by Eric Flint
***
She came back some time later, intent on at least trying to cool her grandfather down. He was sitting at his desk, staring at a piece of paper. Not looking angry, just morose. His craggy face seemed more lined than Kat could ever remember it; his hair, thinner and whiter. Even his dark eyes?almost coal black, normally?seemed muddy-colored.
"What sort of mess are we in, Katerina?" he said grimly. "First that damned moneylender. Now this. They want their 'supplies'?but they're too scared to even sign their names." He waved the letter. "Your great-grandfather always told me 'stay out of politics and stay out of religion. Make money.' But he got involved in politics, because he had no choice. And we are involved, against our will, in religion. Still, I think my father's backing of Rome was the start of the rot. He granted the first mortgages."
Kat groped for his meaning. She understood the general point. The principalities of Italy were a maze of shifting alliances. But there were always two poles. Rome?and Milan. The Milanese under the Visconti were, officially at least, Montagnards?believers in one united Christian realm, under the aegis of the Holy Roman Emperor. Not without reason, their neighbors viewed this lofty and always-distant goal as little more than an excuse for the Visconti dynasty's insatiable lust for immediate conquests of territory in northern Italy.
Rome's priorities?which was to say, the priorities of the Grand Metropolitan of Rome?were more nebulous, beyond opposition to having northern Italy absorbed into the Empire. But those priorities had more than once involved taking occasional territory; always for the good of the people, of course. Grandpapa had said before that his father's politics?the Montescues were traditionally allied with the "Metropolitans," as the anti-Montagnard faction was called?had gotten Casa Montescue into trouble. But she hadn't realized the trouble had extended to their relations with the family's financial supporters.
"It can't be that bad, surely, Grandpapa?"
He sighed. "I'm afraid it can, dearest Kat. Floriano's?and we've borrowed money from Floriano's since I was a boy?have actually started talking about foreclosure."
Kat put an arm around him. The feel of her grandfather's still-broad but bony shoulders brought sadness. She could remember, as a girl, thinking that her grandfather must be the strongest man in the world. "Can't we sell off the farm? Or this place, for that matter? We can't keep it up, anyway."
He shook his head, sadly. "No. The truth to tell, we dare not sell anything. We haven't just borrowed from Floriano's. Much of what we have is double mortgaged. If we show any signs of failing… the gull-gropers will be onto the flesh of Montescue and rip it to shreds. There will literally be nothing left. We've been in difficulties for twenty years…"
He leaned back from the desk, pushing himself away with arms that had once been heavy with muscle. Only the size of his hands reflected any longer the strength which had once been a legend in Venice. One of those hands reached around Kat's waist, drawing her close.
"The worst of it, of course, has only been in the last three years, since your father left. Vanished at sea. He borrowed heavily for that venture."
She felt the hand squeezing her. The slight tremble in the fingers was heartbreaking. "I don't know what I would do without you, Kat," the old man said softly. "You have been the mainstay of this family since your father…" Sadly, and for the first time, he whispered the word: "Died."
Kat didn't know what to say. Her thoughts were fixed entirely on a parcel at the bottom of a canal. Hoping desperately that it was still there; and hoping, just as desperately, that a street urchin named Benito could be relied upon to save the fortune of one of Venice's four oldest and?once?wealthiest and most powerful families.
Chapter 5
When Marco returned, there was no Benito at the dock?just a scrap of dirty paper wedged beneath it. Got a job. Come tamarra. Which left Marco to go back to his hide again, wondering if the "job" was a real task, or something Benito made up so he could enjoy another night of the festival.
Or… a ruse to lure Benito into the clutches of Them. Surely not. Surely They wouldn't go to all that trouble. Surely Benito would smell a rat if they tried.
By this time, Marco felt faint with hunger, and on his way back to shelter spotted a lone marsh-mallow just at the edge of what he knew to be dangerous mire. He took a chance, and worked his way out to it?but he had to stop just out of reach, when the hungry mud beneath the water sucked at his foot and nearly pulled him down. He stared at it in despair. He hadn't eaten in two days now…
There was no way to reach it.
Choking on tears of frustration, he turned his back on the tantalizing plant, and headed for the hide again.
