This Rough Magic

 

Chapter 45

Benito woke to the certain knowledge that he was getting soft. Sleeping on a cold stone floor might once have been luxury. After all, he was dry, and the other sleepers kept the place relatively warm. But the stone was a lot harder than what he had become used to. Erik and Thalia were already up. So he assumed, at any rate, because they weren't lying on the stone next to him.

Benito got himself up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, bowed to the altar, and walked off to find either the others or the town fountain. He hadn't slept that deeply for many years, and he knew that if he was going to keep alive out here, he was going to have to go back to the habits of his days as an unwanted and uninvited secret tenant in people's attics. He'd have to learn to sleep with his senses keyed again, where the slightest sound would wake him. Only, he had been so tired when they first arrived, he knew he couldn't have slept lightly. Now he was just so hungry, he couldn't have slept at all.

The first familiar face he saw, also at the town's fountain, belonged to neither Erik nor Thalia. The Corfiote sailor no longer had his black eye. The sailor looked at Benito. Blinked. Looked again.

Benito hoped that this wouldn't get unpleasant. He was fairly sure he could deal with the man's inept knife- skills. What he didn't want was the trouble that would inevitably follow. He also didn't want his identity nosed about. It might not cause trouble—but there could be ears out here in the street that it shouldn't come to. Benito glanced about. There was no one in earshot, at least.

The sailor shook his head. 'I'll be damned! Just what are you doing here, Case Vecchie?'

He didn't say it too loudly, or with any malice. Benito decided to chance friendliness. If he remembered rightly, the sailor from Bari had called him 'Spiro.'

'Trying not to give away that I am a Case Vecchie, Spiro. Do me a favor. Don't shout or call any attention to it or I might have to remind you how we last met. And I don't want to do that; I've got plenty of trouble as it is.'

The man didn't really seem to have heard. Instead he was studying Benito intently. 'You are him!' he said unbelievingly. 'You really are him!'

'I really don't want everyone to know, Spiro,' Benito repeated, fixing him with a stare.

The sailor grinned widely. 'Safe enough with me, milord. I owe you.'

Benito noticed that a couple of people were staring at them. He clapped Spiro on the shoulder, and turned the gesture into an arm around the sailor's shoulders, as if they were old friends. Which, at the moment, Benito really hoped was the case. 'Let's go and find some wine. I was going to drink some of the water, but I've decided that I'm really not that thirsty.'

Spiro looked skeptical. 'Right now, wine in Paleokastritsa is damn near as expensive as wine in Venice. And I'm afraid I'm broke again, milord, even if I owe you a drink or two.'

'For heaven's sake, call me Benito. Forget the 'milord.' And the wine is on me, and something to eat, if you can forget that fact. Venetian Case Vecchie are not popular right now. Out there, the Hungarians want to kill us for protecting the island. From what I can work out, the Corfiotes in here want to kill us for not protecting the island.'

Spiro shrugged. 'As you're buying the wine, I wouldn't dream of killing you, m . . . Benito.'

'Afterwards is a different story,' said Benito wryly.

Spiro chuckled. 'After a few glasses of wine even the stupidest idea can sound like a good one. But I did learn that that was a really, really insanely stupid one. So what are you doing here, m . . . Benito?'

'I'll tell you about it over that cup of wine. Where do we find one?'

Spiro pointed across the square at dark doorway. 'Papavanakis'. His taverna is dirty, it smells, his wife's face would curdle milk and I think he waters his wine.'

Benito grinned. 'So why are we drinking there?'

Spiro shrugged and grinned back. 'At least what he's putting in the wine is water. And he is less of a thief than most of them.'

They strolled over and went into the dim coolness out of the already bright day. Benito blinked, adjusting his eyes to the lack of direct sunlight. The taverna was clean and smelled of food and wine. Fresh bread and meaty smells, and the wine wasn't slightly used by prior customers. The pretty young woman behind the counter scowled at them. 'Not you again, Spiro! Go away. Not another cup will I give you until you pay.'

Spiro nodded to Benito. 'See what I mean,' he said mournfully. 'Curdle milk, that face would.'

She snorted and pretended to throw a wine cup at him. It was obviously an old joke. 'Go away, Spiro. Papas will kill me if I give you any more credit.'

Spiro gestured expansively. 'It's all right, Anna. Beni here is paying.'

The woman raised her eyebrows. 'With the same coin as you pay? Or real money?'

Benito produced a silver penny.

'You shouldn't show her that much!' said Spiro. 'She'll faint and we'll never see any wine. Or that food you promised me. It's been a while since I ate.'

The taverna's keeper clicked her tongue. 'He's impossible. How did he talk you into wasting good money on him?' She said it with perfect amiability, while filling two wine cups.

Benito realized that Spiro had addressed her in Italian Frankish . . . and that she'd replied in the same way. Plainly, by her accent and rapidity of speech, it was her mother-tongue. He'd been keeping his own mouth shut to play down his origins but it now seemed safe enough. 'He borrowed money from me. He's had it for a year. So now he says I owe him interest,' said Benito, earnestly.