Burdens of the Dead

by Mercedes Lackey

  “For Marco Valdosta,” said the gondolier, nodding. “Ah. I know you. You’re the foreigner who has been teaching him. I hope your teaching is better than I heard your doctoring was. You could learn something from Valdosta. He’s a good man.”

  Under other circumstances, Francisco would have been amused. Now he was only cursing himself for not noticing that the nursemaid had been carrying something under that shawl. “He is. Will you promise me that you will see this note to his hand, and to his hand only, and tell him that it is from me, and that he should hurry.”

  The gondolier nodded. “I’ll do my best. But he is seeing to our Doge, you know. They say he was poisoned.”

  Rumors. He forced himself to take the time to counter this one. “Yes, but he is getting better.”

  The gondolier looked skeptical as he poled. “That’s what they always say. Here you are. Campo Ghetto.”

  Francisco paid him and left, briskly.

  But when he got to the second-hand junk-shop, it was shuttered and closed. He ran back to the Rio della Senta, and found another gondolier. He had to get out of Venice before it closed like a rat-trap. He had to get to his master very very quickly.

  There’d be blood to pay for this.

  He just prayed it wouldn’t be innocent blood.

  Hades

  Maria, back in Aidoneus’ shadowy kingdom, looking to see how her daughter was doing, actually saw it happen. She watched the woman carry a sleeping Alessia out of the small water door. There was a ramp along the side of the Casa that allowed her to walk—she didn’t seem to mind getting her feet wet—to the Fondamenta. The woman swathed Alessia in a shawl and was walking away from the Casa Montescue with her.

  This could not be right!

  She called Aidoneus. He came, as always, as soon as he was called. She suspected that he was actually everywhere in this place.

  “I need you to stop her! She’s taking my daughter!”

  Aidoneus shook his head. “It lies outside of my realm. I cannot affect things within the world of the living. I can only lend my strength to the Mother. And she too has little influence there. It is the realm of an ancient power. And we cannot reach him.” Aidoneus shrugged. “In truth he dwells somewhere in the past.”

  His apparent indifference threw her into a frantic rage. “Damn you! That’s my daughter!” she yelled furiously. “Do something—or else I will. You can’t just ignore her.”

  “I cannot help,” said Aidoneus, as if to a child. “It is beyond my powers. It is surprising to me that you can even see events within the ancient marshes of Eturia.”

  He seemed so final about it, that it cooled her fury. “Then let me go out and deal with it myself. I give you my word that I’ll come straight back.”

  “I would, if it were possible. But I find the hell-dogs guard the portals again. I cannot leave, and neither can you. This matter lies beyond our ability to do anything about,” he said with a grim finality.

  Fury gave way to fierce determination. “Then I’ll go and ask someone who will at least try!”

  Aidoneus plainly knew exactly who she was speaking of. “You may try, of course. But you cannot, from my realm, easily speak to the living. And anyway, what do you think that a mortal outside the walls of Constantinople can do about something in the city of Venice?”

  “He might not succeed, but that never would stop Benito trying his best.” She turned away, ignoring the god, and quested through the tangle of shadows.

  The magic of this loom seemed to grow stronger the more she used it—or perhaps it was she who was growing stronger. She could see many strange things here that were not visible to the mortal eye. Her gaze slipped across the city of Constantinople, seeking Benito.

  And there was Hekate, suddenly interposed between Maria and the city. The woman with her two dogs was no longer weeping, but she could plainly see Maria just as well as Maria could see her. And she did not look pleased. “What do you want here?” she demanded.

  “Nothing. I mean, nothing that will disturb you. I’m just looking for the father of my child. She has been kidnapped.” Maria’s voice was fearful and desperate. “I watched her taken.”

  Hekate looked startled. “Kidnapped? By this man?” It sounded as if she was sympathetic. Except for the part where she said “man.”

  “No, no, no!” Maria replied quickly. “It was some enemy—I don’t know who, but they bribed the nursemaid to take her. I cannot leave this place, and I’m looking to Benito to rescue her.”

