Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

"I'm not buying. I'm selling." Morando turned and walked out. The next move would be Fianelli's.

It wasn't long in coming.

Petros Nachelli wasn't a man whom Aldo Morando would have chosen for a go-between. A short, fat, glib little man who oozed greasiness and dishonesty in equal proportions. The Greek was a rent collector for the landed gentry of Corfu's Libri d'Oro. Cockroaches came higher on the social scale of things. Spying was a big step up for Petros.

He knocked on Aldo's door with a smile of false bonhomie on his podgy face. "Ah, my friend Morando. I received a message that you had some… merchandise you wished to sell. You can entrust me with it. I'll see you get the best possible price."

"I deal directly or not all, Nachelli. You can tell him that."

The smile fell away from the pudgy face. "I was informed that you were either to sell or I was to take it." He twitched his head over his shoulder, in what he apparently intended for a menacing gesture. Across the road, two of Nachelli's men were loitering. Rent collection sometimes required a beating or two.

Morando gave them no more than a glance. Fianelli's three goons were, in their own way, fairly impressive fellows. Genuine professional thugs. Nachelli's "enforcers," on the other hand, were about what you'd expect from such a lowlife. From the looks of the two scrawny fellows, they were just some relatives of the rent collector pressed into service here. Reluctant service, from the expressions on their faces. They'd be accustomed to bullying long-suffering peasants, not someone like Morando who had a somewhat scary reputation of his own. Aldo suspected that a loud Boo! would send them both packing.

"I think not," Morando sneered. "I have taken precautions, Nachelli. His name-Fianelli's-and the names of his three errand boys. Due to go to the podesta, the captain-general, the garrison commander and this newly arrived imperial prince, if I disappear. So go away and tell the boss I don't deal with intermediaries."

Morando smiled nastily, before closing the door. "And remember that your name is on the list now, also."

Aldo Morando was in fact delighted by one aspect of Fianelli's choice. The use of Nachelli fingered several of the Libri d'Oro families who'd been enriched by the feudal system the Venetians had imposed on the island-and were now conspiring against the Republic. A potential source of much income, for a blackmailer.

Fianelli came to see him after sundown. When he left, Morando went to the flagstone that served as a trapdoor to the "satanic cellar" and lifted it up. Bianca Casarini emerged from the stairs.

"I still don't understand why you didn't pass the information on to him yourself," he grumbled. "This is a bit dangerous for me, Bianca. Nachelli's just a toad, but Fianelli-crude as he may be-is something else again."

Bianca gave Morando her most seductive smile and chucked him under the chin.

"Surely you're not afraid of him? Aldo Morando? A veteran of Milanese skullduggery? Quaking at the thought of a criminal-ah, not exactly mastermind-on a dinky little island in the middle of nowhere?"

Irritably, though not forcefully, he brushed her hand aside and stumped over to the table in the kitchen. "Save the silly 'manly' stuff for someone stupid enough to fall for it, Bianca." He lowered himself into one of the chairs. "I survived Milan by not being foolhardy. So please answer the question."

Bianca came over and slid into a chair next to him. She took her time about it, to consider her answer. Morando was a charlatan, true, but it wouldn't pay to forget that he was also considerably brighter than any of the other men she was dealing with on Corfu.

She decided the truth-most of it, at least-would serve best.

"I can't afford to become too closely associated with Fianelli myself. Even more important, I can't afford to let him start getting the notion that I've become indispensable to him."

Morando arched a quizzical eyebrow. From long habit, he did so in a vaguely satanic manner. "Satanic," at least, as he-a charlatan and a faker-thought of the term. Bianca, as it happened, had once gotten a glimpse of the Great One, in her dealings with Countess Bartholdy. So she knew Morando's affectation was silly.

The real Satan had no eyebrows, nor could he. They would have been instantly burnt to a crisp, so close to those…

Not eyes. Whatever they were, they were not eyes.

She shuddered a little, remembering.

Morando misinterpreted the shiver. "Fianelli's not as bad as all that, Bianca." He chuckled. "I would have thought you'd want to be indispensable to him."

She shook her head. "You're misreading him. No, he's not that bad-but he is that sullen. Fianelli is the kind of man who hates anyone having a hold on him, especially a woman. If he gets sullen enough, he'll cut off his nose to spite his face. The nose, in this instance, being me."

Morando looked away, thinking for a moment. "Probably true," he mused. "He does remind me a bit of those crazy Montagnards in Milan, even if he hasn't got a speck of political loyalties. But… yes, he's got that somewhat maniacal feel about him."

"I don't think he's entirely sane." Confident now that she had Morando diverted down a safe track, Bianca pushed ahead. "He murdered that woman of his, you know-had her murdered, anyway-and for what? She was docile as you could ask for, and so dumb she posed no threat to him whatsoever. Didn't matter. At a certain point, she irked him a bit. Why? Who knows? Probably asked him to wipe the mud off his feet before entering the kitchen she'd just cleaned."

Morando grunted. "All right. What you intend, then, is to make sure that the information we feed him comes from both of us. You feed him stuff from the Libri d'Oro, I feed him stuff from the Venetians. And stuff which jibes with each other. That way he'll think he can play one of us off against the other. That'll please his fancy-enough, you think, that he won't start thinking of either of us as a threat to him."

"Exactly."

Again, he gave her that false-satanic eyebrow. It wasn't all fakery, though. Bianca reminded herself sharply that Morando hadn't survived Milan without being willing to shed blood himself, on occasion.

"Just make sure it isn't true, Bianca." The menace in Morando's voice was barely under the surface. "If I start thinking that you're playing me…"

"Don't be silly! Why would I do that?" She didn't try for offended innocence-Morando wouldn't believe that for an instant-but simple cold calculation. "This partnership is proving profitable for both of us. Besides, sooner or later-we're doing our best to make sure it happens, after all-the Hungarians are going to pour into this place. When that happens, I have every intention of being on the best possible terms with you."

She glanced at the flagstone. Morando, following her eyes, smiled. "It will make a nice hideout, won't it, until the Hungarians have sated their bloodlust?"

His eyes moved back to her, lingering for an instant on her body. "Simple lust, too, for such as you. Mind you, Bianca, I will expect to be entertained while we're waiting in the cellar."

She laughed huskily. "And have I ever given you grounds for complaint on that score?" Her hand reached out and began stroking his arm. "Now that you bring it up, in fact…"

Regretfully, he shook his head. "Can't, sorry. Not tonight. The Tomaselli slut is coming over later and she's supposed to bring a friend of hers with her." He rolled his eyes. "I need to save my energy. And other stuff."

Bianca laughed again. "What are you complaining about? Two women, naked, squirming all over you-most men would think they'd died and gone to Heaven."

Morando's face was sour. "Most men have never copulated with Sophia Tomaselli in a rut, with paint and ointments smeared all over her body and with her groaning what she thinks are words of passion. I'm coming to detest the woman." The face grew more sour still. "God only knows what her friend is like."