"You are afraid, old man."
The undine called Etheria stared at Chiano with her flat golden eyes, and challenged him to deny his fear. He couldn't. He could only hang his head and nod.
"I am afraid," he admitted. It was always better to admit the truth to the elemental creatures, at least the ones that he had regular congress with. Some of them were damnably good at ferreting out lies. He stared at his dirty, bare feet, at the grasses and reeds of the hummock on which he perched, and heard the undine sigh.
"You should be afraid," she said, grudgingly, and he looked up. She settled her arms and upper back against the hummock across from him, looking like some odd and exotic courtesan relaxing upon the divan in her salon. Her hair was just beginning to dry along her hairline, and it frizzed out in little filamentacious green kinked strands.
"Tell me, please?" he asked, humbly. Humility; it was a new emotion to him, or rather, new to the person he had begun to reassemble from the bits and pieces of his past. He remembered the confidence, bordering on arrogance. What do the Christians say? Pride goeth before a fall.
Etheria didn't show emotions in the way that a human would, for the undine's face was less mobile, more fish-like—but she was clearly as afraid as he was. "First—there are things, evil things that can change their shape, in the lagoon, snooping about the Jesolo, and in the canals. There have always been such things, but more often now; and much, much more evil. At first, we think, they looked for you, but you worked little magic, very little, and they may believe you are no more. Now they prowl more freely—when we do not find them first." She bared her sharklike teeth. "They are no match for us. But we think that one day, perhaps soon, something stronger will come."
Chiano shuddered. "Why?"
The undine studied him. "There is more blood in the water, of late. More bodies. There is more fear on the water; we can taste it, hear it in the voices of the fisherman, the boatmen. The world of you humans is fragmenting, and we do not know why." She licked her lips, but not in anticipation. "When you mortals are at wars, we suffer too, for your world affects ours. As below, so above."
"As above, so below," Chiano sighed. He knew. Whatever happened in the spirit world was reflected in the material world, and vice versa. If there was trouble here below, there would be trouble in their world as well. If something evil came to prey upon humans, evil that preyed upon those who were not human would be attracted. Unnatural death brought unnatural destruction.
"The Silvani—can they tell me anything more?" he asked at last, when it was clear that Etheria had nothing more to give him.
"Perhaps. I know of one who will come if I do call her. And you might be wise not to call one yourself." At last the undine's expression softened. "It is little enough for all that you have done for me and mine."
He reached for the taloned hand she offered. "There will be no talk of debts between us, sister-of-the-waters. Perhaps—"
"When you have found yourself again," the undine said firmly. "You must find yourself again."
She took her cool hand from his, patted him on the head as if he was a child, and slipped beneath the water. Left to await the Silvani, Chiano shook like a reed in the wind. Again. Again that call to "find myself." His memories were still clouded; there were still key fragments missing, things that might protect him so that he could work magics safely again. He had known so much—and now it was all in pieces, shattered, and somehow he had to put the pieces together again. Someone had feared him enough to want him dead, and the self-confident and—yes, arrogant—person he remembered being was the sort who could attract such enemies. He who was Grimas of stregheria, the master of the three magics of stars, moon and earth—yes, evil would come looking for him, and he was bound to combat it. But he was a warrior whose sword lay shattered, his shield broken in two, and his courage beaten to the ground.
But he could pray; he could still pray.
Carmina, Agenoria, help me find my skills again! Fortuna, guard me! Nortia, give me back my memories! Fana and Fanus, Tana and Tanus, Jana and Janus, restore what I once had, and oh Aradia, help me protect this place again!
He hugged his knees to his chest and rocked back and forth in an agony of fear and longing—the longing to be himself again, and the fear of what must surely follow if he ever regained what he had lost. He didn't notice the Silvani until she brushed against his hair and blew into his face to attract his attention.
Then he looked up. If he had not had such an affinity with water-creatures, the Silvani surely would have been his favorites; they appeared as lovely girls, not more than two feet tall, dressed all in red and winged. This one hovered just barely above the water, wings blurring to keep her there, and regarded him with wide eyes.
"What would you, old man?" she whispered. "I think I know you."
"I wish that I remembered," he replied sadly. "Just—of your courtesy, what do you know of the evil our friend tells me is abroad in the city?
"More than I wish to," she replied in a breath. "Something terrible has come, bound in a strong box of iron and guarded by men in steel, hedged about with spell and sword. We dare draw no nearer to it than the island on which it dwells."
For once, he felt a stirring of hope. There were enough Christian mages in the city, surely there was no need for one broken old man! "If it is hedged about—" he began.
"The hedges are... peculiar," the Silvani said, frowning severely. "And among the guardians at least one is unclean. Perhaps more." The Silvani looked so human it was easy to read their expressions, and this one assumed an air of pleading. "Let me speak for those of the air, the Silvani, the Laura, the Folletti and Folletto—you must come again into your powers! The path of the future is shrouded, and the one who veils it from us is—" She shivered, and clearly was not willing to say more.
Well, he could hardly blame her. He suspected he knew the name she would not speak, even though he could not remember it himself. Did not, indeed, want to remember it. But he had a momentary image of something huge and monstrous, squatting in a dark forest littered with rotting tree stumps and shattered bones, devouring...
The image fled. Or, perhaps, he fled from it.
