All the Plagues of Hell Read online

  “You do understand,” said Francisco in the gap, “that if our foes win, they will put your head on a pike at the gates of Milan for the crime of marrying Carlo Sforza. They want you dead, m— Your Grace. That is what I have been sent here to prevent.”

  For a moment, Francisco thought that would not be enough. But she swallowed. “You speak nonsense.”

  He shrugged, trying to keep as calm as possible. “Send a message to Carlo. He is only in Pavia and could be here in the space of a few hours, and I promise he will confirm my authority and the importance of my task, and the danger to yourself.”

  He used the first name with deliberate intent to stress that he was one of the few people who were on first-name terms with the Wolf of the North. “Or wait until he comes to Milan and ask him then. I speak nothing but the truth, Your Grace. I am sorry to be so blunt. I had assumed you would know, but if you think about it, it cannot be otherwise.”

  She was finally silenced. Almost shrunken, she stood there, looking not like an arrogant duchess but like a frightened, insecure girl. “But why would they want to kill me?” she complained finally, almost plaintively. “I am a Visconti. That was why Sforza married me. There are no other claimants remotely close in the noble linage of Visconti.”

  “He couldn’t have married the male claimants, could he?” said Francisco.

  Her mouth literally fell open. Then she recovered herself. “They must be killed. They must be killed immediately!” she snapped.

  “Your Grace, I am afraid they feel the same way about you. That is why we have a war, and why I am taking some preventative measures.”

  “Have my father’s assassins been told to kill them? Who are they?” Lucia demanded.

  “I only recall that Viscount Palacio of Naples is one. I am not privy to what the spies and assassins are doing, Your Grace. I am a military man, dealing with military problems and issues, not that. You’ll have to talk to Carlo about that. But he is trying to fight a war to prevent them from doing by main force to you, what you would do to them by stealth. It is no easy task.”

  She looked narrowly at him. “How close are these enemies? Will they take Milan?”

  “Not while we have the Wolf of the North at our head,” said Francisco, with as much confidence as he could inject, avoiding even hinting that part of his work was to make sure that Milan could face a siege. “But he wins by being prepared, Your Grace. And that is what he sent me to do, and what your courtiers are getting in the way of. What he prepares is not for anyone to know. I myself only know the scope of my own orders, and I may not speak of those. Spies are everywhere. Even listening to us, probably.”

  “I will speak to him.”

  “I would appreciate that, Your Grace,” said Francisco. He had a grasp of her character by now, and was sure that it would include her telling Carlo what an insolent pig he was, and she would follow that with demands for appropriate punishment. But she would not confront him directly again. However, he wasn’t going to give her the chance. She turned and swept out without so much as a word.

  As soon as she had gone, Francisco called his sergeant. “Get my kit and tell all of the men we’re moving to the central barracks.” It would be less comfortable, less convenient, and a lot more pleasant.

  “Good,” said the sergeant, which was quite a long speech for him.

  * * *

  Lucia walked away from the rooms of the officer whose name eluded her. One of Sforza’s mercenary scum…but he had said things which had shocked and surprised her. She’d always regarded Sforza as a mere key to the ducal throne, to die as soon as was convenient and unobtrusive. The idea that the boorish oaf could have any real value otherwise had never really occurred to her. He was a soldier. They were ten to the copper.

  On impulse, she stopped to speak to an elderly courtier, one of her father’s cronies, Lord Miletti. He, too, had been a general and had commanded an army somewhere. Not too successfully, if she recalled correctly, but he was a good man at court.

  “Miletti,” she said. “As a military commander, how does Carlo Sforza rank?”

  He blinked, trying to work out what this was all about. “Oh, he’s a genius, beyond peer, magnificent, Your Grace. A nonpareil. Superb. Brilliant.”

  She knew, all too well, the exaggerated flattery of the court. “Really? As good as you, my lord? Say it without hyperbole now. I wish to know, not to inflate his importance. My father never said much complimentary about him.”

