The Spirit Ring

Chapter Sixteen

"What did you do to the guards?" Thur asked, staring blearily around the darkened entry-hall. He and Tich laid Uri down upon the flagstones as Fiametta locked and barred the door again behind them.

"Guard," Fiametta corrected, turning. "There was only one. He's locked in the root cellar under the kitchen, right now. I hope he's drinking himself senseless. I wasn't able to get his sword away from him." She glanced curiously at Tich.

"Did you magic him down there?" asked Thur, impressed.

Tich's brows rose.

"Oh," said Thur. "I'm sorry. This is Tich Pico. Don't you remember him from Catti's inn? The muleteer's son. A gang of Ferrante's bravos killed his father and brother, and stole his mules. Tich, this is Fiametta Beneforte. Her father was the master mage Catti smoked. This is his house. Was his house."

"Yes, I do remember seeing you," said Fiametta.

"We have a thing in common against Ferrante, then. All of us."

"Yes, Madonna Beneforte," Tich nodded. "Do you want me to kill that Losimon in the cellar for you?"

"I don't know. But he has to be better secured; I'm afraid he'll get out. Oh, Thur, I'm so glad you're here!" She flung her arms around him and hugged him.

Thur blushed with pleasure and grunted with pain. "Are you really?" he said, feeling suddenly shy.

"Did I hurt—oh, what a horrible gash! It should be closed and bandaged at once! You look terrible." She jumped back, but he managed to retain a clasp on her warm hands. He was still chilled from the lake and the night air. But he had to let go as his blanket slipped down further, to catch and clutch it to himself for decency. Fiametta paused in sudden puzzlement. "But why are you here?"

"I wanted to find you."

"But how did you know to come here? I wasn't sure I could get here myself, till an hour ago. Do you think ... Is it still my ring?" She touched her chest. Yes, the ring hung there, under her linen and velvet, Thur was sure of it. But he had not thought about the ring.

He shook his head. "I don't know. This house was the only place I knew of in Montefoglia to hide. I mean, I knew—I felt this was how to find you. But I don't know how I knew. I'm good at finding things. Always have been. Lately, I've been getting better at it. I found Uri...."

"It is a talent. It must be. Uri did right to apprentice you to my father. Oh, if only he had lived!" She rubbed her eyes, smeared wet with anger, weariness, and grief.

Hurriedly, Thur launched into a brief tangled account of his sojourn in Montefoglia's castle, culminating in his escape with Uri's body. Tich listened open-mouthed; Fiametta's teeth clenched.

"We knew you were taken, this afternoon. Before he destroyed the last ear Vitelli used it to tell Monreale he was going to put you to death," she said. "I thought he meant to hang you. I didn't imagine anything so evil."

"But—how did you come to leave Saint Jerome?" asked Thur.

Her brows rose quizzically. "I was looking for you. I was going to save you from being hanged I hadn't figured out how, yet. I thought they would do it at dawn."

A slow grin pulled up the corners of his mouth.

"Well, nobody else was willing to try—oh, dear." Strange thumping noises echoing distantly through the house interrupted her. "I think that guard is trying to get out. Come on." She picked up the lantern and led the way through the courtyard into the kitchen. Thur limped after, Tich bringing up the rear.

The wide polished boards flooring half the kitchen jumped as something hard struck them from below. The guard's head, Thur thought dizzily. Obscene curses drifted up, not quite muffled enough, as the Losimon heard their footsteps. After a moment, a sword blade thrust up through a thin gap between two boards, questing blindly for a target. Thur glanced down to make sure he was standing on the tiles.

"How did you get him down there?" Tich asked, also stepping cautiously around the wood.

"Not magic," said Fiametta. She lit a candle stub stuck in a bottle on the kitchen table from the lantern flame. "I was going to use magic. I was going to set him on fire. It s the only spell I know that I can work entirety in my head, without any material symbols to hold it. It's a talent. But when he came to answer the door, I thought I'd better get inside, first. So I told him I lived here, and I'd come back to see if any of my clothes were left. But then the talk went ... strange. He just let me in, and said he'd help me look for my dresses, if I'd let him ... do things, to me."

