This Rough Magic

that one.' He looked wryly at Benito. 'I don't think you got much else from Carlo Sforza, boy. You should be grateful for that skill—from both your father and your mother's side. Yes, I know, too, Benito. Half the world does.'

Benito felt his face grow hot as he flushed, and he thought of Maria, and what she had said. 'They keep expecting me to be like one or the other of them. I'm not! I'm myself.'

The elderly Ritter tugged at his white moustache. 'Some of us struggle to live up to the reputation bequeathed to us by our blood. Others struggle to rise above that reputation. It can be done, boy. But we are shaped by it. It's whether we allow it to rule us or whether we direct it. That stiff-necked priest is right. You have a gift. Use it well. Use it as Benito Valdosta would use it, not the Wolf of the North—nor, even, the Duke of Ferrara.'

Falkenberg came up to the deck and spared him having to answer. 'Milord of Brunswick, here is the roster for the rowers. Prince Manfred asks that you control this matter. He says it will take true statesmanship.'

The old Ritter smiled ruefully. 'I detect Francesca's hand. I'm supposed to be training him and instead he's manipulating me.' He took the list. 'Well, you don't have a monk's fist, Falkenberg. What's this? I see Manfred's name heads this list.'

'Erik said it would set a good example, milord. He said all chieftains take a hand at portage, and therefore Manfred could do some rowing. Manfred swore at him.'

The Ritter raised his eyes to heaven. 'Well, I daresay if nothing else that will make it impossible for any other knight to claim rowing is beneath his dignity. Very well. Young Valdosta, I suggest you divest yourself of any extra clothing. Rowing is hot work, I've been told. You're also in the first shift.'

* * *

Manfred had had Von Gherens assign places to all of the passengers. Von Gherens had arrived at 'where to put everyone' by the simple expedient of counting an equal number into each cabin. Under their vow, all of the knights of the militant order were officially equal regardless of former station, or present rank. So knight-proctors had ended up in broom cupboards, while several squires had the third best stateroom.

Except, of course, for Manfred and Francesca's cabin. Francesca had smiled at Von Gherens. They had the very best stateroom.

Eneko, Diego, Francis and Pierre, on the other hand, had nothing but some floor space—if they all exhaled at the same time.

The others were waiting for Eneko. They'd plainly anticipated what he would try to do: Scry to see if this was some part of a larger evil. Eneko knew the dangers here at sea. The alignment of the consecrated area wouldn't stay aligned.

The candles were prepared. The incense was in the censer. Diego was taking a bottle of water out of his pack.

Weaving the sevenfold circle in this confined space took care. But one thing Eneko had learned: Magic required precision. There was no room for mistakes.

'In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, fiat lux.'

Enclosed in the magical curtain of light the four joined hands and began the ritual of searching.

This was not simple scrying; in scrying, one knew where one wanted to look, but not necessarily what one wanted to look for. Here, they knew, not only where, but (in general), what. This might be nothing more than the ongoing battles of Venice against pirates, or pirates and some greater enemy—but Lopez did not think so. Here they had one of the possible heirs to the Emperor and one of Chernobog's great enemies—more than that, really, in the form of Erik Hakkonsen and the four priests. These fleets, this alliance, might be what the Black Brain had been focusing on when it had let them go so lightly, back in the Jesolo swamps. This, then, might well be what Lopez had feared. And if it was, then there would certainly be an agent of the Black Brain somewhere nearby.

That was what they were looking for.

Each of them undertook the invocation to one of the four archangels of the compass; this was no time for mere wards. But not without a moment of thought.

'You, Pierre, or me in the North?' he asked of the others. They all knew which creatures were the most likely to be under Chernobog's sway.

Pierre considered it. 'Perhaps six months ago I was your superior in combative magic, Eneko,' he said, soberly. 'But I think you have surpassed me. I will take the East, though, which is—'

'Another source of trouble. Very well.' This would mean that Pierre would begin the invocations, and Eneko would end. Pierre faced outward, raised his hands, and began to intone the prayer to request the presence of the Archangel Gabriel in their work.

The fact that, instead of a simple ward-pillar, they got something that was a towering blue flame, vaguely man-shaped, was not comforting. And yet, in a way, it was. They now knew, for certain, that this was what they had been expecting, dreading, waiting for. It had begun.

When it was Eneko's turn to invoke the Archangel Uriel, he had barely intoned the first sentence of the prayer when his ward roared up, in brilliant gold flame. Nevertheless, he completed the prayer, ending with a bow of thanks.

It was Francis, as the representative of the West, who blessed the chalice of wine that they would use as their mirror—though it was not the standard shape of a chalice, being more of a footed bowl to provide a satisfactory surface to use as a mirror.

They exchanged glances; Pierre looked fierce, Diego somber, Francis resigned. Eneko did not know what he looked like; his face just felt stiff. They focused their concentration on the chalice of blessed wine, and began the first careful probes for the taint of evil. Since there was no 'earth' as such, and not much chance that even the Black Brain's creature could force a spirit of fire out over so much water, Eneko joined with Francis to search the waters, and Pedro with Pierre to survey the air.

They expected that the creature would be subtle. It wasn't.

Eneko felt the nausea, the icy chill, and the shock of encountering naked, unshielded Evil. The result was near instantaneous. The wine seethed and began to boil. The light curtain pulsed, as if sheet lightnings striated