Lackey, Mercedes & Flint, Eric & Freer, Dave - [Heirs of Alexandria 01] (96 page)

But he didn't go very far.

Just down two floors and over a few corridors, to another office�one not nearly so opulent as Petro's, but possibly more important to Dorma prosperity.

"�Francesco Aleri's cousin," Marco concluded; he sat back on the hard wooden chair, then continued with his own speculation. "Not enough to convict anyone, but maybe enough evidence to be embarrassing?"

"Could be." Caesare Aldanto leaned back in his own plain wooden chair and interlaced his fingers behind his blond head, looking deceptively lazy and indolent. Marco knew that pose. He also knew what it meant. Aldanto was thinking. Hard. "So why bring this news to me, Marco?"

"Because I still owe you," Marco said bluntly. "Because you may be playing Milord Petro's game, but that doesn't mean his coat'll cover you if things get
real
sticky. Because I don't know if Milord Petro will bother to tell you or not. He didn't tell me
not
to tell you, and my debt to you comes first."

Aldanto smiled, very slightly, and pointed a long index finger at him. "You're learning."

"I'm trying, Caesare," Marco replied earnestly. " 'Tisn't like the Jesolo, and it is. There are still snakes, only they don't look like snakes. There are still gangs, only they don't act like gangs."

"How are you doing?" There seemed to be real warmth in Aldanto's murky blue eyes, real concern.

Of course, that
could
just be concern over the Inquisition taking up one of Caesare Aldanto's best informers, and one of the few folk who knew
who
and
what
he really was�but Marco didn't think so. As much as Aldanto could�and more than was safe or politic�he cared for Marco's welfare.

"All right, I think," Marco gave him the same answer he'd given Petro Dorma.

Aldanto laughed at that, a deep-throated chuckle. The past few months had been good to Aldanto. And he and Angelina were, if not on friendly terms, less at odds. Thanks to Marco's work, she no longer blamed
him
for her mother's perilous addiction to black lotos. There was still tension in the air whenever they met, but Marco wasn't certain what the cause was.

Could be just because it's really Caesare she wishes she had married.

That might be what kept setting her off into hysteria, seeing as she and Caesare could meet easily since Aldanto had moved into quarters on Dorma at Petro's urging.

This just brought the confusing issue of Maria... and Benito to mind. Marco had tried... four times so far in the last two days to corner his little brother on this one. The last time Benito had straight out told Marco to keep off. Caesare had not mentioned Maria.

Marco wasn't sure how Aldanto and she were doing. The fact that she hadn't moved with him to Dorma... He must go back to the apartment and visit her. But, at least to Marco's eyes, the suite of rooms that the new head of the Dorma-ordered militia occupied
looked
more secure than Caesare's old apartment. Marco could only hope that it was.

What Aldanto made of the situation, he couldn't tell; he could read the man a little better these days, but�well, Aldanto was Aldanto, and when he chose not to be read, there was no catching him out.

The first trickle of refugees came long before the official news from Fruili. Then a flood of folk with their scanty belongings and terror in their eyes.

Venice's condottiere Aldo Frescata had sold the North to the Scaligers of Verona. Venice was cut off. Besieged. Only a few coasting vessels were going in and out, and the only friendly port was Trieste. Passage on those ships was only for the wealthy.

Marco looked out on the piazza from an upper window in the Doge's palace. The piazza was packed, but the people were quiet and waiting.

He turned to Petro Dorma. "So. What happens now?"

Petro sighed. "A good question. We still hold the Polestine forts and Jesolo and Chioggia. And the lagoon. But even my estates in Istria might as well be on the moon. And our enemies are flooding us with refugees."

"So what are the Grand Council and the senators going to ask the Doge to do?"

Petro snorted. "Why don't we go and find out? Some of them will panic, of course, and�needless to say�others will suggest inviting various parties in to protect us."

"And you?"

Petro shrugged. "Let them come to our lagoon. The Arsenal has been readying our answer. We have better boatmen than the lot of them. Between the marshes and the water, let them try. The lion of the marshes has eaten armies before. And they know that."

"What about food?" asked Marco. Already that was starting to affect the children of the poor.

"Believe it or not, we started preparing for that nearly two months ago," said Petro quietly. "The warehouses at the Arsenal will start to issue a ration. It's not much, but we can hold out for a good while. In the meantime we're building up a fleet to go out to deal with the Gulf pirates and Ancona. The Genoans can't stay out there all winter. Our problem lies now with enemies from within."

Marco found Petro's predictions startlingly accurate. Entirely so, as he saw when the Doge came out onto the balcony to speak to the masses thronging in the piazza. Marco, along with the other three hundred and seventy
Case Vecchie
house heads, looked out from the first floor loggia. Above them Doge Foscari's old, cracked voice began to address the silent multitude.

"The news that we have stockpiled food will reassure the people," said Petro quietly.

But the Doge never got that far. "People of the Commune, of the great Republic of Venice, we stand bloodied but unbroken by the treachery of the condottiere Aldo Frescata. But the Republic is a place of free people, proud and secure in our lagoon. A war-bond will be raised to hire more men. The militia will take over the guardianship of the city, as the Schiopettieri and militia units will be prepared for the attack. Volunteers are called for, oarsmen and gunners for the new fleet. The warehou�"

There was silence. Then a great wave of muttering spread through the crowd.

Petro grabbed Marco. "We need to get up there, fast."

The two of them were halfway up the stairs while the rest of the heads of the
Case Vecchie
were still looking at each other, trying to figure out what was going on.

From the crowded piazza, standing next to Maria, Benito tried to work out what was going on. He'd come along to the piazza with her and half of Venice to hear what was going to happen now.

One minute the Doge had been addressing them; the next... The Doge's head slumped forward. Guards suddenly appeared in a wall around him, and he disappeared from view.

"What the hell happened?" whispered Maria, along with several thousand other people.

Benito had gone to see her again early this morning in the hope that he could persuade her to go to Kat's house. She was being damned silly about it and he couldn't work out why.

She also hadn't showed any signs of wanting a repeat of their one night together�a night's memory which, for Benito at least, had become deeply important over the past month. When he'd finally gotten up the courage to suggest it�yesterday�she'd just said:
no
. And with Maria, "no" meant "no." She treated him like a friend. Like the Maria of old, but as if he'd grown up a year or two. Well, it was true... He
felt
much older.

"Is it murder?" demanded Ricardo Brunelli.

Marco looked up from where he knelt next to the Doge. "He's still alive. His pulse is faint and fast, but erratic. It may just be his heart or..." Marco looked at Petro. "Could be poison."

Ricardo Brunelli looked at Petro Dorma and Vettor Benero, the three of them the only Senior Collegio whom the guards had permitted onto the balcony. "What now?"

Petro gestured at the crowded piazza. Already the noise was alarming from down there. "Tell them the Doge has been taken sick. And finish his speech. We all know what he was going to say."

Ricardo Brunelli gave Signor Vettor Benero a look designed to silence a mate-hunting tomcat�never mind the head of the pro-peace-with-Milan faction. Ricardo cleared his throat. Then took one of the Doge's gawping trumpeters by the ear and said: "You. Sound that thing. I want the people to listen to me."

The shrill of the trumpet, and the sight of someone standing up to address them, silenced the surging crowd. Marco was too busy applying his limited knowledge to examining the Doge to pay much attention. But it sounded�by the cheering�as if the one thing that Ricardo certainly did really well was give a speech. And, as Marco examined him, the Doge did slowly begin to recover.

"... And so, my fellow Veneze, to the ships!" Ricardo boomed.

The Doge opened his eyes. "I was going to say that."

"Quick!" said Petro, "get him to his feet. Your Excellency, can you wave to the people?"

Foscari nodded. "Of course." He tried to get up, but his frail octogenarian body was no match for Marco's restraining arm.

"It's not wise," Marco said gently.

Petro pushed him aside. "A lot more lives than his hang in the balance, Marco. The Doge is the servant of Venice first. Take one side."

So Doge Foscari was able to wave to the crowd, and reassurance rippled through it.

They would have been less reassured if they'd felt his body go limp in their arms and seen his eyes roll back as his head lolled. "Turn!" snapped Petro Dorma. And they took the Doge away, hopefully before the crowd noticed.

Down in the crowd, Benito looked up to see his brother supporting the Doge. "That's Marco!"

"Who?" said a neighbor.

"Marco Valdosta," supplied Maria.

"The new Valdosta," added another woman.

"I'd heard he was a healer," said the first with satisfaction.

"The best," said Maria, giving Benito's arm a squeeze. "I'd trust him with my life, never mind the Doge's."

"Heard he treats canal-kids," said someone else.

"What? D'you believe in unicorns, too?" chuckled a well-to-do merchant.

"You watch your mouth, mister," said a brawny bargee. "Valdosta, eh? Good name in my father's time. You know, he treated my little Leonora."

As the crowd began to disperse, Benito had the satisfaction of realizing that, at least among the common people of Venice, his brother was already well known. And well liked. Unlike Mercutio... Venice would not forget Marco Valdosta overnight.

He took a deep breath. "The
Capi
are taking lists of volunteers over at the foot of the columns of St. Theodoro and St. Mark. Maria, I'm going to volunteer for the galleys that are going to the Polestine forts. They haven't said so, but I think they'll make an alliance with my grandfather."

Maria looked startled. "What's Dorma going to say? What's Cae...
he
going to say?" She still wouldn't say Caesare's name.

Benito shrugged. "I've made up my mind."

Marco would keep the name alive. And he could get away from this situation of divided loyalties. The more he thought about Maria�and part of his mind wanted to think of very little else�the more things he kept thinking of about Caesare that bothered him. Bothered him a lot.

Marco and Petro walked slowly from the Doge's chambers, where the old man lay under the care of doctors who really were the best Venice had to offer. The Doge had regained consciousness again when he was ensconced in his great pilastered bed, a tiny old man propped on mountains of snowy white pillows. He'd talked perfectly lucidly and with no sign of any impairment of his faculties for near on five minutes. And then, shuddered and lapsed into unconsciousness again.

"I'm going to volunteer for the Fruili force," said Marco abruptly.

Petro stopped dead. "Marco! You can't do that. Venice needs you
here
."

Marco shook his head. "I don't think more than two people in Venice would even notice if I vanished in a puff of smoke, Petro. Angelina's daughter has a father. Benito can take over as the Valdosta
Casa
head, and that'll please Grandfather. Benito and he are like one another. On the other hand, those refugees from Fruili are just the first. I'm going to be needed there. Besides, if I go with the galleys to the Polestine forts I'll possibly have to fight my grandfather's troops. Alliances in war are not always kind."

Petro put his hands on Marco's shoulders. "You don't understand, Marco.
Casa
Dorma itself is on quicksand. Ricardo Brunelli heads the pro-Rome Faction. He regards himself as a certain candidate for the Dogeship. Vettor Benero holds the next largest slice of support. He favors inviting Duke Visconti to share the Doge's throne." He sighed. "The third, weakest faction is mine. We stand for the Republic remaining independent. As Doge Foscari does."

He sighed again. "I tricked Ricardo Brunelli this morning. I knew, by making him speak off the cuff like that�while he was shocked�that he would have no time to turn the Doge's speech to his own purposes. That he would say what the Council had agreed to. Ricardo doesn't think fast on his feet, but he isn't stupid. He is going to work it out, and he is going to add it to his list of reasons to make Dorma an enemy of the state. And as for Benero... I've been trying for months to find out just how he is getting gold from the Montagnards. He wants my head, Marco. Dorma has only a few real assets: the militia, which Caesare commands for me; and you. Dorma's wealth is tied to our shipyards... which is tied to timber, which comes from Dalmatia. It's not going to take the wolves long to realize that if we have lost Dalmatia, Dorma has lost its wealth. Then I only have Valdosta and Dell'este."

Marco shook his head. "Grandfather's condottieri have lost Reggio nell' Emilia to the Milanese. Modena is under attack by the Bolognese. Este is under siege by Scaligers. The Dell'este... well everyone thinks they're finished. Even my grandfather must think so�that's why he sent the sword here. As for the Valdosta name... well, there is my brother. And I don't think it is worth much."

"Valdosta, you don't know your own worth," said Petro, quietly. "And I will tell you, privately, we have signed a treaty with Duke Dell'este. The galleys going to the Polestine forts are actually going to help him. He's not called 'the Old Fox' for nothing, you know."