The Mosaic

Chapter 39 | Serpent Heart

Alessandro woke up to a knife buried into the headboard of his bed.

He didn't wake up from it, of course. His father used to joke he could wrap Alessandro up in his blanket and have him float down one of the many canals and he'd only wake up when a shark far out in the ocean would start gnawing at him. It was probably true.

He woke up from a sunray tickling his lashes, having erred its way through the heavy curtains. He squinted his eyes against the bright light.

To his shame, Alessandro had to admit he wasn't startled the least to wake up with a dagger next to his face. He just turned around, pulled the two sets of blankets over his head and closed his eyes again. Who cared about a dagger in his headboard?

He shot up so fast his head spun with sleepy protest. There was a dagger in his headboard!

Alessandro scanned the room. The evil ray of morning sun floated across the room and stretched itself over the deep red blankets, painting little zigzags on the mountain of pillows. The flames in the fireplace had curled up to glowing embers, the deep orange hues shifting like scales of a slowly breathing dragon. A fresh set of clothes was exactly where he had placed it last night, folded up neatly into squares, his boots waiting below them at the foot of a drawer. No intruder in sight.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Alessandro twisted in bed with a groan. He narrowed his eyes at the still blade. A letter? A warning perhaps... His stomach twisted. Someone had waltzed in, rammed a dagger right next to his head -- having to climb over half the bed to even get that close -- and sauntered off. And Alessandro hadn't even woken up.

The shadows of his dreams still danced around the edges of his vision, trying to sneak up on him and pull him back into the past. Alessandro shook his head. No time. He grabbed the hilt, pulling the blade loose. It seemed familiar... Catching the sunlight on its edge, it glinted like a hungry fang. A note fluttered into his palm.

I could kill you in your sleep.

Alessandro frowned. No need to rub it in.

He turned the parchment. The backside was empty. He turned it back. Just that one sentence, scribbled hastily in an atrociously slanting handwriting. Alessandro had written neater than that with four-- with his right hand. His teacher would preach the left hand was the devil's hand.

The note looked like an afterthought, smeared onto a spare paper in the dark after the stranger had waltzed in and saw him sleeping.

Something else tickled his nose. A sweet scent wafted around him, whips of caramel and orange curling up into the air. His stomach growled. Alessandro sniffed. Hareeseh. A delighted smile stole its way onto his lips. He quickly wiped it off. He wasn't a child tugging at his mother's skirts to puppy-eye one of the sweet cakes into his hand.

His father had unintentionally started the obsession when Alessandro had been five. The Merchant had been on two month travel to Constantinople -- Alessandro remembered racing down the hallway and throwing himself at his father. Michele had spun him around and laughed his rumbling lion laugh. Little Alessandro had always wondered how a voice could get so deep. Now he had the same laugh.

His father he had brandished a small parcel from his cloak. That evening, in front of the fireplace, perched on his father's knees, Alessandro had listened to his stories with big eyes. Stories of huge palaces and underground ruins, churches and mosques with cupolas so large they seemed to hold the sky, minarets spearing the glaring sun. It smelled like spices and heat. Hectic traders and old men poring over board games. Breathing in millennia and living in the moment. There were snakes, dancing, with eyes like emeralds! And smoke rising from long pipes, blue swirls wafting down the streets like lost djinns.