Letting Tich kill the Losimon seemed suddenly a much better idea, to Thur. He set his teeth, then unset them again immediately as the loose ones twinged.

"I told him ....ell, I told him all right." Her hand touched the head of a striking silver snake belt looped around her waist. "But I told him there was a wine cask my father had hidden in the root cellar, behind the turnips, a special vintage. There really was one, you see. It might even still be there. When he went down to look, I clapped the trapdoor closed, and dragged the pewter cupboard across it." She nodded toward the large painted cupboard pulled out from the wall. "He almost pushed it up enough to get his fingers out, but then I jumped up and down on it. And then you came. I thought, if it didn't hold him, I must set his hair on fire—at least he has hair—and then try to stab him." She paused, as the sword thrust up again. "I could still set him afire. And you could stab him," she offered to Tich.

Thur, remembering his experiences with Ferrante, shuddered at the thought of little Fiametta attempting hand-to-hand combat with an infuriated Losimon veteran. "Just ... wait a minute," he said. He borrowed the lantern and hobbled back to the courtyard. He recalled glimpsing ....es, there in a pile of tools beneath the gallery rested a good-sized sledgehammer. He carted it back to the kitchen. "At least let's get his sword away from him first."

For bait, he walked out on the floorboards, taking care not to step on a crack. Sure enough, the sword blade and curses came up through the slit again just in front of him. He raised the sledgehammer, familiar in his hands, to his side and swung it down hard. It clanged off the swordblade, and Thur almost toppled. He clutched again at his slipping blanket, and, lightheaded from the effort, handed the hammer off to Tich, who caught on at once. Enthusiastically, he whacked at the bent blade as the Losimon tried futilely to withdraw it. On the third blow, the metal broke. A crash from below, and more curses, as the Losimon fell backwards.

"Why, Thur. That was clever," said Fiametta, sounding rather astonished. Thur's brow wrinkled. A little less astonishment would have been a little more complimentary.

"Now we're even," Tich grinned breathlessly, waving his dagger. "Let's get him."

"Wait," said Thur. "what do you have around here to bind him?"

Fiametta bit her lip in thought. "If they haven't taken it—it was only iron, not silver or gold, maybe they left—just a moment." She scurried out with the lantern. The Losimon stopped thumping. Fiametta returned in a few minutes, draped about with a long iron chain.

"It's a manacle my father was working on for the Duke. It doesn't have a key. It opens with a spell,"

"Do you know the spell?" asked Thur.

"Well... no. I know where it is in Papa's notebooks, but Ferrante and Vitelli have taken all Papa's notebooks away."

"But do you need the spell to lock them?"

"No, they just lock. That's built-in."

Thur regarded the handcuffs, then stepped to the door to glance into the courtyard with its pillared stone arches supporting the wooden inner gallery. "All right." He returned to the kitchen to shout down through the floorboards, "Hey! You! Losimon!"

A surly silence resulted.

"There are two armed men—" his hand closed on the haft of the sledgehammer, "—and a very angry sorceress up here. She wants to set you on fire. If you come up and surrender without giving us any more trouble, I won't let them kill you."

A man's gruff voice responded, "How do I know you won't just tie me up and loll me?"

"My word," suggested Thur.

"What worth is that?"

"More than yours. I am not a Losimon," Thur snarled.

A long silence, as the Losimon crouching in the dark contemplated his options. "Lord Ferrante will have my head for failing him."

"Maybe you can desert, later."

The Losimon made an obscene suggestion, which Thur ignored.

Thur whispered to Fiametta, "Do you think you could, like, just warm him up a bit? Not really set him on fire. But demonstrate."

"Ill try." She closed her eyes; her soft lips moved.

A cry, and slapping noises, echoed from the cellar. "All right! All right! I surrender!"

Thur let Tich and Fiametta drag the pewter cupboard off the trapdoor, and stood with his sledgehammer raised. Slowly, the trapdoor creaked upward, and the Losimon cautiously poked his head out. He was a grizzled man, strong but no youth. Little red sparks still glinted in his curling hair, which gave off a singed stench. He did not bother to carry his broken sword hilt, but crawled out and stood empty-handed.

