From Hell with Love (27 page)

***

In one swift movement, Niccolo brought his hand underneath his cloak and hid the loaf of bread from prying eyes.  He had become quite good at thievery during his exile; the dexterity he had developed over the years had not abandoned him like his fair-weather friends.  There was already a wall of people between him and the baker before he turned slightly and looked to see if he had been noticed.  He laughed as he realized that the baker had not even realized he had been a victim, so Niccolo did not bother to rush away.  He just slipped in between the various Fiorentini who flooded the market.

Most of the time, the people of Firenze ignored his passage, but every once in a while Niccolo could see a naïve child staring at him.  They would look at the man in the dirty, brown cloak and wonder what hid underneath.  Although the left side of his face was covered with bandages, Niccolo still took the time to smile at these small children who did not understand he was a blight upon the world.  Niccolo did not have the heart to hate them.

However, Niccolo did not much care for the parents who took them under their arm, the adults who stared at him and shook their head.  Most of their looks went by without response, Niccolo just kept his head down, but every once in a while he would return their glare.  He had not asked for this illness, he had not asked for his future to be taken from him and he had certainly not asked for their disgust.  There were times when he thought about drawing both of his blades and sticking them through their judgmental eyes, but Niccolo knew better.  He would not be able to survive in this city if word of a murderous leper started to travel.

So Niccolo just bobbed and weaved through the crowd, deftly squeezing through the spaces left by the passing of normal people.  Even with his significant height and unusual appearance, it seemed that the city was ignorant of his existence.  What they did not want to see, they ignored, and so Niccolo was able to find his way to the next sun-bathed market with no difficulty.  He smiled as he spied the small fountain in the center, encircled by wagons and vendor’s tables.

One of the merchants, a man in a vibrant, blue outfit, gave him a disapproving look, but Niccolo just ignored the man as he withdrew a small tin from the satchel he kept on his belt.  Except for the sword, his dagger and the bread in his left hand, that satchel kept everything Niccolo owned in this world.  With his healthy arm, he placed the tin underneath the spout and filled it to the brim with water.  He inspected the water, wary about the city’s supply, but found that it was not completely dirty.  With a smile on his face, Niccolo turned and walked past the suspecting merchant, determined not to show any hostility.  If the man made a scene, Niccolo might have to run through the city and lose his pursuers in the shadows.

Luckily, the merchant was distracted by an eager customer who wanted to buy different silks, so Niccolo was able to walk past the line of tables and over to the chest-high wall that bordered the square.  He hunkered himself down and sat cross-legged with his back to the grey, stone wall, thankful for the heat it stored.  Niccolo set the tin to his right and then placed the bread on his lap before inspecting it.  There was a bit of dirt on the side, but Niccolo just put that down as a consequence of his hands being dirty.  It was getting harder and harder to justify good hygiene now that he lived on the streets.

With both hands, Niccolo raised the bread to his mouth and took a hearty bite, chewing it a little longer than he would have liked since the crust was a bit hard.  Then the hunger which had lain dormant finally woke and Niccolo set about tearing the loaf to pieces and shoving it into his mouth.  His entire diet had become rats, insects and stolen items, so a nice, relatively fresh loaf of bread was more than just appreciated.  In the summer sun, Niccolo ate his bread while the citizens of Firenze ignored him.

The loaf only lasted five minutes, but it was enough to satisfy the beggar.  He sat against the stone wall, which now seemed a little cooler than he remembered, and digested his meal.  It was far less splendor than he had been used to as a merchant prince, but this was possibly the happiest he had been since his exile.  Life had become painful and exhausting, running from men who had either been victims of his thieving or just because they did not like his look, and there were times when he had been forced to fight for his life.  The Sicilian from the first day of his exile had not been his last enemy, but he still remembered the man’s dark face twisted in pain and anger.  Niccolo hated that he had to kill the men who got in his way, but it was becoming easier to justify it.  It was becoming easier to live with the fact that he
had
to kill. 

It was just survival, after all.

Sitting in the sun on that summer day was enough to banish those thoughts.  He had a, relatively, full belly, the sun was keeping him warm and, if he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was not a complete pestilence on society.

