Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

But very, very cautiously. Well, he would need magicians for this project anyway. He would consult with Elizabeth; she had a long memory, and longer experience. She even frightened him a little. How could a woman that old look as if she were barely twenty?

She was truly beautiful, too, with the sort of allure that literally held men enthralled. And she used that beauty like the weapon that it was; ruthlessly and accurately. It was, fortunately for Emeric, the kind of beauty that he could close his mind to.

In the craggy and cliff-hung little valleys on the north end of the enchanted island, the night-wind was full of the clatter-clatter of little goaty feet on the limestone and the hollow trilling of reed pipes. The shepherd huddled down under his sheepskins in his little lean-to. It was a full moon out there. This was when all good men stayed indoors.

Kallikazori still walked on the high, barren hillsides on these holy nights. And a man might turn over to find his wife was not beside him. If he was a wise man, he went back to sleep and said nothing at all about it to her in the morning. If he was a fool, he might beat her for being half-asleep the next day. But a man who wanted children, fertile fields and fertile flocks would keep his tongue and hands still. A wise man knew that here on Corfu, the old ones still walked and still wielded their powers.

A wiser man stilled his mind to the fact, prayed to the saints, and pretended he saw and heard nothing.

The wisest of all…

The wisest of all found a way to pray to the saints by day-and something else by night. After all, the Holy Word said, Thou shalt not have other gods before Me. It said nothing at all about having other gods in reserve.

Winter, 1538 a.d.

Eberhard of Brunswick waited patiently in the antechamber. He looked upwards and across toward the tall, narrow windows of the throne room, and then back at the empty throne. Weak winter sunlight patterned down through the windows and onto the mosaic-tiled floor of the throne room. The mosaic, a religious scene showing Christ feeding the multitudes, had been commissioned by the present Emperor's father, at tremendous expense. Personally, Eberhard thought the byzantine splendor did not fit well with the Gothic style of Mainz. The workers had been recruited-also at great expense-by the Venetians, all the way from Constantinople. Charles Fredrik's father, nearing the end of his life, had been convinced that the pious work would help to ease his path to heaven.

If God had the taste of a Byzantine, maybe it had. Eberhard grimaced. He had been close to the old Emperor. If Emperor Walther had lived to see the work finished, Eberhard had a feeling that the old flagstones might just have been put down again, on top of the mosaic.

He sighed. Charles Fredrik would be here, no doubt, shortly. In the meanwhile it would have been nice to have something other than these damn tiles to look at. It was damnably cold for an old man. He paced, to warm himself and distract his attention from the mosaic.

When Charles Fredrik finally arrived, with his aide Baron Trolliger, Eberhard of Brunswick began to wonder if he would be arranging for more Byzantine craftsmen to smooth this Emperor's path to heaven. Charles Fredrik looked tired. He looked more than tired: he looked worn. And he looked worried.

Still, his expression lightened when he saw Eberhard. He raised the old counselor up. "I see they have not even brought you a glass of wine to fight off the chill." He shook his head disapprovingly and gestured to one of the footmen. "Hippocras, for my Lord of Brunswick, and for us."

A few minutes later the three of them were seated in a small, warm side-parlor. An apple-wood fire burned merrily in the grate. That, and a goblet of rich, spiced hippocras had helped fight off Eberhard's chill and had lightened the Emperor's expression, even given some color to his cheeks. Charles Fredrik still looked twenty years older and much closer to the grave than he should. Eberhard knew that the wounds he had received in a youthful campaign still troubled one of the Emperor's lungs. Winters were always hard for him.

"Still no news from my nephew Manfred," said Charles Fredrik heavily.

"The roads and passes are snowed closed," said Baron Trolliger. "There is no reason to get too worried, Your Majesty. The Norse are honorable about their oaths."

Charles Fredrik shook his head. "I trust those petty pagan kinglets not at all, the so-called Christian ones not much more. I've sent a messenger through to Francesca in Copenhagen."

Baron Trolliger touched his head. "That woman…"

"Has secured us more cooperation with the Danes in two months than you did in five years, Hans Trolliger," said Charles Fredrik, almost snapping the words. "If I had twenty more like her, I could afford to die without worrying about the succession. As it is-well, at least Hakkonsen is with Manfred. Between Erik and Mam'zelle de Chevreuse, they keep one of my heirs on a reasonably even keel."

Baron Trolliger nearly choked. "That affair in Venice nearly had him killed! I still say we should have hanged every last one of those damned Servants of the Trinity."

Charles Fredrik smiled grimly. "If we'd hanged as much as one, the entire Pauline church would have been in an uproar. Instead they've excommunicated a few obvious bad eggs and we must put up with and isolate the rest. As for Francesca and Erik, I still say they kept Manfred on a reasonably even keel in very dangerous waters. Without either of them, he would have definitely been killed. Erik has made a warrior out of him, and Francesca has done even more. She's made him think. She might have led him by his testicles to that point, but she actually made him think. To my certain knowledge, that's something no one else ever succeeded at doing. The Venetian affair has done a great deal for one of my heirs. Besides, I enjoyed my visit to Venice and to Rome, even if you didn't, Hans."

Baron Trolliger looked as if he might choke. "The visit was bad enough. The months you made me stay there afterward…"

Eberhard of Brunswick chuckled. "Well, Your Majesty, at least Prince Conrad hasn't caused you as much trouble, even if he hasn't provided you with as much entertainment. What is Manfred doing in Norway, anyway? Winter in Scandinavia is not something I'd ever want go through again. I did it with your father in Smaland back in '22, when we went in to bail the Danes out. Far as I was concerned, the pagans deserved the place."

To an extent, Charles Fredrik agreed with his advisor, though it was hardly politic to say so.

"In winter, it can be bleak. Nice enough in summer," said the Emperor, mildly. Eberhard of Brunswick had been one of his father's closest friends and the old Ritter was now one of Charles Fredrik's most trusted emissaries. He'd spent the better part of the last year in Ireland, with the Celtic Ard Ri, representing the States General and the Holy Roman Emperor to the League of Armagh.

Now he was home. Charles Fredrik knew the old man had delighted in the thought of seeing his grandchildren again. The Ritter had dropped some hints in his correspondence that he'd like to retire to his estates.

The Emperor bit his lip. The old man deserved retirement, had more than earned it, but men of his caliber were rare. Very rare. In point of fact, there was no one skilled and canny enough to replace him.

He'd have to send the silver-haired warrior out again. But not somewhere cold and wet this time; that was the least he could do.

"It's still part and parcel of the same business, Eberhard. Well, the aftermath of it. The Danes are content to hold the coastal lands, but the chapters of Knights of the Holy Trinity that my father established there after the '22 campaign are still pushing deeper into pagan lands. They stir things up, and the pagan tribes tend to take it out on the Danish settlers. The Knights are building little empires out there. At this point, they're a law unto themselves."