Lackey, Mercedes & Flint, Eric & Freer, Dave - [Heirs of Alexandria 01] (36 page)

"He went up the stairs!" cried another voice from below.

"Must be the bouncer," whispered Erik.

Manfred shook his head. "I put the bastard to sleep first. Come on. Give me a hand with this couch."

The couch was a venerable piece of furniture. Either it had been intended for some unusual antics in a higher bedroom, before its carriers had been defeated either by its weight or the angle of the stairs, or it was for elderly patrons who needed to lie down before going on to visit the delights on higher floors. It was solid and heavy, and made of some exotic black wood that Erik did not recognize. This was Venice. Strange things found their way here, even wood. The couch was about six cubits long and must have weighed at least four hundredweight.

Even with Manfred's oxlike strength, lifting it was not easy. They struggled to raise it above the banisters. On the other hand, the bunch of arquebus-armed men who came running up the stairs were unable to resist it as it came hurtling down at them. Neither was the wooden staircase up to this sort of treatment. It splintered. Amid the thunder of gunfire, the shouting�and screaming�of men, and the partial collapse of the staircase, Erik and Manfred fled upwards again.

"There are other stairs," panted Manfred. "Stone ones. They'll cut us off up those."

Erik pointed. "Take that next passage, any room and a window. If need be we'll break our way into the next house."

"Corner room. Give us two sides."

They legged it down the passage. Ripped open the door. And Erik suddenly remembered just where he was: in a notorious Venetian brothel.

The woman on the bed languorously raised herself up. Her very voluptuous self. She tilted her head and twitched full, red, red lips into an easy, provocative smile. "Two of you?" She had an ornately arranged head of auburn-red hair, and pale olive skin. She wore a string of gold-netted millefiori beads. That was all she wore, so the skin was very obvious.

Despite the circumstances, Erik found himself staring at the almond-skin color of the broad areolar rings around her nipples, like a snake-hypnotized rabbit. His eyes were drawn down instinctively until he wrenched them upward and away with a tremendous force of will.

She, in turn, stared thoughtfully at the three red crosses on his surcoat.

Manfred shut the door hastily behind them. He had no trouble looking at her.

"Your friend seems a little shy." There was amusement in her rich contralto voice.

Manfred snorted. "Don't mind him, demoiselle. In fact, don't mind us. We're just passing through."

"Demoiselle!" She chuckled. "Most of my visitors are just 'passing through,' darling." Her accent was a little strange to Erik, despite his skill with languages. Not that he was interested right now in worrying about where she came from.

"Well, we mean really passing through your room," said Manfred, heading for the window. "If you'd oblige us by not screaming about it, I'll come back for a longer and more generous visit when the fuss has died down. Oh."

The "oh" was aimed at the close-set steel bars in the window.

The woman laughed. Her laughter was low and cool, much like her chuckle. "Madame Claudia doesn't like customers leaving�or coming in�without having to pass through her cash box."

In the background they could hear the distant sounds of the pursuit. Getting closer. "We'd better get out there, Manfred," said Erik grimly, heading for the door. "We'll have to try and fight our way out."

"Wait," commanded the woman. "There is another way out. You'll just have to wait until the passage is empty." She had inserted herself between Erik and the door, as effectively�in his case�as a portcullis.

"They're likely to search," said Manfred. Unlike Erik he had no problems looking at her. Or at picking her up and moving her...

Her means of thwarting
him
was to blow a kiss at him. "I think I can hide you for few minutes. For a..." she broke off, as if she'd reached a sudden decision. "Never mind." She looked appraisingly at Erik, and then turned to Manfred.

"You, and especially your shy friend, present me with something of a challenge." She laughed wickedly. "Come on, big boys. Both of you. Get those clothes off. There must be twenty of them out there."

"I'll go," said Erik hastily. "They're only looking for me."

Manfred grabbed him. "Don't be a fool, Erik. The demoiselle is right. If there are two of us�ah, occupied with her�they're likely to look elsewhere. Come on, Erik. Get them off. Especially that surcoat."

