Lackey & Flint & Freer - Alexandria 1 - The Shadow of the Lion

894 Pages·2016·2.51 MB·English

by  Lackey Mercedes

The Shadow of the Lion
by Mercedes Lackey,
Eric Flint & Dave Freer
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in
this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or
incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2002 by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint & Dave Freer
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 0-7434-3523-0
Cover art by Larry Dixon
First printing, March 2002
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lackey, Mercedes.
The shadow of the lion / Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint & Dave
Freer.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-7434-3523-0
1. Venice (Italy)—History—1508–1797—Fiction. 2. Brothers
—Fiction.
3. Monsters—Fiction. I. Flint, Eric. II. Freer, Dave. III. Title.
PS3562.A246 S53 2002
813'.54—dc21 2001056466
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH
Printed in the United States of America
To the world's firefighters;
and, especially:
to the hundreds of those in the
Fire Department of New York
who died in the line of duty on
September 11, 2001.
BAEN BOOKS by MERCEDES LACKEY
BARDIC VOICES
The Lark & the Wren
The Robin & the Kestrel
The Eagle & the Nightingales
The Free Bards
Four & Twenty Blackbirds
Bardic Choices: A Cast of Corbies
(with Josepha Sherman)
The Fire Rose
Fiddler Fair
Werehunter
Lammas Night
(edited by Josepha Sherman)
The Ship Who Searched
(with Anne McCaffrey)
Wing Commander:
Freedom Flight
(with Ellen Guon)
URBAN FANTASIES
Bedlam's Bard
(omnibus with Ellen Guon)
Beyond World's End
(with Rosemary Edghill)
Spirits White as Lightning
(with Rosemary Edghill)
The SERRAted Edge:
Chrome Circle
(with Larry Dixon)
The Chrome Borne
(omnibus with Larry Dixon)
The Otherworld
(omnibus with Mark Shepherd & Holly Lisle)
THE BARD'S TALE NOVELS
Castle of Deception
(with Josepha Sherman)
Fortress of Frost & Fire
(with Ru Emerson)
Prison of Souls
(with Mark Shepherd)
BAEN BOOKS by ERIC FLINT
The Philosophical Strangler
Forward the Mage (with Richard Roach)
The Belisarius series, with David Drake:
An Oblique Approach
In the Heart of Darkness
Destiny's Shield
Destiny's Shield
Fortune's Stroke
The Tide of Victory
The Tyrant (with David Drake)
(forthcoming)
1632
Mother of Demons
BAEN BOOKS by DAVE FREER
The Forlorn
Rats, Bats, and Vats
(with Eric Flint)
Pyramid Scheme
(with Eric Flint)
Prologue
April, 1537 A.D.