Thur had Tich clap one end of the manacle around the man's wrist and lead him to the courtyard, where he wrapped the chain around a stone pillar and attached the other cuff. Thur did not put down the sledgehammer until Tich yanked the chain to be sure the cuffs would hold, mashing the Losimon against the pillar. Tich put one foot to the pillar and held the man while Fiametta gagged him. He rolled his eyes at the sledgehammer, and did not attempt violence against the girl.

Fiametta led them back to the kitchen. "Here, sit on this chair," she said to Thur. "Ruberta had a healing salve for bruises. Oh, your sides look like a piebald horse. Are any ribs broken?"

"I don't think so, or I wouldn't have been able to get this far." Thur settled himself very cautiously.

Fiametta rummaged in the cupboards. Her voice wafted out, "That ugly gash won't heal unless the edges are held together. At least it looks clean. I'm no healer, but I know my needlework. If... if I can stand to sew it up, can you stand to let me?"

Thur choked down an anticipatory whimper. "Yes."

"Ah. Here's the ointment." She emerged from the recesses of a carved sideboard clutching a Venetian glass jar. A pale cream inside emitted a faint, pleasant scent, like wildflowers and fresh butter. Delicately, she daubed some upon Thur's ribs. A warm, relaxing numbness penetrated from the spots where she spread it. "I'll go get my sewing kit, if the Losimons haven't taken it.' She set the jar down and hurried from the kitchen.

Surreptitiously, Thur scooped up a large glob of ointment and stuck his hand under his blanket to rub it on and around his aching, swollen crotch. It helped a lot, and Thur sighed relief.

"You should have gotten her to rub it on there," Tich snickered, settling cross-legged on the floor.

"That might have done ... more harm than good," Thur grunted, charmed by the idea but offended by Tich having suggested it. Hell, he hadn't even kissed Fiametta yet, hadn't even tried to. He remembered his deep regrets about that, when he'd been facing death in the castle. "God, I hurt all over."

Fiametta returned in a few minutes carrying a small covered basket. "We're in luck. I found the curved needle Ruberta uses to sew up the stuffed goose when she roasts one."

"Sounds perfect," said Tich, his brows going up in black amusement.

Thur decided his lips hurt too much to smile.

"I think you'd better lie flat on the kitchen table," Fiametta directed.

"Just like the goose," Tich commented. Fiametta grimaced at him, half-amused, half-annoyed, and he subsided.

Thur climbed up and arranged himself while Fiametta threaded her needle. She studied the two stitches at one edge of the gash surviving from Ferrante's surgeon's work. "Yes. I can do that.' Her lower lip stuck out in determination. She took a deep breath and made her first jab.

Thur sucked in his breath, gripped the table edges, and stared at the ceiling.

"Do you think anyone is going to come around and check on that guard?" Tich asked, standing up to watch. Fiametta shoved a candle into his hand to light her work.

"Not before morning," said Fiametta, tying a knot. She was neat, but much slower than Ferrante's surgeon.

"Maybe not at all," Thur managed in a strained voice. They're undermanned, and this house has been stripped of valuables. Except Vitelli might come around to search it again. He s convinced—ah!—

"Sorry."

"Keep going. He's convinced your father has hidden some secret notes or books on spirit-magic somewhere in the house. That's how I met them here day before yesterday."

"Secret books?" Fiametta frowned deeply. "Papa? Well ... maybe."

"Do you know of any such?"

"No ... if so, he's kept them secret from me."

Thur stared at the Kitchen ceiling through eyes watering with pain. "I think they do exist. I think they're ... up, somewhere. I felt it, when Vitelli had me trying to pry up boards. I didn't tell—ah!—Vitelli, of course.

Fiametta's eyebrows lowered in concentration. "Up. Huh." She tied off another stitch and glanced at the ceiling. Half done. Slow but sure. Slow, anyway.

"Vitelli wants them very badly. I'm certain he'll be back," gasped Thur. "But maybe not as early as tomorrow. He looked pretty sick, when I broke up his spell."

"That close to completion ... so complex ... " Fiametta nodded thoughtfully. "I'll bet he's sick right now."

