by Eric Flint
"He's senile. You'll bring the plague back with you. It's rife out there."
Kat stopped. "He's not senile! He's just old… and, and hurt. Alfredo's death, Mariana's death, the baby and Papa… not coming back. And Mama and then Grandmama, too. It's just been a bit too much for him." Even thinking about it left her with a catch in her voice. And guilt. Alessandra's baby son had died too, after all.
But Alessandra dealt with the guilt with her next silly statement. "So you've got his permission to turn yourself into a courtesan, because of that?"
Kat looked at herself in the mottled full-length mirror. Like many things in the Casa Montescue it was past its prime. The reflection that looked back at her was, at best, merely pretty. She had too wide a mouth and too pert a nose. Carroty-colored slightly curly hair, that Alessandra was always at her to bleach a bit, so that she'd look?at least from behind?more like the glamorous Lucrezia Brunelli. Unlike Alessandra, Katerina didn't claim cousinship and intimate knowledge of the doings of Venice's most famous beauty. And after Alessandra's endless stories, she didn't want to.
She looked away from the mirror, knowing that its mottled surface was not disguising the truth. Her face, unlike Lucrezia's, would certainly never garner her any love poems. Neither would a nonexistent dowry. And she'd never have Alessandra's statuesque figure, either; or Alessandra's perfect rosebud mouth with the tiny mole accentuating it; or her white skin and raven-black hair.
She sighed. "Sandi, be reasonable. I'm not a beauty, never will be, and that's all there is to it. Now, excuse me. I've got things to do." She pushed past, heading for the water-door up the passage.
As often happened, Alessandra's mood underwent an abrupt change. "Oh, Katerina!" she cried, clutching at Kat's cloak. "Take me with you! I'm dying cooped up in here in this mausoleum. We could go to Barducci's. I hear it's all the rage to go… slumming there. A lot of the younger crowd are going."
Kat snorted, and shook off the soft slim white hand. "Saints, Sandi! One minute I'm going to my lover, the next I'm bringing plague. And the next you want to go off looking for thrills with the commoners you despise. Well, sorry. I've got other things to deal with. Practical things. Anyway, you go out more often than I do. You go over to Murano at least once a week."
Curiosity?a source for gossip, a vital feature of Alessandra's shallow life?took over. "Tell me what things?"
"Can't." Somewhere, Montescue was leaking secrets. Telling Alessandra anything that the spying cat didn't already know would add another leak.
"Mean, horrible, little bitch!" The water-door slammed behind her, leaving Katerina to get into the shabby gondola tied to the post.
***
Out on the water, in the darkness, Katerina felt her temper begin to subside. By the way the wind was blowing off the lagoon, there would be a storm soon.
Great. All she needed was to get wet again!
Still, that would be better than when the previous cargo had come in. The one she'd nearly lost. Rain, even a thunderstorm, took a while to wet you to the skin. Jumping or falling into the canal didn't. She sculled a little faster. This delivery was to the far side of the Grand Canal, too, not that that meant anything. She never delivered anything to Calle Farnese anymore. It was just too risky. There were more prowling agents of the Signori di Notte and those creepy Servants around there than there were Strega nowadays.
She sighed. Never mind the way that it was weighing on her grandfather, this pressure was making her snappy and shrewish. After all the difficulty of getting the last parcel from Ascalon, she'd hoped their fortunes would revive. Alas, it had only just staved off the creditors. So they'd gambled on going into a Colleganza on a cargo of silver on the galley fleet bound for the Black Sea. After all, there was so little risk in a galley cargo that they didn't even need to insure it.
And then… the galley had been one of three lost in a storm. Snapped in half by the waves, if the few survivors could be believed.
The ill-fortune that plagued Casa Montescue seemed endless. Now they were bankrupt?almost, anyway. Reduced to the desperate business of organizing high-risk cargos to and from Beyond-the-sea.
Kat tried to find solace somewhere. At least her grandfather couldn't blame this disaster on Casa Valdosta. That ancient house was completely destroyed, all of the family members dead except for?according to rumors gathered by Grandpapa's agents?one or two boys. Who, even if the rumors of their survival were accurate, could hardly pose a threat to Montescue.
