The night was moonless, the stars muffled by haze. Fog tendrils steamed from the lake's surface, obscuring what vision was left. Against a looming black bulk, Thur made out a few dim gold blobs of candlelight, the cliff face with its windows and the castle wall, above. He had to get away from that. He paddled as silently as he could in the opposite direction, just his eyes and nose breaking the surface of the dark and quiet water. He bumped into a floating log.
No. Not a log. It was Uri's body. Somehow, in the frantic fight, Thur had imagined it sinking beyond Vitelli's reach, but it was quite buoyant. He tried to push it under, but it popped back up. Any Losimon with a rowboat could pick it off the surface of the lake tomorrow morning, and return it to Vitelli, and all this would be for nothing.
No, not nothing. Not nothing. But not enough. He had regained Uri only to lose Lord Pia. Mad, perhaps, but clever and bold ... as Abbot Monreale was holy, Duchess Letitia defiant, Ascanio innocent, and Fiametta ... Fiametta ... and all, all, sacrifices to Ferrante's towering self-conceit, his fame. What gave Ferrante the right to ride over all those lives?
Right has nothing to do with it. He fights to survive. And the more he drifts into wrong, the harder he will fight. Must fight. So spoke reason. Reason was no practical help.
Thur was drifting, too. He began to shiver as the chill lake water drew the heat from his body. At least it wasn't as killing-cold as the water in the mine. Would Uri become waterlogged, and start to sink or rot? Uncertainly, Thur began to kick, propelling himself and his brother log gently along. He was no longer sure where the shore was. No lights or lanterns shone bright enough to pierce the mist. But he achieved, after a little experiment, a sort of equilibrium, kicking just fast enough to keep warm, just slowly enough not to outpace his breath. He felt he might keep it up for hours. But then what?
By the time he bumped into the quay, he knew neither how far he had come nor how long he had been about it. He felt like he had paddled halfway to Cecchino. A town loomed beyond the steps and docks and pebbled beach. The stones bit his naked feet as he rose dripping and the water no longer supported his weight. He dragged Uri along horizontally as far, as possible, then pulled him ashore like a fish. He was almost as slippery as one. Thur stood, his legs trembling, and stared into the dark tinged here and there with some faint illumination escaping through a closed shutter. Big buildings, too big for any village. A dog barked twice, and stopped. What town ....
Damn. It was only Montefoglia. Still Montefoglia. Had he been swimming in circles? Quite possibly. He stared up and down the shoreline, mentally placing landmarks he could not now see with his eyes. To his right, the castle hill, to his left, the big docks, the lower walls, and the high outer town wall at the very end that ran right down into the harbor. Ahead lay narrow, winding streets, dark and strange. Well, they couldn't be any stranger than what he had just escaped.
He stood a moment in indecision, water lapping his ankles. Where should he be trying to go, anyway? He had to hide Uri. He wanted ... he wanted to talk to Fiametta. He wanted to find Fiametta, yes. Reason therefore said he ought to paddle back out into the lake and swim to Saint Jerome. He emptied his mind of reason, knelt, got Uri up on his shoulder, grunted to his feet, and started walking.
Up stone steps from the quay. His feet banged down hard with their doubled weight. Guards? There ought to be a guard—there. Thur ducked into the nearest alley as a man with a lantern appeared near the quay. An old man, a town watchman, not a Losimon. Thur walked on without looking back, placing his bare feet carefully in the dark. But suppose he aid meet some urban danger in these passageways? He had a sudden picture of himself, a naked Swiss madman carrying a corpse. ... Well, he had nothing to attract a robber, certainly.
Turn here. Turn there. Where the devil was he going? He would not go back to the castle, no matter now his sixth sense clamored. He stumbled over a blanketed lump in the alley, which gave a muffled cry; Thur, burdened, barely saved himself from landing hard enough to shatter his kneecaps on the cobbles.
"Damn it! No, be quiet. I wont hurt you. Forget you saw me! Go back to sleep," said Thur, panicked at the thought of an outcry.
"Thur?" said a familiar youthful voice. "Is that you?"
"Tich?" Thur stopped, stunned. "What are you doing here?"
"Why, you're all naked!" Pico's elder boy scrambled to his feet, his face a white smudge in the dimness. "What are you carrying?"
"Uri. My brother. You've met Uri, haven't you?" said Thur dizzily.
"It's a corpse," said Tich in horror, after a verifying touch.
"Yes. I stole him back from Ferrante's black magician. Why are you here?"
"Thur, those thieving Losimons—they killed my father and Zilio! They cut his throat like a dog—" His voice grew louder in his excitement—it had been a couple of days since he'd met any man he dared called friend, Thur guessed.
"Sh! Sh. I know. I saw your father's mules yesterday, when they brought them to the castle."
"Yes, I followed them. And they're my mules now. I want them back. I want to kill the bastards! I've been trying to figure out how to get into the castle."
"Sh, no. That accursed castle is no place to try to get into. I barely got out with my life tonight."
"Where are you going?" asked Tich, sounding quite as bewildered as Thur felt.
"I'm ... not sure. But I cannot stand naked in the street till the dawn finds me!"
"You can have my blanket," Tich offered immediately, though in a rather dubious tone.
"Thanks." Thur wrapped it about himself, and suddenly felt much better, and not just for the warmth. "I ... Look, I hate to take your only blanket. Why don't you come along with me?"
"But where are you going?" Tich repeated.
"To ... a house in town that I know." The vision of Fiametta's home came clearly as he spoke the words aloud, finally unconfused by the overlapping call of... Tich? Yes. It was no accident, that he'd stumbled over Tich in the dark, any more than when he'd stumbled over little lost Helga in the snow. But he knew where he was going now. "There's no one home. Except maybe a Losimon guard," Thur added in sudden doubt. Maybe reason ought to prevail, just this once ...
"I have a dagger," said Tich. "If he's a Losimon, I'll kill him for you!"
"I ... We'll see. It may not be necessary. Let's just get there first, eh? Um ..."
"I'll ... take his feet," said Tich reluctantly.
"Thanks."
Thur realized he was going to have to give up the blanket again. Awkwardly, they slung Uri between diem, and walked on, not talking except for a few whispered directions from Thur. "Turn here. Down this street ....ight. Up this slope. We're almost there...."
"Quiet neighborhood," Tich commented. "The houses are like forts."
The familiar walls of Master Beneforte's—Fiametta's—house rose up at last. There was the marble-arched oak door, glimmering even in the dark. No lights shone. It was surely both locked and guarded.
They set their burden down, and Thur borrowed the blanket back.
"How do we get in?" whispered Tich. Thur was not sure he could even climb into bed at this point, let alone climb a wall. He stepped forward, and knocked on the door.
"Are you mad? You said it would be guarded!" hissed Tich.
Yes, he might be a little mad by now. But it wouldn't do to tell Tich so. Thur only knew he was very, very tired. "So, if there is a guard, this will bring him to us. Then you can kill him," Thur promised. He knocked again, and propped Uri's body up beside him, supporting-him with a brotherly arm over his cold and waxy shoulder. He waited for the guard to greet them. And vice versa. He knocked again, harder.