All the Plagues of Hell Read online

  The peasant boy bobbed. “Uh. Kind sir. You would not have a drink for my…my sister? She is very tired, and we still have far to go.”

  Count Mindaug nodded. “I do. I can hide her too, and you, if you help me to fix this wagon. Is it your master or her father chasing you?”

  The look of terror on their faces would have been amusing if the count had been anything like Elizabeth Bartholdy in nature. He was not. He had, in the course of acquiring the knowledge he now held, committed some terrible deeds. He would kill without qualm or query if need be. But Mindaug was a man who had really no interest in doing so for pleasure. It was just work, as a peasant might regard butchering a hog as work which had to be done sometimes.

  So did calming fears. “I said I could hide you,” he repeated, his voice even. “There is really no need to be quite so afraid.”

  “If our lord catches us, he’ll beat us to death,” said the girl tremulously. They were both, on closer examination, slightly better dressed than most peasants. That was a thing of small degree. King Emeric had made sure that he got every groat out of the peasantry.

  “He won’t,” said Count Mindaug. “Get in the wagon, young woman. Do not fiddle with anything. There are a few blankets piled in the back. Hide under them. You, boy. Let us change your hair color and clothing. A moment.” He reached in and took out the bag he had packed for the emergencies of magic while traveling. It was not something he had sufficient experience of, he had to admit. There were a number of compounds in the bag which had multiple uses, including a bottle of plant killer taken from the green husks of Vinland walnuts. It was stronger than that made from local walnuts, for some reason. A basin was very useful for thaumaturgy and also for filling with water, and a bit of plant killer, which had other properties.

  “What is it?” asked the boy.

  “Hair and skin dye. Dunk your head and hands in. Be quick now. I’ve a spare cotte here, too. How far behind you are they?”

  “My lord will be looking for her before nightfall. He may be looking already. I…” he looked fearfully around.

  “Get on with it,” said the count. “I’ve a hand-cannon that will see no man gets into my wagon.”

  He gave the trusting peasant a spare cotte which he’d used for some experiments, and was thus not too clean or particularly nice-smelling, and inspected his handiwork. The blond head and white cheeks were considerably darker. “Again.” He said. “We’ll have you too dark for a local.”

  The boy stared at his hands “I will look like a gypsy.”

  “And not like a runaway serf.”

  “I’m a miller.”

  That accounted for the slightly better clothes, but didn’t stop Mindaug pointing at the bowl again.

  A little later, they were busy working on lashing the crossbar together when the sound of horses disturbed them. As he had promised, Count Mindaug returned to the wagon and took up the hand-cannon. “Keep working. Say nothing.”

  The hand-cannon had been added to his store of things to take with him on a whim. It would probably have gotten him shot by the Magyars, but the minor noble and his handful of retainers who came briskly trotting down the road saw it and were wary.

  “You. Have you seen two peasants pass? A young woman and a man,” demanded the lordling—addressing the frightened looking boy at the horses’ heads, pointing with the whip in his hand.

  “He is dumb,” said Count Mindaug. “And the answer is yes. Running over that field beyond those horses.” He jerked a thumb at the three Magyar horses, now grazing a few dozen yards away, still with their tack on.

  The lordling took the sight in, plainly recognized them as the warhorses they were, and type of tack, gawped at them, and then asked weakly, “Where are they from?”

  “Back up the way we’d come from. They stopped here, I suppose, because horses look for other horses. Nothing to do with me. As soon as we’ve fixed our wagon, we’ll be on our way. I’d like to find a town by nightfall.”

  “Creki, one of my villages, is not more than four miles off,” said the lordling. He indicated the direction with a pointing finger.

  “We’ll likely seek safety there,” said Mindaug. “There’s something back there unhorsing soldiers. I want no part of it.”

  By the looks of the minor noble’s face, he didn’t either. “Which way did they run exactly, merchant?”

  “I wasn’t paying much attention. I yelled at them to come help me, but they took off toward those woods.”

  “Our thanks.”

