Demon Knight

he had learned from the saints at Montserrat as the only way to suppress the hob, but he had shown much of it as a child back in the glen. It was absolutely typical of him that now, seeing the Company crippled, his creation perhaps fatally weakened, and all his plans thrown in jeopardy, he said only that one soft word.

Then, 'Any doubts? Any hope?'

Hamish shook his head, shivering as he remembered the blackened flesh burning like wax in the gutter. 'None. It was treachery.'

'What sort of treachery?' Longdirk's voice remained gentle, but there was menace in it.

'The gold thief. I'm sorry, Toby! You asked me, and I was too stupid… I should have seen this sooner. The gold was a red herring to distract us. Whoever he was, the intruder was in the adytum to tamper with Fischart's demons — one of them, some of them, I don't know. Not all of them, but when he invoked one in Siena to open a door, it destroyed him.' It had not been a booby trap at all. If the door had been booby-trapped, then the countess would have been booby-trapped also, and Hamish would have suffered the same fate as the hexer. Fischart had seen the shadow of his assassin across his path, but the shadow had been there to doctor his demons. 'And before that a man stabbed him with a sword. That doesn't happen to hexers… I should have guessed!'

'So should Oreste himself.' Sigh. 'He was a cantankerous, hagridden old blackguard at times, but you could never doubt his loyalty or his hatred of the Fiend. It wasn't your fault, and I'm very happy you made it back safely. Tell me all about it later.' He glanced around at the countess, then inquiringly at Hamish, who shook his head.

'She didn't see.'

'Good. Don't breathe a word to anyone else.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Yet Hamish was surprised. It might be days or weeks before the camp realized that the hexer was missing, and thus the condotta might yet be signed before the Florentines learned that the Company had lost one of its major assets, the finest hexer in Europe, but that seemed very close to cheating — closer than he would have expected Toby to stray.

'Especially not the don.'

'Of course.' Hamish would prefer not to be around if, or when, the haughty, hair-trigger caballero heard the news from somebody else.

'And talking of El Cid,' Toby said, 'he's nastily close to his flash point. I know you've had a tough night, laddie, but can you back him up at the talks this morning?'

If he could sleep for a week first. 'I can try.' It would be a distraction to take his mind off the horrors. It was also a devil of an imposition on top of a night without sleep, so it was both flattering and inspiring to be thought capable — typical Longdirk. He could always wring more out of a man than there was in there to start with.

Toby smiled faintly, as if guessing his thoughts. 'Just stun him if he starts killing people. And—'

Lisa interrupted, grabbing his arm to turn him around.'…great condottiere, Constable Sir Tobias Longdirk, the hero of the battle of Trent, the toast of Europe! Constable, my mother, Countess Maud.'

Toby bowed over the lady's hand. 'Your servant, ma'am.'

'I cannot begin to express my gratitude, Constable.'

'I am deeply honored to have been of assistance, my lady.'

Bleary-eyed and thickheaded with fatigue, Hamish waited to be brought into the conversation, but that didn't happen. In a few moments Toby offered his arm to conduct the lady in the direction of the villa, so that she might be tended and restored by Sister Bona. Hamish followed, and it was only then that he realized that affairs were being stage-managed by Lady Lisa. She moved in close, linking arms. She beamed at him. In the unreal light of dawn, her eyes shone brighter than Lucifer, the morning star.

'I think you're wonderful!' she said. 'You're so brave, so clever! You're marvelous! I've never met a man like you.'

Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no, no!

'Lisa!' he croaked — wanting to shout, but whispering in case her mother would overhear. Or Toby. 'Lisa, I told you! You mustn't fall in love with me!'

She gave him a look to melt his bones. 'Your warning came too late. I already did.'

After a moment, she added, 'Don't you love me?' menacingly.

He had been a fool to say that word to her. Her challenge hid a desperate appeal for reassurance, and the comical bantam belligerence was a mask for terror. Hers was much more than the uncertainty of a first romance, the insecurity of a child plunging into the world of adulthood, for she was in genuine danger — awful danger — and the destiny that had been revealed to her so abruptly last night would terrify anyone. She needed a champion, a paladin, a hero. She had elected him. She had no one else to turn to if he refused her.

'Lisa, I have never met a woman to compare with you. I would die for you.' He saw relief slacken the tensed muscles around her eyes, a hint of satisfaction curl the corners of those breathtaking lips.

'That will not be necessary,' she said. 'Will you live for me?'

'Till the day I die.'

She let the smile blossom. 'Say it, then.'

Demons! 'I love you, Lisa. I love you with all my heart and all my soul, and for all my days to come. I have loved you since the moment I first saw you. I will do anything for you, anything you ask or want, anything at all. I am yours, always. Body and soul, for ever and ever.'

She sighed and walked on without speaking, hugging his elbow hard and staring straight ahead.

He'd really done it now.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

'That's your third yawn in the last furlong,' Don Ramon said icily. 'How many bawds took your money last night?'

Whether he enjoyed a challenge or just liked to show off his equestrian skills, Don Ramon had collected a herd of the most vicious horses ever to eat the grass of Italy, and that day he was mounted on the worst of them, a monstrous eighteen-hand stallion named Brutus, which his squires were convinced was possessed — they were always threatening to put a blade through its heart. It would kick or bite anything that came within range, so Hamish was having great trouble keeping his dowdy, unassertive palfrey within reasonable distance.

'You wrong me, senor! I spent the hours of darkness doing good works among the deserving poor.'

The horns of the copper mustache writhed in contempt. 'Spare me your jackdaw Castilian. Your Italian cannot be any worse.' His own would never be described as fluent, but that was a problem for other people. 'And see you stay alert during the negotiations. How many deserving poor?'

'Four, signore.'

'You're lying!'

'All four are less poor, but two remain deserving.'

'I may decide to believe that,' the knight conceded.

They continued their canter down the hill to Florence. Hamish was dressed as a humble clerk, being careful not to upstage the most successful condottiere in Italy, although that would have been difficult, for his companion was garbed in quasi-royal splendor — silk and sable and cloth of gold. Erratic and capricious in every way, he was especially unpredictable toward Hamish. Usually he considered him as being beneath contempt, like the vast majority of the human race, but he had noted his talents with a rapier and taken infinite pains to teach him the finer points of fencing, he himself being a master trained by de la Naza. Although their backgrounds were vastly different — son of a wilderness schoolmaster and scion of one of the oldest noble houses in Europe — they differed by less than a year in age, and their adulthood had been spent campaigning together. After the sack of Ostra, Don Ramon had presented Hamish with a bagful of priceless medieval manuscripts. Once he had led him off on a wild all-night campaign of drinking and wenching in the slums of Milan and been still in full rampage when Hamish had passed out under the table — or had it been a bed? Twice he would have put him to death had Toby not intervened. Precedents were never reliable where the don was concerned.

'I am minded, Chancellor, to give these motheaten quill-scratchers a lesson in manners. I may even choose to overstate my case a trifle, for the sake of effect. If I decide to do so and you think it would be advantageous to