Again, she sighed. Not that her grandfather cared about threats. For reasons which had never been very clear to Kat?and she'd been afraid to ask?the old man blamed Casa Valdosta for the misfortunes of the Montescues. He was consumed with a desire for vengeance on anything Valdosta?even boys who could not possibly be held responsible by any rational person. That was what worried Kat the most?her grandfather's obsession with revenge was not… entirely sane. It was dark, and cruel, and evil?for all that Grandpapa was not a cruel and evil man in any other respect.
And it was expensive, too! Spies did not come cheap, and assassins even less so. The old man would still be hiring assassins, if there was anything left to hire them with. Kat didn't doubt that he would do so again, if her efforts brought in some significant money. What a waste!
***
Kat tied the gondola up beside the shabby water-door. Lightning rippled across the eastern sky, showing a waterworn step and an odd, gargoyle-faced doorknocker. The iron eyes seemed almost alive in the sudden sharp light. It gave her something of a shiver, and it took quite some willpower to lift the ring that the gargoyle was devouring and rap out the coded knock. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
The door opened with an oiled silence that belied its decrepit look. A dark, hooded figure loomed behind the candle. She went in. Little was said on these rendezvous. These days, buyers?who used to greet her by name?were trying to pretend they didn't know her, and that she'd never even met them. These were dangerous times.
The hooded man led her to a desk, at which yet another hooded figure sat. Silently Kat handed over the little oilcloth parcel, putting it on the table. The hooded figure reached eagerly for it, a little silver and steel knife appearing suddenly in the long, shapely feminine fingers. The knife hilt, Kat noticed, was fashioned like a dragon's head with little chips of clear red stone for eyes. Eyes seemed everywhere tonight. She hoped none of them had followed her here.
The packet was slit, and the hooded woman gave a little crow of unpleasant glee… before hastily sweeping the vials back into the packet. Not for the first time Kat wondered what they were doing in this business. It had started with letters to and from the Jewish community. After all, her great-grandfather had been a Jew, even if he'd married out of the faith and the family were good Petrine Christians now. Somehow needs had driven things to this. When she'd been a child she'd often gone to meet the Strega with Grandpapa. She suspected that Grandpapa had been halfway to being a convert. But they'd been a different community then. Gentler.
The woman motioned her henchman forward. He reached inside his cloak and produced… money. That was always a relief. Kat knew she could get killed instead. Silently, he counted out ducats.
Kat slipped them into a washleather pouch, and slipped the pouch between her breasts.
Obviously, her pleasure in receiving the cargo had loosed the woman's tongue. "You deliver to many?"
Kat shook her head. "I really don't think I should say."
"Understood. But I will make it worth a great deal, a very great deal indeed, to know of one man. Ten times your fee, if you tell me where I can find him. His name is Marina. Dottore Luciano Marina. This is how he looks."
The woman flicked a handful of powder into the air and an image appeared therein. The man had an arrogant tilt to his head, but a kindly face. There was a wiry youthfulness about the face, which didn't match the eyes. The eyes looked as if they'd seen a lot.
Kat remembered it well. He had been a great figure of learning at the Accademia befo
re he disappeared, Grandpapa had said. And her favorite tutor, as a girl.
Kat shook her head. "He hasn't been around since I was about fourteen."
"He is still around." The woman spoke very firmly, more to herself than Kat. "I can feel him. I just can't pin him to a place."
Kat shrugged, and looked at the desk. She must have lost a strand of hair there?not something you wanted to leave with the Strega. She twitched it off the table and into a pocket while the hooded woman's attention was still distracted.
"Haven't seen him for years," she repeated.
The woman appeared to notice her again. "You may leave," she said imperiously.
***
Outside, with the wind from the storm ripping and yowling between the buildings and the first heavy drops beginning to splat onto the water, Kat shook herself. The money would help. But the hole that the Casa Montescue was in meant that they'd have to continue with this. She flicked the bowline loose and began sculling.