  “You’d best take the horses with you.”

  The lordling shook his head. “We’ll go and come back with the dogs. I thought to find them on the road, trying to run to Perca-town. Come on, men. We’ll just go and check that copse over there.”

  A few minutes later the count and his wagon were ready to leave, and the lordling and his entourage were already out of sight. “Thank you, master,” said the boy humbly. “We owe you our lives.”

  “Where will you go now?” asked the count, knowing the answer full well.

  “Away. We don’t really know…”

  What peasant, even a miller, who was a step up on most, would know of other options? Their masters kept it like that, and fed them on horror stories, for good reason. “I have an offer for you,” said the count. “I have a need for some servants, and no need for young girls.” Barring certain rituals, that was true enough. “I’ll see you clear of this place, if you will work for me.”

  The boy nodded eagerly. “We did not know where to go.”

  And thus it was that Count Mindaug acquired two servants. He was later to wonder why he had done so. But at the time, they were both exceptionally useful.

  Chapter 2

  A villa in the Tuscan countryside

  Violetta looked around the salon where she was sitting a few feet away from Tuscany’s ruler. Because it was hers—well, her mother’s—and not the duke’s, the salon was small and not lavishly furnished. Still, she thought the paintings on the walls were quite nice. Her mother had always been willing to splurge a bit on the artists they employed, while they scrimped elsewhere.

  Stop avoiding this, she told herself sternly. It required some exertion of will, but she forced herself to give her uncle a level and—she hoped—reasonably calm gaze.

  Well, in truth he was a second cousin, but he had always been Uncle Cosimo to her. She should be quaking, but she had decided long ago that she did not approve of such behavior. Her mother would have been: she ascribed more power to Cosimo than to the devil himself, and with only slightly less malice. It was not a side of himself he had showed Violetta, up until now. But she would try to use as much tact as possible.

  It would be difficult, though. She was, by nature, far too inclined to say exactly what she thought.

  “No,” she said. “I will not marry him, Uncle Cosimo.”

  His eyebrows raised, but only the outer edge, making him look rather like the devil her mother said he could be. “Is there perhaps some reason, Violetta?”

  “You and mother did not provide me with an appropriate instructor of poisons, Uncle. So I would be obliged to use something unsubtle. Just think of the terrible embarrassment that would cause the family. And he is probably—as an experienced condottiere—not easy to slip a knife into. So it would be unsubtle and probably messy. Not at all the image the de’ Medici seek to cultivate.”

  Cosimo’s face betrayed little that he did not want to show, but she thought he was amused. That was a good start. “I am surprised, little one. I would have thought martial vigor would have helped his case.”

  “It does. Just not enough to cover a multitude of other sins.”

  Little one! Indeed! Well, it was more flattering than “Butterball,” but not at all accurate. Not for some years now.

  “Suitors without sins are few on the ground, Violetta.”

  She sat up straighter in the chair, trying to look as self-assured as possible. “I am not in a hurry to marry, and even less so to mar
ry a man who would marry a midden if it gave him a legitimate claim to the Duchy of Milan,” she said, forgetting her resolve to be tactful.

  He raised his eyebrows at her forthright speech, but replied calmly: “It would also give you a great deal, my dear. I doubt, beside the formalities, he would have any interest in you. However, you would become a duchess, and be able to buy a great many more books.”

  “You’re a better temptress than my mother. She talked about jewelry and fine dresses. And feasts.”

  “Which you would enjoy, too.”

  “Which I like, of course. Too much. It’s why they call me ‘Butterball’ behind my back.”

  “The raw garlic you have been eating would probably get you a less flattering name, Violetta. Dragon breath, perhaps. But there is a political aspect to this, and as head of the House, I ask you to reconsider,” said Cosimo. “There is potential advantage not only for the de’ Medici, but also for Florence and Tuscany. Sometimes we do not what we wish, but do what is needed of us.”