  “And what do you do within the realms of the cold one?”

  Maria stamped her foot. She knew impatience would serve her badly but she was nearly beside herself with fear and worry. And yet, she had finally learned enough caution to be patient. This was a goddess after all, and one who was even keeping Aidoneus pent within his own realm. “Look, I’ll tell you all about it, but not now. I need Benito. I need him now. Our daughter needs him; I don’t know what they plan for her, but even if they don’t intend to hurt her, she’ll be alone and terrified.”

  Hekate considered her for a moment, then nodded. “Very well. I grant you my permission to speak to him. Speak and no more. The guardianship of the gates is mine. And I give you fair warning, mortals will seldom listen to that which they fear, and do not wish to hear. Most will not hear you.”

  “He’ll listen all right,” said Maria, grimly. “Or I will give him such an earful his head will ring!”

  That seemed to meet with Hekate’s approval. Maria scanned the threads of the men beyond the veil, and by chance, saw another she recognized, and one who was a welcome sight. Ah! He would know. That would save her some searching.

  Hekate seemed to be watching over her shoulder, and recognized the man at the same time that she did. “Him? He is the father of your child?” There was something of an edge to Hekate’s querying tone.

  If she had not been so desperate, she would have snorted. Leaping to conclusions, Hekate? And why should you care? Because she obviously did. That sounded like jealousy.

  “Saints alive, no,” she replied, with enough indifference that Hekate was immediately mollified. “He’s just the most likely person in all of that city to know where Benito is.”

  And he had damned well better be able to see and hear me too.

  Pera

  Antimo Bartelozzi had assumed that Maria—still officially Verrier, as the law would not call her Valdosta—was safe in Venice. He knew exactly who she was, and what she looked like, of course. He’d even gone so far as to tell Duke Enrico Dell’este that in his opinion, she was the right choice for his grandson, even if she was a commoner. Dell’este’s reply “If he settles on any woman and sticks to her it’ll be a good choice,” he remembered also.

  He did not expect to see her wavering ghostly form here in Pera, and his first panicked thought was to wonder how she had died and why she was haunting him. He would have possibly been even more terrified if Hekate had not been standing behind her. So, she had got out of Constantinople in time. The dogs, of course, came to greet him, and that was enough to steady his nerves.

  He bowed. “Lady Hekate…” He looked at the ghostly Maria, wondering if he should run. “Maria.”

  “I am looking for Benito,” she said. Her voice seemed to come from very far away. There was an echoing quality to it. “I need to find him, and I need to find him now.”

  He swallowed. His mouth seemed terribly dry. “Are you…dead?” he asked carefully.

  “No, but you will wish you were unless I get some answers instead of a lot of stupid questions!”

  Her sharp tone had the effect of making him relax. No false phantom this! No ghost would speak in that way nor in that tone of voice. Magic then. Why did a prosaic man like himself have to deal with that?

  “He’s gone across to the Princes’ Islands.” He pointed. “Out there.”

  An odd expression came across Hekate’s face. “I cannot come with you there, my dear. I agreed. He betrayed me. Broke the gate with his earth-
shaking, without leaving the island. But he had our son as a hostage, and I swore I would not go there.”

  Antimo wondered if she knew that the prisoners from Constantinople had been freed. Ah…so she had a son. And presumably a husband.

  “Who?” asked Maria. “Who betrayed you?”

  “The Earth-Shaker. Poseidon, they called him later. He swore to be my true and only lover, when he was merely one of my consorts. But he was one of those men who are serial philanderers. And we all believed him. Amphitre—his wife—tried to tell me, and to help me. He sank her palace.”

  Antimo had had a good education, for his station. He’d been destined to be a clerk before life had entrapped him into attempting assassination, and then into spying. He’d been unsure who Hekate was. But he had heard of Poseidon. Of course that was stuff of legends, long gone—but names were re-used often enough. If her ex-lover had stolen her son…

  He was one of the best agents and spies in Italy, which along with Aquitane might mean in the world. “I will try to help you get him back,” he said, as the image of Maria wavered and vanished.

