CHAPTER 12

Gianni tried to shrug off his gloom as he went to greet his companions. He told himself that Medallia was only one pretty woman among many, and one he hadn’t even come to know very well—but he was amazed at how little the thought cheered him, and at how much his fancy had fastened upon her. But he forced a smile and waved at the guards at the inner gate, even managing to exchange a few cheerful remarks, and was able to put on a good show by the time he reached the land gate. He saw Vladimir, Estragon, Rubio, and Bernardino, and called, “You lazy layabouts, you idle road walkers! What makes you think you’re good enough for Pirogia?”

They leaped to their feet, Rubio the merchant reddening with anger—until they saw Gianni and laughed, coming forward with open arms. He embraced each of them, surprised at how the greetings of these relative strangers cheered him.

“It’s intolerable, Giorgio!” Rubio said indignantly. “They tell me they can’t trust a man from Venoga!”

“Yes, but if you had come with a goods train behind you, they would have let you in quickly enough,” Gianni assured him. “Besides, they’re pulling your leg—I argued that out with them yesterday.” Rubio stared; then a slow grin spread over his face. He turned to the two guards, who had rolled up their eyes, watching the sky in innocence. “You scalawags! You’ve no more hospitality than your friend Giorgio here!”

“And no less, either,” Alfredo assured him. “But who is Giorgio? I see only Gianni.”

Rubio turned to Gianni in shock, and so did the other three—but Gianni only smiled apology and said, “Forgive me, friends, but the lie was necessary. The prince had set a price on my head.”

“A price?” The thief frowned, “I should have heard about this! What’s your full name?”

“Gianni Braccalese.”

Estragon stared; so did Vladimir. Rubio and Bernardino looked from one to the other, at a loss. Gianni felt a perverse sort of pride.

“Yes,” said the thief, “I had heard of you indeed! Oh, if I had known who I was traveling with, I would have walked alone!”

“We were safer together,” Gianni assured him, “and will be in the future, too. Come in, come in and accept my mother’s hospitality! Then, if you wish, you can join our new army … I mean …” He glanced uneasily at Vladimir, then away, ashamed of himself.

“Perhaps not a soldier, but from what I know of armies, they can find some use for me,” the lame man assured him. “Take me to your general, Gianni. Let him decide.”

Gianni grinned and clapped him on the back. “There’s no general yet, but only our old friend Gar—and yes, I think he’ll find a place for you. Come in.”

Mama Braccalese welcomed the quartet with full hospitality, though she was a little put off by the beggar and the thief, and accorded them a hot tub each as her first gesture of welcome. Gar did indeed assure the beggar that there would be work enough for him as a quartermaster, but for the time being, he should learn the trade of a fletcher, learning the making of crossbow bolts and the compounding of gunpowder for the cannons.

As they were finishing a late and rather large breakfast, Gianni’s father came in, his face grim, but his eye alight. “The Council will hear you tomorrow, Gianni—and I think they will listen more closely, now that so many have lost good trains. But who are these?”

When the introductions had been made and his welcome extended, Papa took Gianni aside and said, “Be sure that you practice what you’re going to say to the Council—but first, walk about the city and sense its mood. I know our people seem their usual cheerful selves, but there’s an undertone of concern there. Everyone knows that things aren’t the way they should be, though no one’s sure what’s wrong yet.” So that afternoon, Gianni went for a stroll in the market, then along a canal and down some small rivers, crossing bridges and listening to conversations. His father had been right—there was tension there, and rumors were flying. People were doomsaying left and right. A grocer near the Bridge of Smiles was telling a customer, “Truly, the beards on the grain are much longer than usual, and the butcher tells me the goats’ hair and the sheep’s wool is much thicker than ever he has seen! It will be an early winter, a long and hard winter, mark my words!”

“I’ll mark them.” His customer tried to look skeptical, but didn’t succeed very well.

Along the River Melorin, he heard two housewives gossiping as they walked along with their shopping baskets on their arms. “I feel it in my bones, Antonia! Fever is rising from the water! It will be a plague such as the Bible tells of, or I know nothing of healing!”

“I could believe that your bones know,” her neighbor scoffed, “but if there’s to be any plague in this city, it’s more likely to come from the gutters than the waters.”

Her eyes were haunted, though, and Gianni could see she didn’t doubt that a plague might be due. The day seemed more chilly suddenly, and he hurried on.

By the waterfront, he heard an old sailor telling some boys, “Aye, a sea serpent, lads! Saw it myself, I did—a long skinny body sticking up from the water, way up, way way up, with a small flat head atop.”

“It wasn’t a very big sea serpent, then,” one of the boys said, disappointed.

“Oh, it was huge! The head was only little when you saw it atop so huge a neck! It was half a mile off if it was an inch, and we blessed our luck when it turned and went from us! But they won’t be turning away from ships this year, oh no! All kinds of monsters will rise from the sea, aye, and chase after our ships, to drag them down!”

The boys moaned with the delight of safe fear, their eyes huge—but a young sailor passing near overheard the old salt and frowned, then hurried off, his brow furrowed.

Gianni began to feel alarm himself—the people were claiming everything bad about the future except the real danger. If they weren’t told the truth soon, if these rumors weren’t quashed, the city would shake itself apart.

As the sun was setting, though, he turned his steps back toward the Piazza del Sol, his pulse quickening—but the market stalls had been shuttered, and the caravan was gone. For a wild, crazed moment, he thought of searching the city for the brightly colored wagon, then remembered that he had already been roaming for hours, and that there were so many islands that even those that could be reached by the network of bridges would take him a week and more to search thoroughly. Heavy-hearted, he went home, to be cheered by the presence of his new friends.

After supper, Gar took him aside and asked, “You talk to the Council tomorrow, then?”

“Yes, if I can think of what to say,” Gianni answered.

Gar shrugged. “Tell them the plain truth—what you’ve heard, and what you’ve seen. If they give you any trouble, introduce me again. I assure you, with what I know now, I can scare them as badly as the worst brimstone-breathing preacher.”

Gianni grinned and promised he would.

But that night, the swirling, dancing figure illuminated his dreams again, glowing more brightly than ever she had before. Gianni Braccalese! she called. You must tell them to flee, Gianni!

Do not flee from me, I beg you, he pleaded in his dream.

Silly boy! she flared. Can you think of nothing but love? But her voice trembled when she said it. Think of your fellow citizens instead! You cannot even dream of the might the lords shall bring against Pirogia when they unite all their armies—or of the horrendous engines of death their far-traveling merchant allies will lend them! There is no hope of victory, none! You must persuade all your fellows to flee!

To leave Pirogia? Gianni cried, aghast. He had a brief, lurid vision of the beautiful bridges burning and falling, the elegant houses tumbling into the bright piazzas as flames burst from them while Stilettos ran from house to house, looting them of gold and plate and crystal and paintings, and smashing what they could not carry. No, never! We cannot desert our Pirogia!

If you do not, you shall die, you shall all die! The dancer stilled, her hands upraised, pleading. You must abandon the city, Gianni, all of you!

They wouldn’t listen to me even if I told them that. Gianni felt a hardening and crystalizing of purpose as he said the words. Our only hope of protecting our wives and mothers is to arm ourselves and fight!

You cannot! she wailed.

Don’t put too much faith in the princes, Gianni told her. At sea, they’re weaker than any fisherman—and no army can march across the water to Pirogia. No, dry your tears, I beg of you—and let me see your face.

Never! The veils began to swirl again. Can you think of nothing but lust, Gianni Braccalese? Nothing but love, he corrected, for I have loved you with a burning passion since first I saw you. Have you indeed? she said acidly. And what of the Gypsy maiden Medallia? Does she interest you not at all?

That brought Gianni up short, and on the horns of the dilemma, he took refuge in truth. She too has captured my fancy. Yes, it could be love, if I could come to know her.

You’ve not come to know me!

More than Medallia, he corrected, for I have never been alone with her.

But long to be, I’m sure! How fickle you are, Gianni Braccalese, how inconstant! How can you love two women at once?

I don’t know, Gianni confessed, but I do. He had never thought himself to be so base as to betray one love for another, but found that he did. Was he no better than any of the other strutting bucks about town? Were all men so shallow? I do not understand it, but it’s there. Please, O Beauty, let me come to you! He willed himself to move toward her, and seemed to be beginning to do so when she snapped, Never! and whirled her veils high to hide herself as she began to recede, flying from him at an amazing rate, shrinking smaller and smaller until she was gone, leaving him alone in darkness, with his dreams empty.

Gianni waked feeling fuzzy—headed and filled with grit, as though he had drunk far too heavily the night before, when in fact he had tasted only a single glass of wine. “That’s what comes of dreaming of women you can’t have,” he growled at himself, and rose to wash and shave.

With breakfast improving his mood and his best clothes on his back, he entered the Council chamber beside his father, Gar looming behind both of them. They entered a hall filled with consternation.

“Have you heard?” A jowly burgher confronted Papa Braccalese. “Prince Raginaldi marches on the city from the north, with thousands of men!”

Both Braccaleses stared. The first thing Papa could think of to say was, “How do we know?”

“Old Libroni’s chief driver brought the word back, along with the tale of how a band of Stilettos had reived him of his whole goods train and left him for dead! Oh, he is in frightful condition—emaciated, with bruises and crusted wounds! None doubt his word.”

Papa cast a quick look of vindication at Gianni, then said, “Many thanks, old friend. Come, let’s find our seats.”

They went on into the hall, hearing voices on every side:

“Conte Vecchio marches from the west with a thousand men!”

“The Doge of Lingretti marches from the south with two thousand!”

“The Stilettos are marching three thousand strong from Tumanola!”

“The Red Company are marching with two thousand!”

“Pirates!” a messenger shrilled, running into the hall and waving a parchment. “Captain Bortaccio says he had to run from a fleet of pirates! He lost them in a low fog by sailing against the wind, but they come in a fleet of thirty!”

The clamor redoubled at this news, and the Maestro began to strike his gong again and again, crying, “Councilors! Masters! Quiet! Order! We must discuss a plan!”

“Plan?” shouted a bull-throated man in velvet. “There can be only one plan—to flee!”

“We cannot flee!” Old Carlo Grepotti was on his feet, eyes afire, trembling. “By land or by sea, they shall cut us down and take us all for slaves if we flee! We can do nothing but stay and pray!”

“We can fight!” shouted a younger merchant, and a roar of approval answered him. The Maestro pounded his gong again and again until they quieted enough for him to hear himself call out, “Sit down! Sit down, masters and signori! Are we fishmongers, to be brawling over a catch? Sit down, as befits your dignity!”

Many faces reddened, but the merchants quieted and sat down around the great table. The Maestro nodded, appeased. “Braccalese! This meeting is called at your request! Have you any news that will help us make sense of this whole hornet’s nest?”

“Not I, but my son,” Papa said. “Gianni, tell them!”

Gianni stood up—and almost sat right down again; his legs turned to jelly as he stared around him at the host of grim, challenging faces, the youngest of them twenty years older than he. But Gar muttered a reminder—“You’ve faced Stilettos”—and it did wonders for Gianni’s self-confidence. His fear didn’t vanish, but it receded a good deal.

He squared his shoulders and called out, “Masters! Again I took a goods train out, this time northward into the mountains—and again we were beset by Stilettos, and our goods train lost. My guard Gar wandered with me till some Gypsies gave us clothes, food, and a place to sleep—but when they thought we slept, the Gypsies talked among themselves. They were false Gypsies, spies”—he hoped he was right about that—“set to encourage the lords to unite to crush us merchants!”

The hall erupted into uproar again, and Gianni looked about him, leaning on the table, already feeling drained, but quite satisfied at the emotion he had brought forth. The Maestro struck the gong again and again and, when quiet had returned, fixed Gianni with a glittering eye and asked him, “Why should Gypsies care whether we live or die?”

“We couldn’t understand that, either, Maestro,” Gianni said, “until we encountered a glazier on the road, who told us of a conversation he had overheard—a conversation between Prince Raginaldi and a dour, grim merchant from very far away who could barely speak the tongue of Talipon, but who offered the prince a scandalous price for orzans.”

“Scandalous price?” Eyes glittered with avarice. “How scandalous?”

What was the cost of power for a small city, anyway? For that matter, what was such power? Gianni improvised, “Three months’ profit from ordinary trading.”

“For each jewel?”

Gianni nodded. “For each one.”

The hall erupted into pandemonium again. The Maestro rolled up his eyes and left the gong alone until the hubbub had started to die of its own, then struck the gong once and waited for silence. “Do you say these false Gypsies were agents of this foreign merchant?”

“That’s the only way it makes sense to me, Maestro,” Gianni told him. “But it’s not just one merchant, it’s a whole company—the ‘Lurgan Company,’ they call themselves.”

“A whole company? Why didn’t they come to us?” Gianni shrugged, but old Carlo Grepotti cried, “Because they knew we would beat the price even higher! These foolish lords will take whatever they’re offered!”

“Aye, and steal every gem they can find to sell!” cried another merchant, and the hubbub was off again. The Maestro aimed a blow at the gong, then thought better of it and sat back to wait. Finally his fellow merchants realized just how contemptuous his gaze was and subsided, muttering. The Maestro turned to Gianni again. “Have you any answers to these questions they raise?”

“Only guesses, Maestro,” Gianni said, “But I think I’ll let Gar tell you those. He had the idea of having us captured by the Stilettos so that we could break into Castle Raginaldi and look for more information. He should be the one to tell you what we found.”

“Break into Castle Raginaldi?” a younger merchant cried. “How did you dare?”

