Demon Knight

earned a hero's fame in the Battle of Toledo. Diaz was an experienced trainer of infantry. Although Fischart, formerly Baron Oreste, had a gruesome reputation, he was a hexer of international renown, and any fighting man wanted a good hexer at his back. Villars, an obvious scoundrel, was throwing out handfuls of Josep Brusi's gold, smooth and yellow as butter.

By spring, when the fighting began, the men of the Don Ramon Company had discovered that the methodical Diaz lacked flair and the don had so much that he qualified as a maniac. They were taking their orders from a Scottish yokel who had no qualifications whatsoever — except, as it turned out, a ruthless ability to bring the enemy to battle on the wrong ground and beat him.

'You sigh?' asked a soft voice. The intruder in the doorway was a haggard scarecrow of a man in the black robe of a penitent, Karl Fischart, formerly Baron Oreste. He would not have interrupted without good cause, and good cause must be bad news.

'I was thinking that Florence is the fairest city in all Europe and I am a fool. Look at it! Isn't it glorious? Last night I promised to defend it. If I fail, it will be all gone before winter. Am I completely insane?'

'No, because to die fighting the Fiend is our only hope that some spirit will take pity on our souls. Any other death is ignoble. Faced with paramount evil, the only virtuous course is to die opposing it. We ourselves are so steeped in evil that to survive is evidence of insufficient dedication to the struggle.'

So much for rhetorical questions. Toby had no doubts at all about his own sanity and felt no repentance for the deaths he had caused in his military career. Regret yes, but they had been necessary. Fischart was living with memories of the horrors he had committed when he was Nevil's premier hexer. No matter how he went barefoot, ate almost nothing, and mortified his flesh in ingenious ways, nothing would ever console him. Although his face was still round, the flesh on it had melted into bags and dewlaps. Stooped and white-bearded, he seemed to have aged a generation since the day he and Toby had come face-to-face in Barcelona and ended their long feud within the hour. The only evidence remaining of his former evil glory was the collection of jeweled rings on his fingers — plus his tedious habit of wailing his remorse to anyone who would listen.

'What's the bad news today?' Toby splashed water on his face. 'Use short words and remember I'm stupid.'

'I know you pretend to be. I was deceived once and have been paying for that error ever since and will pay until my death.'

'The news?'

'We have been robbed. Gold is missing from the strongbox.'

After a moment Toby realized he was staring like a gargoyle, mouth open. 'Explain that! You were supposed to have hexed it.'

'I am the premier suspect!' The old man wrung his hands in agony. 'To fail in so simple a task is evidence that I have betrayed you all.'

'Did you take the money?'

'Of course not! You think I would add to my sins by—'

'Then don't rant and wail, be helpful! We're cleaned out?' How much? Two days ago Arnaud had reported two thousand, five hundred, seventy-two florins in hand. Less fifty-seven for flour and eight-three for fodder — Toby rattled beads on his mental abacus. 'There should have been twenty-two hundred and thirty or so florins there!' That was desperation money to keep the Company fed. Condotta or not, the dieci della guerra might still take weeks to deliver any cash, and it would not be inclined to move faster if the Don Ramon Company sank into debt to the Marradi Bank. Abandoning thoughts of washing, he threw open the hamper and rummaged in it for clothes.

'No, no! You don't understand! Villars insists only one bag is missing, a bag of green leather, one hundred florins. The rest has not been touched, and a purse of the don's is still there, too.'

'That's absurd! Who can open the chest, apart from you and Arnaud?'

Fischart's hand rubbing grew more agitated. 'Captain Diaz, Don Ramon, Brother Bartolo, messer Campbell. No one else can even get near it without setting off alarms and being trapped in the adytum. No one except a very skilled hexer.'

Toby himself had never even seen the demon-guarded coffer because he never went to the adytum. 'Can't you tell?' he asked, balancing on one leg as he pulled hose onto the other. 'Don't you know if someone else has used gramarye on it?'

'There are shadows, only shadows. If it was a hexer, he is an incredible adept, better than I.'

'Is anyone better than you?'

'No,' Fischart admitted glumly.

'What else can it be except a hexer?'

'Nothing.'

Morbid and tortured though he was, the old man still had one of the brightest minds in Europe, and it took Toby a moment to catch up with the misery in his crazed eyes.

'Then you will have to test everyone you just named.'

The hexer looked ready to weep. 'I have. Everyone except the don and Campbell, who isn't back yet but wasn't here when the money was taken. I can find no trace of hexing on them. If one of them took the money, then he was acting voluntarily. He would still have had to use gramarye, of course, but he cannot be under a compulsion.'

Needing more time to think, Toby opened the window and tipped out his wash water. Was it possible that the Fiend had managed to hex Fischart himself to spin this tale? No one could be trusted absolutely in this war; but if the baron had been turned, then Toby ought to be helpless already, if not dead. The gold problem made no sense at all. If Arnaud said there had been a theft, there had been a theft. He did not make mistakes. That the Fiend had spies or even potential assassins within the Company went without saying, but why steal one bag of coins and leave the rest? Why should a skilled hexer draw attention to his presence like that? Or possibly her presence, he remembered.

'Probably the don took it to spend on some woman. And test him for hexing. I suggest you don't let him know you're doing so.' If that failed, then the puzzle would have to wait until Hamish came back. He was the one with brains. 'Perhaps you'd better test me as well.'

'I can't. I would just find the hob.'

Toby grunted. As far as he knew, being possessed saved him from being hexed, which was like not catching measles because one already had tertian fever. 'So we have a traitor in camp, who may or may not be one of the people we've been discussing. That really is not surprising, is it? See if you can tighten your wards on the money, and also would you clear Don Ramon's head so he can negotiate the terms of the condotta today? There's no time to waste.'

For a moment a flash of the old arrogance darkened the adept's face, then he rearranged it like putty into its customary pout. 'Even demons draw the line somewhere, but if it will contribute in any way to the overthrow of the Fiend, then of course no task is too humble for me.'

'Thank you.' Toby pushed his feet into his buskins. He stared at his party clothes on the floor, all rumpled and in need of a wash, and he decided to worry about the fate of Italy first. 'The condotta has been agreed in principle, so I have a million letters to send.' He crouched to see his face in the broken mirror, cursing the great mop of hair he had to comb now. 'There was a rumor going around last night that the Khan has sent a darughachi. He's said to be in Naples, expected to head north shortly.'

The hexer drew in his breath with a hiss. 'I suppose fourteen years too late is better than never.'

Not necessarily. An emissary with plenipotentiary powers might appoint a suzerain or take overall command himself. Either way, he would certainly ruin all of Toby's carefully laid plans.

'It may be all hogswiggle, because the Magnificent never mentioned it.' He would certainly have been one of the first to learn of any emissary, and why would he not confide in his captain-general?

CHAPTER ELEVEN