  Hekate looked at him, wide-eyed. “You are a very unusual man, Antimo Bartelozzi.” And then, like a curtain drawn across a statue, she too vanished.

  * * *

  The islands, lying a few miles off from the city in the sea of Marmara, were not as confused and stained with history as Constantinople had been. Except for one. A spike of an islet. Something drew Maria there, although she could not imagine what it could be. It was always confusing to look out through the shadows, through the warp and woof of the loom. But at first there seemed nothing much here: some ruins, and a small contingent of Venetians on watch—if “watch” meant cooking a thrush over an olive wood fire, at least.

  But the ruins on the south side were more extensive than they’d seemed at first, and were very old. She began to feel annoyed as well as desperate; she was looking for Benito. Why was she looking at ruins? She must have said it aloud, because Aidoneus answered. “Because Hekate wishes you to. She is a goddess. And it is her will that allows you to speak to the living. There is something there she wishes you to see.”

  On the one hand—damn it all, she was looking for Benito! On the other—Hekate was a goddess, and maybe there was something here (other than Benito) that could help. The gods, Maria had found, were not always good at explaining things. Aidoneus was better than most, but he was still inclined to ramble and completely miss things she would have found important.

  “I’d better have a quick closer look then,” she said.

  Aidoneus nodded. “It is an old place, deep in magics. Those are Roman temple ruins, but Greek and then older ones lie beneath them. Gods occupy more than one realm. Here and elsewhere, sometimes at the same time.”

  Which explained why sometimes you could walk through an ordinary cave to get here, and sometimes you couldn’t. “Like your kingdom.”

  “Yes. But my kingdom has always been principally below,” replied Aidoneus.

  It sounded as if he was getting ready for one of his long-winded explanations again. “Why can’t she just show me? We’re wasting time! Alessia—”

  Aidoneus waved his hand. “Time passes in my kingdom at the speed I wish. Day after dreary day can take eons. I cannot help you out there in the world, but I have slowed the passage of time here for you. So you can look for as long as it takes and be no worse off. What takes you an hour will be the passage of two breaths in the mortal world.”

  “That’s a help,” she said gruffly. “Thank you.”

  “Look deeper. There is something hidden there that may help more. But I warn you, the outcome of all this may displease Hekate. And even now she remains a power to be feared.”

  “What is it?”

  “You must find it, I cannot tell you what it is. But there is a something long forgotten there, that may help your daughter’s father to traverse the vast distances he will have to. Hekate wants you to find it. She knows it will help you, but she does not realize that things may not go as she wishes once it is found.”

  Maria stifled a scream of impatience, because Aidoneus was, at least, not wasting time—or to be more accurate, he was not wasting Alessia’s time. So Maria searched through the ruins, and the reflections of the ruins, and the magical places that the ruins hid. And was startled when at last she uncovered the thing that Hekate wanted her to find.

  “It’s still alive?”

  “Time passes very differently for it too.”

  Maria was almost beside herself with worry about Alessia. But she still could not help laughing. “Oh, dear. Poor Benito!” And then she asked. “And why is Hekate going to be upset?”

  “Because he is her son. And once he is freed, he may very well do what he wishes, and not what Hekate would choose for him.”

  Maria’s mouth fell open. “But…but…he’s a horse. Well, a horse with wings, but still, a horse!” For the life of her, she could not imagine it—Hekate looked human…and this was her son? Giving birth to a normal little human girl-baby had been bad enough. But…

  “So was the Earth-Shaker, when he chose to be,” said Aidoneus. “Such disparate forms were common among his offspring. You should have seen his siblings.”

  * * *

  Benito had gone to Plati where, with their chains struck off and access to food and drink, the survivors of the Latin enslavement who were not fit for combat were recuperating—the wounded and the few women who had survived rapine and murder, and the elderly. Benito was picking brains, as usual, trying to find weak points that he did not already know of in Constantinople. She caught him alone as he brooded over another little fire, trying to get fingers warm while he thought. He jumped to his feet as soon as she appeared.

