Lackey, Mercedes & Flint, Eric & Freer, Dave - [Heirs of Alexandria 01] (53 page)

She smiled, and patted his cheek. "And I do! But not exclusively."

He put his bulky arms around her waist and drew her close, his face growing sulky.

Francesca gave him a quick, easy kiss, but her hands were on his chest gently pushing him away. "Please, Manfred. You could not begin to afford keeping me for yourself, and you know it as well as I do. So enjoy what we have."

"But... Francesca," he pouted.

"Thursday. Build up your strength." Her next kiss was firm, and dismissive.

On their way back, observing Manfred's clumping steps from the corner of his eye, Erik found himself fighting down a smile. For once�
ha!
�even the happy-go-lucky imperial prince seemed to have met a woman who confounded him.

Perhaps sensing his companion's humor, Manfred shrugged thick shoulders. "What can I do?" he demanded, in a tone which was half-amused and half-exasperated. "Next to Francesca, all the other women in this town are just...
boring.
"

His still-young face seemed, for just a moment, even younger than it was. "It's not fair! I'm being
ruined
for a normal life of whoremongering." Blackly: "You watch! Before you know it, she'll be
reading
to me in bed."

Erik held his tongue. But he finally decided Francesca was right. Maybe some young girl out there�some eventual princess�
would
thank her for the training she was giving Manfred. He was far too used to getting his own way; with women as much as anything else. Being stymied and befuddled was undoubtedly good for the royal young lout.

As a guardian and a warrior-mentor, Erik still regretted the incident that had led Manfred into consorting with Francesca. Because of the debt between them, he hadn't been able to deal with it as decisively as he usually would have. But...

Yes, there was truth in what she'd said. He simply
couldn't
watch the young hellion twenty-four hours a day. Manfred was as safe with Francesca as in the Imperial embassy... from which Manfred had found at least three unofficial exits. If he could leave, then anyone could enter too. Erik had pointed this out to the abbot, to be told that the rite of enclosure precluded it. All Erik could say was that the rite appeared�as testified by Manfred's presence in the Casa Louise�to be ineffectual.

And, he supposed, just as he was seeing to some aspects of the education of the future Duke of Brittany and possible heir to the Holy Roman Emperor's throne, Francesca was also. Erik blushed a little. These were certainly areas he was ignorant of. And besides that, she was knowledgeable about other things which Erik knew little about�such as the political intrigue that seemed to be the heart of the Venetian Republic. The Italians seemed to relish it. It left him puzzled and with a feeling of distaste. But this was what Manfred would have to deal with when Erik went back to Iceland and thence to Vinland.

Benito hadn't missed the subtle little signals Aldanto was passing to those shadow-lurkers canalside. Benito knew those shadows, knew them for Giaccomo's. Knew how much they cost. Was totaling up that cost in his head, and coming to a sum that scared the socks off of him.

All that�for Marco?

Oh, hell.

He began doing some very hard thinking about the time they hit the Grand Canal. He'd made up his mind by the time they reached the house in Castello.

Aldanto helped to get Marco as far as the kitchen, then let Maria take over; he headed for the sitting room, and stood looking out of the window in the dim sunlight, arms crossed over his chest, handsome face brooding and worried. Benito made himself a silent shadow following him.

"M'lord�" he said quietly, as soon as they were alone.

Aldanto started�barely visibly; controlling an automatic reaction of defense. Benito's quick eyes caught it all, and his evaluation of Caesare rose considerably.

Damn�he's good. If he can pull his reaction after all this�he's damned good. Better'n anybody I've ever seen.

"What?" the man said shortly, obviously not in a mood for more nonsense.

"M'lord," he said soberly, as Caesare regarded him over one shoulder. "I�I'm sorry about the�" he gestured, flushing, "�where I hit you."

"You're
sorry
?" The ex-Montagnard was actually speechless.

"M'lord�listen a minute, please? I didn't know what to think. Thought maybe you might have�well�Marco might be worth a bit, to the right people."

"Thought I might have turned my coat again, is that it?" Aldanto looked very odd; a little amused, and maybe a little understanding.

"M'lord, I didn't blame you�I was thinking maybe somebody's been leaning on you. If I was you, reckon I'd swap a kid for Maria, if I had to�hard choice, but�that's the way I'd be doing it." Benito kept his eyes on Aldanto, and thought he saw a thoughtful gleam there.

