Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

His mouth fell open. "What is she doing here?"

Lodovico sighed heavily. "For my sins, she is my granddaughter-in-law. She has been sleeping with your mentor, Caesare Aldanto."

Benito stuttered… He was trying to say how did you know??but all he got out was "H-h-h-how…"

"She told us," said the old man. "The arrogant creature! She also told me I was a fool who had nurtured a viper in his bosom, choosing to believe my once-best friend's son a murderer, rather than to see the rot right here in my own house."

He took a deep breath. "Boy. I must tell you, I have been very wrong. I have blamed the Casa Valdosta for our losses, for our problems. I apologize. Fully. What small things I can do to put the past right I will do."

Benito saw that there were tears in Lodovico's eyes. He got the feeling that tears normally didn't come easily to this fierce old man.

"It's all right, milord. Honestly. Kat?your granddaughter?she's paid us back in spades. Saved my life maybe, and saved Maria's for sure. That's worth more than anything to me. Is… is Maria all right? And Kat, of course."

It was the old man's turn to look dumbfounded. "Yes. But?did they not send you here?"

Benito shook his head. "No. I… I thought they'd be here. At least I hoped…"

Worry must have colored his voice. Lodovico took him by the shoulder, gently. "They are fine, boy. They've gone to look for you at Dorma. Your brother as well, to attend to her." He pointed at the shallow-bubbly-breathing woman in the bed. "They've gone with a stout boatman and a pistol apiece."

Benito nodded. Caesare was out, organizing the new militia. Maria should be fine, going to Dorma. "My brother went across to collect his things from the Accademia. They'll be sent on to there. I'll go and see if I can find them."

The old man nodded. "Yes. But, before you go, there is something I must say to you. It makes it harder for me that you have not seen them. But… I must tell you that your mentor Caesare Aldanto…"

"I'm going to kill him," interrupted Benito, without heat, but with a grim certitude. "Or send him to face the headsman's axe."

For the first time since Benito had come in, Lodovico Montescue smiled. It was a grim sight. Grimmer than his worried frown. "Spoken like a true Valdosta! Boy?Benito, I should say, for you are clearly a boy no longer?between us we will crush him like an adder beneath a stout boot heel."

The old man seemed almost gay at the thought. "Montescue and Valdosta, together again! Ha! In the old days, nothing caused greater fear?"

He broke off, coughing a little. The cough seemed a compound of suppressed pride and rueful regret. But when he continued, his voice was calm and even. "I suppose that as we were the heart of the opposition to the Montagnards?and we'd given them good cause to fear our blades?it was inevitable that they should have sent their womanizing charmer to target my house's weakest point. I could forgive that, and the insult to my grandson?but not the deaths that she caused in my house."

He sighed. "And I suppose, given my pride, that it was inevitable that I would suspect everyone else. I just hope she doesn't die before she gives her evidence."

"What's wrong with her, milord?" asked Benito.

Lodovico pulled a wry face. "An old family servant?on hearing Alessandra's 'confession'?went for her with a fruit knife. I wouldn't have thought you could stab someone with a fruit knife, but old Madelena managed. She was like a dervish. Alessandra managed to flee to the stairs, but she was already stabbed in the chest, and the shoulder. She fell down the stairs. She hasn't regained consciousness since. Are you a doctor like your brother? Perhaps you should have a look?"

Benito laughed. "No. Marco is the only one. The healer. Me, I'm nothing much but trouble."

At last a genuine smile came to Lodovico's troubled, wrinkled countenance. "Yes. You sound like me, when I was your age. Then Luciano?your Valdosta grandfather?used to come and get me out of it."

"Well, I seem to spend my time getting Marco out of scrapes," said Benito ruefully. "And sometimes I mess that up too. I'd better get along, milord."

"Call me Lodovico. I'd like to stand in for the Valdosta grandfather you never had. And I think we will leave Alessandra to live or die. We've done what we can for her. I'm coming with you to the Accademia. The more I think about it, the more determined I am not just to wait here."

He must have seen Benito's doubtful look. He smiled. "We can take a boat, can't we? It's faster than running, young Valdosta."

Marco looked at Luciano's transformation of his small lounge. It didn't look pleasant. It didn't feel pleasant, either. In fact, it made his scalp crawl.

He wasn't the only one. Rafael also looked uneasy. "He shouldn't be doing this," the artist muttered. "He's taking far too much risk. This is dangerous, Marco. Really dangerous, and it's gray-magic even with the best of intentions."

Maria, too, looked as if she was ready to run hastily for the nearest chapel, if not engage in a bit of impromptu witch-burning. She had all the ingrained superstition about the Strega that was part of the Christianity of the commons. Most of the ordinary priests tended to regard the Strega as direct competition for their flock, no matter what the Metropolitan said about tolerance and allowing heathens to come to God rather than dragging them to Him kicking and screaming, and as for the canalers?well. When things were going fine, the Strega were the people you went to for love-charms and luck-talismans, but when they weren't… the Strega just might be the people causing the problems.

Kat, on the other hand, was just pressed against Marco, a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she could not bear not to touch him?and it didn't even matter if Luciano enacted a black mass, so long as she didn't stop holding his hand. If Petro Dorma had noticed, he hadn't commented.

Luciano had the corpse hedged about with diagrams; the man was inside a pentacle, which was inside a pentagon, which was inside a circle, inside a circle, inside a circle, all drawn with blessed salt and water and traced with a dagger made of black glass.

They all… glowed. Could anyone but Marco and Luciano see that? Rafael, probably?if Kat did, it didn't matter to her?and from Petro Dorma's slightly puzzled, slightly skeptical expression, he saw nothing. This wasn't the pure white light that Marco was used to in working with Brother Mascoli; this was a creepy sort of purple.

But?oddly enough?before Luciano had stepped out of the pentagram and pentagon and had invoked whatever spirits he'd called that made the lines spring into life, he'd placed a crucifix very firmly around what was left of Aleri's neck.

"Marco, the powers he's calling up?" Rafael was still murmuring in Marco's ear. "You've got to be careful with them. You know? They're not just called on for good things?"

Marco's skin shivered and it felt as if a cold, dead finger was running down his spine. Oh, he knew. Luciano was just muttering his incantations, but?Charun, Vanth, Carmina?oh, he knew all right. These were the Dread Lords and Ladies of the Night, of the Dead, and not the sort of Powers you called on for a blessing or a healing…

The corpse began to glow. Luciano's face looked as gray as the corpse's in the strange light?and was the purple witch-light growing stronger, or the room light weaker?

The latter.

As Marco glanced surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye, he watched the candle flame nearest him sinking. It wasn't guttering, it was sinking, diminishing, exactly as if someone had upturned a jar over it. It didn't go out, but in a few moments, it was giving off no more light than a mere coal.

No one commented; not Dorma, not Rafael, not Kat, certainly not Luciano, who was?weaving some sort of complicated knot in the air above the corpse with the point of his knife, which left a trail of sullen red light where it passed. And there was no doubt that Aleri hadn't said anything about it either. Although, to Marco's horror, the pentacle-enclosed man?corpse?was stirring. He shouldn't be. Even if Harrow hadn't killed him, Marco was a good enough physician already to know that the herbs that Luciano had stuffed down Aleri's throat should cause death all over again. The hair stood up on Marco's head; this should not be happening! He'd expected a ghost, or something, not that the dead body should sit up and start to move! This was wrong!