Demon Knight

'I believe that date will be acceptable.' Lisa was quite right — this wonderfully delicate, suave, civilized duchess was also a ruthless and callous bitch. Her brother, Blanche's future son- in-law, was known as the Fox, and vixens were vicious.

'Lisa, dear,' Lucrezia said, raising her voice to address the four-poster, 'you realize that you are making a terrible fuss to avoid something that you will be absolutely begging your husband for once you have tried it?'

The bed uttered an audible wail.

A ruthless, callous, and vulgar bitch.

Lucrezia tutted in annoyance. 'By her age I had experienced two husbands and several lovers. There wasn't anything about men I didn't know. Is she really a virgin?'

'Certainly!' Blanche had gone so far as to ask, and Lisa never lied to her.

'Amazing!' Lucrezia studied the bed curtains with amusement. 'So her previous romances have all been pure and platonic?'

'What previous romances? This is slander, madonna!'

'You are not going to tell me that a woman of Lisa's age has had no male friends whatsoever?' Lucrezia's smile flowed into a simper. 'Have you not noticed how frequently she mentions Constable Longdirk?'

'Oh. Well, she is young, and he is an impressive figure of a man.'

'Only if your taste runs to blacksmiths and quarry workers. So there was a, shall we say, friendship between them? Nothing improper, of course, but a… an interest?'

Cornered as in the nightmare of the giant cat, Blanche conceded the possibility. 'If you imply no more than that, well, yes I do believe that Lisa and Constable Longdirk were, um, attracted to each other.'

Lisa uttered a wordless howl of protest from behind the curtains.

Lucrezia laughed. 'Stubborn, isn't she? I do hope you explained the impossibility of such a match?'

Blanche nodded, although she recalled that she had once brought up the subject with Lisa, and it had not seemed so impossible then.

'And what were Longdirk's feelings?'

'He behaved perfectly. But you could see by the way he looked at her that he was… drawn.'

Lucrezia sighed and smiled again. 'So tragic a tale! We must give some thought to the guest list. Normally the families… I do hope, madonna, that you are not planning to invite your husband!' She trilled a laugh.

'Of course not!' Vulgar, ruthless, callous, and heartless bitch.

'Perhaps some of the English exiles,' the duchess said, 'to balance the parties. Let us decide tomorrow.' She rose. 'Come out now, Lisa, and prepare to meet the visitors, or I'll have you dragged out.'

Like the nightmare of the sealed tomb.

CHAPTER TEN

Toby had little time to worry about Hamish's broken heart or Lisa's sword-point marriage. He had a year's work to do and only days to do it in — days and nights, for he never seemed to sleep now.

The most urgent need was to enclose the hill of San Miniato within the city walls. He tossed the problem to Hamish, telling him it would help him forget his lust for another man's betrothed. Whether this was true or not, Hamish went to work with his usual zeal.

The don looked like the next most trouble. The dieci's written instructions forbade both him and Toby to leave the city, but he never read the edict, and Toby forgot to mention that clause. He sent the captain-general off with a hundred lances to scout the roads through the Apennines. The Company itself had to be brought into the city, a move that raised rumbles of mutiny because the only thing less popular than storming a city was being trapped inside one during a siege. Fortunately there were many green areas within the walls to pitch tents.

Those were all obvious problems. A thousand lesser matters swarmed like midges — livestock and fodder, setting up guns, tearing down every building and uprooting every tree and shrub within a mile of the walls, stockpiling human food and fuel, hanging chains across the river, organizing hospitals and firefighting, establishing a new casa, drilling the citizenry — a clerk or wool carder could drop a rock off a battlement as well as a knight could. Days went by in a blur of questions, demands, and protests. He made each decision in turn and went on to the next. There were many evenings when he could not remember having been off his feet since dawn.

Antonio Diaz, for example, looming out of the morning confusion and raising his voice almost to a shout: 'Another five hundred!' Toby had never seen him so agitated.

'Another five hundred what?'

'Gone!'

It took a few questions to establish that the cavalry was absconding, vanishing into the night, but it was going by squadrons, not just deserting in a rabble. The don had not been seen since he went off to the north. There was a connection there somewhere. The don would never run away from battle, but he would prefer to pick his own ground.

'Fewer mouths to feed,' Toby said. 'The only use we're going to have for cavalry is as a source of steak. Let's just keep this under our helmets.'

'We can't draw pay for units we can't locate!'

'What good will gold do the Florentines when the Fiend arrives?'

Diaz harrumphed and stalked away in outrage. The poor man had too many morals for his own good.

Behind all this surface frenzy, the war continued along its own relentless track, always a few days ahead of the news so that every report had to be extrapolated: 'If they were there then, they must be about here now…' The vast tide of refugees Toby had feared did not appear, because most people just dived into the nearest town and slammed the gates, hoping the war would go elsewhere.

Turin had burned. Trent had burned. He had predicted both of those. There had been a minor battle outside Turin, and the Chevalier had been wounded, but no one knew how badly.

Milan and Verona ought to be next, but after the middle of the month the picture shimmered and steadied again like a reflection on a pool. Nevil had not laid siege to Milan. He had not turned aside to Venice. He was not even trying to link up his two columns — he did not need to, because no serious opposition had taken the field against him. His western army was apparently heading for Genoa. The eastern force had bypassed Verona, headed straight south to the Po, and then halted to build a bridge where there had never been one before.

* * *

Toby found Hamish on the hill of San Miniato bellowing at a work gang who had unloaded a wagonload of stone in the wrong place. He was using half a dozen languages, but his meaning was quite clear.

Toby thumped a hand on his shoulder. 'This isn't going to work, my lad. You don't have time to finish the wall, and half a wall is as much use as half a head. Pay them off and send them home to their wives.'

Hamish gave him a hard stare. 'News?'

'Bad news. Nevil is still busy building his bridge. Work is going very slowly. His western column has bypassed Genoa.'

'This is absolutely crazy! Has he lost his mind?'

'No,' Toby said. 'He's defined his objectives.'

It was amusing to watch the gears turning, the rising incredulity as Hamish worked it out. 'The western army is heading down the coast at a forced march?'

'Looks like it. And when it reaches Lucca, it will turn inland. By that time, of course, the eastern army will have crossed the Po and sacked Bologna. I estimate he'll be here by the first week of May.'

Hamish grimaced as if he were being racked. 'We've got to get Lisa out of the city!'

'Oh, that would not be courteous,' Toby said sourly. 'She's the reason her daddy's coming to call.'

* * *

There was little satisfaction in being right. The only surprise in those waning days of April was that the Tartars stayed on in the city, with Sartaq making himself visible, delivering speeches, and generally behaving as a