Shadow of the Lion

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 to 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."

Erik blinked. "Do you know everything?"

Francesca dimpled. "I do my best."

They'd gone out onto the balcony as the gondola which was drawing the comments drew near.

"Ah. That must be him. The dark-haired one in the bow."

Erik looked. And saw a very recognizable handsome blond-haired man also in the gondola. "Do you also know who the blond fellow is?"

Francesca looked amused. "Of course. Caesare Aldanto. Once of Milan. Reputed to have once been a Montagnard agent. A sellsword under the shadow of the hand of none other than Ricardo Brunelli."

"He's also the man who is directly responsible for us meeting you, Francesca," said Erik dryly.

She smiled again and turned him back to the warm apartment. "Then I owe him. But I don't think I'll tell him. So, he set up that . . ."

"Fiasco. It would have been different if Manfred hadn't deliberately fooled me and been there too. I would have probably been dead--certainly injured. Your 'sellsword' is awfully good with that sword of his. So he takes orders from Ricardo Brunelli. Who is this Brunelli? By your tone he is a big cheese here in Venice." Erik hoped his tone did not betray the fact that he intended to see the cheese sliced down to size.

"Have you found Erik a girl, my demoiselle?" asked Manfred, who had finally come out of the bedroom, giving Eric a brief glimpse of a rumpled large brass bed.

Francesca turned to him. "Manfred, did you dress entirely by guess? Come here! Let me fix your collar. Your friend has ambitions on killing the head of the house Brunelli."

Manfred was obviously better informed than he was. Probably by Francesca. "Ha. You don't start low, do you, Erik?"

"Who is he, Manfred? It appears he's the bastard who set me up to be killed at the House of the Red Cat."

Francesca smiled, as she neatly twitched the neckband of Manfred's shirt into shape. "He is the man who believes he will be the next Doge."

"I don't think you can do that, Erik," said Manfred seriously. "I don't think even my--the Emperor--could stop the Venetians hanging the lot of us."

"Besides," said Francesca, "Aldanto is reputed to be for sale, confidentially, to the highest bidder. It may have had nothing to do with Brunelli."

"He sounds like the sort to have influence with these Venetian Schiopettieri."

Francesca shook her head. "Not really. Any of the Signori di Notte could have done it. But Brunelli is not one of them."

Manfred stretched. "I know you don't like the idea, Erik. But I still think you need look no further than our dear abbot."

Erik shrugged. "Sachs says he sent Pellmann to me with a message that the raid was off. Pellmann has enough of a grudge against me to not deliver it. I'm not a North German Ritter."

"And you didn't beat him, so he didn't respect you," said Manfred with a grin. "You're a callous brute, Erik. How could you treat the man like that? No wonder he ran off."

Francesca laughed. "And what the two of you do not see is that that does not add up. Aldanto being the organizer of that ambush, and the time at which the Schiopettieri arrived, adds up to two things: money and influence. Venetian influence. How would this Pellmann have access to either? He was not a Venetian, was he?"

"Pomeranian," said Erik. "Couldn't even make himself understood in the local dialect. Despised all Southerners, and Venetians most of all."

Francesca sighed. "I think you will find he's dead."

Manfred snorted. "Well, that's no loss to the world. Unless sharing Von Tieman's squire-orderly is worse, Erik?"

Erik shook his head. "No. He's a nice enough old fellow. A bit slow upstairs. Probably from all those slaps around the head Von Tieman gives him. He's pathetically grateful that I don't. But why kill Pellmann? And if it wasn't him, arranging it in a piece of spite, who was it? It can't be the abbot, Manfred. Me being wounded or killed or even captured in a raid by the local constabulary on a brothel would have shamed the Knights--and by extension, the Servants."

Manfred shook his head. "Believe me. If they had caught you, the abbot would have been the first person to be shocked that you were there. It was a set-up, I tell you."

"I don't believe it," said Erik, stubbornly. "I have opposed him, true--in a relatively minor matter--but surely that's not worth the effort and money such a plot would take. He could just send me home."

Manfred grinned. "Heh. I'd be sent off on the next boat. Just think. No Uncle Erik to ride herd on me."

Erik didn't say anything. Francesca was there. But he smiled and shook his head. His duty was to protect Manfred. There were certain steps he would have to take if the abbot tried to send him away. A signet ring to be used. In dire emergencies.

"Well, the thought of my running wild has shut Erik up. He's even forgotten he's come to hale me away for guard duty. Goodbye, my sweet. Until tomorrow."

Francesca shook her head. "Not until Thursday, Manfred, as you well know."

A look of pouting hurt spread over Manfred's face. "I wish you'd give this up. I thought you loved me."

She smiled, and patted his cheek. "And I do! But not exclusively."

He put his bulky arms around her waist and drew her close, his face growing sulky.

Francesca gave him a quick, easy kiss, but her hands were on his chest gently pushing him away. "Please, Manfred. You could not begin to afford keeping me for yourself, and you know it as well as I do. So enjoy what we have."

"But . . . Francesca," he pouted.

"Thursday. Build up your strength." Her next kiss was firm, and dismissive.

* * *

On their way back, observing Manfred's clumping steps from the corner of his eye, Erik found himself fighting down a smile. For once--ha!--even the happy-go-lucky imperial prince seemed to have met a woman who confounded him.

Perhaps sensing his companion's humor, Manfred shrugged thick shoulders. "What can I do?" he demanded, in a tone which was half-amused and half-exasperated. "Next to Francesca, all the other women in this town are just . . . boring."

His still-young face seemed, for just a moment, even younger than it was. "It's not fair! I'm being ruined for a normal life of whoremongering." Blackly: "You watch! Before you know it, she'll be reading to me in bed."

Erik held his tongue. But he finally decided Francesca was right. Maybe some young girl out there--some eventual princess--would thank her for the training she was giving Manfred. He was far too used to getting his own way; with women as much as anything else. Being stymied and befuddled was undoubtedly good for the royal young lout.

As a guardian and a warrior-mentor, Erik still regretted the incident that had led Manfred into consorting with Francesca. Because of the debt between them, he hadn't been able to deal with it as decisively as he usually would have. But . . .

Yes, there was truth in what she'd said. He simply couldn't watch the young hellion twenty-four hours a day. Manfred was as safe with Francesca as in the Imperial embassy . . . from which Manfred had found at least three unofficial exits. If he could leave, then anyone could enter too. Erik had pointed this out to the abbot, to be told that the rite of enclosure precluded it. All Erik could say was that the rite appeared--as testified by Manfred's presence in the Casa Louise--to be ineffectual.

And, he supposed, just as he was seeing to some aspects of the education of the future Duke of Brittany and possible heir to the Holy Roman Emperor's throne, Francesca was also. Erik blushed a little. These were certainly areas he was ignorant of. And besides that, she was knowledgeable about other things which Erik knew little about--such as the political intrigue that seemed to be the heart of the Venetian Republic. The Italians seemed to relish it. It left him puzzled and with a feeling of distaste. But this was what Manfred would have to deal with when Erik went back to Iceland and thence to Vinland.

Chapter 39 ==========

Benito hadn't missed the subtle little signals Aldanto was passing to those shadow-lurkers canalside. Benito knew those shadows, knew them for Giaccomo's. Knew how much they cost. Was totaling up that cost in his head, and coming to a sum that scared the socks off of him.

All that--for Marco?

Oh, hell.

He began doing some very hard thinking about the time they hit the Grand Canal. He'd made up his mind by the time they reached the house in Castello.

Aldanto helped to get Marco as far as the kitchen, then let Maria take over; he headed for the sitting room, and stood looking out of the window in the dim sunlight, arms crossed over his chest, handsome face brooding and worried. Benito made himself a silent shadow following him.

"M'lord--" he said quietly, as soon as they were alone.

Aldanto started--barely visibly; controlling an automatic reaction of defense. Benito's quick eyes caught it all, and his evaluation of Caesare rose considerably.

Damn--he's good. If he can pull his reaction after all this--he's damned good. Better'n anybody I've ever seen.

"What?" the man said shortly, obviously not in a mood for more nonsense.

"M'lord," he said soberly, as Caesare regarded him over one shoulder. "I--I'm sorry about the--" he gestured, flushing, "--where I hit you."

"You're sorry?" The ex-Montagnard was actually speechless.

"M'lord--listen a minute, please? I didn't know what to think. Thought maybe you might have--well--Marco might be worth a bit, to the right people."

"Thought I might have turned my coat again, is that it?" Aldanto looked very odd; a little amused, and maybe a little understanding.

"M'lord, I didn't blame you--I was thinking maybe somebody's been leaning on you. If I was you, reckon I'd swap a kid for Maria, if I had to--hard choice, but--that's the way I'd be doing it." Benito kept his eyes on Aldanto, and thought he saw a thoughtful gleam there.

"So--hey, I thought, you didn't have Marco, you might use me to get to Marco. So I let you have it where it could count, so as I could scat."

"I'm afraid, boy," Caesare said quietly, "that this once you were wrong."

Benito preferred not to think about what that peculiarly phrased sentence might mean if he examined it too closely.

"Look, m'lord, I told you--you got a hard choice to make, you make the best one you can. Happens I was wrong this time--but I'm sorry, hey? Now--" Benito got down to business. "I think my brother cost you more than you could afford, no? I've got eyes--and I know what Giaccomo's rates are--"

Aldanto's own eyes narrowed speculatively, but he said nothing.

"M'lord Caesare, I used to figure there was one person worth spending all I had to keep alive, and that was my brother. Now, I figure there's two--"

He felt, more than heard, Maria come in behind him. That was all right; nothing he was going to say now that he didn't want Maria to hear. "Well, maybe three, except Maria back there can take care of herself, I reckon. But the other one's you. We owe you, m'lord."

Aldanto turned to face him fully. "I may be able to salvage something from Marco's poetry," he said dryly. "I wish he'd told me about it earlier." He shifted his weight to one foot. "But what is the point of telling me something I know?"

"It's this, m'lord--Marco, he's good, ye know? I'm not good--I'm trouble. I don't know how, but the Dell'este--my grandfather--always knew that, even when I was a kid. 'You take care of Marco,' he told me. 'The good ones need us bad ones to keep them safe.' "

Aldanto's right eyebrow rose markedly. "I'm not exactly popular with the Duke of Ferrara, boy. How do you think he'd feel about the company you're keeping now?"

Benito shrugged. "That's not my problem. He just told me I was to take care of Marco."

Aldanto looked pensive, but he said nothing. Benito continued, nervously, but determined. "M'lord, I--" he waved his hands helplessly "--I guess what I want to say is this. You got into this mess because of us. It cost you. You didn't have to do it. Well I'm guessing. But I figure you might need help. Well, from now on, you say, and I'll do. Whatever. However. For as long as you like. And there's some things I'm not too shabby at."

The eyebrow stayed up. Caesare made no pretence that he didn't understand what Benito was talking about. "And if I say--no noise?"

Benito remembered a certain window, and a certain escapade that no longer seemed so clever, and the shadowy men on the canalside walkways--and shuddered. "Then it'll be quiet, m'lord. Real quiet. Babies wouldn't wake up."

"And how long can I expect this sudden fit of virtue to last?" Caesare asked with heavy irony.

"It'll last, m'lord, long as you got use for me. Though, I reckon--" Benito grinned suddenly, engagingly, "you'll have to crack me over the ear, now and again. Claudia used to--about once a week."

Caesare's eyes narrowed a little as he studied Benito. The boy held steady beneath that merciless gaze, neither dropping his own eyes, nor shifting so much as an inch. Finally Aldanto nodded in apparent satisfaction.

"You'll do as I say? Exactly as I say? No arguments?"

"Yes m'lord. No arguments, m'lord. I can spot a professional when I see one, m'lord. Happen you could teach me more than a bit, no? I learn quick, even Valentina says so. One other thing, though--Marco, he went an' spent all the rent money on your medicine, and both of us had to leave work to help out here, so there's nothing saved." Benito was not averse to rubbing that in, just to remind Aldanto that they'd already bankrupted themselves for him, and that debt could work both ways.

He got a bit of satisfaction when this time he definitely saw Caesare wince. "Money's a bit tight."

Benito shrugged. "I understand. Giaccomo's boys don't come cheap. But we're broke. So we either got to stay here, or hit the attics again. Happens the attics are no bad notion; you've got to get over the roofs to get in them--hard for folks to sneak up on you."

Aldanto shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment.

"Mercy--" he mumbled, "--what have I let myself in for this time?"

He cast a glance behind Benito. "Maria--you've got some stake in this too--"

Benito didn't look around, but heard Maria flop down in a chair behind him.

"I think it's no bad idea," she said. "Let them stay here. Lots of comings and goings--maybe not all by doors--confuse the hell out of any watchers."

Aldanto looked over at Benito again, and Benito had the peculiar feeling of seeing someone quite near his own age looking at him out of those adult eyes for one brief flash.

"Hey, the attics ain't so bad," he gave a token protest. "I lived there two years. You get some heat from the house and if you keep quiet you don't get found out and have to move too often. Better than the marshes by a long way."

Aldanto shook his head. "I'd rather you were where I could see you."

Benito shrugged. "Well, if you let us stay, we stay. But we've got jobs. We'll kick in."

"You'd better." That was Maria, behind him.

Caesare shook his head again. Sighed. "Well then, Benito Valdosta, I think we may have a bargain even if my bones tell me it may well be a partnership made in Hell."

Benito just grinned "Hey, not for you, m'lord. But for people acting unfriendly-like? Against a team like the three of us, you, me, and Maria, m'lord Caesare? They haven't a chance!"

* * *

Harrow had panicked at first, when he'd seen who was picking the boys up--he'd broken out of the knot of fighting loco he'd tipped into the water and struggled vainly to get to the gondola before it could carry the boys off. The treacherous bottom had betrayed him. By the time he'd hauled himself out of the washout the two boys were aboard the gondola and being sculled away, back into the shadowed bowels of the city.

Then recollection came to him, and he edged past the brawl back into depths of the swamp, comforted by this new evidence of the Goddess's intervention. Aldanto was former Montagnard; a man with an assassin's knowledge, a snake's cunning, an eel's ways, a duelist's defenses. If the Montagnards were after the boys, what better protection could they have than that of the man who knew most about the ways the Visconti operated, from firsthand experience?

But the Goddess had charged him with watching over them--and Aldanto was only one man; he couldn't be everywhere at once, and he couldn't spend all his time awake. So. That meant Harrow should return to the city--

* * *

Luciano was pleased with his convert's plans. Secretly. The man responded well to manipulation. It was necessary to rant at Harrow about the folly of them until he was hoarse--but Harrow simply held his peace until Luciano ran out of words and then repeated his intentions.

"I'm going back in," he said simply. "The Goddess put it on me, the job's not done till She says so. She said to watch the boys, so I'm watching the boys."

Luciano sighed, "Can't argue with Her, or you," he said glumly, concealing his triumph. "But you got any notion where you're going?"

Harrow nodded, slowly. "Know where Aldanto lives; know lots of watchin' holes around Castello--"

"You just go to the boy's friends if you run into trouble, hear me? Claudia--that's th' main one. Singer--"

"--works out of Barducci's tavern, lives second floor. You told me that already." Harrow did not add what he was thinking--that he probably could teach this Strega more than a few things about covert work. He had little respect for female agents; most of them were damned little use out of bed. He was itching to get out and get moving--Luciano had given him some other drug that cleared his mind and fired his feeling of purpose to a near-obsession, and every moment spent dallying only made the urge to get into place stronger.

"All right, get moving," Luciano growled. "I can see you've no more interest nor purpose out here."

Harrow did not wait to hear anything more.

Chapter 40 ==========

Petro Dorma refolded the letter. And bestowed it and the bundle of poems . . . in his own desk. He ignored his sister's gasp of outrage. He'd had years of practice.

"You . . . you give that back to me!" yelled Angelina, her face red. "I brought it here so you could deal with the little upstart. If you won't, I'll get someone who will!"

Petro took a deep breath. "Angelina, you have been carrying on a clandestine correspondence with this . . . love-starved puppy. You know as well as I do that half the Case Vecchie would send an unmarried virgin off to a nunnery for that. Your fury seems to be entirely directed at this unfortunate and obviously besotted young Marco Felluci not because he wrote you some very inaccurate if flattering poems, but because you thought the poems came from someone else. Would you care to tell me who this 'Caesare' your young swain refers to is?"

Angelina Dorma looked sullen. "Give me back my letters."

"No." Petro looked at his sister. Almost twenty years younger than he and still a child when their father had died, she'd been pampered. His mother had needed someone to turn to and spoil and--well, so had he. She could be very taking, very sweet, even now. When she'd been younger he'd never had the heart to refuse her anything. He'd seen giving her whatever she'd desired as a way of making up for her missing out on having Papa. He'd always felt guilty about that. He'd been twenty-five, already making his own way in the world, marked and shaped by Ernesto Dorma's hand. She'd been six. Now he was beginning to realize that he and his mother had been the ones who'd missed Ernesto. Angelina had hardly known him. He'd been his father's shadow. Angelina, of course, had not been allowed to go to the dockyards and timberyards.

"Angelina. That is Caesare Aldanto, isn't it?"

Her out-thrust lower lip confirmed it.

