All the Plagues of Hell

by Eric Flint

  She was rather dreading her return to the house, especially having to deliver the Doge’s message. She was fairly surprised to find that her return and the summons to the palace were not unexpected. Kat hugged her. “Stop looking so upset. There’s not a lot the Doge can do to the Lion’s vessel,” she said cryptically.

  “I’ve learned enough now, to be very afraid of what he knows and what he can do,” said Maria, as her daughter prattled away to Marco. “I’m sorry I even thought of it.”

  She was left alone with her thoughts and her daughter, as they went off to the palazzo.

  * * *

  Even out on the water in their felse, with their own gondolier rowing them along, Marco, Kat and Lodovico kept their conversation casual. Katerina was a little more worried than she let on. Petro Dorma might not be able to do much about the man who wore the mantle of the Lion—her beloved husband—but he was still a powerful figure in the commerce of the city. The Casa Montescue had made some recovery, and looked to make more. But expenses were high, and just a blighting word from Petro Dorma could hurt.

  Kat really, really did not want to go back to running secret cargos around Venice at night. True, she sometimes missed the excitement…very slightly, on evenings when Marco worked late into the night, or when they had to attend something particularly tedious. But she really did not miss the insecurity and the fear that had always gone with her.

  She loved Maria dearly, who’d been a friend when friends were few. Maria had given her a great deal of good advice about Marco—whom she’d known forever—and about children. But she was plainly unhappy in the casa. It just wasn’t her place, Kat guessed.

  They arrived and were conducted in to see the Doge. Marco politely enquired after his health.

  “I have been reliably informed that I am a bad man, and that you were going to be informed of the fact,” said Petro. “So I imagine my health, or at least my diet, is about to get worse. But otherwise I have no need to see my physician.”

  “Except to alarm my sister-in-law,” said Marco.

  “Well, yes. But I did it for good reason, Marco. She very nearly ended up as the ‘guest’ of Count Andrea Malatesta, which would have annoyed me, your brother, Enrico Dell’este, and quite possibly Carlo Sforza. And they would have been angry with me for failing them. If you could, by those channels you are so carefully not telling me about, tell Sforza that I do not appreciate his spies taking direct action in my territory. Informing my men is all very well, but they overstepped the mark.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Drilled several holes below the waterline of the galley. That part of the port will now be out of action for several days until we get the boat lifted.” The Doge did not sound particularly displeased. “I’m tempted to have them ornament my interrogation chambers. The Council of Ten are mostly in favor of having them found floating facedown in the back canals, along with the captain of the galley, except that they mostly seem to be here to watch your niece.”

  “I suspect that didn’t help the captain of that galley,” said Lodovico dryly.

  “Your years of experience have not misled you,” said Petro Dorma. “Now, I wish you all to understand that Maria and the little girl are not to leave Venice. Not without going as part of the whole fleet, not without my consent. I expect to be informed of any attempt at such folly. I expect you to tell me if it is contemplated. Family considerations aside, there are things afoot that make her and the little one valuable hostages. You will tell her this is what you are constrained to. I do not think she will ask it of you again, but you are watched. I would like your word on this.”

  They all gave it. What else could they do?

  Petro smiled. “As I said, we are watching. After last time…anyway, actually Marco, I asked you to come to see me because I have a request from…a very powerful person for your medical skill. You were recommended by the man you called in to help me when I was poisoned. Francisco Turner thinks if anyone in all Italy can do anything for the young woman it will be you.”

  “Oh. Of course, if I can help, I will. Although Francisco flatters me. He knows so much more…”

  “He seems to think it goes beyond mere knowledge. He says you have a healing touch that he does not.”

  “Just what I have always said,” said Lodovico, with satisfaction. “I liked that man, for all that he was a bit rough and ready, plainly spoken, and liked beer.”

  The Doge nodded. “A testimony of some worth that, Lodovico Montescue. But I would be very obliged if you would give this woman your especial care, Marco. Usually one ends up owing Cosimo de’ Medici. It would be good for Venice if the boot was on the other foot.”

