Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

It was, Eneko Lopez admitted, an effective way of being unobtrusive. And as he'd felt he could not ask any of the others to take the night-soil wagon duty, he at least got to sit down. This weather had been troubling the old wound, and that made walking and standing painful. Nothing that could not be borne, but it was still a relief to sit. And Benito had been right. No one stuck around the wagon, or paid it any more attention than they had to.

And then he had to leave the wagon in hurry. They'd found him-at last! Fianelli must have been laughing at their earlier efforts. Given where the demon-user had been hiding all this while.

"We have him. We have him absolutely pinpointed! The magic use was unmistakable!"

Erik Hakkonsen looked at the cleric skeptically. "And why have you come to me, Eneko? You are very capable of arranging for Satanists to be caught."

"Because this is within the Castel a mar. Inside the governor's wing."

"The governor himself no doubt," said Erik, dryly. "Or maybe his wife. Yes, Eneko, no doubt after the last performance, which I've heard all about, the governor's wife. Reputedly the kindest women on the Island. You're getting like Sachs, Eneko. Witches under every cobblestone."

Eneko Lopez's single line of eyebrow lowered fractionally, but he kept his even tone. "Actually, Erik, it is the governor's secretary we suspect. A man named Loukaris. Or rather, someone hiding in his chambers, as he wasn't there when the magic activity took place."

Erik made a face. "Hmm. Awkward. But better than the man's wife being a black magician, I suppose."

The stern lines on Eneko eased. He shook his head and smiled easily. "Saintliness shines out of her, Erik."

"He just dropped dead, Mam'zelle." The tail was one of the best Francesca had hired. Right now he was also one of the most distressed. He'd been following the Count Timeto, one of the guests at the captain-general's suspicious little gathering the night before. "Franco or I had him right under our eye almost every moment of the time. He went in to try to see Governor De Belmondo this morning. I was at the door when he spoke to the governor's secretary.

"And what did he say, Mouse?"

"He wanted an appointment with the governor. Now! He was very insistent. The secretary lied to him. Loukaris said he would check to if the governor was available. Franco followed him. He went into his own chambers and nowhere near Signor De Belmondo. And then he came back and told the Count that the governor was out."

Mouse took a deep breath. "I was following the count. Not too close, not too obvious. There was quite a crowd in the courtyard and it was easy. But when he got to the gates… There was no one near him and he just fell over. He was dead, signora. They took him to the hospital, but he was already dead. And no one killed him." The small spy crossed himself.

Francesca bit her lip. "Mouse, do you know where Benito is?"

The spy looked startled. "He was nowhere near, signora. He was on his way to the armory."

"I need to see him. Ask him to come here."

"Si. But why, signora?"

"A good spy like you should never ask questions like that." But she had a soft spot for the little nondescript man. He'd brought her so many interesting titbits. "My elders taught me how to play politics and manage spies. Benito's master taught him how kill people."

"He is a soldier, signora," said Mouse, looking doubtful. "The Count was killed by magic, I'm sure of it."

"Benito might be starting to become a soldier. But Caesare Aldanto was an assassin. And Benito learned a lot from him."

A few minutes later, Benito appeared. He looked wary. "What is it, Francesca? That's a thief you have running your errands, by the way."

"I know. Benito. If Caesare had wanted someone to die, without making it obvious, how could it be done in a hurry? Let me tell you what happened." And she explained.

Benito raised his eyebrows. "There are a couple of possibilities. But the most likely… Well, Caesare told me that if you push a very sharp, thin-bladed stiletto-actually, a sort of lethal pin-into the victim's heart, the bleeding is almost all internal. The strange thing is there is apparently no more than a momentary pain, especially if the victim is corseted up like a woman, or used to momentary aches and pains, like someone who's elderly or out-of-condition. The blade is pulled out, and the victim can continue walking for a good few heartbeats while the killer escapes. Get someone to examine the corpse, carefully."

One of the guards was suitably corruptible, and Mouse was sent on another errand. Francesca had to wait impatiently.

Benito was right. De Belmondo, at least, was in the clear. Why else would the Count have been murdered?

"It's a good thing not all De Belmondo's informants are so trusting that they'd talk to his secretary," said Manfred, when she told them the story. "Or Alexander Konstantis might be dead, too. And for once, just once, I know more than you do, dear. You see, De Belmondo really was out of his office. He was seeing me. While that wicked spy his secretary had told him about was away!"

Erik came in from the office of the garrison commander. "I have news for all of you. Eneko has found Fianelli."

The actual arrest, coming after all those months of looking for Fianelli, was almost an anticlimax. Thanks to Alexander Konstantis's inspired meddling, those who had conspired with Captain-General Tomaselli were caught, red-handed, in possession of documents from Emeric, with their names on each. Eneko and the Knights burst in on the secretary's chambers at the same time, so that Loukaris could not get warning. They caught him and his master, Fianelli, who had been hiding like a boll weevil right in the middle of his hunters.

"Well, Francesca. You should be pleased with yourself," said Manfred, patting her on the back.

She looked at him, consideringly. "What I have found is a series of strings and levers pulled by an evil man. I can't call Emeric anything else. I'm just afraid of what else there is."

Eneko nodded. "This drought, for example. It is undoubtedly magical and undoubtedly the product of Emeric, although I had not realized him capable of such great magics. And the female Satanist is still at large, don't forget."

"So is Sophia Tomaselli," grumbled Manfred. "How can a woman that dimwitted have evaded us for so long?"

That evening, as she studied again the records she had slowly compiled, it was Francesca who felt herself to be dimwitted. Never more so than the moment she realized the truth.

"Of course!" she exclaimed, slapping the table with a combination of exasperation and triumph. "How could I have been so stupid? It's right there in Eneko's records-once I match it properly against every else! Especially the inheritance records! The creature inherited the house within days after her aunt and uncle were killed-and they were killed, according to those same records, at the same moment that Eneko and Diego remember a terrible burst of black magic."

Manfred raised his head from the pillow. He'd been lying on the bed, a bit disgruntled because-very common, lately-Francesca was working at her desk instead of being her usual seductive self.

"What are you talking about?"

Francesca ignored the question, too busy scrabbling furiously through the mass of papers piled on her desk. "Yes! And again! That little boy who disappeared-another burst of satanic magic-and he was known to beggar on the same street where she lives!"

More scrabbling. "Her name's everywhere in these records, now that I finally have my senses. Everywhere. Always seeming-taking each thing at a time-like a minor and insignificant figure. But-"