"An assassin from Cremona," the boy explained.
Giacinto raised an eyebrow. "Fitting name."
"Anyways, Marco will pretend to alarm the duke. While this forces the Reaper to come after him immediately rather than waiting like he did between the other murders. He doesn't want to arise suspicion — too many accidents shortly after another will put him in the spotlight. But," the spy snapped his fingers, "Marco will kill himself and you'll have your last clue."
"Would it kill you guys to like, I don't know," Giacinto rolled his eyes, "actually get your point across without the death and riddles? That'd be great. Then again," he mused, "it really did kill you."
"Marinos!" Alessandro hissed.
Giacinto crossed his arms, "No offense?"
The boy sighed. "None taken. Guido, by the way."
Alessandro opened his mouth and closed it right away. He knew their names already. "How do you know our names?"
"We're spies?" Guido tilted his head, as if trying to figure out why Alessandro would ask such a question. "What kind of spies would we be if we couldn't find out two names?"
"Dead ones?" Giacinto piped up. He tried to hide the grin tugging at his lip.
Alessandro glared at him.
Giacinto raised his hands defensively. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Won't do it again."
Guido ignored their exchange. "Alvino told you already—"
"Told is a bit exaggerated. He took a stone out of a ceiling," Giacinto snorted.
"Genoa is preparing for war. Not officially – they lost just a year ago, after all. But some nobles are hell bent on revenge. They try to gain support from outside Genoa. Francesco Novello is a little too interested, we've intercepted a few letters. With Iacobo hinting at the Turks, I assume they have contacted them, too."
Giacinto thought about that. "Francesco Novello... Padua then? He's the only certain supporter?"
"Yes, so far," Guido inclined his head, nodding at the table, "Do you mind?"
Alessandro raised an eyebrow.
"If I take a seat—" Guido's eyes rolled back, knees giving out underneath him.
Alessandro caught him before he hit the ground. The boy's eyes were wide and feverish, glazed over with a hazy confusion. "You need to rest," He turned to Giacinto, "He needs a doctor. Now. We can question him later—"
"No. No, I'll — I'll be fine. Just, help me in that chair, would you?" Guido smiled.
The reassuring smile would've fooled the investigator, hadn't it wavered at the last moment, tensing up in suppressed pain. The boy had a grip like a vice on Alessandro's arm. The man wordlessly lowered him onto a chair.
Guido swayed slightly, before he managed to push himself upright. "See?" He turned to the two men. Then he closed his eyes, face turning serious when he opened them again. His eyes burned into Alessandro's. "I'm dying and there is nothing," he straightened his back, "you can do to stop it."
Alessandro opened his mouth.
"No," Guido cut him off. "You can't save me. You can't save everyone. So don't waste time trying."
The blond shifted, the angry shout he had swallowed down bubbling in his chest, pushing against his heart. He clenched his fists. Then he lowered his head.
"Good," Guido smiled. "I have good news too, Urbino and Verona won't join their cause — they are Ghibelline, Genoa is Guelph."
Giacinto snorted. "Is that a bad excuse or are politics these days that petty? Who cares about whether they favor the pope or the emperor when it's a war against Venice?" The man throw his knife in the air, watching it spin, and caught it easily. "And, honestly, the emperor is a douche and the pope is too busy with picking sides in some French succession crisis to even look at Italy."
"Giacinto!" Alessandro hissed, shaking his head, "You can't call the emperor a douche."
"As you can see I can." He crossed his arms. "But, maybe, I shouldn't."
Alessandro sighed. "Finally—"
"For accuracy's sake, I should call him an incompetent douche."
"Really," Alessandro dragged a hand over his face. "Half of Italy is planning a war against the city you live in and this is what you come up with?"
Giacinto grinned like the cat that caught the canary – sharp teeth showing and eyes glinting mischievously. He seemed very pleased with himself.
"They're doing a little more than just – "
"The emperor? The Germans call him 'the lazy', and you can't argue with German logic. I don't make the rules," he smiled innocently, "And the pope? That's right, he's also trying not to get stabbed by his own cardinals." The Greek deadpanned. "Anyways, there's no reason for the cities to care who's Guelph and who's Ghibelline, because this war is only about Venice."
