All the Plagues of Hell Read online

  Chapter 34

  Val di Castellazzo, Duchy of Milan

  Carlo Sforza had never known a victory to give him less. Not pleasure, not satisfaction, not security. He was just too tired and feeling too wretched to care that his neat scissors had worked a masterstroke. Or even to care that the flying star had exposed Malatesta’s condottiere Di Sallieri’s sneak attack on Correggio castle and turned it into an utter rout. Some of the troops might stop running before they got to Sicily, but as a force, Di Sallieri’s company was broken, and he himself was a prisoner. But now there were three fortresses between him and Pisa, and two of them were under siege.

  And he was going back to Milan to find Francisco and ask him for two things: first, another purgative, and second, to just keep things rolling while he had a decent rest.

  He had other captains, but none who saw the broad picture—or who were as loyal. Or, perhaps most important, were as willing to tell him “no.”

  Carlo had quietly ordered a carriage to meet him just outside Pavia. He had a feeling he might fall off a horse. And bumping and swaying or not, he could sleep in the dratted thing. All he wanted to do was to sleep. To a man who had spent his life thinking five hours rest was enough, this was purgatory.

  He’d go to Milan, but on the way, he’d stop and reward that fellow for Di Sallieri’s defeat.

  * * *

  Count Kazimierz Mindaug overslept, which was a novel experience for him. If he’d had to rationalize it, it was that he did not wish to wake, and that something within him wished to maintain the illusion of comfort, safety and, yes, the happiness that he’d been enjoying.

  On waking, he lay in bed for a while. Fear, flight and starting all over again had no appeal at all.

  He liked this place, he liked the people—which was bizarre. He had found himself really enjoying the non-magical work, the cooperative and excited exchange of ideas. He’d do his best to take the boy and girl with him…although perhaps they’d be better safely bestowed somewhere. That thought had him shake his head at himself. He was going soft in the head. They were his servants!

  But he knew that, too, was a lie. He’d used enough lies in his life to recognize them, he thought.

  This was not Lithuania, and he was not Count Mindaug of Braclaw and the voivode of Zwinogrodek anymore. He was Master Kazimierz, who was quite a different fellow.

  He got up and took himself downstairs, determined to enjoy a last good breakfast, a last good discussion of Tamas’s latest brain ferment with the acerbic common sense of the bombardier, who would inevitably end up being infected by it and add more ideas. Even Emma, with her solid peasant practicality, would get caught up in it.

  He was taken aback to find they’d all eaten, something like an hour ago, and were all beside themselves with worry about him, as Emma sent a footman scurrying off with the news that Master was awake and about to have breakfast. It was bizarre to find out that even the new footmen, who had come with the house, appeared genuinely concerned. One asked if he could go and fetch a physician.

  “I overslept,” he said grumpily. “That is all.”

  Food to break his fast arrived rapidly. It was, however, a solitary meal, which was just not the same. And a little later, a messenger came. “He says he has something to show only you, Master Kazimierz. I don’t trust him, he’s a shifty-looking piece of work,” the footman who had offered to fetch a physician told him. “I can’t think why the guards let him in.”

  It turned out that the shifty-looking piece of work was very annoyed that he’d had to produce Lucia Sforza’s signet, to be finally let in. “My presence and who sent me was supposed to be secret,” he said angrily. “Now, let us go into a private salon. Tell your servants not to disturb you for at least an hour.”

  “Certainly,” said the count. To the footman, he said: “This gentleman says we are not to be disturbed for an hour. Step this way, sir.”

  He recognized the inept effort of a nobleman to dress himself as an ordinary fellow and was amused by it. He waved him through the door, and the fool stepped in, in front of him, as if it was his natural right. That was, of course, his behavior at home. Mindaug stepped smartly in behind him, and closed the door with one hand, after pulling the misericorde from his sleeve with the other. The man didn’t even start to turn before the knife was at his throat.

  He gasped. “What are you doing? I am from Duchess Lucia. She’ll have you killed!”