"Thank you," he said, his spirits sinking. There was no choice then; it would be more of the rue and the fennel and the fly agaric; more of the visions to sort through looking for what was memory and what was hallucination...
The Silvani took his thanks as a farewell, and vanished, leaving him once more alone.
***
Chiano remained on the hummock for some time thereafter, thinking through his course of action. By sunset, he had come to one definite conclusion.
He would have to take steps to protect Marco. He could sense that the boy would not remain in the Jesolo for much longer. In the marshes, Chiano had been able to shield the boy as well as shelter him. The marsh locos were afraid of Chiano—Chiano, and his undine friends. The undines would not voluntarily leave the water, true.
And so what? No dweller in the Jesolo could avoid approaching the water, within easy reach of a lurking undine. Not even crazed and vicious Big Gianni was willing to risk their anger.
But if Marco returned to the city, the undines would be of no use. The elemental creatures rarely even entered the canals, for they found the city's waters very unpleasant. And they would not be able to protect the boy, anyway, from the perils he would encounter there.
Not now, for a certainty. Venice would have been dangerous for Marco under any circumstances. But now, with a new assassination attempt having been launched against him, the city was ten times more dangerous than ever. Chiano's memory was still too fragmented to understand the exact nature of that danger. But, in truth, that hardly mattered. Chiano had long ago understood Marco's true identity. For that boy, with that lineage, deadly threats could come from any direction.
No, the undines would no longer make suitable guardians. City assassins were not marsh locos. They did not have to perch by the water every day for their sustenance.
And... Chiano was not ready yet—if he would ever be—to return himself.
So. Practical steps. If necessary, bloody steps. And he had the perfect instrument for the task, right here at hand in the marshes. In that, too, he understood, the Goddess was giving him a sign. And a gentle warning: no more softness.
He even understood, to a degree, the Goddess' insistent and unusual hardness. Marco had to be protected. Not so much for his own sake, but for that of Venice. Chiano wasn't sure exactly why—yet—but he knew it was so. From the very first moment he had laid eyes on Marco, he had seen the great shadow which the slender boy cast in the spirit world. Venice would need that shadow, some day, of that he was certain. And he was certain of it because Chiano himself cast that shadow—or had once, at least. But never as wide, never as broad, never as deep.
Chiano sighed. He knew what to do, and how to do it. Even though that doing was... distasteful. Even, in the end, perhaps wicked.
No more softness, old man!
***
Oh yes, and he'd gotten his little tail well-scorched, had the former Swiss mercenary turned fanatic assassin. Fortunato Bespi had been dying when the undines had fished him out and brought him to Chiano. It would have made a pretty wager, whether shock or drowning would have gotten him first.
Neither did. Chiano and Sophia had patched him up and kept him dosed against fever. He had been bleeding from blade wounds, and burned all over. From what Chiano and Sophia had been able to piece together from the man's semi-incoherent ravings, he had fought off his assailants until they set fire to the house he had barricaded himself in. Even then, apparently, the man had been able to escape and try to find shelter in the marshes, which were the traditional refuge for Venice's outcasts and outlaws.
Eventually, Chiano had been able to glean his identity from the ravings. And, when he did, had come very close to killing the man himself.
Fortunato Bespi! Of all men! If Sophia hadn't restrained him, Chiano would probably have rolled the man back into the waters. This time, with his throat slit and a weight around his ankles.
Fortunato Bespi! Even with his broken memory, Chiano had recognized the name immediately.
Bespi was notorious. Perhaps the best—certainly the most ruthless—Montagnard assassin in all of northern Italy. A fanatic, by all accounts. A true believer, not simply a sellsword. A man so dangerous that, apparently, the Montagnards themselves had decided to kill him. Such, at least, was the explanation which Chiano had eventually deduced from the words which Bespi muttered in the days of his slow healing.
But... Sophia had been firm. So she and Chiano had hidden the badly-injured man on one of the firmer reed-islands, under a basket made to look like a reed-hummock. Sophia, with her own eccentric "theology," had insisted that the spirits had brought Bespi to them for a purpose. And, over time, Chiano had come to half-believe it himself.
And was glad he had, for it was now clear that Sophia had been right all along. Who better to guard Marco from assassins than Fortunato Bespi?
It remained only to... begin the transformation. And he needed to begin immediately, because the transformation would take many weeks to complete.
***
Chiano found Bespi where he expected to find him—squatting on his little island in the reeds, staring at an insect. Bespi did very little else, since he'd finally begun recovering from his injuries. He stared at everything; studied the most insignificant things for hours on end. A man betrayed by the cause he had devoted his life to was trying, Chiano understood, to find meaning in something. Even if it was only the reason that an insect climbed a stalk of grass.
Chiano made no attempt to approach silently. It would have been pointless, anyway. Whatever else Bespi had lost, he had certainly not lost his assassin's reflexes and senses. By the time Chiano appeared in the little clearing where Bespi squatted, the former assassin was awaiting his arrival. Staring at him with the same intentness he stared at everything.
Bespi wanted reasons. Chiano would give them to him.
He held out his hand. "You must begin to eat these also now. With the other food we bring you."
Bespi's burn-scarred face held no expression. He simply stared at the fly agaric and belladonna in Chiano's outstretched palm. He said nothing.
"You are not who you think you are," continued Chiano softly. "I have discovered your true name and your true purpose, in my visions. Now you must discover them also. These will help."
