Mercedes Lackey - Shadow of the Lion

Not now, for a certainty. Venice would have been dangerous for Marco under any circumstances. But now, with a new assassination attempt having been launched against him, the city was ten times more dangerous than ever. Chiano's memory was still too fragmented to understand the exact nature of that danger. But, in truth, that hardly mattered. Chiano had long ago understood Marco's true identity. For that boy, with that lineage, deadly threats could come from any direction.

No, the undines would no longer make suitable guardians. City assassins were not marsh locos. They did not have to perch by the water every day for their sustenance.

And . . . Chiano was not ready yet--if he would ever be--to return himself.

So. Practical steps. If necessary, bloody steps. And he had the perfect instrument for the task, right here at hand in the marshes. In that, too, he understood, the Goddess was giving him a sign. And a gentle warning: no more softness.

He even understood, to a degree, the Goddess's insistent and unusual hardness. Marco had to be protected. Not so much for his own sake, but for that of Venice. Chiano wasn't sure exactly why--yet--but he knew it was so. From the very first moment he had laid eyes on Marco, he had seen the great shadow which the slender boy cast in the spirit world. Venice would need that shadow, some day, of that he was certain. And he was certain of it because Chiano himself cast a similar shadow--or had once, at least. But never as wide, never as broad, never as deep.

Chiano sighed. He knew what to do, and how to do it. Even though that doing was . . . distasteful. Even, in the end, perhaps wicked.

No more softness, old man!

* * *

Oh yes, and he'd gotten his little tail well scorched, had the former Swiss mercenary turned fanatic assassin. Fortunato Bespi had been dying when the undines had fished him out and brought him to Chiano. It would have made a pretty wager, whether shock or drowning would have gotten him first.

Neither did. Chiano and Sophia had patched him up and kept him dosed against fever. He had been bleeding from blade wounds, and burned all over. From what Chiano and Sophia had been able to piece together from the man's semi-incoherent ravings, he had fought off his assailants until they set fire to the house he had barricaded himself in. Even then, apparently, the man had been able to escape and try to find shelter in the marshes, which were the traditional refuge for Venice's outcasts and outlaws.

Eventually, Chiano had been able to glean his identity from the ravings. And, when he did, had come very close to killing the man himself.

Fortunato Bespi! Of all men! If Sophia hadn't restrained him, Chiano would probably have rolled the man back into the waters. This time, with his throat slit and a weight around his ankles.

Fortunato Bespi! Even with his broken memory, Chiano had recognized the name immediately.

Bespi was notorious. Perhaps the best--certainly the most ruthless--Montagnard assassin in all of northern Italy. A fanatic, by all accounts. A true believer, not simply a sellsword. A man so dangerous that, apparently, the Montagnards themselves had decided to kill him. Such, at least, was the explanation Chiano had eventually deduced from the words Bespi muttered in the days of his slow healing.

But . . . Sophia had been firm. So she and Chiano had hidden the badly injured man on one of the firmer reed-islands, under a basket made to look like a reed-hummock. Sophia, with her own eccentric "theology," had insisted that the spirits had brought Bespi to them for a purpose. And, over time, Chiano had come to half-believe it himself.

And was glad he had, for it was now clear that Sophia had been right all along. Who better to guard Marco from assassins than Fortunato Bespi?

It remained only to . . . begin the transformation. And he needed to begin immediately, because the transformation would take many weeks to complete.

* * *

Chiano found Bespi where he expected to find him--squatting on his little island in the reeds, staring at an insect. Bespi did very little else, since he'd finally begun recovering from his injuries. He stared at everything; studied the most insignificant things for hours on end. A man betrayed by the cause he had devoted his life to was trying, Chiano understood, to find meaning in something. Even if it was only the reason that an insect climbed a stalk of grass.

Chiano made no attempt to approach silently. It would have been pointless, anyway. Whatever else Bespi had lost, he had certainly not lost his assassin's reflexes and senses. By the time Chiano appeared in the little clearing where Bespi squatted, the former assassin was awaiting his arrival. Staring at him with the same intentness he stared at everything.

Bespi wanted reasons. Chiano would give them to him.

He held out his hand. "You must begin to eat these also now. With the other food we bring you."

Bespi's burn-scarred face held no expression. He simply stared at the fly agaric and belladonna in Chiano's outstretched palm. He said nothing.

"You are not who you think you are," continued Chiano softly. "I have discovered your true name and your true purpose, in my visions. Now you must discover them also. These will help."

He said nothing further. Simply allowed Bespi the time to examine the possibility of reasons.

Eventually, as Chiano had known he would, Bespi reached out and took the substances. He did not ingest them, simply held them in a loose fist. But Chiano knew that Bespi would begin eating them with his next meal.

There was no expression on the assassin's face. Chiano had not expected to see one. Bespi was an empty man; Chiano would fill him.

He felt some qualms in so doing, but not many. It was, after all, mostly a change in orientation, not in nature. This, without a doubt, was what the Goddess had intended when She'd caused Bespi to be stranded out here. Chiano was sure of it. He rose, and began to turn away. He would return later that night, once Bespi was well into the trance, and begin the transformation.

Bespi's first and only words that day stopped him. "What is my true name, then?" he asked, in a whisper. "They told me it was Fortunato Bespi."

Chiano hesitated. Then, squared his shoulders and turned back to meet the hollow eyes. "They lied. Your true name is Harrow."

"A hard name," murmured Bespi. His lips seemed to tighten. But not with distaste so much as--anticipation.

Chapter 4 =========

Kat closed the door of the Church of St. Hypatia di Hagia Sophia behind her. It shut off the riot of the Feast quite as effectively as one of her old tutor Dottore Marina's silence-spells would have done. The thought, as always, brought melancholy. She missed the dottore terribly. Still, after all these years.

This was a church designed to be full of light and space; the floor was of cream-colored stone, the timbers and woodwork of light ash. Even the wall frescos were painted so that the background colors recalled the white buildings and brilliant blue skies of ancient Alexandria, and the windows held clear, not colored, glass. There was discreet gilding everywhere so that the light of sun or candles was multiplied. The moment she entered the place, her spirits lifted.

With her footsteps echoing on the pale marble of the floor, she walked slowly around the walls until she came to the choir stalls. The whole church was empty except for herself and a few of the members of the Hypatian Order. By their white linen robes, they were all full siblings, sworn to chastity and celibacy, and very probably magicians. Somehow that made her feel safer than she had felt in days, as if, no matter what horrible magics were running loose along the canals and the back streets, nothing could come in here.

She eased into the choir stalls and knelt with her hands clasped before her on the rail, the familiar frescos of the life of Saint Hypatia glowing on the wall opposite her. They weren't the most beautiful frescos in Venice; they'd been painted by a mere pupil of Bellini, not the master himself. They had heart, though; that was what Kat loved about them. Lucia Astolanza must have felt a special kinship for Saint Hypatia of Alexandria to have infused so much life into them.