Thur doffed his cap again. "Excuse me, sir. I'm a metal-worker. The guard at the town gate told me to see Messer Vitelli."
"Oh." The little man grew less stiff. "They sent you on, eh? Well, you've found me."
It seemed to Thur that his damnable talent for finding things lacked discrimination. He was not at all sure he was ready to deal with Messer Vitelli. Yet the fellow was slight, clericish, not too well endowed with chin, bright-eyed and jerky as a blackbird. Why should he make Thur uneasy?
"Are you a foundry master, by chance?" asked Vitelli.
"No, Messer."
"Pity. Well, you look strong enough. You're hired. How are you at solving puzzles?"
"Eh?"
"Strong, but not too bright. Come up here."
Obediently, Thur mounted the stairs to the gallery and presented himself to the man in red. The soldierly fellow strolled around to join them.
"We're looking for something," Vitelli told Thur. "A book, or possibly a bundle of papers. It will be well hidden."
A pile of books and papers overflowed from a chest that sat waiting on the gallery. Thur pointed to it. "Not one of those, Messer?'
"No. But similar. Those are valuable, but they're not what we seek."
The soldierly man rumbled, "How can you be so sure it even exists, Niccolo? I think you have us on a wild goose chase. Or Beneforte may have burned it, years ago."
"It must exist, my lord. If he'd had it, he wouldn't have destroyed it. No mage could. Not if he'd already gone so far."
My lord? So this was Lord Ferrante himself? Thur wondered if he should pull out his little dagger and attempt to assassinate the man on the spot. His dagger was more used to cutting bread at dinner. The soldierly man scarcely looked the devil incarnate that Thur had been expecting. An ordinary man, even attractive. And Ferrante's mail protected him, nor did he turn his back. That seemed a quite casual habit, as he slid past them toward the next room. But he didn't let anyone, not even Vitelli, get behind him. Then another green-clad guard came out of the room, and the moment of opportunity was gone.
"Help him." Vitelli directed Thur to the guard. "Tap every brick, try every board. Don't skip a one."
"Yes, Messer." The bored-looking guard motioned Thur to follow him.
And so Thur found himself licking on stone and knocking on plaster, and crouching on the floor sliding his dagger between the boards, inch by inch. They did one room, then another.
Vitelli stuck his head through the door. "Finish this floor. We're going to try the cellars."
I'd go up, not down, thought Thur automatically, and choked the words on his lips. Now was not the time to let his talent, or luck or whatever it was, shine forth. Of that, he was certain. He bent his head to the floorboards and ignored the ceiling.
The next room, he realized with a little shock as they entered it, was Fiametta's own. The wooden bed had been broken apart, the mattress knifed open in the first excited search for the goldsmith's treasures. A couple of chests had been upended and emptied out, but nothing remained of their contents now except a few old linens strewn on the floor. Surely Fiametta had owned more clothes than that. The good cloth must have been taken. Disturbed by an obscure sense of violation, Thur righted the chests, gathered the undergarments back up, and clumsily folded them away. Had the soldiers laughed, clowned around with her women's clothes? Thur didn't want anyone to laugh at Fiametta, with her sturdy dignity so hard-held. He frowned deeply.
"Come on, here," the impatient guard, sensing shirking, demanded help. Thur dutifully started tapping the walls. There was nothing behind the walls, of that he was sure. One wall, two, three ...
"Ah, ha!" cried the guard, from the floor in the corner. "Got it!" He jimmied a short floorboard out of its slot with the tip of his dagger. A bundle of paper tied about with silk ribbon rested within the space. He snatched it out and brandished it triumphantly, grinning, and hurried out to find his master. Thur followed.
They found Lord Ferrante and Messer Vitelli in the kitchen, just climbing out of the root cellar, looking dirty and disgusted.
"Here, my lord!" The excited guard thrust the bundle of papers forward.
