"A mutual friend who had a crossbow bolt delivered to my pillow a couple of days back. A blond fellow with excellent classical features that the girls all admired. At least, they used to. I'm not sure what he looks like after all he's been through."
Erik's head shot forward like a snapping turtle. "Aldanto! He's here?"
Benito nodded. "And he hasn't changed except for the worse, either. He's joined up with another old friend that you've met before. With your old tomahawk."
The look in Erik's eyes was something that gave Benito a shiver. "I want him."
But Benito was not about to back down this time. "You'll have to stand in line, Erik. I've got a claim on behalf of my mother, my brother's wife's family, and Maria. Not to mention myself. And this time I intend to get him. If I fail, he's yours."
Erik looked speculatively at Benito. "He doesn't play by the rules, you know."
"I know.
"So should we play tag with him?" asked Erik, with a foxlike look. "I'll find out where he is. Our network of informers is unbelievable, especially since your jailbreak." He grinned at Benito. "Your status on this island is at a level that'll never survive the reality!"
Chapter 83
The middle-aged man looked about nervously. "You're sure we can't be seen or overheard?"
Caesare Aldanto shook his head. "The dog would have detected anyone, Ambrosino. He can smell out the smallest trace of life over as much as two hundred yards. And we simply cannot be seen through the solid walls of the olive-press. You are satisfied with what you have heard from Count Quatrades?"
Giuliano Lozza's uncle nodded. "Yes. I was surprised, to tell the truth."
The empty-eyed blond shrugged. "Why? King Emeric wants an income off the lands he conquers. He'll need vassals who understand local conditions, local peasantry, and how to get the most out of them."
Ambrosino's eyes were wary. "I would have thought he would have given the land to his own nobles, Signor Aldanto."`
"There is enough. And as you have seen, Count Quatrades is well treated." If Aldanto sounded indifferent, it was for a good reason. He was.
"And protected?" Ambrosino asked sharply. "The peasantry have become violent. If there is one thing these peasants should never have been allowed, it is encouragement to rebel. To take up arms. The Venetians have planted and nurtured a seed in this war that will be impossible to put back into the seed-pod. I've said as much but they don't want to listen to me."
The Magyar captain who had accompanied Aldanto laughed coarsely. "King Emeric has a way of dealing with that. There are always more peasants."
"Nonetheless. I want that estate in the Ropa valley, but I also want a full-time guard of least twenty men stationed there. And five thousand ducats." He raised his chin; clearly, he was not going to be bargained down.
Aldanto nodded. "We have brought the gold. The bags are behind you, on that press-shelf."
Greed overrode the man's nervousness. He looked into a number of the bags eagerly, spilling gold pieces.
"We have had engineers from the army repairing the villa on the estate," said Aldanto, smoothly. "You could go there now, if you can tell us where to find Hakkonsen. Or the girl."
Ambrosino snorted with contempt. "You'd need a lot of men to take Hakkonsen in that spot. It's got three ways out, and he has good lookouts. Hakkonsen is planning a raid on Trembolino in two nights. You could ambush him."
"And why is he going to attack Trembolino?" asked the Magyar captain suspiciously. "That's where we are based!"
"I believe," said the middle-aged man slyly, "that they wish to kill a certain blond man. A man they call Caesare Aldanto."
The empty eyes gazed at the Corfiote aristocrat. "Why?"
"It appears that they want to repay some old scores with you, milord," he said, picking up every loose ducat and carefully putting them back where he had gotten them.
"That is an aspect I had not considered," said Aldanto. "Are you privy to the detail of Hakkonsen's plans?"
The man closed up the bags. "No. I'm not part of this raid. My nephew Giuliano is. I could have asked him, but I thought it best not to excite comment. We've had a bit of a falling out. Milord, if you could try and spare him? He and I have argued about the way things are being done, but he is still my sister's son."
"Of course. Families do have their differences, but blood is still thicker than water." Aldanto spoke with the ease of one who does not care what he promises. "Would you be able to guide, say, five of my men in, while the bulk of Hakkonsen's troops are trying to find me? We could be waiting for them when they return, with all the advantage of surprise."
The man coughed politely. "Five men? You would need fifty, milord."
"The five will do to open the path. We will have a hundred men out of our camp without it appearing too deserted, Signor Ambrosino; a hundred men, in blackened cuirasses. What's left will give them a fight, while we do our business."
* * *
Svanhild clung to him. "Couldn't someone else go, Erik? I worry so about you, my precious man."
Erik hugged her. "I worry about you, elskling. But I am going with that young rascal. He has the luck of the devil, so it should be fine."
She kissed him, but frowned, just a little. "I do not approve of Benito. He is not enough respectable for you, ja. And altogether too wild."
Erik patted her soothingly. "Never mind, love. When all this is over, my time of service to the Godar Hohenstauffen will be near an end, and we can go home and never see him again. He reminds me of Manfred a few years back, in many ways. And you don't disapprove of him, do you?"
"Oh, no. But he is a prince," she said, kissing him. The kiss turned into a longer kiss.
Outside the cave—which the Vinlanders had made unrecognizably comfortable, and Erik still felt terribly guilty about having to have Svan live in—someone cleared his throat. "Time to go, sir."
Erik recognized the apologetic voice. Lozza.
He had to smile to himself. Giuliano Lozza. Fat and unfit. Undisciplined and obsessed with revenge.
Then. He was now lean, athletic and tough as whip-leather. Also now Erik's chief arms instructor. What a difference six months could make.
The curious thing was that Lozza hated to kill. He was, Erik admitted, better with a rapier than Erik would ever be. His father, possibly the greatest master of Bravura style, had started training him when he barely breeched. Giuliano used the weapon like other men used their fingers. He had the reflexes, and he had the strength. He just didn't like to kill. Erik was terribly afraid that such a weakness would kill him one day.
It was why he always paired Giuliano with Thalia. For one thing, Giuliano would kill anyone who came near her. He was as protective as a mother hen about the peasant girl. And Thalia, with her new net—carefully blessed—and the knife-skills Giuliano instilled into her, did not hesitate. Ever.
A strange relationship. Erik had never seen either so much as touch each other. She still called him "Master Lozza."
He kissed Svan for a last time and parted from her.
"Take care," she called after him.
"Do my best."