Then Ercole was within reach and could grab Toby in a ferocious bear hug, roaring out his delight at their meeting. Toby gave as good as he got; they exchanged massive shoulder thumps as they parted. He turned to offer a more restrained greeting to Alfredo, who was already shaking hands with Hamish. They were cast from the same mold, those two — slim, dark, and quick of eye — and not far apart in age, either. Alfredo had been the unquestioned rising star of the younger condottieri until Toby had come on the scene. On paper he was still ahead, for he was captain-general of a richer, greater city than Florence, but he was ambitious and would not be satisfied to fight for others all his life. His brilliance at maneuvering around his opponents to turn up on their flanks or in their rear had earned him the name of Stiletto. He was reputed to have similar skill at politics, which many soldiers of fortune did not. Present company included!
Then the formalities were over, all the underlings acknowledged—
'I had not anticipated quite so many fellow guests,' Ercole remarked. His expression was superbly innocent, but his eyes were twinkling.
'I did not plan this,' Toby protested — for the first time, but knowing it would not be the last. 'I don't know where they all came from.' The entrance to the villa was now plugged solid by this meeting of the three warriors, their followers having packed in close around them to hear the exchange. Onlookers were openly eavesdropping on the outskirts.
'You should have learned by now, Sir Tobias,' Alfredo said, 'how rare a thing in Italy is a secret meeting.' The glint in his dark eyes spelled satisfaction. He would not be human if he did not resent this brash foreigner who had upstaged him at Trent and was now looking very foolish.
'I should have known.' Toby sighed. 'Especially I should have known if you did, for you have only to deal with Venetian politics, whereas I am faced with the Florentine variety, which are so much more… er, how do you say 'Byzantine' in Italian?'
Ercole and his Milanese were not afraid to join in the laughter, but the Venetians at Alfredo's back remained carefully wooden-faced, recognizing that the joke was really directed at the Most Serene Republic and frightened they might be thought to be enjoying it. Venice was notoriously more Byzantine than Byzantium had ever been. Soldiers of fortune might be allies this year and next year enemies, but as professionals they bore no grudges. They all shared a healthy contempt for civilian rulers, whether they be the merchants of Venice and Florence, the aristocrats in Milan and Naples, or the acolytes of Rome. They would bleed or even die for those men's gold if they had to, but only courage and fighting skill would buy their admiration.
'Possibly in the next day or two we can arrange a private chat apart from the main meetings,' Toby suggested.
'If a secret meeting is rare, one from which politicians are excluded is like the phoenix.' Stiletto's eyes conveyed warning. Venice was always suspicious of its condottieri and had been known to chop off their heads. So, of course, had Florence. If those limp-eyed flunkies behind him had been sent along to keep an eye on him, who was keeping an eye on Toby?
'My dear brother is around here somewhere,' Ercole remarked, including himself in this unstated brotherhood of the sword against the poison pen. 'But I am more worried by the real foe. How many spies do you suppose the Fiend has sown in this conference?'
The three men exchanged grimaces as if they had all heard footsteps walking on their tombs. Alfredo smiled thinly. 'Perhaps that's where everybody came from, messer Longdirk?'
CHAPTER TWO
Fiesole was a dull, dull place without Hamish. Lisa had her lady's maid for company — Beritola knew some wonderfully scandalous stories but not much else — and Sister Bona could be entertaining when she was not occupied being dam to her litter of children. All the other women had duties and interests that left them no time for frivolities such as conversation. There were men, some of them mildly amusing at times, but men just reminded her of Hamish and increased her misery. And of course there was Mother, who was admittedly much more endurable than she had been a few weeks ago. She had mellowed so much that she sometimes laughed now and would talk of her childhood and marriage — astonishing!
But the villa was dull. Life itself was dull without Hamish. Every moment they shared was as precious as rubies because they both knew their idyll could not last. The war would come; Maud would drag Lisa off to some safe refuge. Hamish refused to commit himself on what he would do then, but what could life hold for them but more agony? Their love was doomed. She had offered many times to renounce her royal heritage and marry him, and he would not hear of it. Men were stupid!
As she trotted her horse back to the villa on the second day of Hamish's absence, with her escort following, she was disturbed to see a large and impressive carriage standing at the door. Real glass in the windows, gilded moldings and bright enamels — a very splendid vehicle indeed, and the eight matched grays in the traces must be worth a king's ransom. Half a dozen saddle horses were being held by two men in blue-and-yellow livery. She ought to know that livery. Hamish had pointed it out to her in the city. Who had come calling with an escort of six men- at-arms?
A crowd had gathered at a respectful distance to stare — soldiers, women, children. With so many of the senior men in the Company currently absent, she did not doubt for a moment that this ominous intrusion concerned her. A strange knot was tightening in her insides, palms damp, heart pounding. Hamish! She needed Hamish, but he was leagues away at that fatuous conclave he admitted wasn't going to achieve anything. Even Longdirk, she decided. She would not mind at all seeing that overgrown lout planted near the coach, because he always got his own way, and so far he had provided her with admirable protection and hospitality, even if he was a merciless butcher and his manners would shock a rookery.
Her approach had been noted. Down the steps came Mother and several other people — saturnine Marshall Diaz, madonna Anna, and three others not recognizable. Behind them strode the six guards, glittering bright and dangerous.
She could not avoid the encounter. When faced with the inevitable, pretend it's what you want. That was what Hamish said when she warned him she was going to have to kiss him again. Or he would insist that no true lady would kiss a man of her own volition, and he would not allow it. In either case he would then crush her in his arms and preempt her kiss with one of his own, long and lingering and passionate. How dare he be missing when she needed him!
She reined in behind the coach and jumped down from the saddle before there could be any nonsense about bringing stepladders. She shook her skirts out, straightened her bonnet, and walked around the vehicle to face the group now waiting for her. One look at Mother's face was enough to confirm her worst fears.
Maud held out a hand to her. Lisa moved quickly to take it before anyone else could notice how it was shaking.
'We have company?'
'Elizabeth…' Her mother's voice was a croak. Her eyes were as round as a trout's. 'We are honored by a visit from Her Grace, the dowager Duchess of Ferrara…'
Lisa had never met a duchess before and to be greeted by this first one with a full court curtsey, skirts right down in the mud, was shocking. Ferrara? Hamish had mentioned that name. She was petite, face rather childish, hair bright red but apparently natural, magnificently arrayed in a gown of deep blue satin with a daring decolletage and padded epaulettes. Its slashed sleeves displayed golden lining, and at least a hundred pearls adorned it. There were another fifty on her
'Please do rise, Your Grace.'
Who had betrayed them?
'And, er, His Magnificence, um, messer Marradi, her brother,' Maud said.
Ugh! Lisa felt as if she had just fallen off a horse. Backward. Now she realized. This insignificant middle-aged man in drab brown doublet
