The duke used other spies and agents for various other tasks. Antimo Bartelozzi was for family affairs. To the duke that was the only thing more precious than good sword-steel.
“Greetings, Antimo. Tell me the worst.”
The lean gray-haired man smiled. “Always the same. The worst first. The ‘worst’ is that I did not find them, milord. Either one. Nor do I have knowledge of their whereabouts.”
The Old Fox shuddered, trying to control the relief which poured through him. “My grandsons are alive.”
Bartelozzi paused. “It’s . . . not certain. To be honest, milord, all I’ve established is that Marco Valdosta was last seen the night your daughter Lorendana was killed. And I had established that much two years ago. But I did find this.”
The duke’s agent reached into a small pouch. He handed over a small, sheathed knife, whose pommel was chased and set with an onyx. “This dagger is a signed Ferrara blade that turned up in the thieves market at Mestre. The seller was . . . questioned. He admitted to having bought it from one of the Jesolo marsh-bandits.”
The duke hissed between his teeth. He took the blade and unscrewed the pommel. Looked at the tiny marks on the tang. “This was Marco Valdosta’s blade.” He looked at the wall. At the empty space next to one of the hereditary blades on its rack. The space for a small dagger given to a boy, next to the sword—still in its place—destined for the man. His grandson Marco’s blades.
“And you don’t take this as another bad sign? Perhaps whoever stole the dagger from him killed the boy.” The Old Fox eyed Bartelozzi under lowered eyebrows. “You found one of the bandits. Questioned him.”
Antimo nodded. “They robbed the boy, yes. Beat him badly. Badly enough that the bandits assumed he would not survive. But . . . there are rumors.”
“The Jesolo is full of rumors,” snorted Dell’este. “Still, it’s something.”
He moved toward the blade-rack. “Tell me that I can return it to its place, Antimo. You know the tradition.”
Behind him, he heard a little noise. As if Bartelozzi was choking down a sarcastic reply. The duke smiled grimly.
” ‘No Ferrara blade, once given to a Dell’este scion, may be returned until it is blooded.’ You may hang it in the rack, milord. That blade is well and truly blooded. I slid the bandit into the water myself. The thief-vendor also. There was barely enough blood left in them to draw the fish.”
Dell’este hung the dagger and turned back. “And the younger boy? Sforza’s bastard?”
Antimo Bartelozzi looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Milord. We don’t know that the condottiere was his father.”
“Spare me,” growled the duke. “My younger grandson was the spitting image of Sforza by the time he was ten. You knew my slut daughter, as well as I did. She was enamored of all things Milanese, and Sforza was already then the greatest captain in Visconti’s service.”
Antimo studied Dell’este for a moment, as if gauging the limits of his master’s forbearance. It was a brief study. For Bartelozzi, the Old Fox’s limits were . . . almost nonexistent.
“That is a disservice to her memory, milord, and you know it perfectly well. To begin with, her devotion was to the Montagnard cause, not to Milan. Your daughter was a fanatic, yes; a traitor . . . not really.”
The duke’s jaws tightened, but he did not argue the point. Bartelozzi continued:
“Nor was she a slut. Somewhat promiscuous, yes; a slut, no. She rebuffed Duke Visconti himself, you know, shortly after she arrived in Milan. Quite firmly, by all accounts—even derisively. A bold thing for a woman to do, who had cast herself into Milan’s coils. That may well have been the final factor which led Visconti to have her murdered, once she had fallen out of favor with her lover Sforza. Not even Visconti would have been bold enough to risk his chief military captain’s anger.”
Dell’este restrained his own anger. It was directed at the daughter, anyway, not the agent. Besides, it was an old thing, now. A dull ember, not a hot flame. And . . . that core of honesty which had always lain at the center of the Old Fox’s legendary wiliness accepted the truth of Bartelozzi’s words. The duke’s daughter Lorendana had been headstrong, willful, given to wild enthusiasms, reckless—yes, all those. In which, the duke admitted privately, she was not really so different from the duke himself at an early age. Except that Enrico Dell’este had possessed, even as a stripling prince, more than his share of acumen. And . . . he had been lucky.