Demon Knight

Spain that he possessed it, but he still did not quite understand how it worked. He had grown into it, he thought, and it seemed to feed on its own success. The Magnificent had it in bushels. His pull power was invisible, yet every man in the room could see it. Like a willow, it seemed frail and harmless, but it suffered nothing to grow too close to it. It worked inside men's minds to put chains on their limbs.

Power was the opportunity to make mistakes.

Benozzo squirmed. 'If the Spaniard will see reason.'

'I shall do my best to persuade him,' Toby promised solemnly.

Marradi allowed himself a smile, which quickly spread to most of the onlookers. 'Then I see no problem. Are there still knots in the wool, messer?'

'Cost, Your Magnificence. The size of the forces to be raised.'

'Mm? And what does Sir Tobias think?' Marradi looked to Toby with no hint that the two of them had spent the entire morning haggling over this.

'Everything you can possibly afford, Your Magnificence! At least twenty thousand men.' He felt a swell of protest rising around him. 'With any less, Florence will have no hope and certainly no voice at the table — not when Venice is raising forty and Milan at least seventy. Only a supreme effort by all the states combined can stop the Fiend. We'll need a miracle to hold him at the Alps as we did last year.'

'You expect us to let you march off and leave the city undefended?' bleated one of the younger men.

Toby looked down on him in exasperation, remembering days when Don Ramon had returned from the negotiations in near-homicidal frenzy. 'If every city thinks like that, then the Fiend will swallow you one at a time! If Florence will not send its army north, why should Naples?' He wanted to add, 'You idiot!' but managed not to.

Benozzo was looking pleased. 'The don was talking of five thousand lances.'

'I doubt that we can find that many now. They are all sworn elsewhere.'

'A moment, signori,' Pietro murmured. 'Pardon the ignorance of a civilian. How many men in a lance, comandante?'

Now what game was he playing? That morning he had displayed an iron-fisted grasp of military matters down to the finest details.

'Usually six, Your Magnificence. Originally, of course, it was three — the knight himself, his sergeant to hold his spare horse, and a page. The coming of firearms has brought heavier armor and a far greater toll of horses, so now the knight requires more spare mounts, and hence more attendants to care for them.'

'I see. But only one man in six is actually a fighter?'

'That is correct, although nowadays they may dismount, and then two men handle the lance.'

'How about infantry?'

'Very much the same, about one in five or one in six.'

'How many men in the Longdirk Company itself?' Either Marradi was using Toby as a ventriloquist's dummy to educate the men who would have to approve the condotta and vote the taxes to pay for it, or else he wanted Toby to demonstrate that he was more than an oversize thug capable of swinging a battle-ax. Either way, it was lecture time.

'Three thousand, but the most we can put in the field is about five hundred — five hundred helmets, we say. This seems a shameful limitation, but any condottiere will confirm it. Of the five hundred, about half are cavalry and half foot. Our infantry companies include pikemen, crossbowmen, and arquebusiers. The don leads our heavy cavalry in person, and we also have four squadrons of light cavalry armed with crossbows. Either may dismount and fight on foot when conditions require.'

Marradi nodded solemnly, as if all this were new and wonderful. 'I can understand a mounted knight requiring five attendants, but surely a common man-at-arms can sharpen his own pike?'

'He will be in considerable trouble with Marshal Diaz if he does not, Your Magnificence! But he requires the support of shield men, ammunition carriers, munitioners, fletchers, carters, pioneers, buglers, cooks, pay clerks, barber-surgeons, gunners, stonemasons, provisioners, and armorers. He travels to battle on horseback, so he needs farriers, saddlers—'

'Stonemasons?' one of the younger men demanded.

'To cut the cannonballs. We have six light cannons. In good weather on flat terrain they require only ten carts and twenty pairs of oxen apiece, but to take them across the Apennines, say, would require far more. To move the entire Company…'

Toby could go on indefinitely. He had just begun describing the casa, with the paymaster, quartermaster, hexer, chancellors, and other essential staff when an almost imperceptible nod from Marradi told him he had made his point. If any man present had thought that Florence was hiring a disorganized rabble of hoodlums, he should know better now.

'And how many men will Nevil bring?'

'At least a hundred thousand.' A more realistic estimate would just frighten them out of their wits. 'Schweitzer had about forty at Trent.'

'Not fighting strength?'

'No, total. About seven thousand helmets. I expect Nevil to bring three times that many.' At least.

'And how many can Italy raise?' asked a fat-faced man.

'Enough to defeat him,' Toby said patiently, 'if it can bring them all to bear at the right place and the right time. If not, he will pluck the goose one feather at a time.'

'But Florence can only bear so much of the burden,' Benozzo protested. 'Naples and Venice are much richer and—'

Toby's scowl stopped him. 'Will you risk letting the Fiend's horde loose in your streets for the sake of a year's higher taxes? Nevil's men are mindless puppets, suicidal, driven by demons. You cannot match them one for one. The Fiend himself is an incarnate demon and rejoices in causing destruction and suffering.

'What is the least amount you will accept?' Pietro asked quietly. The maneuvering was over; the battle was about to commence.

'Sixty thousand florins a month. Gold florins.'

They did not gasp. They had known the news was going to be bad. They were not smiling.

'For twenty thousand men,' Toby said. 'If I can find them. The best companies are already signing with other states — Alfredo's with Venice, the Black Lances with Milan, and today word of Jules Desjardins with Naples. These are bands I hoped to enlist. Soon there will be nothing but dregs left.'

Il Volpe studied him carefully, seemingly ignoring the audience. 'At three gold florins a man? Eighteen florins a month for every helmet?' That was many times the pay of a skilled artisan. The brilliant red-brown eyes challenged Toby to back down, as they had that morning.

As he had that morning, he stood his ground. 'For a six-month contract with a six-month option. That does not include the upkeep of your own provisionati, but I require that they be under my command. I cannot undertake the defense of Florence on any lesser terms.'

Less than three years ago he had been a penniless outlaw. Now he was bullying the richest city in the world.

Benozzo's snort would have roused a herd of mares. 'Captain-General Vespucci, may his spirit find—'

'Was not hired to fight this war. Costs of arms and supplies, of fodder and armor, have risen enormously. Warhorses are trading for three hundred ducats.'

Mention of prices caused the company to explode:

'The wool trade has collapsed!'

'The price of silk…'

'Taxes are already higher than…'

One large man managed to shout down the others. 'A three-month condotta? The crisis will surely be over by then!'

Absurd! Toby folded his arms. 'The men have to arm themselves, mount themselves, travel here from winter quarters. On a shorter contract the price goes up. No. Those terms, or I offer my sword elsewhere.' Pull no punches!

Marradi spoke into the deadly silence. 'This is your last word, comandante?'

'It is, Your Magnificence.' The night had become even more unreal.

The despot looked thoughtfully around the group, one man at a time, and did not seem pleased. He pursed