"So�hey, I thought, you didn't have Marco, you might use me to get to Marco. So I let you have it where it could count, so as I could scat."

"I'm afraid, boy," Caesare said quietly, "that this once you were wrong."

Benito preferred not to think about what that peculiarly phrased sentence might mean if he examined it too closely.

"Look, m'lord, I told you�you got a hard choice to make, you make the best one you can. Happens I was wrong this time�but I'm sorry, hey? Now�" Benito got down to business. "I think my brother cost you more than you could afford, no? I've got eyes�and I know what Giaccomo's rates are�"

Aldanto's own eyes narrowed speculatively, but he said nothing.

"M'lord Caesare, I used to figure there was one person worth spending all I had to keep alive, and that was my brother. Now, I figure there's two�"

He felt, more than heard, Maria come in behind him. That was all right; nothing he was going to say now that he didn't want Maria to hear. "Well, maybe three, except Maria back there can take care of herself, I reckon. But the other one's you. We owe you, m'lord."

Aldanto turned to face him fully. "I may be able to salvage something from Marco's poetry," he said dryly. "I wish he'd told me about it earlier." He shifted his weight to one foot. "But what is the point of telling me something I know?"

"It's this, m'lord�Marco, he's
good
, ye know? I'm
not
good�I'm trouble. I don't know how, but the Dell'este�my grandfather�always knew that, even when I was a kid. 'You take care of Marco,' he told me. 'The good ones need us bad ones to keep them safe.' "

Aldanto's right eyebrow rose markedly. "I'm not exactly popular with the Duke of Ferrara, boy. How do you think he'd feel about the company you're keeping now?"

Benito shrugged. "That's not my problem. He just told me I was to take care of Marco."

Aldanto looked pensive, but he said nothing. Benito continued, nervously, but determined. "M'lord, I�" he waved his hands helplessly "�I guess what I want to say is this. You got into this mess because of us. It cost you. You didn't have to do it. Well I'm guessing. But I figure you might need help. Well, from now on, you say, and I'll do. Whatever. However. For as long as you like. And there's some things I'm not too shabby at."

The eyebrow stayed up. Caesare made no pretence that he didn't understand what Benito was talking about. "And if I say�no noise?"

Benito remembered a certain window, and a certain escapade that no longer seemed so clever, and the shadowy men on the canalside walkways�and shuddered. "Then it'll be quiet, m'lord.
Real
quiet. Babies wouldn't wake up."

"And how long can I expect this sudden fit of virtue to last?" Caesare asked with heavy irony.

"It'll last, m'lord, long as you got use for me. Though, I reckon�" Benito grinned suddenly, engagingly, "you'll have to crack me over the ear, now and again. Claudia used to�about once a week."

Caesare's eyes narrowed a little as he studied Benito. The boy held steady beneath that merciless gaze, neither dropping his own eyes, nor shifting so much as an inch. Finally Aldanto nodded in apparent satisfaction.

"You'll do as I say?
Exactly
as I say? No arguments?"

"Yes m'lord. No arguments, m'lord. I can spot a professional when I see one, m'lord. Happen you could teach me more than a bit, no? I learn quick, even Valentina says so. One other thing, though�Marco, he went an' spent all the rent money on your medicine, and both of us had to leave work to help out here, so there's nothing saved." Benito was
not
averse to rubbing that in, just to remind Aldanto that they'd already bankrupted themselves for
him
, and that debt could work both ways.

He got a bit of satisfaction when this time he definitely saw Caesare wince. "Money's a bit tight."

Benito shrugged. "I understand. Giaccomo's boys don't come cheap. But we're broke. So we either got to stay here, or hit the attics again. Happens the attics are no bad notion; you've got to get over the roofs to get in them�hard for folks to sneak up on you."

Aldanto shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment.

"Mercy�" he mumbled, "�
what
have I let myself in for this time?"

He cast a glance behind Benito. "Maria�you've got some stake in this too�"

Benito didn't look around, but heard Maria flop down in a chair behind him.

"I think it's no bad idea," she said. "Let them stay here. Lots of comings and goings�maybe not all by doors�confuse the hell out of any watchers."

Aldanto looked over at Benito again, and Benito had the peculiar feeling of seeing someone quite near his own age looking at him out of those adult eyes for one brief flash.

