“Stupid boy!” Bezio said angrily. “Go stand over by the house, where we can keep an eye on you!”
Mircea slunk off to the sounds of outrage from the shoeless and now muddy Jerome, the renewed objections of the guard, and Bezio’s low grumbles. And then his excited exclamations when he suddenly spotted something. “Hey, is that it?” Bezio asked, running through the sight line of several more guards, who were then forced to go after him.
Mircea stepped quietly back into the shadow of the poplars, swiftly checking in both directions. But the nearest guards were busy accosting Bezio, the rest were watching their areas, and the patrol wouldn’t be back for another minute. And that was more than enough.
In seconds, he was up the trellis, moving almost silently. Not that it mattered with outraged yelling from Jerome and Bezio helping to cover his ascent. As well as the sounds of the crowd above, which blotted out even his own hearing halfway up, with a murmur like the roar of the ocean.
He realized why a second later, when he hopped over the top.
And into a crowd of thousands.
The palazzo was creaking under the weight of a solid mass of people. It was literally shoulder-to-shoulder all over the vast expanse of roof. Where the cream of the vampire world were fighting and jostling and elbowing and generally acting in ways that a well-dressed throng shouldn’t.
Nobody cared. Not tonight. All that was on anyone’s mind was finding the best vantage point overlooking the garden, which explained why nobody standing nearby had noticed his less than normal entrance.
They were all facing the other way.
Mircea snagged a view for himself—briefly—by grabbing a tray of drinks off a passing servant. And then by climbing up the steps of a nearby covered platform, where the senators had their seats, well above the rudely shifting crowd. He didn’t get in, of course; a guard relieved him of the tray at the top. But he took his time coming down, trying to get his bearings.
He could see over the edge of the wall now, down into what had once been a beautiful garden. And which at present wasn’t much of anything. The stone pathways and grassy areas were still intact, more or less, along with the fountain. But most of the trees and bushes had been dug out and removed.
The garden now matched the rest of the house, which currently resembled a ruin, albeit an odd one. In addition to the group on the roof, vampires hung out of windows, crowded doorways and loggias, and even sat along the floor lines that had been revealed by missing chunks of wall. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, in Mircea’s line of sight.
But none of them was the one he needed to see.
And he was fast running out of time.
The consul was already in place, standing beside an official of some kind in the center of the enclosure. He was back to human form, a wizened little figure looking vaguely ridiculous in a rich aquamarine robe. But for some reason, Mircea didn’t feel much like laughing as he went back to searching the crowd, trying to find the senator.
And found Martina instead.
She was standing on the ground floor, inside a door to the right of the newly made arena. He couldn’t see her face, since the doorway shadowed it, but he recognized the flame-colored gown dotted with golden pomegranates, one of her favorites. It was unique; the material woven somewhere to the east and then smuggled into Venice, where it was illegal due to laws forbidding competition with the local silk industry.
As if Martina cared about the laws.
But there simply couldn’t be two of them.
A swift check of the other entrances to the arena turned up more and more familiar faces. Paulo was standing on a balcony above a door directly across from Martina. Zaneta was just inside another on the wall to the right of him. And then Mircea spied what looked like Danieli’s favorite yellow outfit on a loggia above the door to the far left. Mircea didn’t see anyone else, but he’d bet money they were here somewhere. Possibly loitering somewhere near the last door, just below him, where he couldn’t see what was happening.
Until the senator suddenly walked through it.
Chapter Forty-One
Damn it! Mircea had assumed there would be some fanfare, some announcement, some something to indicate that the event of the century was about to start. And to give him an idea of where to find the senator. But there was nothing, except the sudden hush of thousands of voices, and the abrupt stilling of an ocean of people.
Into utter silence.
It was so quiet that he could hear her footsteps, light as they were, over the scattered gravel. She looked a little different from the last time he’d seen her, when she’d been dressed in the height of Venetian fashion. Tonight she was a slim figure in white, wearing the elegant draperies of an earlier age. Her hair was in a hundred gold-tipped braids, more gold shown around her neck in a wide, antique collar, and still more glittered in bands on her lovely arms.
The modern Venetian lady was gone.
The ancient queen remained.
Her face was calm, composed. If she was worried at all, it didn’t show. Mircea felt his own anxiety level jump up, but it was already so high, he hardly noticed.
Because there was no way to reach her now.
Guards circled the arena and dotted the crowd, as well as occupying posts at the top corner of each of the walls, weapons at the ready. Mircea had no doubt what the penalty would be for anyone who dared to enter the ring besides the combatants. And while a senior master might survive having a few dozen wood-tipped crossbow bolts slammed into his body all at once, Mircea would not.
She was beyond his reach.
She was beyond his reach, so he had to come up with something else.
Now.