"He's a bad man, Angelina," Petro said gently. "An adventurer of the worst sort, not some kind of hero. The Signori di Notte have suspicions about at least two of those duels he's fought. Only Ricardo Brunelli's personal intervention has kept him out in the taverns. Keep away from him, little sister."

She flounced out, angrily.

Sighing, Petro sat back in his chair and looked at the stack of papers on his desk. These magical murders were generating more paperwork than answers. He still felt they were no closer to knowing just who was behind them. Problems generated by Angelina's wild behavior were something he didn't need on top of it. He knew she was--along with a crowd of the wealthy and spoiled of Venice--slipping off to various taverns. He'd done it himself once upon a time. There had always been a couple of Case Vecchie girls who were no better than they should be among the crowd. Looking for thrills, looking for excitement. Enjoying being the "wild ones" able to retreat under the family mantle when real trouble came around. It was something of a shock to realize that was what his sister had become. He'd have to do something about it. Perhaps her aunt . . . he sighed. Better to deal with the immediate problems she would be causing. He rang a bell. A footman came hastily. "Tell Bruno and Giampaulo I want to see them. Now."

The two Dorma cousins came in, looking wary. Petro didn't summon people often.

Petro looked them up and down. Both were dressed with some flamboyance. Both carried rapiers. "And to what do we owe this sartorial elegance, gentlemen?" he asked dryly.

"We . . . we were just going out," said Bruno with attempted nonchalance.

"To see some--a . . . friend," said Giampaulo uneasily.

"Ah?" Petro tilted his head inquiringly. "Who?"

"Oh . . . um . . . just a friend." Bruno said airily. "You, you wouldn't know him."

"I see," said Petro affably. "With swords only, or were you planning to take a horsewhip along?"

They looked uneasily at each other. Said nothing.

Petro shook his head. "You will both forget about it."

"He insulted our honor!" said Bruno hotly.

Giampaulo was slightly more fulsome. "We can't tolerate some lowlife bringing shame on our house, Petro! This Felluci has made Casa Dorma--and your sister specifically!--the laughingstock of Venice!"

Petro's brow lowered. "May I remind you both that she is my sister and that I am the head of Dorma. Not you. I'll decide what needs to be done--if anything needs to be done. And if either of you think of taking over my authority . . . you can try being a Dorma factor in Outremer this year. Or Negroponte may have need of hotheads. I don't. I specifically forbade any dueling. And I promise you if I find out you've disobeyed me--and I will find out, don't think I won't--I'll leave you to rot in the Doge's dungeons. Is that clear? Who else was involved in this?"

Giampaulo and Bruno glanced at each other. Their shoulders slumped. "Bonaldo and Michael," muttered Bruno.

"I suggest you waste no time in passing this on to them. The less we do the less scandal there will be. At the moment only Angelina and this boy . . . and you four are involved. By the time you were finished half of Venice would know all the details and my sister and my house would truly be a laughingstock. I won't have it. Is that clear?"

Both of them looked sulky, wary. Nodded.

"Don't even think of trying to circumvent me," said Petro quietly. "I may just have saved your foolish lives. I wonder if Angelina mentioned that this Felluci is the duelist Aldanto's messenger?"

Petro had the satisfaction of seeing the two cousins go abruptly pale.

Chapter 41 ==========

Chiano brooded over the little fire while Sophia grilled fish he'd coaxed into his net for dinner. He thought about how Harrow had slipped away into the marsh so easily he might have been born here; the man made scarcely a rustle in the reeds. What he'd done to mold the creature that had come into his hands into the man now called Harrow had used a smidgeon of magic, a great deal of knowledge he'd gleaned from Sophia about the properties of the plants of the Jesolo, and all his manipulation.

Face the facts, old man, you used him. To protect Marco, yes, but he'd made Harrow into a mere tool for that protection . . .

He was a tool before you got him. He just didn't know it. You gave him that much; self-knowledge. There are those who'd give anything for that.

And there were those who would--and did--give anything to have the luxury of denial, too. He hadn't given Harrow a choice.

How many choices did I have? None, if he was to give Marco a protector. And Marco had to have a protector, if he was to grow into the power the Lion's Shadow promised for him. He was close now, close to accepting the Winged Mantle; Chiano had sensed it. But Marco had to live to grow into that power, and--

And Venice is suddenly a world more dangerous than it was before. And you, old man, aren't there.

Self-knowledge. . . .

He'd had the luxury, not of denial, but of absence of that knowledge for a long time, courtesy of those who had ambushed him in the very corridors of the Accademia, coshed him, and dropped him into a canal. Him! Dottore Marina! And he hadn't even remembered that much until recently! All those experiments with drugs and hallucinations--he knew enough to be able to tell the difference between a real vision and a hallucination--hadn't been to gather the Word of the Goddess. It had been to jar loose his own memories from the confused mist the blow to the head had sent them into.

At first, when he came here, all he'd known for certain was what old Sophia had told him--that the undines had brought him to her, that they had told her he was their friend and that they had rescued him when someone had tried to kill him. They didn't know who; the men had worn steel armor, and that had prevented their magic and his own from saving him. They knew he was a magician, a powerful magician, one who was the friend of water creatures in particular, but that was all they knew. That, and his name, which meant nothing to him as he was, and nothing to an old herb-witch living in the Jesolo.

Sophia had decided--and told him--that he must have some powerful enemy in the city to have earned such treatment, and he had caught fear from her. For the longest time he hadn't wanted to know; it seemed safer when he didn't. And he particularly didn't want to use magic. Sophia had told him that magicians could tell where other magicians were using magic, and even who it was that was doing it--as if there would be any other magician in the Jesolo!

But when nothing happened, and no one came seeking him, then he dared, a little at a time. He dared first a little magic, a very little magic, something that he remembered bits of, that Sophia knew bits of, to call the undines to him. And it worked; they came out of friendship more than anything else, but stayed because he could feed them tidbits of power out of his own stores. It was the undines who came often enough for his tidbits and stayed to chase fish into his traps. It was the undines, also, who frightened the locos sufficiently, with their clawed hands and shark-tooth smiles, that he and Sophia were left unmolested. They could even, at need, make dangerous locos like the late Big Gianni feel threatened enough that he could have made Big Gianni back off from Marco if he'd been there when it needed doing.

And finally he tried getting those memories back of who, exactly, Dottore Marina was, and what he could do.

"Here," Sophia said, nudging him. "Better eat."

He accepted the piece of grilled fish from her and ate it mechanically.

* * *

It was a good thing that it was the memories of danger that came back first, and not the ones he had just gotten over the last few days, or his enemies would have surely found him. Someone had paid for very, very skilled bravos, dressed head-to-foot in fine chain mail, to ambush him within the Accademia itself. His defensive magics, the ones he could do without thinking, had all been of the sort to use against another mage or a creature of magic. When striking cold steel, they had fizzled and died, like a wet firework. That was all he remembered; the blow to his head that must have followed blanked out everything else.

For a while at least.

He had struggled since then, trying to put a face on the faceless enemy. Who could have hired these men? Obviously someone conversant enough with magic to know exactly how to disable a Magister Magus, a Grimas, a master of all three of the stregheria traditions. He had enemies, but none that virulent. Some were political; he was--had been--the spokesperson, not only for the Strega but also the rest of the non-Christian mages, the Jews and Moslems and that bizarre little fellow allegedly from the Qin empire. He had managed to get a single voice out of that chaos of conflicting personalities, even though for the most part it was like trying to herd cats and just as thankless a task. But the Strega were little more than an afterthought in the politics of Venice; he couldn't think of anyone who would consider him a political threat.

What did that leave? A mystery, a faceless threat, and somehow that unnerved him, unmanned him, and left him determined to hide out here and depend on no more than the little dribs and drabs of magic it took to just stay alive.

But then that poor child had shown up, running from faceless enemies himself, men who had killed his mother. And on him, guiding him--the Lion's Shadow, the sign that Chiano had not--then--recognized for what it was, because he himself was not aware that he was the wearer of the Winged Mantle. He only knew that Marco could be a magician if he chose, and through Marco, he himself could work the magic that would elevate life in the swamp above mere survival.

Until now. Until now . . .

Now he knew what he was--the force through which the Protector, the Soul of Venice could work, a Soul that went right back through the Romans and to the first Etruscan fishermen who had plied the Jesolo. The Soul that now took the shape of the Winged Lion of Saint Mark, but who was older than even Dottore Marina could guess. And the Shadow he had seen on young Marco was not just the shadow of potential power, it was the Shadow of the Lion, showing that Marco--if he lived, if he grew into and accepted his power--would be the next to wear the Winged Mantle. Marco might even--Chiano was not sure about this yet--be the first to assume the Lion's Crown as well, something which no one had done in centuries.

Now he knew why he had lived--because the Shadow had dispersed his attackers with the brush of its wings that called up terror, and called the undines up the canal to rescue him before the assassins could complete their business. Because the Shadow had told the undines to take him to Sophia, deep into the Jesolo, where he could live and regain his memories.

But there was no reason to follow Marco into the city, to go back. Was there? The boy had Harrow to protect him. He didn't need Chiano, nor did anyone else.

Except--

Except for the stories that came drifting into the Jesolo like mist, like the echoes of bells from the city, the stories that spoke of the sinister and cruel acts of the Servants of the Trinity--

Who would burn you, if they could take you, Chiano--

And of a monster who prowled the waterways and killed--

And what business is that of yours?

The shadow of wings brushed through his mind, reminding him that--yes, it was his business. It threatened the city. It was not just politics, but evil, that had sent him into the canal that night, not merely to serve as a warning to those who might think to challenge it but to rid the city of its protector.

Dottore Marina would have scoffed and taken up the gauntlet. Chiano had come too close to death. Chiano was afraid.

The truth is--

The truth was, he didn't know enough.

That's easily remedied, some small inner voice told him. He sighed. Yes, it was--except he was afraid of the remedy.

No more softness!

He stood up abruptly, and jumped down off the raft. It was not quite sunset; there was still time for magic. Sophia paid no attention. By now, she was used to the way he would just get up and go off somewhere without a word.

Sophia was more than a little loco herself. Odd behavior meant little or nothing to her.

There were places, even in the Jesolo, where there was pure water. Springs bubbled up from beneath the marsh, rainwater collected--you could find it, if you knew where to look. Anyone who was friend to the undines could find it without difficulty at all.

It had rained last night. Chiano waded out onto a thread of a path that took him to a place among the hummocks where he had left a bowl to collect water. It would be fresh and sweet and pure--exactly what he needed for scrying, since he would use something other than the stregheria rite, which would surely pinpoint him to anyone who was looking for him.

Dottore Marina did not need to go through an elaborate ritual to invoke and erect a Circle of Power and Protection anymore; he just thought a few key words, and it sprang up around him. Invisible to most eyes, and only barely visible to those with the Inner Sight, it ringed him with the Inner Fires that would screen his probing from those watching for magic. Holding his hands over the bowl of pure water as he squatted beside it in the dying light of day, he breathed another invocation, and watched patiently. As the last of the sun vanished, and the first rays of the moon touched the surface, it misted over, then cleared, showing him the once-familiar canals and walkways of his city.

Show me the threat, he commanded silently. Show me the peril to my city.

He had hoped to see nothing. But the water misted and cleared immediately, and showed him, in rapid succession--a voluptuous woman with red-gold hair--

Lucrezia Brunelli--

--her brother, Ricardo--

--a sour-faced, fanatic-eyed man in a cassock with three crosses emblazoned on it--

An abbot of the Servants? But who? I don't recognize him--

A woman in the habit of a nun of the Servants.

Whose eyes were--lifeless. Then something looked out of them.

At him. And saw him. And knew him!

And last, before he could react to that flicker of malevolent recognition, the darkened canal, with something swimming below the surface.

He bent nearer, closer to the water, trying to make out what it was.

It was coming out.

It sent one clawed hand, then another, to fasten into the stones of the canalside. Then it heaved itself up out of the water faster than a striking adder, and it turned, and it looked at him!

He screamed, and involuntarily thrashed at the water, breaking the spell. Just in time.

One moment more, and it would have been through the water-mirror, meant only for scrying, and at his throat, feeding on his life.

And his soul.

Reflexively, Luciano called up all of his defenses until he lay, panting, within a cocoon of power. Oh, anyone looking would See him now--but it didn't matter. Not after that. They knew he was out here, and it wouldn't take long for them to find him. How many undines would die protecting him?

For a very long time he couldn't think, he could only sit and shiver with fear that turned his bowels to water. As the moon climbed higher in the sky, he sat, and shook, and even wept unashamedly.

Not to me! This can't come to me! I'm too old, too tired--

But on his shoulders rested the Winged Mantle. He felt it, though it was invisible. There was no one else. Marco was untrained and unaware and could not take the Mantle in any case until Chiano was dead. The Mantle had come to him on the death of his predecessor--irony of ironies, it had been a little Hypatian priest-mage, out of a bastard branch of one of the four Old Families, and not one of the Strega.

No, Chiano was the bearer, for the good of Venice. If there had been anyone in all of Venice fit to wear it, it would have gone to him, or her, the moment his body hit the water, senseless, and he would have died. Extraordinary measures had been taken to ensure that he did not. Marco no doubt had the Mark, even then, but he hadn't the training, had no one to train him, and in any case was too young for the weight. The weight of the Mantle, even, much less the Crown.

His denial turned to a plea. Please--not now. Please, not to me.

But the answer was still the same. There was no other.

The night had never seemed so dark. . . .

Then, the shadow of a wing brushed him, and a quiet filled him. He made his mind very still, then, and waited.

There is no other, my child, said a voice as deep as the seas, as vast as the night sky. But I will be with you. Your soul will survive.

His soul . . . not his body, perhaps, but his soul.

It was enough; enough for him to find a small scrap of courage left, to drag together the rags of his sense of self, and to find a little more courage, a little more heart. And finally, what was left of his dignity.

He dismissed his protections with a word, and walked back to what had been his home, and would not be for much longer. Sophia looked up as he rejoined her on their combined rafts. Her eyes widened a little, as if he somehow looked different, now.

Perhaps he did.

For a moment he gazed out over the water towards the city, towards his fate.

"It's time, Sophia," he said at last. "It's time to go back."

Sophia smiled at him, shifting the wrinkles. And shook her head. "It's time you went back, Chiano. But this is my place, now," she said with finality.

Chapter 42 ==========

After he lowered his pack onto the cot which would henceforth serve him as a bed, Eneko Lopez heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God," he murmured, as his eyes made a quick survey of his new living quarters. The survey was very brief, for the simple reason that there was very little to survey in the first place. The room was tiny, as small as any cell he had inhabited in his years as a monk. Except for the cot and a small chest at the foot of it which would serve to store his few belongings, the only other item of furniture was a writing table in front of the room's one small window and a chair. Other than that, the room was bare except for a crucifix hanging on the wall above the cot.

"I'll miss the library," he murmured. "But nothing else."

His two companions smiled. Diego motioned with his head toward the open window. "The smell from the canals is bad at times, here in the Ghetto."

"Not half as bad as the stench in Casa Brunelli," growled Pierre. "What did you give as your reason for changing quarters?"

"I simply told Ricardo Brunelli that my work in the Ghetto had progressed to the point where I needed to live there. Which is true enough, as far as it goes."

"You should have--"

"Oh, Pierre--do stop!" snapped Eneko. "We have enough problems on our hands without offending the Brunellis unnecessarily. Any more than I have already by spurning that infernal Lucrezia's constant advances."

Pierre, as usual, was stubborn. " 'Infernal' is right," he growled.

"Pierre . . . please. You admit yourself that you've never been able to detect any sense of a witch about her."

"You're making too much of that," retorted Pierre. "My talent has definite limits, Eneko. What I said was that I could not detect any demonic possession in the woman. That's what a 'witch' is, after all. That does not mean she can't be as vile as any of Satan's minions."

"That the woman is evil I don't doubt for an instant," replied Eneko, shrugging. "But we have not a shred of evidence to think she is in any way connected to the events in Venice which brought us here. And, given the position of the Brunellis, I can see no logical reason why she would be."

"You yourself have said 'evil needs no reason,' " pointed out Pierre.

Eneko sighed. "Savoy mule! Let there be an end to it, Pierre, at least for now. We must concentrate on the matter at hand."

"On that," interjected Diego, "there is news. Perhaps, I should say."

At Lopez's cocked eyebrow, Diego elaborated. "I have discovered the identity of that boy you asked about. The local healer who also works for Caesare Aldanto. His name--so it is said, at least--is 'Marco Felluci.' And he doesn't simply work for Aldanto, he lives with him. He and another boy named Benito. Along with Aldanto's woman, a canaler by the name of Maria Garavelli."

Lopez's eyes widened a bit. "Are the two boys related? Brothers, perhaps?"

Diego shook his head. "Not according to the information I've been able to collect. The other's last name is Oro. And I've seen him, once. He doesn't resemble Marco in the least. The only similarity between the two boys is that, according to rumor, they are both orphans."

Lopez studied him for a moment. "But . . . you are, I suspect, wondering the same thing that I am."

Diego nodded. "It seems odd, yes. For Aldanto to take two boys under his wing . . . and he just spent a large sum rescuing the boy Marco."

"From what?"