  Miletti tugged at his neat beard. “Well, that is to say…he’s had lots of victories, although the genius was really your father, of course. But the common soldiers love him and believe in him. They’re very loyal to him, not to Milan, which your father found difficult. He was paying Sforza, after all.”

  That, to her, made sense. But the fact remained that his troops were a substantial force and the duchy was, unless she read that obnoxious captain wrong, facing a real danger of an attack overrunning her Milan. That would deprive her of her birthright, and made him more valuable alive than dead, as his troops gave their loyalty to him.

  The snake stirred in her bosom. He is dying. Slowly.

  She ignored it for now. She went to her chamber and sat, queenly, waited on by the ladies of the chamber, which was pleasant and helped her to relax. She liked them in their subservient roles. Presently she sent for her father’s old spymaster. She had no idea if he still fulfilled the same role, but it was probable. She banished all but Helena, who had broken one of her hairbrushes and was, therefore, going to receive a bite from the asp.

  The spymaster bowed, said all the correct courtly things, and indulged her in some idle gossip. “It is good to see you taking up your father’s reins, Your Grace, with his touch.”

  His touch…that made her feel faintly revolted, but she appreciated the intent of the compliment. “Yes,” she said. “I would appreciate it if you reported to me as well. Sforza may be a military man, but he was not brought up in the court, and fails to grasp its subtleties.”

  “Quite. A man whose strategy is mirrored by his name. Very effective on the battlefield, but not so experienced in matters of, shall we say, state. He has hired a man to be his magical advisor without even consulting me.”

  That made Lucia nervous. Magical power…that was hers through the serpent. She did not need competition, or threats. “Whom?”

  “He goes by the name of Master Kazimierz. He arrived from Verona perhaps a month ago. He is now living on an estate out at Val di Castellazzo. I am pursuing enquiries, but the man should have been investigated first. Out of Venice comes the belief that he’s a powerful, evil sorcerer.”

  Lucia wondered if he was a threat, or whether he could be recruited.

  You have me, said the voice in her bosom.

  But she wanted more.

  She continued her work, using the asp to hypnotize some and, where they might prove an obstruction to her rule, to kill them.

  She’d leave defense to Sforza, for now.

  * * *

  Francisco finally got around to the task of sending Marco a message.

  My dear friend in Medicine,

  I apologize for being so long in replying to you, but I have been away on our successful campaign against the Scaligeri, where I suffered a minor wound.

  No harm in doing a bit of propaganda, although Venice would already have reports of what had happened.

  I include a copy of the magical protection we obtained from our advisor in these matters, which we have been assured may be effective against the disease. I am not knowledgeable in these matters, and the language is strange to me. I know you have access to greater resources than I do, so I would appreciate knowing if it will work. The practical measures I suggest are obviously a strictly enforced quarantine. The records seem to show that not every person is affected, and a few survive, but that the disease has a short duration of being infected—troops have invaded territory a mere two months after an outbreak and been unaffected. This scenario happened during the
Gothic invasions of Italy under Theoderic. Cleanliness, both of person and of the environment, seems to also affect its spread. It is possible, as thought by some physicians, that it is an evil humor contained in the malodors of putrefaction, which may account for outbreaks usually beginning among the poor, and often in harbor areas. The disease has apparently its origins in Egypt or in places east of it.

  On the subject of the snake, I have had it pointed out to me that it bears some resemblance to the older versions of the heraldic emblem of the House Visconti. I discussed this with my commander, and he said I should tell you of it, and remind you that he is responsible for the demise of the last ruling member of that house, but that there are others. It is possible that the heraldic snake is somehow a folk memory of such a creature.

  Francisco signed the letter, sealed it up in a bottle and set out for his usual aquatic meeting place in the twilight. He wondered if the nyx would be there. He preferred his women not to be naked pond dwellers. They’d probably wet the bed.

  Sitting by the water, his doubt at whether Rhene would be there was erased. “He’s been asking after you, you know,” she said.

