'He need help? Lord--he's bleeding, ain't he! Caesare--'
Aldanto was down on the slats beside him, without Marco seeing how he had got there. He shut his eyes as much to hide his shame as to fight the waves of dizziness. Amazingly gentle hands probed his hurts.
'Cut along the ribs--looks worse than it is. But this crack on the skull--'
Marco swayed and nearly lost his grip on consciousness and his stomach, when those hands touched the place where the boathook pole had broken over his head. The pain was incredible; it was followed by a combined wave of nausea and disorientation. The hands steadied him, then tilted his chin up.
'Open your eyes.'
He didn't dare to disobey; felt himself flush, then pale. The blue eyes that bored into his weren't the dangerous, cold eyes he'd seen before--but they were not happy eyes.
'Not good, I'd judge.'
'So what's that mean?' Maria asked harshly.
'Mostly that it's his turn to be put to bed, and he isn't going to be moving from there for a while. You--'
Caesare was speaking to him now, and Marco wanted to die at the gentle tone of his voice.
'--have caused us a great deal of trouble, young man.'
'I--I didn't mean to--I just--I just wanted--' He felt, and fought down, a lump of shamed tears. No, no he would not cry! '--I made such a mess out of things, I figured you were better off if I went away somewhere. I didn't mean to bring you more trouble! I tried to find some way I could get you out of it, and get out from under your feet, and when that didn't work I just tried to do what was right--'
'If I had thought differently,' Aldanto said, slowly, deliberately, 'you'd be out there entertaining the locos right now. There are more than a few things I want to have out with you, but it's nothing that can't wait.'
Then he got up, and took a second oar to help Maria, ignoring Marco's presence on the bottom slats.
But that wasn't the end of his humiliation--every few feet along the canals, it seemed, they were hailed, either from other boats or from the canalside.
'Si, he's okay,' Maria called back, cheerfully, 'Si, we got 'im--'
Apparently everybody in town knew what a fool he'd made of himself. There were calls of 'Hooo--so that's the loverboy? Eh, throw him back, Maria, he's just a piddly one!' With every passing minute, Marco felt worse. Finally he just shut his eyes and huddled in the blanket, ignoring the catcalls and concentrating on his aching head.
Because, as if that humiliation wasn't enough, there were more than a few of those on canalside who didn't shout--shadowy figures whom Caesare simply nodded to in a peculiar way. And Marco recognized one or two as being Giaccomo's.
Giaccomo--that meant money--
--a lot of money. Out of Caesare's pocket.
Marco wanted to die.
The ribald and rude comments were coming thick and fast now, as they headed into the Grand Canal. Maria was beginning to enjoy herself, from the sound of her voice. Aldanto, however, remained ominously silent. Marco opened his eyes once or twice, but couldn't bear the sunlight--or the sight of that marble-still profile.
* * *
The third time he looked up, his eyes met something altogether unexpected. Aldanto had shifted forward, and instead of his benefactor, Marco found himself staring across the water at another gondola.
There was a girl in that elderly nondescript vessel, rowing it with consummate ease. From under the hood curled carroty-red hair. She had a generous mouth, a tip-tilted nose--merry eyes, wonderful hazel eyes--
She wasn't beautiful, like Angelina Dorma. But those eyes held a quick intelligence worth more and promising more than mere beauty.
Those eyes met his across the Grand Canal, and the grin on that face softened to a smile of genuine