“More to the point, how did you get out?” another man demanded.

“All for Gar to tell—it’s really his story, and his boast.” Gianni turned to his friend. “I yield to the free lance.”

“Free no longer, but bound to serve you and all of Pirogia.” Gar rose to his full height, shoulders square, and looked somberly about the room. Any objection to his speaking died under that glare. Calmly then, and without hurry, he told them about their raid into Castle Raginaldi—and told it with all the dash and spirit of a practiced storyteller. The merchants hung riveted to his account, all eyes on his face, and the hall was silent except for his voice until he had finished with their escape from the castle. Then he paused, looked all about the room, finally turned to the Maestro, and inclined his head. “That is all we saw, Maestro, and all we heard.”

The room erupted into noise again—exclamations of wonder, and not a little scoffing. The Maestro let it run its course, then asked Gar, “What was this strange egg-shaped thing?”

“A magic talisman that allowed the prince to talk with the Lurgan traders, even when they were far from his castle,” Gar said. “That way, when he had enough orzans to be worth the trip, they could come to get them, and give him his gold.”

“I do not believe in magic,” the Maestro said. “Rightly, too,” Gar replied, “but it’s easier to say ‘magic talisman’ than ‘an alchemist’s device,’ and it’s beyond understanding in any case. What matter is what it does.”

“Apparently you’ve some understanding of it, if you could use it to talk to a friend of your own.”

“Yes, my lord. I also understand how to use a cannon, but I would be hard put to tell you how its powder worked, or why.”

Gianni noticed that he didn’t say it was impossible, just difficult—but the Maestro accepted the answer. “And who is your friend Herkimer?”

“Another mercenary,” Gar said readily, “who will come to our aid if I ask it, and take the noblemen from the rear. Think of him as an alchemist with cannon—excellent cannon, for he makes better gunpowder.”

“And he can watch this Lurgan Company for you?” The Maestro was looking rather skeptical.

“Well, eavesdrop on them, at any rate,” Gar said, “though what he hears would have to be very dire before he would drop a message for me into your Piazza del Sol, taking the risk of knocking a hole in someone’s head.”

“Have you no talisman to use for talking with him?”

“No, my lord. It was with the kit that I had when I came to your city, but which the Stilettos stole along with the rest of my gear.”

“Will they know it for what it is?” old Carlo asked. “I doubt it,” Gar told him. “It was well disguised.” He didn’t elaborate, and Carlo Grepotti managed to bite back the question.

“What is your advice?” the Maestro asked.

Gar shrugged. “I’m a mercenary soldier, Maestro. Of course I advise you to fight.”

“Forget your profession for a moment.” The Maestro waved a hand, as though he could clear Gar’s mind of all preconceptions with a gesture. “Try to think as a merchant, not as a soldier. Would you not advise us to flee, to evacuate the city?”

“No,” Gar said, instantly and clearly. “It would be almost impossible to move so many people so quickly—many would be likely to die in the trying—and no matter where you went, the Stilettos would sniff you out and kill or enslave you.”

“We could divide into many bands, and go in many directions,” a merchant offered.

“If you did, you’d only make it easier for the Stilettos to kill you,” Gar said, “and give sport for many noblemen and their armies as they hunted you down—sport for them, and employment for all the Free Companies, not just the Stilettos. No, masters, your only hope is to stay and fight. Yes, many of you may die—but many more will live!”

“But we have no army!” cried another. “How can we fight the lords?”

“By burning your bridge to the mainland,” Gar said. “Gianni tells me it was designed for that, and whoever thought it up built wisely. Yes, it will take time and money to rebuild, when we have beaten off the lords—but it’s the smallest of the losses you could have. With it gone, no army can come at you without ships—and your navy is unsurpassed; I’m sure they will scuttle any army the lords try to bring against you.”

“Some boats might reach us,” a merchant said darkly.

“Yes, and for that you will need soldiers.” Gar nodded. “I can make your young men into an army for you, and free lances will come quickly enough if we spread word that we’re hiring. In fact, we’ve brought back eight men from our travels who are willing to serve with you; I spent yesterday drilling them and taking the first steps toward turning them into an army. Will you come see them? They’re waiting outside.”

There were a few voices of denial, but the vast majority were more than ready to see a show. They answered with a shout of approval, and the Maestro cried, “Adjourned! We shall meet again outside! Stand around the edge of the piazza, masters!” Then he struck the gong, and the move toward the doors began.

Even as they came out, they saw Gar’s eight men drawn up in three rows of four each—three, because a few of the Braccalese drovers had been fired with military zeal when they saw the tabards Mama Braccalese and her friends had made, splendid golden tabards with the eagle of Pirogia painted on them, as some hint of livery. The merchants exclaimed as they came out, seeing the men drawn up in a square with plumed hats and the sun glinting on their halberds (they had fitted new handles to the trophies of their raid on Castle Raginaldi). At Gar’s command, they came to attention, and the drummer and trumpeter he had hired began to play. Then, as he barked orders, the twelve marched across the square, turned as one and marched across its breadth, then wheeled and marched across it on the diagonal. Again he called, and they turned to march straight toward the Maestro with old Carlo Grepotti beside him. One more barked command, and they stamped to a halt, front row dropping to a crouch, halberds snapping down to point directly at the spectators.

The merchants burst out cheering, and the few voices of dissent were drowned in an accolade that heralded the founding of Pirogia’s army.

 

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CHAPTER 13

The whole city threw itself into a positive fever of preparation for war. Furnaces roared in the foundries day and night, casting cannon for the navy and the city walls; peasants streamed in through the gates with carts full of food, and stayed to enlist in the army if the city found room for their families—for these peasant farmers had no illusions about what happened to the people in the villages when their fields became battlegrounds.

One of those farmers, however, turned out to be a problem. A messenger came knocking at the Braccalese door just as the family was sitting down to breakfast, and the servant appeared in the doorway seconds later. “Master Paolo, there’s a messenger from the Council in your study.”

“A messenger from the Council? So early?” Mama exclaimed, and her face was full of foreboding.

“It must be urgent if it comes so untimely.” Papa rose and went to the door, saying, “Begin without me, family, Gar. It might not be short.”

But it was. He came back only minutes later and sat down at table again, tucking the cloth into his neck and saying, “Eat quickly, Gianni, Gar. I think you had better come along.”

“What is it?” Suddenly, Gianni’s appetite was gone.

“A spy,” Papa told them. “Eat, Gianni. You’ll need it.”

They ate, then went out the river door, stepping into a sculling boat, and went not to the Council chambers but to the magistrate’s hall—and it was Oldo Bolgonolo who greeted them, not as Maestro but as a magistrate. He ushered them into the courtroom, where a mild-mannered, bland-faced man stood before the bench in chains. He wore a simple farmer’s smock and leggings, and seemed entirely inoffensive.

“What did he do?” Gianni asked.

Oldo waved him to silence and said, “Master, signori! This peasant was seen watching the soldiers drill, and later seen going to the stall of a pigeon seller in the market. There is no crime in that, but the pigeon he bought, he took down to the quay, tied a scrap of parchment to its leg, and sent it winging into the air. The man who followed him shot the pigeon through the wing. It heals, and may be of use to us in sending a message other than this.” He held out a scrap of parchment. “Read, and advise us as to his judgment.”

Papa took the parchment and scanned it, scowling, but Gar asked, “Who bore witness against him?”

“One of the city spies you advised me to commission, and the stealthy one has already proved the worth of your advice. But he also whispered to one or two other folk that the man was doing something suspicious, and they saw and remembered. He kept them from offering violence to this poor deluded soul.”

“Deluded!” the man burst out. “You, who would upset the old ways and take from us the assurance of the noblemen—you dare call me deluded?”

“He seems to have had a good lord,” Oldo said, with irony, “and doesn’t realize how lucky he was, or how rare his master is.”

“So he admits his crime?” Gar asked.

“He does,” Oldo confirmed. “Four citizens confronted him and bore witness to his deeds.”

“But not your spy!” the man said hotly.

“Counterspy,” Gar corrected. “It is you who are the spy.”

“A counter indeed, a counter in your game,” the man sneered. “They wouldn’t let me see the man himself!”

“Of course not—once a spy’s face is known, he can be of little more use,” Gar said. “He was wise enough to see you had other accusers. In fact, I would guess he himself made no accusation, only supplied information.”

The spy chopped sideways with his hand in a dismissive gesture. “What will it be now? The gallows? Go ahead—I’m ready to die for my lord!”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” Gar said mildly, and to Oldo, “I’d recommend he be a guest of the city, with a room to himself. Not a very luxurious room perhaps, and not a very rich diet—but only a guest with a barred window, until the current unpleasantness is done. It may be his lord will value so loyal a retainer—value him enough to trade us a dozen prisoners of war for him.”

“An excellent thought,” Oldo said, with a gleam in his eye. The prospect of bargaining appealed to him. “Guards, take the prisoner away and clap him in a cell alone, where he can spread no more of his insidious talk!” As the watchmen hustled the peasant away, Oldo turned to Gar. “I thank you, friend, for the excellence of your advice. I shall appoint more counterspies, and have them watch our new citizens very closely.”

“And the old ones, too,” Gar reminded him. “Some of them might lack confidence in the navy and our new army, and might try to guarantee their family’s safety by selling information to the lords.”

Oldo’s face darkened. “It goes against the grain to even think of it, but I shall do so. Do you really think it necessary for the counterspies to seek to have other citizens bear witness, though?”

“Very important,” said Gar, “for a position like that opens itself to abuse of power very easily and readily. A counterspy could settle an old quarrel or gain long-awaited revenge, just by accusation. No, Maestro, I strongly recommend you require witnesses and proof.”

“Well, so we shall, then,” grumbled Oldo. “But I thank you, masters.”

As they came out of the courtroom, Gianni said, in a shaken voice, “I had never thought there might be spies among us!”

“Oh, there most definitely are,” Gar assured him. “It’s a fundamental principle of war.”

“But what of the lords’ armies? Will we have spies among them?”

“We already do,” Gar answered. “Do we not, Signor Braccalese?”

Papa nodded, looking grim, and Gianni suddenly felt very young, and very, very naive. He reflected, though, that he was learning very rapidly.

So was his city. The merchant town that had felt no need of an army was studying war with a vengeance. The shipyard hired every carpenter in town, and half-built houses had to wait while keels were laid and caravels built. Chandlers bought every bale of hemp the farmers could bring, every skein of linen thread, to make cables and sails.

There followed the most frantic two weeks of Gianni’s life. Gar taught him how to drill with the others, taught him in a day as much as they learned in two, then left him in charge of training the recruits with the help of the captain of the Pirogia City Guard and a few of the guardsmen. Mama and Papa Braccalese kept track of the young men who enlisted, while Vladimir the beggar took charge of ordering up tabards, plumed hats, and weapons. The workshops of the city threw themselves into turbulent activity; lamps burned all through the night, and the citizens of Pirogia could scarcely sleep for the sounds of the hammers beating at all hours in the forgeries. Old Carlo Grepotti worked side by side with Vladimir, grumbling over every single ducat spent but dutifully doling out the gold to the tradesmen of his city as he did. The Maestro himself took charge of raising money for Carlo to spend, going from merchant to merchant and arguing very reasonably that generous donations would forestall a Council vote on the need for higher taxes.

Gianni was very proud of his fellow citizens—the young men came trooping in, waiting in long, long lines for the scribes to take down their names (and many who were not so young—Gianni was glad he could leave it to his father to explain to old Pietro why a sixty-year-old man with gout and rheumatism should not enlist). He had his hands full overseeing his road companions as they trained the young men in drill, each hopeful soldier with a pole over his shoulder until he could learn how not to hit his mates with it as he turned and wheeled. Vincenzio kept his men in line with all the sternness of a schoolmaster, protesting in an undertone that this was no fit occupation for a man of letters; Estragon the thief reveled in actually giving orders to the law-abiding; and Feste was in his element, posturing and strutting as he led his troops. Gianni was constantly on the run from piazza to piazza, trying to keep up with the drill practice in the mornings and the weapons practice in the afternoons, when his lieutenants became pupils themselves, studying halberd-play and archery and swordsmanship from the Pirogia City Guard.

At the end of the first exhausting day, Gianni threw himself down in his bed, sure he would sleep so deeply that dreams wouldn’t dare come near him—but the circle of light appeared and expanded before he could wish it away or dare command it to be gone, expanded to show him the face of the Wizard, hair and beard swirling. Gianni still felt a little fear, but much more exasperation. What do you want this time?

The wizard stared in surprise; then his brows drew down in anger, and pain stabbed Gianni from temple to temple as the deep voice thundered around him. You forget yourself, child! Do not think that because I honor you with a glimpse of me, you are entitled to insolence!

I … I beg your pardon, Gianni stammered. Better, the voice said, no longer all about him, and the pain ceased as abruptly as it had begun. I have come to tell you that you have done well, Gianni Braccalese, in persuading your citizens to fight. Thank you. But this was one time that Gianni really didn’t want the credit. Gar had more to do with it than I, though. Why don’t … I mean, would it not be more effective to talk to him?

He is not born of Pirogia, nor even of Talipon, and has no access to your Council by himself, the Wizard said. For better or for worse, it must be you through whom I save the world of Petrarch.

Gianni couldn’t answer, he was so astounded, so aghast at the Wizard’s colossal arrogance. Who was he to speak of saving a whole world? A city, perhaps, but a world?

But an army is not enough, the Wizard told him, nor even the marines that your friend Gar intends to raise.

