passes. You just taught me to fight. They mock you, too. They are scared to do so in the open because of your swordsmanship, master."

"If I married you, would you stop calling me master?"

She gave a watery sniff. "You don't want to do that."

"Actually, in among the ten thousand other things Erik's injury has forced on us, I want to do
that
most. But I don't want to hurt you more than you've been hurt. I don't expect much . . ."

"Would you two, hug, kiss, and get on with it," grumbled Benito. "I've got a crazy plan to go through with, and I need to find a wagon and something to hide the wounded in. And I've got some bodies and prisoners to strip, and some blacking to clean off the breastplates."

"Is that an order, sir?" asked Giuliano, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Yes. And you, too, newly promoted sergeant. It is about time we had a few female sergeants. They're naturally good at telling men what to do."

"Yes, sir," said Giuliano, putting his arms around her. She folded into them as naturally as breathing. "You're good at managing people's lives, Benito."

"Yes. I wish I'd been as good at managing my own. Now, do you think anyone in that crowd speaks Hungarian?

Late the next afternoon a wagon, escorted by a mounted patrol of Magyar, joined a number of other wagons heading into the camp. Erik's raids had forced Emeric's troops to dig earthworks and station guards, but a wagon with a Magyar driver and a military escort excited no comment. It didn't even get stopped. Benito reflected that Erik had missed some wonderful opportunities.

Benito put his earlier time within the Citadel to good use. He'd stood on the inner battlements making sure he'd get through the ruins of the town and the maze of tent-areas belonging to the different units of Emeric's army. Eberhard of Brunswick had stood up there with him while he watched, and had explained the interactions between the various tribes and nationalities in Emeric's kingdom. To the old statesman, those were potential danger areas of misunderstanding to be avoided.

To Benito they were something to be used. The Magyar, the elite of the army, Emeric's pets, weren't very popular, according to Eberhard. If you had to choose for least love lost between two groups, the levies from southern Carpathia detested the Magyars most. The Slovenes came a close second. And in the watching of detachments moving to and fro to the front, Benito knew where these two groups were encamped. They were on the southern end of the Spianada, behind a half-screen of buildings that the officers of both sets used for slightly more comfortable quarters—just out of cannon-shot. There was an open patch that both sets of troops used as a parade ground.

Benito took his set of "Magyar" there with the wagon and parked it on the edge of the parade ground. His men dismounted. Some played dice. Some just lounged against the wagon. It was covered with a tightly tied-down tarpaulin. Benito hoped the poor devils inside weren't roasting as the afternoon sun blazed down.

Nobody came over and talked to them, except for one Slovene officer. Benito didn't understand a word. However he could offer a pretty good guess.

Stephanos, with his few words of Hungarian, was posing as the group officer. Stephanos snapped one word—"orders"—with as much arrogance as he could muster and jerked his thumb at the ornate pavilion on the hill. Benito thought he could have done a better job, but then he had to give Stephanos credit for looking the part. The man had been a taverna owner at the start of the war. In younger days, however, he had spent some years in Rugosa as a clerk, working for a Venetian buyer—who couldn't operate there, and had needed a trusted man. Stephanos was a positive graybeard to Benito, but he had the posture and attitudes of someone who is used to being respected.