He didn't know how to respond. He was too confused. Damn, but you're gorgeous seemed . . . crazy. But he couldn't think of anything else to say. Not a damn thing that didn't seem . . . crazier.
Chapter 62 ==========
When Antimo brought the news of Dorma's raid on the Dandelos to the Duke of Ferrara, Dell'este rose from his chair and went to the window. There he remained, for some time, staring toward Venice.
"How much money have we received so far from the Emperor, through Baron Trolliger's private agents?"
"We'll have enough to hire the condottieri we need."
"Secretly?"
"Yes, milord. Since you'll be commanding the army yourself, I've not had to negotiate with any well-known great captains. Just a large number of small companies. Neither Visconti nor Sforza will be able to keep track of the numbers involved. Ferrara will field twice the force the Milanese are expecting. I'm quite sure of it."
"Careless on their part," mused Dell'este. "But I'm not surprised. Filippo Visconti has always been too arrogant, and Sforza has grown complacent with success." He was silent for a moment. Then gave the windowsill a little tap. "So. Everything else is in place. We have the army we need, and it seems as if Venice has finally found a leader worthy of the name. There remains, only--Valdosta."
When he turned back, the face of the Old Fox seemed to have no expression at all. But Antimo knew his master far too well to be fooled.
"The sword, then?"
The duke nodded. "Yes. Send it. The time has come. At last."
The Old Fox's right hand curled into a loose fist, as if an expert swordsman held a blade in his hand. Still, there was no expression in his face. But, again, Antimo was not fooled. And so, as he had done so many other times and in so many other ways, he gave help again to his master.
"They murdered your daughter, hounded your grandchildren. Did their best to soil the name of Dell'este. Plotted and schemed to destroy Ferrara and Venice both."
The duke's lips peeled back into a snarl. Had he been there to see the sight, Carlo Sforza--the famous "Wolf of the North"--would have finally recognized what he was about to face.
But Sforza was not there; nor were his master Visconti's spies. And the moment was brief, in any event. Soon enough, the Old Fox was back.
"So they did," he murmured, smiling thinly. "And in so doing, did nothing more--in the end--than sharpen my blades." His eyes moved to the rack of swords. "There are no finer blades in the world, Antimo, than those of Dell'este."
PART V May, 1538 A.D. ===============================
Chapter 63 ==========
The summons to Dorma had come often that spring. Petro seemed to enjoy talking to him, and they would be sending him to the Accademia in the summer.
This Friday morning it was different.
* * *
Petro Dorma was sitting--as usual--in his inner sanctum. The balding man's face, usually serious, was downright solemn. Across his desk lay an open box containing a naked sword on a sheet of scarlet silk it had plainly been wrapped in. It was an old hand-and-a-half-blade, made in a style a century out of date now. The blue-silver folded Damascus steel was as rippling mirror bright as if it had left the maker yesterday. Only the golden hilt showed the signs of years of careful devoted polishing. Wordlessly, Petro Dorma held out the letter.
It didn't take Marco long to read it.
I send into the keeping of House Dorma one of the honor-blades of Dell'este, in token of the bond now between us. Young Marco will know how it is to be cared for.
"Your grandfather says you know how to care for this sword."
Marco nodded, not able to speak. There was a hidden message there from Duke Dell'este, a message Milord Petro could not possibly read. But Marco knew--and the implications turned his life upside down in the single span of time it had taken Petro to free the blade from its silk wrapping.
Petro Dorma was no fool, of course. If he could not read the message, still, he knew that one was there--and that it must be portentous for his house. So he took Marco's nod at face value, and set the sword back down in its silken nest.
Dell'este steel--Dell'este honor. There is no going back now. Not for Grandfather. Not for the Old Fox.
"Tell me what you need," Dorma said simply. "I gather this isn't the sort of thing you just leave in the armory or hang on the wall."
"A--p-place," Marco stammered. "I need a place for it, somewhere where it's safe, but where it can be seen by--by--" He flushed. "By the House-head. You, milord. You're--supposed to be reminded by it, milord."
Petro nodded thoughtfully. "Will that do?" he asked, pointing behind and to Marco's right.
There was an alcove between two windows, an alcove currently holding an unimpressive sculpture of the Madonna. The alcove was approximately a foot wider than the blade was long.
"Yes, milord," Marco said immediately. "Yes. Milord--that's perfect."
* * *
A few days later, the thing was done. And he was summoned into Dorma's presence again.
Marco held his breath, and with all the concentration he could command, placed the century-old hand-and-a-half sword reverently in the cradle of the special rack he'd asked Milord Petro to have made.
Marco stepped back two paces to scan his handiwork with an apprehensive and critical eye.
He'd inspected and cleaned the blade of the sword that morning, that being a small ritual in and of itself. Somewhere in his earlier conversations he'd told Petro that in Venice's damp climate, he'd have to inspect the blade once or twice a week, and that he preferred not to have to move it too far from its resting place.
He'd been a little apprehensive about that, since this was clearly the Head of Dorma's private--and very special--sanctuary. But Petro had nodded his acceptance of that, gravely, and then he'd taken the undyed tassel off the hilt, keeping it, not giving it to a servant to be dealt with.
This morning he'd returned the tassel to Marco, now the deep and unmistakable midnight-blue of Dorma's house colors. That was all Marco had needed. The ancient sword was now ready to take its place in the heart of Dorma.
He knelt again, and reached out to adjust the blade so that the silk tassels hung side-by-side from the hilt, neither obscuring the other. The Valdosta-scarlet and Dorma-blue tassels hung gracefully, shining as only heavy silk could.
Dorma colors. Dell'este colors. Ferrara's steel.
* * *
Marco wore all of them, now. A main gauche and rapier of more modern design on his belt, sent by the duke. And--on his right hand, a signet ring. A new-cut signet, with an old design. The lion's head seal of Casa Valdosta.
He would be hidden no longer. After all these years, the secret life in the marshes and the canals, Valdosta had returned to take his rightful place in Venice.
* * *
"It is your grandfather's opinion--which I share--that you would now be far safer in the public eye, where harming you would be noticed and acted upon. You must come to live here in the Casa Dorma." Petro Dorma's gaze weighed and measured Marco before he added--