As she came out onto the Grand Canal, she realized that she should have left earlier. Ahead the rain was coming down like a solid dark wall, obliterating all light. The water in the Grand Canal was already chopped into endless dancing myriad-peaked waves. Water slopped over the gunwales as Kat struggled to turn back into the relative shelter of the smaller canal she'd emerged from. There was no going home until this was over. She might as well find somewhere to try to keep dry. Even here angry gusts were rattling and shaking at hastily slammed shutters. This was no time to be outside, never mind in a boat. The nearby church of San Zan Degola was small and poor, but it would be open.
She moored the gondola to a post, hitched up her skirts, and ran for the shelter. The storm wouldn't last.
Chapter 14
Rain. The watcher in the reed bank noticed it without caring too much about it. His name was Harrow, and he was, by nature, a predator. When intent on a target he was not distracted by discomfort. The slim, willowy figure out there in the lightning-torn darkness wasn't his prey, but Harrow stalked him anyway from long habit. This marshland was not Harrow's environment, and the only way he'd learn it was to practice, to hone his inborn skills.
Besides, if it wasn't prey, it could possibly be someone hunting Harrow. Or Fortunato Bespi, as they would still think of him. They had tried to kill Harrow. Burn him, drown him. Somehow news could have leaked out of the swamp that he wasn't dead. Bespi had given his all to the Visconti, for the Montagnard cause. He'd always found peace in obeying orders, pleasure in hunting down his human prey. In repayment, Francesco Aleri had done this to him, and Harrow did not doubt for a moment that the orders had come from the Duke of Milan himself.
Hatred, forge-hot, seared at his gut for a moment. With an effort that was difficult because it came newly to him, Harrow tried to drive it under.
No. That was not the way. The marsh-wizard who had saved him and taught him his true name claimed he should turn his hatred to good cause instead. Harrow, who had cut down lives with no more compunction than most people had killed mosquitoes, had listened to his talk with intense concentration. And had listened to the visions with an even greater one.
Strangely so, perhaps, given his history. But… Harrow believed in reasons. He believed that he had a purpose in life; believed it with a fanatical intensity. As Bespi he'd always assumed that purpose was to serve the Montagnard cause, yet they had been the ones to order his death. And what disturbed Harrow the most was that there had been no reason for it. None good enough, at any rate.
Harrow, as much as Fortunato Bespi, wanted reasons. And so, as lightning lit the sky with white tracery, he watched as the trudging figure came closer. Not much more than a boy he was, Harrow could see now. He could warn him easily that there was a prowling loco on the trail ahead?a bad one, by the pitiful local standards. But Harrow was a hunter and hunted man himself, as well as a man who believed in reasons. So he simply waited, silent and invisible in the recesses of the marsh, as the boy passed by him in the storm. Then, followed. Stalking from habit, partly; and, partly, hoping he might find some logic in a reasonless world.
***
Marco could hardly feel his feet, they were so numb and cold. Still, it wasn't winter. Then he'd have had to worry about losing his toes, instead of just feeling like he'd lost them.
He was halfway out to Chiano's territory, and he was already regretting the decision he'd made, with the kind of remote regret of one who didn't have any real choice. The pack on his back was large, and heavy; the goods he had to trade with old Sophia for her herbs were bulky. Blankets didn't compact well, no more did clothing.
The cold was climbing up his legs, and his breeches were misery to wear: wet and clinging and clammy, and liberally beslimed with mud and unidentifiable swamp-muck. He'd forgotten how much the marsh mud stank; it was far worse than the canals. The reeds rustled, but otherwise there wasn't much sound but for the wind whistling and the water lapping against what few bits of solid stuff poked above the surface of the lagoon.
The wind was bitter, and ate through his clothing. Also there was a storm brewing, which meant that he'd be soaked before the night was out, even if things went well.
He was half-soaked already. Just because it was possible to walk into the swamp, that didn't mean it was easy. He was just grateful that his memory of the "trail" was clear; so clear he could find his way back in pitch dark?so clear he was only mud caked to his thighs instead of to his waist.