Silence fell as she worked her way meticulously across Thur's belly cut. The last one, at last. Pale was not in Fiametta's repertoire, but there was a distinctly greenish tinge beneath her toasted skin. She pursed her lips and rubbed a goodly handful of ointment across the cut, before sitting Thur up and tying a protective strip of cloth that looked suspiciously like a bit of former petticoat around his waist.

"That's ... that's good," Thur wheezed gallantly. "Better than the surgeon."

A pleased smile curved her full lips. "Really?"

"Yes." He swung his legs off the table and stood up. Pink and black clouds boiled at the edges of his vision, and the room tilted. He found himself bent over, clutching the table.

"Tich, help!" Fiametta rushed to Thur's side; he waved her away, afraid he would crush her if he fell, but she ignored the wave and put her shoulder sturdily up under his arm. "You are going straight to bed," she decreed. "I'll put you in Ruberta's room; it's right off the kitchen here. It's the only bed the Losimons didn't break up looking for hidden treasure. Tich, the lantern."

By the time Thur's head had cleared they had maneuvered him into the housekeeper's bedchamber. "No!" he protested. "Your father's secret books, Fiametta. We've got to find them, to keep them from Vitelli. I'm sure it's important. I have to help you look."

"You have to lie down here." Fiametta pulled back blankets on the first real bed Thur had seen in weeks. It had linen sheets.

"Oh," murmured Thur, overcome. The bed seemed to suck him down. It was a little short, but wonderfully soft. Fiametta pulled the coverings over him and whisked Tich's blanket out from under them in one smooth movement. She gave the blanket back to its owner.

"But the notebooks," Thur said weakly.

"I'll look for them," Fiametta said.

"They were up. Above the second floor."

'This house only has two floors, doesn't it?" Tich craned his neck as though he might see through the ceiling.

"I have an idea or two," said Fiametta. "Go to sleep, Thur, or you'll be useless."

Persuaded, Thur sank back. Fiametta and Tich tiptoed out. Thur was weary beyond anything he'd ever known, but disorderly images from the past few days whirled in his thoughts. He'd rescued Uri, but Master Beneforte still lay in danger. The Duchess. Lady Pia. Lord Pia, with his strange passion for bats, stuck to the oak door with his blood running down. Vitelli's dark aura, growing in menace and power ...

But in a few minutes Fiametta returned, carrying a large clay mug. She set the lantern down as Thur, with difficulty, sat up.

"Have you eaten? I didn't think so. There's no food in the house right now but some flour and dried beans, and tired turnips, but I found that wine. Here." She sat on the edge of the bed and helped him get his hands around the mug.

She'd brought it unwatered. It was thick, red, dense, a little sweet. Thur gulped it down gratefully.

"That helps. Thank you. I was starving."

"You were shaking." She watched him with concern.

He watched her in return, over the rim of the mug. Their lives had been tangled together by this treachery in Montefoglia, and by the peculiar prophecy of her lion ring. Was the Master of Cluny's spell meant to be a prophecy of the self-fulfilling kind? Thur had been at first struck by Fiametta's prettiness, amiably inclined to love anybody who even suggested that she loved him. Yet now he was not so sure that she did love him, despite the ring. What did she think? He was uneasily aware that he had not more than half-won her mind. It was all so complicated. She was a complicated girl. Would life with Fiametta always be this confusing? He was beginning to suspect so.

He remembered staring up the length of Ferrante's shining sword, in the castle garden. Now, that had been simple.

Awkwardly, he slipped his free hand around Fiametta's waist, leaned forward, and kissed her. Their noses bumped, and he half-missed her mouth. Her big brown eyes widened, and he waited in resignation for her recoil.

Instead she kissed him back. Vigorously. And she managed to hit the target square. His arm tightened joyously around her shoulders. Her hand closed firmly over the silver head of her snake-belt. It felt strange, kissing through a bruised grin. When he broke off, her eyes were alight. I did something right! Thur thought in delight. I wonder what it was?

But before he could explore further, she jumped up. Considering his battered physical condition, this was perhaps just as well. She bent over and dropped a kiss on his forehead. "Go to sleep, Thur."

At least she left still smiling, a mysterious girl smile. Thur lay back. This time, sleep came almost simultaneously with the darkness.