The woman began expertly removing the horrified Erik's trousers. "I have some wigs. Some of my clients like a little masquerade. And you'd better call me Francesca. As charming as 'demoiselle' is, my clients
do
know my name."

Looking up at Manfred's hairy thighs standing over him was, Erik decided, the best view from a moral standpoint. Even if it was not attractive in any other sense. He couldn't just close his eyes when a murderous bunch might burst in on him at any moment�

Not with him trapped in
this
position. With Francesca's silky thighs straddled over him�muscular thighs, for all the soft smoothness of her skin�if he looked forward his view was of large naked breasts. Better to look at Manfred, even if large hairy...

The situation was grotesque! Especially because Manfred and Francesca didn't share any of his own sense of modesty.

He couldn't
quite
see just what Francesca was doing with Manfred, but the noise didn't leave much to the imagination. And she didn't have to roll her hips on him like that! It wasn't as if he
could
do anything.

When the Schiopettieri captain wrenched open the door moments later, he was greeted with the sight of three naked people on the bed, indulging in what his wife would have called "unnatural acts" that he himself would fantasize about for weeks thereafter. The slimmer dark-haired fellow who was being straddled was plainly putting in a tremendous effort, to judge by his bright red face.

Francesca removed part of her oxlike client's anatomy from her mouth. "We're busy, Luigi. You'll have to come back later," she said lazily.

The Schiopettieri captain shut the door hastily.

"Give it a minute and I think you can leave. Unless you'd like to finish off also," she added coquettishly, tickling the hastily dressing and red-faced Erik in the ribs.

"Nothing Erik'd like more," said Manfred, smothering a guffaw. "But I'm afraid we've got to go. Just how do we get out of here?"

She took a key from the drawer. "I was in a house that caught fire once. Since then I have always made sure I had a way out. There is a door at the end of the passage with a hoist-beam for bringing furniture up from the Canal."

"Ah. Going to be a splashy, wet landing. You don't want to drink this canal water if you can help it, Erik," said Manfred.

Francesca smiled lazily at him. "You'd make an even bigger splash than I would. Wait a moment. I have some rope."

Manfred nodded. "Sounds good. Beats jumping."

Erik wondered why there would be rope in such a room. Then, seeing the paraphernalia in the closet from which Francesca withdrew the rope, found himself blushing more fiercely. He had never seen such things, although he had heard of them.

But by now Erik had finished dressing, and the relief of being no longer unclothed brought back his usual calm. He turned to the still-naked Francesca, carefully looking only at her face. "Will you be all right? Should we take you with us?"

Francesca shuddered. "Three stories? When the building's not burning? No thank you! I'm not planning on staying in this establishment much longer anyway. But when I do leave, I will use more conventional means. I am certainly not built for the climbing of ropes."

Her smile widened to a grin. "
My
strength is in my legs. I shall use them to walk out of the front door. Quite soon, in fact. This house does not have sufficient
cachet
for someone of my... talents, shall we say. I have no intention of remaining a mere brothel
puttana
, although it has taken me a while to gather resources. Now, I shall move to the Casa Louise."

She chucked his chin. "Just remember that you owe me a favor. And now, get out of here before Luigi comes back."

They slid down into the darkness. It was just as well they hadn't jumped, thought Erik. When he dropped lightly off the end of the rope, he found not water but the deck of a vessel. The boatman who had been waiting for the Schiopettieri didn't expect the "prisoner" to land on his boat. Not, at least, when that prisoner was armed and unescorted except for an even larger friend. But with Erik's Algonquian war hatchet at his throat, he wasn't going to argue about taking them away from there.

They left him tied up in his own boat, on the edge of the Grand Canal, a hundred yards away from the Imperial embassy.

Manfred looked back with regret. "You know, that Francesca had a certain something."

Erik shuddered. "She had a great deal of everything. But still. I owe her a debt."

"
I
owe her," said Manfred, shaking his head. "That sort of thing doesn't come for free. That's a mercenary profession if there ever was one."

"Even ladies of that stamp must have kindly impulses," said Erik stiffly.