MAINZ

The yellow lantern-lights of Mainz's dockside inns reached out across the
dark Rhine. Standing on the prow of the riverboat, Erik Hakkonsen stared at
them, thinking of little more than food and a bed. He'd left his home in Iceland
three weeks earlier, to answer the Emperor's summons. They'd had a stormy
crossing. Then the late spring thaw had ensured that the roads of the Holy
Roman Empire were fetlock deep in glutinous mud. And, finally, the river had
been full and the rain steady. Tomorrow he would have to go to the Imperial
palace, and find out how to seek an interview with Emperor Charles Fredrik.
But tonight he could sleep.
The riverboat nudged into the quay. A wet figure stepped out from under the
eaves of the inn. "Is there one Erik Hakkonsen on this vessel?" he demanded,
half-angrily. The rain hadn't been kind to the skinny courtier's bright cloak. The
satin clung to him, and he was shivering.
Erik pushed back his oilskin-hood. "I'm Hakkonsen."
"Thank God for that! I'm soaked to the skin. I've been here for hours,"
complained the man. "Come. I've got horses in the stable. The Emperor awaits
you."
Erik made no move. "Who are you?"
The fellow shivered. "Baron Trolliger. The Emperor's privy secretary." He
held out his hand to show a heavy signet. It was incised with the Roman Eagle.
That was not a seal anyone would dare to forge. Erik nodded. "I'll get my kit."
The shivering baron shook his head. "Leave it." He pointed to the sailor who
had paused in his mooring to stare. "You. Watch over this man's gear. Someone
will be sent for it."
As much as anything else, the alacrity with which the sailor obeyed the order
drove home the truth to Erik. He was in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, for
a certainty. In his native Iceland—or Vinland, or anywhere else in the League of
Armagh—that peremptory order would have been ignored, if not met with
outright profanity.
"Come," the baron repeated. "The Emperor is waiting."
*
Passing from the narrow dark streets and sharp-angled tall houses into the
brightness of the imperial palace, Erik had little time to marvel and gawk at the
heavy gothic splendor of it all. Instead, Baron Trolliger rushed him through—
still trailing mud—into a large austere room. As soon as Erik entered, the baron
closed the door behind him, not entering himself.
In the center of the room, staring at Erik, stood the most powerful man in all
of Europe. He was a large man, though now a bit stooped from age. His
eyebrows seemed as thick and heavy as the purple cloak he was wearing; his
eyes, a shade of blue so dark they almost matched the cloak.
Charles Fredrik. The latest in a long line of Hohenstauffens.
Guardian of the Church, Bulwark of the Faith. Lord of lands from northern
Italy to the pagan marches in the Baltic. Ruler over millions of people
throughout central Europe.
The Holy Roman Emperor, himself. In direct line of descent from the great
Fredrick Barbarossa.
All of that mattered little to Erik. His tie to the Emperor was a clan tie, not a
dynastic one. He was there to become the Emperor's servant, not his subject. So,
Erik simply bowed to the old man, rather than kneeling, and spoke no words of
fealty. Simply the old oath: "Linn gu linn."
The words were Gaelic, but the oath that bound him came from the cold fjells
of pagan Norway. An oath that went back generations, to the time when a
Hohenstauffen prince had rescued a pagan clan from demons set loose by their
own foolishness.
Charles Fredrik spoke like an old man—despite being no older than Erik's
father. But he voiced the ritual words strongly. "From generation to generation."
He held out the dagger that Erik had heard described with infinite care all his
life. The dagger was iron. Old iron. Sky iron. Hammered with stone in the pagan
Northlands, from a fallen thunderbolt. The hilt was shaped into a dragon head—
the detail lost in the blurring of hundreds of years of use.
It still drew blood for the blood-oath like new steel did. "Blood for blood.
Clan for clan." Erik renewed the oath calmly.
After binding their wounds himself, Charles Fredrik took Erik by the elbow
and led him across to a window. The window was a mere arrow-slit, testimony
to the palace's ancient origins. Against modern cannon, such fortifications were
almost useless. But . . . there was a certain undeniable, massive dignity to the
huge edifice.
There they stood, silent for some time, looking out at the scattered shawl of
lights which was the great sleeping city of Mainz. Erik was quite sure that those
lights represented more people than lived in all Iceland. Their lives, and those of
many more, rested in the hands of the old man standing next to him.
The Emperor seemed to have read his thoughts. "It is a great load, at times,"
he said softly.
His heavy jaws tightened. The next words were spoken almost harshly. "I
have called for the Clann Harald because my heirs have need. My son is . . . very
sickly. And I do not expect my only surviving brother to outlive me. Not with
his wounds. So I must take special care to watch over my two nephews, for it is
quite likely that one of them will succeed to the throne after I am gone."
The Emperor sighed. "Your older brother Olaf watched over my nephew
Conrad for his bond-time, as your father Hakkon watched over me." A slight
smile came to his face. "To my surprise, I find I miss him. He used to beat me,
you know."
"He has told me about it, Godar of the Hohenstauffen." Erik did not add:
Often.
Charles Fredrik's smile broadened. "According to your brother Olaf—'often.'
" He chuckled. "It did me the world of good, I eventually came to realize.
Nobody had dared punish me before that. Do you know that your family are the
only people in the world who don't call me 'Emperor,' or 'Your Imperial
Highness?' I think it is why we trust you."
"Our loyalty is to the Godar of the Hohenstauffen. Not to the Empire." That
too his father had said. Often.
"You must sit and tell me the news of them once I have given you your task. I
warn you, it will be a more onerous chore than Olaf's. Manfred, my younger
nephew, reminds me of myself at that age. You will have to—as your father did
with me—serve as confrere in the monastic order of the Knights of the Holy
Trinity. Of course—as then—your identity and purpose must remain secret.
Manfred's also."
Erik nodded. "My father has told me about the Knights."
The Emperor's eyes narrowed. "Yes. But things have changed, Hakkonsen. It
is one of the things that worries me. The Knights have always been—nominally,
at least—independent of the Empire. Servants of God, not of any earthly power.
In practice they have served as the Empire's bulwarks to the North and East. In
your father's day the nobility from all the corners of the Holy Roman Empire
came to serve as the Knights of Christ, in the pious war against the pagan. And
many brave souls came from the League of Armagh, not just the handful of
Icelanders sworn by clan loyalty to the service of the Emperor."
Erik nodded again. "My grandfather says that in his day, Aquitaines made up
as many as a quarter of the order's ranks."
The Emperor clenched his fist, slowly. "Exactly. Today, no knight from that
realm would dream of wearing the famous tabard of the Knights of the Holy
Trinity. Once the brotherhood Knights were truly the binding threads in the
Trinity. Once the brotherhood Knights were truly the binding threads in the
cloak of Christianity. Today . . . the Knights of the Holy Trinity come almost
entirely from the Holy Roman Empire. Not even that. Only from some of its
provinces. They're Prussians and Saxons, in the main, with a small sprinkling of
Swabians. A few others."
He paused. Then he looked Erik in the eyes. "They're beginning to take an
interest in politics. Far too much for my liking. And they're also—I like this even
less—getting too close to the Servants of the Holy Trinity. Damn bunch of
religious fanatics, that lot of monks."
Charles Fredrik snorted. "All of it, mind you, supposedly in my interests.
Some of them probably even believe it. But I have no desire to get embroiled in
the endless squabbling of Italian city-states, much less a feud with the Petrine
branch of the church. The Grand Duke of Lithuania and King Emeric of
Hungary give me quite enough to worry about, leaving aside the outright pagans
of Norseland and Russia."
Again, he sighed. "And they're not a binding force any more. Today, the
common people call the church's arm militant 'The Knots,' more often than not.
And, what's worse, the Knights themselves seem to relish the term."
"The Clann Harald do not mix in Empire politics," stated Erik firmly. His
father had warned him that this might happen.
The Emperor gave a wry smile. "So your father always said. Just as I'm sure
he warned you before you left Iceland. But, Erik Hakkonsen, because you guard
Manfred . . . do not think you will be able to avoid it. Any more than your father
could."
The old man turned and faced Erik squarely. "Politics will mix with you, lad,
whether you like it or not. You can be as sure of that as the sunrise. Especially in
Venice."
Erik's eyes widened. The Emperor chuckled.
"Oh, yes. I forgot to mention that, didn't I?"
He took Erik by the arm again and began to lead him toward the door. "But
we can discuss Venice tomorrow. Venice, and the expedition of the Knights to
that city, which you will be joining. An expedition which I find rather . . .