Fires of the Faithful (40 page)

The hallway outside the room was empty. There was a row of doors; several were open, the rooms empty. Then we came to a barred door. “Leave us alone,” a voice shouted from behind the door. “Teleso isn’t in here.”

“Break it down,” I said, and Mario and Michel slammed into it, knocking it off its hinges. I started to follow them
into the room, but they pulled up short. I saw two men backing up against the far wall—Vincente and Ilario, not soldiers I liked. I shouldered Michel out of the way so that I could see the rest of the room.

“One step more,” Vincente said, “and she dies.”

I felt myself blanch and my hands started shaking. They had Arianna, Teleso’s maidservant. Vincente gripped her firmly by the arms, and Ilario held a sword to her throat.

“Stay back,” I said over my shoulder.

“What is it?” Giovanni asked.

“How are you planning to get out of Ravenna?” Michel asked. “Even if we let you walk out of this room.”

“Let her go,” Mario said. He was clenching his teeth so tightly I could see the veins in his neck. “
Damn
you. Let her go.”

“Oh yeah,” Vincente said. “Teleso’s maid is your little cunt, isn’t she, Mario?” Vincente glanced at Ilario, who raised an eyebrow, then nodded. “We’ll give you an even trade,” Vincente continued. “You for her. You’ll make just as good a hostage.”

“Mario—” I whispered.

“You for her!” Vincente shouted, jerking Arianna’s arms behind her so that she grimaced in pain. “You have five seconds to make the trade.”

“I’ll do it!” Mario said. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll do it.”

“Drop your weapons,” Vincente said.

“Don’t do it,” Arianna said.

Ilario slapped her on the face with the flat of the sword. “He didn’t ask
you
.”

“Don’t touch her!” Mario said. “Leave her
alone
.” He handed me his sword and his bow. “Me for her. Swear on your honor as a soldier to honor that.”

“Swear on the same honor you swore your loyalty on?” Ilario said.

“Mario, don’t,” I said. “He’s going to kill both of you.”

“They need a hostage to get out of here,” Mario whispered. “I’ll have a better chance of breaking free than Arianna.” He started slowly across the room. As he approached, Ilario lowered the sword from Arianna’s throat, and Vincente relaxed his hold on her arms. Finally, they shoved her away; Vincente grabbed Mario’s arms and twisted them behind him.

“I never liked traitors,” Ilario said, and drew back his sword.

“Mario,”
Arianna screamed, as Ilario stabbed Mario in the gut.

Vincente dropped Mario onto the floor and looked up with a smile of vicious satisfaction. “You’re right; we’ll never get out of Ravenna. Might as well take the opportunity to kill the traitor.”

“You can join him!” Michel shouted, running across the room, Giovanni on his heels.

Arianna had thrown herself to her knees next to Mario. “Help him,” she begged me, and I knelt beside them.

“I don’t know anything about healing—” I whispered, tearing his shirt open. I gagged at the smell of blood and rent bowels. If I could stop the bleeding … I used my knife to cut loose the edge of Mario’s tunic, to try to hold it over the wound. “Mario, Mario, hold on. I’ll find Petro—”

Mario shook his head, his face contorted in pain. “Waste of time,” he muttered. “Go on, both of you. We are wolves, and this is war.”

Arianna clasped Mario’s hand and raised her anguished eyes to meet mine. “Teleso was here,” she said. “There’s a secret door behind that tapestry.” She pointed. “It opens to a staircase that leads down to his study. Maybe you can stop him—”

I looked down at Mario; he had closed his eyes, pressing
Arianna’s hand to his lips. Then I stood up. “Giovanni!” I said. The Lupi were tearing apart the two soldiers; I pushed aside the tapestry. “This leads to Teleso’s study. Six of you—with me. The rest—meet us there.”

I spared a last glance toward Mario; he was whispering something to Arianna, pressing a knife into her hand. Then I turned and tore down the stairs. The darkness closed around us as we ran. I still clutched Mario’s sword and bow, although now that I was running down the stairs it occurred to me that I didn’t have a clue how to use the sword, and the bow would be useless on a spiral staircase. Oh well; it was too late to back off now. We emerged, breathless but unchallenged, in Teleso’s study. Giovanni burst in a moment later. “No one,” I said.

“We need to organize,” Giovanni said. “What do we still need to secure? Teleso’s soldiers have scattered, but it’s a safe bet that they’ll try to cause us as much trouble as possible.”

