Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

Eventually she spoke. "Mage Marco, you are sure this one is your brother? His flames, and the fire in this one are strange. Powerful. There is an echo of you about him… but you are water. Cool, healing waters. This one frightens me."

Benito snorted. "Well, if it's all the same to you, green-hair, you make me nervous, too, just by the way you look at me."

Marco smiled and put an arm around Benito's shoulders. "Yes, Juliette. He is my brother. My half-brother, anyway. But he's been as close to me as a twin. And though at times he's as wild as fire, you can trust him to the ends of the earth."

Juliette didn't look entirely convinced. "Spill a drop of your blood on the water then," she said to Benito.

Benito shrugged, took out the Shetland dagger and tried to prick his thumb. Hard work had calloused it, and besides, sticking a knife into yourself was never that easy.

"Do it for me, Marco."

Marco did, with all of a chirurgeon's practiced ease.

Benito squeezed the thumb. A red drop formed and splashed into the greenish chapel water. Juliette scooped some of it up in a long-fingered hand. Sniffed it. Tasted it. Looked penetratingly at him again.

Her next question startled Benito. "Do you know the child Alessia?"

Benito nodded. "She's on Corfu with her mother. It's where we wanted help to get back to."

Juliette regarded him keenly. "Corfu! You mean Corcyra? Aieee!" The golden eyes narrowed, still unblinking. "Do you care for this child? Do you love her?"

Benito blinked. "I… I don't really know her. I do care very deeply about her mother."

The look was now stern. "I ask you again. Do you love this child? Will you guard her and care for her, if she needs it?"

Benito had found the gaze of the Republic's chief Justice less disconcerting, less searching. Alessia was a baby, for heaven's sake. He'd hardly even touched one before her.

He remembered, suddenly and vividly, the warmth of her, the smell of her. She was Maria's kid. Of course he would love her. "Yes," he said, calmly.

Juliette continued to stare at him, but that flat golden stare seemed wary now. Benito noticed she'd edged away a little. "The flame burns steady," she said at last. "But it burns very, very hot. You must see to the child's welfare. I charge you with this. It is your responsibility."

"And will you help us?" asked Benito, a little tired of the orders, the inquisition, the mysterious questions and references.

She nodded. "I must. I will speak with the tritons."

And then she slipped away into the water with scarcely a ripple.

"Well," said Francesca, with a small, satisfied smile. "I have finally found the link between several of the trouble spots. It's so simple that I am disgusted with myself that I didn't think of it earlier. It's the local black market. The factions all buy extra supplies out of the Venetian storehouses from two men. A nice little link of bribery and blackmail for spies."

Manfred almost fell off the chair he'd been endangering by rocking on. "What? How much of this is going on?"

"I'm really not sure of the extent of it, Manfred," said Francesca. "But from what I can work out most of the Corfiote Libri d'Oro families are involved."

Von Gherens looked grim. "Hang the lot of them. It's treason."

Francesca blinked at the knight. "It's buying food on the black market. Hardly a capital crime."

Falkenberg rubbed the scars above his eye. "What you don't seem to grasp, Francesca"-he'd finally gotten to calling her Francesca-"is that it undermines the military capability of the Citadel to resist. You see it as a chain of blackmail that spies and traitors can use. We see it far more directly as shortening the period a fortress can withstand siege."

"Both apply," said Manfred grimly. "And it has to be stopped. And it is no use just cutting off the supply. Von Gherens is right. We need to make it clear that the buying, too, is a crime."

Francesca made a face. "I see what you mean. But the biggest problem is finding someone in the Libri d'Oro who isn't buying."

"And we're going to have to find out what this corruption has done to the supplies."

"You are going to have to do so quietly, without causing panic," pointed out Eberhard.

"It'll also upset the Libri d'Oro. Make the fomenting of treachery easier for someone," said Francesca.

"Without food, Francesca, there won't be any need for treachery to bring this place down. We've got water until the winter rains at least. I thought we had good rations for a year. It depends now on how far this stupid greed has undermined the capacity of the Citadel to resist. We've got a lot of people here, you know."

"I know. I pointed it out to you," said Francesca dryly.

"Emeric is on his way back to Corfu." The words coming from Elizabeth's image had, as always, a faintly echoing air about them. "My plans are starting to come together nicely. So it is time for you to begin seriously undermining the Citadel. You have traitors in place by now, I assume?"

"Yes, mistress. I've managed to stall them, so far, although it's been difficult. They're mostly local noblemen. Corfiotes-the Libri d'Oro, they like to call themselves. Headstrong and amazingly stupid."

Elizabeth laughed gaily. "My dear Bianca, all petty noblemen are headstrong and amazingly stupid. If you think your Corfiotes are bad, wait until you meet the piglets who live in my part of Europe."

Bianca wondered if that was a promise. She'd visited the countess in her castle before, twice, but only for the brief periods of time needed to advance aspects of her training. At some point, though, it would be necessary for Bianca to take up residence with Bartholdy for an extended period. That would be a time that would be simultaneously exhilarating and extremely dangerous. Acolytes of Elizabeth, Countess Bartholdy, did not typically enjoy a long lifespan. But Bianca was determined-and confident-that she would be one of the few exceptions. Ultimately, the only exception.

The laughter having faded away, Bartholdy looked thoughtful. "I would have thought you'd be concentrating on the Venetians, though. The Libri d'Oro, when all is said and done, are simply parasites on Corfu. The real power is with their Venetian overlords."

"I have infiltrated the Venetians also, mistress," said Bianca hurriedly. "In fact, the wife of the captain-general is now my creature, and through her-if and when the time comes-I can subvert him. But that poses certain obvious risks, which I don't think we need to take at the moment."

She hoped Elizabeth would let pass the fact that the "we" in the last sentence really meant "Bianca Casarini." Elizabeth was hundreds of miles away, after all. If Bianca's schemes and manipulations backfired, she'd be the one to pay the price, not the countess.

But Elizabeth seemed in a good mood. "Oh, yes, I can understand that. Very well. Try your Corfiotes first. There's actually no great hurry, Bianca. I simply wanted to alert you, not have you start rushing about frantically. If your Corfiotes fail, you'll have time to develop your plots with the Venetians."

After the image faded away, and Bianca finished cleaning up the signs of the ritual, she examined the man lying naked on her bed. Paulo Saluzzo's face was locked in the same expression of stuporous satisfaction that she'd placed him in before she began the ritual. Although his eyes had been open the entire time, staring blissfully at the ceiling, he'd been oblivious to the satanic practices she'd undertaken in the very same room.

He was completely under her control, now. Bianca didn't usually bother to exercise that degree of magical control over her bedmates. She certainly hadn't bothered to do so with Aldo Morando. There was no need, as a rule. Sex itself, with most men, was enough to disarm them. But since Saluzzo needed to spend considerable time in her own house, unlike Morando or any of the Libri d'Oro with whom she'd copulated, Bianca had taken the time and effort to exercise the needed rituals on the man.