Lackey, Mercedes & Flint, Eric & Freer, Dave - [Heirs of Alexandria 01] (74 page)

He had been dangling his feet over the edge, and had both arms draped over the lower bar of the guard rail, watching the traffic pass in the half-light below him. He was rather pleased that he knew a good many of those passing by name�even if those good folk would hardly appreciate the "honor." He watched, feeling his back and shoulders ache in sympathy, as Gianni and Tomaso labored against the current, poling what looked to be a nice little cargo of barrels of some kind up the canal. He noted one of the younger Baldasini boys go by, riding in one of the family boats, and old man Mario in a hire-boat going in the opposite direction. And he saw a double handful of canalers he recognized besides Gianni, and rather wished he had his brother's incredible memory. There might be valuable information there if he only could remember who he saw going where. The one real pity about having his lunch break late, was that he and Marco couldn't sit together.

He hadn't had a decent talk with Marco since Maria's return from captivity. Marco had gotten back from looking for Luciano Marina even later than Caesare had returned from his visit to
Casa
Capuletti. Marco, at least, had been sober. Benito sighed. Marco was walking around with that moonstruck look on his face again. Doubtless yet another girl. Benito couldn't understand it. Girls were... interesting. But not this walk-into-walls-and-die-for-you stuff. And what did he mean by that "One person's trouble is another person's delight"? Benito sighed again. More trouble for Benito and the rest of them no doubt. But right now the sun was warm and the chestnut-flour castagnaccio was superb.

He was halfway through his lunch when he saw Maria tie up down below. So far as
he
knew she had no business with
Casa
Ventuccio today, so he wasn't much surprised when she strolled up the steps and planted herself beside him; feet dangling, like his, over the edge, the rest of her hugging the bottom railing.

"Bite?" he said, offering her a piece of castagnaccio to be sociable. It didn't pay to be less than polite to Maria at any time�but most especially Benito walked softly these days. What with her being short-fused and in a muddle over Caesare Aldanto, and them being short of cash, and Benito's brother more than half the cause of both�and now this Dandelo thing�

"No," she said shortly. "I ate."

He shrugged. She'd say her say when she was ready; he wasn't about to push her.

He kept watch on her out the corner of his eye all the same. After living these months with Caesare Aldanto, Benito knew Maria Garavelli about as well as he knew anybody�and the storm warnings were definitely out. The sleeves of her dark blue dress were pushed up over her elbows, which only happened when she was nervy; her battered hat was pulled down low on her forehead, like she was trying to keep her eyes from being read. But Benito was close enough for a good view, and he could see that her square jaw was tensed, her dark eyes gone darker with brooding, her broad shoulders hunched, her fists clenching and unclenching�storm-warnings for sure.

Well, she and Caesare had "celebrated" her return from captivity in the
Casa
Dandelo two days ago with an almighty fight. Things definitely hadn't been right between the two of them lately. He should talk it through with Marco, but he'd barely seen Marco since the night Maria had gotten back.

"You've got the sneak thief's ways, Benito Valdosta," she said at last, softly, so softly her voice hardly carried to Benito.

Benito tensed up himself; in all of Venice only Alberto Ventuccio, Maria Garavelli, and Caesare Aldanto knew his real name, his and Marco's. Only
they
knew that Marco Felluci and Benito Oro were real brothers; were Marco and Benito of the
Case Vecchie
, the last of the
longi
family Valdosta. Only those three knew that the boys had fled from assassins who had killed their mother, and were still very probably under death sentence from Duke Visconti for the things their dead mother Lorendana might have told them and the names and faces they knew. Even the Ventuccio cousins didn't know.

For Maria Garavelli to be using his
real
name�this was
serious
.

"I ain't no sneak thief," he said shortly. "'Less Caesare wants a job done. It don't pay, 'cept to buy a piece of rope at nubbing cheat. Unless you're
real
good." He thought of Valentina, of Claudia, their skills and bravado, with raw envy. "I'm good; I ain't that good."

"What if I wanted you to turn sneak thief for a bit... for me?" came the unexpected question.

