"I can use their other men. Have whatever the ambassadors need for their comfort carried to the spice pantry." He looked again at the pile of garbage. "Tell them they will be next to the kitchen. They should like that."
XLII
"Count Simon!" Simon recognized the crackling voice of the contessa.
She was wearing a floor-length gown of deep purple velvet. She held up a disk-shaped bronze medallion on a silver chain.
"Please take this, my young paladino. Wear it into battle for me."
Simon went to her, his steel-shod feet echoing in the hallway. All his movements felt slow and clumsy in the mail shirt that hung to his thighs and the mail breeches that protected him from waist to ankle.
Embossed on the medallion was a mounted knight driving his lance into a coiling bat-winged dragon baring huge fangs in rage. Where the lance pierced the scales was set a tiny, teardrop-shaped ruby.
"Thank you, Donna Elvira," he breathed, full of admiration for the workmanship. "It is most beautiful."