Sherlock Holmes and the Red Maverick

Chapter 14- The Approaching Fight

Watson's point of view

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We arrived back in Italy by the time the morning had rolled back around. It wasnt until we were walking through the market next to Vatican City that Sherlock finally broke the deafening silence between the two of us. It struck me as odd how we similarly dealt with our grief. I had always believed silence to be the key to over coming the feelings that were left behind after a person had gone. 

"Dont we know her?" He asked placidly.

I looked to him with squinting eyes, wondering if that had been to himself. It certainly applied. He glanced at me and then pointed through the crown. My eyes followed to the end of his finger and I found a stall with a girl behind it. She was selling oranges with a joyous demeanor. An extremely familiar one. I strode forward to get a closer look at her and finally I recognized her. It was Selene, the girl who had been so kind to me at the Vatican. It only struck me now how much she looked like Cameo. A new wave of grief followed that revelation and I would be lying if I didnt add that it had taken me by surprise. 

"Selene," I smiled at her as I drew in front of her booth, Sherlock right next to me. Peering over his spectacles at her in his usual manner.

She looked up from the fruit basket she had been tending to and a smile spread across her face. 

"Boys!" She grinned at us "My,my. Where did you two get off to? We've missed your help."

"Business opportunity's in the north," Sherlock answered. Not attempting to imitate the character he had played while working at the Vatican.

I tried to read her face for some sort of shock or any reaction. Thought I found myself in shock that her face had remained in its same positions. I faltered a little bit in my opinion toward her.

"Oh?" She smiled "And where is your friend? Cameo, was her name was it not?" 

"We're not sure," Sherlock said, his lips pursing slightly

"Oh?" She looked up and squinted into the distance.

"So what brings you here to sell oranges in the piazzo del mercato?" Sherlock spoke up.

"Ah well see," she smiled as she continued to re-arrange the oranges in their baskets. "My father owns a fair amount of orange trees and when they produce fruit he sells them. The trees came on the land he bought and he doesnt have much taste for them. So I sell them for him from time to time."

"Is that so?" Sherlock smiled as he plucked an orange from a basket.

She smiled kindly at him and sighed. "I'm afraid Im not much in the mood to stay in the sun today. Would you mind helping me carry the oranges inside? We'll have lunch after, my husband has been cooking more than the two of us can eat. It would be greatly appreciated if you would come and help our food from spoiling."

"That would be delightful." I smiled at her and picked up two orange baskets in my arms.

It wasnt until she had turned around to collect the baskets behind her that I got a chance to look to Holmes. He seemed resigned and had picked up his own two baskets and began staring at the cobble stone road deep in thought once again. 

We followed her along the street with our arms filled with baskets for a block after she had pulled the curtains on the little stall closed. Finally she turned into an open door and let us up a set of steep narrow stairs and across a landing until she reached an old door. She set down her baskets and looked up at us with smiling blue eyes and pink lips stretched over white teeth. She picked a set of keys from her belt and jingled one into the lock and turned. The door swung open and she went to hold it open for the two of us. 

It wasnt until we had entered that we realized what a mistake we had made. I dropped the baskets I had been carrying and Holmes did the same. He shared a pained look with me and together we looked back to the circle of big, burly, dark haired, Italian men circling us with various weapons in their hands. Holmes clenched his fists and put them up next to his face and examined them over the tops of his fists. I pulled my pistol and my sword challenging them as they circled the tow of us. 

Even for the two of us, with our extensive experience in fighting, this would be an immense challenge. There were simply too many of them, and they moved with a certain swiftness that only trained fighters had. I physically gulped and readied myself for the coming fight.