"I need no preparation!" Lord Ferrante raged back, leaning toward him. "Your war can begin right now!" As Fiametta watched open-mouthed, Lord Ferrante snatched his dagger out left-handed. In the same continuing upward arc he slashed it across Duke Sandrino's throat, so powerful a blow it half-severed the neck and bounced off bone. Ferrante struck so hard he unbalanced himself, and he and his victim fell into each other across the desk as if embracing, smeared sudden scarlet.

With a shocked cry that was almost a wail, Captain Ochs ripped his sword from its scabbard and started forward. In the confined space of the cabinet a sword was little more effective than a dagger, though, and both bravos had their daggers out. The gap-toothed lieutenant took the choleric nobleman through the heart with a blow almost as sudden and powerful as his master's first stroke had been. Aged Messer Quistelli, unarmed, ducked, but not fast enough; the second bravo's knife blow knocked him to the floor. Uri, lunging forward, deflected a follow-up blow, then found himself wrestling the man.

As the priest raised his hand, Lord Ferrante gestured toward him with his bunched right fist; the silver ring glared and the priest clutched his eyes and screamed. Lord Ferrante stabbed him through his unguarded chest.

"I must get my husband!" The castellan's wife dropped her ewer, picked up her skirts, and ran for the garden. The lieutenant looked up at the noise, frowned, and started toward Fiametta. His eyes were very cold. Dizzied with shock, her heart hammering, Fiametta whirled and sprinted after Lady Pia.

She was almost blinded by the sunlight. Halfway across the garden, the castellan's wife was hanging on her husband's arm and screaming warnings; he was shaking his head as if he found incoherent the cries that made perfect sense to Fiametta. She looked around frantically in the white afternoon for her father's big black hat. There, nodding to some man. The lieutenant turned his head in the doorway, and plunged back inside. Fiametta flung herself onto Master Beneforte's chest, her fingers clutching his tunic.

"Papa," she gasped out, "Lord Ferrante just murdered the Duke!"

Uri Ochs spun backwards through the door, There was blood on his sword. "Treachery!" he shouted. Blood sprayed from his mouth with the words. "Murder and treachery! Montefoglia, to arms!"

Ferrante's men, as surprised as Montefoglia's, began to gather together in knots. Ferrante's lieutenant, pursuing Captain Ochs through the door, cried his comrades to his aid.

"The devil," hissed Master Beneforte through his teeth. "There goes my commission." His hand clamped on her arm, and he wheeled around, staring. "This garden is a death trap. We have to get out of here now."

Men were beginning to draw swords and daggers, and the unarmed to snatch up table knives. Women were screaming.

Master Beneforte started, not for the door, but toward the high table. Captain Ochs and Ferrante's lieutenant were also heading that way at a pell-mell run. Ferrante's lieutenant leaped and aimed a sword swing across the linen at little Lord Ascanio that would have taken off the boy's head if Captain Ochs had not knocked the blade aside with his own. Abbot Monreale started up and dumped the table over on the gap-toothed Losimon as he stumbled and turned for another strike.

With a wild lunge, Master Beneforte caught his saltcellar as it arced glittering through the air, and bundled his cloak about it. "Now, Fiametta! For the door!"

Fiametta yanked convulsively at her skirt, pinned under the edge of the heavy table. "Papa, help!"

Duchess Letitia clutched her daughter and half-jumped, half-fell over the back of the platform into the tapestries. Uri, leaping up, grabbed Ascanio and shoved him toward Abbot Monreale. "Get the boy out!" he gasped. The abbot swirled his red robe around the terrified child, and parried a bravo's sword thrust with his crozier, followed up quite automatically with a powerful and well-aimed kick to the man's crotch.

"Saint Jerome! To me!" Monreale bellowed. His prior and brawny secretary sped to his aid. Another bravo's descent on Ascanio was met with an odd motion of the abbot's staff; the man's face grew abruptly blank, and he wandered off over the side of the dais, sword drooping. He was struck down by one of Montefoglia's guards joining the fray. Master Beneforte, halfway to the door, heard Fiametta's cries and started back.

Uri, guarding the group now growing about the abbot and Ascanio, locked in murderous swordplay with Ferrante's gap-toothed lieutenant. Uri's breath bubbled strangely. In a thrust-and-parry, Uri kicked aside Lord Ferrante's footstool-chest over the edge of the dais. It bounced on its side and spilled open. It was packed with rock salt, which cascaded across Fiametta's feet.

Pickled in the salt curled the shrivelled corpse of a newborn infant. Fiametta screamed, and ripped her caught skirt out from under the table in her recoil. Uri glanced aside, his eyes widening; Ferrante's lieutenant lunged and thrust his sword through Uri's new doublet. Fiametta could see five inches of blade sliding out of the captain's back. The gap-toothed man turned the blade, put his foot to Uri's torso, and yanked it back out with a dreadful sucking sound. Blood gushed from both wounds, front and back. The captain fell. Fiametta wailed, stooped, and flung a heavy platter at the Losimon lieutenant with all her strength. Master Beneforte grabbed Fiametta's arm and dragged her toward the exit.

The doorway was clotted with struggling men. Master Beneforte fell back, dismayed. He shoved the bundled cloak containing the saltcellar into Fiametta's shaking hands and snarled, "Don't drop it! And stay on my heels this time, damn it!" He snatched up a bottle from one of the tables, and drew his own showy dagger with its jewelled hilt. The mirror-polished blade, never yet used, flashed in the sun.

Master Beneforte tried again to force his way through the garden's only exit. A knot of men exploded outward as more of Montefoglia's guards charged through. Master Beneforte darted forward into the brief breach. Just inside, one of Ferrante's men cut at him. Yelling, he parried, and splashed the contents of the little jug into the man's face. The Losimon yowled and swiped at his eyes with his free hand, Master Beneforte knocked his sword aside, and they were through.

"Magic?" gulped Fiametta.

"Vinegar," snapped Master Beneforte.

There was another vicious struggle going on at the despised marble staircase. Master Beneforte practically tossed Fiametta over the balustrade, and vaulted after her. They pelted across the courtyard toward the tower-flanked gate, now being hotly contested by Ferrante's men and Montefoglia's.

Lord Ferrante was there in person, gesturing with a sword and shouting encouragement. "Hold the gate, and we'll have the rest at our will! Hold!" Almost casually, his sword licked out and tore open the throat of an attacking soldier in Montefoglia's livery. The man had ribbons in Ferrante's colors tied to the flower-and-bee badge of his cap in honor of the day's festivities, and they bounced wildly as he fell.

"Christ Jesus, it's going to be a massacre," Master Beneforte groaned.

Lord Ferrante turned and saw Master Beneforte. He stepped back a pace, his eyes narrowing, then raised his right fist with the silver ring face-out. Master Beneforte growled "Stupid!" in his throat, and raised his own hand in a peculiar rapid wave, fingers moving very precisely. Fiametta's belly wrenched with the tilted gut-feel of clashing magics. There was no subtlety in this. The silver ring began to glow, then suddenly emitted a brilliant flash and an earsplitting crack.

Lord Ferrante, not Master Beneforte, screamed, dropped his sword, and clutched his right hand with his left. A distinct odor of burnt meat wafted beneath another sharp tang Fiametta could not identify.