Lois Bujold - THE SPIRIT RING

Fiametta had cast her own wedding ring—without ensorcellments, this time—in the mask of a lioness. Its tiny gold teeth closed on a green-faceted chip borrowed from the eye of her silver snake-belt; the gems upon testing had proved to be real emeralds. That chaste snake must just wink a while, till she could afford a replacement stone. She turned her hand a little to make the green flash, and smirked into her lap.

They turned from the altar to collect kisses and hugs and hearty congratulations from the witnesses, each according to their style; Lorenzetti the notary shook hands, Tich pecked her cheek, Ruberta embraced everyone, and dabbed at her eyes. Thur's mother grasped Fiametta's hands, and gave her a warm smile, though her swimming eyes were still tinged with a searching doubt. Time would put those doubts to rest, Monreale had assured Fiametta privately. Fiametta smiled back in earnest hope thereof.

Tich had escorted Mistress Ochs personally from Bruinwald, on his first round-trip with his pack mules. He had finally managed to recover all but two of the lost beasts. His eager personal persuasion and good offices had much to do with prying the aging woman from her familiar cottage and carrying her on this mixed adventure, fraught with both sorrow and joy, to visit one son's grave and the other's wedding. Thur and Fiametta had awaited her arrival anxiously, as the date of their wedding had been agreed between them to be the day after her arrival. She seemed a quiet woman, obviously devoted to Thur; perhaps that was enough mutual interest upon which to start building her acquaintance with her new daughter-in-law. She had clearly been thrilled by his new clothes.

Before leaving the cathedral they stopped into one of the side chapels. This holy chamber had been the recipient, over a year ago, of a noble gift from Master Beneforte's hand: a fine carved marble crucifix with a white Christ upon a black marble cross, now affixed to the wall with its iron clamps. In exchange, the building committee had permitted his humble request: space for a stone sarcophagus beneath Our Lord's feet. Fiametta did not think this represented morbid premonition, exactly, because he had not then ordered the sarcophagus. The stonecutters she'd hired had placed the tomb only a week ago, but at least it was in time for her to kneel and lay her wedding flowers upon it. "Peace, Papa," she whispered.

To her gnawing regret, she had not found her mother's death mask again. It had been nowhere in the patiently sorted shambles of her house, nor had her inquiries among neighbors who had recovered portions of their looted possessions borne fruit. Even Thur's peculiar talent proved no help this time, though he had walked for hours, absent-faced with concentration, quartering Montefoglia. The bronze mask must have been carried out of the city.

I am a sorceress. If I truly seek, I must find you at last, Mama, Fiametta made silent oath. Someday. Someday.

When she rose she found Monreale standing back looking at the Christ, meditating artistically rather than theologically, for he said, "It's very fine. The proportions are strange, yet they hold the eye and the mind."

"He did not use a model. It was from a vision, Papa told me, that he had when he was in prison in Rome once upon ... uh ... what he said were false charges."

"Yes, I heard that tale from him. The vision, at least, was true," Monreale mused. "Well, he rests now under better eyes than mine. It is good for him to have such a guardian.

'Speaking of guardians," he turned to her, "I have a wedding present for you." From his robe he drew a folded piece of parchment, and handed it to her.

She cracked it open eagerly, read, and bounced twice into the air. "Wonderful! My Guild permit! Now I can make and sell spells, as well as metal bagatelles!"

"Only such as are inspected and approved for your level of license," he cautioned. "You are officially listed as my apprentice, so I am in part responsible for the consequences of your actions. I will not be able to watch you daily as an ordinary master would, but you may be sure I will inspect your shop frequently." He mustered a stern frown for emphasis. "I'll have no more such Beneforte tricks as your Papa played upon me, now!"

"No, sir!" Fiametta danced, and hugged Thur. "Now we're truly in business!" He grinned reflecting back her shining delight.

Monreale lowered his voice to her ear alone. "I mean that most seriously, Fiametta. I had to use the utmost care, in dealing with the committee from the Inquisition over the matter of the late and damned Vitelli, to keep you out of it. As far as any official report states, Uri's spirit got into that casting by itself, as an accidental result of Vitelli's machinations. I do not recommend that you draw their attention twice."

"It was by itself," Fiametta argued sotto voce. "I did not compel, I only channeled him."

"I tried not to trouble their minds with that subtle distinction. Consider the matter sealed under my authority as your master, and do not discuss it without my permission. Eh?"

Fiametta smiled. "Yes—Master."

Monreale nodded, grimly satisfied. With blessings all round he excused himself to attend to the Diocese, and the chancellory business that had come upon him as he found himself chief advisor to Duchess Letitia in her unaccustomed role as Regent for little Duke Ascanio.

The wedding party spilled out into the beautiful morning light on the cathedral steps. Ruberta and Lorenzetti headed back on foot to the house, to supervise the laying of the tables and the tapping of the wine cask, respectively, before all the neighbors who had helped put out the house fire arrived for the fete. "I don't trust that hired girl with my pastries," Ruberta sniffed. The kobolds had not been invited; in fact, Fiametta had not even seen one of the shy gnomes since that wild night of spell and metal casting. But the bowl of goat's milk she laid out nightly on the floor of the root cellar was always empty the next morning.

Thur helped his mother up onto a white mule, borrowed from Tich, and Fiametta up onto their white horse. Fiametta herself had spent yesterday afternoon shampooing both beasts and scrubbing them clean of every manure stain. She'd pinned old sheets around them overnight to protect her labors. Both animals' hooves were blacked with polish and their manes and tails braided with colored ribbons. The white horse's swayed back was built up with enough pads and flowers to look almost normal, and Fiametta happily arranged her green brocade outer skirt and cream-white inner skirt over the rugs. As if in response to all this attention the old horse arched its neck and stepped out finely. Thur walked between the two mounted women. They wound through the streets and headed up the hill toward Montefoglia castle.

The battlements seemed to glow, sunny and open, not the midnight-sinister pile of stone they had been in the rain-swept dark of that terrifying night six weeks ago. Only six weeks ago? It seemed a world past. When the word of the deaths of their leader and his dark advisor had arrived, the Losimon army had turned away at the border fords and marched back to their own capital. A Ferrante cousin appointed heir by the Curia was presently scrambling for political control there, and in no mood to seek extra trouble from his new neighbors.

The animals' hooves clopped, echoing off the stone walls, as the women rode through the tower-flanked gate into a busy and noisy castle courtyard. Blacksmiths were at work repairing the portcullis, and their laborers stoked a portable forge. Lord Pia, dressed in summer linens and an Egyptian cotton shirt, leaned on a cane supervising. Under his wife's devoted care he'd made a good recovery, though appearing more frail, as his hair was grayer and he'd lost some of his robust girth. Except for a certain uncharacteristic hesitancy, his tone of mind was much improved from the over-stressed dementia of those days of madness, magic, and murder. He recognized Fiametta, and favored her with a friendly wave of his hand. Fiametta waved back while trying to look very busy, lest he come over and corner Thur again for more talk of his proposed bat-wing experiments.