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—"
More scrabbling. A paper held up triumphantly. "Yes! She was known to be a friend and confidant of Sophia Tomaselli!" Scrabble; another paper; scrabble; yet another.
Francesca rose, a paper clutched in each hand. Her eyes were slitted. "
And
she was noticed, twice, in the company of one of Fianelli's thugs.
And
in the company of Aldo Morando, on one occasion. All small incidents, buried in the mass. But taken as a whole, it's obvious. I have been so
stupid.
"
Manfred was on his feet, now, reaching for his armor and weapons.
"You won't need those," Francesca muttered. "She's just a woman, Manfred, not a Magyar cavalryman. Besides, the Venetian authorities will do the arrest."
He shrugged, continuing what he was doing. "Eneko says she's a 'female,' not a woman. I've encountered a monster in the Basque priest's company, once—so I think I'll do it my way."
Impatiently—no moving Manfred, in a stubborn mood—Francesca waited till he was done. By the end, she was even in a good mood about it.
"Might be just as well. I need to get confirmation from Morando—and, for that, I'll need you to intimidate the Venetians into allowing me to offer him a commutation of his sentence." She patted Manfred fondly on the cheek—with only two fingers, that being the most she could get past the cheek guards. "You do look
so
impressive in full armor. You would even if you weren't a prince. Come, dear."
Morando had been half-asleep when his cell was suddenly invaded. He woke up instantly, however—as a prisoner condemned to death is bound to do when he finds his cell occupied by almost every major figure of authority in the area, several priests, three Knights of the Holy Trinity in full armor—and a beautiful woman.
Francesca de Chevreuse, in a dramatic gesture, drew forth several slips of paper from her gown. She handed one each to the podesta, the commander of the garrison, one of the priests, and the hugest of the Knights.
"I've written a name on those slips, Morando. The same name on each one. If you can match that name—it's the identity of your accomplice, the one you've been keeping a secret from us—you'll live. If you can't—or won't—you'll be executed. Here. Today—not later in Venice. So forget about the possibility of being rescued if Emeric takes the Citadel. Not that he wouldn't kill you himself anyway."
She grinned at him mercilessly. "In honor of Venetian authority, we will use the traditional Venetian method of execution. It begins, I believe, by breaking the legs. Then—though I'm not sure about this, it's all too ghastly for a delicate woman to contemplate—they do something with your innards."
Morando swallowed. He
did
know the procedures used by Venetians when they executed someone who had truly and genuinely infuriated them. Traitors being right at the top of the list.
It was, indeed, too ghastly to contemplate.
"Bianca Casarini," he croaked.
Slips of paper were studied briefly. A moment later, the cell was empty again.
Bianca detected the coming soldiers when they were still some distance away—and had sensed the presence of Eneko Lopez even sooner. She had, many weeks earlier, established a faint degree of mental control over the urchins who were always in the streets, and who served her as unwitting and unconscious human alarm signals.
"That's it, then," she murmured to herself. "It's time to hide."
The thought was neither hurried nor frantic. She'd prepared for this moment, and prepared well. Three weeks ago, working mindlessly under her control, Saluzzo had finished breaking a hole through the rear wall into an adjoining house. The residents of the house, an elderly couple, had never noticed a thing—being, also, under Bianca's compulsions.
She'd slide through the hole, pass through the house, and be out on another street and heading for Morando's hideout before Lopez and the soldiers could finish breaking down the front door.
She rose and took a small bag from the side table in her bedroom. She'd had the bag ready for days, with all of her essential instruments and ingredients in it. Moving quickly down the stairs, she smiled savagely.
Then they'll have Saluzzo to deal with. And the fools came at night, to boot! In the darkness, the mindless thing he becomes will be twice as dangerous.
Saluzzo was slumbering on a divan in the front room, as he usually was, these days. He spent most of his time lately doing nothing but eating and dozing, awash in the reveries Bianca provided him. He'd grown a bit fat and soft as a result, but that didn't concern Bianca. The transformation he was about to undergo would make "fat and soft" completely meaningless.
She strode over, placed her hand on his face, and sent a jolt of sheer agony blazing through his head. Then, stepped back quickly.
Sputtering and yowling, Saluzzo scrambled to his feet and stared at Bianca. He was simply confused, at the moment.
His confusion vanished, as Bianca slapped him across the cheek. Then, spit in his face.
Rage came instantly to a man like Saluzzo. His face contorted with fury, looking even uglier in the light cast by the single lamp in the room. He took a step toward her, his big fist raised.
Perfect.
Rage was essential to a full transformation. All that was needed now were the words of power, words that had never been intended to be shaped by human lips, but which Bianca had long practice in uttering.
Again, Saluzzo yowled with pain. A yowl, this time, that went on and on and on—and, as it continued, started changing in timbre and tone, within seconds sounding more like the scream of a beast than a human being.
Bianca sped from the room. She had perhaps a minute to escape, while Saluzzo's body was paralyzed by the changes it was undergoing. By then, the semi-mindless demon-shaped beast he'd have become, tormented by the agony of muscles, nerves, and bone wrenched into new shapes and the unfettered, pain-charged anger she had invoked, would not be able to think at all, much less clearly. By then, also, the soldiers would have started breaking in the door and the Saluzzo-monster's rage would have a different target.
And what a shock they would have, when their steel and iron weapons and armor did not protect them.
Outside, on the street, Eneko Lopez fell to one knee. His hands clasped his head as if he'd been struck by a sudden and ferocious pain-lance straight into his brain.