The Master of Verona

Another disappointed soul was Giuseppe Morsicato, barber, surgeon, and knight. He had not been at Calvatone, which he lamented, for they had certainly needed his skills. This year his master was not taking the Vicentine army out on campaign, and so Morsicato was forced to sit around the palace, wasting his days nursing cases of heatstroke and overindulgence.

This particular evening found him at the Nogarola palace looking after an ailing squire. The youth was stricken with a summer fever and there was little to be done other than make him sleep. Morsicato's favored mixture of poppy seed juice and crushed hemp seeds would make the boy rest until his fever either broke or killed him.

It promised to be a long night, and he was hungry. Morsicato's wife had been asleep when he'd gotten the call and so hadn't ordered the maid to send food with him. Typical of Morsicato himself, he simply forgot. That was the way it always was — the urgencies of his profession overrode all practicality. Now, having seen the squire and tended him as best he could for the moment, the balding doctor with the forked beard made his way down to the kitchens of the Nogarola palace.

He spent twenty minutes scrounging food from the cupboards, ending with a good cold pheasant leg and a hunk of hard, crusty bread. He tried to find something other than wine to sop the bread in and was rewarded with some broth, which he spooned into a large wooden bowl. Having been a soldier, this was a meal he could appreciate. It was similar to a campaign supper, which was appropriate — most of the doctoring he'd done in his life had been on one battlefield or another.

It had been after his first battle (dear God, decades ago) that he'd learned how to set a broken arm, bind a broken head, and saw off a limb that would otherwise grow gangrenous. His amateur skill and steady stomach was noticed and he'd been trundled off to Padua to learn medicine. It was noteworthy that even during the flare-ups of the interminable war with Padua, any Veronese wishing to study medicine could go and learn. There were never enough doctors — especially ones skilled in battlefield treatment. It was his luck that he was good at all aspects of war.

I ought to be with my patient

. He gathered what was left of his meal and climbed the stairs chiding himself for his thoughts of war. His first knighthood had had nothing to do with battle. He'd been doctoring on loan to the late emperor's army when he'd restored the adopted son of one of Heinrich's men. As everyone knew, the rescued boy had actually been Heinrich's own bastard. The Emperor had been grateful enough to create Giuseppe Morsicato a knight of the Order of the Knights of Santa Katerina at Mount Sinai. Morsicato's twin knighthoods by Cangrande and the Anziani of Vicenza had followed shortly thereafter, given out of a kind of piqued pride, so now Morsicato carried three Orders of Knighthood on his shoulders. All for saving a bastard son of a bastard ruler.

His mind came inexorably around to progeny, and bastard heirs. One in particular, under this very roof.

Thinking of the boy, Morsicato decided to check on the little scoundrel. Passing his patient's door, he continued on down the hall until he reached Cesco's door. Something was odd, but it took him a moment to realize what was missing. There should have been a guard here. Instead there was a closed door lit only by the moon shining in the casement at the end of the hall.

Something glistened on the tiled floor. Not even a pool. A few drops, nothing more. But he was a doctor. He knew blood when he saw it.

Laying his dish aside, Morsicato glanced about. No weapons hung on the walls because the little imp had proven too successful at prying them down. Morsicato only had the thin knife he used for probing wounds. It would have to do.

Leaning his ear against the door, he heard a rustling, then a whisper. "Where are you, my little puppy? Come out and play."

The voice was playful. The drops on the floor were not. Morsicato wondered how many there were and where they had hidden the body of the guard.

He could try the door. But if he made noise they'd be warned, and he'd have to break it down anyway. And noise was his friend, not theirs. Stepping back, he lowered his left shoulder and ran, bursting the door open with a great rending of wood. Knife ready, Morsicato stumbled into the chamber, looking about quickly.

They had a covered lantern. It was the first thing he saw, and almost the last. A blade came at him and he threw himself aside. The Scaliger would have rolled, or blocked it, or done some dazzling feat of physical prowess. Morsicato barely avoided being gutted, stumbling into a table. He dropped to his rump and ducked under the table as the second blow came. "Aiuto! Aiuto!" he hollered, kicking at his attacker's shins.