Shadow of the Lion hoa-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  Harrow met the disconcertingly direct eyes of the older boy with what he hoped was an expression of good-will.

  "N-no, 'sfine, Ben--"

  The words were slurred, but there was sense in the black eyes that met his.

  "--'f he meant us trouble, he wouldn't have waded in to help us."

  Marco used his younger brother's shoulder to hold himself upright, and held out his right hand. "Marco--" he hesitated a moment "--Valdosta . . . dunno who you are, but--thanks."

  Harrow looked from the outstretched, muddy hand, to the candid, honest face, with its expression of simple, pure gratitude. He stretched out his own hand almost timidly to take the boy's, finding himself moved to the point of having an unfamiliar lump in his throat.

  This boy was--good. That was the only way Harrow could put it. Honest, and good. Small wonder the Goddess wanted this thread for her loom. It was a precious golden thread, one which would lift the other colors in the weave into brightness. Harrow had never known anyone he could have called simply . . . "good."

  And--so Harrow had often been told--the good die young.

  Resolve flared in eyes. Not this one. As an assassin, one of the most deadly killers the Visconti had ever unleashed for the Montagnard cause, he had felt an almost sexual pleasure when he had fulfilled his missions. When he'd killed. Now a similar but richer feeling came, displacing the old. He was the vessel of the Goddess. And he was full, full to overflowing. He was only distantly aware of the impression of a great winged shadow, passing over all of them. The Montagnards brought death to serve their purposes. The Goddess conserved life. Purpose and reasons flooded into Harrow. Not this one! Death will not take him while I watch over him.

  Marco swayed in sudden dizziness, and Harrow sloshed through the churned-up mud to take his other arm and help keep him steady; Benito tensed, then relaxed again when he realized that Harrow was going to help, not hurt them.

  "Which way from here?" the vessel of the Goddess croaked, finding his voice with difficulty.

  * * *

  Marco fought down dizziness as he grayed-out a little; heard the battered, burnt-faced stranger ask: "Which way from here?"

  "We've got to get him out of here--back to Venice, back where it's warm and they can look after him," Benito replied, hesitantly. "There's probably people out looking for him by now--and he ain't in any shape to stay out here, anyway."

  Marco gave in to the inevitable, too sick and dizzy and in too much pain to argue. "The path's--through those two hummocks," he said, nodding his head in the right direction and setting off a skull-filling ache by doing so. The three of them stumbled off down the rim-path, making slow work of it--especially since they had to stop twice to let him throw up what little there was in his stomach. He concentrated on getting one foot set in front of the other. That was just about all he was up to at this point; that, and keeping from passing out altogether.

  He was still survival-oriented enough to be aware that now that they were in the clear, they were attracting the attention of the marsh dwellers with boats--some of whom were more dangerous than the Squalos. He tried to warn the other two, but his tongue seemed to have swollen up and it was hard to talk.

  But the walls of the Arsenal were in sight now, crumbling and water-logged brick-and-wood, looming up over their heads. Things began to whirl. . . . He couldn't possibly see the Piazza San Marco from here, but he would swear he saw the pillar and the lion . . . and the open book. He struggled to read the words. . . .

  "Don't fall over yet, Marco!" Benito's voice. Pleading. "Don't die on me, brother!"

  By an effort of will, the whirling world steadied briefly.

  There was a shout from behind; just as a small boat came around the Castello point. An errant beam of sunlight glinted off blond hair in the bow, and there was another, darker figure waving at them frantically from the stern.

  And there was ominous splashing growing nearer behind them.

  The stranger on Marco's left suddenly dropped his arm, and Marco and Benito staggered as Marco overbalanced.

  Then things got very blurred and very confusing.

  The stranger bellowed behind them, and there was the sound of blows, and cries of anger and pain; Benito began hauling him along as fast as they could stumble through the weeds and muck. Then he was in waist-deep water, with the sides of a gondola under his hands, and he was simultaneously scrambling and being pulled aboard. That was . . . Maria Garavelli cursing under her breath beside his head.

  And then a gun went off practically in his ear.

  He tumbled onto the bottom slats and lay there, frozen, and wet, and hurting; shivering so hard he could hardly think, with shouting going on over his head, and another shot.

  Then they were under a winged leonine shadow as consciousness slipped away.

  * * *

  When he came to again, it was to the sight of Maria standing on the stern, moving the gondola with steady easy strokes. Benito wrapped a blanket around him and helped him to sit up. It was a good thing Benito was supporting him; he was shivering so hard now that he couldn't sit on his own.

  "He all right?"

  There was worry in Maria's voice; that surprised him.

  "He need help? Lord--he's bleeding, ain't he! Caesare--"

  Aldanto was down on the slats beside him, without Marco seeing how he had got there. He shut his eyes as much to hide his shame as to fight the waves of dizziness. Amazingly gentle hands probed his hurts.

