Demon Knight

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She was very little wiser an hour or so later, when he led the way into a farmyard, setting dogs to barking and geese into paroxysms of hissing. She had confirmed that she neither liked the big man nor trusted him and found his reputation for ruthlessness entirely credible. Without a word of explanation, he jumped down from his horse.

'What?' she said, looking around in alarm at the low-roofed buildings, half-buried in vegetation like lurking bears.

'Friends of mine. They make some of the finest wine in all Italy.' Two ragged-looking urchins came shrieking out from behind a barn, and chickens flapped away in the opposite direction.

Alarmed, she said, 'But I do not wish—' and no more, for Longdirk lifted her off the saddle as if she were a child and set her down. Who did he think he was? Or she was?

The boys jumped at him and hugged him in volleys of Italian. He picked them up by their smocks, one in each hand, and swung them high in the air, their howls of glee totally drowning out his efforts to address them. An obese and ancient peasant woman waddled out of the main hovel, wiping hands on apron, jabbering even faster than the children, and smiling to reveal a very sparse set of teeth. She was motherly enough to calm Lisa's worst fears, but not perceptibly the sort of person she cared to befriend. Longdirk set the boys down and introduced Lisa in his limping Italian to madonna Something.

'Do tell her,' Lisa said, 'how delighted I am to have met her and how much I regret that we cannot stay.' The children had noticed Lisa and were gaping openmouthed at her.

Predictably, Longdirk ignored her wishes and led her into the old woman's lair, with the crone following them, nodding and leering. Lisa found herself expected to sit on a tottery stool at a rough plank table with him beside her. Admittedly the deeply shadowed kitchen was cozy after the wind, nor could she could deny that the smell of baking bread made her mouth water, but there was a baby screaming somewhere nearby and she had no desire to indulge in the wine set before her in a cracked pottery beaker or the curious scraps of food Old Mother What's-her-name began piling on a platter between her and Longdirk — cheese and pastries and dried fruits. The children started stalking these with nefarious intent, ignoring their grandmother's efforts to chase them away.

Nevertheless, Lisa's self-appointed escort was waiting for her to proceed. She took a sip of wine. 'Is this what you meant when you said you had something to show me?'

'Partly. Do try some of these treats. The white cheese is good. May I tell monna Agnolella that you like her wine?'

'Tell her anything you want.'

'I'll tell her you can't help your manners, then.'

'My manners?' Angrily Lisa turned to the crone and went through a dumb show with the wine — smile, nod, smack lips. 'Does that satisfy you, Sir Toby? I do hope you're going to eat the food. I can't possibly.' She would have to make an effort, though. Perhaps she could slip some to the boys or the smelly dogs around her feet. Why had this annoying man brought her here? Slumming! It would have been fun with Hamish, but Longdirk did not know what the word fun meant. He never smiled.

In response to another of his labored speeches, the old woman bared her gums in a leer even more gruesome than its predecessors, then disappeared into the depths of the house, shooing her wayward brood before her so the visitors could be alone. Mercifully, the baby's yelling stopped.

The pastries were, in fact, delicious. Lisa graciously took a second. 'So what exactly am I supposed to be looking at, Constable?'

'Just looking.' Longdirk had his back to the solitary window, putting his face in shadow. 'I come here quite often. It's a good place to meet people without being disturbed. Or seen. I pay her a few lire for the privilege. Luigi died at Trent, so times are hard for her yet. How old is your mother?'

'I don't see what business that is… If you'd listened to Baron Oreste's story, you would know that. She'll be thirty-three next birthday.'

'I did listen. Monna Agnolella is the same age.'

'Nonsense! You're serious? You mean that baby I heard…'

'All of them. Twelve sons. Two of them serve in the Company, following in their father's footsteps. One of them's almost as big as me. Agnolella runs the place with the other ten. Nine, I suppose. The baby won't be much help yet.'

Lisa took a drink of wine to mask her dismay, but he had seen it and must be secretly laughing at her reaction.

'Looks about seventy, doesn't she?'

'What have her troubles to do with me, sir? Why drag me here just to gloat over a… a… When did she start — eight?'

'Let's see. Niccolo is nineteen — she probably married at thirteen. That's normal. A dozen babies in nineteen years is not unusual, but twelve living is. In a sense she's lucky Luigi died, or she'd have gone on bearing children until one killed her. As to what it means to you…' He folded his enormous hands on the table and stared at them. 'My lady, I admit that falling into the Fiend's clutches is a very real danger to you and absolutely the worst thing that could happen. But there are other bad things in life that you don't know much about, and one of them is poverty.'

'It is most kind of you to take such an interest in my education, Constable, but I do not see why it need concern you.'

'Because Hamish is my friend.'

'I understand he is of age. He is certainly articulate.'

The big man sighed and began to pop morsels of food in his mouth, continuing to speak as he chewed. 'He is also very impressionable where… women are concerned. Honorable within… limits, but very few men are… capable of celibacy for long, no matter how solemn their intentions—'

'You speak from experience, I presume?'

He nodded with his mouth full. 'Mm.' Swallow. 'Get Hamish to tell you about his family.'

'He already has.' Not deliberately, but in passing Hamish had mentioned ghastly things like sleeping six to a room and not having shoes when there was snow on the ground, but he had not seemed to think any of them remarkable. 'I still do not see why this concerns you.'

'His father was… the schoolmaster and… rich by local standards.' Longdirk had eaten just about everything the old woman had put out. He washed it down with a gulp of wine and reached for the bottle to refill his beaker. 'What I'm saying, ma'am, is that any future with you and Hamish in it can only bring misery to both of you. Think on it. You are not stupid, only naive.'

'You cannot imagine how relieved I am to hear that.'

'Let's find something you will listen to, then.' He dropped a small leather packet on the table and fumbled with the catch. 'I have a trifle here that is rightfully yours.'

'I don't recall losing anything. How long have you had it?'

He glanced up. His eyes glinted very brightly, although his expression was indeterminable against the light. 'Six years? More than five.' He tipped a shiny pebble out onto the table. 'This is an amethyst.'

'I've never seen—'

'I know. Just listen for once, will you? As a gem it's worth nothing, pennies at most, but it has other values. The first, to me, is that it was a parting gift from my foster mother, the woman who raised me.'

'Your… But I couldn't possibly…' Was he playing some sort of elaborate joke? 'I mean—'

'Listen! She was the village witchwife and more than a little crazy. She and the hob both. But that isn't what makes this stone special, my lady. The baron didn't tell you everything that happened on the Night of the Masked Ball. You and your mother escaped, but so did Valda, your, er, the king's…'

'My father's mistress.'

'Accomplice. And Nevil — or the demon Rhym, I should say — hunted her for years and had his minions hunting for her. He put a huge price on her head. That's important, because it's the only confirmation we have of what Valda told me when… Yes, me. She turned up years later in Scotland. Where she'd been we don't know, but somehow she'd acquired more demons to replace those she'd lost, and she was looking for a good…' He paused as if he had reached a difficult part of his story and tried another tack. 'Valda believed that when Rhym possessed your father, your father's soul was displaced in the confusion. That doesn't normally happen in a possession, but