He said nothing further. Simply allowed Bespi the time to examine the possibility of reasons.
Eventually, as Chiano had known he would, Bespi reached out and took the substances. He did not ingest them, simply held them in a loose fist. But Chiano knew that Bespi would begin eating them with his next meal.
There was no expression on the assassin's face. Chiano had not expected to see one. Bespi was an empty man; Chiano would fill him.
He felt some qualms in so doing, but not many. It was, after all, mostly a change in orientation, not in nature. This, without a doubt, was what the Goddess had intended when She'd caused him to be stranded out here. Chiano was sure of it. He rose, and began to turn away. He would return later that night, once Bespi was well into the trance, and begin the transformation.
Bespi's first and only words that day stopped him. "What is my true name, then?" he asked, in a whisper. "They told me it was Fortunato Bespi."
Chiano hesitated. Then, squared his shoulders and turned back to meet the hollow eyes. "They lied. Your true name is Harrow."
"A hard name," murmured Bespi. His lips seemed to tighten. But not with distaste so much as—anticipation.
Venice knew how dearly the Valdosta Casa held their honor.
That upright stiff old man of Marco's earliest memories had sent those few words and that parcel of coin. To do even that, he must have felt Marco had redeemed what Lorendana had besmirched—at least as far as the Della'este were concerned.
That... that had been worth more to Marco than all the money.
Marco hoped that the rest of what he was doing was worthy of that Honor—although he was fairly certain in his own mind that it would be. Honor required that debts be paid, and he owed a mighty debt to Caesare Aldanto. So hidden under the books was his secret, beneath a false bottom in the box. Pen, ink, and paper; and the current "chapter" of Mama's doings, back in the Milanese days. When he had five or six pages, they went off to Caesare Aldanto, usually via Maria. He had written up to when he'd turned ten, now. How much of what he remembered was useful, he had no idea, but surely there was something in all that stuff that Aldanto could turn to a purpose. Something to even up the scales of debt between them.
Marco watered some wine, and got breakfast out—bread and cold grilled sarde, bought on the way home last night. Benito bounced back in the door, fighting his way into a too tight liveried shirt.
No one would ever have guessed, to see them side by side, that they were brothers. Marco clearly showed his Ferrarese-Dell'este ancestry, taking after his mother, Lorendana. Straight black hair, sun-browned skin fading now into ivory, and almond-shaped eyes in a thin, angular face; making him look both older and younger than his sixteen years. Had he been back in Ferrara, nobody would have had any trouble identifying which family he belonged to, for Lorendana had been a softened, feminized image of the old Duke. Whereas Benito, round-faced and round-eyed, with an olive complexion and wavy brown hair, looked like a getting-to-be-handsome version of the Venice "type"—and not a minute older than his true age of fifteen.
"Need to get our clothes washed tonight," Benito said, gingerly reaching for his watered wine. "Or tomorrow."
"Spares clean?" Marco asked around a mouthful of bread, inwardly marveling at the fate that had brought him full circle to the point where he and Benito actually had spare clothing. Of course things had been a great deal better back in Ferrara—but no point in harkening back to that. To go back home would put the entire Della'este house in danger, and with the worst kind of enemy—the Visconti. They were like the vipers of their crest. Deadly, unforgiving and prone to use poison. There was no way Marco was ever going to take that grudge home.
"Yes. I'm wearing `em, dummy."
"So'm I. Tomorrow then. That's my day off; besides, I got to see Caesare tonight." Washing clothes meant getting the washroom after everyone else had gone to work; clearing it with the landlord and paying the extra three pennies for a tub full of hot water besides what they were allowed as tenants. There was an incentive to Marco to volunteer for laundry-duty. Benito was still kid enough to tend to avoid unnecessary baths, but Marco used laundry-day as an excuse to soak in hot, soppy, soapy water when the clothing was done until all the heat was gone from it before rinsing the clean clothing (and himself) out in cold. After two years of alternately freezing and broiling in the mud of the swamp, a hot bath was a luxury that came very close to being a religious experience for Marco. Hence, Marco usually did the laundry.
Benito sighed. " All right. I'll clean the damn fireplace."
"And the lamp."
"Slaver. And the lamp. What are you seeing Caesare about?"
"Dunno. Got a note from him at work yesterday. Just asked me to meet him at Giaccomo's, because he was calling in favors and had something for me to do." "Hey, can I come along?" Benito never missed the opportunity to go to Giaccomo's or Barducci's if he could manage it. Unlike Marco, he loved crowds and noise.
Marco thought about it; then, shrugged. "Don't see why not. Caesare didn't say `alone,' and he usually does if that's the way he wants it. Why?"
"Gotta keep you safe from Maria, don't I?"
Marco blushed hotly. He'd had a brief crush on Maria Garavelli; very brief. It hadn't lasted past her dumping him headfirst in the canal. He hadn't known at the time that she and Caesare Aldanto were together. Benito still wasn't letting him live it down.
The memory of that embarrassing episode led Marco to thoughts of his current "romantic predicament." He rose abruptly, turning away from Benito enough to hide the deepening flush on his cheeks.