Marines? Gianni wondered what that was. Something to do with the sea, yes—but nearly everything in Pirogia had to do with the sea. What else can we do?

You can raise all the merchant cities against the aristocracy. The cold eyes seemed to pierce Gianni’s brain, transfixing him, depriving him of all powers of resistance. You can bid them cut off the last vestiges of power that their contes and doges may have, even expel those noblemen completely—after all, their guilds and merchants’ councils really rule their cities already. Then they too can raise armies and build navies, and the lords will have to split their forces, and will be unable to combine against Pirogia completely.

But the other cities may be defeated! They may fall!

Then Pirogia must come to their rescue when you have driven off the Prince and his minions, the Wizard said sternly. Your city must make alliances, Gianni Braccalese. You must form a league of merchant cities, a true federation, a republic!

A republic of merchant cities? Gianni’s brain reeled under the vision of the seacoast of Talipon all united as one nation, leaving the interior split up into a score of ducal cities. They would fight with viciousness and not the slightest trace of mercy, those aristocrats. Many people of the merchant cities would die …

But many of them would die if they didn’t fight the lords, too—the false Gypsies and the Lurgan Company had seen to that. It may be as you say … there may be a chance of success …

It is your only chance of success! The Wizard’s voice was harsh with anxiety, with urgency. Tell your father, tell your Council! The die is cast, Gianni Braccalese, the wagers are placed! You must ally or die, and all the other merchant cities with you!

Gianni realized the truth of what the Wizard said. It was do or die, now—and if the lords eliminated Pirogia, they would go on to enslave or crush all other merchants, too. I shall do as you say, he promised. But the Council has already rejected such a notion.

Before the lords marched on them, yes! Now that they know they must fight, you will find them much more willing! Tell your father! The face began to recede, hair and beard swirling up to hide it. Remember—tell! Persuade! Or fall and die!

Then the face was gone, and Gianni woke, shivering with fear—but also with elation. The prospect of a league of merchant cities awed and enthralled him—a league with Pirogia as its leader! With all the navies of the island at its command, all the new armies of the coastland coordinated in their strategy! The day of the nobleman was done!

If the Council could be persuaded.

 

The Council was persuaded.

Gianni’s father returned home from the meeting, jubilant and brimming over with his triumph. “There wasn’t the slightest hint of disagreement! They heard me out, they voted unanimously, and the couriers are already taking fast boats out past the bar!”

Gianni and Mama stared in amazement. “However did you manage it?” she asked.

“I told it to them as though it were an idea new-made, as though I had never told it to them before—and they are all intent on war now, for even those who opposed it understand that once it has begun, their only hope of survival is to win! They didn’t need persuading—they were ready to embrace the idea, any idea, that would give them a greater chance of winning!”

While Gianni was drilling the army, Gar combed the waterfront for stalwart young men, catching them before they could line up to enlist—young merchant sailors and sons of fishermen. He took two hundred of them under his personal tutelage, promoting the quickest learners to corporal at the end of the first day and to sergeant at the end of the second. He marched them about on the quays from dawn till dusk. They were exhausted and cursing him by the end of the first day, but drilling like professionals by the end of the week, with no signs of weariness even as darkness fell. Then he taught them weapons drill, and at the end of the tenth day buttonholed the city’s two admirals. The result of their conference was that he marched his fishermen aboard a dozen ships in the morning and sailed out to the horizon, where ship met ship, for all the world looking as though they were fighting one another. They came sailing back at noon with the soldiers dragging their pikes, but the captains and admirals glowing—and the two hundred were dubbed “marines,” and marched on board to row out to the bar, waiting.

They didn’t have to wait long for a small, swift courier boat to come running back with the news that a pirate fleet was approaching.

The admirals sent the courier on with word for the Maestro and the Council before they set sail to meet the pirates. That word ran through the town, and when Gianni realized that his soldiers were virtually the only ones who weren’t down by the docks waiting with bated breath, he called for fifty volunteers to guard the bridge to the mainland and sent everyone else off to wait and hope and pray with the rest of Pirogia. The hours dragged by, and people began to curse beneath their breath—but there wasn’t a single echo of cannon fire, nor a trace of gunsmoke in the sky, for the navy had done its job well and attacked the pirate fleet far from the city.

Dusk fell, and people began to go home, dispirited and worried—but sausage sellers appeared, hawking their wares in the midst of the crowd, and a few enterprising wine merchants realized the chance to rid themselves of some of their worst vintages, so most of the crowd stayed, sipping near-vinegar and bolstered with meat that was best not studied too closely, waiting and hoping but growing more and more fearful by the hour, then by the minute.

Finally, hours after darkness had fallen, a shout went up from those who waited out by the headland, a shout that traveled inward to the watchers on the quays. “Ships! Sails!”

But whose? Impossible to tell, when all they could see was moonlight glinting on canvas in the distance—and the gunners stood by their cannon in the harbor forts while Gianni barked commands, and his brand-new soldiers marched forward to stand at the edge of the quay, hearts thumping so loudly that the crowd could almost hear them, halberds slanting out, waiting for sign of an enemy. The civilians gave way, letting themselves be elbowed back, more than glad to yield place to the soldiers in case the ships were pirates.

Then a shout of joy went up from the headland and traveled inward. As it reached the quays, three ships rounded the headland, their standards clear in the torchlight from the forts, the emblem on the one intact sail huge enough for all to see—the eagle of Pirogia! Then the citizens recognized the ships of their own building, and a shout of joy went up and turned into mad cheering that seemed as though it would never stop. The soldiers waved their pikes aloft, shouting in jubilation too.

More ships followed them, and more. The first of them glided up to the quays, and weary but triumphant sailors leaped over the side, elbowing their way through soldiers who laughed with joy and clapped them on their shoulders, cheering them on as they plowed into the crowd in search of sweethearts, wives, parents, and children.

Last from the last ship came the rear admiral, leaning heavily on Gar’s arm. A reddened bandage wound up across his chest to his shoulder, but he was smiling bravely, and the light of victory was in his eyes.

“A surgeon, a surgeon!” Gar cried. His uniform was blackened with gunpowder, rent with sword cuts in a dozen places; he had a bandage around his left arm and another about his head—but he seemed clear-minded and able.

The surgeons took the admiral away, and—Gianni ran up to clap Gar on the back and wring his hand, crying, “Congratulations! All hail the hero! A victory, Gar, a fabulous victory!”

“My men’s, not mine.” But Gar was smiling, his eyes alight. “But it was a fabulous battle, Gianni! I wish men could turn away from war—but if there have to be wars, they should be like this!”

“Tell me how it was!”

“We left the harbor with the morning breeze to waft us out to sea. A mile out, the fore admiral, Giovanni Pontelli, led half of our forces further out, past the horizon, while the rear admiral, Mosca Cacholli, led the rest of us on southward, following the coast, to meet the pirates as far from Pirogia as we could. With the wind at our backs, we made good time, and the breeze was beginning to turn toward shore when we met the pirates off Cape Leone. Admiral Cacholli hove to and gave the command to begin the bombardment. You know how I insisted the cannon be placed, Gianni—all on the deck, covered by canvas in case of storm, but none belowdecks, or the crew would be truly deafened by the sound, roasted by the heat, and suffocated by the smoke. Well, it wasn’t much better on the decks, but all my gunners can still hear their orders and none died of smoke—though I think the sun’s heat may have been just as bad as any on a gun deck. Still, my cannoneers pulled the canvas off their guns, loaded, and fired. The whole ship swayed with the recoil, but I had also insisted the ships not be too high, so they didn’t capsize, and my crews proved the worth of their drill, because no one was crushed by the guns as they rolled back. Cacholli staggered the fire, so that as one ship fired, another was reloading and a third was taking aim, and we loosed a round every minute or so.”

“Well, the pirates just weren’t expecting anything like it. It was a horrendous noise, even over two hundred yards of water, and they had never faced such a rolling bombardment. We sank a dozen of their ships, for they turned broadside to fire at us, and their long galleys gave us excellent targets, while our little caravels, with so much space between them, gave them very little to aim at and less to hit. We couldn’t hear their cannon because of the din of our own, but we saw their shot splash into the water in front of us—in front, between our ships, behind us, and every place except on our ships themselves. Simply put, their gunners couldn’t even hit us!”

“Not a single one?” Gianni asked, eyes wide.

“Well, one of our caravels lost its mast and three deck hands; I could swear the shot hit by accident! But no matter how good our bombardment, it wasn’t enough to decide the battle by itself, because there were three of them to every one of us, and the rest pressed on through the bombardment to grapple us. We turned and ran, and the pirate galleys fell farther and farther behind with every minute. The sea heaved beneath us, our little ships bucked and seesawed like horses, and the waves broke over our bow and drenched us with salt spray—but we were sailing against the wind, tacking, and the pirates had no idea how to do that. Oh, they furled their sails, but the wind still blew against them, and their oarsmen had to strain to make any way at all. Those oarsmen must have been new slaves pressed to learn to row in a week! Try as they might, they fell farther and farther behind us, and when we had distance enough, Admiral Cacholli turned us for another broadside and another, chewing their fleet to bits. Finally the pirates gained some modicum of sense and sent a wing to row up on our flank while we bombarded, so when we turned to run again, they came down from seaward with the wind behind them, and grappled us.”

Gar’s eyes glittered. “Then was the test of my marines, and they surpassed those poor farm boys forced to masquerade as pirates as thoroughly as a warhorse surpasses a child’s pony! The ‘pirates’ came over the side with their scimitars waving, but my marines met them with a line of halberds. They ran the first wave through, then chopped the second wave in chest and hip. As they tired, they fell back and left the third wave of pirates to the second rank of marines, who stabbed and chopped as well as the first. But the pirates’ officers drove them on with lash and blade, and they came over both rails in such numbers that my marines had to drop their spears and lug out their swords. Then it was man to man and blood and steel, each on his own. Three farm boys came at me all at once, yowling like demons and chopping as though their swords were axes. My blood sang high, for it was kill or be killed, so I tried to forget that they were forced to it and lunged, running the first through and ducking so that his body slammed into my shoulder. I straightened and threw him off as I parried his mate’s slash, then stepped aside to let the third stumble past me—but I put out my foot and let him fall, even as I parried the second’s slash again, then beat down his blade and ran him through.”

“Then, incredibly, there were none more at me. I looked about and saw two of my marines back to back, beleaguered by a dozen plowboys—poor fools, they didn’t realize that only six at a time could do any good, and they were getting in each other’s way. I caught one by the shoulder, yanked him back, and stabbed him through the other shoulder, then turned to catch another by the arm and send him after the first. He tripped and went down, and another marine stabbed as he fell. I caught another and another, wounding each as he turned—but by the time I’d uncovered my two marines, they had slain all six of the men within reach. We turned and went looking for new quarry.”

“That was the way of it. My marines went through the sea robbers’ ranks reaping death until the ‘pirates’ began to throw down their arms and cry for mercy. Then my captains managed to rein in their sailors as I called back my marines, and ordered them to lock the pirates in the holds of their own ships.”

“But that was only the flank,” Gianni said, his eyes wide.

“Only the flank, but they delayed us long enough for the main body to catch up with us.” Gar nodded, his face turning somber. “There were half a dozen ships in the center of their line who were the real pirates, and they grappled and boarded. Then my boys died—one of each five, as we learned when the battle was done—but each took half a dozen pirates with him, and those who lived took ten and more. One huge brute came at me, all mustaches and leering grin. I parried his slash, but he kicked at me; I blocked the kick with my shin and thrust at him, but he was quick enough to catch his balance and slap my sword aside with his blade. I leaped back, but not quite quickly enough, and his cleaver took a slice off my arm—there … ” He nodded at his wound. “I bellowed in anger and thrust before he could recover, ran him through like the pig he was, and turned just in time to see another like him chopping one of my lads through and yowling with delight as he did. The whole view darkened with redness then, and I leaped in to catch him by the hair and shave him gratis. I would have bandaged the cuts I made, but there was no point, since he’d lost his head.” Gar shook his head in self-disgust. “But I let my heart carry me away there, and turned from his execution to see three of his smaller mates coming for me with swords waving, howling like the north wind. I ducked and stabbed upward, running one through just under the breastbone as I caught up the butcher’s scimitar from the dead man. I cut with it at the man on my left, and he skidded to a halt to block with his own as I parried the blow from my right, then swung my rapier about and ran the man through. Then I turned to my left and caught the fool’s next slash, scimitar against scimitar, and ran him through with my rapier.”

“So it went. We paid a high price in blood and life, but we cleared all the real pirates from our decks, then boarded their ships and slew the few who were left, throwing their bodies to the sharks. They’ll be in blood frenzy all along this coast for weeks, so bid everyone to forgo swimming.”

Gianni shuddered. “But the rest of the fleet?”

Gar’s eyes glinted again. “While the false pirates were struggling to reach us, Admiral Pontelli had been sailing past them on the other side of the horizon. Now when they grappled, he swooped down on them with the wind at his back, hove to, and fired point-blank at their rear. It was a fearful carnage, they tell me, and the foolish false pirates had jammed themselves too closely for no more than a few of them to beat their way clear with their oars. Indeed, they did more damage to one another than the admiral did, ramming into their own ships and breaking each other’s oars—and oarsmen,” he added darkly. “When they’d sorted themselves out, our ships grappled them one by one, and my marines made me proud of their training again. They lost only a dozen and were disgusted with the work they had to do, for they were fighting untrained plowboys again, who surrendered quickly enough, though, and we locked them in their holds as we had before. Then we set prize crews to each ship—they should be sailing into the harbor before dawn. They have to go slowly, for they’ve no oarsmen and only skeleton crews, but we’ve doubled the size of our fleet!”