He crawled inside, too cold to shiver, wrapped a scrap of blanket around himself, and waited for the sun to warm the hide a little. There was just enough room under the lumpy dome for him and a few precious belongings. Sunlight filtered through the mass of enmeshed weeds at the entrance as he got feeling back into his toes and feet. Finally, for lack of anything else to do, he picked through his packets of herbs and oddments to see if he might have left a scrap of food in there.
Nothing. Except a single fishhook and a bit of line, left from the times he had something to bait the hook with.
He paused, with his hand over the packet.
It wouldn't be much of a sin. Maybe not any sin. Even in Milan?
Even in Pauline-dominated Milan, fishermen got blessings on their nets to increase their catch.
But he wasn't a priest, to give such a blessing.
On the other hand, if he passed out from hunger, he wouldn't be able to warn Benito.
Saint Peter?you were a fisherman! Blessed Saint Peter, send me a sign!
There was an angry squawk and a commotion just outside and above his hide?a thump, a splash?
He shoved his head and arm outside, just in time to wave frantically at the gull about to recapture its dinner from the water at his door?lost in a fight with the other two gulls circling overhead. He snatched the hand-sized gray mullet out of the water and withdrew back into his protection as the gull stabbed at him with its beak.
Thank you, Saint Peter!
He took his knife and worried slivers of flesh from the bony fish, eating them raw, and thankful that once again he had been saved from committing a sin.
***
He spent a terrible, anxious, miserable day in the hide, not even prepared to go and share his fear with Chiano and Sophia. With the dusk he was off to wait again.
***
This time he was rewarded. There was a pad of bare feet overhead?then tiny sounds that marked someone who knew what he was doing and where he was going, climbing down among the crossbeams.
"Hi, brother?" Benito's whisper.
"Right here."
"Be right with you." A bit of scratching, a rasp of wood on cloth and skin, and someone slipped in beside him with a quick hug, and then pulled away.
"Riot out there tonight. Sorry about yesterday. I couldn't get here in time. I tried but I got held up."
"Benito?I've got to go under cover again. One of Them nearly got me yesterday. Assassin. He was waiting for me, Benito. He knew who I was and where I was going. It has to be Them."
Swift intake of breath. "God?no! Not after all this time! How'd you get away?"
"I just?outran him." Don't let him know what really happened. He'll think he has to share the danger. Marco had been careful never to let his brother even guess that he'd had to kill?and more than once.
"All right." The voice in the dark took on a new firmness. "That's it. You're not gonna run any more, big brother. Running don't cut it. You need a protector, somebody with weight."
"Get serious!" Marco answered bitterly. "Where am I going to find somebody willing to stand up for me?"
Benito chuckled. "Been thinking about that. New man in town?got contacts, got weight?everywhere, seems like. Been watching him."
"Big fat deal?what reason is he going to have to help me?"
"Name's Aldanto.
Caesare Aldanto. Familiar?"
Marco sucked in his breath. "Lord and Saints…"
"Thought I 'membered," Benito replied with satisfaction.
Marco did indeed remember that name?it went all the way back to their being exiled to Venice, an exile that Grandfather Dell'este thought would take them out of the reach of Mama's pro-Milanese friends and of her lover. Caesare Aldanto had been one of the Milanese agents in Ferrara?a friend of Mama's lover Carlo Sforza. Carlo was (presumably) Benito's father?that was probably why the name 'Aldanto' had stuck so fortuitously in Benito's memory.
"You can never forget anything, brother. What's the Aldanto you saw look like?"
Marco closed his eyes and rocked back and forth a little, letting his mind drift back?Lord and Saints, he'd been a seven, maybe, eight-year-old boy?
"Blond. Pretty guy. Moved like a cat, or a dancer. Blue eyes?tall, dressed really well."
"Dunno about the eyes, but the rest is him. It's the same man. Appears to me he'd have reason to help us. Appears to me you'd want to get Mama's message to him, no?"
"Lord?" Marco said, not quite believing this turn of events. "It's?"
"Like that story you used to tell me? Yeah, well, maybe. I'm more interested in seeing you safe, and I think this Caesare Aldanto can do that. Right then, we'll go find him. Now. Tonight."
