Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

"Absolutely?Marco never forgets anything," Benito chimed in. "That's why Mama took him everywhere with her. He knows all kinds of things?things maybe still worth knowing."

"Like I remember you, milord. You were with Mama's man, Carlo Sforza?it was?around the beginning of October, I think, about nine years ago. You were wearing brown velvet, and you and Carlo talked about the bribes your father'd been paying…" Marco trailed off at the grim set of Aldanto's mouth.

"Besides?damned Milanese are out after us along with you," Benito interrupted, stepping hard on Marco's foot. "Mama would have sold us to slavers if they'd told her to. Duke Visconti never got us anything but trouble, and I bet it's him as sent the assassin. You need something, well, I can get it, or I know who can; I can get things done, too?get people disappeared?get you disappeared too, only less permanent. We've got connections you can't get from the Case Vecchie or the boatpeople. You need us, milord?about as much as we need you."

"Interesting. Valdosta…" Aldanto said, then said nothing more, obviously thinking hard. Marco turned on Benito, and tugged him into a corner of the little room.

"What the hell?"

"Truth, damn it!" Benito whispered harshly. "It's all true and you know it! Mama used you?why do you think she never paid me any attention? Theodoro's folks knew what was going on; told me too. Told me it was probably Duke Visconti's people that got Mama."

"Uh?"

"That's why they turned me out, couple of years ago. They were afraid, and I don't blame 'em. Lucky I ran into Claudia and Valentina."

"They're thieves! I know thieves cant when I hear it!"

" 'Course they're thieves! How d'you think I came by all that stuff for you? Where'd you think it came from? The Moon? I've been living in bloody attics for two years now! Look, brother?I've mostly given up thieving?the odds aren't in it. I'm a messenger now. But I couldn't get stuff for you, and feed me, on what I make running, and I wouldn't leave you without. So I stole. And I still steal. And I'll keep doin' it. 'Cause you're worth it?like Mama wasn't. Tell you what else. This Aldanto may have been Montagnard before, but he damn sure ain't now! Or didn't you notice him have a fit when you hit him with the password? Our best bet is to figure something he needs bad."

The fog began to clear from Marco's head, as Benito's words and his memory started to come together. Certain things were becoming a lot clearer than they'd ever been before.

Item: Chiano and Sophia had been trying to tell him?in gentler terms?exactly what Benito was telling him now. If three so very different people?one of them his own flesh and blood?were saying the same things about Duke Visconti and the Montagnard cause, and Mama's involvement with it, well it followed that he had probably been dead wrong and dreaming all these years.

Item: stripped of the fairy-tale glamour Mama had decked them in, Montagnards were not in the least attractive. Take the rhetoric of united Christian Empire away, and they became little more than highly trained, professional killers.

Item: they were now alone with this unhappy professional assassin, who was probably thinking that no one would miss them.

Marco looked over Benito's shoulder at Aldanto, who was contemplating them with a face of stone. Marco's blood ran colder than the spring-melt water that the Brenta carried down from the Alps.

Item: they were a liability. And Aldanto was looking at them like someone who couldn't afford liabilities.

Benito suddenly broke off, seeing Marco's face turn pale and still. "Brother?you all right?" he whispered, unable to fathom why Marco should suddenly look as if the great Lion of San Marco had come to life and confronted him. He knew that some of what he'd said was bound to come as a shock to Marco, but he hadn't thought any of it was enough to turn him white to the ears!

He shook Marco a little, beginning to feel worried. The way Marco was staring at Aldanto, sort of glassy-eyed?it wasn't like him. Marco was always the quick one, the alert one?except?

Benito went cold all over. Except when Marco had been sick…

Marco was watching Aldanto's eyes, the only things in his face that were showing any change. They were growing harder; and Marco's blood acquired ice crystals.

Item: they were quite likely to be dead very soon. Benito, with the panache of a fourteen-year-old unable to believe in his own mortality, had led them into dangerous and unfriendly hands?and with no way to escape. Aldanto was between them and the door, in a room barely big enough to hold all of them and the table and chairs.

Looking at those calculating eyes, Marco knew exactly what their fate was going to be. They had, at most, a few more minutes.

He forced himself to smile at his brother; he couldn't protect him from what was coming. "Nothing?just?you're right. About all of it. I've been plain stupid."

Benito shrugged. "No big deal. Everybody makes mistakes, and hell, I probably wouldn't believe anything bad anybody said about you, either."

"And I never told you how much I missed you, half." The old nickname made Benito grin. "That was even stupider. We're the team, right? So, from now on it's going be you and me?aye? All the way."

Benito dropped his pretense of adulthood and threw both arms around his brother in an affection-starved hug. Marco tightened his own arms around Benito's shoulder and stared at Aldanto, trying to beg with his eyes, and figuring that it was a lost cause before he started.

But to Marco's surprise, Caesare suddenly cleared his throat. A little sound, but the older boy started as violently as if a gun had gone off in his ear.

"You say your mother had connections with Ventuccio?"

Marco stared, unable to get his mouth to work. It was too much to comprehend?he'd expected the knife, and he'd only hoped Aldanto was good enough to make it fast and relatively painless. And then?this?

His ears roared, and little black spots danced in the air between his eyes and Aldanto's face.

"Ventuccio?" he heard himself say stupidly, as his knees suddenly liquefied on him.

Benito felt Marco start to collapse, and held him up by main force. Oh, God, please?no!

The last time Marco had done this, he'd missed the meetings for the next month; and when he finally showed up, he was pounds thinner, with eyes gone all hollow, and a rasping cough that lasted for weeks. Please, God?he begged, struggling to keep Marco on his feet long enough to pull a chair under him, don't let it be fever, he might not make it this time?and we're almost home free?

"Milord, just let me get him sat?milord, he's all right!" Marco heard Benito over the roaring in his ears, over the scrape of a chair on the floor "You don't?milord, you don't need?"

Something shoved up against the back of his legs; hands were under his armpits letting him down easy, the same strong hands then pushing his head down between his legs.

"Stay that way for a bit?" Aldanto's voice. And the roaring went away, his eyes cleared. When his head stopped spinning he looked up. Aldanto sat on his heels beside him, Benito looking frantic, trying to get between them without touching the man. "Better?"

"I?" Marco managed. "I?"

Aldanto took his chin in one hand, tilted his eyes into the light, scrutinizing them closely.

"I'm sorry, milord, I'm all right," Marco whispered, thinking, Daren't, daren't show weakness in front of this man! "Honest, I'm all right."

"You're not?but you will be."

Ignoring Benito's worried protests (Great, thought Marco dizzily, now he realizes we could be in trouble), Aldanto went to the table and brought his glass of wine to Marco, who took it with hands that shook so hard the wine slopped. Poison? No?not likely. Not when he'd had the chance to kill them easily and hadn't. An assassin as physically capable as Aldanto so obviously was, wouldn't bother with anything other than a blade. Not, at least, dealing with two poor boys in a place like this.