Lackey, Mercedes & Flint, Eric & Freer, Dave - [Heirs of Alexandria 01] (13 page)

Before Marco could protest, before Benito could do anything more than look stunned, Aldanto had chivvied them out of the door and onto the walkway. Benito, for once, looked appropriately apprehensive, but that could easily have been because he'd run errands for Ventuccio and reckoned on being recognized there.

Aldanto had not been speaking rhetorically, for a brisk walk brought them straight to
Casa
Ventuccio proper.

At least he didn't take them to the main door of the great house. Instead, he led them down to a water-door, where he tapped out a sequence of knocks, and was answered.

The man who opened the door frowned ferociously when he saw who it was, but at least he listened to Aldanto's whispered words and, after a moment, nodded.

"I'll see about it," the man growled, and allowed them, grudgingly, past the door to stand waiting in the damp entry while he went away somewhere. Presently, he came back, still looking displeased, but jerked his head as a sign that they should follow. He led them down long, unlit halls of wood and stone, and finally into a room piled with ledgers that was so brightly lit Marco was blinking tears back.

Now they fronted a man Aldanto called by name, and that man was coldly angry. "You have a lot of balls, coming here, Caesare," the man spat. "And for calling me away from my guests on a night of the Feast�"

"Granted," Aldanto said coldly. "However, I think you happen to take your honor and your pledged word fairly seriously, and I have just learned that you happen to have an unpaid debt and a broken promise you might want to discharge. These boys are Valdosta. Marco and Benito Valdosta."

Marco had rarely seen words act so powerfully on someone. The man's anger faded into guilt.

"I've brought them here," Aldanto continued deliberately, "so that we can even some scales. You made a promise to Duke Dell'este, and didn't keep it. I�lost you some people. Both these kids are useful."

Now the man looked skeptical, as if he doubted Aldanto's ability to judge much of anything.

"Milord," Benito piped up, "you've used me, I know. Ask your people. I'm a messenger�a good one. I don't take bribes, I'm fast�"

"You could take him on as a staff runner and train him for bargework as he grows into it. And the older boy clerks," Aldanto continued.

"You don't expect me to take that on faith!"

Marco took a deep breath and interrupted. "Set me a problem, milord. Nothing easy. You'll see."

The man sniffed derisively, then rattled off something fast; a complicated calculation involving glass bottles�cost, expected breakage, transportation and storage, ending with the question of how much to ask for each in order to receive a twenty-percent profit margin.

Marco closed his eyes, went into his calculating-trance, and presented the answer quickly enough to leave the man with a look of surprise on his face.

"Well!" said the man. "For once... I don't suppose he can write, too?"

Aldanto had a funny little smile. "Give him something to write with." He seemed to be enjoying the man's discomfiture.

Marco was presented with a quill pen and an old bill of lading. He appropriated a ledger to press on, and promptly copied the front onto the back, and in a much neater hand.

"You win," the man said with resignation. "Why don't you tell me exactly what's been going on�and how you managed to resurrect these two?"

Aldanto just smiled.

The man took Aldanto off somewhere, returning after a bit with a troubled look and a bundle, which he handed to Benito.

"You, boy�I want you here at opening time sharp, and in this uniform. And you're not Valdosta anymore, forget that name. You're Oro; you're close enough to the look of that family. Got that?"

Benito took the bundle soberly. "Yes. Milord."

"As for you�" Marco tried not to sway with fatigue, but the man saw it anyway, "�you're out on your feet. No good to anyone until you get some rest. Besides, two new kids in one day�hard to explain. You get fed and clean, real clean. We've got a reputation to maintain. And get that hair taken care of. I want you here in two days. 'Oro' is no good for you. Make it�uh�Felluci. I don't suppose you'd rather be sent back to your family?"

"No, milord," Marco replied adamantly. "I won't put danger on them. Bad enough that it's on me."

The man shook his head. "Saints preserve�you're a fool, boy, but a brave one. Dell'este honor, is it? Well, Dell'este can usually deal with most things, too. Anyway... Right enough�now get out of here. Before I remember that I'm
not
a fool. Ventuccio honor's real enough, but it isn't that hammered steel version the Old Fox insists on."

