Demon Knight

remember they were playing with very powerful gramarye. She was convinced that the soul of the mortal Nevil, the real Nevil, had become immured in the yellow diamond that had formerly contained Rhym.'

Again Lisa took a drink. Yes, this had to be a joke, in very bad taste.

The condottiere refilled her beaker. 'So when Valda reappeared five years ago, she was prepared to redress that misfortune. She wanted to reincarnate your father's soul in a mortal body. She chose me.' He was not looking at her now. 'An honor I was more than glad to be spared. Things went wrong again. It's a complex story, my lady, but the short of it is that the soul of your real father is now immured in this gem.'

Lisa stared in growing horror at the shiny purple crystal. After what seemed a long time, she found her voice. 'You can prove that?'

The big man sighed. 'I'm very sure. A great tutelary confirmed that there is something in there, something not potent enough to be a demon.'

'You mean… my… my father is imprisoned… fifteen years? In there? Is he conscious? Aware? Does he know—'

'I don't know.' He shrugged his great shoulders. 'Nobody does. In a thousand years of tending mortals, Montserrat had met no precedent. If he can be restored, he may well come back as a raving maniac — and who supplies the living body? But this pebble contains the rightful King of England.' Before she could speak, he went on. 'There is more. Valda is dead. Hamish killed her.'

'Hamish? But she was a hexer, an adept… Baron Oreste—'

'And Hamish is Hamish. Get him to tell you that story, too. Yes, she was a hexer. Both she and your father knew Rhym's name, the conjuration that was supposed to control the demon.'

'It didn't cont—'

'That one time it didn't. Nevertheless, if properly invoked, it may still control Rhym. If your father can be restored to life, he may be able to snare the Fiend with a simple incantation, bottle Rhym up again, and so stop all Europe's suffering with a word of command. So before you accept this gem, you should be aware that the Fiend will stop at nothing to lay his—'

'Constable, no power in this world will persuade me to touch that amethyst!'

'Your father, my lady—'

'No! No! No! It is yours! Keep it.' She would not believe such a tale.

He sighed and nudged the stone back in its case with a meaty finger. 'Very well.'

'May we go now?' This had not been a very successful outing.

'Yes, if—' He frowned and looked around. 'Can you hear something?'

'Flies. Lambs bleating.'

He shook his head. 'Sounds like drumming.'

'The children?'

'Perhaps.' Longdirk was unconvinced — puzzled and uneasy, cocking his head as if listening to a distant beat.

Perhaps it was the wine—'Is it true that you are possessed by a demon?'

She flinched at the look in his eyes. It seemed he was not going to answer, but then he said, 'How can I be? If I were, I would already have raped you, mutilated you, and tortured you to death. That's what demons do to pretty little girls.'

PART TWO March

CHAPTER ONE

The condotta was signed where important civic ceremonies were always held — under the high, three-arched loggia adjoining the Piazza della Signoria. The crowds cheered lustily to hail their dashing new Castilian captain-general and his big deputy, who could undoubtedly defeat all the Fiend's horses and all the Fiend's men single-handed with a club. Their betters were of another mind, though.

The new slate of civic officials, especially the dieci della guerra, were steamingly furious, because the agreement had been finalized before they took office, cheating them of their just share of the graft. For this they blamed the barbarian giant, who had actually begun striking camp at Fiesole, preparing to move to Milan, and had thus forced messer Benozzo to ride out in haste and agree to initial the terms. Toby had been bluffing, of course, but the big mutt was a mile more devious than he looked and could outwit anyone anytime when he wanted to.

All the two-lire politicos and their wives were now snubbing him as obviously as possibly. If that made the ceremony unpleasant for Toby, it was pure torture for Hamish Campbell. A chancellor was supposed to steer his condottiere safely through the quicksands of Italian politics. That was his job, and to plead that the sands of Florence were quicker than others or that a non-Italian could not understand their constant shifting would be a confession of incompetence. If only someone knowledgeable had written a book on the subject! — someone like that slinky messer Machiavelli who advised the Magnificent, for instance.

However joyously the people of Florence hailed their new defender, the petty leaders were treating Toby more like a foreign conqueror than a guardian who had just sworn to defend them with his life. Most of the sumptuously garbed notables and their almost-as-sumptuously-garbed wives had just stalked by him with noses raised on their way to pay their respects to the captain-general himself before moving across to the Palace of the Signory for the banquet. The don was posturing in his silver helmet, flaunting his baton of office within a circle of fawning admirers. Apparently he had managed to overcome his dislike of taking orders from a rabble of moneylenders and haberdashers. The worst must be over, though. The slow grind of protocol was now about to bring forth the larger parasites.

'The people like you,' Hamish muttered.

'What people?' Toby looked down with a grin. Nobody human should be able to smile while being humiliated on this scale, but he was showing that he bore no grudge against Hamish for it, which was typical of him. 'If you mean the stolid citizenry of the republic, my lad, then they're still hard at work — weaving, dyeing, or fulling, whatever that is. No, don't bother to explain, I have an appointment later this afternoon. Those out there are the froth.'

True. The overdressed spectators in the square were all handpicked Marradi supporters, probably mostly officials of the minor guilds who had no effective influence over the heavyweights of the major guilds, which in turn could do nothing without the Magnificent's approval, but a chancellor was supposed to explain such things to his condottiere, not vice versa.

'Fulling or not, the populace approves of you.'

No condottiere in all Italy except Toby cared a fig for any populace. He sighed. 'I hope I prove worthy of their trust. Any word on the darughachi?'

'Nothing new. His Highness remains in Rome, officially conferring with the cardinals. Unofficially, he is reported to be bedding the entire female population between the ages of thirteen and eighty. He is expected to come north later in the spring, when he has finished.'

'It's still spring? Feels like high summer.' Toby's face was dewed with sweat under his bronze helmet, for he was in military garb. His doublet and breeches were so heavily padded with linen that they would stop a saber or even a pike. They were as elaborately trimmed as anything the landsknechte wore, extravagantly piped and slashed in cerise and vermilion and peacock blue. With a broadsword at his thigh, he looked even more huge and dangerous than usual, dominating the piazza. The notables of Florence might be snubbing him, but the eyes of their wives and daughters were nowhere else. When he was leaving camp this morning, even Lisa had admitted that he was Mars incarnate.

Which reminded Chancellor Campbell that he had squandered every lire due him for the next six months in