Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

He paused, with his hand over the packet.

It wouldn't be much of a sin. Maybe not any sin. Even in Milan?

Even in Pauline-dominated Milan, fishermen got blessings on their nets to increase their catch.

But he wasn't a priest, to give such a blessing.

On the other hand, if he passed out from hunger, he wouldn't be able to warn Benito.

Saint Peter?you were a fisherman! Blessed Saint Peter, send me a sign!

There was an angry squawk and a commotion just outside and above his hide?a thump, a splash?

He shoved his head and arm outside, just in time to wave frantically at the gull about to recapture its dinner from the water at his door?lost in a fight with the other two gulls circling overhead. He snatched the hand-sized gray mullet out of the water and withdrew back into his protection as the gull stabbed at him with its beak.

Thank you, Saint Peter!

He took his knife and worried slivers of flesh from the bony fish, eating them raw, and thankful that once again he had been saved from committing a sin.

He spent a terrible, anxious, miserable day in the hide, not even prepared to go and share his fear with Chiano and Sophia. With the dusk he was off to wait again.

This time he was rewarded. There was a pad of bare feet overhead?then tiny sounds that marked someone who knew what he was doing and where he was going, climbing down among the crossbeams.

"Hi, brother?" Benito's whisper.

"Right here."

"Be right with you." A bit of scratching, a rasp of wood on cloth and skin, and someone slipped in beside him with a quick hug, and then pulled away.

"Riot out there tonight. Sorry about yesterday. I couldn't get here in time. I tried but I got held up."

"Benito?I've got to go under cover again. One of Them nearly got me yesterday. Assassin. He was waiting for me, Benito. He knew who I was and where I was going. It has to be Them."

Swift intake of breath. "God?no! Not after all this time! How'd you get away?"

"I just?outran him." Don't let him know what really happened. He'll think he has to share the danger. Marco had been careful never to let his brother even guess that he'd had to kill?and more than once.

"All right." The voice in the dark took on a new firmness. "That's it. You're not gonna run any more, big brother. Running don't cut it. You need a protector, somebody with weight."

"Get serious!" Marco answered bitterly. "Where am I going to find somebody willing to stand up for me?"

Benito chuckled. "Been thinking about that. New man in town?got contacts, got weight?everywhere, seems like. Been watching him."

"Big fat deal?what reason is he going to have to help me?"

"Name's Aldanto. Caesare Aldanto. Familiar?"

Marco sucked in his breath. "Lord and Saints…"

"Thought I 'membered," Benito replied with satisfaction.

Marco did indeed remember that name?it went all the way back to their being exiled to Venice, an exile that Grandfather Dell'este thought would take them out of the reach of Mama's pro-Milanese friends and of her lover. Caesare Aldanto had been one of the Milanese agents in Ferrara?a friend of Mama's lover Carlo Sforza. Carlo was (presumably) Benito's father?that was probably why the name 'Aldanto' had stuck so fortuitously in Benito's memory.

"You can never forget anything, brother. What's the Aldanto you saw look like?"

Marco closed his eyes and rocked back and forth a little, letting his mind drift back?Lord and Saints, he'd been a seven, maybe, eight-year-old boy?

"Blond. Pretty guy. Moved like a cat, or a dancer. Blue eyes?tall, dressed really well."

"Dunno about the eyes, but the rest is him. It's the same man. Appears to me he'd have reason to help us. Appears to me you'd want to get Mama's message to him, no?"

"Lord?" Marco said, not quite believing this turn of events. "It's?"

"Like that story you used to tell me? Yeah, well, maybe. I'm more interested in seeing you safe, and I think this Caesare Aldanto can do that. Right then, we'll go find him. Now. Tonight."

Marco started to scramble up, but Benito forestalled him. "No way you're going to pass in the town, brother. Not dressed like that."

"Oh. Yes."

"You wait here?I won't be long."

Benito thought he'd managed that rather cleverly; he thought he'd remembered Caesare Aldanto's name when he'd first heard it, and he had just been biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to get Marco to take the bait he was going to offer. The marshes were no place for Marco?sooner or later someone or something would get him. Venice was safer, by far. Besides, since he'd been thrown out from Theodoro's family, Benito had been getting lonelier and lonelier. He had friends?Lola, for instance. Well, she was sort of a friend. Mercutio, he was fun, and he looked out for Benito. But it wasn't the same as having Marco around. He wanted his big brother back!

Well, now?first things first; a set of clothing that wouldn't stand out in the Solstice crowds. Benito took to the rooftops and thought while he climbed. Nearest secondhand clothing store was close to the Palazzo Mastelli. That was the area he was hanging out in at present?no go. Off limits. He could hear Valentina now, cracking him over the ear for even thinking about it. "Never soil your own nest, boy. Rule one."

The air up here was fresher, the breeze carrying away a lot of the stink. Benito slipped around chimneypots and skylights as easily as if he'd been on a level walkway. So: the next closest was over toward the Ca' d'Oro. Old man Mirko was a stingy bastardo, too cheap to put good shutters in his windows. And the Dalmatian wouldn't miss the loss. Mirko's place it was.

He crossed the bridges on the support beams below, keeping a sharp eye out for watchers, finally getting himself up on the supports of the high-level bridge that crossed the Rio Malpaga. Mirko had a second-story window just below and to one side of it. Benito unwound the light rope and grapnel from his waist, spied a sturdy cornice, and made his cast.

Solid. He pulled three times. ("Always three times, no matter how rushed you are," came Claudia's voice from memory.) Then he swung himself over, in the shadows all the way.

Within a few minutes Mirko's shop was lighter by a pair of breeches, a shirt, and a cotte, all sized for someone thin and not over-tall, along with some other small items. And Benito was most of the way back to the wharf, dancing across the rooftops and bridge-beams like a half-grown cat.

"Huh-uh," Benito said, keeping his grip tight on the bundle he carried and handing something small to Marco instead. It shone white in the starlight. "I sto?found some soap, too. Down, brother; in the harbor. Get clean first, or they'll know you, by the smell, for marsh scum."

Marco flushed with embarrassment?living in the swamp was changing him, and in ways he didn't like. He used to be so fastidious…

He grabbed the proffered soap and dropped straight down into the water next to the wharf?trying not to remember the twitching thing that had so lately floated there. He was so used to being chilled that the cold water wasn't much of a shock to his system. He soaped and rinsed and scrubbed until he thought his skin would peel off, then washed his hair three times for good measure. Benito had shinnied down to his raft and handed him back up onto it with a sniff that held approval. "Better. You smell better than a lot of canal-dwellers now. Here?"

A piece of sacking to use for a towel, and a comb. Getting the tangles out of his hair was a job?Marco had to be content with just getting most of the major knots out, and smoothing down the rest, tying it back with the piece of ribbon (Lord?ribbon!) Benito handed him. Then into the clothing?oh, heaven, clean, and warm, and not ripped in a dozen places?and even the right size. The precious Message went into his shirt pocket.