His satisfaction was torn from him as he heard the clink of metal against metal followed by a wet “plop,” which caused him to instinctually open both eyes.  When the pain spread through the left side of his face and he could not see past the bandage that covered his eye, Niccolo instantly felt annoyed.  The new beggar looked down, his uncovered eye adjusting to the light, but soon he realized what had happened.

“Oh, sorry, I thought…I didn’t realize you were drinking out of that,” a man said as he stood above him, swaying in the light of the sun.  Niccolo could not make him out from the silhouette, but something about the figure seemed familiar.  After shaking his head, Niccolo grabbed the tin beside his knee, looking to see what the mystery man had left for him.  Underneath an inch of water, Niccolo could see the glint of silver.  Apparently, the man thought Niccolo was panhandling in the square.

“That’s…alright,” Niccolo rasped, shocked by his own voice.  Though he muttered to himself at night, trying to keep some part of his sanity, he did not often speak anymore.  Niccolo tried to clear his throat, but it seemed to have had no effect when he continued.  “Thank you for that, though I’m not trying to beg.  That’s…”

“Illegal, I know, but,” the man said, swaying to Niccolo’s right and then putting out his hand to support himself on the stone wall.  Niccolo was about to put up his own hand to keep the man from falling, but the generous person just waved it off before turning and then sitting next to Niccolo.  “We can keep that between us, can’t we?” he asked with a smile.  Niccolo could not return it once he realized the man sitting beside him was someone he knew very well.

“I guess we can,” he rasped, still completely surprised that Marco, his former best friend, was now sitting beside him.  He didn’t even know what to say to the man, it had been so long and things had ended so badly between them.  Niccolo's face was absent emotion just because he did not know how to react.

“Good, good.  You guys need to get fed, I know.  And I’d just use it to buy more wine.  And between you and me,” Marco said, his head swaying as he turned to face his former friend, “I don’t need any more wine.”

“It
is
only just getting to noon,” Niccolo muttered, unable to think straight, but the man by his side just laughed.

“You’re funny for a street rat.  Sorry, not street rat.  I’m bad with manners, if you couldn’t tell.  Most people can’t stand me because of it,” the drunk said as he looked forward toward his feet, which were propping up his knees at a comfortable angle.  When he finished his statement, a strange thought entered into Niccolo’s head.  He thought it was impossible, but then again, Marco had never been the brightest person.

“Well, I can sympathize with people not being able to stand you.  After all, I’m a street rat,” Niccolo offered in jest, which caused the older man to shake with silent laughter.

“Hah, that’s pretty good.  I heard being a jester isn’t that bad of a job,” Marco teased, turning to look at the rag-covered beggar with a lazy smile.  Niccolo could tell from his unfocused eyes that Marco had been drinking heavily through the night.  It was not really possible for him to get that inebriated without really trying.

“Well, maybe I like being freelance,” Niccolo said as he turned away from the drunk and stared at the merchants selling their wares.  Suddenly, even with all of the sunlight around him and the smiles of the people flooding the streets, Niccolo’s happiness disappeared.  Marco had switched roles in Niccolo’s life; now he just brought misery.

“You have the talent for it,” Marco muttered, drifting into his inebriated thoughts.  “I used to have a friend who was funny like that.”

“Oh?” Niccolo uttered, wondering if Marco was just playing a game with him.  After all, in his rags and layers of dirt, it was difficult to see the former merchant prince, but Marco had spent years by his side.  From his next reaction, Niccolo realized the truth.

“He was a great guy,” he said before sniffing, lost to his misery.  “Loved him like a brother.  But then…something happened,” Marco trailed off, bringing the back of his hand across his nose and wiping away a not-so-small amount of snot.  The beggar decided he had not been recognized, that Marco was oblivious.

“What happened?” Niccolo asked softly, his voice still hidden by the rasp that had come from living on the streets.  Marco shook his head before looking up into the bright sky.

“It doesn’t matter.  That’s not the important part,” he said, which made Niccolo angry, but that anger was replaced by sympathy after his friend continued.  “I abandoned him.  I was the last guy who could help him, but I just let the world take him away.  I was…too afraid to keep him in my life.”

