Demon Knight

D'Anjou spat at the weeds. 'Did one ever doubt it? One does not grudge the Spanish boy his success.' Or not very much. The child put on absurd airs, but give him a lance and a horse and he was magnificent, worthy of comparison with legendary knights like Du Guesclin, De Coucy, or Lancelot himself. More to the point, Don Ramon had a pedigree as long as D'Anjou's own, a genuinely noble lineage, even if his family had fallen on hard times in the last few centuries. 'He is a man of courage.'

'This is most true. And a man of breeding.'

Ha! Baldassare Barrafranca talking about breeding? It was to laugh. He claimed to be marquis of some tin- pot town in the Romagna, but his grandfather had stolen the title at sword point, and he himself had lost it through his own incompetence as a condottiere — incompetence revealed, amusingly enough, by the cur Longdirk. Dog eat dog.

It was nice to know that history could throw up a scrap of justice once in a while. D'Anjou had seen little of it in his life. As a child he had been Louis, but all his male relatives had borne that name among others — uncles, cousins, even his brothers and both his sons — and theirs had been a very large family, spread across Europe. Its head had been an Uncle Louis who sometimes wore a golden hat and sat on a fancy chair in Paris — a most excellent man, cursed by ill fortune. When the King of England succumbed to a mysterious and extremely fatal accident and was succeeded by the juvenile and extremely inexperienced Prince Nevil, King Louis had launched a war against him, which was the correct and time-honored thing to do in the circumstances. It was gravest misfortune that the stripling turned out to be the greatest military genius since Genghis. Louis had lost the war, his throne, his land, and eventually his skin, which Nevil had removed personally to have tanned and made into a jerkin.

The procession was climbing the hill to Fiesole now, winding back and forth. Without risking protest from his back, D'Anjou could inspect the procession and see that all was well. A gap was opening in front of the coach. He slowed his pace a little.

'The don knows how war should be fought,' Barrafranca mumbled. He was drunk — but evidently not too drunk, because he added quickly, 'But not as you do, of course, messer.'

'This is true.'

Back in 1511, D'Anjou had girded on armor as so many others had done, kissed his wife and sons good-bye, promised to be home in a month, and ridden off at the head of his knights in support of his liege. He had never seen his estates or his family again. He had never stopped fighting. When France had fallen, he had offered his lance to the King of Burgundy, who was then the Khan's suzerain. When Burgundy fell, Lorraine. After Lorraine, Alsace. He had lost count of the battles, the wounds, the horses killed under him, defeat after defeat after defeat. One by one his knights had died. Without fee or booty or ransoms, the losses could not be made up, and his state had dwindled. He had fought on, motivated only by hatred and a craving for revenge, until at last his troop was down to three lances and he was a mere condottiere, not even fighting against the Fiend, but taking wages to contend with other soldiers of fortune in the hope that one day he could return to the struggle that had consumed his life.

He was the last Louis of them all. Nevil had set out to exterminate the ruling houses of Europe and succeeded admirably. The women who fell into his clutches suffered the same ghastly fate as their brothers, fathers, or husbands. King Pedro of Castile still ruled, but only as the Fiend's vassal. The princes of Kiev and Warsaw survived, as did the Duke of Savoy and some others here and there — those that Nevil had not gotten to yet — but D'Anjou was the last of his house. The cousins, uncles, brothers, sons, wives, sisters, aunts, and daughters had all fallen in battle or been tortured to death to entertain Nevil's court. If the titles they had borne were ever to mean anything again, he would own them all. He was rightful King of France, but he must also be king, prince, duke, count, and everything else more times over than any man in history. Yet he had spent the night in a stable while that Scottish serf fornicated between silken sheets in a palace.

'The don I do not mind,' Barrafranca grumbled, still brooding. 'That overgrown young blackguard, Longdirk — I cannot understand why the don tolerates his meddling. I am certain they will not make him comandante again.'

'Of course not! One cannot conceive of repeating such folly. The captains-general elected him last time because they thought he was young enough to be controlled. Look what happened — an atrocity unthinkable! What honor is there in such a victory? It was pure luck that the wind did not change and blow the fire in our direction.'