He hoped profoundly that Benito never found out about Angelina—he'd rather die than have Benito rib him about her. He much preferred to worship her quietly, from afar—without having half the urchins Benito ran with knowing about it too. He still didn't know too much about his idol—the only reason he even knew her name was because he had overheard one of her companions using it.
Oh, Angelina...
Enough of daydreaming. "Get a move on, we're going to be late." he replied, while Benito was still chuckling evilly.
***
There had been plenty of gossip among the other clerks today, and because of it Marco made a detour down to the Calle del Vin on the way home—to the Casa Dorma. He felt drawn there as if by some overwhelming force. What was really at work was the powerful, almost frantic, "romantic urges" which come suddenly upon any sixteen year boy—which they are incapable of analyzing clearly. And Marco's years in the Marsh had made him even less capable of understanding himself, at least in this respect, than almost any other boy his age. There had been no girls his age in the Marsh with which to gain any experience at all.
So there he was at Dorma's gatehouse, facing the ancient doorkeeper through its grate. Half of him feeling he was in a state of sublime bliss; the other half feeling like a complete idiot. He was glad it was nearly dusk; glad his dark cotte and britches were so anonymous, glad beyond telling that the shortsighted doorkeeper of House of Dorma couldn't see his face. It took all his courage to pretend to be a runner with a message to be left "for Milady Angelina." He moved off as fast as was prudent, eager to get himself deep into the shadows, once the folded and sealed paper was in the doorman's hands. His heart was pounding with combined anxiety, embarrassment, and excitement. Maybe—well, probably—Angelina would get it, if only when the head of the household demanded to know "what this is all about."
And—Jesu!—they'd want to know what it was about, all right. Because it was a love-poem. The first love-poem Marco had ever written.
Anonymous, of course, so Angelina would be able to protest honestly that she had no idea where it had come from, and why. And Marco's identity was safe. He'd written and erased it twenty or thirty times before it seemed right. Then with a carefully newcut quill and some of the fine ink from Master Ambrosino Ventuccio's desk, he had copied it out on the best vellum. And the only reason he'd found the courage to deliver it was because today he'd finally found out who she was.
Milady Angelina of Dorma. The daughter of the house. Not above Marco Valdosta, even though she was at least two years older than he—but definitely above the touch of Marco Felluci. If Casa Dorma discovered some ragamuffin like Felluci had dared to send a love poem to Milady Angelina...
The best he could hope for was a beating at the hands of Dorma retainers. If young noblemen of the family got involved, "Marco Felluci" might very well find himself run through by a rapier—and these great old families usually had a baker's dozen of brawling young cousins lounging around, all of them ready at an instant to defend their family's honor.
Marco sighed. He had buried Marco Valdosta quite thoroughly, and not even for the sweet eyes of Angelina Dorma was he going to resurrect the name he'd been born to. "Marco Felluci" he was, and Marco Felluci he would remain—even though it meant abandoning all hope of ever winning the girl he was quite certain was the love of his life. But even if he couldn't touch, he could dream—and, perversely, even if she were never to learn who her unknown admirer was, he wanted her to know how he felt. So he'd spent three hours struggling over that poem.
Just two weeks ago it was, that he'd first seen her. At Giaccomo's, with a couple of companions. Until then his daydreams had been confined to something just as impossible, but hardly romantic.
The Accademia! Lord and Saints, what he wouldn't give to get in there to study medicine! But—he had no money, and no sponsor, and the wrong political history. Not that he gave a fat damn about the Montagnards anymore, and their fanatical determination to bring northern Italy into the Holy Roman Empire. But there was no way he was ever going to pass for one of the young nobles of Venice or even a son of one of the Casa curti.
Still... Marco was young enough that sometimes, sometimes when the day had really gone well, it almost seemed possible. Because a long-buried dream had surfaced with this new life.
Marco wanted to be a chirurgeon, a healer. A doctor.
He'd had that ambition as far back as he could remember. The patrons of Mama's drug-shop had teased him about it—but right along with the teasing, they'd asked his advice, and had taken it too. That perfect memory of his, again. He remembered symptoms, treatments, alternatives, everything. He'd helped old Sophia out in the marshes, later, with her herbs and "weeds," dispensing what passed for medicine among the marsh-folk and locos.
Of course, since seeing Angelina for the first time, she'd crowded out that particular daydream more often than not. But it was still there, rooted so deeply he knew it would never go away.
And so, as he made his way from Casa Dorma, Marco's thoughts were brooding and melancholy. Two heartbreaks at the same time seemed a bit much, at the age of sixteen! He consoled himself by beginning to compose, in his mind, another love poem. A brooding and melancholy one, of course.
His feet were chilled as he padded along the damp wooden walkways. He couldn't get used to shoes again after two years without them in the Marshes, so he generally went as bare of foot as a bargee. The temperature was dropping; fog was coming off the water. The lines of the railings near him blurred; further on, they were reduced to silhouettes. Farther than that, across the canal, there was nothing to see but vague, hulking shapes. Without the clatter of boot-soles or clogs, he moved as silently in the fog as a spirit—silent out of habit. If the marsh-gangs didn't hear you, they couldn't harass you. Breathing the fog was like breathing wet, smoky wool; it was tainted with any number of strange smells. It held them all: fishy smell of canal, smell of rotting wood, woodsmoke, stink of nameless somethings poured into the dark, cold waters below him. He hardly noticed. His thoughts were elsewhere—back with the inspiration for his poem.
