Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

"Oh. Harrow." Marco shrugged. "He's just somebody who?knew our mother."

"And the other name?" asked Maria, intently. "Aleri?"

"Well," said Marco thoughtfully. "There was a high-up Montagnard in mother's time by that name. Francesco Aleri."

Benito wished like hell Marco's memory was less good. He really had to talk to Caesare about this before Maria went in like a bull in a china shop. Aleri would have to die. But Maria must be kept well clear. Best to change the subject before Marco remembered something else inconvenient. "So now you're crazy about Kat, Marco. What happened to the dream girl in the boat?"

Marco laughed happily. "Kat is the dream girl in the boat, Benito."

There was a long moment of silence from both Maria and Benito. Benito wound his jaw back up. Bossy-boots Kat, with too big a mouth, and a tongue that could scour brass?

"What!?" he croaked?in unison with Maria.

Late that night, there came a knock on Eneko's door. When the priest opened it onto the dimly lit Ghetto alley, a burly man with a badly scarred and burned face seized the Basque by the lapel of his cassock and forced his way inside. Then kicked the door shut behind him.

Eneko made no attempt to resist. The man's strength was enormous.

"Why are you following the boys?" the man rasped.

"I'm not," replied Eneko calmly.

"You've been watching them," snarled the scar-faced man. "I've seen you?you and the other two. And tonight, at Zianetti's?"

Eneko laughed softly. "I wasn't trying to talk to them. I wanted to talk to the girl they were with. The one they call 'Kat.' "

The man released the cassock and stepped back a pace. "Why?" he demanded.

"None of your concern," said Eneko, shaking his head. "But I will tell you that I mean her no harm. I simply wanted to pass a message on to another through her. Unfortunately, she left too quickly."

The man grunted. "The whore."

Eneko cocked his head. "That's not a term I use. But… if we're speaking of the same woman, I wonder how you know who she is."

The man took another pace back. "I'm charged with protecting the boys. I watch everything?everyone?they come into contact with."

"Charged by whom?" asked Eneko mildly.

The man shook his head. "None of your concern." He turned on his heel and left, not bothering to close the door.

Eneko followed, standing in the entrance. "Stop," he said softly. The man, now halfway down the alley, paused and looked over his shoulder.

"Should you ever have need," said Eneko, "I will help you with your task. Those boys are vitally important."

The man's eyes seemed to widen a bit. "Smart, for a priest." Then he was gone, moving more quickly and silently than Eneko would have imagined such a scarred lump of a man could possibly do.

When he turned back into his room and closed the door, he found Pierre and Diego already there. The door to the adjoining cells was open. Pierre held a cudgel in his hand.

Seeing the cudgel, Eneko clucked. "We are not a militant order, Pierre."

"Define your terms," came the instant retort. "And remember that I'm a Savoyard peasant, not a theologian."

Swords clashed in a high-speed flurrying dance of steel. Not for the first time, Manfred wondered how Erik could be so damned quick. The edges were blunt, there were buttons on the points, and they wore quilted jackets. So why did Erik always leave him feeling he had been half skinned and half beaten? He put in another determined rush. If he was going to feel like that, so was Erik.

"Hold." A voice commanded. They put up the practice swords. "You must go to Abbot Sachs's chambers." Von Stublau looked sour enough to curdle milk. "He has some Venetian lord to see you." He looked disdainfully at the training rapiers. "Pah. Too light for a knightly weapon."

"But very fashionable," said Manfred with a grin, knowing this would irritate the surly Altmark knight.

"Enough, Manfred," said Erik before the slow-thinking knight had time to respond to Manfred's lure. "We train with broadswords on the pells, Ritter. But these give us more of a chance to learn how to respond to a live opponent. Come Manfred, the abbot and this Venetian lord won't thank us for keeping him waiting. Help me out of this jacket. We need to get some kind of mask also, if we're to do this 'fencing' properly."

Manfred pulled the quilted jacket off his mentor, and turned so that Erik could do the same for him. "We're neglecting the legs, too. We need a trainer, Erik. A master of this Italian bravura style. I'll ask Francesca."

Erik turned hastily, to see if the supposedly celibate knight-squire had an audience. But fortunately Von Stublau had left. "It's not a bad idea, Manfred. I don't care what Von Stublau says?for marine warfare, anyway, armor is history."

"I like armor myself," grumbled Manfred, as they made their way up to the abbot's rooms. "But I'll admit having a horse to carry it helps."

The Venetian waiting for them with the abbot was the balding one of that group of Signori di Notte that they'd met after they'd saved Lord Calenti from being magically murdered.

Abbot Sachs was doing his best to be pleasant. It sat ill with the cleric. "Ah, Ritters. Signor Petro Dorma has requested specifically to speak to you two."

"You were quite correct in your surmise," said Dorma. "Each of these vile murders?except possibly one, where the fire destroyed the entire building it was in and therefore we can't be certain?has been found to have recently involved a missing item of clothing."

"Mammet witchcraft!" barked Sachs.

Petro Dorma cleared his throat. "Well, the expert on magic I have spoken to says there are several other possibilities. But I wanted to thank you gentlemen for your efforts on behalf of my fellow Signori… and also to tell you the sad news about Father Belgio and Lord Calenti. Despite our hopes, Lord Calenti died last night. And in a separate type of murder, someone killed Father Belgio as well."

"Father Belgio was not killed by magic?" asked Erik, intent.

Petro Dorma shook his head. "No. Just straight assassination. A misericord pushed in behind the ear while he slept. A thoroughly professional killing."

"Why?" Manfred demanded. "He didn't seem the sort of man to attract enemies."

Sachs snorted. "He was a man of God. That's enough for these Godless Strega."

Petro Dorma's expression was pained, for an instant. "We have had Strega murders from time to time, Abbot. Poison, not steel, is their way. We're following several lines of inquiry. That is only one of them."

Dorma paused for a moment, studying Erik and Manfred. "I came for another reason, as well. There was another magical murder last night. In the slave quarters of Casa Dandelo, of all places! According to my investigator who examined the scene, once again the victim had lost?or claimed to other prisoners to have lost?all of his clothing." Petro Dorma frowned. "Whoever murders these people by whatever demonic means, and for whatever reason, there is certainly no respect for rank. From Lord Calenti, to a slave."

Again, Dorma paused. Then: "But the reason I asked Abbot Sachs to speak to the two of you is tangential to the murder. Rumors are flying all over Venice that the Dandelos abducted a citizen into slavery, just before the killing. A canaler by the name of Maria Garavelli. She apparently took advantage of the confusion caused by the magical murder to make her escape."

Erik's jaws tightened. In the months since he had arrived in Venice, he had developed a detestation for the type of chattel slavery tolerated in the Republic?throughout most of the Mediterranean, in fact. Slavery had been legally abolished in the Holy Roman Empire for more than a century. And while it was still officially practiced in his own League of Armagh, Celtic and Norse thralldom had little of the sheer brutality and degradation of the Mediterranean variety of servitude.