The Spirit Ring Read Free

deep and rich, but very, very faint, musical and fine. A year or so ago she could not have sensed it at all; Messer Quistelli clearly did not.
           "The pepper, Papa?" Fiametta offered it.
           "We shall not use the pepper today." He shook his head. He then placed a generous spoonful of the rat powder into one of the wineglasses and tied a string around its stem to mark it. Then he poured the wine into both glasses. The powder dissolved slowly, with a faint fizz.
           "Where is the boy?" Master Beneforte muttered after a few more minutes of waiting. Fortunately, before his master could work up to true irritation, Teseo slammed through the front door and appeared in the workroom, his cap askew on his head and one hose sagging with points half-tied, a towel bundled in his nervous hands.
           "I could only catch one in the midden, Master," Teseo apologized. "The other bit me and ran off."
           "Huh! Perhaps I'll use you for a substitute, then." Master Beneforte frowned. Teseo paled.
           He took up the towel, which proved to imprison a large and wild-looking rat, its teeth yellow and broken and its fur mangy. Teseo sucked on his bleeding thumb. The rat snapped, hissed, writhed, and squeaked. Holding the beast firmly by the scruff of its neck, Master Beneforte took a fine glass tube, drew up some now-chalky-pink wine from the glass with the string, and forced the liquid down the rat's throat. After another moment he released the animal onto the tiles. It snapped again, started to run, and began whirling in circles, biting at its sides. Then it convulsed and died.
           "Now observe, gentlemen," Master Beneforte said. His two guests leaned closer as he took a sprinkle of salt between his fingers and dropped it into the plain wineglass. Nothing happened. He took a second, more generous pinch, and dropped it into the poisoned wine. The salt flared, grains sparkling orange; a blue flame, like ignited brandy, breathed up from the surface of the liquid and burned for fully a minute. Master Beneforte stirred the mixture slowly with the pipette. The contents were now as clear and ruby-bright as the other. He lifted the stringed glass. "Now..." his eye fell on Teseo, who squeaked rather like the rat and apprehensively stepped back. "Ha. Unworthy boy," Master Beneforte said scornfully. He glanced at Fiametta, and a strange inspired smile curved his lips. "Fiametta. Drink this."
           Messer Quistelli drew in his breath with a gasp, and the captain clenched his hand in shocked protest, but Fiametta straightened, gave them a proud and confident smile, and took the wineglass from her father's hand. She raised it to her lips and quaffed it all down in a single draught. Captain Ochs started up again as she grimaced, and just the faintest alarm flared for a moment in Master Beneforte's eyes, but she raised a hand in reassurance. "Salty sour wine." She scraped her tongue over her teeth, smothering a small belch. "For breakfast."
           Master Beneforte smiled triumph at the Duke's steward. "Does it work? Apparently so. And so you may bear witness to your lord."
           Messer Quistelli clapped his hands. "Wonderful!" Though his eyes shifted now and then to recheck Fiametta.
           Regretfully, Fiametta stifled a malicious urge to clutch her belly, drop to the floor, and scream. The fleeting opportunity might be beautiful, but Master Beneforte's sense of humor did not extend to jokes played upon himself, nor did his respect for revenge include justice for insults he laid upon others. It's a great waste, to train a daughter.... Fiametta sighed.
           Messer Quistelli touched the beautiful gold work. "And how long will it last?"
           "The saltcellar, forever, for that is the incorruptible nature of gold. The spell of purification—perhaps twenty years, if the piece is undamaged, and it is not used without need. The prayer of activation will be