The Mosaic

Chapter 58 | The Moon is Down

"The moon is down; I have not heard the clock."  Banquo's son to him moments before Macbeth kills the sleeping king.

The sky was ashen like a corpse's bloodless skin, littered with clouds the colour of old bruises. In a few places, sunlight cut through the heavens, stabbing down at the earth like broad, gleaming daggers.

Something was wrong.

"Where's Marius?" Laelia asked for the fourth time, craning her neck to peer around the scattered tents and booths of the bustling marketplace. The air was brimming with the vendors' shouts and the gleeful giggles of little children darting around, heavy and sharp with fresh spices.

Yet tension curled thick around them like a nest of writhing vipers. They were waiting near the edges of the market, the fountain De Vito had ordered as their meeting place empty, save for two young women chittering on the edge.

"I'm sure he will arrive with De Vito," Laelia nodded to herself. She chewed her lip, fingers counting down the pouches on her girdle, tapping the ornamental dagger – a gift from Giacinto – at her side to finish off, then starting anew. Her earlier excitement had slowly drained into the silence between them, leaving only anxiousness stretched thin over her features.

When they had left the villa, she had turned to Giacinto, clapping her hands – "We can go home!", she had laughed. Alessandro repeated it like a rosary prayer, over and over and over.

Lorenzo had been tense already before they had met him here, almost instantly pulling Alessandro behind a corner when no one had looked. He had pushed Alessandro up against a wall, mouth hard against his, fast, hungry, frustrated. Alessandro hadn't needed to ask. His father.

Even his hands had been angry, holding Alessandro still with an iron grip. He had apologized later, head hung low, gentle fingers brushing Alessandro's hand.

Still, Lorenzo had tried to lighten the mood with jokes and easy smiles, though Alessandro could see the strain behind them. They were waiting for his brother to be branded as a traitor, a murderer. If they brought that proof home, Antonio would be executed.

Amand had arrived a summer night's storm, billowing robes and flashing eyes. He had lost all grip on himself, anger and hurt and confusion whipping the air around him like wild winds before a disaster.

He had no reason to be here, he had no involvement with the order or Venice. He still was there, twirling his terrible moustache so persistently Alessandro wanted to rip the damn thing off and throw it off the next bridge.

Alessandro hadn't asked. The bishop was easy to read. They all were. Except the lone shadow perching on a windowsill, uncharacteristically still.

Giacinto was clearly nervous, time grating his mask down to almost nothing – just enough for Alessandro to see the emotions twisting beneath, but never clear enough to read them.

Giacinto, in the most crucial moment of their entre journey, wasn't worried. Instead, he was feeding a dirty grey tabby scraps of dried meat (that apparently he had been carrying in a pouch precisely for such encounters). Alessandro was almost dying of the oppressive nervousness and Giacinto scratched a cat behind its ear.

The man was a terrible itch Alessandro just couldn't scratch away. It drove him up the wall.

Dark doubt took Alessandro again. After several assassination attempts, the Greek should be wary – did Giacinto know they would not harm him?

Giacinto had kept glancing around, lines Alessandro couldn't trace, until he saw them converge on the giant cupola of the cathedral looming above all. The cathedral, why?