Aldanto escorted them to the door, stopping them just inside it.

"This wasn't free�" he told Marco quietly.

"Milord. I know that, milord."

"Just so we both know, I'm going to be calling in this debt�calling in all those things you promised me. I may call it in so often that you'd wish you'd never thought of coming to me."

"Milord Aldanto," Marco replied, looking him full in the eyes, "I
owe
you. And I can't ever pay it all."

"Well..." Aldanto seemed slightly embarrassed. "They say the one who wins is the one who is left standing, so by all counts you came out of this a winner. Be grateful�and remember to keep your mouth shut."

Marco figured that that was the best advice he'd had in a long time.

Benito hauled Marco back to Valentina and Claudia before taking him "home." The Marco that came from their hands was much shorter of hair by a foot or two; and a bit darker of complexion�not to mention a lot cleaner and with a good hot breakfast in his stomach. It wasn't quite dawn when he and his brother climbed up to the garret where Benito had made his home. Benito gave him a pair of blankets to roll up in, and he was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted before Benito had gotten into his store clothes. Benito smiled to himself, a smile warm and content with the world, and set to one last task before heading back to Ventuccio.

He pried up a particular board in the attic, felt around until he located the little bag he had hung there, and pulled it out. Caesare's woman Maria Garavelli was bound to hear of this�and he reckoned he'd better have a peace offering. And there was that scarf he'd taken off that duelist to prove to Claudia that he was able.

* * *

After the Ventuccio let him go for the day, he waited under the Ponto di Rialto knowing she'd be by. When he spotted her, he swung down to hang from the support by his knees.

He whistled. She looked up.

"Maria�" he called. "Peace, huh? Truce? Okay? Here's something for sorrys." He'd knotted a pebble into one corner of the scarf�and it was a nice one; silk, bright red. He dropped it neatly at her feet, and scrambled back up before she could get over her surprise. With Maria Garavelli it was a good idea to get out of the line-of-sight and find out about reactions later.

Besides�he warmed to the thought�he had to get back home. His family was waiting. And once they'd eaten there was a bit of swimming he'd promised to do for that smuggler-girl.

What was
that
about?
wondered Maria. She stared after Benito's rapidly receding form, pausing for a moment in her rowing of the gondola.

"Peace?" "Truce?" I didn't know there was a fight between me and Benito in the first place. If there is... we'll see whether there's a truce or not!

Maria Garavelli looked at the bright rectangle of silk lying on her duckboards and bent down and rescued the precious scrap before it got wet. It was the expensive color that dyers called
golden flame
or
oriflamme
. It was just the color of the evening sun-trail on the water of the lagoon. She shook her head clear of these impractical thoughts. Honestly! Sometimes she behaved as she was some
Case Vecchie
lady, instead of a canal-girl.

That bridge-brat Benito... He hung about with young Mercutio Laivetti. Mercutio was Trouble if she'd ever met trouble, and you didn't get to be sixteen as an orphaned girl on the canals of Venice without being good at spotting it. She'd fended for herself for three years since Mama died, leaving her nothing but the gondola. Cousin Antonio had offered to let her move in with them, but heaven knew there were enough mouths to feed there. Saint Hypatia! And his wife was the worst shrew and gossip in all Venice. Maria pulled a wry face and tucked the silk scarf into the top of her blouse. She went back to sculling.

Some of that gossip was about her in the last few months, she was sure. The cousins didn't approve of Caesare. They really, really didn't approve of her living with him. It wasn't just that they weren't married. A fair number of Caulker-guild brides, those of the Garavelli cousins among them, had tried for the reputation of having been the most pregnant at the altar. Cousin Rosina had looked as if she might just have to get the priest to help with the delivery! But Caesare came from above the salt. The Garavelli were artisans. Mostly caulkers, cladding Venice's great ships. They had a pride in working with their hands and not much liking or trust for a man who didn't.

