Ariosto (46 page)

The short sword was withdrawn and the assault on the door continued. Lodovico tightened his hand around the dagger and waited.

“My cousin…Benci…They could have been killed … but…if I did that…where would it stop? Where?…And now this…” His voice had faded to a shadow of sound, and Lodovico did not hear more than five words of what Damiano was saying.

The hole in the door was wider and more weapons and arms appeared.

“It could have worked,” Damiano said wistfully, though he was unaware that no one could hear him.

Lodovico had wanted to listen, had tried to, but his mind was on the door, at the buckling panels. He could not think of what he ought to do. How did he, a man with only one short dagger, defend himself against half a dozen men with swords? “Damiano!” he called, wishing that il Primàrio would think of something more he might do, wanting his friend to know that he was standing by him.

With a shriek the door burst its hinges, splintering around the candelabrum, and three men stumbled into the room with drawn weapons held at the ready. The first to turn was thick-bodied and coarsely dressed—with sudden indignation, Lodovico recognized the smith Carlo, and just behind him, the elegant figure of Andrea Benci. The third was a young man not known to Lodovico, a handsome youth dressed in the Roman style.

Lodovico had intended to place himself between these invaders and his stricken friend, but one swift glance told him that was useless now: Damiano sat quiet in the high-backed chair, dark eyes turned toward the window, head to one side. He was very still.

With a sound born of despair and fury, Lodovico thrust the young man aside and lunged at Andrea Benci, the dagger in his hand darting forward like a serpent’s tongue. And then a coldness possessed him, a cold more intense than any Lodovico had ever known. His side, his back, his jaw ached with it, and he could not move anymore. Without a murmur he fell forward across the fallen candelabrum.

Il Trapasso

The battle was not yet over. Lodovico could hear, seemingly at a distance, the advancing steps of men, some moving quickly, others more slowly, accompanied by strange shouts and excited words.

“We’ve done it!”

Lodovico thought he must have lost his weapon or he would be part of the battle, the celebration. He had given his word to Damiano and he was afraid now that he had not accomplished what he had vowed to do. There was more he must do, things to be finished, but he could not find his weapon.

“Benci?”

“No good. The blade went too deep.”

Was that Benci speaking? The voice was not polished. It sounded like one of Massamo’s Lanzi.

“Benci was right: the poet was in on it.”

Benci, Lodovico thought contemptuously. Benci, Benci. A cowardly old man, a subtle, incorrigible villain. He let others do his fighting and himself fled real danger. He was a treacherous man. Lodovico had never liked him. He was too neat. There was something else, a thing his right hand remembered, but he could not describe, though he took a sullied pride in it.

“Renaldo, stop it. He’s dead.”

Lodovico wanted to protest, but he had fallen through some accident, in some manner he could not recall, and was now unable to rise. There was too much cold in him to rise. One of the warriors of flint and frost had pinned him to the ground. It would take help for him to get up again. The cold was heavy upon him. But he sensed that the battle was stopping. The clash of metal on metal and stone had almost ceased. He thought he saw boots approaching him.

“Leave him. Just cover him up. With all that blood…”

Damiano was hurt. He remembered that now. Damiano had been wounded and Falcone would not bring his army in time because the warriors of flint and frost were holding them at the crest of the hill. Damiano needed a champion. He had tried to do what he could. He had tried to break through for Damiano. He had not completed that, and it rankled.

Something fell across his shoulders, something light. Falcone’s cape. They had brought him Falcone’s cape. His eyes filled with tears. Falcone’s cape. It would take time to free him from the grip of the warrior of flint and frost, though he hoped they would do it quickly, for the cold was growing even more oppressive and the cape was not sufficient to warm him.

“They’ve got to be moved. We need them out of here.”

And quickly, quickly, Lodovico urged silently as his strength ran out of him.

“Thank God we succeeded.”

Then the forces of Anatrecacciatore were defeated! His charge must have helped the army. They would have come after him, of course they would have, crying
Omaggia
and striking true to the heart of the evil.

“You should thank the Cardinale.”

The Cardinale! What had Damiano’s cousin to do with it? How could he have come? He was in Italia Federata. It was not possible.

“Shame about Benci.”

“Why? The Cardinale would have got rid of him, anyway. Saves us the trouble.”

Cosimo, Cardinale Medici, was a venal, greedy man who was not worthy to fight on behalf of Falcone and Nuova Genova. Just as well to recall him before he did more harm. A man like that would destroy an honorable battle. He wanted to warn the others that they must not rely on the Cardinale, though, or trust him. It would be dangerous to do that.

“And get that thing out of here.”

There was a scraping and a shadow fell across him. If only he could rise, could move, if he could help them to lift this immense stone warrior. The shadow was bigger, deeper, darker, and there was a sound in his cars he had never heard before. The cold was worse, much worse.

“Move him, can’t you?”

More rustling around him, and the cold. The cold. Something brushed his face and he looked up. Bellimbusto had returned, faithful. The shadow, he thought, had been Bellimbusto. He must have fought honorably, for a hippogryph would never come to a disgraced master. He had expiated his sin, then, surely. Already he felt easier, less oppressed. He knew that he would be rescued now. Bellimbusto would not let him lie in the terrible, terrible cold.

There was one keen instant when the talons reached out for him, to pluck him away, raise him up. One moment only of anguish and loss.

Then they were free again, soaring into the unknown and radiant splendor while around him, above him, within him, the great, thundering wings shone now black, now bronze, now gold, now evanescent light.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1980 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

978-1-4976-5076-3

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com

Open Road Integrated Media
is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.

FIND OUT MORE AT

WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM

FOLLOW US:

@openroadmedia
and

Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia