They were watching him now—Kat, with one hand at her throat and the other clutching her medallion; and Lucrezia. Lucrezia had a cruel smile on her face and a long steel and silver dagger in her hand. The handle like a dragon, or a winged serpent, with eyechips of ruby. Marco’s arms fell to his sides; he felt frozen with fear and indecision. They all seemed frozen in time, insects caught in amber.
Something cold touched his foot, and he jerked out of his paralysis. He looked down. The puddle of spilled liquid oozed across the patterned marble and touched his foot, mingled with a thin trickle of blood coming from Luciano’s outstretched wrist. And a mist passed over it for a moment, and Marco saw, as if from above, Venice burning. Children screaming, dying. And the body of Kat sprawled, abused. And then a sequence of people he knew, and loved. Gutted. Raped. Burned. And the face of Lucrezia . . .
Laughing, with a great darkness behind her. He knew it for a true scrying vision of the future. A future which Luciano—his friend and in many ways, more truly a father to him than his own blood had been—had been prepared to sacrifice himself to prevent. Perhaps, when he failed, Luciano had dared use his last life-blood, the last of his own magical power, not to save himself, but for this vision. So that Marco would know the consequences of failure, and act.
Marco took up the bronze knife, put it against his chest and began to read the words from the ancient book. From outside the enchanted circle Lucrezia gaped. If he read her lips aright before the brightness and mist engulfed him, she was saying “No!”
* * *
“No! Caesare!” Benito looked down from the barricade he’d just climbed.
Caesare Aldanto looked up from Maria. He had an arm around her neck, and a knife against her breast. “I nearly killed her when she came through the gap,” he said, conversationally. “Quite a reunion, this. Where’s that brother of yours? Also around?”
“Why?” demanded Benito. “Do you want to make a clean sweep of the Valdostas?”
Benito tried to figure out what do next. He had an arquebus in his hands. But the weapon was far too inaccurate—even in the hands of someone expert in its use—to risk a shot at Caesare. As inexperienced as Benito was with firearms, he’d more likely kill Maria. But Benito made himself a promise that if anything happened to Maria . . . he’d blow Caesare’s mocking, smiling face apart. At this range, not even Benito would miss.
“Now, why would I do that, Benito?” said Caesare. “I’ve always looked after you.”
Benito scrambled down. Other Arsenalotti faces appeared. But there were several of Caesare’s men too, all with arquebuses.
“You got money from Ferrara, for looking after us,” said Benito coldly. “It’s sitting at Giaccomo’s. You never really did anything for any reason except for money, did you?”
Caesare snorted. “What other reason is there?”
Benito smiled. “Tell you what, Caesare. I’ll show you another reason. You let her go and I’ll fight you.”
It took Caesare a moment for the implication to sink in. “Maria?” he said, incredulously. “You love this—peasant?”
“I dunno about ‘love,’ ” said Benito carefully. “But I care a whole damn lot about her. Use the word ‘love’ if you want. So I’ll fight you for her freedom.”
Aldanto laughed. “Cocky little brat, aren’t you? At your age you think you’re immortal and you expect to win.”
“No,” said Benito calmly. “I don’t. But you’ll have to let Maria go.”
* * *
“NO!” yelled Lucrezia, gazing in horror at Marco and the knife. She looked around wildly.
“I must stop him. Kill him! Come here, girl! I need you.”
For an instant, Kat felt the sheer power and compulsion of that voice. Then, a further warmth, a heat, a fire spread from the Saint Hypatia medal that she held, and with a shake like a spaniel pulled from the dirty water of a canal, she shook off the compulsion.
Instead of answering Lucrezia’s beckoning hand, she pulled her pistol from her reticule. She’d reloaded five times in the fighting. The last time she’d had to take powder from a dead arquebusier. But the balls he’d carried had been too big. So she’d filled the barrel of the pistol with some metal junk from a ruined shop. Thrust it down and hoped it would work.