  She’d been afraid it would come to this. It was a lot harder than jewels and dresses. Harder too than books or even food…which she did love more than the jewels or dresses. “I do not believe,” she said slowly, “that it is of that great a value. In fact I think it would bring us into conflict with Venice, with the Holy Roman Empire, and also possibly Rome. Don’t think I don’t understand, Uncle. Or that I set myself as more valuable than the family. That is part of the reason I refused. That and the dislike of being little more than a stamp of legitimacy for a man who is a usurper. He who would take that step would value the de’ Medici not at all. He would use us and betray us.”

  Cosimo sighed. “Your mother wrote that you were merely being mulish. I had my doubts about that. She does not think women can comprehend politics. How she reconciled that with having met my mother and sister is beyond me. You know, and I know, that we do not marry to please ourselves. I have had similar thoughts about his actions, Violetta. But, to be honest with you, I can see no real difference in Carlo Sforza’s behavior with, or without, his marriage to you. And I can see some possible advantage for you. You are twenty-four years of age, long past the typical age of marriage, have, to be honest, little in the way of inheritance, and besides the Visconti relationship, little in the way of value as a dynastic marriage. You are a second cousin, and there are de’ Medici that would seem of more value to the outsider. They do not know, or care, how fond I am of you. It would be a position of wealth and power, and thus good for you.”

  He gave one of his infamous twisted smiles. “Especially if he dies, which, even if you are not a skilled poisoner, military men do.”

  “How cheerful,” said Violetta, giving him her own twisted rictus of a smile in return. “You say: ‘Marry him, Violetta. You may soon be a widow.’ Uncle Cosimo…I can only see war coming for Milan. He has not a friend to turn to, and his enemies will not chance him being able to devour them one by one. They won’t rest until the Duchy of Milan is torn into gobbets, and the winner of the city will take his widow, especially if she has a claim to the Visconti bloodline. And wouldn’t it be nice if it were Count Andrea Malatesta, as seems not unlikely,” said Violetta grimly.

  Cosimo was silent for a while, pacing. Finally he said: “You do manage to paint the most unattractive pictures in my mind, Violetta.”

  “Yes, and you can be sure Malatesta would use the lever you gave him, and be even more sure to keep me out of striking distance of his exquisite person.”

  “That does suppose they can unite against Sforza. I may tell you I have had approaches. Not from Malatesta, of course. Parma and others, but it was obvious to me he would be in the alliance—and better within than without. But I have heard rumors that Venice is being neutral. That could change the entire picture. It is a very fluid game, and Sforza is, if nothing else, a master of applied force.”

  “Venice will not sit out when the others threaten to devour their northern borders. And there is no love lost there. The people of Venice would be demanding war, too.”

  Cosimo nodded in agreement. “You know, Violetta, you are wasted as a woman. You would have made a great condottiere.”

  She snorted. “Most condottieri would have made poor women. They have far more resources, and they still lose. Usually with great expense and noise.”

  “With the general exception of Carlo Sforza. In a way, I am glad the two of you do not make a marriage. It another way, though, it is a pity. I rather liked him, the time that I met him. A blunt, powerful man.”

  “Not precisely a nobleman,” she said, with an instinctive lift of the chin.

  “No. But then neither were we, not many generations ago, although we pretend otherwise. Andrea Malatesta is, though.”

  “You also paint the most unattractive pictures in my mind, Uncle Cosimo. What do we do now? Sforza will take offense, and make that an excuse, I think.”

  Uncle Cosimo was a great deal better at business than he was at warfare, reflected Violetta. It was a good thing he tried to avoid it. She had studied Sforza’s history, as much of it as was known, long before his unattractive proposal came. She enjoyed the reading of military tactics, which was just as well, because there was more of it than any other form of writing, besides the ecclesiastic, which had less appeal to her. It also irritated her mother, which, Violetta had to admit, was something of a reward.

  He shrugged. The gesture did not exactly project indifference, but something fairly close. While Tuscany’s ruler was not going to treat Sforza in a cavalier manner, he was certainly not terrified of him, either. Cosimo de’ Medici didn’t have the military skills—and certainly not the fearsome reputation—of the Wolf of the North. What he did possess, however, was lots and lots of money, with which he could and had hired very capable mercenaries and even more capable designers and builders of fortresses. Tuscany was the proverbial tough nut to crack.

