Neither Caesare nor Jagiellon appeared concerned about being showered in fresh blood, but something had plainly affected them. There were sweat beads on both foreheads, mingling with the splattered blood. Caesare's eyes were wild and mad, not dead as they had been moments before.
"Very powerful place. Very powerful man," grunted the shaman, fastidiously cleaning his drum.
"I know where he is going," growled Jagiellon. "The forces of light marshal against us. A pilgrimage. And he intends to go via Venice. Somehow this ties with the wedding of the other one. Marco Valdosta. That joining must be stopped. Or at least I must stop Lopez reaching the marshes where the Lion holds sway."
The shaman nodded and rubbed his shoulder, wincing as he did so, as if the shoulder was deeply bruised. "Lion is very strong. Even if the young one is still unskilled, he is strong."
"I do not like failure. You will keep watch around the Lion's borderland." Jagiellon cleaned the cleaver on the victim's hair. "We will consult with Count Mindaug. He has been studying the magics of the West. He thinks I am unaware of this. Maybe he will know of some trap we can set."
The shaman nodded, and the Count was sent for, as servants cleared the mess away, moving with swift and fearful silence. As well they might: Any one of them might be next, if they drew attention to themselves. Until today, the dead woman had been a chambermaid.
* * *
The Count did indeed have an answer. A stray fact plucked out of a grimoire from the Ravenna region, from the southern margin of the sequence of lagoons and floodlands that had once stretched all the way from there to Grado in the north. Just off the southern margin of the ancient marshlands lay a grove of oak trees. The local people would go nowhere near the place. Local legend said a terrible rite had raised something there, something so evil that everyone for miles around found a reason to avoid the spot. It was a lonely and not very fertile area anyway, full of mosquitoes and malarial fevers. It lay not far from the causeway that led to Ravenna, and then onwards along the coast toward Venice.
"I will open the way," said Jagiellon. "Take a form to travel on land. See what, if anything, lies in this place."
The shaman nodded and stripped off his jacket with a tinkling of brass bells. The old body that lay underneath the leather was also tattooed. And considering the age of that lined face, the shaman's body was in remarkably good shape. Scrawny, yes; but sinewy tough under the tattoos.
The old man blurred into a feral-looking dog with yellow mangy fur, and yellow eyes, and yellower teeth. The dog slipped into the tunnel that Jagiellon had made.
* * *
Some hours later the shaman returned. "Some old beast of kaos make nest there. There are old magics which let it survive. It is very strong but nearly mindless. It exists just to feed, master."
Jagiellon's cold eyes seemed to glow. "Ideal."
"It cannot leave that place, master. It would die."
"No matter," said Jagiellon. "We will lead the priest and his companions to the beast, before they can reach the marshes. If it fails to kill them, it may at least drive them back. I want him away from Venice, and Marco Valdosta. There is something about that meeting that I do not like the feel of. Your birds will continue to watch and follow when Lopez moves."
* * *
First babies, the wise old midwives all said, were hard. Hard on the mother, hard on themselves. Issie evidently agreed with the wise old midwives of canalside, for the closer came the day that Maria was due, the more horrifying became the tales the old woman dragged out of her memory. Tales of birth-struggles that lasted for a week; of every possible complication; of girls that died and babies that died; of both that died together. And she had the unmitigated gall to bring in all the other foresters' wives to regale Maria with still more tales of birth-horrors, until Maria wondered why so many of them had gone through the ordeal not once, but six or eight times.
Maria had cause to thank all the saints together that Umberto was never around to listen to these stories, or if he was around when Issie began one of her tales, he was so used to ignoring her that he really didn't hear what she was saying.
As for Maria—well, Issie had been one of the people who had tried to frighten her with stories of ferocious wild beasts in the forest. The wild beasts had been no more ferocious than the occasional hare or deer, and by this time, Maria was disinclined to believe any of Issie's tales.
That didn't mean she wasn't prepared for a hard go; but her own mother had given birth and gone out to deliver a load the next day. Maria knew that she came of tough stock. She wasn't expecting much trouble, really.
She still wasn't expecting much trouble when the first pangs started, and the water broke—though that was a shock—and Issie chased Umberto out.
But then the real pains began. And after the first hour, Maria was vowing—between groans—that the next man who touched her with sex on his mind was going to draw back a bloody stump.
After the third hour, she knew that it wasn't going to be the stump of his hand.
After the fifth hour, when the pains were continuous, wave after wave after wave, and her throat was hoarse, she couldn't think of anything but the pain.
There were women milling about everywhere, praying out loud—what were they doing there? She hadn't asked them to come! The air was hot and stifling, her hair and bedgown were absolutely plastered to her with sweat, and someone was burning some vile herb in the fireplace. And all she could do was bite on the rope they'd given her, and tear at the bedclothes and it went on and on and on—
And that was when she swept into the room.
She was a tall shape in a dark, draped dress, and all the praying women fell silent as she raked the room with eyes that gleamed in the firelight.
"Out," she said. And the women, the horrible, useless women, fled before her like chickens before a falcon, cackling in panic.
She flung the windows wide, threw something on the fire that chased the stink out with the scent of fir and rosemary, and came to the side of the bed.
She leaned over Maria, and the silver pentacle gleaming at her throat told Maria everything she needed to know.
"Strega," she gasped. But in recognition, not condemnation. After all, none of those women and all of their calling on saints and angels had helped her.
"Exactly so." The woman smiled, and placed a hand on Maria's forehead; then, sketched a sign in the air and murmured some words.
Suddenly, Maria was . . . there, but not there. Detached from her body and all the pain and the mess. Floating within her own head, dreamily watching, as the Strega helped her out of the bed and got her to walk, then rest, then walk again, a little. She was there, but she did not care, except in the most detached possible way. Her body strained and hurt, but she did not.
Issie's friends all huddled fearfully at the door, and the Strega cast them glances of contempt from time to time, but said nothing. "I should have come to you before," she murmured in Maria's ear, "But I did not know your time was near. Did you think that we would leave one who was a friend to us alone with a flock of chattering monkeys in her time? No."