by Eric Flint
“Well, I don’t see what else I can do,” said Marco. “Any last-minute tips on wrestling, brother?”
“He will not allow you to go to his garden, Lion. My consort, he cannot refuse, or my consort’s partner, because Laurin is some kind of vassal of mine.”
“But I can’t ask that of you. Either of you,” said Marco.
Benito shrugged. “Carlo Sforza is my father, Marco, not yours. Better me than Maria. I think I’m a better wrestler than she would be.” Wrestling was something he’d done a little of with Erik Hakkonsen—enough to know that he wasn’t all that good at it. “I suppose this Laurin is a champion wrestler, too?”
“I do not believe he is very skilled, actually,” said Aidoneus. “With his advantages, he doesn’t need to be.”
“And what are those advantages?” asked Benito.
“He has a belt of strength that lets him toss people around, and a cloak of invisibility that lets him close with them without them seeing him. And he rides a deer-sized horse, faster and more agile than any mortal steed, but he will dismount to fight a man on foot.”
“I think the chances of me fighting on horseback are about the same as the chances of my staying on one. Hmm. Invisibility and a belt…”
“You mustn’t do this, Benito. I want you alive, with all your limbs,” said Maria firmly.
“There is a reason why he must, Maria,” said Aidoneus quietly. “I can tell no man of his passing, but there are points in the weave… Let me say this bluntly. I cannot tell you what will happen, but I value you…and I have met your daughter…”
“He’s trying to tell us that the disease will kill Maria and Alessia,” said Marco, “and somehow that ties to curing Sforza and Violetta de’ Medici.”
“You see too much, too well, Lion of Etruria.”
“I have advantages that most men do not,” said the voice that wasn’t quite Marco.
“I would also guess that’s why Aidoneus arranged this whole thing,” said Benito suspiciously. “He wasn’t particularly encouraging yesterday, and now it is suddenly all arranged?”
Slowly, Aidoneus nodded. “I stand in a difficult position. If I could do it myself, I would. But I cannot cross the thread because I have no thread to break. There are no over-too-soon lives blooming on the other side for me or for the mother. It is for mortals, and I am not that. I will lend you aid to get there. But we must go soon, Benito Valdosta.”
“If he is going, so am I,” said Maria tersely.
“You can’t do that, Maria!” protested Marco.
“Why not? If Benito fails, I’m dead and our daughter is dead. What have I got to lose, bar a few limbs? If there are two of us, Benito can keep him busy while I pick flowers. That is very ladylike.”
It was difficult to argue with her, and Benito had the intelligence to not even try. “I can think of no greater honor,” he said. And then rather spoiled it by saying: “Besides, I can’t wait to see you picking flowers like a lady born.”
Aidoneus saved him from a thick ear, before the fighting even started, by saying: “Under no circumstances can you pick the flowers! You must take a basket and only gather any petals they let fall.”
“And I suppose sticking a knife between this Laurin’s ribs is right out, too?” said Maria, crossly.
“He wears koboldwerk, and it is cunningly wrought. He is armed as if he is the greatest of knights, with a magical sword that is always faster than any other, and armor that is proof against any blade. It is magical in its construction, as is his sword. Your only chance is to wrestle with him. He is a small fellow and enjoys flinging men around. He lost against Theoderic, who was clever enough to steal his belt and cloak.”
“Koboldwerk.” Benito grimaced. “Then I will take a bucket of canal water with me. The only time I’ve seen Erik in any remote danger of being defeated was when he was upset about getting salt water on his armor. He was so busy thinking about how hard that would be to clean that he wasn’t thinking about fighting. And it sounds like I might as well have a bucket with me as anything else.”
“Water from my lagoon has my virtue about it, as well as quite a lot of other things,” said his brother, who right then was more than his brother. “A joke sometimes has an element of truth in it, and this time I feel it does. You must take that water.”
“Get your bucket and your basket—but we must away,” Aidoneus said. “We have many miles to cross to be in the high Alps before the dawn, which is the only time that the rose garden touches this world.”