Pierre chuckled. "From an absurd romantic complication." He proceeded to give Lopez a quick sketch of what he and Diego had learned from local canalers about what had quickly become a rather famous little episode.

Eneko smiled. "Love poems, eh?" Slowly, he sat down on the chair. "It is odd. Why should a mercenary like Aldanto go to such lengths to shelter two waifs? Two orphans--presumably penniless. One of whom, at least, does not seem to have the temperament one would expect from a protege of Aldanto. Healing poor children--for no payment--love poems. Even leaving aside that angel face."

"And the names," added Diego. Eneko nodded. "Yes. Marco and Benito are common names, of course. Still . . ."

"One moment," said Diego. He left the room and returned shortly with a scarf in his hand. "I obtained this from the little girl whom we saw the boy treat that time. She was reluctant to part with it, but . . ."

Lopez couldn't refrain from wincing. Another coin gone, from the few they had in their possession. But he did not utter any protest. Like Diego, he thought the money well spent.

"Yes," he said forcefully. "With that scarf, we can discover the boy's past. As much, at least, as that scarf was a part of it."

Pierre, unlike his two companions, was not well versed in sacred magic. "Unreliable . . ." he murmured. "Possibly even risky."

Diego shook his head. "Not in the least, Pierre. This is not like scrying, which another mage could detect and distort. Nor is it as difficult--almost impossible, really--as foretelling the future. The past is done, immutable. What Eneko proposes is simply an aspect of--" Diego, who had a bit of the pedant in him, began what was clearly going to be a long-winded description of the principles of contagion as applied to sacred magic. But Eneko cut him short.

"Enough!" he chuckled. "Pierre wants to hear it less than I do." To Pierre: "It can be done. Trust me. Will you join us in prayer?" He cast his eyes about their new home. "Since I am going to be living here, working here--" He raised his eyebrow significantly. "--and worshipping here, it should be cleansed first. And Diego, you may pretend ignorance, but you know very well how to ritually cleanse a dwelling."

Diego groaned. "I'll get a broom."

"A prayer of intention, first," Pierre said, with a laugh of his own.

* * *

The ritual cleansing didn't take long; to be honest, although the room was physically filthy, there wasn't much in the way of negativity to chase from it, and nothing at all of evil. The smells might be dreadful, but the spiritual atmosphere was clean. There was a practicality to a ritual cleansing--following the principle of "as above, so below," you cleaned; you cleaned everything, floor to ceiling, in order to set a barrier of protection permanently in place, but you cleaned with intention, prayer, and the magic to flush away the "dirt" you couldn't see along with what you could. Diego was very good at floors.

One of the reasons Eneko had chosen this particular room was because of a peculiarity of alignment: the four corners were exactly pointing to the four cardinal directions. By nailing a bit of wood into each corner to serve as a shelf for the tiny statues of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel he had brought, he recreated, in miniature, a ritual chapel. Like Hagia Sophia on the other side of town, like the ritual chapels of Hypatians everywhere, by the time he and Pierre finished blessing it, setting up the boundary-spells, blessing it again, this was sacred ground, protected from evil.

"Ah!" Eneko said, stretching his arms and shaking out his hands when they were done. "I much prefer this sort of comfort to anything Casa Brunelli offered."

"I can't say as I blame you," Pierre replied. Diego just shrugged and picked up the scarf, which they had left lying on the cot.

"If you're going to do this, you might as well get it over with," he said, holding it out to Eneko gingerly, as if it was a viper.

Eneko just smiled and dug a flat bowl out of his belongings, while Pierre went out to find a water-seller. He returned with a cask of potable water which he set up in the corner beneath the statue of Gabriel and tapped. "Strange that in a city on the water, you can't drink any of it," he remarked.

"No stranger than being on a ship, surrounded by water," Diego countered. "For that matter, would you drink water from the Loire in Orleans?"

"Ah . . . no. Here you are, Eneko." Pierre had filled the flat bowl with clean water and put it on the floor where the two of them knelt on either side of it. Eneko murmured a blessing over it, and Pierre blessed salt and cast it over the top of the water. Then, holding an end of the scarf each, the two mages bent over the bowl, while Diego peered at it from his perch on the cot.

While Pierre readied the bowl to reflect the images that came to it, Eneko used a thread of power to "talk" to the scarf. Show us where you have been, was the gist of his spell, and in a moment, a mist passed over the face of the water, and images appeared there, looking exactly like reflections.

Except these reflections were of nothing that was in the room.

The scarf itself was not very old, which was just as well; Eneko hurried past the silkworm, the weavers, the dandy (prone to getting recklessly drunk in foolish places) who had owned it, until he came to the moment that Benito Oro plucked it from the drunk's neck.

"Ah--" said Diego, with interest. Now they settled down to watch in earnest.

* * *

When the work was finished, the magic dispelled, and the blessed water scattered around the room, Eneko chuckled again. "The Marco boy may be an innocent, but his young companion Benito is certainly not. Which, unfortunately, leaves us knowing not much more than we did before. Since the scarf was stolen only a few days before Marco gave it to the child."

He rose to his feet. "Still, there is enough here to warrant further effort. Diego, I need to make a trip. It will use up most of what we have, until we get another disbursement of funds from the Grand Metropolitan. But well worth it, perhaps."

Pierre had risen to his feet also. "It will do us good to live on alms for a while, anyway."

Diego, still seated on the cot, cast a questioning look upward. "A trip? Where? And to do what?"

When Lopez told him, Diego sighed. "And what makes you think the old man will allow you the privilege? He's ferocious on that subject, by all accounts."

Lopez handed him the scarf. "I will give him this. Then tell him how the younger boy acquired it and what the older one did with it. If our suspicion--say better, surmise--is correct, he will allow me to see the portrait."

"If there is one," demurred Pierre. "He may have burned whatever existed."

"Oh, I doubt that," said Lopez softly. "It is one thing for a man to disown his daughter and cast her out. It is another thing entirely to burn his own memories."

* * *

"It appears that Marco has come to no permanent harm in his sojourn in the marshes," said Antimo, carefully. "The money you've been sending Aldanto to keep the boys was well spent. Although--" For a moment, Bartelozzi's prim mouth pursed with distaste. "Needless to say, he's been letting everyone think that it was his money which rescued Marco."

The Old Fox chuckled wryly. "You expected Caesare Aldanto to be truthful and modest?"

Antimo shrugged, acknowledging the truth in the little jest. "However, there is another aspect of the new situation you need to consider, milord. A quite unforeseen one. It appears the boys have acquired another protector besides Aldanto--and one who is every bit as skilled, and in some ways perhaps even more dangerous."

Dell'este put his hands behind his head and rocked back on his chair. "They seem to have a talent for attracting supporters and defenders. That is a valuable trait for the Dell'este," he said cheerfully. "You might even say: a family custom."

Antimo looked at him. A steady unblinking basilisk stare.

The Old Fox sighed. "All right, Antimo. Who is it?"

"Fortunato Bespi."

The chair came down with a thump. The Old Fox looked anything but cheerful. Then he shook his head sharply.

"All right, Antimo. You've succeeded! For once you have brought me a piece of information that was so totally unexpected I was at a loss. Bespi! Who would have thought it? All reports claimed he was dead. That he should turn up protecting Lorendana's children is . . . bizarre."

There was a long silence. The duke sat quietly. After a moment, he turned his lined old face away from Bartelozzi and stared blindly at a far wall. Moisture welled in his eyes, and, eventually, slowly, a tear found its way down one cheek.

At length Antimo Bartelozzi cleared his throat. "What do you wish done about the matter, milord?"

The Old Fox rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Nothing," he said harshly. "Lorendana made her choices. It may be that I failed her as a father. She was a very beautiful child, Antimo. Maybe I indulged her more than I should have. But, nonetheless, she made her own decisions. She lived by them and she died by them. Bespi was a fanatic. Had he murdered her for money, I would have had him assassinated at the time as a message: Killing a Dell'este for money guarantees you will not live to spend it. But Bespi killed to orders, because he was a single-minded fanatic. I would have done as well to have my revenge on a knife. Still true."

He peered at Bartelozzi, his eyes once again as sharp and dry as usual. "Tell me this, however: are you certain that Bespi guards them?"

The agent nodded. "Yes, milord. He could have killed both boys in the swamp as easily as he could two chickens. You know that as well as I. Bespi is--deadly. And I've watched him myself since he returned to the city. A mother hen puts in far less effort caring for its chicks. You know, my lord, how a fanatical foe can turn into the most loyal of defenders, if you can change their hearts."

The Old Fox looked at the man who had many years ago been sent to kill him. "I know that, Antimo," he said quietly.

There was silence, for a moment. Then the Duke of Ferrara clapped his hands in a quick and decisive gesture. "Enough! I trust your judgment. Now, let us turn to the general situation in Venice. The Council of Ten: what of Calenti?"

Antimo shook himself back to the present. "Lord Calenti remains apparently neutral, milord. But . . . we have discovered he has been having a very discreet liaison with Lucrezia Brunelli."

The Old Fox raised an eyebrow. "She's a busy woman. She must have to apportion her time carefully. She's been linked to several other people whom we have watched. Well . . . does this lean him toward the Metropolitans?"

The agent shook his head. "Based on Lucrezia's other . . . paramours . . . I would guess that the tendency is not in favor of her brother's party. Lucrezia is her own woman. Ricardo Brunelli thinks his sister draws her suitors to him. But of the ardent suitors and possible lovers we know of--quite a number have Montagnard sympathies or contacts. Count Badoero, for example."

"A bad egg if there ever was one," said the Old Fox. "Lord Calenti will bear watching. And what of Petro Dorma? Have there been any repercussions from Marco's foray into poetry?"

Antimo shook his head. "No, milord. Apparently, Lord Dorma stifled the usual 'young bravo' sentiment within his own house quite decisively. I have to say I'm growing increasingly impressed by the man. I think he remains our best bet among the Council of Ten."

The Old Fox reached for his quill. "So am I. Well, then. Let us see if we can arrange a little warming of relations between the Dell'este and Dorma. I think the blade that is my grandson Marco has been tempered. It is time to start using it. Let us see if my enemies dare to move openly--when the head of a reborn Casa Valdosta stands forth in Venice under his rightful name."

Antimo looked perturbed. "He may be killed, milord."

The Old Fox shrugged. "If he is, then we will know he was poorly tempered steel," he said quietly.

* * *

When Eneko returned from Ferrara, he said nothing to his companions at first. He simply unwrapped the small parcel he brought with him, and showed them what it contained.

Diego hissed. "Dear God, what a resemblance."

"There is a much larger portrait at Dell'este, in which the resemblance is even more striking. But the duke gave me this miniature."

"Why?" asked Pierre.

Eneko smiled. "I asked him that same question myself. A most interesting answer he gave me. 'You must remember the mother, most of all.' "

"I don't understand," said Diego, frowning.

Eneko placed the miniature on his little writing desk. " 'Old Fox,' indeed," he murmured. "I shall keep the portrait here at all times. To remind me that both boys had the same mother." He turned back to his companions. "And what was she, brothers? An evil woman or a good one? Or simply a mother?"

Diego stared at the portrait, still confused. But Pierre nodded. "Indeed so. The portrait is a reminder to us. A warning, perhaps--of the danger of pride."

"She was indeed a proud woman, by all accounts," mused Diego.

Eneko shook his head firmly. "You misunderstand. The duke was warning us of the danger of our pride." He smiled grimly. "Canny old man. That is indeed the downfall of theologians."

His eyes went back and forth from Pierre to Diego. "We will do nothing with this knowledge, for the time being. That, too, the old man made me swear. The children are safer for the moment with their identity concealed, obviously. But when the time comes--remember, brothers. There were two sons, produced by the same mother."

"God works in mysterious ways," said Diego solemnly.

"Oh, nonsense!" chuckled Pierre. "Not in this instance. Any Savoyard can tell you the trick. Always keep a second string for your bow."

PART IV March, 1538 A.D. ==================================

Chapter 43 ==========

Humiliation, Marco was learning, was a very different thing from shame.

Shame gripped your gut and made you sick. Humiliation made you wish you were dead. Shame had made him run. Humiliation made him hide. He hid at his job behind a facade of the drabbest clothing in his wardrobe and a bulwark of work. He was fast becoming one of the most put-upon clerks in the office, because he courted, volunteered for, the most tedious and boring tasks available. And he hid after work anywhere but home, once he made his check to see if Caesare had a job for him. He visited his friend the art student as much as he could without becoming a nuisance, which actually wasn't that difficult at the moment. When Rafael wasn't studying, he needed models to draw from, and Marco had absolutely no objection to stripping down to his smallclothes and holding still until he turned blue, so long as no one was teasing him about Angelina.

And when he wasn't visiting Rafael, he hid in books, or, increasingly, in the tiny church of Saint Raphaella--and somehow the confluence of names seemed appropriate. He didn't seek out the priest, Brother Mascoli, and he didn't let the priest catch sight of him. He simply sat in the back, and thought, until it was almost dark, and only then did he go home.

Here, at least, his thoughts weren't so much about humiliation as humility itself, and not at all about Angelina.

Over and over he thought about what the priest had told him, and tried to come up with counterarguments. He couldn't. Moreover, the more he saw of the militant Pauline faction, the less he liked them. They were arrogant, the most of them, and pride was arguably the most deadly of the sins, since it led to so many of the others. And oh, they were angry--he scarcely ever saw a Sot or a Knot without a frown on his face--and that was not only another deadly sin, but one that led straight to murder and mayhem. You couldn't keep that much anger pent up for long without it boiling over, and when it did, someone always got hurt. Perhaps the Petrines were soft, and perhaps they were inclined to another deadly sin, that of sloth, but at least no one was ever hurt by a slothful layabout with a deadly weapon.

The Paulines were right about one thing: there was such a thing as real evil, and oft times the Petrines preferred to pretend there wasn't in the hopes that it would get bored and go away. But not all Petrines. Not the priest here, for instance . . . no, that sort of thing was the besetting sin of those whose wealth and power allowed them to insulate themselves from the rest of the world. The ones who scoffed at the stories of the canal monster because no one they knew had been attacked by it. Well . . . except for the financier killed the previous summer. But that had been months ago, and most of Venice's elite seemed to have convinced itself that his murder was the work of a simple maniac. A disgruntled debtor, no doubt. Only ignorant and superstitious peasants would credit such a thing as "magical murder" or a mysterious monster in the canals.

But, being honest with himself, Marco could not be at all certain that Paulines sufficiently insulated by wealth and position from their sweating peasants would not have said the same thing, had the monster prowled the back alleys of Milan instead of the canals of Venice.

So, on long afternoons before darkness fell, Marco sat on a bench in the darkest corner against the wall at the rear of the church and looked at the crude statue of Saint Raphaella, and wondered what he should do. He didn't want to ask for a sign--who was he that a saint should give him a sign? He blushed to think that he had asked one of Saint Peter--Saint Peter!--those months ago in the swamp.

He'd come here again after another day of making triplicate copies of tedious documents, knowing that his friend was studying for an examination and Caesare was out on some mysterious business or other. The church had been darkening steadily for the past several moments, and he would have to go soon--

With a start, he realized that Brother Mascoli was in the church--was coming towards him--

Was coming at him.

Jesu! Has the man eyes like a cat?

"Marco, I need you," the priest said, as Marco started to get up, to get away, before the man could confront him. Mascoli grabbed him by the arm before Marco could protest, or even think of anything to say. "Don't argue with me, boy. I need you. They need you, and they asked for you by name."

"Who did?" Marco squeaked.

"You'll see," Brother Mascoli said, and dragged him up to the altar, around to his own quarters, and out a tiny back door.

It was, as it transpired, a water-door, which let onto a mere thread of a canal. Handy for poor canal-folk to bring in their sick and injured by night? Handy, too for smuggling--

In this case, handy for something else entirely, for something that was the last thing Marco would have expected. He stared down at the three faces in the water. Three pale green faces, looking up at him and the priest, their fishy eyes reflecting the light from a torch set up in a sconce on the wall, their emerald-green hair like water-weeds streaming and waving in the water around them. And it reflected upon a fourth face, so pale there was hardly any green to it, eyes closed, webbed fingers clasped over a hideous wound in its--her--stomach.

Marco turned on Brother Mascoli. "Those are undines!" he said accusingly.

"And this--if you will notice--is enclosed within the church walls," he replied, waving at what Marco had taken to be a canal. It wasn't. Now that the priest had drawn his attention to it, he saw that it was part of the church proper, beneath the roof, a crucifix mounted on the back with another Presence-Light beneath it on a shelf that served for an altar. A sort of watery chapel, apparently.

"Technically, since I bless this place three times daily, this is Holy Water," Brother Mascoli continued. "They may not be human, but they've passed the test of faith. And they asked for you by name. I can't heal her, but they think you can."

"Me?" Marco's voice went up another octave.

"You," said a sibilant voice from below. "We have seen you with our brother, among the reeds. You have the light and the power. We cannot reach him in time--you must heal our sister!"

He couldn't help himself; he knelt down on the water-stair and looked at the terrible gash that crossed the undine's torso from left nipple to the top of her right hip, and a spasm of sympathetic pain closed around his throat. How could anyone heal that? How could the poor thing still be alive?