This would be the time for Plan B, if he had one. Unfortunately, he didn’t, and every one he tried to formulate hit the brick wall of his own obscurity. The story he had to tell was fantastic, but someone of power, of position, might have been believed. Or at least been indulged long enough for an investigation to be made.
Mircea would be lucky if he was just locked up—after the requisite beating, of course.
No one was going to listen to a slave. Not even the senator’s family, if he knew where to find them, which he didn’t, or if they weren’t too busy biting their nails to the quick to listen, which they surely were. And yet, what else was there?
“Don’t they need you back in the kitchen?” someone asked, and Mircea turned around to find one of the guards looking at him steadily.
Or maybe not a guard. The man was dressed in the same overall design, but his cape was dark blue, as was the plume on his helmet. And his breastplate, belt, and sword were of far higher quality than any Mircea had seen on the guards.
An officer, at a guess.
“I—yes, yes, dòmino,” Mircea bowed his head and bent at the waist, to the point that he was almost doubled. And then scurried down a couple of steps—until the man turned and headed up again, forgetting the bedraggled servant as soon as he was out of sight.
Down in the garden, the official who had been standing by the consul moved forward. “You have a petition, senator?” he asked pleasantly.
“No.”
“If you wish to ask forgiveness for the actions of your men, the consul will hear—” The man stopped. “No?” he repeated, as if the word had just registered.
“I come not to petition, but to rule. I hereby make formal challenge for the right to lead our people.”
The man appeared flustered, why, Mircea couldn’t imagine. Every damned person here had known that was coming. Unless he’d actually expected her to crawl.
He didn’t know her very well, Mircea thought grimly.
“And what grounds do you bring for your challenge?” the man demanded.
The lovely eyes slid to the consul. “Madness.”
The collective crowd sucked in a breath, and even Mircea fel
t a bit shocked. He hadn’t expected her to just come right out with it like that.
Of course, he hadn’t expected to be grabbed by the arm, either. “Are you hard of hearing?”
It looked like the officer hadn’t forgotten his presence, after all. And wasn’t that just his luck? Everyone else in the whole damned place was focused on the drama down below, except for one man.
And, naturally, he would have to be the one who spotted Mircea.
“El me scuxa, dòmino. Your pardon,” Mircea said, and tried groveling again.
But this time, it didn’t work.
“You’re very dirty for a servant,” the man said, taking a closer look at him. “And, yet, also too finely dressed.”
His fingers rubbed the nap of Mircea’s black outfit thoughtfully. It was a little worse for the wear even after the servants had dried it out and given it a good brushing. And it had some mud and grass stains here and there, from this night’s activities. But even with everything, the man was right—it wasn’t a servant’s attire.
“My lady, she likes to dress us well—”
“Your lady?”
“Lucilla, the wife of—”
“I know who she is.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have the look of one of Lucilla’s men.”
“I’m new, dòmino—”
“And if you belong to Lucilla, why were you delivering drinks just now, like one of the house slaves?”
“She asked me to, dòmino. She wanted a drink for her husband—”
“Indeed?” The man stared into the distance for a moment, dark blue eyes narrowed. And then back at Mircea. “That is strange. She doesn’t seem to remember it.”
Damn it, trust them to have the more intelligent guards inside, Mircea thought furiously.
He tried to look both stupid and innocent, as well as cowed and servile and unthreatening. But judging from the man’s expression, he didn’t think it was working. But then the officer’s head jerked up, as a drawling voice rang out across the crowd.
“Don’t tell me I’m late.”
Mircea’s head turned along with everyone else’s, thousands of eyes searching and then focusing on a spot on the opposite wall.
Where Antony stood atop a broken cornice.
He was in ancient golden armor now instead of a toga, and holding a sword instead of a wineglass. But he somehow looked the same. Especially when he leapt over the side, falling three stories to land in a perfect crouch at the feet of his queen.
And then looked up, grinning. “I challenge!”
The official, who had been halfway through an explanation of the rules, looked annoyed. Although not nearly as much as the senator, whose lips tightened into a single grim line. But her inner voice was not affected, and it was scathing.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“What did I just say?” Antony asked, getting to his feet.
“This is not your fight!”
“And yet I believe I’ve just made it mine.”
Mircea, who was willing to try anything at this point, tried a tentative mental message of his own. On the theory that if he could hear, perhaps he could also be heard. The senator had certainly seemed to be picking up on a few of his thoughts that day on the terrace.
But maybe that was simply the effects of fifteen centuries of observing people. Or maybe there was some trick to it. But if so, thinking really hard in her general direction did not seem to be it.
Because his message either wasn’t received, or was completely ignored.
“Don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “You cannot defeat him!”
“And you can?” Antony demanded.
“I have a better chance than you. You have no offensive skills, not against an opponent of his level.”
