"He's the one who shot at Mari!" declared Antony loudly, voice echoing in the palace confines.
"He shot Antonio Nogarola!" exclaimed Mariotto.
"He shot me," said Pietro, an odd satisfaction flitting through him. "He's the one I captured. He's my prisoner."
In response to the ruckus, the small group of Paduans stopped and the dark-haired young Carrara turned to look at his accusers. "Ah. Montecchio, is it? Good. I like to know the names of the men I kill."
"You missed, turd!" shouted Antony.
"Fut. I won't next time. And Alaghieri — that's a name I won't forget."
"You can't," Montecchio sneered. "You're going to be sending him money for the rest of your life."
"However short that may be," added Antony.
"Don't pay him any mind," said Pietro dismissively. "He's a coward who uses a coward's weapon."
The young Paduan broke free of the group he stood with to approach Pietro. No one stopped him, though several guards gripped the swords in their scabbards. Pietro swallowed his pain to stand upright so that when the dark-haired youth arrived, they were nose to nose.
"A coward's weapon?" hissed the Paduan. "I'll tell you who's a coward — your blessed Capitano, who hides behind fake bows and old men and women instead of fighting like a man."
"I didn't see him hiding," said Pietro hotly, blood coursing through his veins. "That's more your style — cowering behind a woman's weapon. You were going to run after you fired that bolt, weren't you?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"Only because I took you down. More's the pity that you didn't go down fighting like a real knight."
The Paduan looked fierce. "My name is Marsilio da Carrara. You and me, Alaghieri. Whenever you like, wherever you like, however you like."
Pietro felt an irrational anger rise in him. Before he was aware, he was saying, "Sorry, not interested. I won't be one of your Paduan bardassi." Apparently Pietro had inherited his father's gift for insults. Marsilio flushed and lifted a fist. Pietro tensed.
Suddenly Marsilio screamed. Pietro was so startled he glanced at his own fist to be sure he hadn't actually hit him. It took him a moment to realize that the lady had put a restraining hand on Marsilio's arm — though why that should make him cry out, he couldn't tell. Then he saw the blood seeping from a gash in his arm, hidden until now.
"Oh, I'm sorry, young man," said Katerina della Scala in her most pleasant voice. "I didn't see your wound. That must hurt you. We'll have a doctor come around to look at it for you."
"I can manage," muttered the Paduan through a clenched jaw. He looked at Pietro. "Next time, Alaghieri, you won't have a woman's skirts to hide under."
"Next time," replied Pietro, "she won't be here to save you."
"Wait in line, Pietro," cried Mariotto, shouldering forward. "He's mine first."
"Over my dead body," said Antony, also pressing towards the Paduan. "I owe him a clout on the head."
"Children, children!" smirked Marsilio. "There's enough man in me to face you all." He made an elaborate bow to Donna Katerina. "Madonna mia, it is an honour to be under your roof. I hope I can feel the hospitality I've heard you extend to all your male guests."
Katerina smiled warmly. "Young man, your tongue would have to be a good deal more talented than that for me to extend such hospitality."
Startled in mid bow and aware of the muffled laughter at his expense, Marsilio scowled. "Putanna." The lady's only response was to nod politely. Yet somehow when he turned he managed to get his feet tangled up, one on the other. He landed on his wounded arm and let out a shriek. Bleeding on the rushes, he had to be carried off in the wake of the other prisoners.
Katerina looked to Mariotto. "Did I hear you say my brother-in-law was wounded?"
"Yes," he answered. "Shot by that little-"
"Yes, yes. He made it quite clear what he is." She whispered instructions to a maid, who then scampered off. Pietro inferred her chore was to discover where the elder Nogarola's wounds were being dressed, and by whom. Pietro pitied the short lord. If his wounds were not sufficiently grave, he would never hear the end of not seeking Katerina's aid.
The trio were escorted through a large receiving chamber into a private suite and told to recline on three fine daybeds. Their protests of soiling them came to nothing. "My maid Livia has a brother who is an upholsterer. I have been looking for a reason to employ him — at my brother's expense, of course."
The surgeon arrived. Introduced as Ser Dottore Morsicato, he was long-armed, barrel-chested, and bald with a forked beard that curled up at the tips. Around his neck was the ubiqitous symbol of the medicine man: the jordan, or urine glass. Modern diagnostic theory was the balance of the four humours — phlegm, blood, bile, and urine. The jordan was designed to collect any and all of these, but the one most often used for diagnosis was 'yellow bile' — hence the unsavory nickname of the glass. The doctor would collect his sample, then compare its colour with a chart that listed twenty or more distinctive shades, each with a short list of illnesses attached.
Today it was not the urine glass but the surgeon's saw that was required. "Good God," cried Morsicato sourly, examining the wounds, "I was brought here for this? There are men really hurt out there!" He dealt with Antony's head first, pronouncing him fit as long as he did not sleep for another twelve hours. "Strange things have been known to happen if a man sleeps after a blow to the head. Sometimes he doesn't awake again at all." Antony kept to his feet after that, pacing while the doctor dressed Mariotto's wound. It was rather superficial and was medicined with a salve the surgeon described only as "coming from Greece." He advised changing the dressing he wrapped about the youth's torso as often as three times a day.
With the two simpler wounds now behind him, the surgeon began to examine Pietro's leg. The lady tactfully withdrew as Pietro's ruined hose were cut away and the long process of removing the broken shaft of the crossbow bolt began.
Morsicato had long experience with battle wounds — indeed, most of his knowledge had been earned on one field of Mars or another — and thus knew the best way to remove such a shaft. The problem was that, in all Pietro's activity after receiving the wound, the broken shaft in his thigh had shifted slightly right to left. The doctor turned towards Mariotto and Antony. "I may need your help to hold him."
With fire, with boiling water, with strong hands and several different-sized blades, the surgeon went to work. To his credit, Pietro resisted crying aloud for a very long time. He spent agonized moments comparing his plight to the souls in torment in his father's work. He tried to joke about it. "The Malebranche's claws can't be as bad as this."
"Shhh," said Morsicato.
"Now, upside-down, with hot pokers at your feet, now that's painful…"
"Lie still," whispered Antony, holding his shoulders.
"No, I'm just saying that — damn — Hell can't be as bad as all that…"
"It's almost over," said Mari, hoping he wasn't lying.
Morsicato pulled one end as gently as he could, tapping the other end with a hammer. Pietro howled at last, fighting to move his limbs.
"Hold him!" shouted Morsicato.
But, blessedly, Pietro had fainted.
Nine
The room was disturbingly dim when Pietro awoke. The curtains were drawn and the shutters closed, and the rows of candelabra lining the far walls had all been extinguished. A lone central brazier still glowed, warming the room and casting creeping shadows of infernal light into the rafters.
Sweating and gasping for breath in the close room, Pietro winced as he shifted his joints. He wiped the damp from his brow and blinked several times. Laying on a daybed, his lower body was covered with a flannel — Florentine, he noted. Hesitantly, gingerly, fearfully, he reached out a hand to lift the coverlet…