He woke to an uncertain gray daylight seeping through the room's half-opened shutters. Creakily, he sat up. He hadn't been this sore since the day after the cave-in and flood at the mine. But he felt much better than last night. The sick dizziness was gone from his head. Still, he decided, another handful of that ointment would be welcome. He swung his bare legs out of the little bed.

At least he wasn't going to have to wear the quilt. Laid across the bed were clothes, of a sort, a threadbare man's gown of time-softened dark wool. Thur slipped it on over his head. It had clearly been made for a smaller fellow, probably Prospero Beneforte, for the hem, meant to brush the floor in a dignified scholarly sweep, rode at Thur's calves, and the sleeves wouldn't fit over his arms at all. He left the sleeves on the bed and tied a bit of cord around his waist to make a sort of tunic. He peeked out the window into the walled garden behind the house. Yes, there was the outhouse. The grayness of the sky was not dawn after all, but a steely midmorning haze. Had he slept too long? Worried, he walked into the kitchen, and stopped short.

A strange woman wearing a cap and apron and holding a wooden spoon turned from the blue-tiled stove to glance at him without surprise. "Ah. The young man." She gave him a cordial but measuring nod, as if he were a bolt of cloth she was considering purchasing, but was doubtful of the fastness of his dye. She was sturdy rather than stout, of middle years.

"Er," said Thur.

"The porridge will be a few moments yet." She pointed with her spoon to a black iron pot atop the stove. "There'll be a dried apple tart sweetened with honey, after. A lot of tart, not much apple, but one must make do. And I brew a posset of herbs that's better to drink in the morning than that strong red wine, which is all we have in the house. There is no ale." She nodded firmly, and bent to tease open the iron door to the stove's firebox with her spoon handle, and poke briefly at the coals.

Thur's mouth watered; the odors were delectable.

""You'll be wanting the outhouse first, I expect. Right out there." She waved the spoon vaguely toward an iron-bound door that led into the garden.

"Yes, I was heading there, uh, ma'am." Thur paused. "My name is Thur Ochs."

"Poor Captain Uri's brother from Bruinwald, yes, I know."

"Are you by chance Ruberta?"

"The Master's housekeeper, yes. Or so I was, before those thieving, murdering Losimons broke in upon us." She frowned tensely. "Crime upon crime ... Prospero Beneforte was not an easy man to work for, but he was a great man, not another like him in Montefoglia. Run along now. When you get back wash your hands in that basin yonder and go fetch Fiametta to eat."

"Where is ... Madonna Beneforte?"

"Somewhere about the house, trying to find what of her Papa's tools those cursed robbers somehow overlooked.

Thur did as he was told, returning through the kitchen to the courtyard. Their prisoner lay on a blanket, ungagged but asleep, a cheap wineskin clutched to his chest. Not the good red wine, Thur guessed. Someone had been out foraging since last night. Fiametta, probably. She must have fetched Ruberta. Thur hoped she'd had the sense to take Tich with her for protection. Not that a boy with a knife would be much help against swordsmen.

He stepped onto the flagstones in the entryway. Uri was not mere. He glanced into the room on his right, which had its own fireplace in the corner, and rugs and chairs, clearly where important guests or clients were received. A sheeted shape lay upon a makeshift bier of boards laid across two trestles. Thur sighed, entered, and lifted the sheet to look upon his brother and, frankly, to check for rot. He was touched when he discovered that Uri had been decently dressed, in more of Prospero Beneforte's leftovers, knit hose, a shirt, a short tunic, not new or fine—or the soldiers would have taken them—but arrayed with care. The women's work, no doubt. Vitelli's preservation spell appeared to be holding. He covered his brother again, and crossed the hall to check the workroom opposite.

Fiametta sat perched on a high stool, her elbows planted on the worktable. She had not taken time to change her own clothes, but still wore her ruined velvet with the outer sleeves lost. Thur wondered if she'd taken time to sleep. Open upon the table in front of her was a large leather-bound book, and scattered in a circle about it was a litter of papers and parchments. She was frowning fiercely as she read.

She looked up at the sound of his footsteps. "Thur. You were right. I found them." Her face was haggard.

