Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

The marsh and the wind swallowed up sound, and the rushes closed them almost into a small room, which was just as well. Chiano howled with laughter, his eyes vanishing in his wrinkles; Marco prayed at that moment that lightning would hit him and reduce him to cinder. It would hurt a lot less than what he was feeling now. He tucked his cold, wet feet under him, huddled under his cotte, and wished he was on the moon. Or dead. Or something.

"Shut up, ye old bastardo?" Sophia scolded sharply, her face crinkling up in anger as she pushed a stray bit of gray hair under her knitted cap; Marco had brought her that the last time he'd come. "Have some pity on the boy. Maybe it's baby-love, but it hurts all th' same?and a young one ain't never been hurt that bad before." She turned to Marco, huddled on one corner of the raft. "Marco-lad, don't ye let him get to ye. I ain't saying ye did right t' leave?but I ain't sayn' ye did wrong neither."

Marco made a helpless gesture. To these two, his protectors and friends, he could tell everything?and he had. It had lessened some of the burden, at least until Chiano had started laughing at him. "I?Sophia, after the mess I got him in, I can't face Caesare, and I can't keep on being a burden to him, either."

"I thought you was working for the Casa Ventuccio. Real work, I mean, not make-work."

"I was."

"That don't sound much like being a burden t' me."

"I?" He hadn't thought of it quite that way. Sure, he and Benito had been living on Aldanto's bounty lately, but they'd been keeping watch over him while he was sick. And helping to get him out of the tangle that illness had put him in. And it had been his savings and Maria's that had bought part of the medicine that had kept Caesare alive. He'd bankrupted himself for Caesare's sake, and hadn't grudged it. He'd lost several more weeks' salary too, staying with Caesare to watch him and watch out for him, and hadn't grudged that either. Maybe he had been pulling his own weight.

"And who's a-going take care of them sick canaler kids if ye're hiding out here?"

That was one thing he hadn't thought of. Not likely Tonio would take them to some strange Strega?Marco was risk enough.

"Don' ye go slamming no doors behind ye," Sophia admonished him gently. "Now, getting out of sight 'til that aristo girl can forget your face, that's no bad notion. But staying here? No, Marco-lad; ye don't belong out here. Stay just long enough to get your head straight?then ye go back, an' take yer licks from that Caesare fellow. Ye learned before, ye can't run from trouble."

Sophia was right. That was exactly what he'd been trying to do?he'd been trying to run from all his troubles, and rationalizing the running.

"Yes, milady," Marco said humbly, feeling lower than a swan's tail.

She shoved his shoulder; but not in an unkindly fashion, "Get along with ye! Milady! Huh!" She snickered, then turned businesslike. "Where ye going park your raft?"

"I figured at the edge of Gianni's old territory, right by the path near that big hummock with the patch of thatch-rush growing out of it."

"Good enough. Get on with it. We'll keep an eye out for ye."

Chiano waited until Marco was off down the trail and into the reeds; out of sight and hearing. Then he slipped off the raft onto one of the "secret paths" of firm ground that wound all through the swamp. He generally moored both his raft and Sophia's up against one of these strips of "solid" earth?they weren't really visible since most of them were usually covered in water about a handspan deep.

"Where ye goin'?" Sophia asked sharply.

"Going see to our guest," Chiano replied. She shut up at that; shut up and just watched him with caution. Chiano had changed in the past months.

Yes, indeed, he had. Or rather, begun acting more like the person he really was?ever since the news of Gino Despini's death. The more news that trickled out of Venice, the more he was allowing the cloak of deception to slip. From his mind even more than from the minds of others.

He balanced his way along the narrow, water-covered trails, so used to following them he did it unconsciously, so used to the cold water he never noticed his numb feet. Yes, Chiano had been changing.

For the first time in years he was himself?Luciano Marina. Dottore Marina. Strega Grand Master. Grimas.

Fool Grand Master! Beaten, nearly dead. Fleeing for his life. Wounded and damaged. Even his mind confused, abused and lost… in that conflict. He still didn't know who had done it, or why?was afraid to know, in truth.

He'd ended up in the marshes and he'd survived. Barely. Perhaps his magical skills had helped. Perhaps the Goddess had held her hand over him, despite his pride and foolishness, as he wandered amnesiac for months among the other loco in the Jesolo. That had been?long ago. It had taken time for the Strega master to begin to return; humbled but alive.

And when he had, then he'd cursed the fate that left him so stripped of all position, possessions, and contacts as to have to stay here. He'd joined up with Sophia some time before Marco had come to them; how much time, he wasn't sure. His memory of that period was… vague.

Sophia'd had the gift of healing that he lacked, though he had the knowledge. Together, they'd formed the only source for medicine the swamp folk knew, and he'd done his best to follow the healing path among the crazed and the impoverished losers who lived here.

And now… well, perhaps she who was Hecate, Artemis, and Ishtar needed him back. There was a yearning to go back. His position both in the Accademia and Marciana Library had brought prestige, and power. But most of all he yearned for the books.

And?he had learned a great deal. Humility, for one. But also, the need for greater stringency in the service of the Goddess. The Dottore Marina he remembered had been too vain; yet, also, not proud enough. Too peacock soft.

His mind turned to the boy. The boy did not even begin to realize he bore the mark of the winged lion, which had been obvious to Luciano's Strega-trained eye from the moment the boy had stumbled into their lives. Well, the guardian of the lagoons and marshes who had welcomed the gentle Saint Mark was ever so in its choices. They were good vessels. He had to admit that he, Luciano Marina, was a flawed vessel. Still… The boy had come back here, and he carried with him the feeling of danger. Danger and darkness far greater than could be linked to one life or death. But Luciano also felt the potential for something else.

Luciano approached the islet cautiously through the mist, making no sound in the water; he'd left Harrow trancing-out on the mushrooms he'd fed to him.

His caution was needless; Harrow was deaf and blind to everything around him. Except Luciano's voice, and magic.

Harrow was having another vision. This one was, like the others, beginning with a face; a woman's face. She started out young, then flickered from girl to woman to crone and back again. It was the Goddess, of course. She had come to instruct him again. Harrow felt both exalted and humbled; and excited, with the kind of near-sexual excitement he'd felt only when he'd completed an assignment for Duke Visconti. But he wasn't supposed to be thinking of that. He was supposed to be making himself worthy to be the vessel of the Goddess.

"Harrow?" said the Goddess, her hollow, echoing voice riveting his attention upon her. "You have much to atone for. Are you ready?"

"Yes," replied Harrow thinly, bowing his head as her eyes became too bright to look upon. Those eyes?they seemed to see right into the core of him.

"So let it be."

There was a sound like a great wind, and Harrow was alone in the dark.