* * *
Hand in hand, they walked through a grayness that was certainly no part of Venice. It was not fog-shrouded mud, but like it in appearance—and just as depressing and hard to walk though, Benito thought, even if you weren’t carrying a bucket of canal water. Personally, he felt that winged horses had more going for them than the ways of the dead, even if it involved being on horseback.
It grew steadily colder and, oddly, even darker…and then there were stars. Staring intently, Benito could just work out where the starry sky ended, and the darker, jagged skyline met it. Underfoot now something crunched…and Benito realized it was the first sound he’d heard for some time.
“I must leave you here,” said Aidoneus. “Reach your hand forward, slowly and carefully, and you will feel the thread. Do not break it, or the only way out will be through Laurin’s kingdom. And that is unlikely, so just don’t. Step over it and you will find yourselves in the rose garden. Laurin will come to challenge you. You only have until the sun is up.”
Benito realized that the light was improving by the second. There was almost a hint of purple above the darker spikes of the skyline. He knew from many nocturnal expeditions that it wasn’t actually darkest before the dawn, and that first light was not far off. There was no point in waiting. Besides, it was too cold to stand still.
He let go of Maria’s hand with a last squeeze and felt cautiously for the thread. It was a thin strand, quite taut and not hard to step over.
Inside the garden, it was much lighter. Not from the dawn yet, but from the blossoms. They seemed to glow slightly, and there were a vast number of them in a small space. They were growing where no ordinary rose could, into the bare rock and through the drifts of snow. Fighting here without breaking the plants would be very difficult. Benito picked out a monolith of rock, about fifteen feet high, with a little open ground in front of it. “Let’s go there, love. It’s about the best spot I’ve seen here to try and fight.”
“If you hit him from behind, while I—” started Maria as they walked to it—when she was interrupted.
“Hit who? You can’t even find me, hee hee hee!” There was a flick and the cloak’s hood was pushed back, revealing a dark-eyed face with a big bulbous nose and a bushy white beard. There was another brushing movement, and the cloak must have been pushed back and there was Laurin, dressed from head to foot in fine chainmail, except for his steel cap. Around his waist was clasped a broad, ornate belt of large golden plates. He carried a two-handed sword…casually, in one hand. Laurin himself stood only about four foot high, but the sword was easily half again his height.
Laurin edged his dainty pony forward from behind the roses. “What do you want in my garden?” he demanded as he dismounted gracefully, which Benito could only envy. His own dismounting usually added up to more or less controlled falling off. And unlike Laurin’s pony, most of the horses he had anything to do with usually didn’t just stand quietly.
“It’s a beautiful garden,” said Benito, judging his distances and taking in details in the growing dawn light.
“I tend it carefully, and protect it. Have you come to talk or fight?” asked the dwarf.
“To wrestle, if you put down the sword.”
“Ho. I thought you had come to water the plants,” the dwarf sniggered, as he set the sword down.
In answer, Benito slung the bucket and its contents at the dwarf. He didn’t miss with it, either. The dwarf staggered back…and vanished.
“Gather petals,” shouted Benito, “while I argue with Shorty.” And he jumped sideways and ducked and rolled.
He had some small advantage in that the bare rock showed very clearly where his opponent was, in wet footprints. It was still no way to fight. So he took to what he knew best—the heights. A small ledge, a heave or two, a long reach and he was on the top of the little pinnacle.
“Come down and fight!” yelled a furious voice from the space above the dripping puddle.
“Did you have a nice watering?” said Benito, sticking his tongue out and blowing a raspberry. “Maybe you’ll grow now. Come up, if you can reach.” He was working on being as annoying as possible, but Maria, instead of gathering petals, had ruined his plan of jumping down behind the dwarf, because she was sneaking up behind Laurin herself, a knife in hand. Benito blew another loud raspberry.
“I’ll use you like a scythe! I’ll have every limb off you and…arwh!”