She worked the oar just a bit faster. The only reason that bridge-brat Benito could have been giving her a silk scarf�a stolen silk scarf, she'd bet�was something to do with her Caesare. She set her mouth in a grim line. Scarf or no scarf, she'd sort that Benito out if he'd brought trouble onto her!

All the same... it was a gorgeous red, that scarf. It would set off her thick dark hair beautifully. She craved for lovely things like that�not for themselves but because they'd make her look a little less like a canal-girl. Caesare was so fine. Everything about him said
Case Vecchie
, from the smooth, curved golden hair that looked as if it were cast in bronze, to the long white hands. Her hands were work-hardened and brown. She'd
kill
young Benito if he'd brought trouble.

Without even realizing it, her fists were clenched tightly on the oars. Maria Garavelli was not one to back away from a fight. She'd been fighting for most of her young life; she could say it had even begun before she was born, when her mama's own people had thrown her out for getting pregnant without the benefit of a husband. Like
she'd
have starved, except that she had a small boat, inherited from her grandfather, and a regular list of customers she made deliveries for, gotten on her own initiative. So Mama had worked right up through the first labor pains (so she'd said) and then headed for the canalside midwife she'd already made arrangements with, and the next day she was up and working again with Maria wrapped up in swaddling in a cradle made of half a cask.

Maria had grown up, like every other canal-brat, knowing that it was only fight and hard work that kept you that bare nail-paring away from starvation and disaster. She'd worked at Mama's side from the time she could stand, and when Mama took the fever and died, she kept right on working.

And fighting. She had to fight with the toughs who saw her as an easy mark and tried to take her cargo or her pay. She had to fight with the other canal-boat owners who tried to steal her customers with implications that a "little girl on her own" couldn't do what she'd pledged. She even had to fight Mama's family who wanted her to come work at some miserable pittance of a dead-end job for them. She had to fight the boys�relatives and canalers and toughs�who figured since her mama had been "loose," the daughter's skirts were there for lifting.
They
finally let her be when one of their number had to join a
castrati
choir when she'd finished with him.

So it was no wonder that she'd never exchanged so much as a single solitary flirtatious glance with a boy, much less had anything like a romance. Oh, she'd certainly
thought
enough about it. She wasn't made of wood, after all. When a good-looking tough sauntered by, flaunting himself for the admiration of the
puttanas
, or she'd see a wedding coming out of a church with the bride beaming�when she'd hear a snatch of song and see some love-sick student balanced precariously in a gondola, serenading a window she couldn't help thinking... Even, on the rare occasions that she went to Mass at Saint Lucia's and spent the entire time contemplating, not God, but the pale and beautiful face of Father Raphael�how could she not think about the ways of man-with-maid?

But she'd had no illusions, either. She knew she was hard and rough, not smooth and silky. She knew only too well that her skin was brown and weathered, not soft and pink like rose petals.

She'd had no illusions about her looks, but still�she'd had dreams she never told anyone, just cherished to herself, and played over in the theater in her head when she was halfway between waking and sleeping. Someday, some handsome fellow would drop into her life�she'd rescue him from a flood, or from footpads, or he'd hire her boat to visit some worthless, heartless bitch who would throw him over. He'd look at her, and see something in her that no one else ever had�he'd take off her cap, pull all her hair down around her face, and say, "Maria�you're
beautiful
!" in tones of moonstruck surprise. And he'd love her forever, and it would turn out that he was the long-lost heir to one of the Old Houses�

Oh, stupid dreams, and she would never, ever have admitted to anyone that she had them. She would never, ever have believed them, either.

Except that... one night they came true.

She'd been tied up for the night under a bridge to get out of the rain, when she heard the sounds that no Venetian�boater, canalside dweller, or high-and-mighty�ever wanted to hear. A scuffle. The sounds of a blow. Then the sound of two men carrying something heavy up to the top of the bridge.

It was a dark night on top of the miserable rain, what with the moon hidden by the clouds, but she knew she didn't dare move or make a sound. She huddled under the roof of what she grandly called the "cabin" of her little boat, and hoped that the men up there wouldn't notice that she was tied up in the shadows underneath. She might be able to fight off one or even two, but from the sounds there had been more than that.