Dripping water, but no blood now that the shape-change had closed his wounds, the shaman lay sprawled on the floor of the grand duke's private chamber. Gasping for breath and feeling as if he could not move at all. Next to him, the golden-haired sailor gasped also. His eyes fluttered for a moment, blue gleaming through the lids, as the man began to return to consciousness.
The shaman sensed the huge form of his master looming over them. When he looked up, half-dazed, he was paralyzed still further by the sight. The grand duke's forehead gaped open; his face was coated with blood. The shaman could see his master's brains through the terrible wound.
The shaman had long since understood that his master was not really human any longer. Had he any doubts, that wound would have resolved them. No human being could have possibly survived such an injury, much less have been able to move and talk.
'I must have food,' hissed the grand duke, in a voice almost hoarse from screaming. 'Now.'
Glancing toward the great stove against the wall of his master's private room, the shaman could see that the fire was already burning in its belly. Drops of blood spilled from his master's head wound were sizzling on the side of the huge fry pan. The cleavers and flensing knives were ready on the butcher's table nearby.
The grand duke seized the half-drowned sailor by his golden hair and lifted him up, as easily as he might an infant. But then, seeing the man's face for the first time, he paused.
'Him,' he muttered. Despite his fear and exhaustion, the shaman was fascinated to see the way the grand duke's forehead wound was beginning to close up. Much more slowly than one of his own wounds would heal during a shape-change, of course. And the shaman could only imagine the agony the grand duke was suffering. No wonder that the master craved his . . . special food. It would speed the healing immensely, and alleviate the pain.
The shaman was so fascinated by the sight that he didn't pay attention to his master's odd hesitation. It wasn't until the grand duke lowered the golden-haired head back to the floor that the shaman tore his gaze from the wound and looked at the eyes below.
He wished he hadn't. Even before he heard his master's next words.
'I may have use for this one. I can get another shaman.'
The grand duke's giant hand seized the shaman by his long hair and dragged him toward the butcher table. The shaman fought in a frenzy along the way, but he might as well have been a toddler for all the good it did. Once on the table, a blow from the grand duke's fist ended his struggles.
Which was perhaps just as well. The shaman was too stunned to really feel the blade which began flaying him. His screams didn't start again until much of the skin was already gone. But, by then, the master was ready to prepare the blood sauce. A quick slice of the knife ended the screams.
* * *
When Caesare Aldanto finally returned to full consciousness, he discovered himself sitting at a table. A man he didn't recognize was working at a stove nearby. Huge man, he was--inches taller than Aldanto himself, and perhaps twice as broad. Adding in the walrus fat so obvious under the heavy robes, he probably weighed three times what Aldanto did.
When the man turned around and approached, Aldanto hissed. Partly because of the wound on the forehead, the likes of which he had never seen except on the body of a corpse. Mostly, because of the black and inhuman eyes under the heavy brow.
The man--the monster?--shoveled something out of the fry pan directly onto the table. 'Eat now,' he commanded. 'There is no time for platters.'
Caesare stared at him, then down at the food before him. When he recognized what it was--the tattoos alone made it obvious--he hissed again and began to draw back. A savage blow to the head half-dazed him. Then, a hand with the strength of an ogre seized him by the hair and shoved his face into the food.
'Eat it like a dog, slave. I have no use for fancy table manners. Neither do you, from this time forth.'
THE PIAVE RIVER ---------------
'I think it would be best if I were escorted into Venice by your troops instead of my own, Enrico.' The Emperor scanned the countryside along the Piave, the muscles working in his heavy jaws. 'Bad enough I've brought them this far. But so long as Venice itself doesn't get its back up, I'm not too concerned about the reaction of the rest of Italy. Not at the moment, at least, when the bastards are cowed.'
The Duke of Ferrara nodded. 'I agree, Your Majesty.' He hesitated a moment; then: 'But I urge you not to be too cautious, either. The Scaligers of Verona have managed to infuriate just about everyone by now. Venice, Ferrara, and Rome by their actions; Milan and the rest by their failure.'
Charles Fredrik's lips parted in what a shark might call a smile. 'You think the time is ripe to take them down a peg or two?'