"You're forgetting it's not the cities negotiating, but families. It's nothing official, just a nobility trying to gain support. They wrote the Montefeltro family and got a reply stating they would not waste ink, paper – or soldiers for that matter – on 'those bastard Guelphs'. Antonio della Scala of Verona was a little more polite, but essentially said no as well." The boy spoke up, a soft chuckle in his voice, blue eyes watching their banter with an amused twinkle.
Giacinto scrunched up his nose – a habit when he was irritated, Alessandro had noticed. "Why do you sound like you have more bad news?"
"The Visconti are very interested in a very defeated Venice."
"Milano as well? Padua, Genoa, Milano and the Ottoman Empire against Venice – that's what I call a fair fight," the Greek examined his knife.
"Well, we can count on both Urbino and Verona not siding with Genoa, but – "
" – but that doesn't mean they will aid Venice." Giacinto huffed, blew a strand of unruly black hair out of his face. He started spinning his knife. The slowly turning blade caught the flickering candle light – the orange glow in the iron made it appear like a doorway to hell.
The metal winked teasingly at Alessandro with every spin. Spin – wink – spin – wink – spin ...
"What about Florence?" The commissar spoke up, eyes still following the twirling blade.
"You'd trust a Medici to have your back?" Giacinto snorted.
"Florence is too caught up in internal struggles. But, on the upside, that means they won't side with Genoa either," Guido offered.
Giacinto huffed, "How reassuring." The Greek kept twirling his blade.
Alessandro felt the urge to rip it from him. Spin – wink – spin – wink ... Like a clock counting the seconds until it all blew up, until war swept Venice away.
"Pisa," the boy said, "whatever is against Genoa, you can count them in."
Alessandro noticed how he grew paler by the minute. Life literally faded from him before their eyes and he still just sat there, naming cities and counting allies.
Giacinto abruptly drove his knife into the table. The blade shivered with the force. "Are you suggesting Venice should fight a war against Padua, Milano, Genoa and the Ottoman Empire with the aid of Pisa."
Alessandro's eyes narrowed. Giacinto held himself very relaxed, very calm, very untouched by everything around him. The promise of an already lost future war seemed to be deflected by his green glare. Alessandro knew better – whenever the Greek was nervous, he hooked his thumb through his belt, fingers tapping a jumpy rhythm on the buckle. The investigator saw the half hidden 'self-hugging', played off as confident impatience.
"We only won the last war allied to both the Turks and the Spanish. The King of Spain doesn't care about this part of the mediterranean right now and the Turks are on the other side." Giacinto practically ripped his knife out of the table again. Spin – wink – spin – wink – spin – wink ...
"Can you stop that?" Alessandro snapped from his place on a wooden chair – the rickety thing looked like it would break any second under the weight of the giant police officer, creaking and squeaking with every movement.
"Stop what?"
"That!" Thrusting his hand towards the knife, Alessandro sent the servant a glare. The boy grinned quietly at their exchange. For a dying man, he was quite unconcerned.
"Why would I?" Giacinto asked.
"It's unsettling."
"Cry me a river, giant." Aggressive twirl.
"Provoke me a little more and I'll find something to arrest you for."
"Psh, you're too overcorrect for that." Giacinto leant back against the table, pushing his chin out defiantly. Another twirl, quicker this time.
"As much as I find you two entertaining, I don't have much time, " The servant coughed, raising his left hand – it was completely limp, the fingertips as white as bone.
"That ... what poison is that?" The black haired man leant forwards, eyes narrowed at the limp hand.
"Pufferfish. Genius move."
"Pufferfish?"
"From the Red Sea. Slowly paralyzes you – sadly you'll stay conscious long enough to feel how your heart and lungs become paralyzed as well. Takes some time." Guido chewed his lip.
Giacinto looked too interested.
Alessandro battled the horror that tried to twist his always unaffected face. He grit his teeth. Don't show your feelings. Something strange tugged at his heart. Like pity, but softer. Still, he spoke up, forcing the words out. "Why do you believe him?"
Giacinto mustered Alessandro as if madness was waving at the him through the officer's eyes. "He's dying. What would he gain by lying – "
"Nothing. But he gains just as little by telling the truth. I've never heard of an order of seven in Venice."
"It's a secret order, giant, I don't think people are supposed to hear from them."
