Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (books to read romance .txt) 📗

      I remember Lucrezia talking alone with Helen, at great length, while I was telling Lorenzo as much as I could about King Matthias’s artistic patronage. In particular Lorenzo wanted to hear more of the royal book collection. Later that night I could see that Helen had been weeping; but I chose not to question her about it. Experienced husband or not, perhaps I made a great mistake.

      On the morning of our third day at Careggi, as I had more or less expected, my bride and I were cordially invited by our hosts to visit a house they owned in Pisa. Pisa was a small city at no very great distance from Florence, and at the time under Florentine—and therefore Medici-political domination. We were loaded with more presents, and furnished with an escort for the journey.

      The house, when we reached it, proved to be no more than a comfortable cottage; no doubt it looked smaller than it was because we came to it from the opulence of a palace. Yet I was content with its modest comforts, considering it only a way station on the road to power and glory; and it seemed to me that Helen was content also. She had recovered from whatever had made her weep, and was playing the role of devoted wife to my fullest satisfaction.

      A few weeks later, when autumn was well under way—it was an extremely lovely autumn in Italy, as I recall—a message at last reached me from King Matthias. The royal blessing was pronounced upon our union—rather perfunctorily, I thought, at no great length and with no special warmth. Then to business. I was to join the king and his army in Bosnia as soon as I could possibly do so, and that was that. Reading between the lines of this missive, I felt sure that the campaign was not going as well as had been hoped. In fact it seemed likely to me that a military disaster of some magnitude might have been in the making when the king wrote; fine considerations of peace and harmony in the officer corps no longer prevented his using another good field commander.

      Well, I was ready. A honeymoon idyll in flowered idleness now and again was enjoyable, but I was basically a soldier. I made immediate plans for my departure for the distant front on the morning after the letter arrived; and, following a terse hint in the king’s message, for Helen’s departure from Pisa on the same day as mine. She would go back to Florence, where she would remain under Medici care. Eventually she would be sent under escort with some traders to Buda, there to remain till I should be free to join her.

      On what was to have been the morning when this planned temporary separation began, I was awakened by a servant crying that something was amiss. Helen was already gone, though not with any Medici escort. On the pillow beside mine, my own bare dagger had been laid, its point aimed at my head.

Chapter Thirteen

      Thorn in his timeless mode of horror had no choice but to watch the centimeter-by-centimeter progress of the wavefront of the blast as it rose toward him along the steering column. The shockwave of it was so intense that it distorted vision like thick glass. He could watch it coming, but he could not get away in time; not even he could move that fast. Nor were his extranormal powers able to dissolve his solid flesh to mist quickly enough to allow him to avoid the onrushing pain and shock. He could think, and, thinking, doubted that the blast was going to end his life; it was too artificial a thing to be able to do that. He would survive, though with what injuries he did not know. Yes, he would survive.

      As for Mary … if he could not save himself, it was even more hopeless that in these first microseconds of the expanding bomb blast he should be able to do anything for her. He had not even time to move his eyes for a last look at her, much less reach out an arm in even the feeblest gesture of protection.

      The only thing that he could do, he did: willed himself to change into a form intangible. He did this with all possible speed, yet the change did not even begin until his feet and the lower portions of his legs had already been engulfed by the blast-wave. A fraction of a microsecond after his eyes reported the immersion of his feet, his vampire’s nerves already had brought the pain of the fire and force enveloping them to eat at his brain like acid.

      The dissolution of his solid shape began to ease the pain, though not before it had risen as far as his lower torso. Something hard and mechanical, yes, the steering column itself, came spearing, raping its way right through his melting abdomen, reaching for his fading spine. His last clear sight of the blast through solid human eyes showed him the walnut-grained instrument panel exploding with an awful velocity toward his face. It is not real wood, he had the time to think. It cannot kill me even if I am not fast enough to get away. But he was gone before the panel struck.

      Ten yards outside the vehicle, the blast-wave already past, and the first surge of secondary flame beginning, Thorn gathered his mist-shape back into that of man. He reformed his body as quickly as he could, despite the renewed pain brought by the recreated nerves, and the consciousness of real injury done to his feet and legs. In solid shape he could see more clearly, and act with greater force.

      When his vision cleared, the roof of the Blazer was completely gone, as was the hood, with new fire blooming where they had been. Some portion of the explosion directed downward had lifted the front