  “No doubt,” said Count Mindaug. “But you won’t be the one doing it. Now, stand very still.” He removed the man’s dagger and a second misericorde from inside the man’s cotte. He tossed them in a corner. The misericorde was poisoned, by the look of it. Then he pushed the man away. The nobleman-messenger eyed him warily. Mindaug took the prepared little bottle out of his pouch and tossed it to the man. “This is what you came to fetch.”

  The fellow gawped at him as if he’d never held a vial of poison before. “I wouldn’t drink it,” said Mindaug dryly. “It would be terminal. I think you should put it in your pouch and leave.”

  “Uh. My knives…”

  “I am sure we both understand that I want to live,” said the count. “Personally, I suggest you tell your mistress that the guards disarmed you, and I constantly had a bellpull in hand and refused to allow you closer than ten paces. When you come to fetch more, that will be the case.”

  “Fetch more?”

  “One poisoning is never enough,” said the count. “See yourself out, as you planned.”

  Mindaug was amused to note that the fellow could not have been out of the front door before Emma peeped in. “I just thought that Lord Laglissio might want some wine,” she said.

  “Ah. Is that who he was?”

  She nodded. “Mario, the stableman, he knew his horse. He says he is not a good man.”

  “Tell Mario he is not to tell anyone he knew who the fellow was, unless I tell him to tell them. And don’t go and pick those knives up, Emma. Let them be untidy until I get a gauntlet and go and burn them and the gauntlet. They’re poisoned.”

  She was quick thinking. She turned on her heel, reaching into her large apron pocket and yelling out: “Stop him!”

  “No, Emma, you cannot shoot him,” said Mindaug, amused. He was beginning to wonder about having introduced her to firearms. He knew she’d been practicing with Klaus, who seemed to find her shooting both a source of pride and amusement.

  “But he came to poison you,” protested Emma. “To kill you, to stab you with a knife. I will shoot him and he will not try it again.”

  “I doubt he will,” said Mindaug.

  “It’s like rats,” she said firmly. “You do not take a chance that they will not come back.”

  “Oh, if he does, there will be a big rattrap waiting for him. Now…I think you had better call Tamas…and Klaus, too. I need to tell you what I have planned. It is possible that you will not wish to go with me. And I think that Klaus can be trusted to help you.”

  “Master, if you go, we go. Klaus, too, I think. Last night he said to me he has never found a man he’s enjoyed working for more. And as for Tamas and me, there is never a question. We will follow you anywhere.”

  “Even Lithuania?” It had a reputation to make peasants blench.

  “Anywhere. Even there,” she said calmly.

  “Well, at the moment I only plan on Venice.”

  He was left alone for a few minutes, in a brown study. If this had gone on for too much longer, he’d be taking the footmen, stableboy, gardener, and even Sforza’s soldiers with him, he reflected sardonically.

  But Klaus was actually not for going with him. “I don’t care who this jackass was, Master Kazimierz. Emma was right, she should have shot him. The commander will not be pleased. And it won’t be happening again. I’ll have a word with Sergeant Dello.”

  “The man came from Sforza’s wife, the new duchess,” said Mindaug, not explaining what she was involved in. He knew that would not be believed or understood.

  “S
o? She’s just a woman he married to let him rule the duchy, master,” said the one-eyed ex-soldier. “You are a man who makes things that will win him wars. I served under the commander. I know what he values, and it isn’t her.”

  The question became moot because they heard the sound of trumpets. They all stood up, and on the carriage drive outside the windows was an advancing troop of cavalry, and a coach.

  “It’s the commander himself!” said Klaus the bombardier, reverently, and then, “In a coach!” That was said with almost disgust. Shock, at least.

  It was indeed Sforza, in person. In his famous battered campaign cap. It had once been red and was now a faded pink.

  That did not detract from the man underneath the cap, as he came up the stair behind his guards. The footman had hastily opened the doors, and Count Mindaug made his way forward to greet the man. He bowed. “Good morning, Lord Protector Sforza. Welcome.”

  He expected the taint of the wyrm. He had wondered if this meant that the wyrm had discovered who he was, after all, or suspected who he might be. He prepared himself for flight, and spells.

