Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

What Aldanto made of the situation, he couldn't tell; he could read the man a little better these days, but?well, Aldanto was Aldanto, and when he chose not to be read, there was no catching him out.

The first trickle of refugees came long before the official news from Fruili. Then a flood of folk with their scanty belongings and terror in their eyes.

Venice's condottiere Aldo Frescata had sold the North to the Scaligers of Verona. Venice was cut off. Besieged. Only a few coasting vessels were going in and out, and the only friendly port was Trieste. Passage on those ships was only for the wealthy.

Marco looked out on the piazza from an upper window in the Doge's palace. The piazza was packed, but the people were quiet and waiting.

He turned to Petro Dorma. "So. What happens now?"

Petro sighed. "A good question. We still hold the Polestine forts and Jesolo and Chioggia. And the lagoon. But even my estates in Istria might as well be on the moon. And our enemies are flooding us with refugees."

"So what are the Grand Council and the senators going to ask the Doge to do?"

Petro snorted. "Why don't we go and find out? Some of them will panic, of course, and?needless to say?others will suggest inviting various parties in to protect us."

"And you?"

Petro shrugged. "Let them come to our lagoon. The Arsenal has been readying our answer. We have better boatmen than the lot of them. Between the marshes and the water, let them try. The lion of the marshes has eaten armies before. And they know that."

"What about food?" asked Marco. Already that was starting to affect the children of the poor.

"Believe it or not, we started preparing for that nearly two months ago," said Petro quietly. "The warehouses at the Arsenal will start to issue a ration. It's not much, but we can hold out for a good while. In the meantime we're building up a fleet to go out to deal with the Gulf pirates and Ancona. The Genoans can't stay out there all winter. Our problem lies now with enemies from within."

Marco found Petro's predictions startlingly accurate. Entirely so, as he saw when the Doge came out onto the balcony to speak to the masses thronging in the piazza. Marco, along with the other three hundred and seventy Case Vecchie house heads, looked out from the first floor loggia. Above them Doge Foscari's old, cracked voice began to address the silent multitude.

"The news that we have stockpiled food will reassure the people," said Petro quietly.

But the Doge never got that far. "People of the Commune, of the great Republic of Venice, we stand bloodied but unbroken by the treachery of the condottiere Aldo Frescata. But the Republic is a place of free people, proud and secure in our lagoon. A war-bond will be raised to hire more men. The militia will take over the guardianship of the city, as the Schiopettieri and militia units will be prepared for the attack. Volunteers are called for, oarsmen and gunners for the new fleet. The warehou?"

There was silence. Then a great wave of muttering spread through the crowd.

Petro grabbed Marco. "We need to get up there, fast."

The two of them were halfway up the stairs while the rest of the heads of the Case Vecchie were still looking at each other, trying to figure out what was going on.

From the crowded piazza, standing next to Maria, Benito tried to work out what was going on. He'd come along to the piazza with her and half of Venice to hear what was going to happen now.

One minute the Doge had been addressing them; the next… The Doge's head slumped forward. Guards suddenly appeared in a wall around him, and he disappeared from view.

"What the hell happened?" whispered Maria, along with several thousand other people.

Benito had gone to see her again early this morning in the hope that he could persuade her to go to Kat's house. She was being damned silly about it and he couldn't work out why.

She also hadn't showed any signs of wanting a repeat of their one night together?a night's memory which, for Benito at least, had become deeply important over the past month. When he'd finally gotten up the courage to suggest it?yesterday?she'd just said: no. And with Maria, "no" meant "no." She treated him like a friend. Like the Maria of old, but as if he'd grown up a year or two. Well, it was true… He felt much older.

"Is it murder?" demanded Ricardo Brunelli.

Marco looked up from where he knelt next to the Doge. "He's still alive. His pulse is faint and fast, but erratic. It may just be his heart or…" Marco looked at Petro. "Could be poison."

Ricardo Brunelli looked at Petro Dorma and Vettor Benero, the three of them the only Senior Collegio whom the guards had permitted onto the balcony. "What now?"

Petro gestured at the crowded piazza. Already the noise was alarming from down there. "Tell them the Doge has been taken sick. And finish his speech. We all know what he was going to say."

Ricardo Brunelli gave Signor Vettor Benero a look designed to silence a mate-hunting tomcat?never mind the head of the pro-peace-with-Milan faction. Ricardo cleared his throat. Then took one of the Doge's gawping trumpeters by the ear and said: "You. Sound that thing. I want the people to listen to me."

The shrill of the trumpet, and the sight of someone standing up to address them, silenced the surging crowd. Marco was too busy applying his limited knowledge to examining the Doge to pay much attention. But it sounded?by the cheering?as if the one thing that Ricardo certainly did really well was give a speech. And, as Marco examined him, the Doge did slowly begin to recover.

"… And so, my fellow Veneze, to the ships!" Ricardo boomed.

The Doge opened his eyes. "I was going to say that."

"Quick!" said Petro, "get him to his feet. Your Excellency, can you wave to the people?"

Foscari nodded. "Of course." He tried to get up, but his frail octogenarian body was no match for Marco's restraining arm.

"It's not wise," Marco said gently.

Petro pushed him aside. "A lot more lives than his hang in the balance, Marco. The Doge is the servant of Venice first. Take one side."

So Doge Foscari was able to wave to the crowd, and reassurance rippled through it.

They would have been less reassured if they'd felt his body go limp in their arms and seen his eyes roll back as his head lolled. "Turn!" snapped Petro Dorma. And they took the Doge away, hopefully before the crowd noticed.

Down in the crowd, Benito looked up to see his brother supporting the Doge. "That's Marco!"

"Who?" said a neighbor.

"Marco Valdosta," supplied Maria.

"The new Valdosta," added another woman.

"I'd heard he was a healer," said the first with satisfaction.

"The best," said Maria, giving Benito's arm a squeeze. "I'd trust him with my life, never mind the Doge's."

"Heard he treats canal-kids," said someone else.

"What? D'you believe in unicorns, too?" chuckled a well-to-do merchant.

"You watch your mouth, mister," said a brawny bargee. "Valdosta, eh? Good name in my father's time. You know, he treated my little Leonora."

As the crowd began to disperse, Benito had the satisfaction of realizing that, at least among the common people of Venice, his brother was already well known. And well liked. Unlike Mercutio… Venice would not forget Marco Valdosta overnight.

He took a deep breath. "The Capi are taking lists of volunteers over at the foot of the columns of St. Theodoro and St. Mark. Maria, I'm going to volunteer for the galleys that are going to the Polestine forts. They haven't said so, but I think they'll make an alliance with my grandfather."

Maria looked startled. "What's Dorma going to say? What's Cae… he going to say?" She still wouldn't say Caesare's name.