Oh, Angelina...
He wondered if he'd see her tonight at Giaccomo's. Half-hoping; half-dreading. She tended to show up at Giaccomo's pretty frequently. Marco was under no illusions as to why. Caesare Aldanto, of course—the most handsome and glamorous man there. Hell, Caesare even had Claudia and Valentina exchanging jokes and comments about him. Marco wondered hopelessly if he'd ever have—whatever it was that Caesare had. Probably not.
His feet had taken him all unaware down the cobbled walkways and the long, black sotoportego through to his own alleyway, to his very own door, almost before he realized it. He started to use his key, but Benito had beaten him home, and must have heard the rattle in the lock.
"About time!" he caroled in Marco's face, pulling the door open while Marco stood there stupidly, key still held out. "You fall in the canal?"
"They kept us late," Marco said, trying not to feel irritated that his daydream had been cut short. "There any supper? It was your turn."
"There will be. Got eggs, and a bit of pancetta. Frittata do?" He returned to the fireside, and the long-handled blackened, battered pan. He began frying garlic, a chopped onion, a handful of parsley—stolen, no doubt, from someone's rooftop garden—and the cubes of pancetta. Marco sniffed appreciatively. Benito was a fairly appalling cook, but always got the best of ingredients. And, as long as you didn't burn it, there wasn't much you could do wrong with frittata.
Benito tossed the fried mixture into the beaten egg in the cracked copper bowl. Then, after giving it a swirl, and putting in a lump of lard, he tossed the whole mixture back in the pan and back on the heat. "They gave me tomorrow off too, like you—something about a merchant ship all the way from the Black Sea. You got anything you want to do? After chores, I mean."
"Not really," Marco replied absently, going straight over to the wall and trying to get a good look at himself in the little bit of cracked mirror which hung there. Benito noticed, cocking a quizzical eye at him as he brought over an elderly wooden platter holding Marco's half of the omelet and a slice of bread.
"Something doing?"
"I just don't see any reason to show up at Giaccomo's looking like a drowned rat," Marco replied waspishly, accepting the plate and beginning to eat.
"Huh." Benito took the hint and combed his hair with his fingers, then inhaled his own dinner.
"Hey, big brother—y'know somethin' funny?" Benito actually sounded thoughtful, and Marco swiveled to look at him with surprise. "Since you started eating regular, you're getting to look a lot like Mama. And that ain't bad—she may'a been crazy, but she was a looker."
Marco was touched by the implied compliment. "Not so funny," he returned, "I gotta look like somebody. You know, the older you get, the more you look like Carlo Sforza. In the right light, nobody'd ever have to guess who your daddy was."
Benito started preening at that—he was just old enough to remember that the great condottiere had been a fair match for Caesare Aldanto at attracting the ladies.
Then Marco grinned wickedly and deflated him. "It's just too bad you inherited Mama's lunatic tendencies also."
"Hey!"
"Now don't start something you can't finish—" Marco warned, as his brother dropped his empty plate, seized a pillow and advanced on him.
Benito gave a disgusted snort, remembering how things had turned out only that morning, and threw the pillow back into its corner. "No fair."
"Life's like that," Marco replied. "So let's get going, huh?"
***
Giaccamo's was full, but subdued. No clogging, not tonight; no music, even. Nobody seemed much in the mood for it. The main room was hot and smoky; not just from Giaccamo's lanterns, either. There was smoke and fog drifting in every time somebody opened a door, which wasn't often, as it was getting cold outside.
Lamps tonight were few, and wicks in them were fewer. Customers bent over their tables, their talk hardly more than muttering. Dark heads under darker caps, or bare of covering; no one here tonight but boatmen and bargees. Marco looked around for the only blond head in the room, but had a fair notion of where to find him. When he had a choice, Aldanto preferred to sit where he could keep an eye on everything going on.
Pretty paranoid—but normal, if you were an ex-Montagnard. Especially an ex-Montagnard from Milan. Even by the standards of Italy, intrigue in Milan was complex and deadly. Milan was the stronghold of the Montagnard cause, to which the Duke of Milan paid faithful homage. But Filippo Visconti had his own axes to grind and his own double-dealings with respect to the Montagnards. The "imperial cause" was a marvelous thing for the ruler of Milan—so long as it did not actually triumph. If it did... the essentially independent realm of Milan would become just another province within the Holy Roman Empire. And Duke Visconti was not the man to take kindly to the thought of being a mere satrap—any more than his condottiere Carlo Sforza's bastard son Benito took kindly to his older brother Marco's attempts to reign in his less-than-legal activities.
Politics in Milan, in short, was like a nest of vipers. Marco's own mother had been destroyed by that nest—and Caesare Aldanto, who hadn't, made sure he always sat where no one could get behind him.
Marco had been known to choose his seats that way too. Whether he liked it or not, and despite the fact that he no longer cared about such things, his heritage had entwined him hopelessly in the coils of Italian politics.
***
There he was—black cotte, dark cap, golden blond hair that curled the way the carved Angel's hair curled. As Marco had expected, Caesare was ensconced in his usual corner table. But as Marco and Benito wormed their way closer, Marco could see that he was looking—not quite hungover, but not terribly good. Limp-looking, like it was an effort to keep his head up and his attention on the room and the people in it. Minor mental alarms began jangling.
