Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (books to read romance .txt) 📗

the window into the burgeoning night, eighteen is rather young in these modern times, and actually Joe is right. He tried to make himself think solemnly about the problem.

      Sometimes he thought that he would never live long enough to bring his own life under a proper measure of control.

Chapter Ten

      Coming downstairs from the attic of the Palazzo Boccalini, Helen walked in front of me. Her hands were behind her back, her wrists looped with the thin chain, whose free end rested lightly in my grip. Her torn shift perforce gaped shamelessly. She looked as if she might be on her way to execution.

      On the second flight of stairs we met the fat cousin, Allessandro, on his way up, candle in hand. He stopped at once, eyeing us inquisitively; evidently he had been impelled upstairs by curiosity as to just what games I might be playing with my gift.

      “I have thought of a sport that needs some room,” I told him, answering his quizzical look. “In the courtyard,” he suggested. “Not room enough.” It was not the Medici palace. “We will need the street.”

      Allessandro looked doubtful at that, but said nothing as he followed me down again. When we reached the ground floor I hailed the first male servant who came in view and gave bold orders for the front door to be opened. The masters of the house were already beginning to gather round, and looked at one another doubtfully. Watching them, the servant hesitated. But Helen was right on cue, displaying alarm at the prospect of being taken outside—the tall foreigner must at least have hinted to her, upstairs, what this new sport was to be like—and my adoptive cousins immediately warmed to the idea.

      “Come on!” I roared. “Bugger the watch and the curfew. You don’t mean to let them cheat you of some fun?”

      Once I had put it in those terms, there was only one reply red-blooded youth could give. So far, at least, everything had been almost too easy. The night outside in the street was dark as tar, except for one feeble torch in a servant’s unenthusiastic hand. “More lights!” I demanded, wishing for a distraction, and for some delay to let whatever Medici agents might be watching get themselves ready for action.

      A manservant went back into the house for lights, reducing the odds minimally. I did not wait for his return; as soon as I had Helen facing the dark, street in the direction I wanted, where there should be running room at least, if no active help, I gave two quick tugs on her chain, in a moment she had slipped her hands free of its loops and was off at top speed, running in desperate silence.

      Watching the startled faces of the men around me, I tarried for a quick count of three and still got off in pursuit ahead of any of the others. My intent was to appear to be chasing Helen, at least until it became necessary to do more.

      Helen ran with better speed than I had counted on, her white figure staying a little ahead of me in the darkness, maintaining a lead my long legs did not overcome. My drawn sword in my hand slowed me a little. I had taken off belt and all on entering the house, as a twentieth-century visitor might have doffed his hat, but then had routinely buckled the weapon on again as I came out.

      Before I had run ten strides, shouts shattered the night behind me. A great alarm was going up, drunken voices, in which merriment was still the dominant tone, bawling for more torches. But not everyone, unfortunately, insisted on waiting for more light. Two pairs of feet were pounding after us, and one of these pursuers was already getting uncomfortably close. Meanwhile, ahead of me, Helen’s first burst of speed was faltering. Fear indeed lends wings, but chaining and hunger are not the best of training regimens.

      No use trying to delay what must now be done. I stopped and turned abruptly and cut at the nearest sportsman, aiming low for the legs. My blade bit bone, and with a loud cry he went sprawling. My second pursuer was drawn and ready for me when he came running up. He was evidently an armed professional retainer of some kind, and managed to delay me in masterly style, our swords conversing almost invisibly in the near darkness, whilst he bawled for help. But his allies behind him still dawdled, clamoring for their precious torches.

      At last I got home with a thrust to the midsection, and was able to turn and run away again. Behind me the cries of my latest victim went up alarmingly, mingled with a new uproar from dogs safe behind stone walls. There was no hope now of avoiding a pursuit in deadly earnest. But of course I very soon had to slow my flight, begin to grope my way slowly, meanwhile calling the girl’s name loudly as I dared. I added in her own language such assurances as I could think of, and prayed that she had had the wit and nerve to stop and wait for me, or else that some of the Medici men had come to her aid.

      There were actually, as I later learned, no Medici men on hand. Their sole spy on the scene had stayed prudently where he could keep a good watch on the Boccalini. But fortune and the saints smiled upon us anyway. Helen’s voice, a ghost-whisper of softness, replied at last to one of my more urgent hisses, and presently her small hand came reaching out of darkness to touch mine. I sheathed my sword and took it. “Can you find the way,” I whispered, “to the workshop of the artist called Verrocchio.”

      “Yes.” She paused as if surprised. “Yes, I think so.” A moment more to get her bearings, and she tugged at my hand and we were off. Helen had been in the city longer than