This Rough Magic

There was something really terrifying about the urbane, calm way he said it.

'What are you going to do with our families?' asked one of the younger men. It was plain that this effect of their actions had not been considered.

'They're in the dungeons below the fortress.'

'They knew nothing of this!'

Eberhard raised his eyebrows. 'Then suppose you tell us who did know of your treason. Singly, so we can check your stories against each other. At the moment the real reason for holding your families is to keep them alive. The people out there know who betrayed them. They're baying for Libri d'Oro blood right now.'

* * *

Piece by piece the details of the plot appeared. A scant hour later troops were scouring the Citadel for Petros Nachelli, the glib, greasy former rent collector.

They found him, and the two cousins who served him as enforcers. But they weren't going to talk, not even under torture. Not without necromancy.

* * *

Captain Querini was tied to the chair. Commander Leopoldo was still half dressed, his face bloody, his tunic- jacket torn. He'd led the assault that had retaken the tower that held the portcullis levers, and he was furious about the loss of some of his finest men. He held the roster up to the cavalry captain's face and shook it furiously.

'You testa di cazzo! If it wasn't for a couple of scuolo sleep-at-homes who didn't come in to find they weren't on duty, we'd have lost the Citadel. As it is, I lost twenty- three men because of this!' He shook the piece of paper again. 'You—!'

The captain gave a low moan. 'I never knew. I was in my bed! I wouldn't have been in my bed if I known. I never meant any harm. . . . They tricked me. They lied to me. It was Dentico.'

'You'll still hang.'

* * *

Maria hadn't realized just how much the fireboat project had come to mean to Umberto until she'd sat with him the day after he'd been shot. Umberto was not a great communicator. His job and his home life—except when things were really boiling over and he would tell her—were two separate worlds. She'd followed progress in the yard more by snippets than anything else.

Now, weak and slipping into fever, he talked of little else but this. Maria passed an anxious day and an anxious, sleepless night listening to it. He was much the same the next day. She still dared not leave. Stella had come up to take Alessia for a few hours. Old Mrs. Grisini's Corfiote girl had come up with some food. A group of the Corfiote laborers' wives came with a small pot of sour cherry spoon-sweets. They were quiet—as befitted a hospital with a sick man—but each came and embraced her.

Maria sat there, biting her lip. She had never been hugged by this many people. They plainly thought he was going to die. The small pot of spoon-sweets sat there on the table beside her. She stared at it, eyes blurred with tears. She knew just how little they had, what sort of a sacrifice this was. She'd married Umberto to give Alessia a father. Now . . . she was going to lose him, too. For days he clung there, growing paler, growing weaker. Maria prayed. She prayed as she'd never ever prayed for herself.

It was late evening four days later, with Umberto tossing and mumbling, when two of the Corfiote women came in to the hospital. 'You must come with us, Maria.'

'I can't. I can't leave Umberto.'

'If you don't, you will leave him at the graveside,' said one of the women, brutally. 'We have heard from Anastasia—the girl who works for Mrs. Grisini—that your house has been cursed.'

'But what about Alessia?'

'The priestess said to bring her.'

It was only when she got outside and well down the hill, that she came to realize that it was well after sundown. She was, she realized, dazed with exhaustion. 'What about the curfew?'

The older of the two women shrugged. 'We know where they patrol. And there are ways to pass. But it is difficult.'

Maria was too tired to try to make sense of it all. She followed them to the cliff with the tall Italian poplar beside it. Ascended the ladder. Walked the winding cave trail into the inner chamber with its two altars, one white, one black. Looked at the cracked dry rock-cut pool where the water from the tiny waterfall now fell into a clay bowl drifted with flower-petals. At the huge, eminently female statue, terrible in its primitive beauty. Looked at the priestess in her simple white robe, with her long white hair in great waves around her. Looked into the compassionate eyes of . . .

Renate De Belmondo, the wife of the Podesta.

* * *

'Welcome, Daughter. The Peace of the Mother, the great Goddess be with you.'

And the strange thing was that she'd felt just that. The hurt, the anger, the sadness had all receded, just as in her distant childhood memories, they had on those rare occasions when she'd turned to her own mother's arms.

The rest of the ritual, the soft refrains had not meant much to her. Except the priestess—who was also Renate De Belmondo in another life—had done her best with curse-exorcism.

'It may be best if you could move house, dear. There is lingering evil around you. Someone hates you very much, enough to spend a great deal of time cursing you. She is no witch, I think—but there is a great deal of magic here, and magic—'

She shrugged. 'It is a tool. It often comes to the hand of those who do not know how to use it, yet succeed