"He talked only about the six operating men, but what about the head? According to him the seventh is the only one who knows about everything. If we can find him—"
"We? I said," Giacinto turned away, shoulders tensing, "I'm out."
"Then I will—"
"Don't bother," Guido smiled apologetically, "He died in an 'accident' involving a 'violent drunkard' on the streets at night and unfortunately there were no witnesses," The spy sighed. "He was the first to die so we had no means of gathering all information without all of us meeting. Which was efficiently prevented."
A shadow passed over Alessandro's face at the mention of a drunkard – the boy didn't notice, but he felt sharp green eyes watching him for a few moments. The Greek's gaze was strange – he could feel it from across the room, lingering with piercing intensity. A mix between distrust and curiosity. Like a fed cat watching a mouse scurry by and contemplating whether to jump and catch it. Alessandro crossed his arms, broad shoulders and strong muscles half threatening, half defensive. Giacinto must have decided to let it go – without looking Alessandro knew when the man slowly looked away again.
Guido coughed, dry and rough, chest heaving as he desperately sucked in air, gasping and wheezing.
Alessandro shifted in his chair. He needed to get out of here. Do something. Grab something. Arrest someone. Not chase a ghost of a rumor through a maze of lies.
Guido finally stopped coughing, voice raspy when he spoke. "You're right, of course, I could be lying."
"You aren't, I can tell." Giacinto said, stilling the spinning knife to muster the thin tip.
"Expert at lies, are we?" Alessandro should really get away from that man. He would never talk like this —
"Anyways – ," the servant interrupted before they could once again start bickering, "I do have the letters from Genoa to both Antonio della Scala and Montefeltro. You'll see I have told the truth – the letters were supposed to be burnt, but say ... we've had our ways of getting them before that. They really should pay their servants more." The man had started crossing the room while he spoke, his movements strangely swaying, every step uncertain – every heartbeat brought him closer to deaths waiting scythe.
The drawer he opened was plain, no one would expect letters containing the future of Venice tucked away between a woolen cap and a few books.
Guido was able to tell them the few things he knew – the Reaper was as elusive as the shadows he hid himself in: born in Cremona, the son of a luthier, Italy's best assassin. It had earned him the name 'il mietitore', the Reaper: no one ever escaped him.
He had had an encounter with the order years ago, when Alvino tried – and failed – to save one of his victims. The assassin had, contrary to the order's expectations, not come after their member. Everything that wasn't his job he didn't care about – he walked through life following a red thread of victims, what happened outside of it touched him as much as little fish scooting around a giant white shark.
Alvino back then had described him as a little younger than himself, he would now be in his forties, exceptionally tall, thin and boney, with sharply cut features, small eyes. A scar ran over the back of his forearm. Nothing else. Alessandro burnt the picture into his mind, fingers twitching for a pencil. He would find this man.
Venice was facing a war it would never win. Its protectors were murdered one by one and their knowledge died with them: the two remaining members of the order were a dying man too young to feel his body go immobile while he was trapped inside being conscious, the other was desperately trying to leave a clue to whatever catastrophe he had discovered, knowing he had to die in doing so.
Alessandro was very quiet, intrigues and secrets disturbed his straightforward mind. He ran a hand through his hair. The spiderweb of plans, alliances, doom and murder entangled him in disgusted confusion. Politics.
Giacinto still twirled his knife, the blade going slower when he had managed to grab a thought, turning quicker when it fled again.
Guido was smiling – his death seemed to trouble the two men more than him, the barely sixteen year old boy who had been taken from his mother's arms to be shoved into the embrace of death. No child should –
"They're watching us, aren't they?" Giacinto spoke up when his knife had abruptly stopped turning.
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Big Brother is watching you ... or in this time some creepy dudes with a body count.
Now, 'il mietitore' sure is something ... poor Guido, protect the baby ...
A new player on the field: the order of the seven ... well, now they're almost all dead. Oops. Their loyalty is truly astounding ...
And Giacinto and Alessandro can't stop bickering – Giacinto has a thing for knives ... not sure whether I would trust him with that ... and already has a nickname for Alessandro aka 'giant'.
But, most of all ... seems Alessandro is hiding something, too ... why did he react like this at the mention of a drunkard?
Thank you for reading! Tell me your theories and get the dedication for the next chapter!
Avis