"Where did you come from?" demanded the guard sergeant harshly. "Where have you been?"
A volley of sneezes delayed Thur's answer long enough for him to get his thoughts in order. "Mother of God," he wheezed, with feeling. "I have just had the strangest dream!" He sat up, rubbing his eyes and nose. "Did I ... fall asleep? I'm sorry, I promised to watch—the madman's not out, is he?" Thur clutched the guard sergeant's boot.
"No."
"Oh. Good. Thank God. For a minute there I ..."
"For a minute you what?"
"For a minute I thought it was real. My dream. What time is it?"
"Almost dawn."
"It can't be. I just went down the corridor to piss a couple of minutes ago."
"You disappeared. You've been gone all night."
"No! You were just serving the prisoners dinner. I went down the corridor, and I was coming back. I heard the pails clanking. And then ....nd then ..."
"Then what?"
"I felt so tired all of a sudden. It was as if something came over me—I just lay down here on the floor for a moment. And I had this wonderous dream, and then you found me and woke me."
The two guards eyed one another uneasily. "What was your dream, Foundryman?" asked the junior man.
"The mad castellan changed into a bat, before my eyes. And then he changed me into a bat, too. We flew south, to Rome. Absurd. I've never been to Rome." Thur ran his hands through his hair in a dazed way. "We could see it all at a glance from the air. Watchlights gleaming on the Tiber ... the Pope, all in glowing white robes, was standing on the balcony of a great palace. The castellan—still in the form of a bat, with bat-ears, but he had the face of a man—landed on His Holiness's shoulder and whispered in his ear. And the Pope whispered back, and touched him with his ring. And then we flew home," Thur ended simply. He stopped his tripping tongue just short of adding, Oh, my arms are tired! Ferrante's guards had good reason to be credulous of the uncanny, but not infinitely credulous.
"But we've been over this corridor ten times!" said the younger guard. "You weren't—"
"Quiet, Giovanni!" the sergeant cut across him. He hauled Thur roughly to his feet. The sergeant was shorter than Thur, but strong. He stared at Thur with angry, worried eyes. "Do you think you might have been ensorcelled, Foundryman?"
"I ... I ... don't know. I've never been ensorcelled before. I thought it was a dream."
"I must have you checked. By an expert."
That was not in Thur's plan. "Almost dawn? My God. I've got to get to work. Lord Ferrante demands his cannon without delay."
"Where will you be working?" inquired the sergeant, narrow-eyed.
"In the garden, or back courtyard, or whatever you call it. I must build the furnace tomorrow—today, that is."
"Very well. So long as I know where to find you. Giovanni, escort my lord's foundryman to his work, eh? Speak of this to no one. I'll do the reporting."
Thur had a strong sense that he had not much time left. He found his work mates from yesterday just rising to go to a kitchen-breakfast of hot mutton wrapped in bread. Whatever Ferrante's other sins, he made sure that his men were well-fed. Thur took care not to bring up the topic of where he'd spent the night.
Thur and the laborers went out in the cold dawn fog to the foundry site at the end of the walled castle garden. The trampled grass was slippery underfoot. But the moisture was a tease; when Thur looked directly overhead he could see through the mist to the high blue vault of a cloudless heaven, already illuminated by a sun that had yet to clear the eastern hills. Glad as Thur was to see light after the night's dark doings, he wished time would slow down. Pink rays touched the castle towers, Thur's new goal, all too soon.
Thur directed the workmen automatically, all the while trying to figure how to get away from them and into that tower. He stacked bricks around the proper curve of the oven-to-be's walls, and tried to think through a throbbing head. He must deliver an ear to the Duchess—hide the extra two—and be gone from this accurst castle by noon at the latest. Then make it, somehow, back to the monastery and demand magical help for Uri. Could they sneak a boat with muffled oars to the base of the cliff wall, after dark? Climb, or levitate, to the tomb-chamber's window? And then what?
Or should Thur try to assassinate Vitelli, this afternoon, before he could perform the next set of vile rites? Ferrante, though he was involved to the eyebrows, did not seem to be the driving will behind this wholesale foray into the black arts. Thur shivered at the thought of a blade in his hand, driving into the thick resistance of a man's flesh. Was it even possible to murder a mage? Foolish question—think of Master Beneforte. Death came to mages as to other men. Or . .. perhaps not quite as to other men. Would another murder create another malevolent ghost, or worse? Maybe Monreale could shrive it, and send it on its way. Shrive them all.
Thur fitted the bricks for the furnace floor and plotted his escape, as soon as he reached the end of this row, by excusing himself to go to the garderobe. A pounding noise came from the heavy timber gate to the stables at the end of the garden. Someone was unblocking it with a mallet. Thur looked up. A couple of big, loud Losimon soldiers in steel and leather backed through pulling on a rope. Their whoops seemed too good-natured to go with some combat, and Thur's work mates, after first freezing at their shovels, relaxed and leaned on them to watch.
Following the Losimon soldiers came a train of mules, roped together pack-saddle-to-halter. The first mule was a distinctive gray, the second honey-brown with a cream-colored nose—the gaily-striped saddle blankets were all too familiar. Oh, Jesus, it was Pico's mule train. Would the packmaster blurt out recognition of Thur? Would Thur be dangling by his neck from the castle wall, hanged as a discovered spy, within the half-hour? Thur crouched down in his half-built furnace and stared wildly. Damn it, Pico had said he was going to cut over the hills to Milan. What bad angel had inspired him to bring his load of copper to sell in Montefoglia, instead? Now, of all times?
But the eighth mule walked stiffly through the gate with no sign of Pico, or of his two boys. Only a quartet of dismounted Losimon cavalrymen tugged the animals along. Thur stood up from his crouch, wary and confused.
"Hey, Foundryman!" shouted the lead soldier. "Where do you want us to put this?"
Thur almost answered, Stack the pigs in pairs over there, but gulped down his mistake and said instead, "Put what?" He walked toward the mule train.
The mules were sweaty and dirty under their harness. Iridescent green flies were already plaguing new pink raw spots showing under the edges of the leather straps. One mule had been limping, and now stood with a hind hoof held gingerly tiptoe. All dove their heads to the grass and weeds at their feet, smacking dry and thirsty lips.
"My lord's new copper." The soldier flicked up the canvas of a pack-saddle and pointed proudly to a thick metal bar.
Thur stared at the lathered and exhausted animals. Pico would never have permitted—"Where is Pi—is the packmaster?" Thur demanded. Dread lent his voice an unaccustomed harshness.
"Gone to God," grinned the soldier. "He left us these in his will, eh?"
Thur swallowed. "Where did you find them?"
"We were on patrol, foraging up north of the lake yesterday. Too damn far from home, we were just about to quit and go back, when we came upon this fellow's camp in the hills. Our lieutenant fancied this'd be a gift to my lord's taste, so we took 'em. We ran them all night to get here. Stubborn beasts, we had to beat 'em with the flats of our swords to keep 'em moving, toward the end."