  He met neither the wyrm nor a need to flee. He did meet a gargantuan yawn. “Forgive me,” said Sforza, in the slightly gravelly voice of someone who has been deeply asleep. “I am not bored by your greeting. I am just very tired. You would be ‘Master Kazimierz,’ the man my spies tell me that Venice’s masters believe to be a powerful and evil magician.” He was smiling as he said it, which robbed it of offense.

  There were two ways to take this. Mindaug chose the high path. “I do my best,” he said, “but it is a hard task, Lord Protector.” His keen eye was taking in details of the man. He was a big, solid fellow, not of the order of the size of Jagiellon, but not carrying Jagiellon’s weight either. Sforza’s wife’s garb had been the height of fashion and expense, liberally spattered with seed pearls, and she could have restocked a jewelry seller with the gold she had about her person. He was, by contrast, very plainly dressed. Rich cloth, yes, but cut to allow movement. He wore a sword in a gold-embossed sheath—but it had a workmanlike hilt, unadorned by anything.

  He was plainly usually a swarthy-faced man, who spent a lot of time outdoors, with the small lines of being out in the weather around the eyes and mouth. But he looked a little pale now, and his eyes were bloodshot and tired. There was still a force in them, and a penetrating gaze. He had a solid broad chin with a small sinus in it, and curly dark hair that was just going to gray on the temples. It was not clothes or display that made Sforza a man to be noticed.

  And he, in turn, was studying Mindaug. “Well, that flying star of yours just made keeping your reputation a great deal easier,” said Sforza. “Another bit of ‘magic’ like that and I wouldn’t have a war to fight. I must see that you are well rewarded for that. Especially if you have some more surprises for my enemies.”

  Mindaug saw this as a sudden opportunity to take care of his odd pets. “I’d like to take the credit, my lord, but it is due to the genius of young Tamas, my artificer. And I would be glad to show you what we’ve been working on. But perhaps a glass of wine first?”

  “That would be good. If your people will see to the same for my men and horses, well, water for the horses, and water and wine for me. My physician has instructed it.”

  “If Caviliero Turner commends it, my lord, unpleasant though it may be, it is probably wise. I shall have my people see to it at once.”

  “Ah. You trust my friend Francisco, do you?” observed Sforza.

  “Yes. I think I do, my lord.” It was a genuine observation, which surprised Mindaug.

  * * *

  Carlo Sforza had spent more time with the nobles of the various courts than his physician. Francisco was absolutely correct. This was a nobleman—one who was accustomed to near absolute power and would not be in the least intimidated by having the Emperor himself drop in. The man who called himself Kazimierz was not discomforted by the fact that he was wearing the sort of clothes a mildly prosperous artisan might wear for work, and not court finery, when his overlord suddenly arrived on his doorstep. Carlo got the feeling that this Kazimierz really cared neither about his surroundings nor his dress. He was used to being respected for who or what he was.

  That appealed to Sforza. But such men were not common—nor did they suddenly show up in your backyard without reason.

  On the other hand…he could be useful. He already had been. And Carlo had to like the way he gave credit to his worker…and the way he brought the boy forward. “His Frankish is not very good, my Lord Protector. I hope you will pardon his rough manners—but let him show you his drawings and ideas.”

  The boy was a peasant. And probably not much more than eighteen years old. Incoherent when talking politely to this great lord, he lost his fear and became animated when asked to explain his drawings, gently prodded by his master. It was interesting, the almost paternal attitude taken. The big boy looked nothing like the slightly stoop-shouldered, white-haired and massively mustachioed Kazimierz. He probably wasn’t a son, Carlo decided, it was just the man’s manner.

  The boy’s drawings were very good, careful and proportional. Drawn from all sides as a man who would wish to build the device might draw, rather than works of art, and yet in themselves, they were works of art. Some of them Carlo judged would not work…but: “I can see why my friend Francisco thought I should create a university, not of the arts, but of the military, engineering and the artifice, and gather your type of minds together.”

