This Rough Magic

Benito found the undine's gaze quite disconcerting. He'd been forewarned about the bare breasts, and if he ignored the color, they were quite attractive. One might say, pert. And besides, he'd seen a few more than Marco, anyway. But her unblinking stare he found . . . scary. Those golden eyes actually seemed to be looking inside him, at something just below the skin.

Eventually she spoke. 'Mage Marco, you are sure this one is your brother? His flames, and the fire in this one are strange. Powerful. There is an echo of you about him . . . but you are water. Cool, healing waters. This one frightens me.'

Benito snorted. 'Well, if it's all the same to you, green-hair, you make me nervous, too, just by the way you look at me.'

Marco smiled and put an arm around Benito's shoulders. 'Yes, Juliette. He is my brother. My half-brother, anyway. But he's been as close to me as a twin. And though at times he's as wild as fire, you can trust him to the ends of the earth.'

Juliette didn't look entirely convinced. 'Spill a drop of your blood on the water then,' she said to Benito.

Benito shrugged, took out the Shetland dagger and tried to prick his thumb. Hard work had calloused it, and besides, sticking a knife into yourself was never that easy.

'Do it for me, Marco.'

Marco did, with all of a chirurgeon's practiced ease.

Benito squeezed the thumb. A red drop formed and splashed into the greenish chapel water. Juliette scooped some of it up in a long-fingered hand. Sniffed it. Tasted it. Looked penetratingly at him again.

Her next question startled Benito. 'Do you know the child Alessia?'

Benito nodded. 'She's on Corfu with her mother. It's where we wanted help to get back to.'

Juliette regarded him keenly. 'Corfu! You mean Corcyra? Aieee!' The golden eyes narrowed, still unblinking. 'Do you care for this child? Do you love her?'

Benito blinked. 'I . . . I don't really know her. I do care very deeply about her mother.'

The look was now stern. 'I ask you again. Do you love this child? Will you guard her and care for her, if she needs it?'

Benito had found the gaze of the Republic's chief Justice less disconcerting, less searching. Alessia was a baby, for heaven's sake. He'd hardly even touched one before her.

He remembered, suddenly and vividly, the warmth of her, the smell of her. She was Maria's kid. Of course he would love her. 'Yes,' he said, calmly.

Juliette continued to stare at him, but that flat golden stare seemed wary now. Benito noticed she'd edged away a little. 'The flame burns steady,' she said at last. 'But it burns very, very hot. You must see to the child's welfare. I charge you with this. It is your responsibility.'

'And will you help us?' asked Benito, a little tired of the orders, the inquisition, the mysterious questions and references.

She nodded. 'I must. I will speak with the tritons.'

And then she slipped away into the water with scarcely a ripple.

* * *

'Well,' said Francesca, with a small, satisfied smile. 'I have finally found the link between several of the trouble spots. It's so simple that I am disgusted with myself that I didn't think of it earlier. It's the local black market. The factions all buy extra supplies out of the Venetian storehouses from two men. A nice little link of bribery and blackmail for spies.'

Manfred almost fell off the chair he'd been endangering by rocking on. 'What? How much of this is going on?'

'I'm really not sure of the extent of it, Manfred,' said Francesca. 'But from what I can work out most of the Corfiote Libri d'Oro families are involved.'

Von Gherens looked grim. 'Hang the lot of them. It's treason.'

Francesca blinked at the knight. 'It's buying food on the black market. Hardly a capital crime.'

Falkenberg rubbed the scars above his eye. 'What you don't seem to grasp, Francesca'—he'd finally gotten to calling her Francesca—'is that it undermines the military capability of the Citadel to resist. You see it as a chain of blackmail that spies and traitors can use. We see it far more directly as shortening the period a fortress can withstand siege.'

'Both apply,' said Manfred grimly. 'And it has to be stopped. And it is no use just cutting off the supply. Von Gherens is right. We need to make it clear that the buying, too, is a crime.'

Francesca made a face. 'I see what you mean. But the biggest problem is finding someone in the Libri d'Oro who isn't buying.'

'And we're going to have to find out what this corruption has done to the supplies.'

'You are going to have to do so quietly, without causing panic,' pointed out Eberhard.

'It'll also upset the Libri d'Oro. Make the fomenting of treachery easier for someone,' said Francesca.

'Without food, Francesca, there won't be any need for treachery to bring this place down. We've got water until the winter rains at least. I thought we had good rations for a year. It depends now on how far this stupid greed has undermined the capacity of the Citadel to resist. We've got a lot of people here, you know.'

'I know. I pointed it out to you,' said Francesca dryly.

* * *