“A fabulous victory!” Gianni cried. “But how can you be so sure that the false pirates were peasants forced into service?”

Gar grinned from ear to ear. “Why, because when our admiral struck the sword from the hand of their admiral and bade my marines seize the man, he cried, ‘Unhand me, lowborn scum! Know that I am the Conte Plasio, and worth more than all your ragtag horde put together!’ ”

Gianni stared in disbelief, then broke out laughing, slapping Gar on the back. But his mirth slackened and died when he heard the wailing from the back of the quay.

“I said we lost men,” Gar said, his face darkening, “marines, but sailors, too. It was a great victory, and cheaply bought, when you see how many we sank and how many we won—but we did pay a price, and there’ll be many who mourn this night.”

Gianni stared toward the sounds of grief, suddenly realizing how real the war was—that it was more than some gigantic contest, some game lords played to relieve their boredom. Their playing pieces were living human beings, and their play ended in tragedy.

“The philosopher told us that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” Gar said softly beside him, “but he forgot that vigilance must all too frequently end in war, and those who say it’s better to die free than to live a slave must think long and truly before they say it.”

Gianni heard, felt the question sink deep within him—but heard the ring and the hardening of instant certainty, too. “I hope I won’t have to pay that price, Gar,” he said, “but I will if I must.”

“Yes.” Gar nodded. “After all, you’ve come near to paying it twice, and that without even having a chance to fight to stay free, haven’t you? At the last, the question is not whether or not you’ll die, but how.”

 

The day after the battle, the courier boats came back—three that first day, two the next, and five more on the third. All the other merchant cities, after furious debates in guildhalls and councils, had finally seen that they must fight or be ground under the noblemen’s boots. With the three cities that wavered, news of the navy’s victory against the lords’ thinly disguised fleet turned the tide, and they, too, cast their lot with Pirogia. Their ambassadors met in the Council Hall, and with ponderous ceremony signed a Charter of Merchant Cities, agreeing to fight together under a strategy devised by Pirogia. That was all they would promise, and only for the duration of the war; peacetime details would be thrashed out when (and if!) peace came. But it was enough to make the Pirogians jubilant again—and to bring Gianni the most splendid dream of his life.

The circle of light appeared amidst the darkness of sleep, and Gianni braced himself for another encounter with the cantankerous old Wizard, but the expanding circle of light showed not floating hair but swirling veils, and it was the Mystery Woman who undulated before him, not the grim old face—and her gyrations were more pronounced than before, slower, more rhythmical, more enticing. There was an aura about her, an aura of desire—not his, but hers.

Bravely done, Gianni Braccalese! Her voice was warm all about him; he could have sworn he felt breath in his ear. You have done well and wisely to persuade your father, and the merchant cities have listened to your reasoning! The league is formed, and it is your doing, O my brave one, all yours!

Gianni bathed in every word of her praise—indeed, he felt it as caressing all over his skin—but honesty made him protest, It was Gar’s idea first, and my father who brought it to the Council!

But the arguments your father used were yours, and it was you who pressed him into making the demands again! Oh, you are brave and worthy and valiant, and all that a woman could want! She swam closer, closer, and her face remained shadowed, even though the veils stilled and dropped, and the glory of her figure shone in a wondrous rose-hued light. Gianni gasped and felt his whole body quicken, aching for her—and discovered that he had a body in this dream, a body far more muscular and unblemished than his real one, naked and fairly glowing with his desire for her.

And she was there beside him, taking his hand and laying it upon her breast, then moving it gently to caress. Mechanically, he continued the action when her hand stopped, staring in fascination and awe at the glorious curves of breast and thigh and hip. Some lingering scruple screamed at him that this was wrong because they weren’t married, but she must have heard and breathed, No. Nothing is wrong, in a dream for you have no control over your dreams, and therefore can have no guilt, they do with you as they please. And she did indeed seem to be doing with him as she pleased, caressing his body too, wherever she wished—and more clearly, wherever he wished … Oh, be very sure that you have no control over this dream, she assured, for I do, every instant. Come, do as I wish, for you can do nothing else—your only choice is to fight your desires while you do as I please, or to fulfill those desires, as is only right, very right, perfectly right—in a dream. Dream with me, Gianni, for there can be no guilt and no sin here, and the only wrongness is to refuse the gift of pleasure thus given.

It was true, her words rang true within him, and Gianni threw away all scruple and inhibition, giving himself over fully to her and her wondrous dreambody, and the pleasure vouchsafed him. He who had never lain with a woman but always dreamed of it, dreamed now in earnest, and learned the ways of lovemaking to their fullest in the depths of his sleep.

 

---

CHAPTER 14

There was one aspect of war, at least, that Gar had not had to teach the people of Pirogia. The merchants, and especially the Council, had always had a very healthy interest in the events that happened in and around the other cities—who was buying what, who was selling what, who was in league with whom, who was marching against whom—so the fishermen and the peasants had all known, for many years, that the Council of Pirogia, and some individual merchants, would pay well for information of all sorts. Gar had not had to point out to the Council that intelligence about enemy troop movements was worth even more than general news, and much more hazardous to obtain; the Council had doubled, then tripled, the price of its own accord, and several peasant families who had been burned out by soldiers recovered the whole worth of their farm and livestock just by telling their tale to the officers of the Council. Indeed, that was how the news had come that had panicked the merchants into authorizing the gathering of the army.

Even so, Gianni found it hard to believe that even the peasants whom Gar had persuaded into going out and seeking information again and again, and who brought back hair-raising tales and became amazingly adept at gathering information, could have brought back as much as the giant knew, or brought it as fast as he learned it. He also noticed the new medallion Gar wore pinned over his heart, but assumed it was just a sort of last-ditch armor.

Nonetheless, Gar did tell his officers and the Council that the other merchant cities had already fortified their walls and were training their own armies. That surprised no one, but how could he have learned it so quickly? How could he have discovered that many of the lords had taken their men back to their home cities to punish these insolent upstarts? Above all, how could he have known it a day or two before spies came back to confirm it? Nonetheless, it was apparently true—and when the number of peasants fleeing into Pirogia suddenly increased fivefold, Gar told them the aristocrats’ army was near. The next afternoon, when that army appeared on the ridges across from the city, Gar assured them it was only two-thirds the size it had been.

Whatever its size or condition, Prince Raginaldi knew his one chance when he saw it, and sent a troop of cavalry charging down the slopes and across the seaside plain to catch up with and pass the last of the fleeing peasants, to capture the land bridge and causeway.

But Gar knew the importance of that chance, too, and had sent his soldiers out that morning to hurry the laggards and warn then that the city wouldn’t wait for them. Even the most stubborn had finally abandoned their carts and their goods and fled to the city, riding pillion behind Pirogian cavalrymen—and the last of them cleared the land gate a good quarter-mile ahead of the prince’s army. Two swift-footed volunteers followed the refugees back along the causeway, lighting fuses as they went—and as they ran through the inner gate, the first explosions shook the island. Turning about, they watched spellbound as a huge geyser rose up from the lagoon, scattering bits of the causeway in all directions. Then another section blew, and another, waterspouts marching across the strait toward the inner gate, each shaking the ground beneath it, each with a shorter and shorter fuse.

“Back! Away!” Gar called, and the army took up the cry with him, herding people away from the gate. Protesting, they withdrew, truculent but disturbed by the soldiers’ concern—and discovered the reason, when bits and shards of stone and wood showered the piazza, striking down the gateway itself.

Finally, the last of the explosions died, the last of the deadly rain of shards and scrap fell and ceased—and the whole city watched in deathly quiet as the waves roiled where the causeway had been, and the horsemen a half-mile distant shook their fists and shouted in frustration. Everyone stared; everyone realized how completely cut off from the mainland they were—and everyone realized that the siege of Pirogia had begun.

 

It was indeed a siege, and could only be a siege, for the inland lords had no idea how to manage a navy. They conscripted every fishing boat they could get; they brought down riverboats while the city men sat and watched—and laughed. Finally, the lords loaded a hundred picked soldiers onto the craft and pushed out from shore.

They were halfway to Pirogia, and the soldiers were cocking their crossbows and nervously readying their halberds, when six of the Pirogia’s caravels came sailing out from behind each side of the island, sailing against the seaward breeze.

The lords’ conscripted fishermen saw, and began to paddle frantically, trying to speed boats that already moved as fast as they could with the wind filling their sails. But the captains shouted, and the caravels shifted tack and glided down onto the ragtag fleet like falcons upon a flock of pigeons. A few of the lords’ soldiers shouted defiance, raising cumbersome muskets to rest against the gunwale, then firing with a huge flash of powder and thunder of noise—but the horses took fright, as did the fishermen, and the musketeers hadn’t realized what recoil would do in a boat. Over they went in a flailing of horse legs and soldiery arms—and troopers cried out in panic, unable to swim. The fishermen, at least, had the sense to swim back and cling to their overturned boat, but the Pirogian sailors, laughing hugely, tossed ropes down next to the soldiers, who caught them and let themselves be fished out like so many bedraggled, wet dogs.

Some other ships, with quick-witted fishermen for captains, furled their sails and tried to dodge the caravels by running oars—but the soldiers, unused to such gyrations, teetered and shouted and lost their balance, knocking one another overboard. In one boat, the fishermen saw their chance and turned on the few remaining soldiers with their oars, tipping them over, knocking them out, then rolling them over the gunwales and rowing for all they were worth toward Pirogia and freedom. The others, slower-witted, more merciful, or more loyal to those who paid them, turned their boats back to haul the soldiers aboard—and were themselves hauled up short by the caravels’ grappling hooks. Marines dropped down into the smaller boats, and the fight between dripping soldier and seawise marine was brief. Even so, a few marines died, but each caravel took its score of soldiers prisoner. Then they turned back to Pirogia, leaving a scattering of wreckage behind them—but most of the boats, intact, drifted behind the caravels, lashed to lines as prizes. A few soldiers’ bodies washed up on the beach that evening, but by that time, ninety-six of their surviving comrades were grumbling around fires in the cellar of the Council house, which was hastily fitted out with bars as an improvised but very effective prison.

But Gar looked out over the scene of their triumph and shook his head. “The prince is saying, ‘Never mind—they must feed a hundred more, and Heaven only knows how many peasants fled to them in the last few days. Their food cannot last long.’ ”

“He doesn’t know that the refugees are swelling the ranks of your army,” Gianni said.

“But their wives and children and elders are not,” Gar reminded him, “and even our soldiers must eat. Is the prince right, Gianni? Will our supplies disappear like a morning’s frost?”

“I saw frost when we wandered in the mountains,” Gianni said thoughtfully, “but I had seen a rain of plenty before that, and all my life.” He pointed toward the bar. “There comes your answer, Gar.”

The giant looked up and saw a caravel tacking in against the offshore breeze.

“Wine from the southlands, grain from the northern shore of the Central Sea,” Gianni said, musing. “Pork from the western shores, beeves from the eastern … No, Gar, we won’t starve. Far from it and that ship bears wool, too, or others will, and every goodwife who has fled to us can card and spin and weave. That ship will take our stout Pirogian cloth back to trade for more food, and will also bear dishes and glassware from the clay and sands of our islands. No, we won’t starve …”

An explosion echoed from the mainland, and they saw a ball flying through the air, straight toward the ship. They held their breaths in an agony of suspense, but the ball splashed into the sea, raising a geyser and rocking the ship, but not harming it. Gianni breathed a sigh of relief. “I didn’t know the lords had a cannon that could shoot even that closely.”

“Neither did I,” Gar replied. “Did any of the lords buy a gun from your armories?”

Gianni frowned. “Not that I know of—and surely no one would have been foolish enough to sell one of the cannon made with the secrets of your new ideas!”

Gar grimaced. “I don’t like the idea of keeping knowledge to ourselves, Gianni—but for once, I must admit secrecy is wise, at least until we have won this …”

The cannon thundered again, and another ball climbed into the sky. Again they held their breath, but as the shot rose to its peak, Gar relaxed. “Too high.”

Sure enough, the ball passed right over the ship and splashed up a spout on its far side. They could hear the sailors’ cheers, though faintly at this distance.

“They’re safe.” Gianni relaxed as well. “No cannoneer could hit a ship at such a distance—but for a minute, I thought he could.”

“He can, and he will,” Gar said grimly. “He has their range now, and the next ball will strike home. Can you signal to the men on the ship?”

Gianni stared up at him in alarm—but before he could turn and run to the signal flags, another shot rang out. He and Gar both watched, holding their breath, as the cannonball arced upward, speeding toward the ship, and sailors struggled to spread some more canvas, hoping against hope that they could outrun the shot …

It smashed into their side just above the waterline; the ship rocked, water poured in, and the caravel began to list toward starboard. They could faintly hear the captain shout, and the crew ran for the longboat. The ship shuddered, swinging over so the deck stood at a sharp angle; sailors skidded and fell overboard.

“That one boat can’t hold them all,” Gar snapped, but Gianni was already sprinting away to send out boats from shore.

Even so, he came too late—a dozen small craft were already springing out into the bay. He watched as they grappled the struggling men from the water—and as the distant cannon boomed, its ball arcing high toward the small craft …

Gianni called out, but other men were shouting aboard the boats, and they all pulled away from the wreck quickly. The ball splashed down, showering them with spray and capsizing two. Their neighbors quickly rowed over, hauled out the men, and righted the boats—but two dead bodies floated in the water. Another boat, arriving late, hauled them aboard; then all the small craft dashed for shore as the cannon boomed again. Another ball splashed down, far from the boats near the wreck.

