Lois Bujold - THE SPIRIT RING

"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.