  “I’ve been busy. Doing things humans do: fighting a war,” he said, handing her the bottle with the message in it.

  “I remember that,” she said in an odd voice, sad and poignant, quite unlike her usual coquettish tone. “You made me remember things that I want to forget. Where I came from. And why I dream of a child. I was human, like you, once. I had a lover, a tall, handsome, strong, lusty lover. I could not tell him no. And he went to war and never came back.”

  She disappeared under the water, with barely a ripple.

  Francisco was left looking at the canal with the last light of the day reflected in it. He shook himself, took a deep breath and went back to the inn and had a beer. He probably didn’t want to think too much about the implications of what she’d just said.

  Chapter 31

  Venice

  Marco Valdosta was relieved to find things finally turning his way. There was news that the fleet, with his brother on it, was finally in Corfu, refitting after storm damage. That news, via a small coaster, seemed to have had a calming influence on Maria.

  Secondly, he had had news from Francisco in Milan. He had taken the spell contained in the bottle with him to visit Patriarch Michael. Someone in Rome could certainly translate it, assess it, say how it best could be used. He also wanted to send the rest of Francisco’s comments about dealing with plague on to Father Thomas Lüber. The only worrying thing was this war. War could destabilize everything and allow the disease to spread beyond any chance of containment.

  The patriarch, ever his humble self, in the quiet of his inner sanctum had stared at the piece of parchment for a long time. “Alas,” he said finally, “it is Demotic Egyptian script. I do understand a few words, but not enough to begin to know quite what it is about.”

  He smiled apologetically. “Hebrew I read, and Greek, from my wishful desire to read the Bible in as much of the original form as possible. We humans are such frail implements of God’s grace. But, with your permission, I have a guest, Archimandrite von Stebbens, whose knowledge of things magical far exceeds mine. I happen to know he is an expert in several languages, and I recall him speaking of the Coptic translations of the Bible. We could ask him to come and have a look. He is one of the Knights of the Holy Trinity, and I believe is to be trusted in the confidentiality of this matter. The Holy Roman Emperor has been informed, so there are no secrets at the state level for this, and nor should there be.”

  “I think we have to take what steps we can. Let us ask him. The worst he could say is ‘send it to Rome,’ which was what I was going to ask you to do for me anyway.”

  So a few minutes later, a tall, somber-looking Knight came down to the sanctum. He had a curiously deep, resonant voice and a very intense gaze that reminded Marco somewhat of Eneko Lopez.

  The patriarch explained: “We find ourselves in something of a quandary in our dealings with the Duchy of Milan, and the forecast of medical disaster. Given that the Church has decided not to recognize Sforza, due to considerable pressure from various factions, it was very awkward to ask for their assistance. So I asked young Signor Valdosta here for his help. He had already been recruited by Father Thomas Lüber to assist in dealing with the possibility of the plague…and he has a contact in Milan.”

  “My friend Francisco Turner,” explained Marco. “He is a physician, a scholar and is also attached to the service of Carlo Sforza. I felt I could turn to him, in confidence. He assisted in rescuing my niece and is a very honorable man. I let him know what we knew. To my surprise, he said they’d received similar warnings, but that they had some form of magical protection. In this matter, all men of medicine are allies. I asked him to share this information with us. He sent me this, which he says they got from their magical advisor, and asked me to find out more about the efficacy of it. He is a physician, not a worker of magic”—Marco could not help smiling—“although the two do get confused from time to time.”

  The Knight took the parchment, and quickly and carefully turned it over, so he could not see the writing. “He got this from the magical advisor to Carlo Sforza, you say? My young friend, this may be the most deadly of traps. There is a particularly evil magician who, we believe, has insinuated himself into that position. We know he plans something. May my brother Knights and I examine this under suitable magical protection? You would be welcome to attend while we did so. Sometimes, even reading such a spell is enough to trigger it.”