Gianni turned, face flaming with anger, to see Gar coming up. “They didn’t have to do that, Gar! Shooting down the ship I can understand—it’s war, after all. But to fire on rescue boats is foul!”

“But just the sort of thing the lords might think of,” Gar pointed out. “They mean to punish you, after all—and they also mean to make sure you won’t try to save the cargo. I think you might say they’ve made that clear.”

“Very clear—and that ends our confidence about not starving.” Gianni gazed out at the sinking ship, feeling his heart sink with it. “What can we do about it, Gar?”

“Where there is one gun, there could be more,” the giant said slowly, “but if they had more, they would have used them—and if more than one gunner has the knack of firing so accurately, the others would be firing, too.”

Gianni looked up with a gleam of hope in his eye. “Are you saying that if we can destroy that one gun, we can stop worrying?”

“If we also capture that one gunner,” Gar confirmed. “It’s not a sure thing, mind you, but it’s a good chance.”

“Then it’s certainly worth taking! But why capture? Killing him is easier and less chancy—and after that shot at the boats, I don’t see anything wrong with it! We’d rather capture him if we can, I suppose, but—”

Gar interrupted. “I want to talk to him, Gianni. I want to discover where he learned to shoot so well.”

“But to capture him, we’ll have to go ashore!”

“Exactly,” Gar agreed. “How else did you think we could destroy that one cannon?”

 

Gianni would never have thought of painting his face black. Wearing all black clothes, yes, and a black head scarf, so he and his men would blend into the shadows—but face paint, never. It didn’t help that Gar made it by mixing soot with a little bacon grease. Gianni decided that secret raiding was not a job of good aroma.

They skimmed ashore in three light boats with muffled oars, one man to an oar for speed. Gar leaped out as they grounded and pulled the first boat up on the beach, lifting the prow high to make less noise. The coxswains of the other boats followed his example. His men stepped out onto the sand in silence, their steps muted by the soft leather slippers with thick padded soles; cobblers had worked all day at Gar’s direction, laboring into the night to make enough of them.

Gar waved his raiders forward. Knives in their teeth, they padded into the tree-shaded blackness of a moonless night.

A sentry seemed to materialize out of the darkness on their right, turning about to look, bored and weary—but the boredom vanished from his face when he saw the raiders, not two feet away from him. His pike came up, and his mouth opened to shout the alarm—but Gianni, galvanized by fear, seized him by the throat, choking off the sound. The man thrashed about, dropping his pike to struggle against Gianni’s grip, but another Pirogian slipped around behind him and struck his head with the sand-filled leather bag Gar had invented. The sentry’s eyes rolled up; he folded, and Gianni let go of his neck to catch him by the tunic and lower him to the ground. He looked up at Volio with a nod of thanks, then turned to follow Gar, who gave them a nod of approval, then led them off into the darkness again.

They had landed as close to the gun as possible, but the lords had been so inconsiderate as to place it well back from the shore. Gar led them along a winding route between groups of one-man tents, staying as far as possible from both canvas and watch-fire embers. They prowled silently through the darkness—until a sudden grunt made them all freeze. Gianni flicked a glance at the sound and saw a grizzled, red-eyed soldier pushing himself up from the ground, reeking of stale beer and growling, “Who ‘n hell is goin’ aroun’ …” Then his eyes widened in alarm as his mouth widened to cry out—and the sandbag hit him alongside the head. His eyes closed as he fell back. Gianni stifled a chuckle; the man was likely to remember them all as a drunken nightmare, and nothing more. He looked up at a hiss from the front; Gar waved them on.

They padded after him through the darkness, keeping a wary eye now for sleepers underfoot—until, suddenly, the cannon loomed before them, darkness out of darkness.

Gar held up a hand, and they froze, for there were sentries, one on each side of the gun. Gianni couldn’t help staring—it was far bigger than any cannon he had seen, its platform holding it at eye level. But Gar was gesturing in the hand language he had worked out before they left, and his raiders cat-footed around the huge barrel, just out of range of the watch fire near the sentry.

What it was that gave them away, Gianni never knew—perhaps someone stepped too heavily, or perhaps another stepped too close to the fire, and its light reflected off his eyes. Whatever the clue, the sentry on the far side shouted, “Enemy!” and swung his halberd. A raider cried out in pain, a cry quickly choked off but loud enough to wake the gun crew; then both sentries were howling as they struck about them with their halberds.

Gianni ducked under a swing and came up to strike with his sandbag. The halberd dropped from nerveless fingers, and Gianni caught it up, turning to meet a stumbling attack from muzzy-headed soldiers. His blade sliced flesh; the man shouted in pain, and his companions dropped back, suddenly afraid of the black-clothed demons who had appeared out of the night. The half-minute’s respite was enough for the other raiders to strike down the gun crew. Gianni handed his halberd to Volio and turned to face a gunner who was dressed more elaborately than the others and was shouting for help as he held off the raiders with sword and dagger. Gianni drew his own sword, though it was considerably shorter than the gunner’s rapier, and leaped in, thrusting and parrying. All about him, soldiers went crazy, yelling and attacking as the raiders fought them off desperately, and Gar shoved a canister into the barrel of the gun. Vincenzio slipped up behind the gunner as he fenced desperately with Gianni, still yammering for aid. Vincenzio swung with his sandbag and the man stiffened, eyes wide; then he crumpled, and Gianni stepped in to catch him across a shoulder.

Then Gar was beside him, flame flaring in his hands, and Gianni saw a long string of some sort vanishing into the cannon’s touchhole. The big man caught up Boraccio, slinging him over a shoulder as he snapped, “Carry the wounded and leave the dead! Flee as though the devil were at your heels!” He turned and charged into the midst of the soldiers facing him, bellowing like a bull. The raiders shouted and charged after him, carrying three wounded men between them—but leaving four others already dead.

The sentries recovered and shouted, chopping at the raiders—but their blows fell short as they pulled back, frightened by the wild men from the darkness.

Then a huge explosion blasted the night. The shock wave bowled men over, raider and soldier alike. “Cover your heads!” Gar shouted, but the raiders had run far enough; the rain of iron fragments fell short of them. Soldiers cried out in pain and shock, but before they could recover, the raiders were up and running again.

Gar led them off into the darkness, circling around to the beach again. All pretense at stealth gone, they struck down any soldier who rose to bar their way, then finally leaped back aboard their boats and shoved off—but only two boats out of three.

A hundred yards out to sea, Gar called a rest. The men leaned on their oars, gasping for breath and staring back at the fire on shore, amazed.

“So much for the cannon,” Gar said. He looked down at the unconscious form at his feet. “Now for the gunner.”

Gianni was sitting on a dock post, watching dawn over the sea, when Gar came up and joined him. “You fought well this night, Gianni.”

“Thank you,” Gianni said, gratified at the praise. “What of the gunner? Did he answer your questions?”

“Yes, and without the slightest hesitation,” Gar said. “It’s almost as though he thinks his answers will frighten us as badly as his gun did.”

Gianni frowned. “Did they?”

“Not a bit; they’re just as I thought they would be. He’s a young knight who’s very progressive. He does admit that they have only one such gun, and only he knew how to aim it, being the only gentleman who was willing to learn his gunnery from the dour and dowdy foreign traders—the Lurgans, of course. They not only taught him to shoot, but also taught his armorers how to make a cannon that could fire so accurately—but it took their smiths three months to make it, and two were killed testing earlier models, so I don’t think we need to worry about the lords making more.”

“Not considering how quickly we destroyed it,” Gianni agreed, “though I doubt we could do it again.”

“You may doubt it, but the lords don’t. Still, our raid may discourage them from making more. If they do, though, they’ll guard them better.”

Gianni glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes. “And you’ll be thinking up better ways to overcome their guards?”

Gar answered with the ghost of a smile. “Of course.”

Gianni relaxed, letting himself feel confident again. He turned to see another ship come sailing in, and was delighted not to hear a cannon boom. “So it seems we won’t starve, after all.”

“No,” Gar agreed, “we won’t starve—but the lords may.”

 

They didn’t, of course—each lord was supplied by the crops and livestock his soldiers stole from the peasants nearby, most of whom were safe in Pirogia. But they had to ranger farther and farther afield each day, and the idle soldiers who stayed in camp began to quarrel among themselves. The prince set them to making ships, but his shipwrights knew only the crafting of riverboats, and the new vessels were scarcely launched before Pirogia’s caravels swooped down to scuttle them, or to bear them away with all their troops. Still the prince forced his soldiers to build, but more and more, they saw the uselessness of their work, and grumbled more and more loudly. Soon they were being flogged daily, and the grumbling lessened—but became all the more bitter for it.

In fact, morale in the besiegers’ camp was lessening so nicely, and any attempt at invading seemed so far away, that the defenders began to relax. In vain did Gar warn them that the old moon was dying, that the dark of the moon would soon be upon them, and that they must be extraordinarily vigilant when the nights were so dark—in vain, because the sentries knew that if they could not see to spy out the enemy, neither could invaders see to attack. So, though they tried to stay alert, that little edge was gone, the edge that makes a man start at shadows and hear menace in every night bird’s call—but that also makes him look more closely at every extra pool of darkness in the night. They relaxed just a little, until the night that the cry went up from the walls, and the alarm sounded.

 

Gar and Gianni bolted from their beds—it was a lieutenant’s watch—and shouted for lights as they caught up swords and bucklers and ran for the docks. Black-clad men were pouring in from the sea; even the heads of their spears and halberds were painted black, even their faces. By the time Gianni and his men reached them, they were streaming into the plaza, and there was no sign of the Pirogian sentries.

They had served their city well by crying out before they died. Gianni shouted, “Revenge! Revenge for our sentries!” and threw himself into the middle of the advancing mob, sword slashing and thrusting. Finally the attackers shouted in alarm and anger; pole-arms swept down, but Gianni was too close for any blade to strike him, leaping in and out, shouting in rage, thrusting with his sword as Gar had taught him. Behind him, his men blared their battle cry and struck the invaders, alternating between stabbing and striking with the butts of their spears, quarterstaff style—again, as Gar had taught them. Men screamed and died on both sides, but still the attackers came on.

There seemed no end to them; the black-clad men kept coming and coming, and Gianni’s arms grew heavy with thrusting and parrying. But there was no end to the Pirogian soldiers, either, and they were fighting for their homes and their loved ones, not just for pay or fear of an officer.

Light flared with a muffled explosion; the fighters froze for a moment, all eyes turned to the source—and saw flames billowing high into the night.

“The caravel!” Gianni screamed. “Anselmo’s Kestrel, that was tied up at harbor! They have burned our food, they would starve us! Have at them! Hurl them into their own fire!”

His men answered with a shout of rage and surged forward. Gianni sailed before them, borne on their tide, thrusting and slashing with renewed vigor, pressing the attackers back, back, out of the plaza and onto the docks, then back even farther, off the wood and into the water.

The lords’ soldiers cried out in fear and turned to flee into the harbor. Gianni froze, scarcely able to believe his eyes. The invaders were standing out there on the water, helping those who swam to climb to their feet! More amazing still, they seemed to be going without moving their legs, drifting away …

Drifting! Now Gianni knew what to look for—and sure enough, the light of the burning ship showed him the balks of timber beneath the soldiers’ feet. They had come on rafts, simple rafts but huge ones, painted black. They had hidden against the darkness of the water itself, and guided themselves by the city’s blotting out of the stars until they could see the lights of the watch fires!

“Archers!” Gianni shouted. “Stand ready! If they seek to come back, let fly!”

But the archers didn’t wait—they sent flight after flight against the men on the rafts, who fell to the wood with shouts of fear or cries of pain. Some knelt on each raft and began to paddle furiously. Slowly, the cumbersome craft moved away from the docks.

Gar came panting up, blood running from cuts on his cheeks and brow and staining the fabric of sleeves and tights. “Where have you been?” Gianni snapped, then saw the man’s wounds and was instantly sorry. “Your pardon …”

“Given,” Gar panted, “and gladly. It was not only here that they came ashore, but at every dock and water stair all around the island. I suspected it the instant I heard the alarm and ordered troops to every such site. Then I led my marines from one outbreak of clamor to another. We have run long, Gianni, but we have pushed the lords’ men back into the sea.”

“It was well done,” Gianni said, eyes wide. “You are wounded, Gar!”

“Nothing but cuts,” the giant told him, “and you have a few yourself.”

“Do I really?” Gianni touched his cheek and was amazed to see the hand come away bloodied.

Gar looked him up and down quickly. “Again, nothing of any danger, but we shall have to see the physician to be sure. I fear many of our men came off much worse—and many more of the enemy.”

“Yes …” Gianni’s gaze strayed to a black-clothed heap near them. “The poor slaves … How did they ever think of a ruse so simple, yet so subtle?”

“They didn’t,” Gar said, lips pressed thin. “This is not the sort of thing that would occur to a Taliponese nobleman raised on tales of chivalry and battle glamour. Test that man’s tunic, Gianni. Try to tear it.”

Puzzled, Gianni knelt by the corpse and yanked at the fabric. It gave not at all. “Silk?” he asked, amazed. “For thousands of warriors?”

“Not silk.” Gar handed down his dagger. “Cut it.” Gianni tried. He tried hard, even sawed at it. Finally, he looked up at Gar in amazement. “What is this stuff?”

“The mark of the Lurgan traders,” Gar told him, “and if you tested that black face paint he wears, you would find it to be no simple lampblack and tallow, but something far more exotic. The Lurgans told the lords how to plan this raid, Gianni, and gave them the materials to make it work.”