  “Who is the patient, where are they, and what is wrong with them?”

  “It is the Lady Violetta de’ Medici, Cosimo’s second cousin. My men have carried her into chambers on the northern side of the building, as she arrived by boat this morning. I believe she was bitten by a serpent, but her majordomo will tell you more and provide you with a letter from Francisco Turner. I would like to know just what he achieved in Florence, as I was under the impression he’d failed to meet with Cosimo, and had left in a high dudgeon, information which it would seem was…misleading. The young woman in question is, as you may know, one of the closer female legitimate blood relations to the late and unlamented Filippo Maria Visconti. There are only two others closer, and the one is somewhat disqualified by being an illegitimate daughter, and the other is, according to my messengers last night, dead.”

  “Someone is doing all they can to deprive Carlo Sforza of the fig leaf of legitimate rule. I would be guarding that bastard daughter very closely.”

  “I sent a message, indicating that I thought that would be wise,” murmured Petro Dorma, as if talking about the weather. “I should imagine that it hasn’t passed him by, though. On the other hand, Sforza had been refused—rather pointedly—by the woman who died. He is being blamed for poisoning her. And I gather the duke of Parma and his allies—who just happen to include the person who ordered Maria and her daughter kidnapped—now go to war over this matter.”

  “If you don’t mind, I think I had better go and see the patient,” said Marco. “The sooner the better.”

  “Of course,” said the Doge. He tingled a bell. “Barossa will take you down to her immediately.”

  Katerina had to smile to herself. The Doge might rule Venice, but when it came to the sick, it would seem nothing could stand in Marco’s way, and it would seem even the Doge knew it. Marco was meek and mild most of the time, but every now and then the Lion in him was very visible.

  “Interesting times,” said Lodovico, with the relish of a Venetian for intrigue and politics.

  Kat could swear she’d felt her baby move in her belly. She had no appetite for interesting intrigue at all, as Marco took his leave of them.

  Petro looked at her. “Now, while I do my best not to be overlooked or overheard, I will speak somewhat cryptically here. Some of your old connections from harder times have been engaged in trafficking information. Word of Maria’s unhappiness and her desire to return to a…religious sphere of influence she holds on Corfu had leaked that way, I believe, from what my informant in Andrea Malatesta’s court tells me. I don’t actually know the precise source. I would hate to ruin Venice’s reputation for tolerance. Perhaps you should go shopping, my dear, and leave old Lodovico and me to talk. Lord Calenti will provide you with an escort. I suggest you use your family gondola, I will have the others conveyed home in my vessels.”

  Kat knew what she was being asked to do, and where she would go on the Campo Ghetto, after a number of other stops, and with a few more after that. Also, she knew her grandfather well, better than Marco. As the interview was going on, she’d realized that of the three of them, he was the one with the most reason to be nervous but had not been. It was probable that the Council of Ten’s spies had ferreted out a great deal of this plan. It was likely that Sforza’s men had sunk the boat. And extremely likel
y that her grandfather had sent one of his old friends on the Council of Ten word of Maria’s intention. He had made no promise not to tell, and had apparently not been privy to all of it, or was not paying that much attention. Ha, when he was obviously not attending, then you had to be wary.

  Lord Calenti, that sinister devoted servant of the state, had an unobtrusive footman for her and, thoughtfully, a bag of coins. “It’s unlikely that you would have brought much with you. One does not always wish to leave traces of debts behind.”

  Kat wondered just how much he knew of her past dark-night delivery of gray goods to the stregheria and other magic workers of the city, who did not like to advertise their purchases or leave traces of them either. “I suppose if I am doing Venice’s business, I may as well spend her coin.”

  “Precisely,” said the spymaster, giving one of his reputedly rarer-than-diamond smiles. “A little pleasure will make it look like it is not just a cover.”