At this point, Benito jumped down anyway, his intention to hit Laurin as hard as possible, as the dwarf had obviously grabbed Maria. He could tell by the way she was being pulled down. But it was a bit too late for Laurin, as she had cut his belt. Benito’s feet hit the invisible dwarf and knocked him down. Maria stumbled free, backward, nearly falling into a rosebush, only just saving herself at the last moment. The cut belt lay on the ground. Now Benito was grappling and rolling on the ground with an invisible, wet, steel-clad foe. A strong one, but not that strong.
“Collect petals!” he yelled. “I can handle this—ouch! You little bastard!”
He found an arm and twisted it. Laurin managed to rip away from him and Benito faced a foe he couldn’t see—but could certainly feel when Laurin punched him in the stomach. Gasping, he felt a hand grab his cotte, trying to pull him forward. So he sat down, and was lucky enough to sit on the foot Laurin had been trying to sweep him over. The dwarf had no choice but to fall with him. This time Benito’s hands found cloth, and he wrenched really hard. The cloak tore off, and Benito could at least see his opponent. Now that he could do that, it was a lot less difficult. Laurin wanted to get up, somehow, to try to throw his opponent around. But Benito stayed down. Even when Laurin broke free and swung a furious kick at his head, Benito managed to duck forward, catch the foot and make the dwarf fall. And then he grabbed hold of him, while Laurin tried to roll the two of them to the flowers. Benito felt the scratch of thorns, which gave him enough strength to roll the other way and pull Laurin under him, and end up sitting astride the dwarf’s chest, holding his arms down, while Laurin humped and strained futilely.
It was Benito’s first chance to look around. The sky was pink with dawn. Maria was hurriedly scurrying between the rows of rosebushes and sprawling climbers.
“Let me go and I’ll take you to my palace beneath the mountain. It is full of treasure,” said the dwarf. “You’ve been lucky so far, but you can’t hold me forever.”
“I don’t want to go beneath your mountain, Laurin. No one comes out of there. And as for treasure, I have mine collecting rose petals. When she’s got her basketful, I’ll let her get out and then let go of you. Fair?”
The dwarf struggled some more as the red fingers of the dawn transformed the garden. And then, as the first gold of the sun finally sent its rays across the mountains to the garden, Benito found himself sitting down with a wet thump. The garden of roses amid the snow and rocks…now had just snow and rocks. And Maria, with a basket of petals, was running to him.
They were in the high Alps, far above Italy, far from Venice. Fortunately, as Benito was fairly wet and it was briskly cold up here, Aidoneus was there. He gave them his hand and led them back into a place that is no place but everywhere.
He brought them out again to the room in Casa Montescue, where Marco had plainly spent a very stressful night, waiting.
“We have your petals for you,” said Maria, handing him the basket.
Marco looked at the orange-pink petals in the small basket. “I could only pick up the fallen ones,” said Maria. “That was the agreement. There isn’t a lot.” The scent rising from them was heady, even so.
“The scent of heaven,” said Marco.
“In a manner of speaking, perhaps,” said Aidoneus. “Heaven obviously means different things to different people. But Diderich’s men did use it against Orkise’s poison. And now, I must leave you. There is a new day out there, and I must go to meet people.” And with that, he faded away like smoke in the new day’s sunlight that was streaming through the window.
Benito yawned. “Is Alessia up yet?”
“She’d be here if she was,” said Marco, looking up from the basket. “Do you have all your limbs?”
“Amazingly, yes. But don’t ask for more petals!” said Maria.
Marco looked critically at the basket of petals. “I think it is too little to make a distillation, really. But perhaps just the smell of them may help. They certainly have a beautiful scent.”
“If the smell will help, then you’d better make a little tent over their heads, like Mama used to do with the wintergreen when we were sick. It always made my eyes water and my nose run,” said Benito.
“That’s a brilliant idea! I’ll put their heads together, and put this bowl between them over some hot water. I’d better get it to them at once.” Marco took the basket and strode off towards the front door, still talking to himself.
