Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

Marco watered some wine, and got breakfast out?bread and cold grilled sarde, bought on the way home last night. Benito bounced back in the door, fighting his way into a too-tight liveried shirt.

No one would ever have guessed, to see them side by side, that they were brothers. Marco clearly showed his Ferrarese-Dell'este ancestry, taking after his mother, Lorendana. Straight black hair, sun-browned skin fading now into ivory, and almond-shaped eyes in a thin, angular face; making him look both older and younger than his sixteen years. Had he been back in Ferrara, nobody would have had any trouble identifying which family he belonged to, for Lorendana had been a softened, feminized image of the old duke. Whereas Benito, round-faced and round-eyed, with an olive complexion and wavy brown hair, looked like a getting-to-be-handsome version of the Venice "type"?and not a minute older than his true age of fourteen.

"Need to get our clothes washed tonight," Benito said, gingerly reaching for his watered wine. "Or tomorrow."

"Spares clean?" Marco asked around a mouthful of bread, inwardly marveling at the fate that had brought him full circle to the point where he and Benito actually had spare clothing. Of course things had been a great deal better back in Ferrara?but no point in harkening back to that. To go back home would put the entire Dell'este house in danger, and with the worst kind of enemy?the Visconti. They were like the vipers of their crest. Deadly, unforgiving, and prone to use poison. There was no way Marco was ever going to take that grudge home.

"Yes. I'm wearing 'em, dummy."

"So'm I. Tomorrow then. That's my day off; besides, I got to see Caesare tonight." Washing clothes meant getting the washroom after everyone else had gone to work; clearing it with the landlord and paying the extra three pennies for a tub full of hot water besides what they were allowed as tenants. There was an incentive to Marco to volunteer for laundry duty. Benito was still kid enough to tend to avoid unnecessary baths, but Marco used laundry day as an excuse to soak in hot, soppy, soapy water when the clothing was done until all the heat was gone from it before rinsing the clean clothing (and himself) out in cold. After two years of alternately freezing and broiling in the mud of the swamp, a hot bath was a luxury that came very close to being a religious experience for Marco. Hence, Marco usually did the laundry.

Benito sighed. "All right. I'll clean the damn fireplace."

"And the lamp."

"Slaver. And the lamp. What are you seeing Caesare about?"

"Dunno. Got a note from him at work yesterday. Just asked me to meet him at Giaccomo's, because he was calling in favors and had something for me to do."

"Hey, can I come along?" Benito never missed the opportunity to go to Giaccomo's or Barducci's if he could manage it. Unlike Marco, he loved crowds and noise.

Marco thought about it; then, shrugged. "Don't see why not. Caesare didn't say 'alone,' and he usually does if that's the way he wants it. Why?"

"Gotta keep you safe from Maria, don't I?"

Marco blushed hotly. He'd had a brief crush on Maria Garavelli; very brief. It hadn't lasted past her dumping him headfirst in the canal. Benito still wasn't letting him live it down.

The memory of that embarrassing episode led Marco to thoughts of his current "romantic predicament." He rose abruptly, turning away from Benito enough to hide the deepening flush on his cheeks.

He hoped profoundly that Benito never found out about Angelina?he'd rather die than have Benito rib him about her. He much preferred to worship her quietly, from afar?without having half the urchins Benito ran with knowing about it, too. He still didn't know too much about his idol?the only reason he even knew her name was because he had overheard one of her companions using it.

Oh, Angelina…

Enough of daydreaming. "Get a move on, we're going to be late," he replied, while Benito was still chuckling evilly.

There had been plenty of gossip among the other clerks today, and because of it Marco made a detour down to the Calle del Vin on the way home?to the Casa Dorma. He felt drawn there as if by some overwhelming force. What was really at work was the powerful, almost frantic, "romantic urges" that come suddenly upon any sixteen-year-old boy?which they are incapable of analyzing clearly. And Marco's years in the marsh had made him even less capable of understanding himself, at least in this respect, than almost any other boy his age. There had been no girls his age in the marsh with whom to gain any experience at all.

So there he was at Dorma's gatehouse, facing the ancient doorkeeper through its grate. Half of him feeling he was in a state of sublime bliss; the other half feeling like a complete idiot. He was glad it was nearly dusk; glad his dark cotte and breeches were so anonymous, glad beyond telling that the shortsighted doorkeeper of House of Dorma couldn't see his face. It took all his courage to pretend to be a runner with a message to be left "for Milady Angelina." He moved off as fast as was prudent, eager to get himself deep into the shadows, once the folded and sealed paper was in the doorman's hands. His heart was pounding with combined anxiety, embarrassment, and excitement. Maybe?well, probably?Angelina would get it, if only when the head of the household demanded to know "what this is all about."

And?Jesu!?they'd want to know what it was about, all right. Because it was a love poem. The first love poem Marco had ever written.

Anonymous, of course, so Angelina would be able to protest honestly that she had no idea where it had come from, and why. And Marco's identity was safe. He'd written and erased it twenty or thirty times before it seemed right. Then with a carefully new-cut quill and some of the fine ink from Master Ambrosino Ventuccio's desk, he had copied it out on the best vellum. And the only reason he'd found the courage to deliver it was because today he'd finally found out who she was.

Milady Angelina of Dorma. The daughter of the house. Not above Marco Valdosta, even though she was at least two years older than he?but definitely above the touch of Marco Felluci. If Casa Dorma discovered some ragamuffin like Felluci had dared to send a love poem to Milady Angelina…

The best he could hope for was a beating at the hands of Dorma retainers. If young noblemen of the family got involved, "Marco Felluci" might very well find himself run through by a rapier?and these great old families usually had a baker's dozen of brawling young cousins lounging around, all of them ready at an instant to defend their family's honor.

Marco sighed. He had buried Marco Valdosta quite thoroughly, and not even for the sweet eyes of Angelina Dorma was he going to resurrect the name he'd been born to. "Marco Felluci" he was, and Marco Felluci he would remain?even though it meant abandoning all hope of ever winning the girl he was quite certain was the love of his life. But even if he couldn't touch, he could dream?and, perversely, even if she were never to learn who her unknown admirer was, he wanted her to know how he felt. So he'd spent three hours struggling over that poem.

Just two weeks ago it was, that he'd first seen her. At Giaccomo's, with a couple of companions. Until then his daydreams had been confined to something just as impossible, but hardly romantic.

The Accademia! Lord and Saints, what he wouldn't give to get in there to study medicine! But?he had no money, and no sponsor, and the wrong political history. Not that he gave a fat damn about the Montagnards anymore, and their fanatical determination to bring northern Italy into the Holy Roman Empire. But there was no way he was ever going to pass for one of the young nobles of Venice or even a son of one of the Casa curti.