"Shut up, Benito," growled Erik, glowing dully. Under the dye, that pale skin produced a truly vibrant red color. Benito decided that the next time they were cold, he'd embarrass the Icelander; you could warm a family of five by the heat he gave off.
"But it is true!" insisted Thalia. "He saved me from the raping Croats, kyria. He killed two of them, just like that. And the sentry on the hill. He is a great fighter. He pulled at the burning wood with his bare hands and he beat back the men of Paleokastritsa and—"
"And let's get out of here! Please," begged Erik. "Either the Hungarians will arrive, or the locals are bound to come back."
"Or both," agreed one of the Vinlanders. "Don't want to be in the middle of that."
Soon the entire party was riding to Paleokastritsa.
* * *
The yellow dog almost howled in triumph. At last the shaman had a trace of magic that rose above the general reeking miasma of this place. He ran through the olive groves, pine forests and the macchia. He ran on past sentries and past hiding peasants. He had many miles to go.
But it had been a piece of intense and powerful sorcery, not finely crafted and precise as the names of power he used, not demon-bludgeon strong as Jagiellon used. Precisely, he thought, what Jagiellon was looking for. This magic was raw and primal, elemental—big, in the way an earthquake or a thunderstorm was big.
Dangerous, too, but that was not his problem. His problem was to find it, Jagiellon's to tame it.
He sent his hawks winging north, a part of him seeing through their eyes, eyes that could see a field mouse twitch the grass at five hundred feet. It took him quite some time to realize that the hawks were being subtly pushed away. The thermals slid them off to the west, the winds seeming to buffet against them whenever they tried to fly to one corner of the island. The hawks were becoming exhausted. Worse, they were becoming recalcitrant. Ever since he had tried to use them above Venice, the shaman had noticed that his control over the two hawks was not as it should be.
He was both angry and astonished. It was not possible! He had their true names, which made them his. His absolutely. Yet . . . he could not ignore the fact that they were rebelling. Not in great things but in small ways, in a slow and steady erosion of his control. It must be this vile place's magic.
Well, where they could not go was as good an indication of where he had to go as them actually seeing something. The yellow dog ran on, allowing the hawks to go to roost.
It was midafternoon before he reached the place. He looked at the few burned branches and the evidence of the recently flooded stream and smelled raw magic.
He tried to take a step forward, and stumbled. Grass had grown around his feet, the thin strands intertwining and binding. He kicked his way loose, then moved forward, sniffing. A dog's nose is a wondrous instrument. He could smell the horses as individuals; he could smell the people, the peasants and the others, and know who had wandered where. He could smell the women among them, two of them. He could smell . . .
Achoo! He erupted in a volley of sneezes.
All the flowers suddenly seemed intent on smothering him in their scents. He flicked his ears. A horsefly buzzed about them; then another. One bit him just below the tail on the exposed flesh. The shaman turned and snapped angrily at it, cracking it in his yellow teeth. Another bit his ear as he did so. Several more came buzzing up. One affixed itself to his nose. The shaman pawed furiously at it.
The shaman was one of the greatest and most powerful of magicians. He was proofed against many great magics.
Horseflies made him flee.
Horseflies in those numbers could make anything flee. They seemed immune to his protective spells.
Still, he knew the area in which the magics were being worked now. The master could send Aldanto. It would do the blond puppet good to be bitten by few horseflies.
* * *
"Go away or we'll shoot you," said one of the pair of guards on the wall. He brandished his arquebus in a manner that was more awkward than fierce. "You're not wanted here!"
One of the Vinlanders, the one who seemed to do all of the talking, contrived to look sheepish and apologetic. "It was a misunderstanding, truly. We were running from the invaders, and we were starving. We have money! We want to pay for the animals."
There was a hasty consultation between the sentries. "We'll get someone to call old Cheretis. It was his goats."
The other guard peered at them more closely. "Oh. It's you again, Spiro. I thought we'd gotten rid of you. I see you're in bad company, as usual."
"But I haven't been anywhere near your sister, Adoni," said Spiro with a grin.
The guard glared at him. The other guard nearly fell over the crenellations laughing.
The goat owner, when he arrived, reminded Benito more of a sullen, bad-tempered porker than a goat. Like the ones a few people over on Guidecca had kept on the scraps in those big market-gardens over there. He had the same sparse, bristly beard and pronounced jowls.
But he was as obstinate as a goat, even if he didn't look like one. "They must be punished! Even if they pay for the goats, they must be punished!" He pleaded with the guards, in a squeaky voice. "After all, if you shoot them, I get paid for my beasts from the money they have with them. And you get the rest."
Spiro shook his head. "Don't be dafter than you have to be, you old Malakas. They were strangers visiting our beautiful island when the Hungarians attacked. Where is our famous Corfiote hospitality? Why are you fussing over a few miserable, scrawny goats?"
"Scrawny goats! They killed my best milker! She was the most beautiful goat on the island, hair like silk, an udder as soft as a baby's face and milk, so much milk you'd have thought she was a cow. And as for hospitality: what sort of guests kill your livestock?"
Spiro turned to the Vinlanders, Benito, Erik and Thalia. "See? I told you how they felt about their goats in Paleokastritsa!"
The laughter might have infuriated the goat-owner, but it decided the two guards that they were obviously no threat. "Have you got the money to pay the old bastard?" asked one guard.
"In gold," said Bjarni, curtly.
Not much gold came to Paleokastritsa. Even the goat-owner looked less sour. "Such fine goats as mine are worth a great amount of gold."
"Let us in and we can argue about it," grumbled Benito, "before some Hungarian troopers come along because of all that smoke. And they take all the gold instead."
Benito reached into his own small pouch and hauled out a silver penny. "Here, Spiro. I owe you this for information. I promised him a ducat from you, Erik."
Erik dug in his pouch. "Here are two." He handed them over with a flourish carefully visible to the gate. "I'm in your debt for finding and helping my friends."