  Carlo was quick at noticing expressions. He picked up the wistful look in the tilt of the head of this former nobleman. “It would be pleasant.”

  The man patted the boy on the shoulder. “Go and get Klaus to ready the new rocket and a few other devices. We will be along presently.”

  When the lad had gone, Sforza said: “A great deal of promise there.”

  “He has surprised me, my lord. He was just a miller,” said Kazimierz. “He’s now learning to read and write, and took to constructing rockets like a duck to water. There’s a lot of talents buried, my lord. Some of them best left that way, not worth digging up. That one…I was lucky. The boy is about to be married, and as he and the girl are both of peasant origin, they have very little. So if his device really was useful, a reward would help them. How did it work?”

  “More by superstition than by craft, but it was terribly effective,” said Sforza, who had wondered, earlier, if the man was one of those who liked younger men, and not women. Probably not, it seemed.

  “The best condottieri among our foes’ armies had planned a surprise attack on the fortified town of Correggio. As it happened, quite a few of my troops were garrisoned there. The gates were closed, sentries posted on the walls…and traitors in the gatehouse.”

  “More castles fall by treachery than by siege.”

  “Yes, but this one had a watchful guard on a tower, with several of your new flying stars. I knew Di Sallieri was massing his troops in the area, and so the guards had been issued with them. I assumed there’d be attempts to put explosives against the walls or gates. I should have known better. Anyway, this likely lad, and he’s now the proud owner of an estate of his own, thought he saw or heard something. Myself, I think he just wanted to try one of these new devices. It was a very dark night and moonless. So he fired it up in the air—and there was Di Sallieri and his company. They had sneaked up with cloth bound over their horses’ hooves, their armor dulled with charcoal, waiting for the gate to open, not a hundred yards off. The horses didn’t like the sudden light…and our lad on the wall got nearly as big a fright as they did.

  “He probably should have yelled for the guards—half of them were dead in the gatehouse—but instead he cranked that big crossbow and fired a second one of those starlight arrows. Only the young man admits he was a bit rattled and he didn’t fire it up in the air, but straight at the fellows trying to hold their horses. As luck would have it, it hit Di Sallieri’s bodyguard just after it flared, and then ricocheted onto t
he man himself, and bounced around like a jackrabbit amongst the enemy. And I believe he yelled, ‘Take that, you Godless bastards!’ at the top of his lungs too. I don’t know myself, I was fast asleep at the time.”

  “You were there?”

  “Yes. And possibly Di Sallieri knew that from his traitor. However, he’s not saying and the traitor is dead. But, by this time, the gate was open. My men were scrambling to action and half of Di Sallieri’s company was running for the hills; the other half wasn’t because they were off their horses. His pikes had either run or been flattened by their own cavalry. Cannon might have stopped them just as well, but that star device frightened half of them into monasteries, and soiled a lot of armor, and put them off sneak attacks on our fortresses, towns and castles for a while. So, you see, your reputation as a magician is being cemented from here to Sicily by now. I took Di Sallieri and half a dozen of his officers prisoner; they’re minor nobles and will be ransomed. So, yes, your young Master Tamas will get his reward. And so will you. And I agree with Francisco. It’ll be a different type of university. The Duchy of Milan will steal a march on them with it. They can have their poisons and assassins. We’ll walk all over them on the field of battle.”

  One of the footmen came to the door and coughed. “My lord, Master Kazimierz. The Caviliero Turner has just arrived.”

  “Excellent,” said Sforza. “Just the man I need to see.”

  Chapter 35

  Val di Castellazzo, Duchy of Milan

  Kazimierz Mindaug had been debating internally just how he could tell the duke of Milan that his new wife was planning to kill him—had already started, actually. That she was in the thrall of a disease god and was, in his judgment, suffering from monomaniacal insanity. That if Sforza challenged her directly, she was far more likely to be able to kill him, than he her. And that, worst of all, killing her would take the only possible leash on the disease, off it. The situation was equivalent to having a murderous madman—madwoman, in this case—holding the leash of an unkillable rabid dog. The lunatic might set the dog on anyone, but while they held the leash, one needed to humor them.