Gianni stared up, appalled. “Are they war advisers now?”

“Apparently so,” Gar said darkly. “We knew they recognized Pirogia as a threat, didn’t we?”

And yourself, Gianni thought, staring up at the grim, craggy face—but he most definitely didn’t say it.

 

From that time on, the sentries stayed alert again, staring twice at every shadow—but needlessly, as it turned out. There were no more night raids, for Pirogian caravels patrolled the channel between the city and the mainland. The grumbling in the lords’ camp grew ever worse, and morale ever lower, according to the reports from the spies there. The Pirogians welcomed each new caravel that brought them food, and toasted its sailors with the wine from its casks. Gar, of course, grew more and more tense, more and more hollow-eyed, stalking the battlements muttering to himself. Finally, Gianni asked him why, and Gar answered, “Things are going too well.”

Very well, indeed, for the people of Pirogia. Even better, courier boats brought word from other cities, and caravels took arms to them—but they were all port cities, and none lacked for food. They were having more difficulty defending their walls, since only Pirogia had a natural moat to protect it—but none of the inland lords had so very big an army by himself, and all his allies were sitting and fuming outside the walls of their own merchant towns, or with the prince at Pirogia. Gar sent cannons and crossbows and advice, and watched the stew boiling in the prince’s camp with a grin.

They also seemed to lack knowledge of sanitation, these inland soldiers who had never lived in groups of more than a hundred with no less than a mile between villages. It wasn’t long before the offshore wind bore their stench to Pirogia, and the soldiers the Pirogians captured in their endless sinking of new vessels told tales of dysentery and cholera stalking the camp.

“They’re weakening nicely,” Gar told Gianni, “but the noblemen only have to learn better siege tactics, and I’m sure they won’t lack for advisers.”

Gianni thought of the fake Gypsies and the dour Lurgan traders, and nodded. “Do they really know so much of war?”

“No,” Gar admitted, “but they have no shortage of books to tell them of it.”

Gianni stared—he certainly hadn’t thought there would be much room for books in the caravans—but he didn’t doubt Gar.

The Wizard appeared in Gianni’s dream that night, and told you, You do well, you and your giant barbarian. You hold the lords at bay, here and all around the coastline—but that is not enough.

What then? Gianni asked, amazed.

You must give them reason to leave, and more importantly, an honorable reason to leave—of a sort.

Gianni frowned. What sort of reason could there be, for giving up ignominiously and going home?

A diversion, said the Wizard, and explained.

Gar thought it was a capital idea when Gianni repeated the explanation to him. “Wonderful!” he cried, slapping his knee. “How do you think of these things, Gianni?”

“I really haven’t the faintest idea.” For his part, Gianni was just glad it had been Gar’s knee and not his own.

 

That night, when the docks were dark and deserted except for the sentries Gar kept posted, a hundred marines with fifteen gunners, ten horses, and five cannon boarded two long, lean, dark-colored ships—captured galleys outfitted with proper sails. Off they went into the night, and as far as Pirogia was concerned, they ceased to exist for a week. Gar and Gianni were both with them, leaving the captain of the guard in command with Vincenzio as his second. The scholar had shown an amazing talent for commanding men; Gianni thought it came from his years of cajoling and maneuvering people into giving him money and helping him go from town to town, saving to return to the university.

By dusk, they were well past the prince’s lines, and far enough to the north that a single night’s march should take them to Tumanola, the Raginaldis’ city. The galleys rowed into a little bay as far as they could and anchored; then longboats began the tedious process of ferrying men and equipment ashore. When they were all gathered, the galley weighed anchor but rowed only as far away as the shadows of the high bluffs that warded the little port. The marines hoisted their packs and began to march, the gunners right behind them with their horses.

It was a long march, and all the men gazed down with relief when they came to the top of the slope that led down to Tumanola. Gar wouldn’t let them rest, though, until they had all moved silently into the positions he assigned them, and camouflaged themselves. Then he posted sentries and let his marines collapse gratefully behind their blinds. Gianni collapsed, too, and took what sleep he could, until Gar waked him to take the second watch. Gianni spent the next four hours moving as silently as he could from sentry post to sentry post, but always found his men awake, if not terribly alert. He glowed with pride, and was quite unsure that he would be able to keep the vigil as well as they, with so little sleep—but he did.

Gar woke them all at dawn. They breakfasted as they had supped—on clear water, cold journey bread, and jerky. Then, as the sun warmed the earth, Gar gave the signal for the bombardment to begin.

Cannon boomed to the east and west of the city, slamming boulders into the walls. Alarms rattled inside the city, and the home guard came running to the ramparts. They couldn’t know that the booming from east and west came from cannon with no ammunition to throw, that now belched only blank charges; they could only assume the gunners were very poor shots.

But the three cannon before the central gate had boulders and iron balls and fired at five-minute intervals, each shot striking the city gates.

How could they hold? It was amazing they lasted the hour. But when they began to crack worse and worse with each shot, the home guard gathered around, crossbows and pikes at the ready—so as the final shots crashed through the wood, splintering the huge panels, they didn’t hear the shouts of alarm from the few sentries left along the wall as scaling ladders slammed into place and grapnels bit into the top of the wall. Those sentries ran to push the ladders away, shouting for all they were worth, but they were too few, and the marines swarming up the wall to their grapnels were far greater in number than those on the ladders. In five minutes, Gar’s marines held the ramparts, and Gar himself was leading the assault on the gate from the west while Gianni led from the east. The defenders finally heard them coming, in lulls between purposeless cannon fire; they turned just in time for bolts and spears to bring them down. A few of them did manage to shoot a bolt or hurl a spear, and a few marines died, but the rest of it was slaughter until the soldiers threw up their arms, shouting for mercy.

“Hold!” Gar shouted, and his men froze in midstride. “Sergeants, send men to secure the prisoners!” he snapped. “Soldiers of Tumanola! You have fought well, but you have been outflanked! Lay down your arms and mercy will be yours!”

Warily, the soldiers laid down their pikes and crossbows, and marines stepped up to lash their arms behind them. Then, with the soldiers lined up against the wall and sitting, bound with a score of marines to guard them, the rest advanced on the castle.

“It looks formidable indeed.” Gianni shuddered, remembering.

“It looks so, yes,” Gar agreed, “but we know better, don’t we, Gianni? After all, we’ve been inside—and there can’t be more than a few score soldiers left to guard it, since most of them are with the prince at Pirogia.”

Gianni looked up in surprise, but when he saw Gar’s grin, he began to smile, too.

The only difficult part of the siege of the castle was bringing the cannon up the slope into firing position opposite the drawbridge. The defenders started a hail of bolts even before the gunners and their horses came in range—which gave the marines a convenient supply of ammunition as they moved up the slope ahead of the cannon, keeping up such a continuous fire that the defenders could scarcely lift their heads above the wall. The drawbridge fell as cannonballs broke its chains, and struck the shore with a boom almost equaling that of the artillery. Then the gunners sent buckets of nails over the parapets to keep the defenders down while Gar led his marines charging across the bridge, ramming spears through the arrow slits in the gatehouse and firing in staggered ranks, the back row finishing reloading and running to the front as the first rank retired.

The continuous fire kept most of the defenders prudently down; the few bold ones died with bolts in their chests. A few marines died, too, but their mates came up behind the defenders and grappled hand to hand, knocking them out. Then, in parties of a dozen, they went through the castle from top to bottom, until they were satisfied that it was completely secure.

“A whole city and its castle taken with only a hundred men!” Gianni was dizzy at the thought.

“Yes, but there were only three hundred defending it,” Gar reminded him. “We did lose twenty-three men, too.” At the thought, his face turned somber.

 

“My husband shall be revenged upon you!” the princess raged. “You lowborn upstarts shall learn the meaning of royal wrath! You shall be hanged, but cut down before you are dead, then have your entrails drawn forth before your still-living eyes! The end shall come only when your bodies are cut in four pieces and hung up as warnings throughout the city!”

“Perhaps, Highness,” Gar said with grave courtesy, “but until your royal husband comes, you shall keep to your apartments with all your ladies. Guards, escort them!” Still, it was he himself who stalked behind the princess, and one look at the determination in his eyes left her no doubt that he would pick her up and carry her bodily if he had to. She shuddered and turned away, lifting her chin and marching proudly to her chambers.

With her shut in and well guarded, and all the castle’s servants and defenders locked in the dungeons, Gianni finally asked, “How long before the prince learns his castle is taken?”

“He knows already.” Gar nodded toward the highest tower. “Remember the stone egg? I’m sure the princess used it before she came down to rebuke us. In fact, let’s go and listen.”

Puzzled, Gianni followed Gar up to the high tower. Sure enough, they found the egg already talking to itself, the heavily accented Lurgan voice alternating with the prince’s. “Leave at least a partial force to keep the Pirogians in,” the Lurgan voice pleaded.

“Why?” snapped the prince in his cultured (but infuriated) tone. “They come and go as they please in their confounded caravels! Take Pirogia yourselves, if you need it! I and all my allies go to take back my ancestral city and house!”

Gianni cheered, and so did the marines who heard with him. The cheering ran down the stairs and through the garrison, but Gar only stood watching the stone with glowing eyes.

He was up in that room now and then for the next few days, as they waited for the prince and his men. The marine couriers moved more quickly on the converted galleys, and the army of Pirogia moved just as quickly in more of the same ships. They came marching through the gates of Tumanola a full day before the prince and his troops came in sight. They drew up their lines that night, and thousands of campfires blossomed outside the city walls. Gar walked the parapets, reassuring his men; Gianni took his message to the rest of the defenders. “Be warned. Tomorrow, huge metal fish may drop from the skies and fire lightning bolts. Don’t be frightened, for a golden wheel will strike them out of the air.”

He didn’t believe a word of either promise himself, but he did ask Gar about it later. “Where could these metal fish come from, and how could they fly?”

“By magic,” Gar said, with a brittle smile, and Gianni could only sigh for patience. “As to where, they shall come from the Lurgan Company—and the golden wheel will be Herkimer.”

Gianni frowned. “You mean from this wizard Herkimer, don’t you?”

“No,” Gar said, and wouldn’t explain it any further.

 

The barrage began at dawn, but most of the shot fell short—the prince’s cannon were nowhere nearly as good as those of Pirogia, whose foundries had worked according to Gar’s advice. Gar’s gunners managed to shoot down their opponents methodically, one by one, and the prince, in exasperation, ordered his army to charge.

It was suicidal even at a hundred yards, for Gar’s gunners had all the buckets in the city now, and all the nails. The prince’s men died as they ran—but between cannon shots, the remnant came closer and closer. They faltered, though, as they realized they were being driven to certain death—and it was then that the metal fish came swooping from the skies.

“Away from the guns!” Gar shouted, and his gunners leaped back and kept running, just before lightning stabbed down from the bloated, gray metal fish shapes. Two guns disappeared in a gout of flame and a thunderclap. The Pirogian soldiers moaned with fear and scrambled to duck down behind crenels or shields—but on the plain below, the prince’s army gave a shout of triumph and charged forward.

Then the huge golden wheel came plunging after the fish.

 

---

CHAPTER 15

Beams of light stabbed down from the golden ship, striking one end of each of the metal fish. They plummeted, spinning crazily. Only a hundred feet above the earth, flame roared from the bottom of each fish, slowing its plunge—but only slowing; one struck the earth outside the city walls and one inside. The prince’s soldiers shouted with fear as they saw it coming and ran, any way as long as it was away from the bulbous, plunging gray shape. The fish struck, and was still.

Later, Gianni learned that the other fish had struck squarely in the courtyard of Castle Raginaldi, breaking its back and splitting its skin. Gar had barked commands, and a dozen marines came running to ring the object with spears—if they had any fear, they didn’t show it. When four people in dark gray came staggering from its bowels, the marines clapped them into irons and hurried them into a tower room, where they mounted guard over the prisoners until their commander was ready to deal with them.

On the wall, Gianni wrenched his eyes away from the wrecked fish in the middle of the prince’s army, recovering both himself and the initiative. “Fire!” he shouted, and his crossbowmen came to themselves with a start and loosed a flight of bolts at the enemy soldiers. Some went down, screaming; most ran, or hobbled with bolts in their flesh, away from the walls.

“Cannon, fire!” Gianni shouted, and three cannon fired buckets of nails. The cannoneers had aimed high, and the nails came down in a lethal rain. The prince’s soldiers shouted in panic; demoralized by seeing a sky monster plunging at them afire, by bolts and raining nails, but most of all by the huge golden disk that still swelled above them with its promise of lightning bolts, they ran. This was no retreat, but a rout—and the troops Gar had hidden in the woods atop the ridge recognized their signal for action. They stormed downward, loosing arrows and bolts, catching the prince’s men between two fires and shouting, “Surrender!”

Thoroughly demoralized, soldiers threw down their weapons and held up their hands, crying, “I yield me!”

It spread; in minutes, all the prince’s men were surrendering, and Gar came up before Gianni, shouting, “Sally forth! Take surrenders, bind prisoners!” The gates opened, and the army of Pirogia charged out with a shout.

But across the valley, fifty picked men didn’t stop to take prisoners—they bored on, and finally came to a knot of soldiers who still fought: men-at-arms and knights, the prince’s bodyguard. The fifty Pirogians called for reinforcements, and other soldiers left off taking surrenders to help. In minutes, the knot of men had swelled to hundreds, and the fight was bloody, but brief.

