This Rough Magic

Benito closed his eyes momentarily. 'Not a horse. Please!'

'Well, at least wash your face!'

 

Chapter 76

Maria was working on the looms on the upper tier, keeping a weather eye on the carpenters working on the next level down. The gates opened. Maria blinked at the sunlight on armor, then rubbed her eyes unbelievingly.

She got up slowly and deliberately, took Alessia from her crib in the shade, and walked down the stairs— being very careful not to stumble. Her knees felt a little weak.

* * *

Benito was grinning at Umberto, trying not to show his shock. The master-caulker had never been a big man. Now he looked as if a puff of wind would blow him away. He was gaunt and pale, and he looked at least twenty years older. 'I hear you got in the way of a bullet, Umberto.'

'The master is a hero!' said one of the other scuolo, affronted by this familiarity. 'He saved the Citadel!'

Umberto's eyes narrowed, focusing on Benito. 'Signor Valdosta?'

Benito nodded. 'Just Benito Valdosta. Or as your wife would have it, just trouble.'

'You got out? Maria told me you had been successful in getting out, that someone had signaled from the main island. Raftopo,' he pointed to Benito, 'this is the young man who bought your coracle, remember?'

The fellow nodded. 'Si. I remember. Umberto wouldn't say what you wanted it for.'

'We went over the wall to the island,' said Benito. 'How's Maria, Umberto?'

The former coracle-owner shook his head. A stolid oxlike thinker, he plainly ground everything to its finest. 'If you got out, how come you're here?'

Manfred patted Benito on the shoulder. 'Because he came back, of course. After he went all the way to Venice.'

'In my coracle? Ha.' The former owner looked as if people had all too often tried to put one over him.

'Hell, no—that sank about a mile away,' said Benito. 'Fishing boat to Italy. Small trader up the west coast and then a damned horse over the Apennines to Ferrara. Barge to Venice.'

The scuolo wrestled with the implications of this. 'You mean . . .'

'Back again, I see,' said Maria. 'You know, Benito, you're the original bad penny.' But she was smiling broadly as she said it, and her eyes seemed a little moist.

* * *

He was looking like . . . Benito. At first she thought he had shrunk. The she realized it was just outsize clothes. Good clothes but enormous. The cotte hung like a dress on him, which was maybe just as well. The breeches he wore were muddy and salt-stained. His feet were bare and filthy. And his face . . .

She looked at it, remembering. It had lost a little of the youthfulness, and he was as pale as a nocturnal Case Vecchie gentleman. He was smiling at her, very oddly. 'How's Alessia?' he asked. 'Her godmother wanted me to ask.'

She put a hand on his forehead. It was clammy but hot. 'You can find out when you get out of the hospital, you idiot! He's feverish, Prince. Take him there before he falls over on us.'

Benito obliged her by doing just that.

* * *

Manfred walked over to the commander's offices after they'd deposited Benito in the care of the monks. There were times for subtlety and quiet contact. This wasn't one of them.

'Commander Leopoldo's over at the south wall, sir. There's a bit of a situation there. We had explosions there early this morning.'

Manfred laughed. Benito! 'I'll go and see him there.'

He went by horse, with Von Gherens, having had a sudden thought. He dispatched Falkenberg to go and keep a watch over Benito. The boy could easily be the target of whoever the spies in the Citadel were. The morale boost to the Citadel of having news from Venice was huge. That was why Manfred had told the men at the Little Arsenal what Benito had done. It would run like wildfire around the fortress. It would get to whoever was spying, too. Emeric wouldn't enjoy hearing that news.

* * *

'We think he may be some sort of trap,' said Leopoldo, pointing to the man at the foot of the tower. 'He's alive. We've seen him move. So why is he tied up? Who is he? And there are those barrels of what is probably gunpowder over there.'

Manfred looked at the bound, trouserless man, and at the shingle strip with four haphazardly lying barrels on the beach. 'Nope,' he said with a grin and in a good carrying voice. 'That's Benito's work. You can go out and collect the prisoner. I'll go out and fetch him if you like.'

'That's a lot of black powder. If there is shrapnel in it and it goes off, Prince, you'll be mincemeat.'

'I told you, Commander. My agent, Benito Valdosta, caught that saboteur last night, when my man was coming in from the Venetian forces. You should come up to the hospital and hear all the details.'

'Venetian forces?'