  “I will play for time, of course,” he said. “Then, with luck, he will attack someone else, probably Parma, which will spur the forming of an alliance against him. I want no part in yet another expensive war, but I think we will have no choice.”

  Her mother was not going to be pleased. Mother had dreamed, somehow, of that romantic marriage, despite what it had brought to her. She was a widow of almost no means, thanks to her father’s disastrous military venture and her own decision to marry against the family wishes. If it had not been for Cosimo, they would not have had the moderate comfort of a country villa and the small estate that went with it. If Cosimo had insisted, Violetta would have had to accede to his wishes.

  She was grateful he had not. Grateful, and yet sad, somehow. She would like to see more of the world than just the view across the vineyards and, on all too infrequent occasions, the city of Florence. It was just too far for a comfortable day’s travel, there and back. That made economic sense, but did leave them a little lonely and isolated—a little too noble for most of the local landowners, and a great deal too poor for life in a great house in the city. The food was good, and plentiful, and Uncle Cosimo saw to her getting quite a large number of books. He took perverse pleasure in that, it seemed. If his wife Catherine could read, she never did. She had no interest in what she termed with a sneer “men’s boring doings,” but devoted herself to fashion, music, and grand entertainments, to which they were sometimes invited. Violetta’s mother bemoaned the expense, and reveled in the experience. Violetta found them dull, as did her uncle, judging from the mechanical civility he displayed at the events. She had seen him animated only in philosophical discussion, and in talking of books or politics.

  He had married, as a dutiful son should, for the family.

  Chapter 3

  Venice

  Marco had wondered why he would get a request from Patriarch Michael to visit him at his palace. The Church was…just a little wary about the connection between the Lion of Etruria and the House of Valdosta. Still, while it was politely worded, and merely an invitation, the Church was powerful in the
Holy Roman Empire and Venice.

  “It’s not, politically speaking, an invitation you can refuse,” said Lodovico, handing the message back to Marco, “even if you wanted to. And he’s not a bad old fellow, Michael. Quite moderate, really.”

  Marco shook his head. “I know. It’s just that, well, the stregheria are very suspicious about the Church, and I’ve been hoping for medical help from them. There are some plants…”

  “Marco, if they can’t live with you visiting the patriarch, especially after his defense of Benito, then they’re crazy,” said Kat firmly. To emphasize her point, she planted her hands on her hips and leaned forward a bit.

  “Yes, but they have been persecuted, at times.”

  “Not by him. And anyway, he’s near ninety and was looking quite frail the last time I saw him. It’s probably about medical help.”

  That was a very persuasive argument as far as Marco was concerned. So he went, not that he had that much choice. He was escorted in to a small withdrawing room—a place in some contrast with the wealth displayed in the rest of the building. It was Spartan and simple, with plain wooden settles and an open fire, and a wooden cross on the wall. The patriarch himself was seated there, not on anything like the inlaid golden throne he sat on in the cathedral but on one of the settles. He rose, not fast, but still quite spryly for someone of his age, when Marco was ushered into the room. “Welcome to my sanctum,” said the old man.

  “Thank you, Your Holiness,” said Marco bowing. He’d met the patriarch before, at functions at the Doge’s palace, and seen him at the Basilica of St. Mark, of course.

  “It tends to surprise people,” said the patriarch, plainly understanding the expression. “I let them make a fire in here now, as a gesture toward my aging bones. But I was a Haitian monk for some years, before the Grand Metropolitan of Rome called me to serve here. Venice and her great families love and expect the display of wealth and power. Simplicity does not impress them. I am uncomfortable with such display. Much of the wealth and artwork was, however, gifted to the Church to use, and cannot merely be disposed of.” He sighed. “Powerful families like to show the value of their piety. They know full well what their ancestors gave, and expect to see it displayed.”