Still, if the man wanted to binge once in a while, who could blame him? Ventuccio had plenty to say about him, not much of it good. Marco picked up a lot by just keeping his mouth shut and his ears open, doing the accounts they set him and staying invisible. What he heard didn't seem to match the Caesare Aldanto that had given two dumb kids a way out of trouble. Especially when it was more logical for him to have knifed them both and dumped them in the canal. He had a feeling that someday he'd like to hear Caesare's side of things. He also had a feeling that if that day ever came, it would be when Aldanto was on a binge. If he ever lowered his guard enough.
Aldanto's table had a candle over it, not a lamp—candlelight was even dimmer than lamplight. The two boys moved up to the side of the table like two thin shadows. Marco had brought his week's worth of recollections, neatly folded into a packet. Maybe it was the dim light—but they stood by the side of the table for nearly a minute before Aldanto noticed them. Marco bit his lip, wondering if he'd offended Aldanto in some way, and the man was paying back in arrogance—but, no; it was almost as if he was having such trouble focusing that he could only attend to one thing at a time. As if he really wasn't seeing them, until he could get his attention around to the piece of floor they were standing on.
When Aldanto finally saw them, and invited them to sit with a weary wave of the head, Marco pushed the sealed packet across the table towards his hand. Aldanto accepted it silently, put into a pocket, then stared off into space, like he'd forgotten they were there.
Marco sat there long enough to start feeling like a fool, then ventured to get his attention: "Milord—"
Now Aldanto finally looked at them again, his eyes slowly focusing. He did not look hungover after all; he looked tired to death and ready to drop. "You asked me to come here, remember? There is something you want us to do?"
"I—" Aldanto rubbed one temple, slowly, as if his head was hurting him; his eyes were swollen and bruised-looking, and there were little lines of pain between his eyebrows. "There was—I know there was a reason—"
This was nothing like the canny Caesare Aldanto that Marco was used to dealing with! Alarmed now, Marco took a really hard look at him, eyes alert for things Sophia had taught him to take note of.
He didn't like what he saw. A thin film of sweat stood out on Caesare's forehead; the blue eyes were dull and dark-circled. Aldanto was fair, but he'd never been this white before. His hair was damp and lank; and not from the fog, Marco would bet on it. And his shoulders were shivering a little as if from cold—yet Giaccamo's was so warm with closely crowded bodies that Marco was regretting he'd worn his thick cotte. And now Marco was remembering something from this morning and the gossip among the other clerks at Ventuccio—a rumor of plague in the town. Maybe brought in on that Black sea ship. Maybe not. Marco's bones said that whatever was wrong with Caesare had its roots here—because Marco's bones had once shaken with a chill that he'd bet Caesare was feeling now.
"Milord, are you feeling all right?" he whispered, under cover of a burst of loud conversation from three tables over.
Aldanto smiled thinly. "To tell you the truth, boy—no. Afraid I've got a bit of a cold, or something. Felt like death two days ago and now it seems to be coming back. A bit worse if anything."
He broke into a fit of coughing, and his shoulders shook again; and although he was plainly trying, not all of his iron will could keep the tremor invisible. Marco made up his mind on the instant.
Marco turned to his brother. "Benito—go find Maria. Get!"
Benito got. Aldanto looked at Marco with a kind of dazed puzzlement. "She's probably on her way. What—"
"You're drunk—act like it!" Marco whispered harshly. "Unless you want Giaccomo to throw you in the canal for bringing plague in here! I don't much imagine he'd be real happy about that."
He rose, shoved his chair back, and seized Aldanto's arm to haul him to his feet before the other could protest or react. And that was another bad sign; Aldanto had the reactions of any trained assassin, quick and deadly. Only tonight those reactions didn't seem to be working.
Marco had always been a lot stronger than he looked—with a month of regular meals he was more than a match for the fevered Caesare Aldanto.
"Now, Milord Caesare," he said aloud—not too loudly, he hoped, but loud enough. "I think a breath of air would be a proper notion, no? I'm afraid Milord Giaccomo's drink is a bit too good tonight."
There were mild chuckles at that, and no one looked at them twice as Marco half-carried, half-manhandled Aldanto towards the door. Which was fortunate, for they both discovered when Aldanto tried to pull away that his legs were not up to holding him.
They staggered between the tables, weaving back and forth, Marco sagging under Aldanto's nearly-dead weight. Out of the double doors they wove, narrowly avoiding a collision with an incoming customer, and down onto the lantern-lit front porch. Down a set of stairs were the tie-ups for small boats, only half of them taken tonight. And pulling up to those tie-ups was a gondola sculled by a dusky girl in a dark cap. Maria Garavelli and no mistaking her.
Marco eyed her uncertainly, not sure whether he was actually relieved that Benito had found her...
Maria was notorious along the canals. Her mother, kin to half of the families in the Caulker's Guild, had done the unthinkable—she'd gotten pregnant by some unknown father, refused to name him, refused to marry in haste some scraped-up suitor, and had been summarily thrown out on her ear by her enraged father. The woman had outfaced them all, bearing her child openly, raising her openly, and taking the gondola her grandfather had left her and making a place and a reputation for hard honest work right up until the day she died.
