The Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold Read Free Book Online

morning from your brother Uri. He has found you a fine opportunity."
           Uri, still after him to take up the mercenary's pike? The letter's red wax seal was already broken by their apprehensive mother, who greeted every rare communication with suppressed terror, of news of disease, inflamed wounds, amputation, loss of money at play, or disastrous betrothal to some whorish camp follower, all the hazards of a soldier's life.
           It wasn't exactly the risks of a soldier's trade that repelled Thur. All life was a hazard. And he'd be willing enough to make swords. He'd seen Milanese armorers' work that had taken his breath away. But to then take that work of art and stick it into a live man... no. He vented a long-suffering sigh and took the paper.
           A curious shock ran up his arm. His fingers warmed. As he read, his weariness dropped away, and he sat up. Not soldiering after all. His eyes raced faster over the phrases. ... apprentice to the Duke's goldsmith and master mage... marvelous bronze underway for my lord Duke... needs a strong, smart lad... opportunity....
           Thur stroked the paper. The sun would be warm now on the southern slopes of the pass into Montefoglia. In the summer the sun would blaze like a furnace mouth. He licked his lips. "What do you think?" he asked his mother.
           She took a brave breath. "I think you should go. Before that devilish mountain eats you as it ate your father."
           "You'd be alone."
           "Your uncle will look after me. I'd rather have you safe in Montefoglia than up in that vile mine every day. If Uri wanted you for a soldier, it would be different. You know how I hated it when he went for a mercenary. So often the boys come back, if they come back at all, either broken and sick, or turned strange and hard and cruel. But this, now..."
           Thur turned the letter over. "Does the master mage realize I have no turn for sorcery?"
           His mother pursed her lips. "I confess, that's a part I do not like. This Master Beneforte is a Florentine. He may be a dabbler in the black arts, or worse perversions, as dangerous to boys as to maidens. Still, he works for the Duke of Montefoglia, who by Uri's account is honorable, for a nobleman."
           "Montefoglia." He had never noticed before how the very name sounded warm.
           "You can read and write in two tongues, and have a little Latin, too. When Brother Glarus was teaching you he once told me you might go to Padua and study to be a doctor. I often dreamed of it, but then your father was killed, and things got harder."
           "I did not love Latin," Thur confessed warily, suddenly realizing there could be worse fates than soldiering. But his mother did not pursue that subject. She rose to tend to the pease porridge bubbling over the fire, made with extra ham in honor of Thur's narrow escape from the mine.
           He burrowed back into the feather mattress, clutching the letter to his chest. His flesh was still cold as lard, but the paper seemed to radiate warmth. Grave digger, grave digger, go to the fire.... He laughed, then muffled the laugh as his mother glanced over and smiled though not knowing the joke. Montefoglia. By God and the kobold, I think I'll do it. He lay back and watched the firelight flicker like reflections off water on the whitewash between the dark roof beams, and dreamed of incandescent summer.

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
           Ruberta the housekeeper helped Fiametta lift and slide the heavy red velvet gown over her head and smooth it down over her fine linen underdress. Fiametta brushed at the folds of its wide-cut skirt, so profligate of cloth, and sighed pure satisfaction. The dress was far finer than anything she'd dared hope for. Master Beneforte had produced it, quite unexpectedly, from an old chest when Fiametta had complained of the sad figure she would cut at the Duke's banquet in plain gray