Demon Knight

clothes.

'Because a great army eats greatly and is clumsy to maneuver. If he waits for the harvest, my plan may not work, but if he comes in the spring, then he must either bring his provisions with him, which will slow his advance, or else guard his supply lines. Nevil likes to move very fast. He also tends to overextend himself. He has not been caught out yet, but one day he will be. Our strategy must be to encourage his overconfidence, draw him onward, lengthen those lines, lure him into a trap.'

'And what will be the bait in this trap?'

'Florence, messer.'

Toby wanted to scream and could not. He wanted to shout Stop! Stop! He tried to yell a warning: Stop, because whoever he is, you are being tricked. But he uttered no sound at all. Marradi remained unaware of the hidden watcher in his future. Even so, he was not pleased at the prospect being offered.

'You presume far, comandante! You expect me to stake out my city as a sacrificial lamb?'

'I see no other way of dealing with the threat, Your Magnificence. The Fiend will send his thousands and hundreds of thousands pouring over the Alps. He will devastate the north — Turin, Milan, Venice, Parma, Verona, and all the rest. You will be overwhelmed by starving refugees; he will follow slavering at their backs. Even if Rome and Naples try to come to your assistance, by then the roads will be full of refugees, the northern powers will have been destroyed, the price of food will be—'

'Stop, stop! You give me waking nightmares. Why Florence?'

'Geography, messer. We must tempt Nevil south before he sacks Milan or Venice, or very many of the smaller cities. He may bleed off some troops to guard his supply lines, which will help us, but the main point is that when he throws his siege works around Florence, he will be between the four great powers. Milan, Venice, Rome, and Naples can move in. The jaws of the trap close here.'

The fox smiled skeptically and lifted the goblet to his muzzle. 'I believe the beginning. I approve of the ending. It is the middle I distrust. What lure can you dangle to attract a demon?'

'Several things,' said the Unknown. 'I have already presumed to make a few preliminary arrangements.'

'Oh, you have, have you?' Skepticism became open suspicion. 'What arrangements?'

'In confidence, Magnificence?'

'You have my word.'

'Well…' The Unknown hesitated. 'After Trent, the Khan wrote to congratulate me. I wrote back and asked him to appoint you suzerain.'

Marradi almost leaped from his chair in horror. 'You what?' Lips curled back from the carnivore teeth.

Lies! Lies!

'You know how Nevil feels about suzerains?'

'I certainly do! He pickles their heads in jars of brine.'

'He must catch them first. So if there is a new suzerain in Florence, he will be very tempted. And there is myself. I do not wish to sound immodest, but I have been a nuisance to him for longer than anyone, and at Trent I did nothing to win his affections.'

Who was this demon-spawned fraud, this imposter with his glib falsehoods? Obviously Marradi thought he was speaking with Toby himself.

Now he stared at the Unknown with deadly intent. 'I cannot imagine what he would do to you if he took you alive, messer. You would truly stay in the city while the Fiend closed in to besiege it?'

'I will. Throw me in jail if you don't trust me. I also have something he wants very much, the only thing he fears, a certain gem. He knows I have it. I also had the audacity to suggest to the Khan that he send a personal envoy. If he complies, then Florence will contain your noble self as suzerain, me, the amethyst, plus the Khan's envoy. If your Magnificence can think of any additional bait, then we should add it to the hook.'

Lisa! Poor Lisa walked into this conspiracy that very night. It was Lisa and Blanche who brought the Fiend to Florence.

The fox steepled his fingers, seeming unconvinced. 'You really think this will tempt him south, leaving enemy strongholds in his rear? I am no soldier, messer, but even I would not make that mistake.'

'The deception will have to be carefully staged,' the imposter conceded. 'We must lull him into overconfidence. For example, he is well aware that Maestro Fischart, formerly Baron Oreste, is the most skilled hexer in all Europe. To him, in truth, belongs the credit for the victory at Trent.'

'He did what you told him to, you mean?'

'What I asked, yes, but he achieved it. The maestro and I are devising a fatal accident for him. If we can somehow convince the Fiend that his old teacher has perished, he will be much less inclined to suspect treachery.'

'How often do skilled hexers meet with fatal accidents?'

'Rarely, alas. It will take some thought.'

But Hamish's encounter with Gonzaga in Siena had created a wonderful opportunity to fake a disaster — except that this Shadow, this Unknown, this imposter, had made it into a real one! Double cross. Triple cross!

'Speaking of gramarye, Your Magnificence,' the villain continued, 'may I have leave to appeal to your distinguished brother, His Eminence the cardinal? No amount of strategy and courage will save us if we cannot field adequate demon power.'

The fox snarled. 'I have discussed this with him already, believe me! He admits that the Holy Father is being very difficult. He… my brother, I mean… will be here in about a month. Will that be soon enough?'

'I fear the matter is too urgent to delay, messer. I have ways of making brief visits to Rome, if you could arrange a meeting place for us. It would have to be in the middle of the night, I am afraid.'

Ha! Wrong! The real Toby Longdirk could not go on demon rides because the hob wouldn't tolerate gramarye.

Marradi clicked his fox teeth in amusement. 'Indeed, messer? You would travel by gramarye to a meeting with a cardinal of the College? I admire your audacity, if not your judgment. Certainly I can write and ask him to grant you an audience. Whether he will and whether he will then cooperate, I do not know. He was much easier to handle when he was small and I could thump his ears. Since he gained his red hat, he has developed an unfortunate independence of mind.'

The Unknown chuckled politely, as one does at the jokes of the great. 'Your Magnificence is most gracious.'

'And you are extraordinarily devious! I thought only Italians were capable of such chicanery. But I find it hard to believe that Nevil will willingly walk into your trap.' Toby did not. It was a wonderful plan. He wished he had thought of it. 'The Fiend, messer Longdirk, is not stupid, and he knows now that you are not.'

'He knows, also, Your Magnificence, that I am only a penniless soldier of fortune. I would cheerfully disappear altogether, but that would be suspicious in itself. It seems to me that we should announce the generous terms for a condotta that you have granted me here this morning, and attempt to hammer together a union of the states, because that is what he will expect us to do. Then everything must appear to fall apart like a puffball — which is what we fear it will do. You will make it known that I am in disgrace, that you are overruling me. Block my efforts. Insult me in public. Nevil has spies everywhere. He will hear of all this and discount me.'

'It will make you look like a fool!'

The Unknown laughed. 'My feelings do not matter! I am not a prickly aristocrat like Don Ramon. I am not even, with respect, a burgher who must watch what his creditors think of his solvency. I have no family or close friends to suffer from my disgrace. The men of the Company know I can fight, and that is all they care about. I am a bastard peasant, the lowest of the low. Shame me all you will. In a worthy cause I can endure a few slights.'

Easy for him to say, whoever he was! It was Toby himself who had suffered those months of humiliation and frustration, and apparently all that time Marradi had believed that he wanted such treatment?