from the Case Vecchie or the boatpeople. You need us, milord--about as much as we need you.'
'Interesting. Valdosta . . .' Aldanto said, then said nothing more, obviously thinking hard. Marco turned on Benito, and tugged him into a corner of the little room.
'What the hell--'
'Truth, damn it!' Benito whispered harshly. 'It's all true and you know it! Mama used you--why do you think she never paid me any attention? Theodoro's folks knew what was going on; told me too. Told me it was probably Duke Visconti's people that got Mama.'
'Uh--'
'That's why they turned me out, couple of years ago. They were afraid, and I don't blame 'em. Lucky I ran into Claudia and Valentina.'
'They're thieves! I know thieves cant when I hear it!'
' 'Course they're thieves! How d'you think I came by all that stuff for you? Where'd you think it came from? The Moon? I've been living in bloody attics for two years now! Look, brother--I've mostly given up thieving--the odds aren't in it. I'm a messenger now. But I couldn't get stuff for you, and feed me, on what I make running, and I wouldn't leave you without. So I stole. And I still steal. And I'll keep doin' it. 'Cause you're worth it--like Mama wasn't. Tell you what else. This Aldanto may have been Montagnard before, but he damn sure ain't now! Or didn't you notice him have a fit when you hit him with the password? Our best bet is to figure something he needs bad.'
The fog began to clear from Marco's head, as Benito's words and his memory started to come together. Certain things were becoming a lot clearer than they'd ever been before.
Item: Chiano and Sophia had been trying to tell him--in gentler terms--exactly what Benito was telling him now. If three so very different people--one of them his own flesh and blood--were saying the same things about Duke Visconti and the Montagnard cause, and Mama's involvement with it, well it followed that he had probably been dead wrong and dreaming all these years.
Item: stripped of the fairy-tale glamour Mama had decked them in, Montagnards were not in the least attractive. Take the rhetoric of united Christian Empire away, and they became little more than highly trained, professional killers.
Item: they were now alone with this unhappy professional assassin, who was probably thinking that no one would miss them.
Marco looked over Benito's shoulder at Aldanto, who was contemplating them with a face of stone. Marco's blood ran colder than the spring-melt water that the Brenta carried down from the Alps.
Item: they were a liability. And Aldanto was looking at them like someone who couldn't afford liabilities.
* * *
Benito suddenly broke off, seeing Marco's face turn pale and still. 'Brother--you all right?' he whispered, unable to fathom why Marco should suddenly look as if the great Lion of San Marco had come to life and confronted him. He knew that some of what he'd said was bound to come as a shock to Marco, but he hadn't thought any of it was enough to turn him white to the ears!
He shook Marco a little, beginning to feel worried. The way Marco was staring at Aldanto, sort of glassy- eyed--it wasn't like him. Marco was always the quick one, the alert one--except--
Benito went cold all over. Except when Marco had been sick . . .
* * *
Marco was watching Aldanto's eyes, the only things in his face that were showing any change. They were growing harder; and Marco's blood acquired ice crystals.
Item: they were quite likely to be dead very soon. Benito, with the panache of a fourteen-year-old unable to believe in his own mortality, had led them into dangerous and unfriendly hands--and with no way to escape. Aldanto was between them and the door, in a room barely big enough to hold all of them and the table and chairs.
Looking at those calculating eyes, Marco knew exactly what their fate was going to be. They had, at most, a few more minutes.
He forced himself to smile at his brother; he couldn't protect him from what was coming. 'Nothing--just-- you're right. About all of it. I've been plain stupid.'
Benito shrugged. 'No big deal. Everybody makes mistakes, and hell, I probably wouldn't believe anything bad anybody said about you, either.'