"
Huh?
For you?" he responded, turning to stare at her, his jaw slack with surprise.

She moved her head slowly to meet his astonished gaze. "
Casa
Dandelo," she said tersely.

He nodded, understanding her then.
Somebody
�Montagnards, likely�had kidnapped the redoubtable Maria Garavelli; had kidnapped her, and truly,
truly
, frightened her, something Benito had never thought possible. She said that nothing else had happened. Benito believed her, but most of the canalers didn't. They assumed Maria had been molested, maybe raped, and was lying about it out of shame.

That assumption was fueling the seething anger which was steadily building among the canalers and the Arsenalotti. Most of Venice's working poor had no love for the Dandelos at the best of times. Now that the Dandelos had crossed the line by messing with a well-known citizen of the Republic... a poor one, true, but a canaler, not a vagrant...

There was going to be an explosion soon, Benito thought. And a lot bigger one than the initial rash of attacks on Dandelo retainers who had been unlucky enough to be caught in the open when the news of Maria's escape�and the identity of her captors�had raced through the city. Four Dandelo hangers-on, one of them a distant relation of the family, had been stabbed or beaten to death in two separate incidents within hours. After that, all the Dandelos and their retainers had hastily retreated to their fortresslike building to wait out the storm.

The canalers and Arsenalotti were now waiting to see what measures, if any, the authorities would take against the Dandelos for their flagrant transgression of the unspoken "rules." So far, however, all the signs were that the Signori di Notte intended to remain carefully blind to what the Dandelos had been up to. In which case... all hell was going to break loose, soon enough.

Maria herself, it seemed, had already waited long enough. She intended to start her own vendetta�
now!
�and she'd come to Benito first. He felt a strange, great thrill at that fact.

"
Si!
" Benito replied. He owed them too. Maria gave him hell sometimes, but he was fond of her. Kind of like a sister, except sometimes she made him think unsisterly things. Ever since he'd seen her in those
Case Vecchie
clothes... he'd realized she was beautiful. Not that she was interested in anyone but Caesare, of course. "
Si
, Maria, you got me. You say, how and when."

The hunched shoulders relaxed a bit; she favored him with a ghost of a smile. "Knew you wasn't
all
bad," she said, grabbing the railing and pulling herself to her feet.

Benito wasn't all fool, either;
he
knew where his primary loyalty lay�with the man he'd privately chosen as his model and mentor, Caesare Aldanto. When Benito had arrived at Caesare's Castello apartment�which they all called "home" now�that afternoon, he'd first checked to make sure that Marco and Maria weren't home. Caesare was sitting reading. Benito felt no qualms about disturbing him with a terse report of Maria's attempt to recruit him.

The warm, comfortable sitting room seemed to turn cold as Aldanto's expression chilled. Aldanto's hands tightened a little on the sheaf of papers he was holding; his blue eyes went cloudy. Benito knew
him
now, too�knew by those slight signs that Aldanto was not happy with this little piece of news.

Benito clasped his hands in front of him and tried to look older than his fifteen years�older, and capable; capable enough to run with Maria. Maybe even to ride herd a little on Maria.

"Caesare�" he offered, then before Aldanto could speak to forbid him to help, "you
know
I'm not bad at roof-walking. You've seen me; you've set me jobs yourself. You know if I tell her 'no' she's just going to go it alone. Let me help, huh? Happens I can keep her out of real bad trouble. Happens if she's got me along, she maybe won't go
looking
for bad trouble so damn hard, figuring she's got to keep me out of it."

A good hit, that last; Maria was likely to feel at least a little bit responsible for Benito, if only because she was maybe two years older than him. That was the line Valentina had taken when he was along on one of her jobs, and she was one of the
least
responsible people Benito knew. Aldanto tilted his head to the side and looked thoughtful when Benito had finished, then put the papers down on the couch to one side of him, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his lips with one long, aristocratic finger. "How about if I tell
you
to keep her out of trouble?" he asked finally.

Benito winced.
That
was nothing less than an impossibility, as Aldanto should very well know. "Ask me to fly. I've got a better chance."

