Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

It was perhaps fortunate that Kari had been there. Giuliano found himself replaying the blood and the horror, on top of the blood and the horror of finding his gentle doe-eyed Eleni raped and murdered. He hadn't slept much since then, without a lot of wine. Before this evening he'd been seriously considering taking a pistol and ending it all. In fact it had only been their unthinking assumption that he would go along on this expedition that had had him here at all.

He didn't know how to tell them he didn't want any more of this… this killing.

And then she'd fallen. He'd been close enough to hear her scream. He'd heard what she'd been through from Hakkonsen. Obviously, it was still raw in her, too. Her voice was remarkably like Eleni's.

Something inside him had snapped. He hadn't even thought about what he was doing. Years of papa's training reasserted themselves.

When he helped her to her feet she staggered. He caught her and she leaned on him briefly. He could feel her trembling and her heartbeat against him, racing, then she pushed away. "I'm sorry, master," she said, peasant-to-landowner relationships reasserting themselves. "I was just so scared."

"So was I," he said quietly.

"We'd better ride."

Most of the others had already mounted. Other guards would be coming; there was indeed no time to be feeling sorry for himself. She must have seen the helpless look on his face. "Follow me. I used to live near here."

Giuliano, riding just behind her, wondered how a peasant girl learned to master a horse like that. There were few cavalrymen in the same league.

Up in the dark maquis near a stubby, wind-twisted Aleppo pine, she stopped and dismounted.

"What is it?"

"I just wanted to collect something. This is where Georgio and I were hiding." Her voice cracked slightly.

Giuliano decided he'd better dismount too. There was a narrow crack at the foot of the pine, that she'd slipped into. Giuliano tied his horse and, with some difficulty, squeezed in after her.

She lit a rush dip, and Giuliano could see that her eyes were brimming with tears. But she walked resolutely past the bed made up so neatly on the cave floor, past the ashes of the tiny fire. Past the two cook pots, and the oil crock. She took down a bundle of spidery net that hung from a crossbar that someone had rigged. Giuliano saw she was holding her lip between her teeth and determinedly not looking left or right. Her chin quivered slightly. She came back to the crack that was the door, turned briefly, looked at the bed, and let out a single, strangled sob. Then she put the rush dip out, and without waiting or even seeming to see Giuliano, scrambled out.

He was left alone in the darkness. He swallowed and pushed into the crack and out into the night.

She was struggling to mount with the bundle. "Can I hold that for you?" he asked, quietly.

The peasant girl seemed to see him again for the first time. "Please, master. Hold it here in the middle."

It was a fibrous bundle and surprisingly heavy. "What is it?" he asked, as he handed it up to her.

"My bird-net," she replied as he mounted.

He'd seen the peasant women casting their nets into the air to catch wild birds before. A fowling-piece of any sort was simply beyond the means of the peasantry, but with nimble fingers and a few weights they could catch feathered bounty. "What for? We have money for food."

She shrugged. "I can't fight men. I could cut their throats like animals when they were asleep. But I nearly died tonight, because I don't know how to fight. But I think a man in a net will not fight well. Then I can deal with him."

He took a deep breath. "I'll teach you. I should have taught Eleni."

"Who?"

"My wife. My beautiful, gentle wife. They killed her." It seemed very necessary to tell all of it. "They raped her first. They killed my son. My baby boy. I was away at my uncle Ambrosino's estate. Eleni doesn't," he swallowed, "didn't like him. So she and little Flavio stayed home. One of the family retainers brought me word. We rode as quickly as we could but…"

"Georgio and I never had a child." She paused. "You Libri d'Oro joke about the peasants always trying to save money with the priest being able to do the wedding and the christening at the same time."

Giuliano felt himself redden. He'd made the comment himself. Pregnant brides were almost the norm among the peasantry on his Ropa valley estate. "Yes. But I'm not one of the Libri d'Oro. My uncle is in the Golden Book, though."

They rode in silence, heading for the rendezvous. "But you are a landowner?"

"Yes. But my father did not approve of the Golden Book."

"And you lived on the estate and not in town. Very strange." She sounded slightly more at ease. "But you Libri d'Oro don't understand. A bride must be pregnant to prove that she can be fertile. Georgio loved me enough to marry me even though I… didn't fall pregnant. I had very little dowry, because my father died at sea. He married me anyway. I wanted a child. I wanted one so badly for my man. But now I am glad I didn't ever have one. This is no world for a child."

There seemed to be no reply to that. Peasant marriages, indeed even most noble marriages, had at least an element of commerce about them. It had been one of the things that had made him acceptable to Eleni's family. Thalia's must have been a rare marriage.

He decided, firmly, that by the next time this young woman went out seeking repayment for what their enemy had done, she'd be very capable of getting it. Hakkonsen had said he wanted two quick, immediate successes to draw recruits-and then they'd go to ground for a few weeks, and train properly. The Hungarians would be expecting them after this. The cavalry would recapture many of the horses-those that didn't come home by themselves, anyway-but they would be hunting horses for a while. Besides, more horse-tracks would muddle tracking operations. There would be time to train her. Maybe time enough, and recruits enough, that he would be valuable again, as a trainer, even if he couldn't slit throats.

Emeric tinkled a little crystal bell. An officer appeared hastily. "I want to talk to the blond-haired one. Aldanto. Have him sent to me."

The officer of the royal guard bowed and left at a brisk run.

He was back very quickly. Alone. "Sire, he has gone out. The guards saw him walk out just after dawn. He went northwards."

"Hmm. Alone? Or with one of these Byzantine rats he is supposed to be with?"

The young officer hesitated. "Sire, he had no man with him. No woman, either. But the guards tell me he was accompanied by a yellow dog. The guard said it looked more like an overgrown jackal than a dog. An ugly yellow-toothed mangy thing. His horse tried to kill it, and Aldanto stopped him."

A yellow dog… The puppet-man would not have a pet. His master wouldn't allow it.

"Have the guards told about this creature. If it is seen again, have them shoot it."

After the officer left, Emeric's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He was slowly-reluctantly-coming to the conclusion that before too long he would need to go back to Hungary and talk to his great-great-aunt, the Countess Bartoldy. His plans for Corfu were not working out as well as they should have, due to the incompetence of too many of his officers. And, what was worse, due to the delay it was becoming clear that magic would be playing more of a role in the campaign than he'd foreseen. Or wanted, even though he was a skilled sorcerer in his own right.

The problem with sorcery was that it was, ultimately, something that had no greater respect for monarchs than anyone else. That made it a risky business for someone with the name of "Emeric, King of Hungary." He hated to be beholden to his great-great-aunt any more than he needed to be, but it was just a fact that this sort of thing was Elizabeth Bartholdy's field of expertise, far more than his.