She hit a wave amidships, and it splashed and slopped over the gunwale. It was a good idea keeping the relationship between the illegal cargoes that Captain Della Tomasso carried and the Casa Montescue as far apart as possible. The old devil would load a legal cargo of salt, beeswax, and hides at the Montescue warehouse not seventy-five yards from Kat's bedroom tomorrow morning. Of course his coaster would be clean as a whistle while the Capi di Contrada were about at the warehouse. Of course they couldn't chance passing incriminating parcels to-and-fro there. But Kat wished to hell--by her half-frozen hands--that she could meet him somewhere closer to the Casa.
Chapter 37 ==========
Old habits woke Marco with the first hint of dawn--he'd been so exhausted otherwise that he'd have managed to sleep through to the afternoon. He'd spent a good part of the night with his teeth chattering hard enough to splinter, until exhaustion put him to sleep for another hour or so. He stuck his head out from under the hideout, still shivering, and peered around in the gray light. No fog this morning, though the sky was going to be overcast. He pulled his head back in, and checked his clothes where he'd put them under his bottom blanket. As he'd hoped, they were reasonably dry, water driven out by the heat of his body. He beat the worst of the dried mud out of them, and pulled them on, wrapped a blanket around himself, pulled his cotte on over it all, and crawled back out into the day.
He hopped from the edge of his raft onto the edge of the islet--which was an exposed and weathered ledge of rock, and a lot more solid than many a landing back in town. He wriggled his way in to the center of the islet, having to carefully pull his blanket and clothing loose when branches snagged them, lest he leave tell-tale bits of yarn behind, or rip holes in clothing he didn't have the wherewithal to repair. He was looking for a place where he would be well hidden by the reeds and rushes--at least hidden from the casual observer. He finally found a dry spot, one well padded by the accumulation of many years of dead reeds, and made himself a little hollow to sit in. He reckoned it would do well enough; he hunched down into the hollow, hugged his knees to his chest, and settled down to the unpleasant task of confronting everything he wanted to avoid thinking about.
Take it one step at a time--
All this time, he'd been casually saying to himself: 'Caesare will kill me for this.' Looking at the mess he'd made of things in the cold light of dawn, and soberly recollecting his own lecture to Benito--might he?
He might, Marco thought reluctantly. And be justified. If Casa Dorma take offense . . . he could hand Petro Dorma my head, and get himself out of it. I've made myself into a pretty expensive liability.
But would he? Marco looked at it from all the angles he could think of, and finally decided that he probably wouldn't. Aldanto never did get that drastic without having several reasons for doing it. To be brutally frank, Aldanto was too much of a professional to waste anything, even the time and effort it would take to dispose of a stupid child.
And Maria would probably get upset if Aldanto actually killed Marco. For all that the girl doted on her lover, and had the usual canaler's tough outlook on life, Marco didn't think that she really approved of Caesare's . . . profession. And he thought that, underneath the temper, she was actually quite fond of him and Benito.
But just to be on the safe side--
Rafael had suggested he hide out here about two weeks, then come back into town. Get hold of Benito first--give him a note for Caesare. Use the old Montagnard codes, and flat ask him if he thinks I'm better gotten out of the way, permanent-like. Then make a counteroffer. Say--say that I'll do what he wants me to do; come in, stay here, or leave Venice altogether.
The last wouldn't be easy, or desirable from his point of view, but he'd do it; he couldn't go north--but south, maybe? Or maybe hire on as a hand on an Outremer-bound ship?
That was a possibility. The sailors had seemed pretty rough characters, but basically good people, when he'd met a couple at Ventuccio's. But--
He had a fairly shrewd notion of what some of the duties of a very junior (and passable-looking) sign-on might well include, and he wasn't altogether sure he could stomach the job. Better that, though, than dead. No such thing as a 'fate worse than death' in Marco's book--except maybe a fate involving a lengthy interrogation at the hands of Montagnards, the Servants of the Holy Trinity, or Ricardo Brunelli--or Caesare Aldanto.
But Benito--if he left Venice, he'd have to leave Benito. No good could come to a fourteen-year-old kid in a strange place like Acre or Ascalon, or more-or-less trapped on an eastbound ship.
That would leave him more alone than he'd ever been.
He swallowed hard, and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. So be it. For Benito's sake, he'd do just about anything. Including take on that lengthy interrogation.
But figure Caesare wanted him back in; in a lot of ways that was the worst case. Si, I'll go in, I take my licks. God knows what he'll do. Probably beat the liver out of me. Be worse if he didn't, in some ways. He won't be trusting me with much, anyway, not after the way I've messed up. Don't blame him. I wouldn't trust me, either.
So. Be humble; be respectful. Take orders, follow 'em to the letter, and earn the respect back. Even if it takes years.