"Hey, the attics ain't so bad," he gave a token protest. "I lived there two years. You get some heat from the house and if you keep quiet you don't get found out and have to move too often. Better than the marshes by a long way."

Aldanto shook his head. "I'd rather you were where I could see you."

Benito shrugged. "Well, if you let us stay, we stay. But we've got jobs. We'll kick in."

"You'd better." That was Maria, behind him.

Caesare shook his head again. Sighed. "Well then, Benito Valdosta, I think we may have a bargain even if my bones tell me it may well be a partnership made in Hell."

Benito just grinned "Hey, not for
you,
m'lord. But for people acting unfriendly-like? Against a team like the three of us, you, me, and Maria, m'lord Caesare? They haven't a chance!"

Harrow had panicked at first, when he'd seen
who
was picking the boys up�he'd broken out of the knot of fighting loco he'd tipped into the water and struggled vainly to get to the gondola before it could carry the boys off. The treacherous bottom had betrayed him. By the time he'd hauled himself out of the washout the two boys were aboard the gondola and being sculled away, back into the shadowed bowels of the city.

Then recollection came to him, and he edged past the brawl back into depths of the swamp, comforted by this new evidence of the Goddess's intervention. Aldanto was
former
Montagnard; a man with an assassin's knowledge, a snake's cunning, an eel's ways, a duelist's defenses. If the Montagnards were after the boys, what better protection could they have than that of the man who knew most about the ways the Visconti operated, from firsthand experience?

But the Goddess had charged him with watching over them�and Aldanto was only one man; he couldn't be everywhere at once, and he couldn't spend all his time awake. So. That meant Harrow should return to the city�

Luciano was pleased with his convert's plans. Secretly. The man responded well to manipulation. It was necessary to rant at Harrow about the folly of them until he was hoarse�but Harrow simply held his peace until Luciano ran out of words and then repeated his intentions.

"I'm going back in," he said simply. "The Goddess put it on me, the job's not done till
She
says so. She said to watch the boys, so I'm watching the boys."

Luciano sighed, "Can't argue with Her, or you," he said glumly, concealing his triumph. "But you got any notion
where
you're going?"

Harrow nodded, slowly. "Know where Aldanto lives; know lots of watchin' holes around Castello�"

"You just go to the boy's friends if you run into trouble, hear me? Claudia�that's th' main one. Singer�"

"�works out of Barducci's tavern, lives second floor. You told me that already." Harrow did
not
add what he was thinking�that he probably could teach this Strega more than a few things about covert work. He had little respect for female agents; most of them were damned little use out of bed. He was itching to get out and get moving�Luciano had given him some other drug that cleared his mind and fired his feeling of purpose to a near-obsession, and every moment spent dallying only made the urge to get into place stronger.

"All right, get moving," Luciano growled. "I can see you've no more interest nor purpose out here."

Harrow did not wait to hear anything more.

Petro Dorma refolded the letter. And bestowed it and the bundle of poems... in his own desk. He ignored his sister's gasp of outrage. He'd had years of practice.

"You... you give that back to me!" yelled Angelina, her face red. "I brought it here so you could deal with the little upstart. If you won't, I'll get someone who will!"

Petro took a deep breath. "Angelina, you have been carrying on a clandestine correspondence with this... love-starved puppy. You know as well as I do that half the
Case Vecchie
would send an unmarried virgin off to a nunnery for that. Your fury seems to be entirely directed at this unfortunate and obviously besotted young Marco Felluci not because he wrote you some very inaccurate if flattering poems, but because you thought the poems came from someone else. Would you care to tell me who this 'Caesare' your young swain refers to is?"

Angelina Dorma looked sullen. "Give me back my letters."

"No." Petro looked at his sister. Almost twenty years younger than he and still a child when their father had died, she'd been pampered. His mother had needed someone to turn to and spoil and�well, so had he. She could be very taking, very sweet, even now. When she'd been younger he'd never had the heart to refuse her anything. He'd seen giving her whatever she'd desired as a way of making up for her missing out on having Papa. He'd always felt guilty about that. He'd been twenty-five, already making his own way in the world, marked and shaped by Ernesto Dorma's hand. She'd been six. Now he was beginning to realize that he and his mother had been the ones who'd missed Ernesto. Angelina had hardly known him. He'd been his father's shadow. Angelina, of course, had not been allowed to go to the dockyards and timberyards.