Caesare laughed easily, unpleasantly. 'You do that. He won't pay you either. Now get out. Keep out of trouble and there may be work for you again. Open those mouths of yours and you can join Alberto. Now go. Get. Don't ever come back here. I don't know you.'
They backed out like whipped curs.
Marco felt the tension drain out of his shoulders.
'You can put that knife away,' said Caesare.
Startled, Marco dropped it back into the bag. 'Sorry.' Then he realized that Caesare had actually been addressing Maria.
Looking at her stormy face, Marco realized that maybe he'd been too hasty about relaxing. The Matteonis had been a minor danger, comparatively. 'How could you, Caesare? Matteoni? Figlio di una puttana! They're filth! Slavers. They sell . . . and make castrati to the east. And they broke my cousin Tonio's fingers! You know how a caulker with broken fingers finds work?'
'Put the knife away, Maria. I work with what I have to work with.'
Her response was to put the knife down on the table, snatch a platter off it and fling it at his head. It shattered against the wall behind him. 'Testa di cazzo! If my cousins hear you work with the Matteoni, they don't never work for you again!'
Caesare picked a pottery fragment out of his hair. His eyes blazed angrily in his pale face. He snapped right back at her. 'They'll damn well do what they're told and you'll keep your damned mouth shut to everyone about it, bitch!'
'Damn you to hell, Aldanto!' she snarled. 'I'll talk to who I want to talk to, when I damn well want to!'
Benito, up on the landing, put the arquebus down carefully. He'd already snuffed the slowmatch. He gestured to Marco with his eyes and head. Marco nodded, wide-eyed, and ducked as the next piece of crockery hit the wall. With a quiet that was quite unnecessary above the shouting, he headed to join Benito moving for the door. Even the risk of lurking Matteonis seemed less dangerous than staying.
* * *
In the relative quiet of Barducci's, Marco turned to Benito. 'Does that sort of thing happen often?'
'What? The fights?'
'Yes.'
Benito shrugged. 'It's happened a couple of times that I know of. Maria's pretty quick to flare up. They always patch it up, after. Caesare needs her and she's crazy about him.'
Marco looked across the room. Angelina Dorma and her Case Vecchie friends hadn't come in this evening. Barducci's was only one of the taverns they frequented. Quite frankly that crowd of hers worried him.
'I thought Caesare was too independent to feel like that about Maria.'
Benito snorted into his wine. 'He plays the field. But carefully. He needs Maria's cousins is rather what I meant.'
'Oh.' Marco let his curiosity get the better of him. He thought of Maria's extended family of 'cousins.' Even if she had no parents she had enough of those cousins to start a tribe. A poor tribe, though, and not . . . well . . . the sort of people you'd think would be of any value to Caesare in his shadowy world. Most of them were just caulkers, not even thugs like the Matteoni brothers. It was the poorest guild, putting the outer planking and caulking on Venice's ships. Not for the life of him could he see why someone like Caesare--with contacts like Ricardo Brunelli-- would need to have anything to do with them. 'Why?'
Benito looked around the tavern. 'Come on, big brother. Finish up. I'm tired. That girl you've been mooning over isn't in tonight. If we take the long way back we should get back after the kissing and making up, and with any luck after the sweeping up, too.'
Marco drained his goblet. He hadn't realized that Benito was aware of his fascination with Angelina Dorma. He felt a little embarrassed about it. On the other hand, he felt he'd better find out what Benito was talking about with Maria's cousins. He owed Caesare. It was only right to take care of his business for him. And he couldn't do that unless he knew what it was. Obviously his eternally curious brother had found out something. Equally obviously he wasn't going to tell Marco here.
He stood up and stretched. 'Very well, it must be well the other side of midnight anyway.'
They followed Benito's habitual 'upper route.' Even after all these weeks in town, and his frequent clambers