  And will, no doubt, get various businesses, silver- and goldsmiths and a few cloth merchants onto a list they’d rather not be on. Even if their noses are clean, thought Kat, making a mental list of a few that had, in prior years, given Casa Montescue no reason to love them. It was an odd wheel, but it turned.

  She spent quite a lot of silver and some gold, and made the footman work, carrying parcels and boxes, before arriving at the goldsmith in the Campo Ghetto. She’d already made it clear to Calenti’s man, in their visits to several other establishments, that his job was to stand near the door, out of easy earshot, and make sure that Katerina was not overheard. She had several other people to visit but the old Jew had been a friend and a major contact in her trafficking days, and had passed information to the Doge via Marco before. He was, she was aware, a Cabbalist, and had some magical skills with precious metals.

  The goldsmith’s shop was just as tiny as Kat remembered; and, as she always had in previous visits, she wondered how the old man could get any work done in such tight quarters—or, for that matter, where he had sufficient space to hold his tools and supplies. Granted, gold and the other metals he worked with were not bulky.

  His appearance hadn’t changed much either, if at all. He was wearing a wool black-and-white tallit katan, a fringed garment designed rather like an Incan-style poncho. The distinctive knotted fringes called tzitzit were attached to the garment’s four corners. It was a style of dress favored by particularly devout Jews—or, Kat suspected, by Jews trying to avoid the attention of Venice’s sometimes-overbearing rabbinate.

  She was pretty sure this goldsmith fell into the latter category. At least, the cheery twinkle he usually had in his eyes didn’t seem to fit very well with a man pondering the miseries of the world.

  There wasn’t a twinkle in his eye today, though. In fact, he seemed quite worried. Before she could even start, he said: “I’ve been wanting to pass word to the Council of Ten from the stregheria. Some of the stregheria I know…they dabble in foretelling. Some even get things right. And three of them have gone mad in the last few weeks. I got to talk to Donatzio before he slipped away. He said something about seas of dead bodies. And the Serpent…and that was all. But the talk is going around. A few people are leaving, quietly.”

  “Well, I have something for you to pass on to them, from the Council of Ten, and unless they want to leave Venice fast, something needs to be done.” She explained how news of Maria’s desire to get back to Corfu and to the shrine of the Mother Goddess had been reported to Count Andrea Malatesta, and what had nearly happened as a result. “The Doge said he would hate to ruin Venice’s reputation for tolerance. Read that as a warning to find the informant and deal with them, Itzaak.”

  The old man nodded. “I like it here. I want to stay, to call this home. And”—he gave a little smile—“I would think the stregheria want Benito Valdosta hunting them even less than the Council of Ten.”

  “If Maria or, heaven help anyone, Alessia got hurt, I would think you might have Marco after you, too. And that could just be worse, Itzaak.”

  “We know that,” said the old man. “Trust me, we know that. For those of us who work with things not of this world, we’d far rather take on Benito and the Council of Ten’s agents than the Lion.”

  * * *

  Two days later, Marco, on his way into the palace to see his new patient, was met in one of the passages by Lord Calenti. “Please tell your wife that her little shopping spree was successful. The Schioppettieri fished a body out of the canal this morning, with a message pinned on it. It said: this one will not be sending messages to Ancona again. The woman was a fertility charm seller. Perhaps she had a grudge against Maria Verrier for that reason.”

  “Oh. Kat did say something about it. I’m sorry, I have been so deep in research. This snake bite…”

  “How does your patient do?” Lord Calenti inquired politely.

  “She isn’t dying,” said Marco, grimacing. “Her swallowing reflex seems to work. But if the poison of the snake does not kill her, the poison from the hemorrhages it has caused may. She was fortunate it happened to bite her on the thigh, where she has plenty of flesh. If it had been a hand, the swelling might have been too much for the circulation. She’s fighting for her life. I’ve had to open and drain several of the pustules. She has messy, pussy sepsis.”