“Keep the command, Gianni!” Gar shouted, and ran to take horse. He leaped astride and went galloping out the gate and across the valley.

Gianni wasn’t about to be left behind at such a moment. “Vincenzio! Command!” he cried, then ran to mount up and ride after Gar.

He caught up just as Gar was dismounting and walking slowly toward the circle of spears that held the prince and a handful of noblemen at bay—immobilized, but sneering. Gar walked up to them, erect as a staff, hand on his sword. The circle of spears parted just enough for him to enter. “Surrender, my lords,” he called. “You cannot escape.”

“And dare you kill us?” the prince spat. “Be sure, lowborn churl, that if you do, every nobleman in Talipon—nay, in the whole of the world—will not rest until he has seen you flayed alive!”

“I dare,” Gar told him, “because I am the son of a high lord and great-nephew of another.”

Gianni’s mouth dropped open. Never would he have dreamt of this!

The prince stared, taken aback. Then his brows drew down, and he demanded, “What is your house and lineage?”

“I am a d’Armand of Maxima, of the cadet branch,” Gar told him. “My home is far from here, very far indeed, Your Highness—perhaps even as far as the world of your Lurgan Company. But even they will not deny that Maxima exists, or that it is home to many noble families.”

“I would deny that if I could.” The prince’s eyes smoldered. “But your bearing and your manner show it forth; blood will tell, and breeding is ever there to be seen, if it is not deliberately hidden.” Then outrage blazed forth. “But you did deliberately hide it! Why in all the world would the son of a nobleman soil his hands with trade, or defend the baseborn tradesmen and merchants of Pirogia?”

Gar’s manner softened, became almost sorrowful. “Because, Your Highness, my lords, all of life draws its sustenance from the ebb and flow of money and the goods and food it represents. You who draw your wealth from land alone are doomed to poverty and ignominy if you do not learn the ways of trade, for the merchants bring the wealth of a whole world to your doorstep—aye, and the wealth of many worlds, as your Lurgan accomplices have shown you. It is not to be gained by stealth or theft, but only by nourishing and caring for the ebb and flow I speak of. Trade is like the grain of your fields, that must be tended and cared for if you would see its harvest. This world has ripened into trade now, and will grow by trade and gain greater wealth for all by trade—unless that ripening is ended by burning the field before the harvest. If you blast Talipon back into serfdom, it will be centuries before Petrarch flowers again, and when it does, it will be the noblemen of another land who reap the wealth—wealth ten times your current fortunes, fifty times, a hundred. But if you nurture and encourage that growth, Talipon will lead the world of Petrarch, and if you come to understand the ways of trade, you shall lead Talipon, and reap the enormous first fruits.” He smiled sadly. “Noblesse oblige, my lords, Your Highness—nobility imposes obligations, and your obligation in this new era is to learn the ways of trade, that you may guide its swelling and its flowering. Trade may be only the concern of the commoner now, but it must become the concern of every aristocrat, or you will fail in the calling of your birth.”

He stood silent, looking directly into the prince’s eyes, and the gaze of every one of the lesser noblemen was fixed upon him.

At last, the prince himself reversed his sword and held it out to the giant. “I yield me to a man of noble blood—but when the ransom is paid and my home restored to me, Signor d’Armand, you must explain this chivalry of trade to me, that I may determine for myself if it is as much the duty of the aristocracy as you say.”

Gravely, Gar took the sword and bowed. Then he turned to the other noblemen and, one by one, collected their swords, too. They never even noticed when the great golden disk above them receded, and was gone.

 

Looking back on it, Gianni was amazed that they stayed in Tumanola only two weeks, and the time went very quickly—but it seemed far longer, for each day was packed with what seemed thirty hours’ worth of events. The prince’s army had to be disbanded and the soldiers seen to depart for their homes, then watched carefully to make sure they didn’t try to rally. The city had to be searched for weapons, and anything that might be used to wage war brought to a central piazza, loaded onto wagons bound for the coast, and shipped home to Pirogia. The whole matter had to be explained to the prince’s subjects, and the Pirogian army carefully policed to make sure the soldiers didn’t take advantage of the prince’s subjects—Gar was very insistent that there be no looting or pillaging, and especially no rape. It did make the matter difficult for Gianni when several of his troopers fell in love with local women—but he was able to ascertain in every case that not only had there been no rape, but also that the lovers hadn’t even been able to be alone together. There were some cases where he was clearly able to determine that the women in question were prostitutes, but he punished his soldiers anyway, even though there were no charges of rape. When the sergeants came to him to demand if he expected them to behave like alabaster statues of saints, he simply answered, “Yes,” then explained why they had to behave as examples to the prince’s subjects.

There were also tedious meetings with the few merchants of Tumanola, as Gianni explained that their responsibilities and activities were about to undergo a vast and sudden change, then worked out the ways in which their relationship to the prince would be transformed.

All the while, Gar was closeted with the prince and his vassals. The guards at the door reported hearing voices raised frequently and angrily, though Gar’s was never one of them. Ostensibly, they were working out the terms of the treaty, but Gar had to explain the need for those terms, of course, and when the guards told Gianni what they had been overhearing, he came to eavesdrop himself. Sure enough, the raised voices were protesting the simple facts of trade, and in a tone of iron patience Gar was explaining why those principles were something that no man could impose or cancel—that it was the nature of trade that was forcing them down the noblemen’s throats, not the merchants of Pirogia.

They may have kept the door shut, but the weather was warm, so they left the windows open. Whenever Gianni could spare a moment, he loitered beneath, and heard Gar explaining how government could encourage trade or kill it, and how the noblemen could reap fortunes by regulating trade and taxing it mildly. He also told them how to kill trade, by over-regulation and overtaxing. The noblemen argued ferociously, but Gar held firm—it wasn’t merely his opinion, but that of centuries of scholars who studied such matters. Where had he come from, Gianni wondered, that merchants had been so active for a thousand years and more?

Finally, he overheard Gar giving the aristocrats inspirational talks about their role in the increasing prosperity of Talipon and, through its traders, of all the world. By the time he was done, Gianni was imbued with an almost religious fervor, a sense of mission, of his obligations as a merchant to improve the lot of all humankind everywhere. If he felt so inspired just from the scraps of talk he managed to find time to listen to, what must the noblemen be feeling?

Finally, with full ceremony, they signed the treaty in the prince’s courtyard, where large numbers of citizens and soldiers could witness. Then the Lurgan merchants were brought forth, laden with chains, for their trial. The prince himself presided as judge; Gar presented the case against the Lurgans, and one of their number presented something of a defense. It was weak indeed, partly because he could scarcely be understood due to his accent, partly because he tried to justify the actions of his companions and himself by spouting streams of numbers. The prince ruled that he and his fellow merchants were to be held in the dungeon until the far-traveling men Gar had summoned came to take them away. At that, the Lurgans turned pale and spouted incoherent pleas for mercy—all except one, who fixed Gar with a very cold glare and said, “We will remember this, d’Armand. Be sure.” But Gar only nodded to him courteously, and watched as he was taken away.

There was no mention of the false Gypsies. Gianni wondered about that.

 

Finally, the Pirogian army marched out of Tumanola with the citizens cheering them—or their departure, it was hard to tell which—and the soldiers cheering their reluctant hosts—or being rid of the inland city with its humidity and mosquitoes, it was hard to tell which. Everyone seemed to take the cheering as protestations of friendship between the two cities, though. The prince was left with his castle and city again—but with no cannon or army other than his personal guard of a hundred men, and a night watch.

The Pirogians came home to a triumphant welcome from their fellow citizens. The returning army marched down the boulevard on flower petals, and came to the Piazza del Sol to find the Maestro and the Council drawn up to award medals to Gar, Gianni, and their captains. Then they were given time to rest and celebrate.

The next day, though, Gar and Gianni were summoned to the Council to meet the ambassadors from the other merchant cities, all of whom had survived the war, though some had suffered, and all of whom needed urgent guidance on what sort of relations to establish with their returning contes and doges. The deliberations turned into debate about the form and processes that would be involved in the new League of Merchant Cities. All that was really in debate was the specific terms and, as it turned out, ways of limiting Pirogia’s power within the League—but all the cities were sure they wanted the League to continue.

There was no question but that Pirogia would lead. All this time, Gianni slept without dreams, to his relief and disappointment relief that he had not seen the Wizard again, disappointment that he had not seen his Dream Woman. He earnestly hoped that he was rid of the one and would rediscover the other.

Perhaps it was only that he was working too hard, and sleeping too soundly—or so he hoped.

Finally, the day came when the treaty was signed and the ambassadors took their leave, each with a copy of the Articles of Alliance to discuss with their Councils and ratify or modify. They left with great ceremony and protestations of eternal friendship.

Gianni wondered whether the good feeling would last past the next trading season. Somehow, though, he was sure the League would endure, no matter how intense the rivalries within it became. They were all too vividly aware of their common enemy: the aristocrats.

The next day, Gar thanked his hosts, the Braccaleses, for their hospitality, but explained that he must leave them. Mama and Papa protested loudly, but Gianni had somehow known this was coming. When the lamentation slackened, he said, “He’s a wanderer, Papa. We can’t expect him to tie his destiny to ours forever.”

“But who will lead the army he has built?” Papa wailed.

“Gianni is more than capable of that little chore,” Gar assured him. “He has become quite the general in these last few weeks, and has an excellent cadre of officers to help him.”

Papa stared at Gianni in surprise; then Gianni saw the rapid calculations going on behind his father’s eyes, of the gain in status for his family and the resulting increase in their influence within the city. Slowly, he nodded. “If you say it, Gar, I must accept it.”

“Someday,” Mama told Gar, “you’ll find a woman who will make you cease your wandering, and wish nothing so much as to stay and care for her—aye, and the children she shall give you.”

For a moment, there was pain in Gar’s eyes—but only a moment; it was quickly masked with a wistful smile. “I dearly hope so, Donna Braccalese—but she isn’t here.”

Gianni nodded. “He must go.”

Not without ceremony, though. That evening saw a hastily prepared but elaborate farewell banquet, in which the councillors pressed rich gifts on their rescuing general, hiding their relief at his leaving—and Gar surprised them all by presenting rich gifts in return, foremost among them a small library which, he said, contained everything he had taught the aristocrats about trade and regulation. Everyone wondered where he had obtained the books, but everyone was too polite to ask.

Then home—but before they went to bed, Gar presented some gifts to his hosts: rich jewelry for Mama, and for Papa, a little machine that calculated overhead, profit, and all manner of other business sums. They pressed a huge necklace of orzans and gold upon him, and everyone retired in wonderfully sentimental melancholy.

 

Gianni Braccalese!

Gianni sat bolt upright—at least, in his dream—and found himself staring into the eyes of the Wizard. The giant goes, Gianni Braccalese. If you wish to see him off, you must rise at once!

How like Gar not even to wait till the household was awake! Cursing, Gianni began to struggle toward wakefulness, but the Wizard said only, You shall see me no more. Farewell! And with that, he was gone, and Gianni waked in the act of sitting up and reaching for his clothing.

He was dressed and down to the main portal in minutes, just in time to see Gar softly lifting the bar and pushing the door open. “Wait!” Gianni cried. “If you must go without ceremony, at least let me go a little way with you!”

Gar looked back, smiling—but not surprised. “Well, then, if you must force yourself up at such an unreasonable hour, come along.”

They went out into the chill darkness of very late night—or very early morning. Gianni glanced at the east but didn’t even see a glow on the horizon. “How far are you going?”

“Into the hills,” Gar answered.

Gianni wondered what he intended to do once he arrived. “Horses, then. Why walk?”

Gar nodded. “With you along to take them home, yes.”

They went into the stable, saddled two horses, and rode out through the silent streets of the city—so silent that neither of them spoke. The sentries at the inner gate needed no convincing, not when it was Gianni Braccalese and General Gar who told them to open the portal—briefly. They rode out over the pontoon bridge that temporarily replaced the causeway. The sound of the water beating against the hulls beneath them broke the spell of silence. Gianni asked, “Why?”

Gar shrugged. “Why not?”

“Because you could have lost your life,” Gianni answered. “Because you went through a great deal of suffering and misery that you didn’t have to undergo. Because it wasn’t your fight.”

Gar said slowly, “Would you believe me if I said I needed the money?”

“With a wizard-friend who travels in a great golden wheel? Besides, if you needed money, you wouldn’t be going. Why, Gar?”

The giant sighed. “A man must do something with his life, Gianni Braccalese. He must have some purpose, some reason for living—and for me, the mere pursuit of pleasure is nowhere nearly enough.”

They rode in silence a few minutes more; then Gianni said, “But why us? Why make our problems yours?”

“Because you had need of it,” Gar said. “Because I couldn’t very well make things worse. Because my inborn sense of justice was outraged years ago, so I look for people unjustly treated, to satisfy my craving for revenge that should have been sated long before I met you.”

That, at least, made sense. Gianni lapsed into silence again, and it lasted until they had passed the charred stumps of the land gate. Then curiosity drove him again. “Just how far away do you come from?”

Gar sighed and tilted his head back. “Look upward, Gianni Braccalese—look at the stars. Each of them is a sun, and most are far brighter than the one that shines on this world. Some of them even have worlds of their own, swinging about them as a sling whirls around the fist of a hunting peasant—and here and there, one of those worlds is warm enough and gentle enough for people to live on it.”

Gianni stared upward, trying to grasp the enormity of the concept—then trying to grapple with its implications. “And you—you come from one of those worlds?”

“Yes. Very far away, and its sun is so small that you can’t see it from here—but I was born on a planet named Gramarye, and my father was born on a tiny world named Maxima.”

