Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

He was still survival-oriented enough to be aware that now that they were in the clear, they were attracting the attention of the marsh dwellers with boats?some of whom were more dangerous than the Squalos. He tried to warn the other two, but his tongue seemed to have swollen up and it was hard to talk.

But the walls of the Arsenal were in sight now, crumbling and water-logged brick-and-wood, looming up over their heads. Things began to whirl… He couldn't possibly see the Piazza San Marco from here, but he would swear he saw the pillar and the lion… and the open book. He struggled to read the words…

"Don't fall over yet, Marco!" Benito's voice. Pleading. "Don't die on me, brother!"

By an effort of will, the whirling world steadied briefly.

There was a shout from behind; just as a small boat came around the Castello point. An errant beam of sunlight glinted off blond hair in the bow, and there was another, darker figure waving at them frantically from the stern.

And there was ominous splashing growing nearer behind them.

The stranger on Marco's left suddenly dropped his arm, and Marco and Benito staggered as Marco overbalanced.

Then things got very blurred and very confusing.

The stranger bellowed behind them, and there was the sound of blows, and cries of anger and pain; Benito began hauling him along as fast as they could stumble through the weeds and muck. Then he was in waist-deep water, with the sides of a gondola under his hands, and he was simultaneously scrambling and being pulled aboard. That was… Maria Garavelli cursing under her breath beside his head.

And then a gun went off practically in his ear.

He tumbled onto the bottom slats and lay there, frozen, and wet, and hurting; shivering so hard he could hardly think, with shouting going on over his head, and another shot.

Then they were under a winged leonine shadow as consciousness slipped away.

When he came to again, it was to the sight of Maria standing on the stern, moving the gondola with steady easy strokes. Benito wrapped a blanket around him and helped him to sit up. It was a good thing Benito was supporting him; he was shivering so hard now that he couldn't sit on his own.

"He all right?"

There was worry in Maria's voice; that surprised him.

"He need help? Lord?he's bleeding, ain't he! Caesare?"

Aldanto was down on the slats beside him, without Marco seeing how he had got there. He shut his eyes as much to hide his shame as to fight the waves of dizziness. Amazingly gentle hands probed his hurts.

"Cut along the ribs?looks worse than it is. But this crack on the skull?"

Marco swayed and nearly lost his grip on consciousness and his stomach, when those hands touched the place where the boathook pole had broken over his head. The pain was incredible; it was followed by a combined wave of nausea and disorientation. The hands steadied him, then tilted his chin up.

"Open your eyes."

He didn't dare to disobey; felt himself flush, then pale. The blue eyes that bored into his weren't the dangerous, cold eyes he'd seen before?but they were not happy eyes.

"Not good, I'd judge."

"So what's that mean?" Maria asked harshly.

"Mostly that it's his turn to be put to bed, and he isn't going to be moving from there for a while. You?"

Caesare was speaking to him now, and Marco wanted to die at the gentle tone of his voice.

"?have caused us a great deal of trouble, young man."

"I?I didn't mean to?I just?I just wanted?" He felt, and fought down, a lump of shamed tears. No, no he would not cry! "?I made such a mess out of things, I figured you were better off if I went away somewhere. I didn't mean to bring you more trouble! I tried to find some way I could get you out of it, and get out from under your feet, and when that didn't work I just tried to do what was right?"

"If I had thought differently," Aldanto said, slowly, deliberately, "you'd be out there entertaining the locos right now. There are more than a few things I want to have out with you, but it's nothing that can't wait."

Then he got up, and took a second oar to help Maria, ignoring Marco's presence on the bottom slats.

But that wasn't the end of his humiliation?every few feet along the canals, it seemed, they were hailed, either from other boats or from the canalside.

"Si, he's okay," Maria called back, cheerfully, "Si, we got 'im?"

Apparently everybody in town knew what a fool he'd made of himself. There were calls of "Hooo?so that's the loverboy? Eh, throw him back, Maria, he's just a piddly one!" With every passing minute, Marco felt worse. Finally he just shut his eyes and huddled in the blanket, ignoring the catcalls and concentrating on his aching head.

Because, as if that humiliation wasn't enough, there were more than a few of those on canalside who didn't shout?shadowy figures whom Caesare simply nodded to in a peculiar way. And Marco recognized one or two as being Giaccomo's.

Giaccomo?that meant money? ?a lot of money. Out of Caesare's pocket.

Marco wanted to die.

The ribald and rude comments were coming thick and fast now, as they headed into the Grand Canal. Maria was beginning to enjoy herself, from the sound of her voice. Aldanto, however, remained ominously silent. Marco opened his eyes once or twice, but couldn't bear the sunlight?or the sight of that marble-still profile.

The third time he looked up, his eyes met something altogether unexpected. Aldanto had shifted forward, and instead of his benefactor, Marco found himself staring across the water at another gondola.

There was a girl in that elderly nondescript vessel, rowing it with consummate ease. From under the hood curled carroty-red hair. She had a generous mouth, a tip-tilted nose?merry eyes, wonderful hazel eyes?

She wasn't beautiful, like Angelina Dorma. But those eyes held a quick intelligence worth more and promising more than mere beauty.

Those eyes met his across the Grand Canal, and the grin on that face softened to a smile of genuine sympathy, and then into a look of utter dumbfounded amazement.

Which was maybe not surprising, if she felt the shock of recognition that Marco was feeling. Because even if he'd never seen her before, he knew her; knew how the corners of her eyes would crinkle when she laughed, knew how she'd twist a lock of hair around one finger when she was thinking hard, knew how her hand would feel, warm and strong, and calloused with work, in his.

In that moment he forgot Angelina Dorma, forgot his aching head, forgot his humiliation. He stretched out his hand without realizing he'd done so?saw she was doing the same, like an image in a mirror.

And then his eyes blurred, and vision deserted him. When his eyes cleared, she was gone, and there was no sign that she'd ever even been there. And he was left staring at the crowded canal, not even knowing who she could be.

Before he could gather his wits, they were pulling up to the tie-up in Castello. He managed to crawl under his own power onto the landing, but when he stood up, he didn't gray out, he blacked out for a minute.

When he came to, he had Maria on the one side of him, and Caesare on the other, with Benito scrambling up the stairs ahead of them. They got him up the stairs, Lord and Saints, that was a job?he was so dizzy he could hardly help them at all. Aldanto had to all but carry him the last few feet. Then he vanished, while Marco leaned against the wall in the hallway and panted with pain.

Maria, it was, who got him into the kitchen; ignoring his feeble attempts to stop her, she stripped him down to his pants with complete disregard for his embarrassment. She cleaned the ugly slash along his ribs, poured raw grappa in it. That burned and brought tears to his eyes. Then she bandaged him up; then cleaned the marsh-muck off of him as best she could without getting him into water. Then she handed him a pair of clean breeches and waited with her back turned and her arms crossed for him to strip off the dirty ones and finally bundled him up into bed, stopping his protests with a glass of unwatered wine.