The wounded undine's eyes opened, and he was caught in her gaze. She moaned pitifully, and held out webbed fingers to him. "Please," came the faintest of whispers.

Blessed Maria-- It was more than a spasm of sympathy now; he swallowed down actual tears.

"But--" he directed, not a protest, but a plea of his own to Brother Mascoli. "I don't know how--"

"They're magic creatures, Marco. You probably couldn't heal a human slashed like that, but they're as much spirit as flesh--" Brother Mascoli began, then shook his head. "Just do what I do." He looked down at one of the uninjured undines. "Little sister, you're going to have to help. I may need you to act as a catalyst; the boy's never done magic as far as he knows."

One of the undines separated herself from the injured one, leaving the other two to support their sister in the water. "I am ready," she said, undulating over to Marco, and sliding up onto the water-step beside his feet. He couldn't help noticing when she spoke that she had long, sharp claws on those graceful green hands--and a mouth full of sharklike teeth. Looking at those teeth . . .

Marco almost shuddered. The "our brother" the undine had referred to could only be Chiano. He'd always known old Chiano had a special relationship with the undines in the Jesolo. The marsh locos had always been afraid of Chiano. Marco had thought it was only because of some vague fear of Chiano's magic, but now--looking at those teeth--he suspected that at least marsh locos had learned the hard way not to fool around with a friend of the undines.

Brother Mascoli turned Marco to face the opening of the water-chapel that led to the canal, "Holy Angel Gabriel--"

He nudged Marco who realized suddenly that this was a prayer, and he was expected to follow. "Holy Angel Gabriel," he repeated obediently, echoed by the undine at his feet.

Jesu--it's a prayer--I'd better put some feeling into it. All it took was a single glance at the poor creature at his feet to do that.

"You who brought the word of God--to the Blessed Virgin Mary--who guard the waters--and those who dwell therein--we beseech and pray thee--to guard our circle--and guide our work."

He'd been concentrating on putting his heart into the words and he hadn't really thought about what the prayer might do--and it came as a shock when the area of the opening suddenly filled with a flare of green light so bright it made the torch pale. It certainly made Marco start back with surprise, but Brother Mascoli only grunted with what sounded like satisfaction and turned Marco to the right to face the blank wall of the chapel, and began another prayer. "Holy Angel Michael--you who guard the world with a flaming sword--and all the creatures born of fire--we beseech and pray thee--"

This time when the flash of red light came, Marco was, more or less, ready for it. He turned on his own this time, beginning to get the idea. The angel was Raphael this time--"who guard the air and those who dwell therein"--and the flash was of blue light along the wall with the crucifix mounted on it. And last of all, they faced the wall behind them and invoked the Angel Uriel, the keeper of the creatures of the earth, and were greeted with a flash of pure golden light practically at their noses.

Brother Mascoli once again turned Marco to face the altar. "In nomine Patri, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, fiat lux!" he intoned, with Marco only a fraction of a second behind him, and a blinding white light enveloped the entire water-chapel for a moment, to die down to a faint curtain of light between them and the outside world.

And if Marco doubted that--there was the evidence of his own ears. There was no sound coming from out there--nothing of the echoes of voices and the splash of water, of the bumping of boats against the mooring and the slap of feet on the walkways. Nothing.

Brother Mascoli gave another grunt of satisfaction. "All right, Marco, the rest is simple. Kneel down beside our little sister there--"

Too caught up now to even think of protesting, Marco knelt on the step beside the undine at his feet. She placed her hands in the water, just over the injured one's, once again clasped desperately over her wound.

"Just put your hands over hers--" the priest directed.

Marco shivered at the order--shivered once again at the touch of the cool flesh under his, cooler than a human's could ever be, and--scaled? Yes, those were scales under his fingers.

Brother Mascoli bent over and completed the stack with his own hands. "Now," he said in Marco's ear. "Just pray. Pray to Saint Raphaella and Saint Hypatia, to give you the power to heal this child of God--"

How--he thought, but he obeyed, closing his eyes and putting every bit of concentration he had into a fervent, even desperate, plea. He barely noticed one of the scaled hands slip from beneath his and come to rest just over his heart. Instead he concentrated on an image that came to him from nowhere, of the dreadful wound being un-made, sealing up, closing over, leaving the flesh sweet and unmarked, linking that image to his prayer in a way he felt was right--

And then he felt something else entirely.

An upwelling within himself, first a trickle of warmth and life and energy, then a rivulet, then a stream, then a gush--energy that was somehow green, although he could not have said why, that flowed from somewhere into him, and down through his chest and into his arms and out his hands, which grew warm as it passed through them. Startled, he opened his eyes, and saw, to his open-mouthed astonishment, that it wasn't some trick of his imagination. His hands were glowing with a green light the color of sunlight passing through early leaves, and the light was sinking down and spreading over the wounded undine.

And the wound was closing, exactly as he had imagined it.

There were two--beings--of light, one to his right, and one to his left, hovering weightlessly over the water. They were vaguely human-shaped, but too bright and at the same time too diffuse to really make out anything else. They each held a hand over his head, and he knew, somehow, that this was the source of that energy that was coursing through him. Brother Mascoli and the other undine were caught fast in some sort of trance; their eyes were shut fast.

This is for your eyes only, little brother. He sensed, somehow, that the being to his right was smiling at him, that the words came from--him? Her?

Both. And neither. Meaningless, little brother. God's spirits have no gender.

He didn't know whether to be elated--to have at last that sign he had not dared hope for--or to be ashamed that he had doubted and had waited so long to use this thing he'd been given. He decided he had to be both.

And neither. Could the infant Tintoretto have painted a fresco? Some things must wait upon . . . maturity.

Embarrassment, the too familiar taste of humiliation at his own stupidity, his own failures; then, suddenly, the sweeter taste of something altogether different. Humility.

Of course. Sometimes, old Chiano had said, you have to wait until you're ready. . . .

Exactly. Now--concentrate, little brother. We cannot remain much longer.

He closed his eyes again and focused his attention, until the flow of what he now knew was pure, simple power began to ebb; from a rush, to a stream, from a stream, to a rivulet, from a rivulet, to a trickle, and then it was gone.

He opened his eyes, and pulled back his hands.

The only light came, once again, from the torch in the sconce overhead. The water-chapel was utterly unchanged. But in the water, a miracle opened her eyes in wonder.

The wound was gone, exactly as he had imagined it, leaving not so much as a scar.

The newly healed undine clapped her hands with joy, and to Marco's intense embarrassment, leapt out of the water to plant wet and strangely hard lips on his cheek, as her sister who had sat at his side did the same on his other cheek.

"Well done, Marco," said Brother Mascoli heartily--but with overtones of weariness. A moment later, Marco had to put out a hand on the step to steady himself, for when he tried to stand, he was nearly bowled over by the same weariness.

The undines made a move in the direction of the water-entrance, and Brother Mascoli called out to them while Marco was still trying to get to his feet. "A moment, little sisters--who did this to you?"

The one who had been wounded turned back, although her three companions shook their heads in warning.

"It's all right--I haven't dispelled the circle," Mascoli assured them. "It's safe enough to use a True Name."

"We do not know the True Name, Elder Brother," the wounded one said solemnly. "Only that it is a thing of water or land or fire as it chooses to be, that it is a thing that is a stranger here, and that--" she hesitated. "We think that it was once a god."

Marco looked up at Brother Mascoli to see his reaction, and a shiver of fear came over him. Brother Mascoli was as white as foam.

But within a moment he had gotten hold of himself, and made a gesture of cutting in the air. With a rapid flurry of thanks, the undines plunged under the surface, and disappeared, presumably out into the canal, and from there, into cleaner water elsewhere.

"Now," Brother Mascoli said, putting a hand under Marco's elbow to help him up, "You, my young mage, are not going elsewhere until you learn the right way to do what we just cobbled together."

"Yes sir," Marco said. He knew the look on the priest's face. He might just as well try to argue with the Lion of Saint Mark. Brother Mascoli drew him in through the water-door and sat him down at a little work table, then pulled out a dismayingly heavy book. "First of all, you always cast a circle of protection. The only reason we got away with not doing so this time is because the church is within a permanent circle that only needs to be invoked, and . . ."

It was going to be a long evening. But at least he wouldn't be thinking about Angelina for a while.

* * *

Or so he thought, until he finally returned home the next day.

It was a shock to see her. Especially this close, and here of all places. Marco didn't know what to say when he almost bumped into Angelina Dorma. . . . Here in Caesare's apartment--coming out of Caesare's bedroom. Not wearing an awful lot of clothing. Also, by the slight sway, anything but sober. Marco had stammered something incoherent, and bolted for the room he and Benito shared, her somewhat guilty laughter ringing in his ears.

In the security of the room he tried to work through the confusion of his feelings. She wasn't his. Never had been, the truth be told. He had no reason to feel torn up like this. After all, Angelina was just another daydream. She'd been nothing like his dream girl. Her face lacked the character, humor and . . . a certain something of the girl he'd seen on the Grand Canal the day he'd been brought back from the Jesolo marshes. But he had still kept Angelina on something of a pedestal . . . which she'd climbed off and into Caesare's bed. He needed to be alone to think this lot over.

Then he realized he wasn't even alone now. Benito was sitting on the far side of the bed, looking at him with a quizzical, slightly worried expression on his round face. For all that Benito was younger than he was, sometimes he looked older. And . . . at least there was no need to explain. "How long?"

"Quite a while now." Benito answered, sotto voce. "Started up seeing her while you were still in bed with that knock on the head. Seems like he took the opening you had made once he realized she was interested. They don't meet here hardly at all, though, so I was hoping you'd never find out."

Marco shook his head, trying to clear it. "Um. So what are you doing here?"

"Same as you. Old man Ventuccio gave us a half holiday because he's got a grandson to carry on the family name, in case you forgot. Only I didn't come in by the door, and I didn't drop in to see a friend at the Accademia." Benito grinned impishly. "Thought I'd catch up on my sleep 'cause I got things to do tonight."

"Oh." Marco paused. "What about Maria?"

Benito look a little uncomfortable. "She's gone on a long trip out to Murano. Got some more glassware for that ceremonial galley to fetch. You know what Maria's like. They trust her. When she's away is a good time for us to stay away, brother. Aldanto . . . entertains visitors."

Marco swallowed. "More?" he asked in a small voice.

Benito nodded. "Couple or two or three. There's Signora Selmi. Her husband is one of the captains in the galley fleet. And there's this one I don't know. Little prisms-and-prunes mouth with a mole on her left cheek. She's wild. Doesn't come often but when she does . . . we even had old Camipini coming over later to complain about the noise--when Maria was home. Lord and Saints! I thought the fat was in the fire then!"

Marco felt as if he might faint. Benito had said that Caesare played the field with women. But . . . "Do you think I should warn Angelina?" he asked quietly, his loyalties torn.

Benito snorted. "Marco, big brother, Grandpapa was right. You do need someone to look after you. Like me. Now listen good. Your precious Angelina is a wild girl. She's trouble, Marco. That's a bad crowd she runs with, and I don't think Caesare is her first time either. You just leave her to Caesare. He knows how to deal with girls like that. You don't."

Marco stood up, biting his lip. Then, nodded. "You're right, brother. This time, anyway. I need to go out. I'll see you."

Benito stood up too, stretching. "I'll tag along for company. I think we ought to leave quietly by the window. We can go and see Claudia and Valentina. Unless you'd rather go looking for that dream girl of yours?"

Marco wanted to be alone, but Benito obviously had no intention of letting him be. "At least my dream girl is not like that," he said quietly.

Benito muttered something. Marco didn't quite catch it, and didn't want to ask him to repeat it. But it could have been "In your dreams, brother." Instead he swung out of the window heading for the ornamental casement Benito always said was like a ladder. A slippery ladder that the city's pigeons used for other purposes, in Marco's opinion. Once they were away up on a roof, overlooking the canal, Benito leaned back against the chimney stack. "Right, brother. What am I looking for again? Let's hear the lyrical description."

Marco panted. "Stop teasing me."

Benito grinned impishly. "Oh, that's right. I remember now. Amazing what even I can remember when I've only heard it three thousand times. 'She has curly red-carroty hair. She has a generous mouth, a tip-tilted nose--merry eyes, wonderful hazel eyes.' And she's your soul mate. You knew the minute your eyes met."

"You're a cynic, little brother."

"At least I'm not a fool."

Benito regretted it the moment he'd said it. He found that look of Marco's one of the hardest things to deal with. That clear look that seemed to see right into you. He squirmed slightly under the gaze. Marco didn't even seem to be aware that he was doing it. After a while, as if from a distance, Marco said: "It's good to be a fool sometimes, Benito. And you will be too, one day."

"Yeah. When hell freezes over, Marco," said Benito, feeling uncomfortable. "Come on, let's go down. I got a tip today and my pocket'll run to a couple of toresani. Or maybe some Muset and beans."

Marco sighed, but stood up. "Do you ever think of anything but food, brother?"

"Do you ever think of anything but girls?" It was an unfair comment, and Benito knew it. He was starting to think quite a lot about girls himself, nowadays. And Marco thought, if anything, about too much. He cared for the whole world, especially sick canal-brats. Benito . . . well he cared for his brother Marco. And . . . well . . . Maria. He'd like to earn her respect sometime. And Caesare. He owed them.

Chapter 44 ==========

Katerina Montescue was in a foul mood. It was all very well forming an instant rapport with someone across a crowded canal. But . . .

She'd always thought that if she ever married, she'd have to marry money. Then she'd seen him. Establishing who he was had proved easy enough. At least three people had asked her if she'd seen him, when they'd been looking for him. She'd been rather frightened to discover just how many of the canal boatmen knew her.

So: his name was Marco Felluci. A few casual questions began to paint a broader canvas. A clerk for Ventuccio. And something of a healer. Respected by the bargees and canalers--people who didn't give respect or liking easily. And a boy with friends. Friends prepared to spend money to find him when he went missing. She hadn't needed that information to tell her he was a good man. She knew that the moment she saw him.

So . . . he was only a clerk. It hadn't taken her long to realize that being Case Vecchie was less important to her than being happy.

So. She'd be poor, then. Why not? She was practiced at it by now, wasn't she? They'd have a little house and she'd wash, and clean and cook. Easier work--less dangerous, too--than what she'd been doing, after all. And if they needed more money than he could make as a clerk, Katerina could always take Francesca up on her offer to work as a special gondolier for Casa Louise.

She must learn more about cooking. . . . How to make cheap meals. They'd have children and his work would bring him promotion and . . .

Insane. She couldn't do it! Not that she cared herself about remaining Case Vecchie--well, not much, anyway--but if she abandoned her family Casa Montescue would collapse. Without her dealing in the gray goods coming in with Captain Della Tomasso, the Casa would fall apart. Be bankrupt before the summer. Her grandfather--who had borne so much, with such Montescue pride and fortitude--would die if the Casa were sold. And it wasn't just him. All the servants and family retainers, many of whom had spent their lives in service to Montescue--for generations, some of them--would be cast adrift also.

Katerina Montescue had responsibilities as well as longings and desires. She couldn't simply toss over the one for the other.

And, besides--she had no idea how to meet him anyway. Neither of her two personas, either as "the Spook" or as Katerina Montescue, would ever come into contact with a clerk who worked, no doubt, in a back room at Ventuccio. A dark back room where his eyes would go . . .

What to do? What to do?

Francesca. Yes! I'll talk to Francesca about it. The very next time I see her!

Katerina's face went through an odd little play of expressions. "Oh," she murmured to herself. "That's tonight, isn't it?"

And that was another problem! For a moment, Katerina almost burst into a pure shriek of frustration at society's quirks.

* * *

"Are you going to get dressed or aren't you?" snapped Alessandra, peering around the door.

Guilt and the reason for being so out of sorts returned Kat to the real world. "I'm coming."

"Well hurry up," said Alessandra irritably. "We go out so little that you don't have to be late when we do have the chance. You'll never find a man--not that you've got a chance without a dowry--cooped up here."

Kat began to hastily dress her hair. "I'll be there in five minutes."

"You're not wearing that dowdy old green thing to go to La Fenice, are you?" Alessandra demanded. Kat's sister-in-law was clad in a Venetian lace-trimmed gown of golden-yellow silk. Katerina shuddered to think where the money had come from. Alessandra, on the other hand, looked truly shocked at her sister-in-law's dusty-green taffeta.

"Yes. Now go away and let me finish." It was last year's style and last year's dress. And in Venice among the Case Vecchie, death was better than being out of fashion. It was just too bad. Katerina had learned this much if nothing else: there were many more important things in life than silk.

"We won't wait!" threatened Alessandra.

I wish, thought Kat. But she held her tongue and simply closed the door. Took out a string of "pearls" that wouldn't stand too close an inspection. Glass and fishscale . . . A poor replacement for what had been her birthright. She shook herself. It was no use getting upset about any of it. She had no idea if she'd ever get to meet him. Or if he was married already. But wait, that canal-brat, Benito! She'd seen him, now and then, wearing Ventuccio livery. Perhaps he would help her--

"KATERINA!" It was an old voice, the timbre going, but still strong.

"Coming, Grandpapa."