“The world in which you are a nobleman,” Gianni whispered.

“No—the world in which my great-uncle is a conte. My father is a high lord on the world of Gramarye now, and I am his heir.”

Gianni let that sink in for a while, then asked, “Why did you leave home?”

“Because being my father’s son wasn’t enough for me.”

Well, Gianni could understand that. “How did you come here?”

“In Herkimer,” Gar answered, “in the great golden wheel. It’s really a ship the size of a village, Gianni. My great-uncle, the Count d’Armand, gave it to me. He didn’t say it was a reward for leaving, but that’s what it came to.”

The intense loneliness of the man suddenly penetrated Gianni, and he shuddered. Trying to throw it off, he asked, “And the false Gypsies? Were they, too, from another star?”

Gar nodded. “They’re members of a league that calls itself AEGIS—which stands for the Association for the Elevation of Governmental Institutions and Systems.”

“Did they really believe persuading the lords to crush us merchants would bring peace and happiness, not a bloodbath?”

“Oh, yes,” Gar said softly. “I don’t doubt their good intentions for a minute. They’re very intelligent, very idealistic, and very knowledgeable people, Gianni, who are also incredibly naive, and have a lack of judgment that borders on the phenomenal. Yes, I really do believe that they thought the lords’ actions against the merchants would be only commercial competition.”

“Incredibly naive indeed,” Gianni said, numbed by the enormity of it.

Gar shrugged. “They’re determined to believe only the best about humanity, no matter how much evidence they see to the contrary.”

“But you didn’t tell the prince about them,” Gianni pointed out. “You didn’t have them arrested and put on trial.”

“No. They saw for themselves the folly of their ideas, and the war the noblemen’s alliance caused—but they also saw that the merchants’ league prevented the worst of it. They’ve learned humility, Gianni, and guilt alone will make them work for the good of every individual here, not just the princes. Besides,” he added as an afterthought, “they’re stuck with the results of what we’ve done here, you and I. They can’t very well undo it without causing a war that even they can’t help but see coming. No, I think you can trust them, in their way. They’ll do Talipon a great deal of good, and very little harm now.”

“But … Medallia?” Gianni felt his heart wrench as he asked it. “Was she really one of them?”

“Yes, but she transcended her naivete and was able to believe the evidence of her eyes. She overcame the bias of her idealism and realized that the AEGIS plan wouldn’t work here, so she left them to try to form a merchants’ league, hoping your commercial leverage could forestall the war.”

“But she would have failed, if you hadn’t come meddling.” Gianni looked up keenly. “How did you do it all, Gar? How did you win our war for us?”

“Herkimer gathered a great deal of information for me,” Gar said. “I pretended to be an ignorant barbarian, asking questions so obvious that even an idiot would know the answers, until I had learned the rest of what I needed to know.”

Gianni looked up sharply. “It was all a pretense, then—your being a halfwit?”

“We both pretended, at first,” Gar reminded him. “But after that blow on the head, when we both waked naked and shivering in the rain? No. That was real—the effect of concussion—but when I came to my senses and realized how useful the pose could be, I pretended. It let me attack the Stilettos without being killed outright, and make them bring us all into the Castello Raginaldi.”

“Where you knew what you would find.”

Gar nodded. “Yes, but I had to prove it.”

“But how did you persuade the other wanderers to do as you said?” Gianni burst out. “I have to command men now, so I need to know! How did you keep the guards from seeing us? How did you convince the porter to lower the drawbridge? No one could have believed Feste’s posturings!”

“Ah.” Gar rode in silence for a minute, then said, “I don’t mean to sound conceited, Gianni, but it’s nothing you can do.”

“Why not?”

“Because of my father’s rank,” Gar said quietly. “Because of the gifts I inherited from him.”

“What gifts? What rank?”

Gar still hesitated.

“You’re leaving now, Gar,” Gianni pressed. “There’s no reason for me to tell your secret—and no harm if I do! What can your father’s rank have to do with it?”

“Because,” Gar said, “he’s the Lord High Warlock of Gramarye.”

“Warlock?” Gianni stared a moment, not understanding. Then the implication hit him. “The Wizard! He never haunted my dreams till I met you! Now you’re leaving, and he told me only an hour ago that I would never see him again!”

Gar nodded slowly.

“Then it was you who put the Wizard in my mind!”

“More than that,” Gar said softly. “I am the Wizard.”

 

---

CHAPTER 16

Gianni stared. Then skepticism rose, and he smiled, amused. “Very good, Gar. You almost had me believing it.”

“I assure you, it’s true,” Gar said, unperturbed. “Oh, come now!” Gianni scoffed. “If you really are the Wizard, put your thoughts in my mind right now.” He closed his eyes. “Go ahead—put a picture into the darkness behind my eyelids!”

“As you wish,” said Gar, and suddenly the Wizard was there in Gianni’s mind, saying, Now do you believe me?

Gianni stiffened, eyes flying open, and the Wizard disappeared. He stared at Gar incredulously, but the big man only nodded gravely, and he wasn’t smiling now.

Realizations exploded in Gianni’s mind like the chain of explosions as the causeway blew up. “But if you could put that picture of the Wizard in my mind—then you can read minds! That‘s how you knew when the Stilettos were coming! That’s why the soldiers didn’t see us when they were searching for us! Why the Gypsies fell asleep, why the sentries in the castle slept!” He paused to draw breath. “Was that why we had no more trouble traveling between Castello Raginaldi and Pirogia, too?”

Gar nodded gravely.

“But—dear Lord, the power that gives you!” Gianni turned ashen, remembering his secret thoughts.

Gar frowned. “I don’t read other people’s minds without a very good reason, Gianni. I do have some standards of right and wrong. But when the other side has an overwhelming advantage, well … that’s when I don’t feel any hesitation about using my own.”

“So that’s what you meant when you said the time for fair play was over!”

“Oh, yes indeed,” Gar said softly.

“And how you lit the fire!”

Gar looked at him in surprise. “I don’t remember doing that.”

“That’s right, you were really an idiot then, recovering from the blow on the head.” Gianni frowned. “But I saw the Wizard that night.”

“Did you really?” Gar stared. “I remember planning that, before the fight. My mind must have done it straight from memory!”

“But the locks? You didn’t really tear them open by brute force, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” Gar closed his eyes. “They were simple locks, Gianni. I could have opened them with even a simple mind.”

A horrible thought struck. “How did the Gypsies learn about your plan for a league of merchants? And how did they come to blame it on my father?”

“Not from me,” Gar assured him. “They had a spy inside Pirogia—I’m fairly sure they had such a spy in each of the merchant cities, and some of the inland ones. No, I didn’t put the ideas in their minds.”

“And your gifts to my parents?”

“I’m not that much of a wizard! No, Herkimer printed out those books—magically, unless you want to spend a year learning the explanation—and dropped them gently in your father’s yard in the middle of the night.”

“How do you drop something gently? No, don’t tell me, I know! ‘Magic’!”

“No, science,” Gar replied.

“Magic by any other name!” Gianni said with disgust. “And that’s how you knew what the lords were thinking, wasn’t it? That’s why you only needed to prove to us that they were dealing with the Lurgan Company!”

Gar nodded. “That’s why I had to have us all caught and taken to Castello Raginaldi. Yes.”

“But—when the cannonballs sped true, when the spear thrusts turned aside! Was that your doing, too?”

“Very good, Signor Braccalese.” The note in Gar’s voice went beyond approval. “Yes. I can move things with my mind, too.”

“But—the other presence in my mind!” The dreadfulness of the thought hit Gianni, and he turned beet-red. “The Dream Dancer, the woman! Did you…?” He broke off, unable to finish the thought.

“No.” Gar turned to him, amused. “I found only echoes of her in your mind—but that was enough to tell me I wasn’t the only mind reader on this planet.”

“Not the only…?” Gianni stared, astounded. “How many of you are there, then?”

“Only one other,” Gar said, “and she’s one of the very rare ones who crop up naturally, when neither parent could read minds before. She thinks she’s the only one there is, for I’ve been careful not to let her know I know. That’s why she understood so much more about your people than the rest of her band—and that’s why she left them, to encourage you and your fellow citizens in fighting the lords.”

“Her?” Fortunately, Gianni was already staring; he only had to keep on. “No! It couldn’t … not her…”

“Why do you think you’re in love with two women at the same time?” Gar asked. Then, before Gianni could answer, while he was still letting the idea sink in, Gar said, “You are rare among your kind too, Gianni. You’re a bit of a mind reader yourself. I could have put the Wizard into anyone’s mind, but very few could have seen him so clearly as you—and very few could have spoken with him as you did.”

“Me? Rare?” Then the next realization hit. “But if you could put the Wizard in my mind more clearly—then Medallia …”

“Yes.” Gar nodded. “Perhaps that’s the real reason she’s interested in you, Gianni Braccalese—interested in you as a man, not just as a pawn in her game.”

“Interested in me? You don’t mean … she couldn’t be in love …”

“Oh, yes, she could,” Gar countered. “I don’t listen to such things in people’s minds, Gianni, but when a man or woman is really in love, it shouts so loudly that I can’t help but hear. Go to her—now, before she leaves the city.”

“I will! Thank you, Gar! Oh, thank you!” Gianni reached out to clasp the big man in a hug, almost tipping them both from their saddles, then turned back toward Pirogia, kicking his horse into a gallop.

Gar watched him go, a sad smile playing over his lips. Suddenly Gianni reined in, turned about, and waved. Gar let his smile broaden, waving back, then watched as Gianni turned and dashed madly for the land gate. When he had ridden across the causeway and disappeared into the city, Gar turned away, rode up to the top of the hill, then dismounted and turned the horse loose, speeding it on its way home with a slap on the rump. That done, he lifted the medallion to his lips and said, “Now, Herkimer.” He let the medallion fall and stood, watching the sky as the first rays of sunlight pierced the false dawn, lighting the great golden ship as it fell out of the sky.

 

Gianni rode hell—bent for leather through the streets that were just coming awake with laborers on their way to work. He drew rein in the Piazza del Sol, and sure enough, the caravan was there, even though she had hidden it someplace else last night. He left his poor lathered horse to cool by itself as he ran to the caravan and up the steps to hammer on the door.

“Medallia! Open! You must not go! Open your door, please!”

The door opened and Medallia stood there, huge-eyed and staring in wonder. Even as Gar had warned, she was dressed for traveling. “Gianni Braccalese! What emergency can bring you in such a panic?”

“Knowing that you are my Dream Woman,” Gianni breathed.

She turned ashen. “Who told you such a thing?”

“The Wizard in my mind,” Gianni answered. Medallia went from ashen to magenta. “That confounded playboy!” she stormed. “How dare he…” But she broke off, and her staring eyes widened even more.

It was true, Gianni realized—his love for her must have been fairly shouting from his mind, for she stood trembling as he stepped into the caravan, took her in his arms, and kissed her. She was stiff with surprise—then began to melt. Gianni broke the kiss just long enough to close the caravan door and make sure the latch had fallen, then to whisper, “Mystery Lady, I love you.” Then he kissed her again, closing his eyes to see the Dancer of his Dreams, her face finally clear and lighted by the radiance of love. It was Medallia’s face, and her kiss deepened with each touch and caress, with a splendor that far outshone his dream.

 

On his hilltop, Gar watched the great golden ship descend. The gangway came down, and Gar climbed up.

“So your trip is successfully concluded, Magnus,” said the mellow voice of the ship.

“Yes, but it was a close thing for a while.” Gar stripped off his medieval clothing and stepped into a sonic shower. “Lift off, Herkimer. Did you call the Dominion Police?”

“Yes, Magnus, and transmitted all my surveillance recordings to them. They were delighted and sounded quite eager, mentioning something about ‘getting the goods’ on the Lurgan Company at last.”

“That’s good to hear.” Magnus closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of glowing skin as most of the dirt flaked away. “The people of Petrarch should have a clean start now. I wish them luck.”

Herkimer said, “I detect overtones of sadness in your voice, Magnus. What is the cause?”

“Only that I can’t stay and enjoy the happiness that is about to be theirs,” Magnus said, “my friend Gianni, I mean, and his Mystery Woman, Medallia.” He followed the sonic shower with a thirty-second spray of soapy water, then more sonic scrubbing, and another thirty-second spray of clear water.

As the drier started caressing Gar’s body with warm air, Herkimer said, “If you cannot remain, how can Medallia? She is from off-planet too, is she not?”

“Yes,” Magnus said, “but she has a good reason—she’s going to marry a native.” He smiled sardonically. “Medallia will never forgive me for telling Gianni what she is, even though it was her own overmodulation that let the dream leak into my mind, and no mental eavesdropping of my own.” He stepped out of the shower and slipped into a modern robe of sybaritically soft and fluffy fabric.

“But the mental suggestions with which you held the vagabonds’ loyalty and obedience were your doing,” Herkimer pointed out.

“Yes, and so was the fervor and courage with which I imbued my troops—not completely by the power of my rhetoric alone,” Magnus confessed. He took a tall cold drink from the dispenser and sat down in an overstuffed chair for the first time in months.

“You could stay if you wanted, Magnus.”

But Magnus shook his head. “Not without a reason such as Medallia has found, Herkimer. I have not yet discovered my home.”

“Where shall we look next, then?” the computer asked.

“Show me your list of forgotten colonies with oppressive governments,” Magnus said.

The list appeared on the wall screen. Magnus sat back as he looked it over, considering which world should be his next chance to find love and a home—or sudden, blessed death.

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