“C—condotierri!” Ludovico gasped. “Sti—Stilettos! Too … too many to fight off … but … ”
“But fight you did.” Antonio nodded, understanding. “They drove away your workmen, and … beat you.”
“Workmen … fled!” Ludovico gasped. “Clerks … home!”
“Ran home to try to defend their wives and children?” Antonio nodded, frowning. “Yes, of course. After all, the goods in this warehouse were not theirs.”
“Fought!” Ludovico protested. “Crossbows … there …” He gestured at the wreckage of a crossbow, broken in both stock and bow, and Gianni shuddered at the thought of the savagery with which the condotierri had punished the older man for daring to fight them.
“Thought me … dead!” Ludovico wheezed. “Heard … talk …”
“Enough, enough,” Antonio soothed. “You must lie down, lie still and rest.” He gave Gianni a meaningful glance, and the younger man, understanding, whipped off his cloak and bundled it up for a pillow.
“Not … rest!” Ludovico protested, lifting a feeble hand. “Tell! Conte! They … spoke of … a lord’s pay …”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” Antonio assured him. “You heard the condotierri talk about being in the pay of a nobleman. Now rest we can reason out the remainder of it well enough. Water, Gianni!”
Gianni had the flash ready and unstoppered. Antonio poured a small amount between Ludovico’s lips. The merchant coughed as he tried to speak a few more words, then gave over the effort and drank. The taste of clear water seemed to take all the starch out of him; he sagged against Antonio’s arm.
“The wound?” Gianni asked.
“It must be cleaned,” Antonio said regretfully. “Pull the cloth away as gently as you can, Gianni.”
This, at least, Gianni understood from experience. Delicately, he lifted the cloth away from the wound; it pulled at the dried blood, but Ludovico didn’t seem to notice. Gianni probed with a finger, very gently, managing to keep his stomach under control—here, at least, there was a chance something could be done. “It’s wide, but low.”
“A sword, and the soldier twisted it.” Antonio nodded. “It pierced the lung, but not the heart. He may yet live. Still, it must be cleaned. Dribble a little brandy on it, Gianni.” Then, to Ludovico: “Brace yourself, for there will be pain—there must be.”
Gianni waited a few seconds to be sure the man had heard, but not long enough for him to protest, then tilted the brandy bottle as Antonio had said. Ludovico cried out, once, sharply, then clamped his jaw shut. When he saw Gianni stopper the bottle again, he sagged with relief.
“Clean the space around him,” Antonio told Gianni. “It would be best if we do not move him.” Gianni frowned. “The bandits …?”
“They have been and gone. They would need sharp sentries indeed, to learn that new goods have come into the town—and why should they post watchers where they have already been? We are as safe here as behind a stockade, Gianni. Set the men to putting out the fire, as much as they can; these walls will still afford us some shelter.”
Gianni did more—he set the men to clearing a wide swath of everything burnable. When night closed in, the fire was contained and burning itself out. Tent canvas shaded poor old Ludovico, and the mules were picketed inside what remained of the walls, chewing grain; their packs lay nearby, and the men sat around a campfire, cooking dinner.
Antonio came out from beneath the canvas to join Gianni by the fire.
“Does he sleep?”
Antonio nodded. “It will be the Great Sleep before long, I fear. The wound by itself will not kill him, but he has bled too freely—and much of the blood is in his lungs. He breathes with difficulty.”
“At least he still breathes.” Gianni turned back to the steaming kettle and gave it a stir. “Do you really think a nobleman sent the Stilettos to do this work?”
“No,” Antonio said. “I think he heard the soldiers discussing their next battle, and whose pay they would take.”
Gianni nodded. “The Stiletto Company last fought for the Raginaldi—but they’ve come a long way from Tumanola.”
Antonio shrugged. “When there’s no work for them, mercenary soldiers turn to looting whoever has any kind of wealth at all. They needed food, so they came and took it from Ludovico’s granary, and while they were at it, they took the wool and cotton from his warehouse—and, of course, the orzans.”
“Must we bargain with them for it?” Gianni asked indignantly.
“You don’t bargain with condotierri unless you have a high, thick city wall between their spears and your hide,” Antonio reminded him. “Talk to them now, and they will take all your father’s goods—as well as our lives, if the whim takes them.” He turned and spat into the darkness. “I could wish the Raginaldi had not made a truce with the Botezzi. Then their hired dogs would still be camped outside the walls of Renova, not here reiving honest men.”
“It’s an uneasy truce, from all I hear,” Gianni reminded him, “and wearing thin, if the soldiers see new employment coming.”
“A fate to be wished,” Antonio agreed. “Soldiers in the field are bad enough, but at least a man can find out where they’re battling, and stay away.”
“Renova and Tumanola are the strongest powers in this eastern edge of Talipon,” Gianni said. “Their battlefield could be anywhere.”
“True, but at least their troops would stay there, putting up a show of fighting and taking their pay, not going about robbing poor peasants and honest merchants,” Antonio replied. “Idle soldiers make the whole of the island a devil’s playground.”
He did not quite say the soldiers were devils, but Gianni took his meaning. “Is it possible that some noblemen sent them to loot Accera as a punishment for some imagined insult?”
Antonio shrugged. “Who can tell with noblemen? They’re apt to take offense at anything and order their men to any action.”
“And who can say, with mercenary soldiers?” Gianni returned. “When they’re being paid, they’re an army; when they aren’t, they’re condotierri, worse than any mere rabble of bandits.”
“Far worse,” Antonio agreed. “I only wonder that it has not yet occurred to them to steal a whole city.” Gianni shuddered, taking Antonio’s meaning. If the Stiletto Company ever did decide to conquer a city to rule for themselves, it could not be one ruled by a noble family, for if they did, all the noblemen of Talipon would descend on them en masse, with every free lance they could hire to fight for them. No, the mercenaries would seek easier game, some city of merchants who ruled themselves—Gianni’s home, Pirogia.
“These condotierri may be working for themselves, or for one of the noble houses—it’s impossible to tell,” Antonio summarized. “But Accera lies within the lands claimed by Pirogia, before our grandfathers overthrew the conte and chased his family out. The attack may be only that of a hungry army needing practice, but it’s not a good sign.”
“Rumor says that the merchants of Tumanola grow restive, seeing how well we govern Pirogia,” Gianni said, “and that they have begun to petition their prince for some voice in the conduct of the affairs of the city.”
“The same is said of Renova.” Antonio scowled, shaking his head. “Me, I can only wonder how long it will be till both great houses march against our Pirogia, to put an end to the upstarts who’re giving their merchants such troublesome ideas.”
One of the drivers cried out from his station by the remains of the wall. “Who goes there?”
“A friend,” answered a deep voice, “or one who would be.”
Antonio was on his feet almost as quickly as Gianni. Both turned toward the voice—and saw the giant step out of the shadows.
The stranger towered over the sentry. He looked to be seven feet tall and was broad-shouldered in proportion and, though his loose shirt and leather jerkin hid his arms and chest, his hose revealed legs that fairly bulged with muscle. Gianni could have sworn the rapier at his hip was as long as the guard was tall.