"Where?" He came to her side.

"Did you notice the little corner room with the two windows, off Papa's bedroom, that he had fixed for a study?"

"Yes. Vitelli did, too. He had it stripped out. I—the feeling was very strong in there, so I made sure not to look very hard."

"The ceiling is covered with squares of wood with rosettes carved in the centers."

"We tapped them all. They all sounded solid. We even pried a couple down, then I persuaded the Losimon guard that they were all the same."

"If you'd pried them all down, you would have found it. If you turn one of the rosettes, it releases a latch, and a square comes down—it's the bottom of a box. Not a very big box. It was crammed with all this. No wonder it sounded solid." Her hand opened to wave at the papers. "Papa would have been in serious trouble if these had ever been found."

Thur cleared his throat. "A burning matter?" "Not ... quite, I think. Depending on the prejudices against Florentines of the Inquisitor. But enough to endanger his license and his livelihood. There are recipes for spells ... records of experiments ... journal entries about two night trips to graveyards, though the results seem not to have been satisfactory. There is a complete account of what I take to be the casting of the great spirit ring for the lord of the Medici, with a record of payments, though there are no names, just initials. But the dates match the last time Papa lived in Florence. Dangerous evidence against men who yet live. Papa seems to have done some things with animals that were ... most questionable. Not just rings. Far beyond rings! My poor bunny—here," she opened to a page in the book densely scrawled with Latin, "is an account of how he invested the spirit of one of my rabbits, to animate a brass hare he cast. Its nose twitched, it moved—" Her finger stopped at a line, and she translated, " 'It hopped upon my worktable for a quarter of an hour before its spirit was consumed and my spell failed. The stiffness of the cooling brass seemed to tire it more quickly. Next time I shall attempt to keep the casting hot to improve fluidity.' Dear God, Thur, it's incredible! And he never so much as let on—I mean, this very table! And we must have eaten that same rabbit for stew, after! And I remember the exquisite detail of that brass hare—it sat upon his windowsill for a year and a half, until the Losimons looted it." Horror, pride, and exasperation mingled in her face. Her hand pressed possessively upon the notebook, whether to contain or retain it Thur was not entirely certain.

"What should we do with these notes, then? Turn them over to the Abbot? Your father is beyond earthly prosecution, I think."

"If we can. If we all live. I—there are things here—there is a lifetime's thought and work bound up in these pages. I could not bear to see them destroyed, but—Thur, the possibilities are horrid. Vitelli would not limit himself to rabbits! Suppose he decided to make an army of brass soldiers, spirit slaves? Papa speculates—an army of golems, he calls them; I do not know that word; I dont think it's even Latin. Papa danced so delicately, to try to use this magic power without damning himself, but others would see only the power, and reach for it regardless...." She took a deep breath. "I'd give the book to Monreale before I'd see it destroyed. But I'd burn it myself before letting it fall into Ferrante's or Vitelli's black hands."

"All Montefoglia is falling into their hands," said Thur bitterly. "And nobody seems able—or willing—to stop them. I tried, God help me. And I failed. Even with a cowardly knife to the back. With a sledgehammer I might have done some good. You don't need me, Fiametta. You need a hero, like Uri, trained to the sword. The wrong brother lies dead in the next room."

"Thur, don't blame yourself! Lord Ferrante has been a soldier in the field for twenty years! How could you expect to best him in anything like single combat?"

"Lord Pia held his own, for a little. We almost had him, between us! Till I deserted him, left him nailed to the wall like a martyr surrounded by his enemies. But it was close, Fiametta. Lord Ferrante is not invincible. Not till his army gets here, anyway. Tonight, tomorrow ..." Thur grimaced.

"Not tonight," said Fiametta. "Ruberta says the rumors in the marketplace have it that the Losimons are held up getting their cannon across the ford at the border. But tomorrow—tomorrow they may be here." Wearily, Fiametta rubbed her face. "I found Ruberta this morning, at her sister's. I thought that's where she must have gone, if she'd lived. She told me what happened here. When the soldiers came that idiot Teseo panicked, and unbarred the door to them. Ruberta barely got over the back wall with her life. Well, it saved our poor door from being battered in, I suppose, and made no difference in the long run."