* * *

Katerina had that feeling in her stomach which more commonly accompanied a over-sufficiency of sugar-plums. Her stomach . . . well, she just felt sick. She was used to doing dangerous things--alone at night. Going to dark and insalubrious places to meet possibly very unpleasant people.

This was somehow worse. Kat swallowed, looking around at the slow butterfly swirl of the haut monde of Venice socializing. The public masques were events where the people came as much to be seen, as to see the performance. She wished desperately she'd never agreed to do this.

It had not seemed unreasonable when she was sitting talking to Francesca. It was very different here under the glitter of the candelabras. "Introduce me to your grandfather at the interval at the masque at La Fenice. It's something of a public place, and I have not yet acquired the cachet for exclusive soirees or recitals at private camerata. He's still a man of influence, you know, and highly respected. Creme de la creme, in Venetian society. It will do me a great deal of good just to be seen talking to him."

Kat understood the logic. In truth, all that visibly set the courtesans at such events apart from the matrons and virgin daughters of Venice was the lower cut to their dresses. And the more well-known and reputable men that a courtesan could draw around her, the more her acceptability grew.

The problem for Kat, however, was that there was a fine social line "respectable" women did not cross. Men openly talked and flirted with the courtesans at these events. Women didn't. So Kat needed to make the introduction in as discreet and unnoticed a manner a possible.

Unfortunately, this night--when she desperately wanted Alessandra to do her usual disappearing trick--her sister-in-law seemed to be glued to her. Kat had tried to shed Alessandra and stick to her grandfather, which was normally not that difficult. But tonight the swirling crowd had peeled off Lodovico Montescue somewhere along the line, while Alessandra remained by her side at every moment.

There was Francesca. The daring chaperon-hat with the peacock feather made her easy to find. As usual, the courtesan dressed with a flair that separated her from the lesser birds of paradise.

What to do, what to do . . .

At last, Alessandra had caught sight of Lucrezia Brunelli and hastened away from Kat. Kat tried desperately to spot her grandfather. She gritted her teeth. Now or never. She'd find him and drag the old man over to the chaperon-hat she could see bobbing over there by one of the ornamental pillars. And then she'd trip over a flounce or something. She just hoped that Lodovico would not be as scathingly rude as he could be.

First off she must get rid of this prosy bore. "I'm afraid I have no real interest, signor," she said cuttingly, to a well-meaning if prosy curti who was attempting to explain the work of the new painter, Robusti. "Excuse me. I must go and find my grandfather. There is someone I wish him to meet."

The truth was easy enough when the person you were talking to didn't know just what you were talking about! She walked away, edging her way through the knots of people, quite differently from the way she'd seen Francesca sashay her cleavage through the crowd. Unfortunately she hadn't spotted Lodovico. Her grandfather had a commanding presence, so it was easy to forget he was not actually very tall.

She spent the next while in fruitless search. Well, she'd go over to Francesca and at least show she'd tried. The play would be starting soon. At least Francesca's hat was easily visible.

As Kat came around the ornamental pillar she heard Francesca's laughter. It was a liquid and musical sound. "Most amusing, Signor Montescue," she said, and the courtesan rapped Lodovico's knuckles gently with her ivory fan. And he was only one of the cortege she had gathered. Her flirtation with Lodovico done, Francesca turned her head and made a quip of some kind to a couple of priests standing next to her. The little crowd immediately burst into laughter. "Oh, how very well said," choked one of the priests, managing even in that short phrase to convey a thick Savoyard accent.

Kat caught her jaw. Most of the men gathered about Francesca were typical of what showed up from the great merchant-houses of Venice at these events. They were old. Middle-aged, at the very least. The youngest of the Venetians was Petro Dorma, who was almost forty--and, with his short stature and bald head, hardly the image of a romantic swain.

The only exception were the two men in clerical garb, who seemed even younger than Dorma. And quite a bit more slender and physically fit. Kat was a little puzzled by their presence in the crowd surrounding Francesca. Not because they were clerics. There were several high-ranked members of the Church present at the masque, and Kat knew that at least one of them, Bishop Capuletti, was notorious for being a libertine. But the clerics who came to these events were generally Case Vecchie themselves--whereas these two, judging from their plain and simple garb, seemed to be nothing more than simple priests. One of them, judging from that heavy Savoyard accent, no more than a villager in his origins.

The sight of those mostly pot-bellied men brought home to Katerina that despite the wealth and comparative liberty they enjoyed . . . there were certain disadvantages to being a courtesan. She slipped her arm into her grandfather's. "I have been looking for you everywhere, Grandpapa." Kat smiled at Francesca, who dimpled just slightly in reply--lowering her lashes a touch. "Won't you introduce me to your fascinating lady-friend?"

"Er." Lodovico Montescue, not accustomed to being at a loss for words, was caught a bit short this time. "Signorina Francesca de Chevreuse. This is my granddaughter Katerina."

Kat bowed and extended a hand. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance," she said demurely, almost managing to keep a straight face.

Lodovico's discomfiture was relieved by the ringing of the bell to signal that the masque was about to begin. It didn't stop him bowing very low to Francesca in parting.

As they walked to their seats, Lodovico shook his head at his granddaughter. "Minx. How could you do that to me? Making me introduce you!"

Kat pinched his arm. "Ha. You can talk to her but I cannot? Ha."

Lodovico sighed. "Our society is a hypocritical one, my girl. I must protect you from gossip-mongers or I would be very tempted to take you to talk with her. She is a very intelligent woman. Cultured. Understands the vagaries of politics. That's a rare coin. It attracts men."

Kat smiled up at him. "And her cleavage has nothing to do with it."

The encounter with Francesca had left Lodovico in rare good mood. He chuckled. "This is Venice, my girl. We are an ostentatious people. We like to display our . . . endowments."

Kat chuckled. "She has enough 'wealth' to display in that respect, that's certain." Despite the humor, she found herself torn between gratification that Francesca had succeeded in charming her grandfather--and an irrational jealousy of sorts. He was her grandfather! Not a man chasing a woman! She suppressed the ungracious thought. It was nice to see him take an interest in something other than their troubles and his dreams of vengeance on the Valdosta, she supposed.

Perhaps he read her mind. "Ah. My Kat. I must admit she made me forget my age too."

They sat, and Kat noticed that Alessandra was looking frozen-faced at the stage. Alessandra pointedly ignored their arrival. Kat wondered--not with much interest--what had got up her sister-in-law's nose. Well, one of the misfortunes of being cloistered in the same house as Alessandra, was that sooner or later Kat would be told. Quite probably with histrionics.

* * *

After the masque was over, Lodovico insisted on remaining for a while. That was unusual. Then he took up an offer to join a number of the Case Vecchie at private soiree at the camerata of Lord D'selmi. As a rule, Kat's grandfather preferred to keep his appearances at these social gatherings to the bare minimum required by the demands of status. Tonight, however, he seemed much more energetic than usual. Kat noted that the invitation to proceed to the Casa D'selmi had included Francesca. Seeing him join the crowd which gathered around Francesca there--quite a bit larger, now, that crowd--Kat almost choked. Partly from amusement, partly from chagrin bordering on outrage.

My own grandfather! That woman is shameless! So is he!

Eventually, humor won the engagement. Kat smiled and turned away from the sight of her grandfather flirting suavely with Francesca. At least he's not glaring at the walls, planning revenge on Valdosta.

She sighed. Not that Lodovico Montescue could afford Francesca, these days, any more than he could afford to pay capable spies and assassins.

* * *

The evening wore on. The camerata sparkled with silver, candlelight and fine Venetian glassware. Katerina wished she could say the same of the intelligence of the boring, fat old curti who had backed her up against a wall and was now attempting to talk her to sleep with his self-praise. There was Lucrezia Brunelli, laughing to her own court of gallants--who were no younger and no less corpulent than the ones gathered about Francesca--her hair gleaming as if it had been spun out of coppery gold. Katerina didn't envy her for suitors . . . and if rumor were to be believed, lovers. All she envied Lucrezia for was the ability to escape being trapped by a idiot with breath like old anchovies, too many chins, and his interminable tales of his not-really-so-clever little swindles in the Levant.

Kat was amused to see that--for once!--the crowd of men gathered about Lucrezia was not the largest in the palace. It was not small, of course, but it was definitely smaller than the little mob surrounding Francesca. Smaller, and--a lot less noisy. Lucrezia was slightly more beautiful than Francesca, Kat supposed. The beautiful lady of Casa Brunelli was also famous for her intelligence and witty repartee. But Kat had overheard that repartee, in times past, and had always found it fundamentally hard-edged. Nasty, in truth--a matter of scoring points in a contest. Whereas, judging from the relaxed and boisterous laughter coming from Francesca's gathering, the men there were discovering Kat's friend to be more convivial company. Francesca's sense of humor was . . . genuinely funny. Her jests were jests, not barbs; and as often as not likely to be directed at herself rather than others.

So, as the fat old curti droned on and on, Kat paid him as little attention as possible. She was observing the subtle contest going on between two beautiful women elsewhere. And found herself enjoying the fact that Francesca was clearly emerging the winner--judging, at least, from the frequent and angry little glances Lucrezia Brunelli sent her way.

* * *

Relief came from a strange and unexpected quarter. And relief was even less welcome than the old geezer's breath had been. As happens at such large gatherings, the slow swirl of the crowd eventually brought someone new in front of her.

The minute that Kat saw his face, she recognized it. It was not a face you forgot. The aquiline nose, the single line of forbidding brow; the aura of power and dominance quite out of keeping with the man's height. He was dressed with plain severity, which was also out of keeping with the Venetian nobles and merchants. The same garb, she recognized, as that of the two priests in the crowd around Francesca. Someone had commented on it. Someone had murmered "political influence." It worried her.

He obviously worried the fat old toad, too. "Goo . . . good evening, Senor Lopez."

The foreigner favored the toad with a faint lift of his eyebrow line. "Ah, Signor Della Galbo. I have been to see you on a number occasions at your home. You were either away or indisposed. I am glad to find you here when you are neither."

"Uh. Yes, of course, signor." Little beads of sweat had started out of many-chinned toad's florid face. "But it's really getting late, and I must be off. Call upon me at my home. Excuse me, M'lady Montescue." He vanished with a speed that was almost astonishing for one so portly.

Katerina found herself fully in the eagle-eyed gaze of Senor Lopez. "My apologies, signorina. I did not mean to interrupt your discussion with Signor Della Galbo." He bowed. "My name is Eneko Lopez de Onez y Guipuzcoa. I am a stranger and guest here in your midst."

Kat curtseyed and held out her hand in the accepted manner, restraining a strong instinctive desire to run like hell. She wished she could equally restrain the cold sweat on her hand. Maybe this Lopez expected all women who were introduced to him to have cold-fish hands. "Katerina Montescue. I trust you are enjoying Venice?"

He certainly showed no reaction to her clammy hand as he bowed low and kissed it in a practiced courtly manner. "Alas, no." An almost-smile touched the face. "I find it damp. But that is inevitable in a city with so many canals. And one does God's work where God wills. Now, if you will excuse me, Signorina Montescue?"

"With pleasure!" Kat fled. He recognized her--she was sure he did!

She found she'd escaped one unpleasant thing, only to have to deal with another. "Well, well, well!" said Alessandra, archly. "Got a suitor I see. Signor Della Galbo is quite a catch. But better keep your hands off that fascinating Spaniard. Lucrezia has marked him as hers."

Kat shuddered. "She's welcome to him. And she can have Della Galbo too, with pleasure. Alessandra, he's fifty-five if he's a day. He's old enough be my grandfather, never mind my father! And he is fat, gross, and stupid, and his breath smells."

"But he's got money, darling," said Alessandra with a little moue. "Pots and pots of it. And you, I obviously need to remind you, haven't got any. You'd be lucky to even get such an attractive offer. He'd at best want you to be his mistress if you weren't Case Vecchie, and him nouveau riche. Or are you going to run off and marry some commoner? You just do your duty and . . . well you can always have a lover on the quiet. So long as you're discreet."

"If that's the choice, yes. I'll run off as soon as possible." The thought of "doing her duty" with that . . . made her feel nauseated. Best change the subject. "Who was the other man, that your friend Lucrezia has got her hooks into?"

"My cousin Lucrezia Brunelli . . . That was Ricardo's guest from Spain. Castilian nobility. Well--Basque, actually. A rising man in the Church, with friends in Rome. An envoy plenipotentiary from the Grand Metropolitan himself, people say."

Kat swallowed. The Petrine church had its agents too. This was probably one of them. The Petrines were more tolerant than the Paulines, but in the factional fighting . . . well, people were ground between them. Whole cities were ground. If the rumor her grandfather had told her was true, Ferrara could be next. The Po River city had played a delicate balance between Venice and Rome, against Milan and the North . . . And sometimes the other way around.

She was relieved to see her grandfather stumping up. "Let's go home. The conversation's turned to politics, and the more I listen to these fools the angrier I get," said the old man, his grizzled eyebrows lowered in an angry frown. "Except for Petro Dorma--and Francesca de Chevreuse, from the little she said--they're all a lot of sheep. Bah. The Republic of Venice must stand for the Republic of Venice. Not for Milan, or Rome, anyone else. Come. I want to go home."

Predictably, Alessandra pouted. "The night's still young. I'll come home later. I want to meet some of those knights from Germany. They're supposed to be here later."

"You'll come home now," growled the old man. He turned his lowered brow on Katerina. "As for you, young lady. I won't have you associating with the likes of that Della Galbo. He's nothing but a cheap crook. Even the slave-trading Dandelos are not as low. I want you home, too."

"Grandpapa, I'm only too glad to obey you," said Kat from under lowered lashes. "I couldn't stand him."

The thunderous brow lightened. "You're a minx, girl. Now, let's get out and find a gondola to take us home. The Montescue have been here. Shown face. Shown we are still Case Vecchie." The pride in that old voice was as deep as the ocean and as hard as granite.

Chapter 45 ==========

Lopez followed the Montescues out of the palace, keeping far enough back not to be noticed. As the family began embarking onto their gondola, he emerged onto the steps. A moment later, his two companions joined him.

"A very nice voice, she has, even with the tremor of fear in it," said Lopez quietly. "I recognized it from the counseling session I had with her last year."

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Eneko," chuckled Diego. "Frightening girls the way you do."

Lopez shrugged slightly. "The encounter was quite accidental. Her small sins cause her to fear the suspicion of great ones. Of which, as it happens, I am quite sure she is guiltless. She is involved somehow with the evil which is coiling within this city, but she is not one of its vessels."

Diego turned his head to peer down the canal where the Montescue gondola had vanished. "I agree. If Satan were that capable, old friend, we would long ago have vanished into the maw of the Antichrist."

Lopez rubbed his bad leg. "Bad today," he muttered. "Come, brothers. Since the Grand Metropolitan has seen fit to dole out some more funds, let us employ a gondola for a change."

After they climbed into the gondola, Diego returned to the subject. "How involved do you think she is, Eneko? And in what manner?"

The gondola was just pulling into the Grand Canal. The Basque priest stared thoughtfully at the statue of the winged lion in the Piazza San Marco, quite visible in the moonlight. "Has it struck you yet, brothers, how many odd coincidences we have stumbled across since we arrived here in Venice?"

Diego and Pierre glanced at each other. Pierre shrugged. "What coincidences?" asked Diego.

"One. The coincidence that I happened to witness Katerina Montescue and Benito Valdosta--yes, it was he; I'm sure of it now that I've had a glimpse of him--engaged in mysterious activity on the same evening and in the same locale that the Woden casket was brought to Venice. Two. The coincidence that those two had met each other in the first place. Three. The coincidence that we happened to find lodgings in a part of the city which would enable us to observe the older brother Marco engaged in charitable work. Four. The coincidence that Katerina Montescue--"

"Enough, enough!" chuckled Diego. "Odd, I admit. But what's the rhyme and reason to any of it?"

"I wish Francis were here," mused Eneko. "If he weren't needed in Mainz . . ." He shook his head. "Francis is more versed than I am in those aspects of sacred magic which deal with pagan powers and spirits. The whole subject remains a bitter bone of contention among theologians, you know. Are pagan demons such as Chernobog independent beings--or are they simply so many manifestations of Satan?"

"If you start talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, I will pitch you overboard," growled Pierre.

Diego chuckled. "It's not as silly as it seems, Pierre," reproved the Castilian lightheartedly. "The issue is not whether two or twenty angels can dance on the head of a pin. It's a dispute over the nature of angels in the first place. Are they immaterial or, in some manner, corporeal. If the former, then an infinite number of angels can dance on a pin. If the latter, then the number--whatever it is; and no one cares about that--is nevertheless finite. So you see--"

"Overboard," growled Pierre. "The both of you."

"Desist, Diego," chuckled Eneko. "The Savoyard grows surly. As to the subject we were discussing, I have no definite opinion myself. But . . . there are too many coincidences. Something is at work here."

"What?" asked Diego. "Not the Lion, surely. You have said yourself that it can only be summoned by one who knows the ancient rituals--pagan rituals, mind--which none of us do."

Eneko shrugged. "And what exactly is this creature, this being?" He ran fingers through his close-cropped hair. "I don't know, Diego. While I was living at Casa Brunelli I scoured that magnificent library. There wasn't much, but . . . there are these occasional references to the Shadow of the Lion, as well as to the Lion itself.