Aldanto managed a quirk of the right corner of his mouth. "I'm afraid you're probably right. I should know better than to ask you to do something no one else can." He stared at Benito, then stared
though
him; thinking, and thinking hard. "All right; go ahead and give her a hand. See if you can't keep her from being totally suicidal."

Benito grinned and shrugged; so far as
he
could see, both he
and
Maria had won. He'd told Caesare�and he hadn't been forbidden to help or ordered to hinder. What little conscience he had was clear, and he was free to indulge in the kind of hell-raising he adored
with
Aldanto's tacit approval�

He prepared to turn and scoot down the hall to vanish into the downstairs bedroom he shared with Marco, when Aldanto stopped him with a lifted finger.

"But�" he said, with the tone that told Benito that disobedience would cost more than Benito would
ever
want to pay, "I expect you to keep me informed.
Completely
informed. Chapter and verse on
what
she's doing, and
when
, and
how
. And I want it
in advance
; and
well
in advance."

Benito stifled a sigh of disappointment.

"
Si
, milord," he agreed, hoping his reluctance didn't show too much. Because he knew what
that
meant. Maybe he wasn't going to have to try to stop Maria�but now he was honor-bound to
keep
her from trying to do the kind of things
he'd
like to pull. And what that meant, mostly, was keeping things quiet. Damn. "Quiet" wasn't half the fun.

Hey, this one didn't work out too bad
, Benito thought, inching along the rough beam to the opposite corner of the grille and ignoring the splinter he got in a palm. Pain was for later. He attacked the next bolt.

Quiet�and nothing to connect me or Maria to the mess when all hell breaks loose. Caesare was happy enough about that. We're here earlier than planned but I told him every detail. And we've been doing well tonight; this is two more windows than I'd figured likely to cut when we planned this.

He had gotten this bolt nearly sawed through when a feral cat yowled from the invisible canal below him. She did a good cat-yowl.... It was somewhere to his right, which meant upstream.

Maria had spotted possible trouble.

Benito coiled up the cable saw and stowed it safely away in the buttoned pocket of his breeches, making
damn
sure the button was fastened and the saw
in
there. Then he inched, still hanging upside-down, back along the support beam until he met the cross-brace. He switched to it, using both hands and legs, taking it slowly and carefully to avoid making the wood creak, until he reached the end that met the roof, where the gutter was. The drainpipes and gutterwork on
Casa
Dandelo Isle were sound, even if most of the rest of the building wasn't; Dandelo got most of its potable water from rain.

Might ask Marco if there's something we could drop into the roof-tank, give them all the heaves and trots.
Benito grinned again in the darkness�he had a fair notion Maria would like that idea real well. It was another quiet one�which would please Caesare. And it was an idea that would cost the Dandelo's money, real hard-cash money�cash for the doctors, for clean water when they figured out what the cause was, and for somebody to come clean and purge the system. That pleased Benito�and there was always a chance that the fear of plague or sickness in
Casa
Dandelo would flush some of the Montagnard agents out of their safe-house and maybe into the hands of the Schiopettieri. Hmm�another thought; if they had any human cargo in there, they might have to find another place for the captives. And that would give the slaves a chance to escape. That pleased Benito even more; he didn't have much in the way of moral scruples, but he was flat against slaving.

He continued to think about this new plan as he grabbed the edge of the gutter and hauled himself up onto the roof with its aid. The metal groaned a little, and he froze, but nothing further untoward happened. He continued easing himself up over the edge. He crawled from that point along the roof-edge, feeling his way and moving slowly to avoid any more noise, until he found the outside corner of the roof and the place where the gutter met the drainpipe. He stopped, taking stock with his ears, and nodded after a bit. The echoes from the water lapping against the building were right for where he thought he was; and he thought he could make out the sable pit of the Grand Canal, a blacker blot in the night-shadows ahead of him. He should be right on the point of
Casa
Dandelo where the building fronted Rio della Crea�and Maria should be right below him, holding her gondola steady against the pull of the current.