Lamma's Night (anthology)

'Don't laugh at me!' He turned back to face her, his brows drawn together, eyes black under them. 'There are some here who'd show you a pretty face and hide a black heart behind it.'

'Ah. Whereas you—'

'I told you—!'

'Nothing!' Miranda shouted him down. 'And don't dare look at me so! Do you resent it so much that I rescued you from a trap that you couldn't break?'

'I—you needn't have bothered,' he snapped and spun away from her again. 'I would have found a way, eventually.' His voice was muffled and sounded sulky and furious both.

Miranda cast her eyes heavenward and bit back a sigh. Silence again. 'All right. You've certainly found a way to anger me, if that's what you wanted.'

'I never—'

'Be still, let me finish, so please you,' she broke in crisply. 'However, if you planned to make me angry enough that I'd storm out of this house and this village—or was that your uncle's plan?' She smiled grimly as he whirled around, mouth agape and eyes wide. 'I didn't hear all of the argument, Alfonso, just enough.'

'Ah—ah, hells.' His shoulders slumped. Miranda waited. 'You weren't part of anything I wanted,' he said finally. He glanced at her, quickly away again. 'Not last—last night, what you did. Certainly nothing he suggested just now. He's—Lady, he's no one to trust, he thinks in coils, always one plan behind the one engaged, and another behind that. You can't—you can't anticipate what he'll do, save that it will benefit old Gaetano, and that he won't care if it causes harm to anyone else.'

Miranda laughed, silencing him. 'You think I know nothing of men—and women— like that, after a year and more at court? Plots within plots, fair faces and black hearts. Only a babe would remain pure of thought after what I've seen of the Napoli noble houses! And only such a child would think such folk are born only to the noble and royal.'

'All the same, you trusted Uncle—'

'No, I accepted what he offered, nothing more. I haven't trusted anyone since—well, that's not your business. And I know to keep watch over my food and drink, and to check my spellbooks with care before using them.' He scowled, turned to slam one hand hard against the wall.

'And I don't—'

'Do not,' Miranda broke in flatly, 'presume to read your own meaning into my words, I won't stand for it.'

'Ah. I see.' His words sounded strangled, all at once. 'Well, then! Since I annoy you so, perhaps I had better begone!'

She swore under her breath and moved to block the doorway as he stalked toward it. 'Is it utterly necessary for you to create scenes? I don't take them well so early in the day, thank you!'

''Thank you,' he replied sourly, and gave her an overly broad bow.

'This is—or was—your home. You've every right to remain if you choose, but in any case, you won't leave until you've properly rested and regained your strength. I didn't endure Lammas Night simply to deliver a half-dead man to the night vapors, and I won't have another death linked to my soul, either.'

'You need not—what's that?' he demanded sharply, and turned away from her to catch at the window sill. Miranda shook her head, came up behind him. Noise in the yard—

'It's only the geese,' she began; she fell silent as he held up a warning hand. The birds were making that irritating, shrill honking noise that was geese at their worst, but beyond them she could now hear the clamor of voices.

'Look,' Alfonso said grimly, and leveled a hand at the road. 'My uncle hasn't waited for either of us to move. Don't say I didn't warn you!' Miranda caught her breath as men came into view: a crowd of angry-looking men bearing ancient pikes, staves and cudgels—and shouting them on, the village headman.

She couldn't think what to do, what to say—but the villagers gave them no opportunity: the hut was suddenly full of angry peasants who caught hold of the two mages, bound them tight, and dragged them back down the road to the village square.

There were women here—some of the elderly and a widow in crow's black. No children or maidens anywhere. Miranda's heart sank as the village men parted to reveal a huge stack of brush and lit torches. 'I told you!' The headman shoved his way through the angry guard; he stopped prudently short of Miranda, waved an arm to indicate her and her young male companion. 'I told you all she had begun to work against our village, did I not? That she was no common sorceress seeking a keeping, but a dread wizard, a noblewoman, daughter of the black island sorcerer Prospero! Even now our new king seeks her, for the foul murder of her husband!'

Someone in the crowd cried out; an elderly woman pushed her way into the open. 'Alfonso—!'

'That is not Alfonso!' the headman roared. 'That is what she wrought last night, when we all saw strange lights in that hut! Ask her! She will claim the man is indeed Alfonso, I have no doubts of that! But it is not true, my beloved nephew is dead two years.' He caught his breath on a sob, turned away to blot his eyes against his sleeve. But the triumphant glance he cast Alfonso was chill and tearless. 'I told you all how it came to pass, remember? A beauteous sprite upon the wind, we both saw it, but my poor half-tutored nephew was caught in the drawing spell and pulled over the cliff and into the river!' He sniffed, blotted his eyes again, cleared his throat. 'She was already fled from Milan—perhaps even then she plotted to take this village and yoke all of you—all of us!—to her will!'

'Ohhhh—nonsense!' An elderly woman's voice cut through the ensuing babble. 'This is no woman like any of us, Gaetano! The least girl-child in the village could see it, she could live rough if she must but she wasn't born to it! And the sorrow she bore—why, any woman could see that, too, and understand it—it spoke of loss nearly too great to carry.'

'You will be silent!' the headman howled; the old woman's cackling laugh silenced him instead.

'What will you do to me, Gaetano? I'm old! I've outlived my husband and all but one of my children; I've seen brothers and sisters die of fever or hunger or cold, I've lost grandchildren to dark things or privation. What can you