"I tend to believe that these ancient pagan spirits have a life of their own. Are not simply constructs of Satan. And, if so, they have their own ancient rules and customs. Savage ones, often enough. Still . . . I think Chernobog is constrained himself, by those rules. Must operate indirectly, subtly, lest he rouse the Lion himself. But in so doing, I think . . ."

He gazed out over the Grand Canal, observing the shadows cast by the moonlight. "Too many coincidences," he repeated firmly.

Then, he shook his head. "But that is all speculation. For the moment, we must concentrate on matters we can get a grip on." He smiled faintly. "In a manner of speaking. So I think it is now time to have a discussion with that other young lady. The one you and Pierre spent most of the evening with. Set it up for me, Diego, if you would be so kind."

Lopez's Castilian companion chuckled again. "You are bound and determined to place me in the way of mortal sin, aren't you?"

Lopez smiled wryly. "I prefer to think of it as a kindness on my part. Personally, I think forcing you to spend time with the formidable Francesca de Chevreuse is all to the good. It will give you something to do penance over, when we finally make our pilgrimage to the Holy Land."

"Very long penance, I'm afraid," mourned Diego. "Her flesh I can resist easily enough. But the woman's mind--" He sighed. "So tempting."

* * *

"Why don't you tell me about it in the morning, Alessandra," Kat yawned, looking pointedly at the door and then at her bed.

Of course, Alessandra refused the invitation to go and leave Madelena to undress Katerina. "How could you, Katerina? We've got our reputation to consider! You spoke to that . . . that . . . puttana!" she spat. "And how could Grandpapa go and join that throng around that cheap woman? Lucrezia was furious. Three of her cicebeos left her and went and hung about that . . . that . . . scarlet . . ."

"I doubt very much if Francesca de Chevreuse is 'cheap,' " interrupted Kat, pushing Alessandra towards the door. "And she seems nice--which, frankly, is not something you can say about Lucrezia Brunelli. Now, good night."

"She's a slut!"

"And you and Lucrezia both seem to be jealous. Why? Now go away, do. I don't care."

Chapter 46 ==========

There was, thank the Lord, plenty of light from the windows and walkways above to let Marco see where he was going, and to show him the footing on the ledge that led to the hole.

The fact was that he really didn't want to be here at all.

But for some reason that maybe only God knew, that strange scarred man had followed him out of the Jesolo after saving both him and Benito from the Squalos gang. And, presumably for that same reason, he had decided to set himself up as a kind of watchdog or bodyguard for the two of them. Marco felt a certain guilty responsibility for the man's well-being. They had abandoned him when Aldanto and Maria had come to their rescue.

So here he was, clinging to the ledge above the waterline, with a bundle and a message to deliver and only the haziest notion if the man was still in there.

If he hadn't been so nervous, he might never have noticed the stranger at all. But Marco was desperately afraid that his last escapade had drawn unwelcome attention to the entire Aldanto menage, attention that would have to include the Montagnards. And if anyone who had ever known Lorendana Valdosta got a good look at him--well, there'd be no doubt whose kid he was.

So he'd been watching every shadow, and thinking out every footstep ever since he'd emerged shakily from his sickbed--and he'd seen the man ghosting along, fifty feet behind as he went to work one morning. And no matter how he'd changed his course, there the man was. Then he'd watch from the dirty window of the Ventuccio offices as the man shadowed Benito on his first run of the morning. He was ready to rush out to attack the man himself out of sheer terror when he moved across a patch of sunlight--

It was at that point, when he got a brief but very good look at the man's scarred face, that he'd recognized him as the mysterious stranger who'd saved them.

That night he'd spotted the man slipping into the foundation hole across the canal.

And now, when he watched carefully, he could catch the stranger at his comings and goings--and very rarely, at trailing them. He thought that after a few days the man would get tired of it and go away--loco folk from the Jesolo weren't known for long attention spans. But he hadn't, and Marco realized that he was going to have to do something about the fact that he was there, and was apparently not going to give up on his self-appointed task.

First--tell Caesare, so that Aldanto didn't kill the stranger, thinking he was a threat. That was easiest done in the morning, before Aldanto was completely awake and thinking.

Marco had planned his approach carefully the previous morning, waiting until Aldanto had gotten his first glass of watered wine and was starting his second before accosting him.

"Caesare," he started hesitantly, "there's something you should know."

Before Caesare could do more than look apprehensive, Marco had plowed onward. "That man I told you about? The one in the marshes? The one that helped Benito and me?"

Aldanto nodded slowly, putting the goblet down on the table and absently running a hand through his tangled golden mane.

"He's here in the city," Marco said shortly. "Hiding out in that rundown building of Gasparsi's. I've seen him."

Aldanto didn't move, much, but he went from sleepy and a little bored to startled awake, wary, and alert. Marco continued before he had a chance to interrupt.

"He's right across the canal, holed up in the foundation under Gasparsi's place," Marco said, words tumbling over each other as he tried to get them all out. "Please, Caesare, I don't think he means any harm. I think he's guarding us, me and Benito. He's been following me to work, and I saw him following Benito on his runs. I think maybe he's trying to keep us safe. He's saved us once. I don't know why he did, I don't know why he's watching us, only--please, Caesare, please don't kill him."

Aldanto regarded Marco dubiously for a moment before replying. "You have strange choices in friends, boy." He picked up his goblet, and studied Marco over the rim of it.

Marco hadn't the faintest notion how to reply to that, so, in keeping with his recent decision to keep his mouth shut when he didn't know what to say, he'd remained silent.

"How sure are you of this--friend?" Aldanto asked, when even he seemed to find the silence had gone on too long.

Marco had to shake his head. "I'm not. I told you, I don't know why he helped us in the first place. I don't know why he's here now. I thought maybe--he's crazy, sort of. I thought he'd get tired and go away, but he hasn't. I don't know what to tell you, Caesare--but I just don't think he means us anything but good."

Caesare relaxed back into his chair, a thought-crease between his brows. Marco remained patiently standing by the table, wishing with all his heart that he hadn't been such a great fool this winter as to destroy any trust Aldanto had in him.

"I didn't even know that this watchdog of yours was there," Caesare said at last, cradling his wine goblet in both hands, as if taking warmth from it. "That argues for a--certain level of expertise. That is a very bad sign."

"If he wanted us he could have killed us a dozen times by now," Marco whispered humbly. "He could have just stood back in the marshes, and we'd have been dead and nobody the wiser."

"True." Caesare continued to brood over the wine goblet. "There would be no point in his watching you that I can see. If he wanted to take you to use against me he should have made his move by now. Which makes me think you might be right about him."

Marco heaved a completely internal sigh of relief.

"Now I can't for a moment imagine why this man should have decided to attach himself to you and your brother, but since he has, and since he seems to have some useful skills--" He paused, and raised one golden eyebrow significantly. "--and since he seems to have appointed himself as your bodyguard gratis--"

Marco flushed, and hung his head. He knew Aldanto was still desperately short of money, and he knew that the reason was because he had spent vast sums of money trying to find Marco when Aldanto and Maria had thought he was in trouble. Money that hadn't been his to spend. Brunelli money, Marco assumed. Or money from Bishop Capuletti, which amounted to the same thing.

"--well, I'm not inclined to look this particular gift horse in the mouth," Aldanto concluded. "But I hope he has the sense to realize that I am inclined to strike first and ask questions like 'friend or foe' afterwards. And I want you to stay out of his reach after this."

"Yes, Caesare," Marco backed out of the kitchen hastily. "Thank you, Caesare."

* * *

But here he was. Because he felt a responsibility to warn the man. And because he felt he owed him something besides a warning, he carried a bundle.

Word had gotten out from Tonio that, well, actually, it was that bridge-boy of Maria Garavelli's who had doctored their children. And if the parents had any doubts, the children didn't. That appeared to have overcome many an adult's doubt. Ever since his return from the swamp, Marco had found himself overwhelmed with new patients. Quite a few of them didn't even come through Tonio any more. The boat-folk, ignoring Marco's vehement protests that he did not want to be paid for doctoring their kids, had taken to leaving things in Maria's gondola or with Giaccomo. Things that Marco had no earthly use for--a woolen cloak, five sizes too big, laboriously knitted out of the remnants of five different lots and colors of yarn, half a blanket, candle-ends, a homemade oil stove of the kind used on boats, a bunch of fresh chestnuts off an incoming barge, a bundle of boccalao . . . and more.

A lot of it they couldn't use, and Maria couldn't sell or trade the stuff without going to a world of time and effort that she couldn't spare. But if the stranger had come out of the Jesolo, he was even poorer than the poorest canaler. These odds and ends could mean a great deal to him. So that was the thing Marco meant to do--see that the man was in some sort of comfort. It was a small payback for their lives. He'd gotten a few coppers doing some odd jobs on his day off, and those had gone for a bit of food for the man, flour and salt and oil, and some dried salt fish, all bundled in with the rest.

"Milord?" Marco called into the darkness of the partially flooded foundations of the building, wondering if the man could hear him--or if he was even there. He turned away for a moment to look out uneasily over the canal behind him--

"I'm no milord, boy," came a harsh whisper from right beside him.

Marco jumped and nearly fell backwards in the canal. A long arm snaked out of the darkness and steadied him.

"M-m-milord, I--" Marco stuttered.

"I told you, boy," the ragged, battered stranger said, a little less harshly, as he emerged from the darkness of the foundation cavern, "I'm no milord. Call me Harrow. Why have you come here?"

"I--came to thank you. Also to warn you. Aldanto says: 'Don't cross his path or bring him trouble.' Um . . . and I came to bring you a few things I thought maybe you could use. Food and some warm stuff. It's not a lot and it's not good. But it is something."

The stranger looked puzzled. "Why?" Then he nodded. "Thank you, Marco Valdosta."

Marco nearly fell backwards out of the entry hole again.

"How--" he started

"You look just like your mother. Now go, Marco. And be careful not to come here again. It is not safe." And without another word he turned and walked back into the darkness with Marco's gift.

* * *

Harrow waded back into the blackness, knowing his way even in the pitch-dark, the stale water slimy around his ankles. After a short while, he felt and heard dry gravel crunching under his feet. Harrow struck tinder and lit the tiny fire of dry debris. By the flickering light he carefully surveyed the place that was now his home.

He'd lived in worse. By some freak or other, the back end of the ruined bottom story was still above water level and relatively dry, a kind of rubble-floored cave. You had to get at the dry part by wading through ankle-deep, stagnant water, but it wasn't bad, certainly not as bad as the swamp.

Mind you, it was no palace, either. Water condensed on the walls and ceilings above the sunken area, dripping down constantly, so that the air always smelled damp. And with stale canal water coming in with every tide, it often smelled of more than damp. But there were feral cats down here, which kept the place free of vermin. Harrow had always admired cats. And he held them almost sacred now, for cats--black cats in particular--were the special darlings of the Goddess. There was a mama-cat with a young litter laired up down here that Harrow had begun luring in with patience and bits of food. He had hopes he could tame the young ones enough for them to stay with him.

For the rest, he had a bed of sorts, made up of a couple of blankets and armfuls of dry rushes brought in from the swamp. Certainly no one ventured down here, so anything he managed to acquire was safe. It wasn't much. He sat down on the bed and opened the bundle.

What the boy had given him tonight was very welcome. The little fire was guttering and so rather than waste his meager fuel supply he lit one of the tallow candle-ends Marco had given to him. After pulling the new cloak over his chilled body, he examined each little prize with care. Then he stowed it all away within reach of his pallet so that he'd be able to find the stuff if he needed it in the dark.

He re-made his bed to add the new coverings to the top and the rags that the boy had brought as padding underneath; then Harrow blew out the candle-stub and lay back on the pallet, staring into the darkness. Thinking.

Thinking mostly about his past. Thinking about his life as Fortunato Bespi. It was mostly a life he would rather have forgotten. A time when he had been one of the most deadly killers and workers of mayhem that Duke Visconti had ever recruited into his Montagnard agents. He'd served the Montagnard cause, for which he'd done much . . . that was to the superficial look, evil. He had done it all with a clear conscience, knowing the cause was good. Now--in the light of hindsight--he could see that the "cause" was no more than a thin cover for the ambitions of the only one he'd ever really served. Filippo Visconti.

Harrow felt his scarred lip curling into a stiff and soundless snarl, thinking of the Duke of Milan's treachery and the willingness of his tool Francesco Aleri to further that treachery.

But, soon enough, he pushed the anger aside. The Goddess had given him other work, after all.

His thoughts turned to young Marco. The boy's . . . considerateness . . . shone through every item in that bundle. Duke Visconti had carelessly handed out gold--of which he had plenty. This boy had next to nothing. There'd been nothing careless in that bundle. The kid was unlike anyone Harrow had ever known before; he was--kind, that was it. Compassionate in a way that Harrow didn't really understand, and could only admire from a distance. The younger boy--that one he understood, but the older one--never. Marco's type was the sort he could appreciate, but never emulate. But he understood why the Goddess might have a purpose for the child of such an unlikely woman as Lorendana Valdosta.

Well, I can't be like that, he thought somberly. But I can do what the Goddess put on me; I can help that boy survive to do some good. That ought to count for something.

He settled himself a bit more comfortably, and thought about the warning the boy had delivered. That was something he hadn't thought of; he hadn't considered Caesare Aldanto except as a fellow guardian.

Better make sure not to ever let him get a look at me, he decided thoughtfully. Even as scarred up as I am, he might recognize me. And he won't be seeing Harrow--he'll be seeing Fortunato Bespi. A threat. And I know damned well how Caesare Aldanto responds to threats.

Then he grinned in the dark, his lips curling like stiff, old leather. No threats from me, Caesare Aldanto, we're on the same side, as it happens. Just like old times. But Francesco . . . you bastard, you--

His grin turned into a feral snarl. Let's just see you try and get past Caesare and me together, Milord Francesco Aleri. Let's just see you get at the boy through me. I might leave enough for Caesare Aldanto to play with, after.

Chapter 47 ==========

Marco had another mission tonight, besides that of dealing with the man who called himself Harrow. He'd had a suspicion for some time that there was something not quite right in the Ventuccio books; today that suspicion had become a certainty. And it was something that might well be very valuable to Caesare Aldanto. Maybe valuable enough to repay what Aldanto had spent for his sake.

When he locked the front door and listened for signs of life in the apartment beyond, he heard footsteps in the kitchen; shod footsteps with a certain lightness to them. Only one of the four living in this apartment wore shoes on a regular basis; so Caesare was home, and puttering about in the kitchen again. Well enough. Marco always preferred to accost him back there, it was a friendlier place--small, tiled in a cheerful terracotta, and always warm--than the sitting room.

He padded down the hall to the rear of the apartment and stood, quiet as you please, in the doorway of the kitchen, waiting for Caesare to notice him. He'd been trying to imitate the wallpaper ever since the disaster of this winter, doing his level best to become invisible whenever he was in the apartment. He'd evidently gotten quite successful at it, for Aldanto got halfway through his finocchio soup before he noticed Marco standing there, twisting his cap nervously in his hands.

"Marco, I almost didn't see you! Are you hungry? There's enough for you if--" He looked, then looked again, and frowned. "Have you got something on your mind?"

"It's--something I think you ought to know, Milord Caesare," Marco replied quietly, edging into the cone of light cast by the oil lamp above the table.

"Lord, boy, don't tell me you've been writing poetry again," Aldanto groaned, putting both the bread and the spoon down. "It's been a long day; I don't think I could handle another romantic crisis."

Marco blushed, but took heart at the ghost of good humor in Aldanto's eye. "No, Caesare, it's--there's something funny going on at Ventuccio."

Aldanto grimaced, and shoved his chair back a bit. "Marco, I'd be very much surprised if there wasn't 'something funny' going on there. Half this damn town smuggles."

"It isn't that--I mean, they tell us what not to see, if you catch my meaning." Marco bit his lip as he struggled to communicate what he had discovered in a way that Aldanto would understand. "This is something else; it's different. I'd swear on my life it's something that Ventuccio doesn't know is going on. It's something I sort of ran into in the books. I don't think anybody else would notice, because nobody else remembers these things like I do."

Now Caesare looked serious, and very much interested. He quirked one finger at Marco. "Come over here and sit where I can see you--"

Marco obeyed, pulling out the chair next to Aldanto's and plopping into it. Aldanto shoved his food aside and clasped his hands quietly on the table before him. Marco imitated his pose without really thinking about it.

Aldanto took a deep breath. "I've got good cause to know about that memory of yours; I don't know that I've ever seen it play tricks. So what is it that you've uncovered?"

"About twice a month," Marco replied, picking his words with care, "there are three or four fewer tax stamp receipts than there are items on the bill of lading inventory, which is when things go into the warehouse. But there's exactly the same number as on the warehousing inventory, when things go out. There's no discrepancy in the bill of lading and what's been paid for, and no calls for reimbursement from clients, so there's no reason for Ventuccio to go back-checking the books; so far as they figure, they've been paid in full, everything's okay. The way things go is this--the bill of lading gets checked off at the warehouse door when the ship gets unloaded. That's the first time they make a count. Then the Doge's official in charge of duties inspects the goods, stamps each thing when it comes back out again; that's the second time. That way nobody can swipe stuff from the warehouse with the tax stamp on it an' resell it."

