Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

"I want something to assist fertility. Not quack potions."

He looked at her thoughtfully, but didn't say anything.

"Please!" she said. "I'm desperate. I can pay well."

"There are certain rituals. You understand, they are frowned on by the Church?"

She laughed bitterly. "The Church hasn't exactly helped me so far. And they're a lot richer for not helping."

He nodded slowly. "Very well. Wait here. There are certain preparations I must make."

By the time he returned he looked far more like her idea of a practitioner of the black arts, right down to the robe. His eyebrows flared satanically and his beard and mustachios were now waxed to sharp points.

"Come," he said. "The sacrificial chamber is prepared. You must now be prepared. I must blindfold you."

Part of Sophia filled with fear at the idea of "sacrifice." But there was a guilty fascination too.

Stepping out into the cold street, Sophia wasn't too sure what time it was. Her head was still mazed from the liquid in that chalice-or perhaps from the smoke in that room. She would have to wash her hair to get rid of the smell of it. Next time… and she felt the compulsion to admit there would be a next time-she must make sure she was dressed in something easier to remove. She would have to undress herself until the symbols he'd painted on her washed off. She could feel them. They seemed to have a heat of their own.

She stumbled. It was very dark, and a fine rain had begun to fall. She put out a hand to keep in contact with the wall. She heard the sound of footsteps. A number of people. She shrank back against the buildings, until they passed. At least six men. One, even in the darkness, loomed huge. They were carrying something between them, and they didn't notice her.

After they were well gone, Sophia continued hastily on her way home. Whatever those men were up to it was bound to be no good. But there was no way she could report it, without implicating herself. Thank heavens for Bianca's wild ways. She had told Sophia which guards were susceptible to bribes.

Sitting back in a comfortable chair, the black robes thankfully tossed off, and a glass of ouzo in hand, Aldo Morando grinned sharkishly. He'd hooked a big one tonight. A very big one. Did the wife of the captain-general think, honestly think, he wouldn't recognize her? Even if his accomplice Bianca Casarini hadn't told him she'd be coming, he'd have recognized Sophia Tomaselli.

Morando had been many things in a long and varied career. Pimp. Spy. Procurer. Seller of "saints" relics. Seller of shares in Colleganzas that were remarkably lacking in substance. And latterly… magician.

He would never have believed the number of wealthy idiots just dying to pay over good money for some wicked thrills. Particularly women with too much money and too much time on their hands. With husbands who had long sought mistresses, or were much away. Of course things could get a bit hot with the Church, and with injured husbands, from time to time, which was why he had been obliged to leave the Italian mainland. Corfu, he had been sure, would be far enough away. He'd been dismayed, at first, seeing Bianca Casarini here, but she was proving to be a remarkably good accomplice for him.

He put down his glass and gazed cheerfully at the stack of ducats on the table. Besides that, Sophia Tomaselli would be a mine of information. Very valuable information in the right hands, and he knew where to find those hands. To think he'd been angry about the siege. Well, he was now sure that he wouldn't go hungry, and the opportunity for pleasure as well as profit-she wanted to get pregnant, after all, and she wasn't bad-looking-was considerable.

A tall graveyard poplar grew flush against the cliff that was topped by the old Byzantine fortress. The cliff beside it was too high and too steep to make the tree any threat to the integrity of the fortress. The tree itself was, in the fashion of the plant, densely packed with small branches. Attempting to climb it would have been folly, anyway: The thin branches would cascade the climber down again.

About twenty-five cubits up, the branches masked a narrow gash of an opening into the cliffs. If you ascended the ladder, and then walked back along it, the cave widened considerably into a labyrinth of passages. Once, many years ago, these would have acted as one of the defenses of this place. Now you just had to follow the most worn path in the stone. It had taken the passage of many feet over many long years to wear away the stone, to round and smooth the steps. The sacred chamber was lit by a small oil lamp. Right now all was silent except for the steady slow trickle and splash of the fountain that fed the holy pool between the two altars, the great Goddess's altar and the smaller, darker one.

The white half-almond lay on the black stone. Waiting, for someone to come and take it up, and all that it represented. Behind the larger altar, half-hidden in the shadows, was the image of the Goddess Herself. It towered over the altar and it was old, old-older, some said, than the island itself. It did not look anything like the graceful statues of the great Grecian sculptors from the island's glory days. It was not even anything like those earlier images, stiff and rigid, with fixed, staring eyes and jutting breasts like twin mountain peaks. No, this was more like a pile of boulders, round-headed and faceless, with the merest suggestion of hair and of arms and legs, and enormous, sagging breasts and belly, the hallmark of fertility and plenty. And there was, if you looked at Her long enough, the suggestion of a faint haze of gold about her, and the feeling that She was looking back at you, out of her eyeless face.

The two women came in, one sweeping the old, dried leaves before her, the other strewing the new leaves. When the chamber was prepared, the two acolytes went to lower the ladder. Few would come tonight, for it was raining so hard that it would be difficult to come and go undetected. Here, in the middle of the Venetians, there were few devotees anyway. But this was the second oldest temple on the island, a place where the life-flame had been kindled many thousands of years ago. The temple had always had at least a holy mother and three or four devotees.

The priestess had not expected a group larger than three or four. But as she stepped out of the shadows she saw that tonight, despite the rain, there was an unfamiliar face, a comfortably middle-aged woman.

The priestess saw with a twinge of disappointment that the newcomer was beyond child-bearing age, unfortunately. Months had passed, and there was still no one willing to take up the almond. The rains had come, the crops-if the invaders left anything of them-would be no worse than usual, but this could not last forever.

Not for the first time, the priestess wondered how much of this was because of the Christians and their priests. For centuries, She and they had lived, if not in harmony, at least not in conflict. But just after the death of the last bride, the priestess had sensed that there was something inimical to the Goddess that was searching for the source of Her power.

Shortly after that, the attacks began. And shortly after that the four stranger-priests had arrived, and the two hawks that were the eyes for the hostile power. Was it coincidence? It hardly seemed possible, and that was especially so once the priestess had learned that these four priests, and their leader in particular, were closely linked with the Grand Metropolitan of Rome.

True, they had close ties to the Hypatian Order, which, unlike the Servants of the Trinity, were not known for the persecution of those who were pagan. In fact, it had been the Hypatian Siblings that had dwelled here quietly for so very long. But this particular priest had a reputation for militancy that was not typical of the Order. And directly after arriving here, he had attempted to work magic.