Lackey, Mercedes & Flint, Eric & Freer, Dave - [Heirs of Alexandria 01] (56 page)

"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."

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."