"Huh." Aldanto looked very thoughtful. "So--somebody is bringing something in, paying Ventuccio for it, then 'losing' it before it gets duty paid on it."

Marco nodded. "Or before it gets inspected. That's what it looks like to me, milord."

"Do you know who--or even what?"

Marco nodded again. "Spices. Or so it claims to be. About three, four little spice casks at a time."

Aldanto chewed his lip. "Not much is it?" he said after a pause.

Marco's head bobbed. "Enough to make a real difference to somebody, I'd think. Spices aren't cheap. And maybe they just don't want those casks looked at."

Caesare brooded for a bit. "You've been doing your damnedest to act and think like a responsible adult, lately," he said, and Marco flushed painfully, lowering his eyes to his clasped hands. "I'm minded to see if you can take an adult task. It just might be worth what you cost me."

Marco looked up at him in a flare of sudden hope.

Caesare smiled sourly. "You'll be fishing in dangerous waters, Marco, I want you to know that. This might be something one of the younger Ventuccios is running without the knowledge of the Family--it's maybe something worth enough money that at least one of the parties involved is going to be willing to kill to protect it. You're going to have to be very, very cautious, and very, very smart."

"You want me to find out who's involved," Marco stated. "And you figure that I've gotten enough sense beat into me to take the risk and come out on top. If I keep my head."

Caesare nodded, and coughed a little self-consciously. "And you know why. I sell information, and I don't much care who I sell it to, or how many times I sell it. If you take care, you should be all right, but this will probably cost you your job, no matter what--"

Marco shrugged. "It was you got me the job in the first place," he pointed out. "Reckon I can scrounge another one somewhere. Maybe Maria can have a word with Milord Giaccomo; maybe Milord Giaccomo could use a pencil pusher, or knows someone who could--"

"Oh no, boy--" Aldanto got a real, unfeigned smile on his face. "No, you won't have to go hunting up another job; you're going to have enough to worry about, come summer. I had a word with Milady Dorma this afternoon--"

Marco blushed very hotly, knowing quite well that the "word" was likely to have been pillow talk.

"--and it seems she's talked her formidable older brother into giving you full Dorma sponsorship into the Accademia. Think you can handle that assignment, Milord Almost-A-Doctor Valdosta?"

Marco's jaw dropped, and he stared at Aldanto like a brain-sick fool. Never, never in all his wildest dreams, had he thought for a moment that Angelina Dorma would follow through on her half-promise once he'd revealed how he'd deceived her with his poetry, poems she'd thought came from Caesare Aldanto.

"Now I want you to listen to me, Marco Valdosta," Aldanto continued, staring so hard into Marco's eyes that it felt like he was trying to inscribe his words directly onto Marco's brain. "This is good sense, good advice I'm giving you. Put your dreams and idealism in your pocket for a minute and listen to me just as carefully as you can."

"Yes," Marco said, dazed.

"Dorma," Caesare said with force, "is going to expect you to become their House Physician; that's the price you will personally be paying for their gift. You're going to become fairly well-off; you'll have to be, you'll be an associate of the Family. Now I know you want to help out Maria's friends; that's very nice, it's very admirable--but you aren't going to be able to help the poor by being poor yourself. Be smart; take what comes your way and use it. Once in the Family you will be in a position to get that medical help to the canalers. Dorma seems to have a certain sense of noble responsibility." His tone was wry; cynical. "You can play on that if you play their game by their rules. And that's the way to get what you want in this world. So don't blow the chance you've been given; it's been my experience that you don't often get more than one."

Marco got his jaw back in place, swallowed, and nodded. "You're right, Caesare, I know you're right. The world's like that. And you've been--real good to me and Benito. Better than you had any reason to, and I can't say as I've done much to deserve it. I just wish--" He swallowed again. "--I just wish I could do something to give you a shot at what you've always wanted. You wouldn't screw it up."

Aldanto turned his eyes on him. Pulled a wry face and shook his head.

That strange look lasted only a second--then Aldanto was back to his old self.

"One more thing," he continued, pulling his interrupted dinner back towards him, and toying with the bread. "You've been granted two ways to prove you've learned your lessons and to pay me back for the trouble you caused. One--to find out what's going on at Ventuccio. Two--to become my channel into Dorma and the Accademia, to be my eyes and ears and keep me informed. You know what kind of information I'm likely to find interesting. So--"

"Don't blow it," Marco completed for him, still a little bemused by the turn in his fortunes.

Caesare actually chuckled. "Right," he said, resuming his meal.

"Caesare--would it be all right if I wrote to my grandfather and told him about going to the Accademia, do you think?" Marco asked hesitantly, as he shoved his chair away from the table and prepared to leave.

Aldanto considered the possible ramifications for a moment; Marco could almost see the thoughts behind the eyes. "I can't see where it could do any harm," he finally replied. "It might ease his mind about you. Go ahead."

Marco hesitated at the doorway. "Thank you," he said shyly, feeling that he was likely to be glowing with gratitude and happiness.

"For what?" Caesare asked, weary, but amused. "Oh, go on, Marco. If you're not hungry, go and read, or to bed. Get out of here--you keep reminding me of how old and corrupt I am."

Marco bobbed his head awkwardly and scooted back to the room he shared with Benito. The kid wasn't back from his mysterious errand with Maria--but Marco wasn't overly worried about him. This wasn't the first time he'd been out on a night-run with Maria. It was no doubt dangerous--but less so than roof-walking with his old mentor Claudia, the singer-thief. And possibly even less dangerous than what Marco was going to attempt.

So Marco undressed and climbed into bed--and for the first time in months, the dreams he dreamed were bright.

He thought out a plan of action the next morning on the way to work, grateful beyond words for the presence of Harrow on his backtrail so that he was able to spare a bit of his mind to make plans. The very first thing to do was to try to find out if this was an overall scam, or limited to one particular ship--which was what he thought likeliest, given the frequency.

He waved to Tonio on the canal below, who waved back; the man was much friendlier now that Marco was accepting "payment" for his doctoring. There was, thank God, less of that, now that the killing season of cold was over. Marco hadn't needed his cotte for weeks; the only bad part about the weather warming was that the canals were beginning to smell. Then would come summer; plague-time.

Well--that was to come; now was for bare feet on the walkways, and heads bared to the spring breeze, and a general feeling of cheer all around that another winter had been lived through. And the laxness that came with spring-born laziness just might make it possible for Marco to find out his information undetected.

He was early to work; scooting in through the peeling wooden doorway literally as soon as Niccolo Ventuccio unlocked it. The early morning sun wasn't yet high enough to penetrate into the lower levels, so he had to trot around the dusty, cluttered outer office, lighting all the clerk's lamps. That was usually Niccolo's job--but the Ventuccio cousin didn't look at all displeased at the junior clerk's enthusiasm. He gave Marco an approving nod and left the outer office, to take up his position at the runner's desk in the next office over.

Marco had reason for being so early; he was early enough to make an undisturbed, though hasty, check through the import lists by ship. He soon discovered that only one, the caique Jaila, a regular on the Black Sea run, ever carried the spice shipments that had the discrepancies. And only one captain, Alessandro Montello, had been at her helm since the discrepancies started.

This was quickly and quietly done. By the time anyone else came in, Marco was at his desk, copying the inventories from the galliot Albiona into the appropriate books. One or two of his fellow clerks jibed at him for working so hard; Marco looked up from his copying and grinned slightly. "What do you expect," he countered, "when a fellow is so ugly no girl will look at him? A fellow's got to do something to take his mind off--what he ain't getting."

Matteo Feruzzi rolled his dark eyes expressively as he settled onto his tall stool behind his slanted desk. "Father and Saints, Marco--if you ain't getting nothing it's because you ain't looking! Half them canaler girls is makin' big eyes at you--and the only reason the rest of them ain't is because their fathers would beat them black and blue if they did." Matteo snorted, scratching his curly head. "Ugly! Hell, I wisht I was as 'ugly' as you! Maybe Rosa wouldn't be giving me such a hard time!"

Marco blushed and ducked his head. He knew why the canaler girls were giving him the eye--not because he was desirable; because he was notorious. The boat-folk had been alerted when he'd gone "missing"--and all of them knew the outcome. He was just grateful that his fellow-workers didn't; they were landers, and canalers didn't spill canal-gossip to landers. And it seemed Marco was semi-adopted now--because the boat-folk hadn't told the landers about what a fool he'd been.

And for all of that, he still hadn't seen THE GIRL since that awful day. He'd looked--oh, how he'd looked!--but he'd not seen her once. His only possible aid, Maria, had been unable--or unwilling--to identify her. Marco sighed, recollecting the peculiar jolting his heart had taken when he'd seen her--she'd shaken Angelina Dorma clean out of his head, and herself in.

Well, he couldn't think about her now; he had a ticklish job ahead of him.

Matteo chuckled at Marco's blush, not knowing what had caused it. He was about to toss another jibe in his direction when Christophoro Ventuccio stalked through the outer office on the way to his inner sanctum, and all four clerkly heads bent quickly over their assignments.

For the next bit of information, Marco had to wait until the appropriate book came into his hands legitimately--though he'd agreed to take on the lengthy Albiona inventory with the notion of getting at that book in mind. This East-run round ship had sprung a leak in her hold and had as a consequence sustained a bit of spoilage to chalk off on the loss sheets. And that was the book Marco wanted in his hands; the "Spoilage, Refund, and Salvage" book--because if he was the captain covering tracks, that's where he'd have hidden those little spice casks.

And sure enough--there they were; and no one else ever seemed to have quite as much spoilage in such a specific area as Captain Alessandro Montello of the Jaila.

It looked legitimate; all properly logged, and with no loss on the Ventuccio ledgers. The only thing that the captain had forgotten--were the casks themselves.

The miniature barrels that spices were shipped in were unlike any other such containers in that they were not tarred to make them waterproof. Tar ruined the delicate flavor of the spices. They were very carefully waxed instead; caulked with hemp and coated with beeswax, inside and out.

This made them very valuable, no matter that they were so small. Cooks liked them to hold flour and sugar and salt. For that matter--a good many used the casks, with the wax coating burnished into their wood until it glowed, as workbaskets, and for a dozen other semi-ornamental purposes.

So even if the spice inside had somehow spoiled, through leakage, or rot, or insect contamination, the cask had a resale value. Yet none of those casks from the Jaila's inventory ever appeared on the "Salvage" side of the blotter.

And no one seemed to be interested in claiming back part of the value from the company that imported the spice for them. And that was very odd indeed.

And it was in the "Spoilage, Refund, and Salvage" book that Marco found out who had ordered and paid for the "spoiled" spices--and who had apparently been so careless, or generous, as to absorb the entire loss.

Casa Badoero. Spice merchants on Murano.

The next day, and the next, Marco kept strictly to legitimate business, waiting for an opportunity for him to get at the packets of tax-stamps.

The Venetian tax-stamps, placed on an article that had had its duty paid in full, were distributed by a small army of officials, Capi di Contrada, who had to report to the Doge and the Council of Ten. The stamps themselves were green paper seals, signed by the officiating capi, and each was wax-sealed and stamped twice with a unique number. They were intended to be split into two parts, each half bearing the same number. The first part was sealed with lead and wire to the taxed goods. The second part was torn off and returned, after counting at the Doge's palace, to the appropriate importer as evidence that he had paid his tax-duties to both the Republic of Venice and the Doge. The stamps came in from the Doge's palace in bundles and were kept in the cubbyholes of the tax desk, one hole for each day of the month. At the end of the month some luckless clerk got to check them against the warehousing inventory and file them away. Marco was too junior to be entrusted with such a task--but Matteo Feruzzi wasn't.

Sure enough, at month's end Matteo got stuck with the job. And Matteo never had lunch at his desk. Marco waited until lunchtime, when Matteo had gone off to lunch with Rosa and the office was deserted, to make his move.

He slid over to Matteo's desk, counted the little packets and purloined the one representing the twelfth of the month, the day the spice shipments from the Jaila had been collected by the Badoero representative. He thumbed through the little slips as quickly as he could, not daring to take the packet out of the office, hovering over in a corner next to the filthy glass window where the light was best. Finally he came to the Badoero slips, and got the name of the officer in charge puzzled out.

Capi Marco Tiepolo.

Chapter 48 ==========

Benito was in as cheerful a mood as he'd ever been in his life. Maria was so pleased with the way he'd been handling himself that she had decided to take him further into her confidence.

Well . . . she'd been damned desperate. But it was a start. Lately, being liked and noticed by Maria had mysteriously become important to him.

She'd flagged him down with the little signal they'd worked out that meant she needed to talk to him somewhere where they weren't likely to be observed. He finished his current run in double-time; then, when there didn't seem to be anybody about, ducked under the second bridge at the Rio de San Martino. He eased his way along the ledge at water level.

And there was Maria, holding her gondola steady against the pull of the canal current.

"Ker-whick-a," Benito chirped, seeing the flash of her eyes as she looked in his direction. He skipped over to the side of the boat, keeping his balance on the ledge with careless ease. "What's it you need, Maria?"

"I got a problem," she said in a low, strained voice. "Giaccomo sent me to pick up a payment for him--only after I'd got it, something spooked the Schiopettieri. They're all over the damned water and they're stopping gondolas--"

"And if they find you with a bag of coin--" Benito didn't have to finish the sentence. "Huh. Caesare'd have a helluva time prying you away from the Doge's torturers. Pass it over, Maria. I got to go by Giaccomo's anyhow. They won't stop a runner in House livery, and even if they do, they won't touch Ventuccio money."

"If there's one lira missin'--"

Benito pouted, hurt. "C'mon, Maria, Ventuccio trusts me with cash!"

"I ain't as stupid as Ventuccio," Maria replied, but with no real force. "Here."

She pulled a flat packet out of her skirts, a packet that chinked and was surprisingly heavy. Benito raised a surprised eyebrow. Silver at the least--maybe gold. Something had gone amiss if Giaccomo had sent Maria out to make a pickup of this much coin in broad daylight.

He slipped the package inside his own shirt. "Keep heading up the canal," he suggested. "If it's you they're looking for, an' lookin' for you to head for Giaccomo's, that ought to throw 'em off the scent."

She snorted, and pushed off from the bank. "Tell me m'own job, landsman," she replied scornfully. "Just you tend to what I give you."

"Si, milady," Benito executed a mocking little bow, then danced back along the ledge to the first water-stair up to a walkway.

Behind him he heard Maria swear half-heartedly at him, and grinned.

* * *

Julio Destre had been trailing that canaler Maria for hours--just as the Dandelos had paid him to do. Then he saw her duck under the bridge--and a moment later, saw that bridge-brat Benito do the same.

He snickered to himself. Keeping tabs on the brat after he dropped out of the bridge-gangs and into "respectability" had been well worth his while, after all.

"Jewel" Destre had graduated from bridge-brat to street bravo in the two years since he and Benito had last tangled. He sported a cheap rapier (that he used like a club) and silk scarves and a constant sneer. There were dozens like Jewel on the walkways of Venice, and "work" enough to keep all of them in grappa and scarves, if you weren't too particular about who you worked for. Jewel certainly wasn't. The Casa Dandelo might derive its money from slave-trading but their ducats spent like anyone else's.

No one had ever beaten Jewel at anything--no one but bridge-brat Benito, that is. Benito had gotten to Jewel's girl, gotten her off the walkways and out of the gang, into the purview of his mentor Claudia.

Which wasn't what the brat had intended, but before you could say "surprise" Lola had gotten installed in an acting-group and acquired a very wealthy patron. And had no further need or desire for Jewel and his gang.

It still rankled. Jewel had never forgiven Benito for the way the little bastard had humiliated him. So this looked like a chance to pay Benito back and turn a little profit by way of a couple of Dandelo bonuses.

He watched Benito moving in the shadows under the bridge. He squinted, but couldn't make out anything more than a brief exchange with someone in the gondola--just a meeting of a pair of shadows within the shadows. Then Benito squirted out again and scrambled up the water-stairs and on over towards Cannaregio.

So. Maria had transferred whatever it was she'd picked up to the boy's hands--likely because of the Schiopettieri stirring on the water.

He grinned viciously with absolute satisfaction, and headed up the walkway on the brat's backtrail. In a few more moments, he'd have whatever it was Maria had been carrying, and he'd have the boy as well to sell to the Dandelos. Without balls. He was a good age for a trainee eunuch.

* * *

Harrow spotted the swarthy bullyboy trailing Benito with almost no effort whatsoever. The scar-faced low-life was so clumsy in his attempts to shadow the boy that Harrow snorted in contempt. This inept street brawler wouldn't have lasted five minutes as a Montagnard agent.

Once Harrow saw that the boy was on the Calle del Arco, Harrow had a fairly good notion where he was bound: Giaccomo's. That boat-woman must have passed something on to him.

The bravo evidently had a shrewd notion where Benito was going as well, since he increased his pace a trifle. It looked to Harrow like he was planning on ambushing the boy down in one of the sotoportego that Benito would use as a shortcut on his way to Giaccomo's. Harrow gave up trying to be inconspicuous--there wasn't anyone much in this decaying part of town anyway--and hastened his own steps.