Marco started to scramble up, but Benito forestalled him. "No way you're going to pass in the town, brother. Not dressed like that."
"Oh. Yes."
"You wait here?I won't be long."
***
Benito thought he'd managed that rather cleverly; he thought he'd remembered Caesare Aldanto's name when he'd first heard it, and he had just been biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to get Marco to take the bait he was going to offer. The marshes were no place for Marco?sooner or later someone or something would get him. Venice was safer, by far. Besides, since he'd been thrown out from Theodoro's family, Benito had been getting lonelier and lonelier. He had friends?Lola, for instance. Well, she was sort of a friend. Mercutio, he was fun, and he looked out for Benito. But it wasn't the same as having Marco around. He wanted his big brother back!
Well, now?first things first; a set of clothing that wouldn't stand out in the Solstice crowds. Benito took to the rooftops and thought while he climbed. Nearest secondhand clothing store was close to the Palazzo Mastelli. That was the area he was hanging out in at present?no go. Off limits. He could hear Valentina now, cracking him over the ear for even thinking about it. "Never soil your own nest, boy. Rule one."
The air up here was fresher, the breeze carrying away a lot of the stink. Benito slipped around chimneypots and skylights as easily as if he'd been on a level walkway. So: the next closest was over toward the Ca' d'Oro. Old man Mirko was a stingy bastardo, too cheap to put good shutters in his windows. And the Dalmatian wouldn't miss the loss. Mirko's place it was.
He crossed the bridges on the support beams below, keeping a sharp eye out for watchers, finally getting himself up on the supports of the high-level bridge that crossed the Rio Malpaga. Mirko had a second-story window just below and to one side of it. Benito unwound the light rope and grapnel from his waist, spied a sturdy cornice, and made his cast.
Solid. He pulled three times. ("Always three times, no matter how rushed you are," came Claudia's voice from memory.) Then he swung himself over, in the shadows all the way.
Within a few minutes Mirko's shop was lighter by a pair of breeches, a shirt, and a cotte, all sized for someone thin and not over-tall, along with some other small items. And Benito was most of the way back to the wharf, dancing across the rooftops and bridge-beams like a half-grown cat.
***
"Huh-uh," Benito said, keeping his grip tight on the bundle he carried and handing something small to Marco instead. It shone white in the starlight. "I sto?found some soap, too. Down, brother; in the harbor. Get clean first, or they'll know you, by the smell, for marsh scum."
Marco flushed with embarrassment?living in the swamp was changing him, and in ways he didn't like. He used to be so fastidious…
He grabbed the proffered soap and dropped straight down into the water next to the wharf?trying not to remember the twitching thing that had so lately floated there. He was so used to being chilled that the cold water wasn't much of a shock to his system. He soaped and rinsed and scrubbed until he thought his skin would peel off, then washed his hair three times for good measure. Benito had shinnied down to his raft and handed him back up onto it with a sniff that held approval. "Better. You smell better than a lot of canal-dwellers now. Here?"
A piece of sacking to use for a towel, and a comb. Getting the tangles out of his hair was a job?Marco had to be content with just getting most of the major knots out, and smoothing down the rest, tying it back with the piece of ribbon (Lord?ribbon!) Benito handed him. Then into the clothing?oh, heaven, clean, and warm, and not ripped in a dozen places?and even the right size. The precious Message went into his shirt pocket.
Marco stood up straight with one hand steadying himself on the piling, and felt like a human being again for the first time in years.
Benito grinned at him, teeth flashing white in his shadowed face. "Know what, brother? You clean up really pretty. I can think of a couple of girls just might like to share a blanket with you."
Marco blushed hotly, and was glad the dark hid it.
"Thought I'd warn you?because that's who we're going to go see first."
They took to the rooftops, much to Marco's bewilderment; oh, he still remembered how to climb, he was fast and agile enough to keep up?but why not take the walkways openly? And?where had Benito gotten this kind of expertise in roof-scrambling?
