The problem was they didn't know the half of what he'd gotten into.
Marco, who was just home from work at Ventuccio's booth on the Piazza San Marco, huddled in a soft plush- covered chair in Aldanto's living room. He had lit one lamp, on the right side of the window tonight--that was to tell Maria that all was well--but had left the rest of the room in gray gloom. He was curled around the knot of anguish that seemed to have settled into his gut for good. Every time he looked up, the very room seemed to breathe reproach at him.
There was frost on the window--bitter cold it was out there. Here he was, warm and dry and eating good--he could have been out in the Jesolo marshes, freezing his butt off, but he wasn't, thanks to Caesare Aldanto. He could have been shivering in Benito's attic, or in their little barren apartment in Cannaregio--hell he could have been dead, but he wasn't, again thanks to Aldanto.
Caesare had taken him and Benito under his protection. He had protected them and then taken them into his own home. He'd been feeding them and housing them and keeping them safe because the town was in a turmoil and that was the only way he could be certain they were safe. And now Marco had gone and compromised the whole damned setup and compromised Caesare himself.
Maria was right. He was an ingrate.
He was more miserable than he'd ever been in his life; more miserable than the time he'd hidden out in the marshes, because that had only been physical misery--more miserable than when his mother had been killed, because that was a clean-cut loss. This--this tangle of lies and half-truths he'd woven into a trap binding him and Aldanto--this mess had him so turned inside-out--that it was a wonder he even remembered what day it was.
Oh, Angelina, he thought mournfully, if only I'd never seen you.
It had seemed so innocent, sending that love poem to Angelina Dorma. She wouldn't know who had sent it, so what harm could possibly come of it? But Angelina had assumed it had come from Aldanto, because she was in love with Caesare. Not surprising, that. Caesare Aldanto was a man, not a lovesick boy. Caesare Aldanto was urbane and sophisticated and, to top it off, tall, golden-haired--in a city full of short, dark folk--and as handsome as a sculpture of Apollo. No girl would think twice about Marco with Caesare Aldanto in the same city. Marco didn't blame Angela--and truth to tell, he hadn't really expected her to respond to the poems so strongly.
But she had; and she had come to her own conclusions about them. She'd caught Marco delivering a third love-poem. She'd got him so twisted around with the way she'd acted towards him that all he could think about was that she'd guessed about his own passion and she was being Case Vecchie and coy. He'd been so bemused he hadn't left her until long after dark . . .
Caesare--still recovering from the fever--Maria and Benito had all been in a fine case over him by then, worrying that he'd been caught by Montagnards, caught and maybe been tortured or killed.
But he was so full of Angelina and how she'd guessed at the identity of the author of the poems, and sought him out, that all he could feel was resentment that they were hovering over him so much.
It was only after he'd read her note--then reread it and reread it--that he realized that she'd guessed wrong. She'd figured that the author was Caesare, and he was the errand-boy. And she'd set him such a tempting little trap, too--offered to have Dorma sponsor and fund him into the Accademia, and make his dream of becoming a doctor come true, so that he could be conveniently close to deliver more such messages. So tempting; he could at least see and talk to her, any time he wanted. He could also have his other dream--all he needed to do was to keep up the lie, to keep writing those poems and pretending Caesare was sending them. That was all. Just as simple as Original Sin and just as seductive.
And now he was afraid to tell Caesare, because he'd been such a fool, and worse, got them tangled up with a romantic Case Vecchie girl, one with power and connections. He was afraid to tell Maria because--because she was Maria. She was capable and clever and she'd laugh him into a little puddle of mortification and then she'd kill him, if Caesare didn't beat her to it. And he couldn't tell Benito. Benito was put out enough over the notion of his brother taking a sudden interest in girls--'going stupid on him' was what Benito had said.
Hell, he'd gone stupid all right. So stupid he couldn't see his way straight anymore. And that was dangerous for him, and for all of them, with the town in a dither over the magical killings.
Marco himself was sure that the killings were Montagnard work, not 'magical' in the least. Sure as death and taxes; and Caesare was ex-Montagnard and knew too damned many Montagnard secrets. For that matter so did Marco.
And the city was simmering with suspicions. He, Marco, might be sure the wicked Viscontis were moving again. But if you got three people together you got eight opinions. Strega or Jews were the most common suspects, of course, but the Council of Ten and the agents of Rome were accused too. Of course there was no certainty who might or might not be in one of the factions, so opinions were voiced very carefully.
Complications were not what Caesare needed right now. Yet 'complications' were exactly what Marco knew he'd gotten them into. And this left him unable to tell the truth. Because the truth hurt so damn much, and he couldn't force it past the lump in his throat and the ache in his gut.
But he had to tell somebody; had to get some good advice before what was already worse became disastrous. He could reason out that much. Somebody older, but not too much older; somebody with experience with nobility. Somebody who knew how girls thought, wild and romantic Case Vecchie girls in particular.
A face swam into his mind, surrounded with a faint shimmer of hope, almost like a halo.