  Of course Marco had to agree. A little later, in a prepared and warded chapel, within a multicolored nine-circle chalked ring, the candles and prayers of invocation said, the parchment was turned over with a piece of consecrated olive wood. The wood did not catch flame, nor did demons rage up from the parchment to be trapped. There was strange squiggly writing on it, but that had been there when Marco looked at it originally. The Lion stirred within him…and perceived no magic.

  “It…er, seems innocent. We will test it further…”

  “What does it say?” asked Patriarch Michael with just a tiniest touch of exasperation. “You said you could read Demotic. My own ability is poor, but I read it without such protections, and what I could understand seemed innocent enough. I read ‘Emmanuel,’ and the Tetragrammaton, neither of which I associate with evil. In fact, I thought evil could abide neither, let alone name them.”

  “Well, on the surface, on first examination, it appears to be…um, a prayer. Possibly used as protection against disease,” said the archimandrite. “But the source…You understand, Count Mindaug is as devious as a serpent. Nothing about him is to be trusted.”

  “Yes, but would it work as a spell against the plague?” asked Marco. “My friend believes it would and he is not an evil or devious man. He’s just a physician, a soldier, and a scholar. A very good man, really. Our Doge owes his life to his wisdom and care. So does a young lady in my care at the moment.”

  “Prayer is always valuable. But, to be honest, it is merely a prayer written in Demotic script. I cannot say it would protect the body against plague. It might. It calls on God to bless and protect, but I can’t say whether it would.”

  “That is God’s decision,” said the patriarch.

  “Would the language have any virtue besides, well, looking magical?” asked Marco.

  “A difficult question. Some languages have layers of meaning, and what appears a blessing can be a curse, or the inverse. But no, unless its virtue was dictated by belief. We know faith can move mountains, it is just hard to come by.”

  “Well, it is worth trying, I suppose,” said Marco with a sigh. “I was quite hopeful.”

  “Prayer is always worth trying,” said the patriarch.

  Which was something, Marco thought grumpily, he would say.

  He did not discuss the matter of the snake with them, although he brought it up later, when talking to Petro Dorma.

  “If the Visc
onti had had a secret stock of well-trained deadly vipers, Filippo Maria would have used it on me and half the nobles of Italy,” said Petro. “He could never have resisted the temptation to use it as often as possible.”

  Marco told Petro about the “spell” he’d gotten from Francisco, and about the Knights and their reaction to it, and the fact that it was merely an old prayer in a foreign language. “They were very put out about it. You’d have thought they’d be glad,” he said, amused.

  “Yes, the archimandrite has been to see me. I’ve even had a communication with the Emperor about this fellow. After pressuring the archimandrite, he finally admitted that they’re monitoring magical use by this fellow. And so far either he’s managed to hide it, or he’s not intervened with magic use at all. They want to go and capture, or better still, kill him. That’s awkward in the middle of a war. Speaking of which, it seems your friend—the man to whom I owe some of my survival—is quite a military man. And quite a diplomat.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, it appears it was he who invaded Scaliger lands at the head of ten thousand horse, according to my spies on the other side of the border’s reports—which may be a little exaggerated. He then administered, with the help of a secret alliance he’d made with the Carraresi of Padua, a sound drubbing to their condottieri’s forces, aimed for the relief of Goito. A soldier and a physician, as well as informed about snakes on coats of arms.”

  * * *

  Von Stebbens, suspicious as always of anyone who had any possible contact with Mindaug, asked their host, the patriarch Michael, about him. “This Signor Marco Valdosta, he seems a pleasant young man, and obviously one Father Thomas Lüber of Baden trusted enough to confide in…but, well, evil communications. I worry. What can you tell me of him, Your Reverence?

  The laughter from the old man was kindly, but it was still laughter. Von Stebbens was not used to being laughed at. “You are a student of magic. A learned man. What do you know of the names of the families of the four who originally made the pact with the Lion of St. Mark, the Lion of Etruria, the guardian of Venice?”