“The horses,” I said. “Teleso won’t get far on foot, and we need the horses. Also the wagons. And this study; there might be information here we can use. And—Oh, hell. The grain.” I stood, my arms still full of useless weaponry. “I didn’t send anybody to guard the grain. What if Teleso—”

Giovanni glanced past me to the Lupi. “You—stables. You—wagons. You guard the study.” He looked back at me. “Come on. No, wait.” He pulled the sword out of my hand. “You’re holding this wrong.”

“Giovanni, who
cares
? Let’s go.”

“You don’t know how to use a sword. The middle of a battle is not the time to take up new weapons. Stick with your knife and the bow—you’re less likely to kill yourself with your own weapons. Just don’t shoot yourself in the foot.” He handed off the sword to one of the soldiers, then grabbed my arm to run for the granary.

It was down near the kitchens; the small northwest tower was used entirely for food storage. The keep swarmed with refugees. We went down some more stairs and then down a narrow hallway to a door that was already open. I felt panic beginning to rise in my throat,
I’m such a fool, Teleso knows how badly we need this grain. He knows
. Through the door. Into the tower—

Giovanni pulled up short, putting out one arm to hold me back. “Shh,” he said.

From beyond the door into the granary, we could hear someone talking. “Can’t you think of anything more original than carving my guts out?” a calm woman’s voice demanded. The voice was pitched to carry as far as possible. “Niccolo, I’d have expected something more interesting from you.”

It was Lucia’s voice. I looked at Giovanni and saw my own horrified expression in his face. Gesturing for silence, he pulled me closer to the door and we peered in.

Niccolo stood with his back to the door, his sword in one hand, a torch in the other. Lucia sat in front of him. Her knife was a few feet away. He’d apparently disarmed her and then paused to gloat.

“I could burn you alive along with the grain,” Niccolo said. “Would that satisfy your desire for a novel form of martyrdom?”

“Well,” Lucia said, her voice still calm and cheerful. “It is the sort of thing I’d expect from a lackey of the Fedeli—”

Giovanni raised his crossbow and peered carefully down the sights. For a moment I thought he was going to do the sensible thing and shoot Niccolo in the back. Then—“Niccolo!” he shouted.

Niccolo whirled just as Giovanni fired the bow. The bolt missed him by inches. I raised my own bow, fired, missed.

“What kind of idiot stands with his back to the door?” Giovanni demanded, drawing his sword.

“What kind of idiot messes up a perfectly good shot by warning the target?” I said.

Niccolo didn’t answer. He glanced from me to Giovanni with a leer of satisfaction. He opened his mouth to speak, then cried out in pain, twisted around to look behind him in astonishment, and collapsed onto his face on the floor. The torch fell from his hand.

Lucia stood behind him, a bloody knife in her hand. “Sorry to mess up your duel, Giovanni,” she said. She stamped out the torch, then wiped the knife off on Niccolo’s tunic. “Teleso’s last orders, apparently—burn the grain.”

“Why didn’t he?” I asked. I still had my own knife in my hand. I slipped it back into the hidden sheath in my boot.

“You know Niccolo,” Lucia said. “I think I could have kept him talking for another hour. He wants to see you scared, or it’s just no fun.” She looked down at Niccolo’s body. “I think I’m going to be ill,” she said, and threw up.

Back upstairs, we headed outside to take stock of the situation. Nobody seemed to be firing; the clash of swords had been replaced by the cries of the injured and dying. The dusty ground of the piazza was stained a dark mud brown from blood, and there were bodies everywhere. Fallen Lupi mixed with loyalist soldiers and mutineers; many had clothing so bloody I couldn’t have said which side they’d died for. I saw Rafi moving from fallen body to fallen body, comforting the living and drawing a cross over each of the dead.

“Did we win?” I said.

“Yeah,” Giovanni said, looking surprised that I’d asked. “We won.”

The Ravenessi began to swarm through the keep, touching the rugs and the curtains and the eggshell-thin glasses, breaking and stealing and dirtying. People were carrying off an amazing variety of items. Michel dragged a wine barrel toward the piazza with one of his friends. Isabella had carved up a haunch of meat from the pantry and was cooking it in the gruel pot. I thought I saw the glint of a gilt-edged mirror, and several people had carried off rugs and tapestries and furniture to decorate their makeshift tents.