Maria had continued that reputation, though she had been only just big and strong enough to pole the boat over difficult passages when her mother went to the angels (or the Devil, depending on who was doing the telling). With her skirts tied up between her legs for ease in movement, that dark cap pulled over her ears and all of her hair tucked up into it, she was as androgynous a creature as any castrati. Working a boat from the time she could walk had given her wide, strong shoulders and well-muscled arms. Her pointed chin and high cheekbones looked female, but the square jaw hinges and deep-set brown eyes, usually narrowed with suspicion, would have been more at home in a man's face. There wasn't anything about their expression that looked soft or female, nor was there in the thin lips, generally frowning. She hadn't a woman's complexion, that was for sure; she was as brown as any bargeman. If there were breasts under that shapeless shirt, it wouldn't be easy to tell. But there was more than a hint of womanly shape in the curve of her hips—and her legs were the best on the canal.
Of course, if you dared to tell her so, she'd probably punch you in the jaw so hard it would be three days before you woke up.
They were just in time to see Benito catching the line Maria was throwing him. Light from Giaccomo's porch-lantern caught her eyes as she stared at them. There was something of a mixture of surprise and shock—yes, and a touch of fear—in the look she gave them.
"I think we need to get this fellow home," Marco said loudly, praying Maria would keep her wits about her. She might not know him well, but she knew that Aldanto had trusted them to spy for him, and guard his back, more than once. He just prayed she'd trust him too, and follow his lead.
She did; playing along with him except for one startled glance. "Fool's been celebratin'?" she snorted, legs braced against the roll of her skip, hands on hips, looking theatrically disgusted. She pushed her cap back on her hair with a flamboyant and exaggerated shove. "Ought to let him walk home, that I should. Ah, hell, hand him over."
Aldanto was in no shape, now, to protest the hash they were making of his reputation. He was shaking like a reed in a winter storm. His skin was tight and hot to the touch, as Maria evidently learned when she reached up to help him down the ladder onto her halfdeck. "Look—you—" was all he managed before another coughing fit took him and Maria got him safely planted. She gave no real outward sign that she was alarmed, though—just a slight tightening of her lips and a frightened widening of her eyes.
"Think we'd better come along, Maria," Marco continued, in what he hoped was a bantering tone of voice—for though they seemed to be alone, there was no telling who had eyes and ears in the shadows or above the canal. "Afraid Milord is likely to be a handful. Won't like being told what to do." That last was for Aldanto's benefit. While he talked, he stared hard into Maria's eyes, hoping she'd read the message there.
Go along with this, he tried fiercely to project. I can help.
"You think so?" The tone was equally bantering, but the expression seemed to say that she understood that silent message. "Well, guess it can't hurt—"
"Right enough, then. Benito, give Maria a hand with that line." Marco climbed gingerly down into the boat where Aldanto sat huddled in misery, as Benito slid aboard, the bow-line in his hand.
"What the hell—" Maria hissed, as soon as they were out of earshot of the bank.
"He's got fever. Looking at him, I think it is just the marsh-fever, what they call `Mal-aria', not the plague. You got something to keep him warm?"
Without the need to guard her expression, Marco could read her nearly as well as one of his books. First there was relief—Thank God, it could have been worse, he could have been hurt—and that was quickly followed by anger and resentment. He couldn't guess at the reasons for those emotions, but that expression was chased almost immediately by stark, naked fear. Then she shuttered her face down again, and became as opaque as canal water. At her mute nod toward the bullhead, Marco ducked under it, and out again, and wrapped the blanket he'd found around Aldanto's shaking shoulders.
Aldanto looked up, eyes full of bleary resentment. "I—" cough "—can take care of—" cough "—myself, thanks."
Marco ignored him. "First thing, we got to get him back home and in bed. But we gotta make out like's he's drunk, not sick."
Maria nodded slowly; Marco was grateful for her quick grasp of the situation. "Because if the people figure he's sick—they figure he's an easy target. Damn!"
"Will you two leave me alone?" muttered the sick man.
This time Marco looked him right in the eyes.
"No," he said simply.
Aldanto stared and stared, like one of the piers had up and answered him back; then groaned, sagged his head onto his knees, and buried his face in his hands.
"Right." Marco turned back to Maria, swiveling to follow her movements as she rowed the gondola into the sparse traffic on the Grand Canal. She wasn't sparing herself—Marco could tell that much from what he'd learnt from poling his raft. Which meant she was trying to make time. Which meant she was worried, too.
"Second thing is, we need money. I got some, but not too much. How about you? Or him?"
"Some. What for?" Suspicion shadowed the glance she gave at him as she shoved the pole home against the bottom, suspicion and more of that smoldering anger and fear. Touchy about money, are we, Maria?
"Medicine," he said quickly. "Some we send Benito for; people are always sending runners after medicine, especially in fever season. Nothing to connect Caesare with that." Marco fell silent for a moment.
"You said, `some.'"
"I'll decide the rest after we get him back," Marco said slowly, "and I know how bad it is."
Campo San Polo at last. Up the stairs at water-level they went, stairs that led almost directly to Aldanto's door. Aldanto tried to push them off, to get them to leave him at that door. But when his hands shook so that he couldn't even get his key in the lock, Marco and Maria exchanged a look—and Maria took the key deftly away from him.
Caesare complained, bitterly but weakly, all through the process of getting him into his apartment and into the bed in the down-stairs bedroom. Not even with three of them were they going to try and manhandle him up the stairs to the room he usually used.
