"Don't say that!" Fiametta cried, panicked. "I don't want that! But if the Crusaders can be soldiers for God, I don't see why you can't. Vitelli is worse than any Saracen. But we need even more help than that. Papa would have employed ten strong workmen on this casting. We have only four, three, because I will be attempting the spell. You were there, in the castle—can you tell us how Lord Pia compelled the kobolds in his aid?"
"Lord Pia has a long-standing friendship with the little rock people. That's why they are so thick about the castle. They had a mutual interest in caves, and in the creatures that live in them." Uri/Thur raised his hands, and made a little bat-wing-flapping gesture. "I once visited the kobolds' colony in Lord Pia's company. How you may compel them, I am not sure, especially to work, for they are lazy and flighty and would rather play tricks. They'll play nasty tricks on you, if you cause them pain. Trying to compel a kobold is a bad idea." His brows-down expression became muddled, all of a sudden, and confused. Thur's voice pushed out of his own mouth with difficulty, slow and slurred. "Bribe 'em. Mother's milk. They'd do anything for it." His jaw opened, closed; then Uri was back, looking surprised.
"That would work better than stealing a nanny goat—it's not something they are often offered! They would flock to you!"
"But where would we get—oh, this is getting so complicated!"
"It is strange . .." Uri/Thur's gaze grew distant, "what I can see now. More. Less. Other. Walls are like glass. Stone is like water. But I can see the kobolds in their shadow-form inside the rocks, and they seem oddly solid. People—you, in your flesh—are like shadows used to be, all garbled and distant and out of reach. Except right now, looking through these eyes. It's good to see you, once more." He smiled briefly, then grew grim. "All but Vitelli. His shadow is solid, inside his flesh. Solid and dark. Of him, I am afraid." Uri/Thur sighed, a long, controlled breath. "You must hurry. Even now Vitelli is moving toward binding your father in his ring. It's like a wrestling match. And Master Beneforte is losing! With your father's spirit bound to his will, Vitelli will own all his powers and knowledge. And who would doubt Master Beneforte's power to defeat his own spell, your spell, our spell?
"When does Vitelli now plan to cast the ring?" Fiametta asked intently. "Do you know, can you tell?"
"Tonight."
"Tonight, oh, no! Can you see or speak to Papa at all? Tell him—"
But Uri/Thur's face writhed; a last, plaintive, "I cannot hold! Good-bye—" broke from his lips, and he fell backward, gasping, all and only Thur once more.
"God. God." He almost wept.
"Did it hurt?" asked Fiametta anxiously.
"Hurt?" Thur shook his head from side to side in bewilderment, dazed eyes jerking. "I feel sick. Uri—Uri hurts. Vitelli has hurt him."
"Can we move now?" asked Tich breathlessly. "Is it safe?"
"Yes. It's over," nodded Fiametta. Tich stuck his legs out in front of him and bent and stretched, and Ruberta hitched around in her bundle of skirts and petticoats. "No. It's only beginning," Fiametta realized. "And we have so little time! It's grown so complicated. And Ferrante's soldiers might descend on us here at any moment, and oh—" She shuddered, nearly overwhelmed.
"We'll do it step by step, Fiametta," said Thur. "The last won't look so big, once the first is done. What's first? The copper. For which we must have the kobolds. For which we must have ... hmm." He frowned at the ceiling.
"I don't think a wet nurse will drop down from the sky," said Fiametta tartly, following his gaze. "At least not one who would be willing to put a nasty little rock-demon to her breast. And we cannot involve an unwilling soul, which means we must reveal what we are doing. And if told, and if she does not agree, she could betray us—"
Ruberta snorted. "Oh, you children." Fiametta looked up, puzzled at her dry tone.
"Do you think you are the only ones hurting from this evil?" the housekeeper asked. "Ferrante's soldiers have been swaggering around town for days, making enemies for him. They don't act like the guard of a new lord, they've been acting like an occupying enemy. I could lay hands on a dozen unhappy women who would be willing to do far worse things to strike a blow in return. You leave this to me, girl." Ruberta grunted up and stood with her hands on her hips. "I'd do it myself in a trice, but that I gave up wet-nursing four years ago to become your Papa s housekeeper. I was getting old for it anyway. It's not a job for the squeamish. I don't know why they encourage maidens to be squeamish, there's no place in women's work for someone afraid to get her hands dirty." She nodded shortly, and marched out looking quite steely.
Tich raised his eyebrows, as if amused, or at least bemused, by her military stride.
"Don't you look like that at her," said Fiametta sharply. "Some of Ferrante's drunken men raped her niece two nights ago. Took her right off the street, when she ventured out to get food for her family. The girl was still in bed crying, all bruised and beaten, when I went there at dawn to look for Ruberta. The whole family's in an uproar."
Tich hunched contritely.
Thur took a deep breath, and heaved himself up. "Tich. We can start laying the wood in the furnace while we wait. And shift that stack of tin ingots."
"Right" Tich scrambled up, too.
Fiametta slumped, exhausted. "Oh, Thur. I feel like I've just kicked a pebble off the top of one of your mountains, and watched it start two other rocks, which struck five—a mountain is going to fall on someone tonight. Will it be us?"
"On Ferrante, if I can help it." He offered his hand to her; she took it and he pulled her to her feet as lightly as a straw doll.
She bent and gathered up the precious book, "I had better study the spell some more. And gather what I can of the necessary symbols. We'd best not go in and out of the house any more than we can help. The smoke from Ruberta's cooking fire will be put down to the guard, but what's going to happen when we light the smelting furnace? It s bound to attract attention."
"It will likely be dusk, by that time. It's past noon already," Thur pointed out. "You should also take a little time to rest, before."
"Yes." There was no more time for half-efforts or doubts. Fiametta squared her shoulders. She must dance atop this falling mountain, or they would all be buried in it. May God have mercy upon us, amen.
The knocking on the door from the street was unmistakably Ruberta, her habitual loud thump followed by three short taps, repeated impatiently. Fiametta hurried from the front workroom to let her in. The afternoon was waning. Truly, Ruberta had not been gone all that long, considering the complexity and delicacy of her errand, but the passage of time was making Fiametta frantic. Hardly the calm and ordered state of mind ideal for a master mage to cast a major enchantment, Fiametta thought drearily. But then, she was hardly a master mage. She hoped Ruberta had remembered the dried rue.
Tich, not knowing Ruberta's knock, had run to the entryway too, his knife clutched in his hand. Fiametta waved him back to work, and unbarred the oak door. She swung it open to reveal Ruberta, capped and shawled and burdened with a basket and a large jug. Behind her stood a tall silent woman in a long cape with a big hood pulled up over her head, shading her face. Ruberta gave Fiametta a reassuring short nod, as if to say, This is it; I've done it. Fiametta beckoned the women inside and locked and barred the door again.
"Hello," said Fiametta to the strange woman. Woman, not girl. There were gray streaks in her black hair, drawn back in a bun and braid. Lady, Fiametta refined her evaluation; her clothes were as finely made as Fiametta's had been, before the Losimons had stolen most of them. "Thank you for coming. Bless you for coming. Has Ruberta explained—oh, excuse me. My name is—"