It was more of a maze in Venice-above than it was in Venice-below. If there was a level space up here on the roofs that was more than three feet square, it was a rarity. "Up here" was a work of towers, cupolas, skylights, and spires. Benito danced along the spines of peaked roofs and jumped from structure to structure as if he were half cat. Marco followed as best he could. He was just lucky that "above" also sported rain gutters and collection pipes on every surface, for without these aids he'd never have been able to emulate Benito. From time to time Benito would half-start toward something Marco knew was unclimbable?then glance back as if suddenly remembering his brother's presence and choose some easier path. Marco couldn't help but wonder what he'd have done if Marco hadn't been there.
Benito paused on the roof edge overlooking the bridge across the Rio della Misericordia. Balancing carefully, he scrutinized the bridge and its attendant walkways.
"Looks good," he said finally, in a whisper. "If anybody followed, they've lost us. Come on." And he shinnied down a drainpipe to the walk below them. Marco followed suit. Shielded torches on the bridge danced and smoked; they were placed so far apart they did more harm than good. There seemed to be no one about in this area, and their bare feet made no sound on the bridge, which contributed to the gloomy atmosphere.
"From here we go to Rio Del Servi, then down by the Maddalena?just in case we get separated," Benito said in an undertone, moving uncomfortably fast for Marco, who was accustomed to poling a raft rather than walking. "The ladies I want to talk to should be in a tavern called Barducci's on the Rio di San Marina?it's down on the water. There'll be a lot of canalers tied up at it. Got that?"
Marco nodded, saving his breath.
"Good, because once we get to the Maddalena, we'll be going up again."
They didn't get separated, but Marco was weary and aching by the time they stood at the tavern door. And confused, and lost. Only rarely had they crossed bridges by the normal paths?more often they'd scrambled underneath on the cross beams, or worse, inched along the support cables overhead. It made good sense in a way?for surely no one would ever have been able to follow them?but Marco was thoroughly exhausted by the time they reached their goal.
They descended to the walkway, cold and wet under their bare feet, and walked decorously enough to th
e wooden porch that marked Barducci's front entrance. There were boats tied up here, and lanterns everywhere; light and noise and confusion that dazzled Marco's eyes and made him more than a little nervous. The water of the canal looked very black and cold compared with all that light and warmth, and Marco found himself hoping they weren't going to find out just how cold it was.
There was a food-smell; waves of garlic from the bruschetta toasting over the charcoal, grilling Sarde, and the heady bouquet of young red wine. There was smoke, little wisps of it, from the lanterns. There was more smoke from the charcoal grill. There was sound?people laughing, talking, arguing, and singing. Most of all, singing. Just as they got to the wooden porch a great roar of a chorus bounced out of the open door and off the brick of the wall opposite.
"Hoo?they're rabble-rousing tonight, for sure!" Benito grinned. "They best hope there ain't no Schiopettieri around!" Somewhat to Marco's surprise, he was talking just like the canalers, chameleonlike acquiring the coloration of his surroundings.
Marco began to make out some of the lyrics. Benito had the right of it. The song skirted just the high side of treason?but oddly enough, he couldn't identify what faction the song was in favor of.
"Valentina and Claudia and they ain't on anybody's side." Benito elbowed his way in through front door, with Marco trailing warily behind. "They just like to rile people up, I guess."
The tavern room was hot and redolent with the bouquet of food, drink and humanity; crammed full, every table and chair occupied and people jammed in against the walls. The objects of their attention were perched on the bar, grinning insolently and singing for all they were worth. Their voices were amazingly strong and clear; Marco could hear them long before he could see them.
Benito finally wormed a place for them in beside the bar, and Marco managed to get a good view under someone's elbow. They were something to stare at, were Valentina and Claudia, though which was which he couldn't guess. One was playing a lute, her hands moving on the strings so fast Marco could hardly credit his eyes. She seemed the older of the two by five, maybe ten years. The other was setting up a complicated pattern on a couple of hand drums, but Marco could see a mandola leaning up against the bar next to her. Both had dark, nearly black, straight hair, tied around with red scarves. The older one wore hers long, past her shoulders, the younger, shorter than Benito's. Both had sharp features and ironic grins. Both were wearing flounced red-patterned skirts. Both had pale, pale skin?as if they didn't see the sun much.