  "Cut along the ribs--looks worse than it is. But this crack on the skull--"

  Marco swayed and nearly lost his grip on consciousness and his stomach, when those hands touched the place where the boathook pole had broken over his head. The pain was incredible; it was followed by a combined wave of nausea and disorientation. The hands steadied him, then tilted his chin up.

  "Open your eyes."

  He didn't dare to disobey; felt himself flush, then pale. The blue eyes that bored into his weren't the dangerous, cold eyes he'd seen before--but they were not happy eyes.

  "Not good, I'd judge."

  "So what's that mean?" Maria asked harshly.

  "Mostly that it's his turn to be put to bed, and he isn't going to be moving from there for a while. You--"

  Caesare was speaking to him now, and Marco wanted to die at the gentle tone of his voice.

  "--have caused us a great deal of trouble, young man."

  "I--I didn't mean to--I just--I just wanted--" He felt, and fought down, a lump of shamed tears. No, no he would not cry! "--I made such a mess out of things, I figured you were better off if I went away somewhere. I didn't mean to bring you more trouble! I tried to find some way I could get you out of it, and get out from under your feet, and when that didn't work I just tried to do what was right--"

  "If I had thought differently," Aldanto said, slowly, deliberately, "you'd be out there entertaining the locos right now. There are more than a few things I want to have out with you, but it's nothing that can't wait."

  Then he got up, and took a second oar to help Maria, ignoring Marco's presence on the bottom slats.

  But that wasn't the end of his humiliation--every few feet along the canals, it seemed, they were hailed, either from other boats or from the canalside.

  "Si, he's okay," Maria called back, cheerfully, "Si, we got 'im--"

  Apparently everybody in town knew what a fool he'd made of himself. There were calls of "Hooo--so that's the loverboy? Eh, throw him back, Maria, he's just a piddly one!" With every passing minute, Marco felt worse. Finally he just shut his eyes and huddled in the blanket, ignoring the catcalls and concentrating on his aching head.

  Because, as if that humiliation wasn't enough, there were more than a few of those on canalside who didn't shout--shadowy figures whom Caesare simply nodded to in a peculiar way. And Marco recognized one or two as being Giaccomo's.

  Giaccomo--that meant money--

  --a lot of money. Out of Caesare's pocket.

  Marco wanted to die.
>
  The ribald and rude comments were coming thick and fast now, as they headed into the Grand Canal. Maria was beginning to enjoy herself, from the sound of her voice. Aldanto, however, remained ominously silent. Marco opened his eyes once or twice, but couldn't bear the sunlight--or the sight of that marble-still profile.

  * * *

  The third time he looked up, his eyes met something altogether unexpected. Aldanto had shifted forward, and instead of his benefactor, Marco found himself staring across the water at another gondola.

  There was a girl in that elderly nondescript vessel, rowing it with consummate ease. From under the hood curled carroty-red hair. She had a generous mouth, a tip-tilted nose--merry eyes, wonderful hazel eyes--

  She wasn't beautiful, like Angelina Dorma. But those eyes held a quick intelligence worth more and promising more than mere beauty.

  Those eyes met his across the Grand Canal, and the grin on that face softened to a smile of genuine sympathy, and then into a look of utter dumbfounded amazement.

  Which was maybe not surprising, if she felt the shock of recognition that Marco was feeling. Because even if he'd never seen her before, he knew her; knew how the corners of her eyes would crinkle when she laughed, knew how she'd twist a lock of hair around one finger when she was thinking hard, knew how her hand would feel, warm and strong, and calloused with work, in his.

  In that moment he forgot Angelina Dorma, forgot his aching head, forgot his humiliation. He stretched out his hand without realizing he'd done so--saw she was doing the same, like an image in a mirror.

  And then his eyes blurred, and vision deserted him. When his eyes cleared, she was gone, and there was no sign that she'd ever even been there. And he was left staring at the crowded canal, not even knowing who she could be.

  Before he could gather his wits, they were pulling up to the tie-up in Castello. He managed to crawl under his own power onto the landing, but when he stood up, he didn't gray out, he blacked out for a minute.

  When he came to, he had Maria on the one side of him, and Caesare on the other, with Benito scrambling up the stairs ahead of them. They got him up the stairs, Lord and Saints, that was a job--he was so dizzy he could hardly help them at all. Aldanto had to all but carry him the last few feet. Then he vanished, while Marco leaned against the wall in the hallway and panted with pain.

  Maria, it was, who got him into the kitchen; ignoring his feeble attempts to stop her, she stripped him down to his pants with complete disregard for his embarrassment. She cleaned the ugly slash along his ribs, poured raw grappa in it. That burned and brought tears to his eyes. Then she bandaged him up; then cleaned the marsh-muck off of him as best she could without getting him into water. Then she handed him a pair of clean breeches and waited with her back turned and her arms crossed for him to strip off the dirty ones and finally bundled him up into bed, stopping his protests with a glass of unwatered wine.

  He was so cold, so cold all the way through, that he couldn't even shiver anymore. And his thoughts kept going around like rats in a cage. Only one stayed any length of time--

  "Maria--" he said, trying to get her attention more than once, "Maria--"

  Until finally she gave an exasperated sigh and answered, "What now?"