Maria and Benito were left holding hands. Benito moved, and winced. “Are you all right?” asked Maria.
“Yes, I think that little fellow half wrenched my shoulder off.”
“Serves you right,” she said, kissing it, “for the things you said about me throwing things at Aidoneus.”
“I missed you, you know,” he said, putting his arm around her. “And you can always wrestle with me and attempt to pull my arms off. I’d enjoy that.”
“You probably would!” Maria snorted. “But now let’s go upstairs, before we’re joined by Alessia. I love my daughter more than breath itself, but she does put a crimp on some things.”
Chapter 45
Venice
Carlo Sforza knew he was somewhere very close to the gates of death. Earlier, he had seen a poison-spewing dragon without legs. Then a lion, roaring somewhere in the darkness. It was all very confusing. His last coherent memory was holding that bitch by both shoulders…and the snake lunging at him out of the space between her breasts, going for his face. He’d gotten his arm up in time to save his eyes.
That obviously hadn’t saved him, because he was lying here under a scented shroud. At least it did not smell of Lucia’s damned scent, and the shroud was slightly raised off his face. But he could see the fine weave of the muslin. He closed his eyes again, and just lay there, breathing. Even that was hard work. He felt as weak as a half-drowned kitten.
After what must have been quite a long time, he tried to move. His muscles seemed to have turned to jelly. Disobedient jelly, at that. Eventually he got his head to turn slightly. Not a handbreadth away, sharing his shroud, was a young woman. At least a young woman’s head. He wondered if she were also dead, or nearing it, but by staring intently, he could see that there was just the slightest movement from her nostrils as she breathed…so quietly.
Her eyes were closed and long-lashed, her skin as white as alabaster, her nose aquiline. Those slightly moving nostrils looked almost as if they’d been carved. She had too big a mouth for classical beauty, set above a firm chin. It must be her scent he could smell. He could breathe that forever.
He lay there for a long time trying to focus his mind, trying to work out what was going on. With effort, he worked his mouth…and swallowed. He tried to speak.
The shroud moved aside. Carlo Sforza found himself looking up into a face he hadn’t seen for the better part of ten years, but recognized instantly.
“…arco?” was all he managed. The effort was enough to make the world waver and set a roaring in his ears, as darkness closed in again. The roaring seemed to tell him to rest, and that h
e was safe. He’d known that when he’d seen Marco’s face anyway. A good boy, if a little soft.
There was something about his face that had not seemed soft now, though.
* * *
Violetta heard the roaring of the Lion as it dueled with the terrible serpent. And there was just the faintest light, somewhere ahead, along with the scent of roses. The strange thing was that it was drawing her away from the rose garden. She struggled towards the light. The weakness was almost too much, but she would not give in. There was a crack of light there…ahead. Just a little more…
It took a while to realize that it was that her own eyelids that needed to open. She opened them to see a handsome, delicate-featured young man looking down at her through a raised veil of fine muslin. He smiled. “Signorina de’ Medici, I am glad to see you awake at last. Don’t try to move yet. Please be calm and rest. You are safe and getting better.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, and then withdrew, pulling the sheet over the reed frame that kept it above her head.
She wondered, briefly, how those long slim hands could be so like vast velveted paws, but she needed that rest still. But it was not darkness and snake-full now, just sleep.
When she awoke again, she was a little more in control of her mind and able to think more coherently. She lay there trying to work out just what was going on. She remembered the snake, her mother being bitten and screaming in agony, and rushing to try to help, before it lunged at her. The pain. The terrible pain and fear. Vague brief images that included her Uncle Cosimo, and a stranger. Not the man who had leaned over her and told her she was safe…but somehow, similar.
Something gave a slight sigh next to her ear. Terror that it might be the snake gave her enough strength to turn her head and open her eyes. It wasn’t. It was a man, his head at 180 degrees to hers. He was older than she was, by perhaps two decades. His curly hair was grizzled and he had a solid, chunky, determined face. His skin showed signs of exposure to the sun and wind. He had been shaved, but not today.