In the icy moment of horror while the accusation gelled, all faces turned to face one face.
"Lucrezia!" Lisa shouted, backing away.
"Lucrezia!" said another.
Lucrezia shrank as if she were arching her back like a cat. She raised a clawed hand to her mouth, gabbled a command, and was gone, vanished as she had vanished when the statue fell on the night of the Carnival Ball. More screams. Women swooned. Men rushed around the ends of the tables to reach them and comfort them. The shamans began thumping their drums, either exorcising the poison or trying to locate the culprit. An ashen-faced Hamish had his arms around the widow, who was clinging to him fiercely and sobbing on his chest. That was not going to reduce the scandal any.
The Magnificent was dead. Florence had no ruler.
The suzerain was dead.
The Fiend was outside the walls.
"Longdirk!" Sartaq roared.
"Your Highness?"
"Did you mean to do that?"
"No, Your Grace. I didn't know. It slipped through my fingers." Was that true? Had he been incredibly lucky or had the hob saved him?
The prince stared very hard at him, as if trying to read his thoughts. "Very well. Your appointment stands, comandante. Go and attend to your duties. Go and save the city."
Where had this vibrant royal leader come from? Why hadn't he appeared months ago, when there had still been time to save the city?
Hamish was still consoling Lisa.
Toby bowed and hurried from the courtyard.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He commandeered a Marradi horse and galloped through streets darkened by evening shadows but still breathlessly hot. An ominous hush had settled over Florence. The revelers had dispersed — many to the sanctuary to pray, no doubt, and others to the walls or bell towers to watch the Fiend's armies digging in. The shock of the Magnificent's death was still to come.
In the stable yard he hit the ground running, yelling for Smeòrach to be made ready even as he dived through the low door into the inn itself. Brother Bartolo was holding court there at a table littered with papers and several abacuses; clerks and pages were streaming in and out the front door like ants provisioning their nest. "Report!" Toby roared, and went up the stairs at a rush, which risked breaking an ankle or stunning himself on the beams, but he made it to the top safely and ran along the gallery, hauling off his doublet. Shirt and hose followed it as soon as he was in his room; he grabbed up the fighting garments he had left there ready: shirt, breeches, padded jerkin.
Floorboards creaked outside, then Bartolo's great bulk filled the doorway. His normally rubicund face was pale as parchment.
"Well?" Toby demanded, stamping his feet into riding boots.
"Two hundred and three thousand. Still coming."
"From Lucca, too? Well, they won't be much good for a few days." Nevil's fondness for exhausting his armies with inhuman marches would betray him sooner or later — but not this time, because there was no enemy to oppose him. "You can stop counting now. Did you organize the bell towers?"
"We have reliable watchers in every campanile, and a sharp-eyed youngster as well. If they try any sort of sneak attack anywhere, the nearest bells will start ringing. The guards on the walls have been told how to use the bells to call for help."
"Good work. Put the criers into the streets right away — I've been appointed comandante in capo."
The friar beamed. "Well, that is certainly the best—"
Toby buckled on his sword. "And the Magnificent is dead."
Bartolo's gurgle of horror was a fair warning of how Florentines would react. Florence without a Marradi to run it was unthinkable, and there was no obvious heir ready to take over.
"What? How?"
"Murdered. Announce my appointment first!" Toby squeezed around him to reach the door. "Keep the other thing under your" — he ran along the gallery—"cowl!" He avalanched down the stairs. Clerks scattered out of his way like chickens.
He rode first to the Porta al Prato, near the stadium, which was an obvious site for an attack and close to where he guessed the army from Lucca would have pitched camp. The myriad campfires starting to shine in the gathering dusk showed him that his instincts had been correct. Nor was he alone in his inferences, for there he found Antonio Diaz.
The Catalan was haggard with exhaustion, but his dogged confidence had inspired his troops. The cheers with which they greeted Toby were both gratifying and appalling, so he did not know whether to weep or clap his hands over his ears and scream. Instead of doing either, he made a rousing speech from Smeòrach's back. What lies he told hardly mattered, because he kept twisting his head around to speak to everyone, and also his horse was very restless, clattering hooves on the cobbles all the time. Besides, his accent was so bad that no one would be able to catch much of what he said, but they cheered him again anyway, even louder. It was bad enough that he was condemning most of these men to die, but far worse that he must deceive them into thinking their deaths would serve some useful purpose.
Before leaving, he drew Diaz aside. "San Miniato is going to kill us. We'll have to sortie at dawn, before they're ready to open fire. Spike the guns at worst, drag them into town at best."
The Catalan nodded resignedly. "I know. And I know they'll be waiting for us to try just that. You want me to lead it?"
"Please. I'll join you if I can."
"No. You're too valuable."
"I have never felt more worthless," Toby said, but he knew there was truth in what Diaz was saying. A commander who threw his life away on a suicidal mission at the opening of the battle was not serving his cause. He ordered Diaz to get some sleep and rode away, despising himself from the bottom of his heart.
That was only the beginning. The night became a repeating nightmare of torch-lit faces. He circled around the city walls, crossing and recrossing the Arno, inspecting, approving, encouraging. Everywhere he found men of the Don Ramon Company and the Florentine militia together — gnarled veterans husbanding their strength for the morrow in among peach-faced apprentices shivering with excitement. All of them seemed glad to see him, cheering and jesting. Not even the crabbiest old trooper showed doubts or threw angry questions at him: Why have you locked us up here to die? What difference can we make? How will anyone benefit from our deaths? No one asked. He would have had no answers if they had. They all stood a little straighter when he left.
The Fiend had bridged the river both upstream and downstream from the city, just beyond cannon range. That was a very efficient piece of work, considering how long he had taken to span the Po, and the forces that had crossed already had completely surrounded the city. Lisa would not escape to Siena. Nor would Toby Longdirk, although he had never intended to try.
He found Arnaud Villars making his own tour of inspection, checking on stocks of arrows and missiles and powder and shot and grappling hooks and all the other thousands of items that might be needed at dawn. Toby ordered him to get some sleep. The attack might not come for days yet.
He even ran into desiccated Alberto Calvalcante the gunner, working on a few last adjustments to some of the defenders' cannons. He, too, looked as if he had not slept in weeks.
"You were right, Sir Tobias," he growled. "They do have guns on wheels, what I said were impossible. Saw them being dragged up to San Miniato. Don't know they'll work good, of course," he added grumpily.
"I knew it ought to be possible, and I'd heard the Fiend emplaced his artillery very quickly at Trent. Did you see how they do it?"