Thank God he'd told the truth--at least he'd cut the thing with Angelina short, before it had landed them in more tangles than could be cut loose.
Give up on the notion of the Accademia--too close to the Dorma, especially with Dorma cousins going there. Hang it up; stay content with being Ventuccio's third-rank clerk. At least that paid the bills.
Stay clear of anyplace Angelina might show, unless Caesare ordered different.
Keep clear of the Strega, too. That meant Valentina and Claudia and Barducci's tavern--again, unless Caesare ordered differently.
Going back meant more than facing Caesare--it meant figuring a way to pay the damn bills with no money. Rent was paid until the end of the month--but that was only one week away. Borrow? From whom? Maria didn't have any to spare. Not Caesare--
Marco gnawed his lip, and thought and thought himself into a circle. No choice. Has to be Caesare. Or beg an advance from Ventuccio. Have to eat humble pie twice. Charity. Hell.
Sometimes it seemed as if it would be a lot easier to find one of the marsh bandits and taunt them into killing him; God knew it wouldn't take much. But he hadn't fought and fought and fought to stay alive this long just to take the easy way out.
Last possibility--that Caesare would tell him to stay. That Caesare would trust to the Jesolo marshes to kill him, rather than killing him outright. Well, wasn't staying what Marco had figured on doing in the first place?
All right, if Caesare told him to stay in the marshes--well, Marco would stay. At least this time he'd arrived equipped to do a little better than just survive. Not much, but a little. So long as he could keep clear of the bandits, he'd manage. And he and Benito could go back to the old routine--at least he'd be near enough to keep in touch.
Now--the Montagnards--have I screwed up there too?
* * *
Benito waded through mud and freezing water; over his ankles mostly, sometimes up to his knees. His legs were numb, his teeth were chattering so hard he couldn't stop them, and his nose was running. He kept looking over his shoulder, feeling like he was being watched, but seeing nothing but the waving weeds that stood higher than his head. There was a path here, of a sort, and he was doing his best to follow it. If he hadn't been so determined to find his brother, he'd have turned tail and run for home a long time ago.
Rafael de Tomaso had told him the whole messy story, and had admitted that he had advised Marco to go and hide out for a week or two until the thing could blow over. Benito had gotten a flash of inspiration right then, and hadn't waited to hear more--he'd lit off over the roofs again--
It had taken him half an hour to reach the apartment in Cannaregio--
To discover Marco's belongings stripped, right down to the books. The fact that it was only Marco's things ruled out thieves. Stuff gone, plus hiding, added up to 'marshes' to Benito.
So he put on every shred of shirt and cotte he had, and two pairs of pants, and made for the roofs again.
He had to get down to the roadways by the time he reached Castello. By then he had gotten the notion that it might just be a good idea to let Maria and Caesare know where Marco had gone, and to let them know he was headed out after him.
Damn fool Rafael, he'd cursed, more than once. Damn marshes almost killed Marco before this--hell, it could do it now! Damn fool city-dweller, thinks living in the Jesolo in wintertime, in the middle of the Aqua alta, is like living in the city--
So he'd looked around for a boatman, knowing that boat-folk stuck together, knowing that what he told one would be halfway across town by midmorning.
'Hey!' he'd yelled at the first head that poked out of a small pirogue's cabin to peer at him, bleary-eyed, in the dawnlight. 'Hey--you know Maria Garavelli?'
'Might,' said the bargee; old, of dubious gender.
'Look, you find her, you tell her Marco's headed out into the Jesolo marshes and Benito's gone after him.' Then he added, shrewdly, 'There's money in it.'
The whole canaler had popped out of the hidey then, and the creature was jerking at his tie-rope as Benito continued his run down to the sandbars off the eastern point of Castello and the 'path' Marco had told him about. He hoped he was right about the tide. You could only get across there at dead-low.