“And yet I am supposed to be almost impossible to kill.”
“It’s the almost that concerns me!”
Mircea tried to focus his power on his message, since that had always expanded his sight and hearing considerably. But it didn’t appear have the same effect here. Either that, or he didn’t have enough power left to help. Because neither party so much as twitched, even when he gave the mental equivalent of a scream.
“And are you concerned, my dearest?” Antony asked.
“If you dare to make a joke of this” —her mental voice shook with anger—“I swear to you—”
“I assure you, I am not joking. And offensive skills do you little good if you don’t stay alive long enough to use them.”
“As you will not!”
“We shall see.”
“I hereby issue formal challenge,” Antony repeated aloud. “Will the lord honor me or no?”
The official’s bald head gleamed in the moonlight as he looked back and forth between the three of them. He didn’t appear to be getting any help. “I—that is—this is unprecedented—”
“Nonetheless, I challenge.” Antony looked straight at the consul when he spoke this time. And while his voice was unexceptional, the sneer on his face contained all the haughtiness of an empire.
And also something else.
Something that made Mircea pause, because he’d seen it before. He’d seen it on the faces of his men, the night before the Battle of Varna, the last chance to save once great Constantinople from the Turks. The Hungarian king had decided to stop them; his troops had known he never would.
And yet they’d fought anyway.
Not for victory, or for glory. Certainly not for a king they didn’t know or respect. But for their homes and families. Their crops and fields. Their religion, for those who believed in it. For all they thought might perish if the Turks took the last bastion of Roman might, and swept into Europe.
They had gone expecting to die, but hoping that they might thereby purchase something that mattered more to them. Mircea had sat with them around their campfires the night before the battle, had shared their wine and bread, had listened to the stories they wanted to tell. And he’d seen their faces.
Antony had the same look, that of a soldier going into a battle he knew he couldn’t win. But like Mircea’s men, he would sell his life dear. Perhaps he could save the woman he loved, because yes, he loved her. Looking at them now, there was no doubt of that. Perhaps he could help her to kill the creature they both detested. Perhaps he could keep his world from descending into war or something that might be worse, the rule of a savage heart with no curbs on its power.
No, he couldn’t win.
But he would fight anyway.
Mircea saw it on his face, and so did the monster masquerading as a toothless old man. Who suddenly smiled. “You were born together,” he whispered, in strangely accented Italian. “It is only fitting you should die the same way.”
“I—but,” the official blinked. “You will face them both, my lord?”
“Si.” It had the sibilance of the snake, but Mircea barely heard, because the crowd erupted.
And he’d been wrong—it hadn’t been loud before. The groundswell of noise following the announcement would have been deafening to a human’s ears; to a vampire’s, it was almost debilitating. And that was before they began stamping their collective feet.
The motion was hard enough to shake the building—and the hastily erected stairs. They started swaying underneath him, almost throwing Mircea off his feet. But it was the dais that partially collapsed, slumping onto the stairs and pitching him and his captor abruptly back into the crowd.
The fall wrenched the guard’s grip loose and half buried him under a pile of wood and a throng of screaming people.
And Mircea scrambled away into a sea of legs, looking around wildly.
The wall was right in front of him. He could be back over it in an instant. And as tense things were about to get, there was a good chance he could get away while the guards were distracted. Or
he could disappear into the crowd, and then walk out when this was all over in the train of someone’s entourage. He could even hide somewhere in the palazzo, and wait until the next night, when convocation was over and nobody cared anymore. . . .
He could do a good many things, but he didn’t want to. To get away, yes, but not to leave, although he didn’t know what good he could do if he stayed. He couldn’t reach the senator, couldn’t communicate with her, couldn’t defeat the opponent she didn’t even know she had. He couldn’t do anything but land back in the cell where this whole thing had started.
The only smart thing to do was to escape.
But perhaps Bezio was right, and he wasn’t all that smart. Or perhaps it was as Auria had said: The Change didn’t really change you, not in the ways that mattered. Because he found that he couldn’t simply walk away.
It was ironic. Two weeks ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice about selling his life for a cause he believed in. Would have welcomed it as the best possible end to his current situation. But now . . . now he wanted to live.
But not at the price of everything that he had ever been.
Or still was.
Mircea stood there, vibrating in thought, for a moment. And then darted back through the crowd, to where the beleaguered guard was still half buried in shoddy construction. And grabbed his sword.
And then he headed for the nearest staircase going down.
Chapter Forty-Two
The ground level of the house appeared largely deserted, with wide, deep hallways devoid of guests, guards or anyone except for a few servants darting here and there with trays. None of whom seemed be paying any attention to Mircea. And that was despite the fact that he was lurking in the stairwell and holding a naked sword.
Vampires, he thought, and paused a moment to admire his new acquisition.