Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

Benito sat drinking some wine with Maria and Umberto in their small bedroom. Umberto sat against the pillows and Maria on the foot of the bed. Benito was sitting on the chair from the living room. Alessia was attempting to suck her toes on a rug at their feet.

Benito had been back every day to sit a while with Umberto and Alessia. Maria's initial surprise had given way to acceptance. But today she hadn't taken advantage of it to go out. Today she wanted to know what was happening. She was worried, and not without reason.

Benito grimaced at the wine. "I suppose the one thing we can be grateful for is that we've still got enough wine for a full ration. If it was good wine, we wouldn't have. The Libri d'Oro didn't want to buy it because it was so lousy. So even though the granary is down to an eighth full and the upper wells are running dry, we've got wine. If you can call it that."

Maria shook her head at him in irritation. "Benito, stop burbling about wine, and tell us what happened. You were there. You should know. The rumors in the lower town today are amazing! A coven of witches sacrificing babies and having orgies with demons and blasting priests and buildings to ashes-a high-class brothel-a cabal of female thieves. God knows what. People are claiming all sorts of things. I've even given in to curiosity and been to have a look, not that there was much point. There's a guard and a smashed-in door but you can't see anything else."

"Manfred says it's like a traveling players' version of a mixture between hell and a brothel down below in the cellar. They took him to see it. It's pretty tawdry in daylight, apparently, but the lieutenant who was testifying is thinking about becoming a monk after last night." Benito chuckled. "Apparently he saw a great deal more of a number of mostly unattractive women than he really wanted to. Anyway, it seems that some bored Case Vecchie women had initially gone to Morando because of his reputation as an astrologer and chemist and-ah-sexual physician. Apparently, no matter what else he can do, he's quite a lover, or at least, they think he is. And they, finding-at last!-a lover who wanted to hear gossip as much as they wanted to indulge in it, came in droves. Well. I guess five women isn't really a 'drove.' "

Maria snorted. "They're saying Sophia Tomaselli was right on the top of the heap."

"The captain-general is trying desperately to hush it all up," said Benito, nodding. "She's his wife, after all."

Both her eyebrows went up. "And the wife of the Salt Minister and of the largest oil exporter on the island. Come on, Benito! Everybody already knows all that. He might as well try to hush the sea. People are getting very restive about it. The scuolo are all for burning the Castel a terra."

Benito was silent for a moment. Then he said wryly: "Fortunately, they jailed the man and the women separately, because all the women came out singing one tune: It was a complete fraud, a put-up job by the Knights to discredit their husbands and allow the prince to take over. They'd been kidnapped, stripped, abused, and locked in the cellar. They wanted the Knights punished for the degradation by being thrown out of the sanctuary that Venice had kindly offered them-and the cowardly mercenaries who'd sold out to them shot."

"What!" Umberto had started upright. Alessia stopped playing with her toes. "You can't be serious!"

"Dead serious. And Tomaselli was ready to make it stick. Heh. It was pretty exciting, what with Lieutenant Agra having to be restrained and calling the captain-general's wife a whore and witch."

"Well, he was dead right!"

"Yes, well, as it pans out… half right. Morando lent her some of his occult books-those were fakes, too, Eneko says-and apparently she tried to cast curses on-ah-people she considered to be her enemies." He interrupted himself before he said the name, but Maria saw the guilty look in his eyes, and she knew who he was going to say. And although she had suspected it, having the evidence in front of her was enough to send her simmering temper into full boil. So that was, indeed, where the ill-wishing had come from!

But Benito was continuing. "Fortunately, old man De Belmondo was sick and we had the assistant podesta of Corfu standing in. He's one of the Libri d'Oro, but he did his law in Padua University and takes it pretty seriously. He pointed out that since it was the captain-general's wife accused, Tomaselli couldn't take part in the hearings. And he sent the guard off to fetch the other Justices, even De Belmondo from his sickbed. And, as I say, it was fortunate that they'd kept the man separate. He's from the north of Italy, originally. Milan, in fact-Pauline country. They burn witches up there on suspicion. His name-the one he goes by here, anyway, is Aldo Morando. He was so keen to prove he wasn't a man-witch or a Satanist, that he was spilling the beans as fast as he could. He was selling information and black lotos, and acting as a glorified pimp for that gaggle of rich women. They followed up several of his confessions, and found them all true. Then they had the brains, finally, to split the women up and question them individually. Then they came apart. Their stories didn't tally. Eventually, the truth became obvious."

Umberto shook his head, confused. "What? That he really was training witches in our midst, practicing black magic?"

"Well, no," Benito said. "That he was casting horoscopes, telling fortunes, dabbling in the occult mostly as window dressing for his real interest-getting information from one set of stupid, bored, sexually unsatisfied women to sell to whoever might be interested in it. The Justices called Eneko Lopez. And he said, although they'd hoped to catch real practitioners of black arts, that this lot were simply nasty, spoiled, bored, rich women."

"And what happened then?"

"Well, to make a long story short, Eneko had cut the legs out from under the Justices. It's not an offence to prance around naked in a cellar done up to look like a cheap whorehouse with astrological trimmings. And, while selling the stuff is illegal, simply using black lotos is also not a crime. As for participating in orgies and gossiping to your lover, well, the outcome of that is mostly up to the husbands, not the courts."

"What! You mean they've got away with this? The scuolo will-" Umberto was struggling to stand up.

Benito flicked up out of the chair and pushed him down, gently. "Relax! For starters, selling information to enemy agents is a serious matter. So is pimping. Morando is the one who's really to blame here, and they have him dead to rights. They even got him for chicken theft! And two of the ladies of Corfu high society are up for… prostitution. It appears that Morando was selling their favors for certain services he rendered-including Tomaselli's Sophia. But the cream of it is that Lieutenant Agra-the one who got so upset about being called a cowardly sell-out mercenary-has slapped a civil suit for defamation against them."

"So what's happening to them now?"

"Morando will rot in jail until trial in Venice. The treason part will probably have him executed. The others… well, they've been bailed. Released into the custody of their spouses. Except for the wife of the Salt Minister. She asked to remain in jail for her own safety, since he threatened to kill her." Benito shook his head, ruefully. "Not that I think, under the circumstances, those other women will find their husbands very, ah, 'protective.' Probably beat them to a pulp."

"So you mean that Tomaselli bitch is out there, free?" demanded Maria furiously.

"Calm down, Maria."

"I will not calm down. I'll-"

"You're upsetting Alessia." Benito had picked the baby up and was soothing her.

Maria pursed her lips and took a deep breath. "I am going out," she said between clenched teeth.