Ominously, though—at least so far as Marco was concerned—he stopped complaining as soon as he was installed in bed; just closed his eyes against the light, and huddled in his blanket, shivering and coughing. Marco sent Benito out with orders for willow bark and corn-poppy flowers, also for red and white clover-blossoms for the cough, not that he expected any of them to do any good. This wasn't that kind of fever. He knew it now; knew it beyond any doubting.
"I hope you can afford to lose a night's trade, Maria," he said, pulling her out of the bedroom by main force. "Maybe more. I'll tell you the truth of it: Caesare's in bad shape, and it could get worse."
"It's just a cold or somethin', ain't it?" Her look said she knew damned well that it was worse than that, but was hoping for better news than she feared.
"Not for him, it isn't," Marco replied, figuring she'd better know the worst. "Same thing happened to me, when I had to hide in the swamp. I caught every damn thing you could think of." Marco shook his head. "Well, he needs something besides what we can get at the drug-shops."
"The Calle Farenese..." she said doubtfully.
Marco shook his head firmly. "More than quack-magic, either."
He took a deep breath. "Now listen: I'm going to write down exactly what I need you to do with those herbs when Benito gets back."
"I can't read," she whispered.
Marco swallowed. With Maria's pride, you tended to forget she was just a woman from a large, poor, caulker family. Even the menfolk could probably barely manage to cipher their names. "Never mind. Benito will read it for you. It should help him to stop coughing enough to sleep. The coughing is not serious. The fever is the part that is worrying. It should break soon and just leave him weak and tired. Then it'll start up again. Right now he needs sleep more than anything else. You stay with him; don't leave him. That might be enough—he'll feels like he wants to die, but he's not exactly in any danger, so long as he stays warm. But—" Marco paused to think. "All right, worst case. If he gets worse before I get back—if his fever comes again or his temperature goes up more—"
That was an ugly notion, and hit far too close to home. He steadied his nerves with a long breath of air and thought out everything he was going to have to do and say. What he was going to order her to do wasn't going to go down easy. Maria Garavelli didn't like being ordered at the best of times, and this was definitely going to stick in her throat.
"I know maybe more about our friend than you think I do. I'm telling you the best—hell, the only option. If he starts having trouble breathing or hallucinating, you send Benito with a note to Ricardo Brunelli. You tell him if he wants his pet assassin alive, he'd better send his own physician. And fast."
Maria's eyes blazed, and she opened her mouth to protest. Marco cut her short.
"Look, you think I want my brother going up there? You think we're in any better shape than Caesare is in this town? I don't what you know about us, Maria, but we got as much or more to lose by this. I don't know if Caesare's let on about us, but—"
God, God, the chance! But they owed Caesare more than they could pay.
"Look at me—believe me, Maria . If Brunelli—any of `em—ever found out about me and Benito, we'd—we'd wish we were dead, that's all. We know things too, and we got nobody but Caesare keeping us from getting gobbled up like sardines. Caesare they got reasons to keep alive—us—well, you can figure out how much anybody'd miss two kids. So trust me, the risk's a lot more on our side; if he gets worse, it's the only way to save him."
"Damn it, Marco—" she started; then sagged, defeated by his earnestness and her own fear and worry. "All right. Hell, though—what you've been doing—I dunno why we'd need a real doctor. You're as good's a doctor I ever seen—"
"Like bloody hell I am!" he snapped, more harshly than he intended. He saw Maria wince away, her expression chilling, and hastily tried to mend the breach.
"Look—I'm sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Maria, I'm scared too—for all of us." He managed half a smile, when he saw the hard line of her lips soften. "And you just—stepped on a sore toe, that's all. See, I'd give my arm to be able to go to the Accademia, to learn to be a doctor. And I've got about as much chance of that as your gondola has of flying." He sighed. "That's the problem with having things get better, I guess. When I didn't have anything, I didn't want things, because I knew I'd never get `em. But now I got a little, seems like I want more. Things I've got no chance for."
He hadn't really expected Maria to understand. But to his surprise, she gave a little wistful glance back toward the bedroom, sighed, and nodded. "I reckon we both got a notion how that feels," she agreed. "But—I dunno, Brunelli—he's a shark—that doctor could just as easy poison Caesare as cure him."
"So I just gave you what to do in the worst case, hey? Worry about that when the time comes. Caesare's luck with skinning through, he'll be all right. But if not—I'll tell you now—you might just as well chance poison, `cause if you want Caesare alive, you get him a real doctor as soon as he starts getting worse—if he does, before I make it back."
"Back? From where?" She only now seemed to realize that he wasn't planning on staying.
"I told you, I know this fever. I had it once, too. And Caesare needs more'n what we can get from the drug-shop. So I'm going to get the medicine he needs—the one place here I know I can—where I got what saved me. The place I spent the last two years. The marsh." He smiled crookedly at her stunned expression.
"How are you going get there?" She stammered. "I—"
"I said you had to stay here, didn't I? And keep Benito here to help when he gets back. I'll get in the same way I did the last time. Walk. Or swim. The tide is out and I know the channels. I should do. I lived there for long enough."
—Reprinted from Shadow of the Lion by Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer & Eric Flint by permission of BAEN Books, Copyright © 2002 by Mercedes Lackey. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.