Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

It didn't take Marco long to read it.

I send into the keeping of House Dorma one of the honor-blades of Dell'este, in token of the bond now between us. Young Marco will know how it is to be cared for.

"Your grandfather says you know how to care for this sword."

Marco nodded, not able to speak. There was a hidden message there from Duke Dell'este, a message Milord Petro could not possibly read. But Marco knew?and the implications turned his life upside down in the single span of time it had taken Petro to free the blade from its silk wrapping.

Petro Dorma was no fool, of course. If he could not read the message, still, he knew that one was there?and that it must be portentous for his house. So he took Marco's nod at face value, and set the sword back down in its silken nest.

Dell'este steel?Dell'este honor. There is no going back now. Not for Grandfather. Not for the Old Fox.

"Tell me what you need," Dorma said simply. "I gather this isn't the sort of thing you just leave in the armory or hang on the wall."

"A?p-place," Marco stammered. "I need a place for it, somewhere where it's safe, but where it can be seen by?by?" He flushed. "By the House-head. You, milord. You're?supposed to be reminded by it, milord."

Petro nodded thoughtfully. "Will that do?" he asked, pointing behind and to Marco's right.

There was an alcove between two windows, an alcove currently holding an unimpressive sculpture of the Madonna. The alcove was approximately a foot wider than the blade was long.

"Yes, milord," Marco said immediately. "Yes. Milord?that's perfect."

A few days later, the thing was done. And he was summoned into Dorma's presence again.

Marco held his breath, and with all the concentration he could command, placed the century-old hand-and-a-half sword reverently in the cradle of the special rack he'd asked Milord Petro to have made.

Marco stepped back two paces to scan his handiwork with an apprehensive and critical eye.

He'd inspected and cleaned the blade of the sword that morning, that being a small ritual in and of itself. Somewhere in his earlier conversations he'd told Petro that in Venice's damp climate, he'd have to inspect the blade once or twice a week, and that he preferred not to have to move it too far from its resting place.

He'd been a little apprehensive about that, since this was clearly the Head of Dorma's private?and very special?sanctuary. But Petro had nodded his acceptance of that, gravely, and then he'd taken the undyed tassel off the hilt, keeping it, not giving it to a servant to be dealt with.

This morning he'd returned the tassel to Marco, now the deep and unmistakable midnight-blue of Dorma's house colors. That was all Marco had needed. The ancient sword was now ready to take its place in the heart of Dorma.

He knelt again, and reached out to adjust the blade so that the silk tassels hung side-by-side from the hilt, neither obscuring the other. The Valdosta-scarlet and Dorma-blue tassels hung gracefully, shining as only heavy silk could.

Dorma colors. Dell'este colors. Ferrara's steel.

Marco wore all of them, now. A main gauche and rapier of more modern design on his belt, sent by the duke. And?on his right hand, a signet ring. A new-cut signet, with an old design. The lion's head seal of Casa Valdosta.

He would be hidden no longer. After all these years, the secret life in the marshes and the canals, Valdosta had returned to take his rightful place in Venice.

"It is your grandfather's opinion?which I share?that you would now be far safer in the public eye, where harming you would be noticed and acted upon. You must come to live here in the Casa Dorma." Petro Dorma's gaze weighed and measured Marco before he added?

"Both of you."

It took all the eloquence that Marco possessed to convince Petro that he did not want Benito?not-entirely-ex-thief, bridge-brat Benito?inside Casa Dorma. At least not for now.

"Caesare Aldanto's the only one who can control him, milord." He pleaded earnestly. "I can't. And you might as well try to tell the tide not to come in, for all he'll heed you. Caesare Aldanto can keep him safe until he develops a little more sense."

Marco clenched his hands in anguish on the arms of the chair. "Please, milord?Lord and Saints know I love him, but I know him. He's Dell'este blood?but wolf Sforza blood also. He's been on the street since he was a kid. Bridge-brat taught; it'd be like trying to tame a wild kitten. Tell Caesare to bring him around to being civilized. If anybody can make Benito see sense, it'll be Caesare Aldanto."

Petro Dorma scowled at the mention of Aldanto's name, then nodded again?this time reluctantly. "I can't say that I like it, but you know your brother." His mouth firmed. "That makes it all the more important that we fulfill our obligations toward you, Marco." He surveyed Marco's clothing with a critical eye. "And one of the first things will be an appropriate wardrobe. I'll have my mother see to that?"

But in the end it had been Angelina, not Rosanna, who had outfitted him. Petro's mother, Rosanna, was indisposed, and Marco had yet to actually see her except at meals. She seemed ill, and looked as frail as a creature of lace and spun glass. He much doubted she'd seen him, not really; he'd kept his head down and his eyes fixed on his plate, and he never spoke. That wasn't because Dorma cousins were unfriendly; mostly it was because he didn't know what to say. The intricacies of polite social conversation were still a mystery to him. And what could he talk about, anyway? How to survive in the marshes? The best ways to break into a house?

So he kept his mouth shut, and let the Dorma cousins steer him though the maze of dancing, religion, and etiquette lessons; let Angelina guide him through what it meant to be a House scion; let Caesare Aldanto try to show him how to keep himself alive with that Valdosta steel?

And let Angelina outfit him. In leather, silk, wool, and finest linen. Clothing he hadn't worn since that long ago childhood in Ferrara, the kind where the cost of one pair of boots would outfit a canaler for years.

The silk of a sleeve slid caressingly along his arm as he adjusted the positioning of the basse taille enameled sword-rest by a fraction of an inch. The stand itself was adequate?the best Petro could do on short notice. The cabinet maker had been given a more exact design, and instructions to paint the stand with no fewer than twenty coats of varnish. That kind of work took time, and Marco was content to wait for it.

The walnut half-moon table it stood on, though, was perfect. Rescued from the Dorma attics, its neat marquetry could have come from the hand of a master craftsman. Perhaps it had come from Ferrara too?Rosanna Dorma had brought some furnishings with her from their estates outside Vicenza. Iron from Vicenza went to the forges of Ferrara and the Dell'este craftsmen marked only their steel.

Marco looked again at the old sword and shivered. The second sword of Dell'este, that he'd last seen on its own rest just below the first sword. It brought with it levels of meaning as intricate and interleaved as the folded and refolded steel that made up the blade.

"The sword of Duke Dell'este is the soul of House Dell'este," the old duke had said, with Marco kneeling attentively beside him.

"This sword?" Marco had turned wide eyes on his grandfather?"is as old as Ferrara?!" He could not imagine it: the tally of years made him dizzy to contemplate.

"Not Ferrara and not this sword," Grandfather had sighed. "The Dell'este were swordsmiths… back when the Etruscans first came across the mountains to the flatlands of the east. The first soul of Dell'este was forged in Felsina. The second in hiding in Motena. The third was made in the marshes we reclaimed to make Ferrara's wealth. Each time we have made two. As strong and with the new skills that the Dell'este alone can give to the great blades. Some call it magic…" The old man had smiled, dryly. "The witchfinders suspect us. But if there is magic, it is in the blood and bone and steel of the Dell'este. Sometimes… when the House Dell'este is threatened?in uncertain times?it is sometimes wise to send a second soul out with an heir to seek a new home, so that the Dell'este line will continue. This is the third blade that?"