Shock her? Shock Lucrezia Marradi? According to Hamish, who was never wrong when he was being serious, she had two daughters older than Toby, had several times escaped conviction for hexing only because witnesses or magistrates had conveniently died, and had come home to Florence because her sixteen-year-old son had banished her from Ferrara for poisoning his father. She was a beautiful and fascinating woman. The gleam in her eyes could flatter a man to madness.
He set down the candelabra and grinned vacuously. 'Wonderful party, madonna!'
'You are not drunk!'
She was, though. He was sorry to see that. It would make matters more difficult.
'Just intoxicated by your beauty.'
She jumped up, a child doll staring imperiously at him. 'Sit!'
He perched his bulk on the edge of the couch. She remained standing, and their eyes were level. Why did she have to hurt herself like this? He was twice her size and half her age.
Any man who felt sorry for Lucrezia Marradi was out of his mind.
Smiling coyly, she patted his cheek. 'You never get drunk, you never sleep with women, and tonight you refused two of the most beautiful boys in Florence.'
'You forgot the sheep.'
'I'll send for one if you ask nicely. Why don't you want a silver helmet?'
Gramarye? Possibly. More likely she had eavesdropped on his rehearsal with her brother that morning. Didn't matter. 'It would annoy the don. I have enough troubles without that.'
'And the Milanese earldom?'
'Promises are cheap.'
She moved forward to stand between his knees. Her perfume closed around him like velvet. 'You are a strange and fascinating man, Tobiaso. You hide your success. Usually when peasants rise to higher station they scream their glory from the rooftops.'
'Or their wives do. I was outlawed at eighteen, monna. I learned not to draw attention to myself.' He was sweating. There were enough jewels in her hair alone to finance a summer's campaigning, and the promises in her eyes were brighter yet. This was dangerous, deadly. Briefly he thought of being like other men, and his head swam with longing. Yes, he had the hob under control now, most of the time, but certain things he must avoid: demons, terror, rage — and passion. Already he could feel it stirring as his heart began to beat faster. Only once had he ever tried to make love to a woman, and the hob had gone berserk. Jeanne had died; half the hamlet had perished in fire and chaos. Never again would he dare succumb to desire.
'If my abstinence were from choice,
Her pretty lip curled in mockery. 'Are you admitting to a tragic battle wound, Tobiaso?'
Why must she pick on him? Although the life expectancy of her lovers was scandalously low, there were scores of men in the Marradi Palace tonight who would fight duels for a chance to bed Lucrezia. She was pathetic as well as deadly.
'Only a broken heart. Let us part as friends, madonna.'
'Look!'
She gestured at the nearest statue, an oversize, overmuscled male brandishing a club and wearing only a lion skin that concealed nothing of importance. Doubtless this was a very clever use of a hunk of marble, but to an uncultured backwoods yokel it was obscene. He scowled at it.
'I could not locate a lion skin, Tobias,' Lucrezia said throatily. 'But I have a leopard skin waiting upstairs. You will pose for me.'
'I am honored, but I don't want to spoil your fantasies.'
'You will surpass them. You will be a superb Hercules.'
'Is that his name? He's a bit paunchy, isn't he?' Toby flowed to his feet, clasping her shoulders and lifting her aside so he would not bowl her over. That was a mistake. She weighed nothing. His fingers registered the warmth of her skin, and he saw his strength excited her. Her eyes were bright, her lips moist and expectant. There was gramarye in her allure, making the hob stir under his calm like a shark in a still pool.
'Most beautiful madonna, Florence paid me an infinite compliment tonight by making me her defender, but what you suggest is more flattering still. Were it possible, I should never hesitate. There is no one else, believe me, nor could any woman come before you. Yet it cannot be. My heart breaks. I thank you, but I must bid you good night.' He bowed and walked quickly toward the far end of the gallery and the sounds of the orchestra, hoping she had left the key in the lock.
'Stop!' More than the command itself, her tone made him turn. She was holding one hand close to her mouth, and spears of light flashed off the jewels of her rings. If she had a demon immured in one of those, then a few words would serve to unleash it. 'You think you can spurn me like that, boy? You great barbarian lout! You are about to suffer. You will grovel naked at my feet, howling for release, for pain, for anything I choose to—'
'No!' Toby shouted. 'You must not use gramarye on me,
Unconvinced, Lucrezia began whispering an incantation.
Anything might have happened then, had not Hercules hurled himself to the floor beside her with an earsplitting crash that jarred the whole building. Fragments of marble and mosaic tiles flew like hail; gravel rattled and boulders rolled. Lucrezia recoiled with a startled yell. The orchestra outside wailed into silence. For a frozen instant duchess and mercenary stared at each other in mutual dismay. A hundred people would come flooding into the gallery to investigate.
Lucrezia rapped out a command and vanished faster than a soap bubble.
So she was a hexer! That did not mean she had deliberately pulled over the statue, though. In among those rings she was wearing, she must have at least one guarddemon. It had recognized the hob in him, foreseen the danger when Lucrezia tried to use gramarye on him, and provided a diversion.
Whoever heard of a demon capable of that kind of subtle thinking?
A distant clamor of voices reminded him of his peril. He dived for the door, unlocked it, and stepped back behind it just before it flew open and a jabbering crowd of guests and servants poured through. In the pervading gloom, he was able to tag on the end as if he had entered with them. A matching throng rushed in from the far end, and everyone gathered over the remains, clamoring in astonishment. A statue falls over in an empty room? — what an extraordinary omen!
CHAPTER EIGHT
As dawn gilded chimneys under a buttermilk sky, Toby strode out to the stable yard, relieved that the party was over and he was free to go. The air was cool and sweet, and even the potent tang of horses was welcome after the cloying palace scents. The buzz in his head came only from lack of sleep, for he had drunk much less than most of the guests. He was carrying the unconscious and partially clad don slung over his shoulder.
The waiting men-at-arms of the escort jeered like seagulls at this evidence of an aristocrat's inability to stay the course, although they expected a man to whore and drink himself senseless on every possible opportunity, because that was what they did themselves whenever they could afford to. Then they began taunting Toby for being able to leave on his own feet, as if this evidenced lack of manhood. He laughed aloud, enjoying their vulgar banter far more than the cynical backstabbing of the gentry he had just left.
The men of the Don Ramon Company were a diverse lot, whose roots spanned the Continent from Portugal to Poland. Some had been born in marble halls and others, like him, in the ditches of poverty. They all shared courage, pride in their own endurance, and a fierce independence that would tolerate neither weaklings in their ranks nor incompetent officers. Among the rights they claimed was that of electing the don's honor guard, and thus to serve in it was a mark of approval greatly prized. There, in the morning chill, illiterate pike-wielding thugs stood elbow to elbow with knights who led entourages of their own. Toby belonged with the thugs, of course.
He heaved the unconscious don aboard the coach as he had once heaved sacks of meal for the miller back in