Overhead the clouds blocked out the stars and thunder rumbled, cloud-shadows taking the last of the light. But now the swamp itself flickered with an eerie phosphorescence, making it almost like dusk. There seemed to be more of a glow than there had been before?and a kind of odd, sulfurous, bitter smell he didn't remember as being part of the normal odors. The thunder came again, accompanied by flashes of lightning, and the wind off the sea began to pick up, bending the reeds parallel with the water.
Marco had just enough time for his nose to warn him, and then the rain came.
The first fat drops plopped on the back of his neck and trickled icily down his back, adding to his misery. This morning he'd been sure that there was no way he could begin to even up the debt between himself and Aldanto. At this point he was beginning to think that the scale might just be tipping the other way.
***
"Hee hee he-he-he! Well, lookee what th' storm washet ep?"
The voice that brayed out of the dark and the rain was one Marco had hoped never to hear again.
"I heerd ye gone townie on us, Marco?boy." The speaker was little more than a black blot against the phosphorescent water?a large blot. "I heerd ye niver come back t' see yer old friends. I heerd ye figger yer better'n us now."
It was Big Gianni, and he had the next segment of the trail completely blocked. To either side was deep water and dangerous mud?some of it bottomless, sucking mire-pits.
"C'mon, Marco?boy?ain't ye gonna run from Big Gianni? Ain't ye gonna give 'im a race?" Lightening flickered once, twice. The blot shifted restlessly.
Marco fought panic. "Get out of my way, Big Gianni," he shouted over the thunder. "Leave me alone. I never hurt you."
"Ye hurt Big Gianni's feelin's, Marco?boy," the hoarse voice came back. "Ye wouldn't play with Big Gianni. Ye sent that Chiano t' warn Gianni off, ye did. But Chiano, he ain't here now. Now it's jest me an' you."
Marco could run. He could shed that heavy pack and run back along the safe path until he came to one of the branches. Then he could get into an area he knew better than Gianni did, where he could outdistance him and get safely back to town.
But?without what he'd come for. And it was just possible that without Sophia's spell-woven medicine, Caesare Aldanto would die, fighting for breath, choking?literally drowning as his lungs filled. The way that Marco had almost died.
His knife was in his hand without his really thinking about it, and he slipped the straps of the pack off his shoulders, dropping it to the reed hummock he was standing on. With the feel of the hilt in his han
d, his breathing steadied. He wasn't fifteen any more?nor was he armed with nothing but a scrap of glass. He had most of his adult growth now, and a good steel blade in his hand.
***
Watching from his hiding place in the reeds, Harrow was impressed. Not by the way the boy held the knife?pitiful, that was?but the mere fact he would do so. And stand his ground, in face of such a threat. Harrow had observed the one called Gianni before. The creature was not dangerous to Harrow himself, of course. But he was a fearsome monster for the marsh-dwellers. Very large, strong, half-crazed, and driven by savage and perverted reasons.
Harrow wondered at the boy's reasons. Powerful they must be, to cause him to stand his ground. Harrow had little doubt the boy could elude Gianni in the marsh if he wished to do so. The one called Gianni was strong, yes; but also clumsy and slow afoot.
Yet… the boy clearly intended to fight. Very powerful reasons he must have. And thus, Harrow suspected, reasons which were also true and clean.
So, a man covered with slime waited silently and invisible in the marshes. Just watching, to see if the reasons he so craved himself might emerge in such an unlikely place.
***
Marco had to swallow before he could speak. Then:
"I'm warning you, Gianni?get out of my way."
"Ye gonna make me?"
"If I have to," Marco replied unsteadily. Big Gianni had sloshed a step or two closer, and now his knife seemed all too small. Gianni stood as tall as Marco?and Marco was still standing on a hummock that rose several inches above the underwater surface of the trail.
And Gianni had a knife, too; Marco could see the lightning flickering on the shiny surface of the steel. It was ribbon-thin, honed almost to invisibility, but Marco would bet it could leave bleeding wounds on the wind.