He grinned wryly. Well . . . he was pretty little, and he was certainly a bastard. 'Crazy,' on the other hand . . .
I prefer to think of it as 'bold.'
Maria's cursing could probably be heard in the Jesolo by now. Get away from that window, you blankety-blank stupid little blankety-blank . . . what do you think you're doing?!
Benito avoided looking at her--his eyes were fixed on the bombard, which several of the knights were wrestling onto the wharf--but he did give her an assuring little wave. Relax, Maria. I know what I'm doing.
A complete lie, of course. Even Benito thought what he was about to do was at least half insane. Voluntarily entering the lair of the Dandelos?
But . . . I have got to see this!
Lord Dorma shouted something which sounded very . . . final. Then he and the three knights at the front stepped back. The other knights, by now, had nestled the bombard against a heavy stone abutment on the wharf. One of them took out a smoking slow match--
They must have already loaded it.
--and the bombard went off with a BOOM. Even though Benito was expecting it, the noise startled him. So did the sound of the heavy front door of Casa Dandelo being turned into splinters. Not so much from the cannonball, which had simply shattered the lock, but from the weight and fury of half a dozen armored knights slamming into it.
Maria's shrieking orders and curses at Benito could be heard in the Alps, by now. He gave her a last little wave and plunged through the window, into the darkness of Casa Dandelo.
* * *
The room he found himself in was some kind of storage area. Everything was very dark, but he could see the dim outlines of a door on the opposite side. Stumbling over various carelessly stacked crates, holding God-knows- what, he scrambled to the door. Then, tested it cautiously. Despite the recklessness of his project, he hadn't lost the fine details of burglary work.
To his relief, the door wasn't locked or bolted on the other side. He opened it slowly, carefully, peeking out into the corridor beyond.
There was no one in the corridor. To his left, the corridor dead-ended a few yards away. Three other doors on that side seemed to be the same type as the door he was opening--old, decayed, apparently little used; the kind of doors which led to nothing beyond rooms for storing mostly unwanted items. By pure luck, he had chosen a perfect entry route into the Dandelo building.
To his right, the corridor angled almost immediately to the left. He couldn't see what lay beyond that bend. But he could hear a furious ruckus coming from somewhere below. The excitement he wanted to watch, obviously.
Hurriedly, not wanting to miss any of it, Benito almost lunged out of the storage room and scurried to the bend of the corridor. The lighting was so bad--just one sconce at the very end of the corridor--that he tripped over an unseen obstacle lying on the floor and wound up sprawling around the bend instead of creeping unnoticed.
Fortunately--
There was no one. The bend led immediately to a flight of stone stairs leading downward to a landing and then curving to the left again.
The noise was louder now. So was--the stench.
Benito almost gagged. Maria had told him how badly Casa Dandelo reeked of the effluvia of slave trading. But he hadn't quite believed her. Breathing through his mouth, and trying to breathe as little as possible, Benito pranced down the stairs. For all the speed with which he negotiated the steps and the landing, he made almost no noise at all.
There was no one on the landing, either. But then Benito got careless. The noise coming up from the fracas below was very loud, now. Men shouting at each other. Benito was suddenly terrified that he would miss everything. So, abandoning what little caution he still retained, he raced from the landing down the stairs. As he neared the bottom of the steeply inclined staircase, he could see that it ended in a balcony overlooking a large room. He covered the last three steps in a single bound, landing on the balcony in a crouch and then eagerly leaning over the stone railing.
Below, in the large entrance hall of Casa Dandelo, he could see Petro Dorma, backed by all of the knights, almost face-to-face with Angelo Dandelo, the head of the House. Dandelo was backed in turn by more than a dozen of his own retainers, all of them armed. Most with cudgels and knives, but at least two with halberds and another two with arquebuses.
