She sealed the spell with a name.

“Pietro of Darre!” she whispered without hesitation.

“Your Excellency!” cried Focas, hanging back as the others cried out loud in fear. “What foul creature plagues us?”

“A traitor among us! One who does not serve the empress has brought a demon into our midst to murder the princesses!” She flung up her hands; her sleeves slid down her arms as she cried out. “St. Thecla save us! Matthias, Mark, Johanna, Lucia! Marian and Peter! Deliver us from evil! Seek the one whose spirit has fallen to the Enemy! Seek the one who would destroy us! Take him! Take him! Drive his soul into the Pit! And then begone!”

The shaft of darkness that formed the body of the galla in this world writhed like a chained soul seeking release. The stink choked her, but she kept her arms raised; she did not falter. The galla had the gift, or curse, of sight. They could see into the souls of every man and woman. The darkness lurched, spinning sideways.

Its bell voice rang dully. “Pietro.”

Pietro screamed. He, and the darkness, vanished, and only his bones remained.

The galla had escaped back to its own sphere. That whiff of iron dissipated, subsumed in dust.

Men shouted and wept but gathered most pleasingly around her as sheep flock to the shepherd when they fear the assault of the wolf. Focas fell to his knees, sobbing. The mule struggled to its feet, but collapsed again.

“Your Excellency! I am Captain Falco.”

“I know you, Captain Falco. You are the empress’ most faithful captain.”

He nodded, acknowledging what was to him not compliment or flattery but the breath that allowed him to exist. He appeared unshaken by Pietro’s death, but it was difficult to judge.

“You have done well to guard the princesses. Where are they?”

“Safely in the catacombs, Your Excellency. What news of the empress?”

Always the empress! Yet there would be time to mold these soldiers to her will, and those who refused her could be disposed of, as God desired. The disobedient, after all, were doomed to the Pit.

‘Alas, I do not know what has become of the empress. She sent me ahead but remained herself on the coast, in the town of Estriana. She had set an ambush for the northern prince, the rebel, the one who sought to kill his own father, the Emperor Henry.”

“Patricide!” Falco was a stolid, competent soldier of medium height, with the broad shoulders of a man who has swung a sword and carried a shield since he was a lad. “I had heard the Wendish were barbarians. Now I know it to be true!”

In Antonia’s opinion, the Wendish were simple, honorable folk in their own crude way, without more than a finger’s weight of the capacity for greed, backstabbing, and treachery that thrived among the sophisticated Aostans. The southerners plundered and robbed each other, cut each other’s throats, and whored with their own sons and daughters. Still, it was best not to mention that to Captain Falco, who might take offense even though it was only the truth. God would overwhelm the wicked and reward the righteous, and Antonia would see justice done while she was waiting for Them to act on Earth.