"Be that as it may, Sprenger himself was by the time of his—we thought—death, utterly corrupt, his will given over entirely to the pursuit of demonic power. Yet I felt I'd personally lost a soul for God, the night I heard he'd suicided, and the Devil laughed at me." Monreale shook his head in memory.
"What are we going to do now, Father?" Fiametta asked, as the silence lengthened.
An ironic smile, full of pain, twisted Monreale's lips. "God knows. I can only pray He will confide it to me."
"But you have to do something to stop them!" quavered Fiametta. "It's black magic, it's in your holy vows to fight black magic! Tomorrow they mean to enslave poor Captain Ochs. Then Papa. And then Ferrante's troops will arrive, and then there will be no chance!"
"If we are to try ... anything, it must be before the Losimon infantry arrives," Ambrose agreed diffidently.
"I don't need you to tell me that, snapped Monreale. He controlled his nervous irritation with a visible effort, squaring his slumped shoulders. "It's not a simple problem. It's hard to conceive of a force sufficient to stop Ferrante that does not itself partake of black magic. Some evil intent, seeping through to imperil the soul."
"But ... everyone's depending on you. Like a soldier. Soldiers do awful things, but we need them, to protect us from ... from other soldiers," said Fiametta.
"You need not tell me what soldiers do," said Monreale dryly; Fiametta flushed. "I'm well acquainted with the whole vile argument. I've seen it used to justify crimes you can scarcely imagine. And yet ..."
Fiametta's eyes narrowed. "There is something. You have it in mind, something you can do, don't you. Something magical."
"I must pray on it."
"You pray a lot. Will you still be praying when Ferrante's army marches to the gate of Saint Jerome and batters it down? When Ferrante commands spirits with the wave of his hand?" Fiametta demanded hotly. "If all you're going to do is pray, why not hand over Lord Ascanio and everything now? Why not yesterday?"
"We might," said Brother Ambrose slowly, "live to fight another day. Lay charges of black magic later upon Lord Ferrante."
"And what Herculean sergeant-at-arms shall we send to arrest the miscreants, after they have made themselves undisputed lords and masters of two states?" said Monreale softly, staring again into the flames. "Sprenger must remember me, as surely as I do him. I know he must, he's been so very careful to keep from my sight. I wonder if I would live to lay charges anywhere."
"Well, then!" said Fiametta.
His fingers told over the beads in his lap. He glanced up at her from under tufted gray brows. "I am not.... a powerful mage, Fiametta. Not as powerful as your Papa, or even some of the lesser mages here in Montefoglia ... God knows, I tried to be, once. It has been my burden to have an understanding greater than my talent. Those who can, do. Those who can't ..."
Ambrose interjected a little negative huff, spreading his hands in denial. "Not so, Father!"
One corner of Monreale's lips twisted up. "My good Brother. By what standards do you imagine you judge? Did you think it was only a monastic calling that holds me here in Montefoglia? First-rate talents go to Rome, go to the Sacred College. Lesser men find themselves buried in rural provinces. In my youth, I dreamed of being a Marshall by the time I was twenty-five. I put away those military follies only to replace them with dreams of becoming a Cardinal Thaumaturge before I was thirty-five ... God gave me humility at last, for God knew I needed it.
"Sprenger—if Vitelli is indeed he—had a talent stronger than his understanding. Now, after it has had ten years to grow cunning in dark and secret, he's found a powerful patron, who protects him, funds him, lends him his animal vitality—for Ferrante has great strength of will, make no mistake. Add to that a spirit-slave of the order of Master Beneforte, and their potency will be ..." He broke off.
Ambrose cleared his throat. "I confess, Father, your words unsettle my stomach."
"My calling is to save souls, not lives." Monreale's fingers worked.
"Souls can be saved later," Fiametta pointed out urgently. "When you lose lives, you lose lives and souls both."
Monreale shot her a peculiar grin. "Have you ever considered taking up Scholastic studies, Fiametta? But no, your sex forbids."
An insight shook her. "You're not afraid of losing your soul. You're just afraid of losing." Afraid of having his self-accusation of second-ratedness finally confirmed.
Ambrose drew in his breath at this blunt insult, but Monreale's grin merely stretched. His eyes were lidded, unreadable.
"Go to bed, Fiametta," he said at last. "Ambrose, I will send Brother Perotto to watch and maintain this ear through the night. Though I suspect the show is over for the moment." He stood up, shook out his robes, and rubbed his face. "I'll be in the chapel."
Chapter Twelve
Thur sat very, very still. The puff adder's earlier agitation had passed off, but now instead of burrowing under Thur's crossed legs as if beneath a little cave ledge, it had looped itself entirely around his calf and thigh. For warmth, presumably. Thur could feel the cool waxy scales through his fine hose as the snake hitched itself up another couple of inches. As long as Thur remained the best source of heat in the room, the viper seemed disinclined to move away.
Thur dared not even move the dark linen cloth still draped stuffily over his head and body. He needed to piss, and his nose itched abominably. He dreaded a sneeze. He tried to wriggle his nose, twitching and stretching his lip, but it didn't help greatly. How much time had passed, since the two necromancers had left this rock-cut chamber? An eternity? Still the pitchy darkness was unrelieved by the slightest gray hint of dawn. If he could just see the cursed reptile, he would match his hand against the speed of its strike and try to grab it behind the head. But to grope for it in the dark ... Yet he could not sit like this much longer. The cold stone floor stole the heat from his numbing buttocks, and his leg muscles, unrelieved for too long by any change of position, threatened to spasm.
Movement, when it came, was not the prayed-for departure of the adder, but the scrape of a key in the lock again. The snake's coil tightened around Thur's leg. Light booted footsteps crossed the floor, and stopped at one side of the room. A faint crockery clatter was followed by a tiny gurgle, as of someone pouring liquid from a jug. Then—Thur froze, if possible, more still, though his heart beat faster—Vitelli's voice, in a brief Latin chant. The snake twitched. A pause: in more impatient tones, Vitelli repeated his words. The snake unwound a little more, but made no move to leave Thur's lap. Well, it was probably just a country snake. Maybe it didn't understand Vitelli's fine school Latin. Thur suppressed an hysteric giggle.
Vitelli swore under his breath. "Damned stupid snake. Probably escaped by now. Have to send a pig-soldier to Venice tomorrow to buy another." The footsteps departed in an irate shuffle; the door was locked once more. The snake vented a surly hiss. Thur blinked tears of frustration and fear, which trickled maddeningly down the inside of his nose. He must try a grab ...
A tiny scuttling noise crossed the chamber. Only in this stone-silence and night-stillness could Thur have heard it, exacerbated though his senses now were. The snake seemed to hear it too. Its head rose, and wove from side to side; then, coil by coil, it slid from Thur's leg and out from under the linen cloth. It seemed to take an age for it to remove its entire length. Thur held his breath for several more seconds, then let it go with an explosive huff. In a frantic, fluid motion, he rolled out from under his cramped table-prison, and vaulted atop it instead. He grabbed for a dislodged iron candelabrum, felt but scarcely seen, before it could fall with a clang. His eyes, straining in the utter darkness beneath the cloth for so long, could actually make out dim shapes in the faint starlight reflecting from the lake through the deep window: his table, the crates on their trestles. The light was not good enough for him to see the adder, though.