Had D'Anjou known, two years ago in Genoa, that the true leader of the Don Ramon Company was a baseborn outlaw with no formal military training or experience whatsoever, he would have offered his sword elsewhere though he would have starved for it. Starvation had been close at his heels in those days.

'Sir Tobias!' he snarled, more to himself than his companion. 'Granted he can straighten horseshoes with his bare hands, what does that prove? There was a time when knighthood meant something. Now any roughhousing brawler is given spurs.'

'He has always fought the way a demon would!' Barrafranca agreed. 'He is crazy! He uses treachery, tactics no honorable man would—' Belch! ' — countenance!'

One could turn one's head and smile at the olive trees. D'Anjou took another swig of the wine. 'Right from the start. One saw it oneself. His very first condotta was with Verona. Venetian gold had bought Tyrolean allies, and the Veronese were so desperate for men that they hired this new, untried Don Ramon Company to guard the northern borders.' The Tyroleans, of course, had already signed a condotta with the Marquis Baldassare Barrafranca, but it would be too unkind to mention that. 'The Tyroleans sent a force south along the shores of Lake Garda, a force far outnumbering the men Longdirk had. It was hopeless! Yet this maniac took it upon himself to give battle, far exceeding his instructions. And his tactics—'

'I am aware—'

'His tactics, I say, were total madness, against all the rules, suicidal. He not only dismounted the cavalry — a mistake becoming distressingly popular these days — but he left the horses and baggage unguarded so he could throw every man into an assault. Cooks, grooms, teamsters, farriers, and similar trash, he armed them all! He had led this untrained, inexperienced rabble on a long march in pitch-darkness, can you believe? It made us weep, we who knew how it should be done. Had the enemy even suspected, there would have been a most terrible massacre, and that would have been the end of the upstart right then. But no. He has demons' own luck. He pounced on the Tyrolean camp in the middle of a moonless night, with no warning. Shameful! It was sheer butchery, hundreds of men murdered in their sleep. Thousands more fled or surrendered, leaving all their arms to the victors. By the terms of the condotta, the loot was his, of course.'

'Of course,' Barrafranca growled. He had been one of the prisoners.

'Oh, it worked,' D'Anjou admitted. 'Tyrol changed sides, and Verona was ecstatic. The Veronese paid up without complaint, although the condotta had lasted less than a month. They wanted to renew it indefinitely, but no, the arrogant barbarian went off in search of richer employers. But it was on the field of Garda that the don knighted him. I saw it. Sir Tobias! Sir Turd!

'It is not easy for men of honor to serve under such a man,' he added waspishly. How could Barrafranca endure it? The rout at Lake Garda that had made Longdirk's name had blackened his forever. Rather than ransom him, his city had deposed him. 'The foreigner upset all the rules by which your condottieri had been operating for so long. I expect one day someone will seek retribution — stick a knife in his ribs, perchance.'

'Revenge, messer, is a dish best tasted cold.'

'Even a cold dish must lose its flavor if it sits around too long.' D'Anjou wondered if the men were listening, but very few of them understood French. They were almost at the camp now. He would shed this obnoxious Italian upstart and take a little rest to ease his back. 'What was it you wished to discuss, messer?'

'Mm?' The Italian drank and belched again. 'Apparently the podesta has received a letter from Naples. An emissary of the Khan has landed there.'

The Chevalier straightened suddenly in his saddle and suppressed a gasp of pain. 'You jest!'

'No, messer.' Barrafranca sounded amused by his companion's shocked reaction. 'After so many years, our esteemed overlord has at last noticed that something is amiss in his realm!'

'Did he send an army? I mean, is he sending one?' Tartars were horsemen. If the Golden Horde was going to oppose Nevil and try to recover the lands he had stolen, then it would have to come from the east, by land. But perhaps this was a sign that it was coming! 'What good can one emissary do?'

'Spirits know, Chevalier. They said he brings special powers.'