Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

The captain-general looked frigidly at him. "In this case food and shelter intended for the island's people are being wasted on these women."

De Belmondo blinked. "Are these women and children from some other island then?"

"No, but they're not Venetian! They're locals." Tomaselli's tone added the unsaid words: and thus beneath contempt.

"I do not recall-as governor of this Venetian possession-anything which abrogates our responsibility for 'locals,' as you put it." The governor's voice was decidedly frosty. "In fact, I wasn't even aware of any such official category of people."

"But they're here illegally!" sputtered the captain-general.

Old Grisini snorted. "Not to make too fine a point of it-so are you, Tomaselli. They are in our building. They're the wives and children of our employees. We'll see to them. We'll see to their appropriate treatment."

The captain-general played his trump card. "Not with the food from the Citadel's stores. They must be put out!"

De Belmondo shook his head. "I cannot allow you to do that. And I don't think your men would be prepared to do something that would have them forever labeled as murderers of women and children. The Senate of the Republic would have my head, and yours."

This plainly hadn't struck Nico Tomaselli. "But we can't just allow them to freeload on the Citadel's stores!"

Umberto cleared his throat. "Excuse me, milords. I have an idea. If we put these women to work for the Republic, they would be entitled to a place as these men are."

The captain-general sneered. "You haven't even got work for yourselves! Besides, what can they do?"

Umberto answered instantly. "Weave sailcloth. We have flax, but the stores of sailcloth are very low."

"And what do we do with sailcloth in a siege?" grumbled Tomaselli, but you could see he was weakening.

"There is life after siege, we hope," said De Belmondo. "And if there isn't… well, we shall have no use for anything-never mind sailcloth."

There was no help for it. Maria came and had her name-Elena Commena, she decided-scribed in the book with the other workers' wives. Umberto nearly dropped his quill.

"But why sailcloth? The flax is intended for ropes, Umberto. It's too coarse for good sailcloth," said old Grisini. He'd virtually collapsed when the tension and need went-he was in his late seventies, and it was hard on him.

Umberto paused. Bit his lip trying to think how best to put this to the old man. "Because, master, the captain-general is right. We don't have work for ourselves. That's really the main reason there's fighting and dissatisfaction. So I have been thinking ever since the Teutonic knights arrived here under fire, that we need to be able to strike at the enemy ships. We have everything we need, except brass nails and sailcloth, to build ships ourselves."

The old man blinked at him, confused. "We can't launch ships. And without nails we can't even build them."

Umberto shrugged. "We've got iron nails by the bushel, master. And we can lower smallish craft directly over the walls."

"But what good will that do?" asked Master Grisini, tiredly. "The enemy has some huge carracks out there. And iron nails will just rust."

"If the boats are on fire they can burn craft thirty times their size. And they won't have time for the nails to rust."

"It's a good idea," conceded the old master shipbuilder, after thinking about it for a few moments. "But how are we to convince the military of that? The captain-general would not exactly thank us for military help."

Umberto shrugged. "We will deal with that, like we did with this. When the time comes. In the meanwhile we can give the men work to do. It'll cut down on the fights."

Sophia Tomaselli lay wakeful, trapped in her husband's bed by the sleeping man's leg. She wanted out of here. Out of this boring man's bed, and away from his clumsy and drunken rutting. And "rutting" was the right word, too. She knew perfectly well he was only taking out his frustration with the world by mounting her.

As soon as she could get out of here, Sophia would make her way through the dark streets to her new interest. Now there was a man who could teach this husband of hers a thing or two about lovemaking. She felt herself aroused by the very thought of the shameful, exciting lust, the thrill of forbidden pleasuring. And she had some information about the plans for repulsing any attack on the inner wall. He always rewarded her well for these little snippets.

Bianca closed the lid of the chest in her room, after finishing the needed rituals to prevent decay. Fortunately, she didn't need a large chest, nor had the rituals taken much time-in both cases, because the body of the beggar boy was so small.

The corpse would keep, for the moment, under the linens. There'd be no tell-tale traces of putrefaction coming from the chest for at least a month. By then, Bianca would have Saluzzo under her control and would have him dispose of the body in some more permanent manner.

She put that problem out of her mind. Right now, she needed to concentrate on finishing the materials needed for the ritual she'd use to have her "relatives" removed. The beggar boy's blood needed to be mixed properly with the fat she had carved from his internal organs. The very little fat, unfortunately-the beggar boy hadn't been emaciated, exactly, but he'd been scrawny. There had been a little around the liver, the intestines; not as much as she had hoped. She might have to extend it with some of her other unguents, and hope that the principles of contact and similarity would make good the deficiencies.

Gingerly, she fingered her forearm where the boy had punched her, at the end. She thought there'd be a bruise there, by the morning. Little bastard. He'd put up more of a fight than she'd expected, once he realized the arm she'd wrapped around his throat was intended to kill him rather than to hug him.

True, it hadn't been much of contest. Bianca had not yet dared begin the rituals that would eventually provide her with the superhuman strength of her mistress, Countess Bartholdy. But she was still a full-grown woman, well-fed and in good health. Against her murderous resolve, a malnourished five-year-old boy had had no chance at all. She just wished that he had been a little fatter.

She lit the brazier under the bowl containing the blood and fat, and picked up the special instruments carved from human bones. With her right hand, she began stirring slowly; while, with her left, sprinkling into the mix the other ingredients required. All the while, softly chanting the needed phrases and intonations. Some of the words had never been meant to be formed by a human mouth.

As the mixture cooked down, she saw that there was no help for it; she would have to add precious defiled and deconsecrated oils to the recipe, or there would not be enough of it for her purpose. She reached for the vials and added them carefully, drop by drop, watching for some change that would warn her that this addition had "soured" the mix.

But it didn't. In fact, as she added the precious fluids, so difficult to come by and so very expensive, she felt the sullen power in the bowl increasing, and her lips stretched in a little smile of surprise. Well, well, well!

Last of all, she added the ingredients that had been the most difficult of all to obtain; the powdered hair of her "aunt" and "uncle," and allowed the fire to die away beneath the bowl. Finally the mixture ceased to bubble, and she now had, for all of her effort, a little puddle of a thick, black, tarry substance in the bottom of the bowl-black as tar, but not sticky. No, this stuff would be smooth and creamy to the touch, and would swiftly vanish into whatever it was combined with or rubbed on, leaving no outward trace.