Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

"Sir. Um. I've got a suggestion. Your granddaughter Katerina going out on these night trips on her own. It's not safe, sir." Benito ignored the poisonous look Kat gave him.

The old man sighed again. "You're right, boy. But I'm too old these days. And who else do we trust?"

"As it happens, I have someone you can trust. Absolutely. Good with a knife too, and knows how to keep a still tongue."

Old Lodovico shook his head. "Montescue can't afford any bravos, boy. Certainly not good ones. And I'm not having Kat going on these night trips with a man."

Benito smiled. "Maria is no bravo, sir, nor a man. And I reckon Kat can trust her. She owes Kat, and she doesn't forget a debt."

Kat stared at him. "Maria? But what about… Caesare?"

"He threw her out."

"Tell her to come to me," said Kat decisively.

Her grandfather actually managed a chuckle. That was a good sign. "Minx. We can't afford any more people."

"We can afford a roof. And food. And maybe a bit for risks."

The old man shrugged. "Find a roof that doesn't leak at Montescue these days! But you've made up your mind, Kat. I know I'm wasting my time."

"You won't regret it, sir," said Benito earnestly. "I'll get word to her, Kat. She needs a woman-friend right now. Might take her a day or two to make up her mind, huh? She's really stiff-canaler proud. But I'll talk to her. Well, can I call you a gondola?"

"Thank you. You're a good lad, Dorma."

Benito smiled. "My name is not Dorma, sir. It's Valdosta. The good one is my brother."

They were silent for a good part of the voyage. Finally Lodovico sighed. "So. I was wrong about them. But Kat… The Montescue will not pursue the vendetta. My promise. But he is married, Katerina. I want your promise. You will leave him alone."

Kat sighed. "It wouldn't make any difference. You don't know him. He won't do anything no matter what. Sometimes Grandpapa, I think we could choke on our own honor. And Marco is like that. Dorma tricked him into marrying that sister…"

"He had to do that, child," Lodovico said stiffly. "You shouldn't know about that sort of thing, but honor demands?"

"I'll bet that child has a good chance at a blond head of hair, Grandpapa!" snapped Kat angrily. "And not dyed blond like its mama, either."

A short time after, still angry, Kat was back to glaring at her grandfather. "And what's this mention you made earlier of a 'Francesca' telling you this and that? Surely?"

Lodovico's face was as stiff as a board. "My own grandfather!" Kat wailed. "I can't believe it!"

"I'm not so old as all that," he muttered.

"My own grandfather! I'll kill her!"

Lodovico smiled wryly. "That's the spirit, girl. Start a vendetta of your own."

Kat choked on the next threat. Her grandfather shrugged. "She got me to stop hunting him, you know. Your precious Marco, I mean."

Kat swallowed. "Well." Swallowed again. "Well. All right, then. Maybe I'll just break her leg."

Lodovico shook his head firmly. "Better to go for an arm. Good advice from an old vendettist. Her legs are awfully strong."

"My own grandfather!"

Manfred poured some more wine into his glass. He'd paid very little attention to the justice's order of eviction from the chamber. And the two Schiopettieri with the two "false witnesses" seemed very unwilling to give force to the justice's words. Steel cladding and a reputation for mayhem had some advantages.

"I think we should get back, Ritter," said Brother Uriel sternly. "And not sit about idling with a glass of wine."

"Ritter Von Gherens needs a glass to build up his strength," said Manfred solemnly.

Von Gherens looked briefly startled, but he caught on quickly. "That's exactly what Brother Samson the Hospitaler said. I'm feeling very weak after the walk, Brother."

Uriel snorted and shook his head.

"They might as well have their glass of wine," said Erik, pacifically. "We won't get a vessel, while the half of the town is here to listen to the report from this sea captain. And Von Gherens is in no state to walk all the way home yet."

Uriel accepted this, and relaxed slightly. "True. But I do not hold with too much wine drinking. And I want to tell Father Sachs about the death of the bishop. He was of course a soft Venetian, but open to Pauline persuasion."

Manfred put a booted foot up on the bench. "Heh. But the Holy Saint Paul himself said: 'Take a bit of wine for the good of your stomach.' "

Uriel brightened. Ecclesiastical argument and knowledge of biblical quotations was his weakness. "True, but…"

He made no objection to them pouring him a glass, which he drank as he talked at length, and he didn't even notice them finishing the rest of the bottle before they left. Finding him and Von Gherens a gondola was by this stage possible, and Manfred kindly volunteered Erik and himself to walk.

"It's August, Manfred. August in Italy. I sweat standing still. When we've finished going to visit Francesca, which is what you intend?I can tell?we take a boat. In fact we wait five minutes and we take a boat to Francesca."

"Just exactly what I was going to suggest," said Manfred.

Marco pulled himself back into the middle of his bed, sitting on the handsome wool blanket cross-legged and pondering the silk-wrapped, sealed package that Petro Dorma had sent over by messenger. There was more than enough light from his tiny slit-window to read the inscription on the package.

By what means the dagger had been taken from the Signori di Notte and whisked to Ferrara heaven only knew. Heaven and Petro Dorma.

Marco opened the outer canvas, then the box wrapped in it, tipping out the package inside. Two hand-spans long, narrow, and heavy. A main gauche in the new Toulouse style… Marco knew that before he even opened the box. He'd hefted too many blades in his time not to know the weight and balance of a knife. Even with it well wrapped and in a wooden box, he could tell.

Silk cords twisted about the final wrapping inside the box in complicated knots; red silk cords in patterns Marco knew, patterns difficult to duplicate. The final knot had been sealed with a wax stamp, imprinted with the Dell'este crest.

Hazard, those knots said, and Be wary. You only tied a package coming out of Ferrara with those knots when you thought there might be a possibility the package would be opened by unfriendly hands somewhere along the way.

All of which meant that this was the very blade that had gone upriver to Ferrara and Duke Dell'este, the town's iron-spined ruler.

The knife that had slain Bishop Pietro Capuletti. The Ferrara blade, a signed blade with the intaglio crest etched proudly on the pommel nut for all to see, pointing straight to Valdosta?and another clan, a Venetian clan.

House Dorma. A new Power, and rising, which made their situation more precarious than if they had been established movers-and-shakers.

Guilt by association implicated Casa Dorma; and most especially Petro Dorma, who had taken in two long-lost Valdosta boys and had tied silken cords of tighter binding to Marco, and so to the steel of Ferrara.

Someone had used a Ferrara main gauche to sever more than Pietro Capuletti's life. Someone had gone to expensive lengths to bring a signed Valdosta knife down-river to assassinate the pro-Pauline prelate.

Marco rested his elbows on his knees and stared wearily at the thing, bright on the dark wool blanket of Dalmatian weave.

I didn't expect an answer so quickly. Maybe I ought to put off untying those knots. My life's complicated enough as it is.

But the knots, and the message in them, did not permit any such evasions. Particularly not now, not when Petro Dorma needed any scrap of information, however hazardous, to counter the attack on their houses.