  He did not think Maria was a ghost as the spy-master had. He tried instead to embrace her. His arms went straight through her.

  “Isn’t he feeding you properly?” he demanded, smiling so widely it endangered his ears, and breaking her heart in the process.

  “I’m only a sending, Benito. Something terrible has happened. Someone has kidnaped Alessia. I…I can’t talk to them in Venice, I don’t know why. Not even Marco can see me. I saw it all happen, I know where she is, but I can only reach you. I can go almost anywhere, and see everything but I can’t do anything.”

  Benito drew a deep breath and swore. Long and colorfully enough to get him an extra year in purgatory. He slapped a very meaty fist into his palm, and then drew himself together. “Can Aidoneus help us?”

  “No, and not because he isn’t willing but because…I can’t explain it very well, but there are things he can and can’t do, and helping us is one of the ones he can’t. But he has helped me call you and watch Alessia. And on the next island there is a way you can get to her quite fast.”

  He was already thinking, frantically. “I can’t think of any boat that would be fast enough. Given the season it will have to be overland. And it will take a long time, Maria. I need to start now, and I need to tell the Old Fox. Fortunately we’d planned on a siege phase; maybe I can get there and back before…”

  She interrupted him. “Getting there will take you a lot less time than you think; you’ll hate it, but it will be really fast. Benito! They have put our baby into a padded cell under a house in Cannaregio. She is awake, screaming and scared.” Her voice broke on a sob.

  “Lead me to it,” said Benito, grimly. “Someone is going to get very badly hurt. They’re going to wish they were dead when I am through with them.” As an afterthought he said: “My brother and Kat. Are they all right?”

  “They’re frantic and they search for her. But I can’t talk to them. I have tried. They can’t see me.” She bit her lip. “I think you could tell Duke Dell’este. It will take some hours at least for you to get there and back again…I am not very good with distances, outside of the canals.”

  Benito looked at her as if she was mad. “It must be a hundred and twenty leagues, even as the crow flies, Maria. Days, not hours.�
�

  She looked rather guilty. “No…hours, I think. But…better make sure you are dressed as warmly as you can.”

  Chapter 35

  Venice

  Francisco’s gondolier-messenger was kept waiting at the Palazzo Ducale. Eventually he nabbled a servant, and enquired with impatience about the physician.

  “Marco Valdosta?” The servant shook his head. “No, he left in a great hurry—oh, perhaps half an hour back. Some family disaster.”

  So off he went to the Casa Montescue. At the Casa Montescue, the gondolier found himself pushing through a mass of Schiopettieri getting orders from M’Lord Lodovico. He was a determined man, so he pushed on through until he found another servant.

  “M’Lord Marco Valdosta? He’s just gone to the Palazzo,” said the servant. “To call on some of the Council of Ten. Blood in his eye. Never seen him so angry! Someone has kidnaped M’Lord Benito’s daughter. M’Lady Katerina put her pistol in her belt, put on her canal gear, and went off to the Caulkers guild.”

  The messenger swore. “Hells teeth. I have a message for him. It must be about this. From someone who called himself Francisco. I took him to the Campo Ghetto. He paid me handsomely to deliver it.”

  The servant nodded in recognition. “Ah! Francisco. He is a teacher to M’Lord Marco. I can give the note to M’Lord Lodovico for him.” He held out his hand for it.

  “He said to M’Lord Marco’s hand only…” The gondolier hesitated a moment, took in the scene, the information he just garnered and joined his own pieces into the puzzle. “Take me to M’Lord Lodovico. Now. I think it may be important.”

  The gondolier’s conscience was assuaged by the return of Marco, in a Schiopetteiri boat. The crew were stroking for all they were worth. It looked like Marco would still leap off the bow and run over the water any minute. He jumped onto the Fondamenta before the vessel touched and the crowd parted in front of him. “Get to it, grandfather. The Lion will fly over Venice in the next few minutes.”