“Are you sure you had a choice?” Niccolo tried to play the part, keeping away his tears with an iron will.  Marco shrugged before scratching the side of his face.

“Maybe.  I don’t know.  I keep reliving the last time I saw him, wondering what could have happened if I didn’t just throw him away.  Man, I even went to church to look for answers.  I...thought that what happened to him was just some punishment from God,” Marco said, slurring his words and swaying even with his back against the wall.  Niccolo’s eyes narrowed at the mention of God, the skin on the left side of his face needled with pain, but he kept up his beggar act.

“Could it have
been
God?” he continued, trying not to let violence color the tone of his voice.

“That’s not up to me, you can tell I’m no priest, but,” he said before looking at his feet again, “if it was, I don’t think it was my friend’s fault.  I keep working it over in my head.  He was a bit selfish from time to time, I’ll admit that, but…he was nice to me.  I’m just a drunk, but he was still nice to me.”

“Sounds like you just did what anybody else would have,” Niccolo said before looking at his own feet.  After he had been abandoned, it was easy to blame Marco, but the man seemed to genuinely regret his actions.  Niccolo wondered for the first time what he would have done in Marco’s shoes.  When the truth came to him, Niccolo finally felt like he understood.

“Yeah, well,” Marco said before sniffing loudly and wiping the tears and snot from his eyes, “maybe I should have been different from anyone else.  Maybe I owed that to him.”

“You could…you could try to find him, you know,” Niccolo offered, but out of the corner of his eye he could see his friend shaking his head.

“I’m sure he still hates me.  It was… pretty bad,” Marco said before turning slightly and putting both of his hands on the top of the short wall, heaving himself to his feet.  He brought his right hand back to the pouch on his hip and fumbled around in it for a moment before drawing out two more coins.  Marco then leaned over and grabbed at Niccolo’s right hand, shoving the coins onto his palm and closing Niccolo’s fingers for him.

“I can’t…”

“Between us, alright?  You’re the first person I could really talk to about all of this.  No priest would understand that little confession.”

“They can’t judge you for feeling guilty,” Niccolo said with a slight smile, “after all, that’s how they get more money out of you.”  It caused Marco to laugh a bit before standing upright.

“Ah, I miss that kind of humor.  A priest wouldn’t say that kind of thing,” he said before stumbling backward and catching the stone wall with his left hand.  “Can you…can you do something for me?”  Niccolo looked up at him and pursed his lips, wondering what Marco could want from a dirty beggar.

“Maybe,” he said, his eye being drawn to the merchant with the vibrant blue shirt.  He was pointing right at them while talking to a nearby guard, which meant Niccolo had overstayed his welcome, but the vagrant wanted to hear what Marco had to say.  He turned back to see Marco had allowed another stream of tears to fall from his eyes.

“Tell him I’m sorry.  Tell him that I shouldn’t have done what I did.  Tell him that I don’t think it was his fault; that I was out of line.  Tell him goodbye.  Make this his last memory of me; to replace that coward hiding behind a thin door,” he pleaded before walking backward along the stone wall.  Niccolo could not completely fight the emotion that was flooding his heart and let loose a tear from his maimed eye, but he shook his head in order to continue his beggar act.

“I don’t know who your friend is,” Niccolo pretended, but Marco sniffed again and took a deep breath.

“You do.  I know you do.  Thank you.  For the time we shared,” Marco said before turning around and stumbling away, using the stone wall to guide him.  Niccolo stared after him, realizing that his friend had recognized him halfway through the conversation, though doubt still plagued his mind.  He brought his gaze back down to ground and slammed his fist against the dirt, frustrated that Marco would come and confess something like that.  It destroyed the foundation of defiance he had built to survive on these streets; it had destroyed his will.

Unfortunately, he would have to think about it later.  He looked up just in time to see a couple of guards walking toward him, the human traffic in between them the only barrier.  Niccolo sprang into action and flipped over his water tin, the coin clattering on the stone as water splashed around it.  Without a second thought, he grabbed the piece of silver, joining it to the collection in his hand, and then jumped up and ran down the street away from Marco.