Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

It was also not exactly where an irate fence would be sending his hirelings looking for a thief. But Benito found the bells no aid to sleep.

He was awakened by someone coming into the monk's cell they'd assigned him. For most of his life, Benito had slept lightly-a thief living on his wits in other peoples' property couldn't afford to do otherwise. It was better to sleep lightly and uneasily than to snore like a hog and be slaughtered like one. Since he'd left the Citadel, Benito's senses seemed to have honed themselves even more. But this time they'd woken him for something harmless. It was a small, large-nosed monk, bearing a chinking bag. "That was an exceptionally good stone, young man. I have some seventy-three ducats for you."

Benito reflected there were some advantages in not selling to a fence. The one disadvantage was the embarrassment of riches.

The little man cleared his throat. "Sister Genina has explained to me that you obviously don't want publicity, but we have this medal for you. It was offered as a reward, and it seems fair that you should get it."

He produced a small silver medallion. "It is supposed to have a strand of Saint Arsenius's hair in it, and it is blessed by the bishop. We cannot claim there is any miraculous great virtue attached to it, though. It may be of help to a seafarer and will protect and glow if you are exposed to evil magic."

The little man looked more than a little uncomfortable. "She, um, Sister Genina, led me to understand you'd recovered our medals in the course of getting your own property back. I realize you may not be able to do this but, well, there are certain church vessels missing too, and another four of those medals. You couldn't perhaps tell us where to look?"

Benito's youthful experience said: Betray someone to the law? Not likely.

On the other hand, the fence had already played foul, by the thieves' code. Besides, any piece of excrement that was low enough to take holy medals deserved whatever he got.

"A fence in Reggio di Calabria. His name is Di Scala. His home is up on the hill. Big place, walls with coppo tiles on top of them. He trades from upstairs on the third last house in the alley at the end of the quay. His small-ah, dubious stuff is kept in a secret compartment in the cassone in his room. I suggest you have whomever you send take an axe to open it. Those things have booby traps nine times out of ten. And I suggest the order send someone very large and well-armed. Actually, I suggest you send several someones like that. The fence has a couple of big bullies working for him, and I doubt, all things considered, that they'd respect the cloth."

The slight monk smiled. "I think not for long. Down here in the south the order is held in high esteem. The people will not allow us to be hurt."

Benito shrugged. "Make sure there are a lot of witnesses around, then. I got the feeling that this man has no respect for the Church, either."

Benito left without fanfare that afternoon and went to a respectable dealer in secondhand clothing. By the time he walked down to the Messina quay-side to hunt a dockside tavern for a passage north, he'd changed from a shag-rag sailor into a minor, but respectable trader, with a plain but serviceable rapier and the Shetland knife riding where a main gauche would.

The weight of the rapier was comfortingly familiar. The boots were not comforting or comfortable on feet that had gotten used to being bare again-and before that to having boots cut by the finest cobblers in Venice-but Benito had little choice but to wear them. No scruffy seaman would pay for a passage. And right now, if it meant paying for the whole vessel, he'd do it. He felt time pressing on him. He wanted to get through to Venice, and back to Corfu.

It only took three cups of wine to find a caique heading up the coast in the morning as far as Livorno. And another cup and five ducats had him installed in a cabin on her. It wasn't a big cabin, but it had a hammock and a small window.

Benito was resting in the hammock, enjoying having his new boots off, with the spicy warm evening breeze blowing off the straits and in through the window. He was slept-out, so he passed the time sharpening the Shetland knife and despairing of getting a good edge on the rapier. It wasn't a bad weapon, really. It just wasn't Ferrara steel. He examined the edge in the candlelight.

Suddenly, the door to the cabin was opened so violently it was nearly thrown off its hinges. In came the cadaverous Di Scala and his two thugs. There was very little doubt they'd come with murder in mind.

Benito rolled out of the hammock, landing on his feet, catlike, with the rapier in his right and the Shetland knife in his left. The cabin was narrow and quite full of hammock. This did mean that the three were in each other's way.

"You thought you'd got away with it, didn't you, you little pizza da merde!" hissed the fence, closing the door behind him. "Nobody does that to me! I'm going to make an example of you. Cut your cazzo off and shove it down your throat, spill your guts and leave you to die slowly. Take him, boys."

Benito grabbed the hammock with a forefinger and slashed the hanging rope with the Shetland knife. The rope raveled, parted, as Di Scala's two pieces of muscle pushed their way forward, slightly cautious. They'd plainly expected him to have a knife at best, and to be the cringing little thief they'd bullied. The rapier was unexpected.

But they weren't going to let it stop them. They were professionals, after all.

Benito flung the hammock at them. It was spread by two hardwood batons and therefore the net stayed open. The two thugs both had the same hand-and-a-half guardless knives that the rascally oil merchant had had. Perhaps they were popular here in the south. The hammock tangled one of them, so Benito neatly dealt with the other.

Terminally. There was no space for a swing here, but a rapier lunge was quite as effective. The extra reach made the thug's knife an ineffectual defense.

The other freed himself of the hammock, and pulled the spreader-baton from it. It still wasn't rapier-long, but it gave him something to fend off rapier cuts and thrusts with. Benito balanced on the balls of his feet, aware that Di Scala was fumblingly trying to prime a wheel-lock pistol.

Lunge. Twist. A slash of the main gauche.

The remaining thug's hand-and-a-half blade skittered across the floor. Blood pulsed from the man's wrist.

Benito kicked the knife into the corner behind him, nicking his toes. The thug, his eyes huge in the candlelight, dodged back, crashing into his master.

"Testa di cazzo!" snarled the fence, nearly dropping the gun. He pushed the man roughly away, back toward Benito.

The wolf was at the surface now. Both of them were going to die.

And then Benito paused. The medallion he'd been given was hot against his flesh…

He settled for neatly flicking the baton out of the hand of the surviving tough and kicking his legs out from under him. Di Scala was trying to aim the pistol, his hands now shaking so badly he could barely hold the weapon. Benito looked scornfully at him. Here was one who hired his dirty work done. Even the dead thug was worth two of him.

He jumped forward, planting both feet in the fallen thug's solar plexus. The man struggled weakly for breath.

The fence pressed against the door he'd closed, pointing the quivering pistol at Benito.

"I can put this knife through your eye," said Benito coldly. "You, on the other hand, haven't primed that thing properly. You'll be lucky if it goes off at all. It's rusty, too, so it's as likely to kill you as me. Besides, you couldn't hit a barn door from inside shaking like that."