Manfred pulled a wry face. Despite being five years younger than Erik he knew a great deal more about whores. He remembered the look on Francesca's face when she'd first seen Erik's surcoat. It had been... calculating. The Knights were all at least minor aristocracy. Many were confreres, merely serving a three-year novitiate. He would certainly not put it past that worldly-wise woman to know that. He'd already prepared himself for a hasty argument on price when she'd suggested hiding them, until she suddenly changed her mind or thought of something else. A few moments of Erik's reactions to a naked woman would have convinced the stupidest harlot that this one was a pure young knight. Francesca'd been very speculative, very suddenly. Manfred gave a low chuckle. He could see that perhaps he'd have to protect Erik against predatory female wiles. Well. It might not be unpleasant. "Yep. Maybe she did," was all he said.

"I will have to reward her," said Erik slowly. "Mary Magdalen too..."

"Oh, I think she'll be happy enough with a few ducats," said Manfred calmly, with an ease he didn't feel.

In the moonlight Erik looked doubtful. "Do you really think so? I mean it was an act of great v-v-virtue," he stammered.

Manfred swallowed his amusement. Only Erik could describe a harlot performing fellatio on one man while straddling another as "virtue." And believe it too. For all the Icelander's ferocious skill in combat, he was an innocent country boy in so many other ways.

"I'm sure," he agreed cheerfully. "And I think Abbot Sachs will be surprised to see you back. Unharmed."

Erik shrugged. "Maybe it was just some kind of mix-up."

"That'll be his story," growled Manfred, with court-honed wisdom far beyond his years.

Well, that was certainly interesting.

Francesca pulled on an open-fronted robe, in case someone came back, tied it around her waist with a tasseled cord, and shook out her hair. Then she turned to the ewer and basin on the top of the table across the room where it wouldn't be knocked over in a moment of passion. She rinsed her mouth with herb-scented water and spat it into the basin.

And why did I do that, anyway?

It was not an idle question. Francesca had reacted to the situation based on reflex, because there had been no time to think things through carefully. But her reflexes had been honed by a perilous life, and she had come to trust them. Now that it was over and she
did
have a chance to think, she probed her memory to discover what twisted chain of logic had led her, almost without conscious thought, to behave in a way that she would normally have not.

Most certainly not! If men wanted her favors, they could damn well
pay
for them. She was no silly maiden to rescue a handsome man from danger without good reason�much less two of them, neither of whom was really that handsome anyway.

A pair of Knots, ambushed by the Schoppies. And not just any pair of Knots, either. Whoever arranged this particular episode either had no idea what kind of a mess he would create�or intended to. I wonder which?

She picked up the wooden comb from beside the basin and ran it through her hair, walking back to the bed as she did so. Francesca had not come from the streets. Before her family's ruination, they had been skilled players in the subtle and deadly intrigue which was the principal sport of Aquitaine's aristocracy. Her father had trained her in the political and diplomatic arts as thoroughly as her mother had trained her in other ways. So, a mind far better educated than anyone would have expected to find in that brothel worked at the problem, while she sat on the edge of the bed and combed her hair.

She had known, of course, from the moment she saw the two men, that they were what her mother�as chauvinistic as any Aquitaine�would have called, disdainfully,
�trangers.
The embarrassed blond was too fair to be Prussian or Austrian; and his companion had called him "Erik." He could only be a Norse of some kind. And that was odd, because there were very few Norse in the Knots. The Christian Norse who belonged to the Holy Roman Empire were Danes; and the Danes were rivals of the Knights of the Holy Trinity in the Baltic. The other Christian branch of Scandinavia were the Icelanders and their various offshoots�but they gave their allegiance to the League of Armagh, not the Holy Roman Emperor.

Except�

Her eyes widened. Like a flash, her mind focused on the other of the two men�the very large and square one.
Very
large, she remembered with some amusement, and in all respects; but he hadn't been rough at all, so she didn't hold it against him.
He
had spoken with a pronounced Breton accent�unmistakable, to one born and bred as Francesca had been in the Aquitaine.