He was almost too late. He hesitated a moment at the shadows next to the Gallina bridge, his eyes momentarily unable to adjust to the darkness of the sotoportego after the dazzle of sun in the piazza. Then he heard Benito shout in anger and defiance--and a second time, in pain.

He saw a bulkier shadow in the darkness of the overbuilt alley ahead of him, and that was all his trained body needed to respond with precision and accuracy.

A few heartbeats later the bully was unconscious at Harrow's feet, and Benito, huddled beyond, was peering up at the face of his rescuer with shock and stunned recognition.

Harrow gave him no chance to say a word. "Move, boy," he said gruffly. "And next time don't go down dark places without checking to see if someone's following."

The boy gulped, and scrambled to his feet, favoring his right arm. "Yessir!" he gasped, and scrambled down to his destination as if someone had set his tail on fire.

Harrow saw him get into a gondola twenty yards farther on. Good. He was safer on the water.

Harrow considered the body at his feet, thoughtfully prodding it with one toe. He rubbed his knuckles absently; he'd almost forgotten to pull that last punch; and if he hadn't the bravo wouldn't be breathing. He wasn't sure why he'd held back, now; he was mostly inclined to knife the bastard and push him into the canal--

But that wouldn't keep others of his type from dogging the boy's footsteps. On the other hand, if he made an example of this bravo, he might well save Benito and himself some future trouble.

* * *

Some half hour later, Jewel dragged himself, aching in every bone, from the cold, foul water of the Rio del Panada. He was lighter by his sword, dagger, purse, and cloak--at least the terrible, scarred madman had slapped him awake before tossing him in. He clung to the ledge that ran around the canal edge, clinging to the step of someone's water-door. He clung desperately to the sun-warmed, rotting wood, not thinking much past the moment. He hadn't swallowed any of the canal water; but he was bruised all over. The crazy man hadn't smashed bones. He'd shown he was perfectly capable of doing so. Jewel was just grateful to be alive enough to hurt and shiver.

Never, for the rest of his life, would Jewel forget that masklike face, those mad eyes. Or the carefully enunciated words, spoken in a voice like the croak of a marsh-bird.

"Touch that boy again," the mysterious attacker had warned, "and the next time you land in the canal we'll see how well you swim without knees and elbows."

* * *

"Katerina!"

Katerina looked up from the water, wary, startled. The last thing she wanted was to be recognized. It was that scamp, Benito. He had blood running out of his nose, and looked pale and frightened. Common sense said she should paddle away immediately. It was bad enough doing runs in daylight without extra trouble.

She stopped and he scrambled hastily into the boat. "Give me a lift a bit away from here. Please."

She sculled steadily as he attempted to staunch the flow of blood from his nose. "You going to bring trouble on me?"

"No. Trouble just got itself beaten up." Benito paused. "But--yes. You'd better let me off. Schiopettieri are doing checks of all vessels. You got anything . . ."

"We're inside the cordon," she said scornfully. "Don't you know anything? Now where were you going?"

"Giaccomo's," he said, gratefully.

Chapter 49 ==========

One casual question to two independent sources--Jeppo at Giaccomo's, and Barducci's cook Katia--had given Marco one simple, and odd, fact. The cheapest place in town for spices wasn't Badoero's. To the contrary, their prices were, if anything, more expensive. It was, however, the place of choice for wealthy women of Venice to buy their spices.

Rafael de Tomaso had been Marco's source on Capi Tiepolo. Marco had had plenty of reason to visit his new friend--his good news, for one: some seaweed you could apparently boil up and make a suspension medium for paints to achieve a marbling effect. It was one of those things Marco had picked up from one of his boat-people patients, when he'd mentioned painting. They claimed their father had done it, and he was a seaman from the far-off League of Armagh. That might be true. You could find blood of many origins on the waterways of Venice. But Rafael had been wildly excited by the idea, and begged him to find out more. So here he was with a bunch of dried seaweed. And while Marco was visiting, he'd asked Rafael if he could find out something about Capi Marco Tiepolo's background. The Tiepolo were, after all, an aristocratic family.

Though the Accademia student had been a little puzzled by the question, he agreed--especially after Marco told him that if it became any trouble to find out, he wasn't to bother. As things turned out, it was easy for him to resolve with a couple of casual questions to his own patron, carefully spaced out over several days.

It seemed that Capi Tiepolo was a bastard son of Count Badoero, who held large estates outside of Venetian territory in Padua. Padua . . . wooing--and being wooed--by Milan. The Badoero on Murano were cousins of the count, which meant they were allied with the Montagnard-leaning faction in Venetian politics--and friendly with the Pauline orders like the Servants of the Holy Trinity.

Yet . . . most curiously, Capi Tiepolo himself was apparently one of Bishop Pietro Capuletti's proteges. Which in the tangled weave of Venice's politics should have made him . . . an adherent of Rome and the Grand Metropolitan, as the Capuletti positioned themselves with the Brunelli Family. Bishop Capuletti, in fact, was the Doge's representative at the Accademia.

This was all very complicated.

Well, that sure as hell explains the Badoero connection, if nothing else, Marco thought to himself, as he hurried to reach Della Elmo's before the lunch-time crowd did. But it surely doesn't explain this. There's a connection here I'm missing, and it's a Family connection, or politics, maybe. It's not enough to give Caesare--yet--

He scampered in at the back entrance; Michelo Viero, one of the barman's helpers, had agreed to let Marco take his place at noon for the next several days. It hadn't been hard to persuade him, not when Marco had offered to split the tips for the privilege of doing his work for him. Michelo had no notion who or what Marco was; Marco let him think he was a student with some gambling debts to pay and a short time to pay them in. And Lord and Saints knew that a few of the patrons of the Della Elmo's Trattoria were quite good tippers. It was close to the San Marco, and it was fashionable right now.

Marco joined the milling lot of a half-dozen other boys in the shabby back hall, claiming Michelo's apron from its wooden hook and bobbing awkwardly to the burly owner. "Michelo still got th' bad ankle?" the square-faced man asked gruffly.

"Yes, milord," Marco replied, scuffing his bare feet in the sawdust on the wooden floor. "Says he's mortal sorry, milord, but it's still swole up."

The man actually cracked a smile. "I ain't, boy. You lookin' for a job, you check by here regular. I get an opening, you got a place."

Marco contrived to look grateful. "M-my thanks, milord," he stammered, and slipped past him onto the floor of the tavern proper.

After that it was nothing but scurry and scramble and keep his head down so that nobody could see his face long enough to recognize him later; bringing orders of food and drink to tables, clearing away the dishes after, bringing more drink when called for--and keeping his ears open.

For Elmo's Trattoria was where the second sons of the Families met--and where they met, there was gossip aplenty. And where there was gossip--

Lord, it was wearing him down, though. He leaned around a patron's bulk to snag the empty plates before the man could yell for them to be taken away. He was beginning to be very grateful for his sit-down job at Ventuccio's. He was so tired when he got home at night that he was bolting a little dinner, going straight to bed, and sleeping like a stone. Aldanto had been worried enough by this anomalous behavior that he'd actually asked Marco if he was all right--which surprised him. He'd explained--he thought; his mind wasn't too clear on anything after sundown anymore. At least Aldanto seemed satisfied.

Two days ago he'd learned that Count Badoero was one of Lucrezia Brunelli's more ardent suitors, and as such, was not popular at Elmo's. He was certainly the target of enough gossip.

From Luciano Delmi's idle comment yesterday, had come the news that Accademia must be awash with new gold the way Bishop Capuletti was spending it. And someone had said suspiciously, cattishly, that they wondered where it was being minted. That was the problem with subversion here in Venice. Venice ducats. Unpunched winged-lion-faced ducats were just not freely available outside the city. The gold refined and smelted here was definably, noticeably purer than coin from Florence or Milan. The magical blessing of the molds gave the coins a faint but delicate bouquet . . . cinnamony lavender. A fake coin was not worth passing.

Any attempt at subversion here in the Republic of Venice was expensive. There were just too many noble families you'd have to buy. Anyone spending that kind of gold was due a visit from the Council of Ten's agents.

Then somebody asked if the Casa Badoero was still courting the Milanese. The scar-seamed merchant considered the question thoughtfully before replying with the carefully worded bit of information that no, it was too late for courting.

And just as Marco was hauling a load of dishes to the back, he got the final key piece from Mario Pellagio. Marco overheard mention that the Signori Di Notte were looking for some ideas on who had killed Veronica Mantelli. And Delmi's unknown companion had said they need look no further than whoever was bringing the new supply of black lotos into the city. It was just an unrelated comment . . . except the rich and beautiful Signorina Mantelli had been prominent among Lucrezia Brunelli's set.

If there was one thing that could get you into real trouble with the Doge and the Signori di Notte and their Schiopettieri it was black lotos from Turkey. When they'd collected the tiny blue lotos in the marshes for Sophia's concoctions, Chiano had explained. From the magical lotos that had stolen the wits of Ulysses' men in Libya had come the two strains. The blue lotos was a rare, wild plant in the marshes of the Mediterranean coast--doubtless spread by sailors over the years. The blue was a mild hallucinogenic and soporific, and difficult to harvest in quantity. But somewhere within the Pontus mountains the plant had been bred, and magically altered. Black lotos. Twenty times as powerful . . . before refining. The magically refined drug had become a plague not twenty years back. Then it had been freely for sale. Doge Marco Gradenigo had utterly banned its import and sale, and agents of the Council of Ten had quietly killed importers. So. It was back. And back in the wealthiest circles. People who went a-spice-buying on Murano. People who had ample Venice ducats.

Ducats to buy support . . . inside the Accademia where the sons of Venice's nobles were an available target.

Marco's head buzzed, and his gut went tight with excitement. So--Accademia might be involved in this new Milanese policy!

Or part of the Accademia was. Marco was no longer so naive as to figure that what one priest wanted, the rest did too. Assuming, of course--which those at Elmo's did--that the bishop's superiors were aware of his loyalties. Which might, or might not, have been the truth. In either case, it was something Caesare Aldanto would find fascinating indeed.

Marco hustled the last of the dishes into the kitchen, took off his apron, and hung it up for the last time. He had what he needed; time to give Michelo his job back. Now only one thing remained; for Marco to verify with his own eyes exactly what was going on down at the Ventuccio warehouse and how it was being conducted.

* * *

Aldanto was beginning to have a feeling of deja vu every time he looked up from dinner to see Marco hovering like a shadow around the kitchen door.

"Something wrong, Marco?" he asked, beginning to have that too-familiar sinking feeling. The last time the boy had had that look on his face, that--watcher--had moved in across the canal. And the time before--

The time before was what had gotten them all into this mess.

"Caesare--" the boy hesitated, then brought his hands out from behind his back. "This is for you."

Aldanto took the slim package from the boy; a long and narrow, heavy thing, wrapped in oiled silk. He unwrapped it, and nearly dropped it in surprise.

It was a fine--a very fine--main gauche, the like of which Caesare hadn't seen, much less owned, since his Milan days. Light-rippling oystershell folded Damascus steel; perfection from tip to sharkskin handle--balanced so well in his hand that it already felt part of him. Unmistakably Ferrarese workmanship. For nearly a century now, since Duke Andrea Dell'este had had the foresight and cunning to recruit steelworkers from the East and swordsmiths from Spain, and brought them together, Ferrara blades had become the standards whereby all other swords were judged.

He was so surprised that his first thought was that the boy must have stolen it. The Lord knew it wasn't the kind of thing the boy could afford! But Marco spoke before he could voice that unworthy thought.

"It--it's from my grandfather, milord," he said, his face and voice sounding strained. "He says it's by way of thanking you. He sent me one for Milord Dorma too--seems he wrote and told him who my mother was!"

"He what?" Aldanto tightened his hand involuntarily on the knife hilt.

"He says," Marco continued, "that he thinks Casa Dorma ought to know, and that I'm safer with them knowing, because they'll put me where hurting me would cause a vendetta no one wants. 'Hide in plain sight,' is what he says."

"The man has a point," Aldanto conceded, thinking better of the notion. Relaxing again, he checked the weapon for maker's marks, and sure enough, on the blade near the quillions found the tiny Dell'este symbol. The old man was a shrewd one, all right--he hadn't kept his smallish city intact and largely independent while sitting between three powerful forces by being stupid. He had a real instinct for which way to jump. Besides, if Dorma now knew what station the boy really was, the obligations would be turned around. Dorma would now be in the position to negotiate favorably with the guardians of the Po River and the roads to Bologna and Rome.

Marco was the son of an undutiful younger daughter of the House of Dell'este. But the Dell'este honor was legendary. It ran as deep as the heavens were wide. No trading family would want such an enemy. Marco would no longer be the object of charity, and the Dorma would actually wind up owing Aldanto for bringing the boy to their attention. Altogether a nice little turn of events--especially considering that he was being paid by Dell'este to watch over the boys.

"He says," Marco continued, looking a little relieved but still plainly under strain, "it's by way of a bribe, milord, for you to keep Benito. He says he doesn't think we better let Dorma know about Benito at all, not that he's my brother."

Aldanto thought about young Milord Lightfingers loose in Dorma and shuddered. "I think he's right." Besides, the boy might just be a main chance.

* * *

Marco carefully calculated his day off to coincide with the day that the Badoero hirelings picked up their consignment from the Ventuccio warehouse. By dawn he was down at the warehouse dock, ready and willing to run just about any errand for anybody. This wasn't the first time he'd been here--he'd played runner before, when he wasn't playing waiter's helper at Elmo's. He wanted his face to be a familiar one on the dock, so that he wouldn't stand out if Capi Tiepolo became suspicious. He even had Ventuccio permission to be out here; they thought he was strapped for cash, and he was supposedly earning the extra odd penny by running on his day off.

He'd run enough of those errands by noon that no one thought or looked at him twice when he settled into a bit of shade and looked to be taking a rest break. The sun was hot down here on the dock; there wasn't a bit of breeze to be had, and Marco was sweating freely. One friendly fellow offered Marco the last of his wine as he went back on shift, and Marco accepted gratefully. He wasn't having to feign near-exhaustion; he was exhausted. He was mortally glad that the remainder of his self-imposed assignment was going to allow him to sit out here, in the shade of a barrel, and pretend to get splinters out of his hands while he watched the Badoero barge being loaded twenty feet away.

The barge was a neat little thing; newly painted and prosperous looking. The boatman who manned her did not, however, look like the run-of-the-mill canaler.

In point of fact, that carefully dirtied cotte looked far too new; the man's complexion was something less than weathered--and those hands pushed pencils far more often than the pole of a skip. Marco would be willing to bet money on it. This was no canaler, hired or permanent retainer. This was likely one of the younger members of the Family.

This notion was confirmed when Capi Tiepolo put in his appearance. There was something very similar about the cast of the nose and the shape of the ears of both the good father and the boatman. Even in inbred Venice, features that similar usually spelled a blood-relationship.

It didn't take long to load the tiny casks onto the small barge; Marco didn't bother to get any closer than he was. He wasn't planning on trying to see if the articles were stamped or not. He was doing what only he could, with his perfect memory.

Even amid the bustle of the dock, he was keeping absolute track of exactly how many spice casks--and only the spice casks, nothing else--were going into the bottom of that barge.

Three days later, when the bundle of tax stamps came in, Marco had his answer. Three more casks had gone into the barge than there were stamps for.

* * *

That night he intended to give Caesare Aldanto his full report--but that afternoon he got an unexpected surprise.

A creamy white and carefully calligraphied note from the House of Dorma.

* * *

Marco finished his report to Aldanto, given while he was finishing his dinner in the kitchen, and Caesare was both impressed and surprised. The lad had handled himself like a professional--

Like an adult. He'd thought out what he needed to know, he'd planned how to get it without blowing his cover, and he'd executed that plan carefully, coolly, and patiently. Aldanto pondered the boy's information, and concluded that no matter how you looked at it, it was going to be worth a great deal to both sides of this messy and treacherous game he played. He nodded to himself, then looked up to see that the boy was still standing in the doorway, looking vaguely distressed.

Aldanto's approval did nothing to ease the boy's agitation; if anything, it seemed worse. "Marco, is there something wrong?"

"Caesare--" The boy looked absolutely desperate. "I--got this today--"

He handed a square of creamy vellum to Aldanto; feeling a terrible foreboding, Caesare opened it.

It proved to be nothing more than a simple invitation for Marco--and a friend, if he chose--to come to dinner at Dorma, to be introduced to the Family.

Aldanto heaved a sigh of relief. "One may guess," he said, handing the invitation back to Marco, "That Milord Petro Dorma has received your grandfather's letter." The boy's expression didn't change. "So what on earth is wrong?"

"It's--it's me, Caesare," the boy blurted unhappily. "I was a child the last time I was in a noble's household. I don't know . . . how to act, what to say, what to wear . . ."

He looked at Caesare with a pleading panic he hadn't shown even when he'd known his life hung in the balance. "Please, Caesare," he whispered, "I don't know how to do this!"

Caesare restrained his urge to laugh with a control he hadn't suspected he had. "You want me to help coach you, is that it?"

Marco nodded so hard Caesare thought his head was going to come off. He sighed.

"All right, young milord--let's see if we can create a gentleman out of you." He smiled dryly. "You may wish yourself back in the swamp before this is over!" Inwardly he smiled. This might be tedious, but it would be valuable.