"Oh. Speaking of Ruberta. She says to come eat."

Fiametta sighed. "I suppose we must. To keep up our strength. Our strength to run away, if nothing else." Her face crumbled; she brought her clenched hand down on the tabletop with a bane, making the notebook jump. "No," she cried. "I don't want to run away! This house is the only dowry I have left, Ferrante's bravos have taken everything they could pry loose. I will not marry dowerless like a beggar's brat, like a slave ..." Then she just cried.

"Fiametta . .. Fiametta ..." Thur opened his hands, hardly daring to touch those shaking shoulders. "Your talents, your art and magic, are dowries in themselves. Any man must see, if he isn't a complete fool. And you're too good to wed a fool. Though I would wed you in a moment. But I haven't got a penny either. I haven't even got any clothes or shoes! If we could ... live in Bruinwald, I could go back to the mines or the forge. I admit, there's not much call for goldsmiths in Bruinwald."

Fiametta raised a tear-stained face. "But ... wouldn't you like to live here, Thur? I could take over Papa's shop, in a small way at first, but most of the tools are left—you could haul the wood, and move the furnaces, and carry out the big projects, and be my h-h-husband; the Guild Council would issue you the shop permits in a minute. As a minor orphan, the Guild would control my property, but if I were married, you would. And, and Ruberta could still come cook, and we could be happy here!"

Thur was taken aback by all the practical detail embedded in this picture of wedded bliss. She must have been thinking about it a lot. He'd scarcely dared let himself go beyond the vaguest physical longing—he had to admit, it was a wonderful house, as far above a miner's cottage as, as Montefoglia Castle was beyond a goldsmith's mansion. There were a lot of repairs to be done, after the looting, of course. He could do repairs, his hand and eye were clever enough for that. "I'd like it fine," he said. His mother would be astonished for him to marry so well, so soon ...

"Could my mother come live here? Bruinwald winters are so cold and lonely." Yes, sooner or later, it must be his burden to tell her about Uri's fate. His stomach knotted at the thought.

Fiametta blinked. "Well, there's lots of room ..." And more doubtfully, "Do you think she would like me?"

"Yes," said Thur firmly. He saw his mother dandling a grandchild on her knee, as Fiametta chinked away at some elegant goldwork, Ruberta cooked, and he ran a furnace, pouring pewter platters and candlesticks and other sturdy, practical things.

The colored vision faded at the thought of the advancing tramp of Losimon troops. Fiametta shared that dread; the fight faded from her eyes. "All for nothing, if Ferrante wins," she sighed.

"Yes. Let's ... go eat." Shyly, defying Ferrante and all the fates, he took her hand as they went out into the courtyard. She gripped his hand in return.

She paused to stare into the casting pit at the big clay lump, the fragile mold for the great Perseus. "So many works my father left unfinished. If I could do one thing to ease his poor shade, I would have this statue cast for him. Before the Losimons destroy the mold, or time and neglect crumble it away. We'll never get the metal for it, now."

Thur said glumly, "It's too bad we can't invest Uri into that old Greek hero, like the brass hare. He'd make Ferrante run."

Fiametta froze. "What?"

He stood very still. "Well, we can't ... can we? I mean, that would be serious necromancy. Black sin."

"Any more sinful than assassination?"

Thur stared uneasily at her intent face.

"And suppose ... suppose the spirit, Uri's spirit, was not bound against his will? Suppose he was invited—not a slave, but a free-will volunteer, like the spirit of Lord Lorenzo's great ring?" she said huskily. "Uri's spirit has already been strengthened for binding, if vilely, by Vitelli—we have the mold, the furnace, the wood, the spell is written out, oh, I understood it, Thur! It's not just words, it has an inner structure...." Her shoulders slumped. "But we still don't have the metal. Not Vitelli himself could conjure a hero's weight of copper out of the air."

A vision danced and dazzled in Thur's mind like a lightning flash. A grinning kobold, drawing an iron bar down into solid stone as if it were porridge ...

"I can't conjure it out of the air. Thurs breathless voice seemed to his own ears to be coming from a great distance, as across a sea. "But I swear I can conjure it out of the ground."