  He saw the spymaster was looking faintly green, and stopped there. It was strange that a man who had without doubt ordered deaths and torture, and quite possibly done and overseen them, should be affected thus. So he said no more and went on to the room when the man and woman chosen from among the Doge’s staff were busy changing her sheets again. It was a job they’d done a number of times already and doubtless would many times again. He checked Violetta’s pulse, temperature, the circulation in her limbs, and the state of the necrosis around the bite. That had, at least, not become any worse, although it was still weeping and the dressing would need changing soon. The circulation in her right leg—the bitten one—was poor, so he set about gently massaging it while trying to decide if anything else should be done.

  The problem was that he was on unknown ground. Francisco had carefully described the purple-black snake, and even sketched it in the letter he had sent. He hadn’t recognized it though, and neither had anyone else that Marco had shown it to. Something about it made his flesh crawl, and the part of him that was the Lion even felt the drawing as of something evil. He wondered, not for the first time, if it was actually just a snake, or something magical. But that was a more difficult question still, and he had no one really to ask. He’d searched the Doge’s library, and at the Academia. He’d finally asked Professor Balti to find him two dedicated but poor students that he could pay to go on searching, as he really did not like to leave his patient for too long. He knew liquids had to keep going into her or she would die, but these had to be carefully administered, a sop at a time, or they would end up in her lungs.

  If she lived, it would be a good thing she’d been a fat girl, he reflected, because broth was the most they’d been able to give her.

  The little majordomo who had accompanied her came to him while he was busy dealing with the wound, which had grown into a necrotic hole. If she recovered, she would have bad scarring on that leg. He just hoped it would not affect the bone.

  The majordomo did not interrupt Marco, but watched patiently. Eventually Marco paused and asked what he wanted. He bowed. “My lord. Is there any news I can send to my master? I have just received another message from him asking how she goes on.”

  “Not right now. Let me finish here and I will see what I can say. I’ll have you called,” said Marco tiredly, also thinking that it might take a little consultation with Petro Dorma on how best to phrase what wasn’t a particularly happy state of affairs.

  The man nodded. “I will write at least what I have seen your lordship doing, the hours you work and the goodness of your helpers.”

  Well, that was a start. And fair.

  Chapter 15

  The Holy Roman Empi
re

  Count Mindaug was enjoying the mild spring in the Marches as they made their way west into forest country, avoiding Vienna, and then onward into an area of extensive apple orchards, all in blossom. Many of the blossoms were still pink, but most were starting to shade into white. In places, the trees were so plentiful that the entire landscape seemed to consist of huge pink and white mounds.

  There were many vineyards, especially on the hillsides. On several occasions they also passed by patches where asparagus was being grown. Mindaug had a great liking for the vegetables and was sorely tempted to have Emma and Tamas pluck some for him. But there was always the risk of arousing the ire of a local farmer with that sort of petty thievery. Mindaug wasn’t afraid of farmers, of course, but a confrontation that escalated too far or too badly might draw the attention of those he did need to be wary of. So, with some regret, he resigned himself to an asparagus-free diet, at least until such time as he might be able to purchase some in a market.

  For the count, it was…an odd time. For the first time in his adult life, he was not in service or hastening to be in service to a master of magical and state power. He’d begun that journey as a boy of eleven. He was now fifty-six. He felt as he imagined an old war-horse put out to pasture might.

  In a while, he might yearn for the use of power and long for the intrigues which had been a normal part of his life. In a while, he might want a suitable palace, or at least a noble residence. He might yearn for the company of other nobles…perhaps.

  But right now, he desired none of that, and they had no idea that he was even still alive. He was free to enjoy things he had never dreamed of even wanting to enjoy. To look at the sights and to eat well. Yes, home was merely a traveling wagon and his bed a straw pallet. But the weight that had lifted from his shoulders made it all seem good. And, by comparison, the country was safe, fat and prosperous. His new servants fussed over him as if he were a precious chick. He found that very strange and not a little amusing. They, it seemed, were terrified by the idea of being masterless. They’d fled not to be freemen but because Emma was afraid of being made the concubine of their overlord, and her lover was jealous.