Demon Knight

and certain other parts of you as paperweights.'

'I have done nothing to provoke her enmity.'

'Obviously doing nothing was the trouble. Demons have no fury like a woman scorned, Constable.' The don's smirk implied that he had not made the same mistake and his information had been collected firsthand, which was certainly possible.

Hamish was scrabbling in his papers. 'A note arrived from Il Volpe this morning, Captain-General. He apologizes for the misunderstanding. The meeting may proceed at Cafaggiolo as planned.'

All very fine, but a private apology would not begin to undo the damage of that very public snub.

'Typical republican stupidity!' said the don. 'Never apologize, under any circumstances.'

Hamish had not finished. 'There is also a note from podesta Origo. He says that the prince has absolutely forbidden any meetings until he arrives in Florence. He does not say when that will be.'

'Sometimes republicans don't seem so bad,' Toby remarked glumly. 'Does the idiot think the war will wait on his pleasure?'

After a tense silence, the don said, 'Who was coming?'

Toby had been trying to keep the don and the proposed meeting well apart, but he could not refuse his nominal superior information when he asked for it, especially after the brilliant save the man had improvised in the loggia yesterday. He passed the question to Hamish.

'There was a letter in last night from Rome. The College will send Captain-General Villari. That's everyone we invited! Ercole Abonio from Milan — and he's bringing di Gramasci of the Black Lances. The Stiletto from Venice. Mezzo will come if his health improves; otherwise he'll send Gioberti or Desjardins.'

The don raised aristocratic eyebrows. 'Mezzo?'

'Paride Mezzo, collaterale of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.' No one but Hamish ever bothered to use that formal name for Naples. He just liked the sound of it. 'We were about to invite the small guns: Verona, Bologna, Genoa—'

'Bah! They don't matter. They do what Milan and Venice and Florence tell them, and those three have no choice but to cooperate.'

'They have some very competent soldiers,' Toby protested.

'We do not need advice.' From the don, that we was a remarkable concession, unless he had just taken to classifying himself as royalty. 'The keys are Naples and Rome — Naples because it has the men, and Rome because it has the hierocracy for hexers. It also has to let the Neapolitans march through. Get those two into the coalition, and we may have a chance. At least we'll bloody the foe. The Swiss?'

'We can try. They're as biddable as cats.'

'I assume that the real purpose of the orgy was to get you elected comandante?'

'Would be nice,' Toby admitted. 'But I do want to discuss strategy. We need to plan how to resist the invasion. We can't know where until we know which way Nevil's coming.'

'Make up your mind, Constable. If you want to be elected jefe, then you bring in every little town that can field a pikeman. They'll all vote for you because Florence is less of a threat than any of the other four, but they'll never agree on anything else. If you need to decide whose crops are going to get burned, then you leave them out, all of them.' Whatever illusions Don Ramon pursued, he was never stupid. He had a much better grasp of politics than he normally cared to admit.

'Another thing we must talk about is gramarye,' Toby said. 'We don't have a single hexer, and I've heard that the College is being absurdly uncooperative. If all the senior condottieri unite to appeal to Rome, then perhaps the hierocracy will bend a little.'

'What need have you of hexers if you have one good shaman?'

Toby had registered Hamish's slack-jawed astonishment a split second before that new voice at his back spun him around.

A bizarre figure came limping across the courtyard toward them. It was short and completely enveloped in a floating costume of many colors and many parts — panels and swatches in green and brown and gray, bedecked with ribbons and lace, beads and embroidery, bunches of feathers and wisps of grass, a design that was either completely random or fraught with great meaning. Some parts of it looked new, others were grubby and worn by many years of use. The dainty, pointed chin suggested a woman, but she might be a young girl, or even a boy. Her hair and the upper part of her face were hidden by a blindfold and an elaborate headdress. Around her neck hung a drum as large as a meal sieve, which she steadied against her hip with one small brown hand.

Obviously she had just come out of the villa, but how had she passed the guards in there? How had she even entered the camp unchallenged? The hob was not reacting as it did to gramarye. Was this one of the camp brats playing a joke?

To his credit, the don remained on his stool. A slight narrowing of his eyes was the only sign of tension as he crossed his legs and leaned back to rest his elbows on the table. 'And who might you be?'

She smiled, revealing a perfect set of sparkling white teeth. 'Are you not in need of a hexer?' Her voice had a singsong accent and a curious huskiness. 'And are you not all faithful children of His Splendor the Khan, who has sent his son to direct you? Who doubts that the illustrious prince has sent his personal shaman to be your guide and protector against the demons of the foe?'

Toby did, but he bowed. Hamish just glowered.

The don frowned. 'A battlefield is not a fit place for a woman!'

'Who is it a fit place for?'

For a moment he bristled at such heresy, then twirled up his mustache, which was usually a sign of amusement. He rose gracefully and bowed. 'Don Ramon de Nunez y Pardo at your service, madonna.'

'And I am Toby Longdirk.'

'Who does not know you? Am I not Sorghaghtani? And is not Chabi my eyes, who found you?' The shaman raised an arm, and the great white owl floated down to settle on it, then shuffled sideways until it stood on her shoulder. The shaman was not just a boy playing pranks.

The don had not been aware of the owl.

Hamish said, 'How do we know that you are sent by the prince and not the Fiend?'

'Are you not still breathing?' Chuckling, Sorghaghtani perched on a stool and arranged her drum on her lap. She ran fingertips over the skin, raising barely audible tremors like distant gunfire. Her hands and the visible part of her face had a brownish olive cast that was not European. Inside those extraordinary hodgepodge draperies she might be young or old, but there could not be very much of her. She was brazenly sure of herself and her owl — nothing else was provable at the moment. 'Is your imp distressed by my presence, Little One?'

Toby assumed she was speaking to him, as the owl was staring in his direction. 'No. Do you keep a spirit immured in your pet?'

'Who is the pet and who the keeper? Is it wise of you to arrange your council and not include the illustrious Neguder?'

'I have never heard of anyone called Neguder.' Toby was starting to believe he was holding this conversation with the bird and not the woman. She was inhumanly motionless, except for the resonant tremor of her fingers on the drum and the movement of her lips as she spoke.

'Who else would be military advisor to the splendid prince?'

'Is he competent?' barked the don.

The owl turned its head in his direction. 'Competent?' the shaman shrilled. 'Who asks if a Tartar general is competent?'

'I do. Is he?'

'How could he be, when all preferment in the army is based on birth, when the Horde has not fought a war in two centuries, when all the skills of the steppes are forgotten and the swords rusted? Who would trust a man who drinks himself to stupidity every night?'

The don looked ready to eat his mustache. 'Then why should I invite him to anything?'

'Will you defy the express command of illustrious Prince Sartaq, noble son of Ozberg Khan, your exalted liege lord?'