Shadow of the Lion hoa-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  When Aldanto finally saw them, and invited them to sit with a weary wave of his 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; his 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 Giaccomo'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 the nearly deadweight Aldanto had become. 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 Caulkers' 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 boat, 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 bowline 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 bulkhead, 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 learned 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 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 downstairs 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 as far as Marco was concerned--Aldanto 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 Farnese . . ." 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 feel 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 know 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. Yeah, I pretty much know about your situation. Hell, though--what you've been doing--I dunno why we'd need a real doctor. You're as good a doctor as 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 on
e 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."

  Chapter 13 ==========

  "You're not going out again!"

  Not for the first time, or even the thousandth time, Katerina Montescue wondered what had possessed her brother Alfredo to marry Alessandra. And why he had to die and leave Kat to cope with the silly shrewish bitch, who never thought beyond her clothes or belladona-widened eyes. Except for finding new ways to snipe at everyone and boast about her high-born family connections.