  "Maria--" he groped after words, not certain he hadn't hallucinated the whole thing. "On the Grand Canal--there was this girl, in a boat--a gondola. Maria, please, I got to find out who she is!"

  She stared at him then, stared, and then started a grin that looked fit to break her face in half. "A girl. In a boat." She started to laugh, like she'd never stop. "A girl in a boat. Saint Zaccharia! Oh, all the Saints! Damn, it's almost worth the mess you've got us into!"

  She leaned on the doorframe, tears coming to her eyes, she was laughing so hard.

  Then she left him, without an answer.

  Left him to turn over and stare at the wall, and hurt, inside and out. Left him to think about how he'd lost everything that really meant anything--especially Aldanto's respect. About how the whole town knew what a fool he was. About how he'd never live that down.

  And to think about how everything he'd meant to turn out right had gone so profoundly wrong; how he owed Caesare more than ever. Left him to brood and try to figure a way out of this mire of debt, until his head went around in circles--

  He was going into the reaction that follows injury. Sophia had told him . . . He tried desperately to recapture her words. . . . It was all vague. He knew about that somewhere deep down, but he didn't much care anymore. He wouldn't ask for any more help, not if he died of it. Maybe if he died, if they found him quiet and cold in a couple of hours, maybe they'd all forgive him then.

  He entertained the bleak fantasy of their reaction to his demise for a few minutes before he dropped off to sleep.

  Chapter 38 ==========

  Francesca looked out of her window onto the Grand Canal. "It will be nice here in spring. Not as nice as on the Ligurian coast, but still pretty." She spoke calmly, conversationally--as if Erik had not come bursting in here three minutes back, looking for Manfred.

  Now he was sitting here, being as polite as if in any Venetian lady's salon. And feeling utterly ill at ease.

  Erik swallowed. Francesca always left him not really sure of his ground. She was so . . . alien to him. Different from his expectations, especially after that first meeting. By the time the second one occurred, he was floundering. Francesca's new residence could, he supposed, be technically referred to as a "bordello." But it was like no bordello Erik had ever seen. There was no salon downstairs where half-naked women lounged for the inspection of the customers. In fact--other than, presumably, in the privacy of their own very spacious and luxurious apartments--the women were always extremely well dressed. And not flirtatious in the least, in the blatant manner that Erik expected from "whores."

  Erik glanced around, trying to keep himself from fidgeting. Francesca's apartment was on the third floor of the Casa Louise. It had a large salon and a balcony and windows--real glass windows--looking out over the hustle and bustle of the Grand Canal. As always when he arrived to round up Manfred, she had greeted him like a lady when he came in the door--and, as always now, she was dressed like one.

  Well . . . a lady with a taste in low-cut upthrust bodices. Erik found it nearly as distracting as her nudity had been. While they waited for Manfred to get dressed, Francesca--as always--engaged Erik in genteel conversation. He had found her intelligent, well-read, and with a political background that made him feel naive. To his back-country Icelandic-Vinlander values, a whore was a whore. A lady was a lady. The concept of a "courtesan" was new to him, and he still wasn't sure how to deal with it. Or how to protect his charge from her. Or even--a very new and heretical thought, this--whether his charge needed to be protected from her.

  "You can't really stop him, you know."

  How had she known what he'd been thinking about? Well, it was no use beating about the bush. Despite his warnings, either Manfred had said something to her or her very quick mind had picked it up. "I must," Erik said stiffly. "It is my duty to care for him. To keep him under my eye and train and protect him . . . from entanglements too."

  Francesca laughed musically. "Poor Erik! He must be a great trial to you."

  It was all Erik could do to keep himself from agreeing. Manfred was a tearaway. There was no getting away from it. Half the taverns and a fair number of the women in the Empire could testify to that. "I do what I have to do, madame."

  She gurgled. "The title is premature, Erik. But it is correct. I shall either be a madame or simply retire with considerable wealth after a career as a courtesan. Perhaps marry one of my clients, at the end--some plump, cheerful rich old merchant looking to stay cheerful in his dotage. I have no long-term designs on young Manfred. He is amusing and . . . energetic. He is also young. His fancy will turn elsewhere, and some sweet young thing can be very grateful that I have polished him a little." She patted Erik on the arm gently. He tried very hard not t
o be distracted by her soft skin. "He is safer here, with me, than on the street. The owners of this building take great precautions. There are mistresses of men from all factions, and courtesans who could entertain a man who is Montagnard tonight and one who is a Petrine legate tomorrow. This is one of the safest places in all Venice."

  There was some shouting and catcalling down on the canal below.

  "Ah." Francesca smiled. "They must have found him."

  "Who?"

  Francesca moved to open the doors onto the balcony. "Someone has been spending a great deal of money looking for a youngster who got himself into trouble with a girl. If my informant is to be believed, with one of the daughters of the Casa Dorma no less! It is a long and complicated romantic story."