Demon Knight

'Your Majesties, my house continues to be honored by your presence. I trust that your comfort lacks nothing?'

Insignificant, unimpressive, he was yet a dangerously clever, foxy man. Lisa did not trust him even as far as she trusted Longdirk, which was no distance, but she had to admit that Marradi was charming, with manners sweet as honey. And Lucrezia was enemy enough for now.

'I feel I have been invited to stay in Olympus, Your Magnificence! Everyone has been most kind.' Lisa heard her mother babble something similar.

He frowned and turned to his sister. 'Is madonna Elizabeth dressed as becomes her rank? Could you not have—'

'We tried!' Lucrezia said. 'She chose the style and fabric herself. Her coiffure, also. I offered to lend her pearls and jewels. She prefers to dress like this.' Like a clerk's daughter, said the smile.

Her brother shrugged. 'Then we honor your decision, monna. In truth, the lily needs no gilding.'

That was very annoying of him, because Lisa had been trying to establish some independence by insisting on the simplest possible dress. Now he had turned her defiance into a virtue. Before she could comment, the door opened again. She braced herself for new battles.

Two men. The young one with the slanty eyes, squidgy nose, and stringy mustache must be the prince. Any son of the Khan took precedence over her and would do so even if she had been crowned queen in the sanctuary at Westminster. She sank into a full curtsey.

'Elizabeth! By the spirits, rise, rise!' Sartaq stretched out both hands to her. 'Messer Marradi was raving so about your beauty that my thought was he was exaggerating. Reticent he was.'

She rose and returned his smile as well as she could. 'Your Highness is most gracious.' Not exactly. He was shorter than she was. He had bad teeth and those slit eyes — even Longdirk's battlement features were better- looking. She also knew he already had two wives, and if he decided to add her to his collection, then no one in all Europe could stop him. Smile!

She expected him to release her and turn to receive Mother, who was waiting to be told to rise — it was a grim sign that she now ranked behind her own daughter. But the prince let go only Lisa's left hand and turned the other way, to the third man.

The third man was the ancient Chevalier D'Anjou, and suddenly she knew he was the new comandante. Hamish never had a good word to say about him. His nose had been shattered so often that he had almost no nose left. He stood as if his back hurt and held his head cocked sideways as he leered at her with a mouth that had lost most of its teeth. He had a grizzled beard, damp near his mouth. He made even Sartaq seem handsome.

The prince laughed. 'Duchessa? Advise me. Your western etiquette for me makes a puzzle. Do I present the Queen of England to the King of France or the other way?'

CHAPTER SIX

Toby had gone to bed just after the sun did, expecting to sleep well for a change — he had done his best, and events were out of his hands now. When he realized he was awake the angle of moonbeams from the window told him it was not yet midnight. For a while he lay and cursed, certain he would not go back to sleep. He began to worry about Sorghaghtani. She had not been in the adytum, and no one could recall seeing her for two or three days. Unlike Sartaq, she was a problem he could do something about. He sat up and reached for his shirt.

'Where are you going?' Hamish was lying on his back with his arms under his head, alert and brooding.

'For a walk.'

'Why don't you sleep? You've been yawning for weeks.'

'I'm not very good at giving up.'

'You've never tried. It's time you learned how.'

Toby stuffed his feet in his hose and rose to pull them on, crouching to avoid banging his head on the rafters. 'I'll try. Go to sleep.'

Hamish sighed and closed his eyes and said nothing more.

The hob raised no hackles when he approached the adytum. He tapped and tried the door; it opened. The tinderbox was still in the nook where Fischart had kept it. He lit a candle, and its dancing light confirmed that there was no one there.

He walked around the big room without finding anything to tell him where Sorghaghtani had gone or when she had left. Indeed, he saw almost nothing to indicate that she had ever been there, except that the place was tidier than it had been in Fischart's time. In his torment of guilt the hexer had slept on the floor and used his bed for storage. Sorghie had covered it with straw and a blanket. Otherwise, the little shaman might never have existed. The water jar was empty.

Toby blew out the candle, replaced it where he had found it, and went for a walk in the moonlight.

* * *

He found no answers in the night. It was doubtful that Don Ramon would ever put the Company under D'Anjou's orders, and Ercole would certainly not cooperate. He might ask his duke to contribute a few lances, no more. In Florence the signory would doubtless pay lip service to the new order as long as Sartaq remained in the city, but the moment he left it would be business as usual, which was Florence first and everybody else nowhere. No, any army the new comandante raised would fly apart at the first sign of trouble. He would fail.

Toby Longdirk had already failed.

It was not far short of dawn when he was summoned. He was giving Smeorach a rubdown by moonlight in the stable yard when a white ghost swooped over his head and cried, 'Hoo!' An instant later she came again, this time lower so that he felt the wind of her passing. He had no doubt that it was Chabi. 'Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!'

He opened the stable door and slapped Smeorach's rump. 'Go to bed, big fellow!' With a snort the gelding lumbered inside, heading for his stall. Toby took off at a run, with the owl plunging and swooping over his head as if pleading for haste. Even when he reached the narrow path through the cypresses, she stayed with him. He thumped on the door and hauled it open at the same time, but pulled it shut behind him before the owl could follow, knowing Sorghaghtani rarely allowed Chabi inside.

'Sorghaghtani? Sorghaghtani! Sorghie?'

The cypresses were shadowing all the windows, but something had changed in the darkness. His hands shook as he fumbled with the tinderbox. Fortunately the first spark caught, and he breathed it up into a flame for the candle. The darkness lifted then, showing her sprawled on her side in the middle of the floor, one arm stretched out as if trying to reach her drum, which lay just beyond her fingers. Her headdress had fallen off, her dress was ripped in several places.

Setting the candle on the floor for safety, he lifted her and carried her over to the bed, marveling once again at how little she weighed. He could see no injuries except a few faint scratches on her face, arms, and one of her tiny breasts. There was no blood anywhere, and her breathing sounded peaceful. Her lips were crusted and her tongue swollen. Water? He would have to leave her and run for water, for the jar had been empty. It was worth a second look, though, so he took a second look and was relieved to see that he had been mistaken the first time. There was a small amount left in the bottom. He filled a beaker and took it to her.

All the time, he was saying, 'Sorghie! Sorghie!'

He wet a finger and laved her lips. Her tongue moved. He sat beside her, raised her up, held the beaker to her mouth. 'Sorghie! Sorghie! Wake up, Sorghie! It's Toby.' Her straight black hair was crudely hacked short, like a boy's, and she smelled of fresh hay. She was even younger than he had guessed and might have been pretty had she not been horribly mutilated. Where her eyelids should be there was only white scar tissue, hideous and sunken, apparently burns. Tongue moved, lips moved, and in a moment she swallowed.

'You'll be all right,' he said, over and over, although he had not the slightest idea what was wrong. Her injuries — the scratches and ripped clothes — might have come from falling into a gorse bush, but he wondered if she had dropped through some cypress trees. It made no sense, it just seemed to fit. If evil men had maltreated her, they would have done much worse. The loss of her sight, whether atrocity or accident, had happened years