Ariosto by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Author:Chelsea Quinn Yarbro [Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

La Fantasia

By nightfall the odd army had reached low hills, and it was at the crest of the highest of these that Falcone and Lodovico ordered that camp be made. The night was clear and perfumed with flowers and other rare fragrances that were new to Lodovico. The ferns and mosses glistened with evening dew as if they had been sewn with diamonds, and the trees nodded in the low wind. There were blossoms everywhere, but hidden, as if unwilling to show themselves to ordinary mortals. It would have been idyllic but for an ominous tinge of green in the sky.

There was an evening meal of venison and grouse and pork and white fish, and afterward the soldiers gathered in coteries to brag and sing and gamble through the evening hours. Lodovico and Falcone strolled around the camp, and later, they went to be blessed by the officers of their religions.

“But I don’t like that sky,” Falcone said later. It was dark and yet the distant clouds were shot with light. This was no approaching storm, but something more.

Lodovico fingered his beard. “I’ve been watching it,” he said evenly. “If we were at sea, I’d take in most of the canvass, but here, I don’t know what to think.”

“There are no night birds,” Falcone went on. “I’ve been listening for them.”

“They don’t want to come near the camp,” Lodovico suggested, though he did not believe it himself.

“We heard them last night.” The Cérocchi Prince, stood still, his head cocked to the side, for all the world like the bird for which he was named. “There’s nothing. It’s quiet. Hardly a rustle anywhere. What forest at night is so quiet?”

Lodovico shared his concern. “Have you spoken to Cifraaculeo? Has Lincepino said anything?” Though he did not like either the Cérocchi high priest or the Cesapichi wizard, he respected their integrity and trusted them to be truthful in these matters.

“No. I couldn’t find Lincepino. When I went to Cifraaculeo, he did nothing more than invoke the gods for me, and then returned to studying the stones it carries.” This concerned Falcone a great deal, for his eyes narrowed to slits and his brow drew inward puckering the skin above his nose. “I wish that my father had come with us. He is wiser than I. Yet one us…”

“One of you had to stay behind to govern your people, and it is better that you, strong and young, should be in the field, and that Alberospetrale, touched with age, should remain where his experience and understanding will be the most needed.” Lodovico gave Falcone’s shoulder a compassionate pat. “ I know what it is to leave those you love behind.” He dared not think of that too long, for as he spoke the words, the face of Aureoraggio shone before him and he longed for her as intensely as he longed for the benediction of heaven.

“Ah. To you, I must appear contemptible. This is my own land, not the home of a stranger, and yet I hesitate in the face of the danger that threatens it.

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