I heard a piercing screech from the door of the keep. “Behold,” Severo cried. “Teleso’s whore.”

“No,” Giula shrieked, trying to tear her hand away from him. “Leave me alone, leave me alone.”

“You know where he is,” Severo said. “You know where he’s gone! Tell us!” He smacked her hard across the face.

“
I don’t know
. He left me alone. He said he’d come back but he never came, leave me
alone
.” Giula still wore the dark red velvet dress, but it was crumpled and bloodstained. “Help me, please,
somebody. Please
. Please leave me alone.”

I watched for a moment in silence.

“Tell us what you know,” Severo said.

“I don’t know
anything
. I swear. I’ll swear by anything you want. I don’t
know
.” Giula was nearly hysterical.

“Well, we have
you
, in any case,” Severo said gently, touching her cheek, then backhanding her again. “
You
, Teleso’s whore.”

The one other person who would have defended Giula was Mario. So I strode over to where Severo was beating her. “Leave her alone,” I said.

Severo turned toward me, an ugly expression on his face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. Leave her alone. It’s because of her
I didn’t follow Jesca and Beneto to the gallows. She kept Teleso distracted. So
leave her alone
.” He released her slowly, letting her fall to the ground. “Have your fun with someone else,” I said.

“Niccolo’s already dead. I was hoping to kill him myself.”

I snorted. “If you’d thought to go guard the grain, you’d have had your opportunity. Go help guard the horses. If Teleso tries for a horse to escape, you’ll have a shot at him.”

Severo shuffled off, and I helped Giula to her feet. “Go change into a different dress,” I said. “Something less conspicuous.”

“I don’t know what Teleso did with my old clothes,” she said.

“Take some clothes off one of the bodies,” I said, but she burst into tears again, so I stripped a soldier and gave Giula the uniform.

“Those are boy’s clothes,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re going to have to live with it,” I said. “You’ll just get into trouble again walking around in the velvet.” Still pouting, she took the clothing and vanished into a tent to change.

Tomas approached. He’d torn the insignia off his uniform and wore a red sash. He saluted me. “The stables, granary, and armory are secured,” Tomas said. “Teleso’s study is under guard.”

I blinked at Tomas for a moment. “Does anyone know what’s happened to Teleso?” I asked.

“No, Generale,” Tomas said. “We’ve checked all the hiding spots that the soldier-Lupi knew of.”

“Are any of the horses missing?” Giovanni asked.

“No,” Tomas said. “If he got away, he fled on foot. We’ve sent out a search party.”

“Keep looking,” I said.

Tomas saluted and headed back toward the stables.

“Your orders will be needed,” Lucia said, “on the question of the soldiers who surrendered.”

“Lock the ones who surrendered in the dungeon,” I said. “We’ll let them out before we leave—without weapons or food, the ones with any sense will head north. The ones who mutinied, let them go free. They’re ours now.”

“What next?” Giovanni asked.

I stared at the bloodstained piazza. “We bury our dead.”

Giovanni and Lucia were both silent for a moment. Then Giovanni asked, “Did Teleso keep papers somewhere?”

I blinked at him.

“That’s something I can take care of this afternoon and tonight,” Giovanni said. “We should sort through them systematically. See if there’s any information of use to us.”

“Oh,” I said. “Of course. He kept papers in his study, I believe. That’s why I wanted a guard placed over it—as much to keep out the Ravenessi as the soldiers.”

Giovanni grinned—the friendliest look he’d given me yet. “I’ll take care of that tonight, then.”

Lucia slipped her arm around my waist. “Was there anything else you wanted to save, here? Or take for your own?”

“No,” I said. “I think everything important is under guard.”

“Then you’ve won,” Lucia said. “Celebrate your victory.”

Rafi had formed uninjured volunteers into two groups, moving the injured inside out of the sun, and carrying the bodies down to the gravel pit near the wall. “Right,” I said. “Celebrate.” I walked out to the piazza and picked up one of the bodies. “We won.”

I couldn’t believe the number of dead, as I carried bodies. If I’d been asked, I wouldn’t have thought there were so many people in all of Ravenna. The bodies were still warm from the sunshine, and were only beginning to become stiff. Some of the bodies, I could carry alone—the Ravenessi were thin and light from deprivation. The soldiers I carried with one other. We stripped the soldiers’ bodies before placing them in the gravel pit to be buried, because we would need what they had to survive; the Ravenessi had nothing worth taking.