"Ha!" Vitelli snatched it, ripped off the ribbon, and spread the papers across the kitchen table. The cracks of the wood were yellow with the flour of many batches of bread and noodles. Vitelli read eagerly, turning papers over, then his face fell. "Damn! Rubbish."
"That's not it?" The guard, who'd been fingering the flat purse at his belt, said in discouragement. "I found it hidden under a floorboard...."
"It's not Beneforte's writing. It must be the girl's diary. Peh! Notes on magic, yes, but it's all apprentice's rubbish. Gossip and love spells and like muck." Contemptuously, Vitelli flicked the papers away.
As Ferrante and Vitelli turned away, Thur surreptitiously gathered the sheets back up, wound the ribbon around them, and tucked them back out of sight in a cupboard housing dinged and battered old pewter. Ferrante paused to let Thur and Vitelli and the bitterly disappointed guard exit the kitchen first.
"That's all the time I can waste this morning," said Lord Ferrante as they walked into the courtyard. "You can take some men and try again this afternoon, Niccolo, if you insist, but then we'll just have to go on without it."
"It must be here somewhere. It must," said the secretary doggedly.
"So you say. Maybe he kept all his notes in his head, eh?'*
Vitelli groaned at the thought.
Ferrante stared absently around. "Perhaps when I'm Duke here I'll give you his house."
"That would content me, my lord," said Vitelli, growing a shade more serene.
"Good."
Vitelli wandered into the sunlight, and glanced under a pile of canvas. "Should I have these pigs of tin moved to the castle along with the books, my lord?"
The gleaming metal bars in the stack weighed about a hundred pounds each, Thur estimated, doubtless the only reason they hadn't been carried off in the first wave of looting, before some officer had arrived to assert Ferrante s rights.
"Leave them for now," Ferrante shrugged. "They're not going to march away. Until we can find a foundry master who can cast a cannon that will be more dangerous to our enemies than to ourselves, they might as well sit here as anywhere." Ferrante turned away. "Come along, German."
Thur picked up his pack. Ferrante paused at the oak door to speak to his guard posted there.
"I know you've been poking about in here, looking for jewels."
"No, lord," said the door guard in a shocked voice.
"Eh. Don't lie to me or I'll have you stretched. You and your friends pocket a garnet or a coin or two, I don't care. But if I find that anyone has carried out a single scrap of paper, even if it's an inventory of the chamber pots, I'll have his head on a stick before sundown. Understand?"
"Yes, my lord." The guard stood frozen to attention till Ferrante and Vitelli swung aboard their horses. Two breast-plated and helmeted soldiers who had been searching the garden and toolshed appeared when the groom ran to fetch them, and fell in behind the two horsemen. Thur's guard and the boy groom marched ahead.
At Ferrante's hand motion, Thur walked beside his stirrup through the town. The guards glowered suspiciously at any citizen who strayed too near the little procession. The Montefoglians in turn tended to fade away at Ferrante's approach, turning in to shops or side streets, or stepping back to flatten themselves against walls. No one hissed, no one cheered. It was as if a circle of silence surrounded Lord Ferrante, moving as he moved.
Only four guards? Was Lord Ferrante so brave? He rode straight-backed, not deigning to glance about like his escort. Thousands of Montefoglians lived in this city. If they all turned out into the streets at once, surely Ferrante and his men could not stand against them despite the disparity of weapons. Why didn't they? Thur wondered. Had Duke Sandrino been so unloved? Was one tyrant the same as another to the citizens, for all practical purposes? Maybe Ferrante's abrupt reversal of status, from son-in-law to usurper, friend to foe, was simply too sudden to assimilate. What hold had Ferrante on the Montefoglians? Fear, clearly, but ... all very well to imagine a mob of irate citizens taking to the streets to avenge their duke, but who would volunteer to be the first to run up on the enemies' swords? Thur was an outlander; this wasn't really his fight Was it? Does Uri live? A bend in the street brought the castle into view, on its steep-sided rocky hill, and Thur's belly shivered.