'I owe you one, Marco,' she said softly, earnestly.
He relaxed and shut his eyes, feeling his tired and bruised muscles go slack. 'Don't go talking debts at me. I owed him.'
'Damnfool Case Vecchie honor,' she jeered back. There was respect in that jeer, however. The scoulo families like hers might be poor, but their honor was as deep and as precious. She worked slowly, gently and precisely, first cleaning the wound with some more of Aldanto's brandy. He could tell it wasn't the first knife wound she'd dealt with.
'Just one of Ventuccio's clerks.' Fatigue made irrelevant thoughts swim past and one of them caught what little was left of his attention. A thought and a memory of a couple of days ago.
What the hell, he'd risk her temper. 'Maria--it's 'aren't' when you're talking about you or more than one person, and 'isn't' all the rest of the time. Except when you're talking about yourself, then it's 'am not.' Got it? Think that'll help?'
He cracked an eyelid open to see her staring open-mouthed at him.
'How did you--?'
'Noticed you fishing for it the other day. Figured nobody'd ever given you the rule. Hard to figure things out if nobody tells you the rules. Claudia could help you better than I could. She was an actress for a while and she knows all the tricks.' He yawned. 'She could make Brunelli sound like a bargee, or a bargee sound like'--yawn--'Brunelli.' His lids sagged and he battled to stay awake.
'Ain't nobody put it quite like that before,' she said thoughtfully. 'Huh. Damn, this is a bad 'un. Looks like it hurts like hell. What'd you do here, ram your hand down on the point?'
'Had to. He outweighed me by about twice. It was the only way I could think to get the knife away from him.' He ran his right hand up to check the lumps on the back of his head and encountered his not-too-nice hair. And remembered.
'Oh hell!'
Maria looked up, startled. 'What's the matter? I hurt you?'
'There's no food in the house, I need a bath worse than I ever did in my life, all the clothes are filthy and have to be washed and I don't have a copper for any of it! I spent every last coin I had for trade goods for Sophia! Oh hell!' He squeezed his eyes shut to stop their burning, but a few shameful tears born of exhaustion and frustration escaped to embarrass him. To have gone through this whole night only to have to run against this--
'Oh, don't get upset.' Maria still had his hand and he managed to get enough control of himself to open his eyes to look at her. She was smiling broadly and pointedly not looking at his tears. 'I reckon Caesare owes you a good bit. We got food here, we have a tub and a fireplace. And good soap. You want, I can row you back to Cannaregio when Benito wakes up, get your things, bring it all back here. Given this hand, I reckon I could help you with the clothes even. You just be damn sure not to waste nothing. That suit you?'
Relief turned his muscles to slush and he sagged back. 'More than suits--'
'You've got that thinking look again.'
'You get most of your work at night, right?'
She looked more than a little uncomfortable, but nodded.
'We work days. So--if you wanted, we could stay here just long enough for him to get better. Or--hell, half the town's sick. You could take a note to Ventuccio's saying we are, and we could even spell you in the daytime that way. Saints! The way I feel right now it wouldn't even be a lie! I figure Caesare should be getting better in four, five days; a week, tops. We watch for trouble while you're out, whenever. We can feed him too, make sure he takes the medicine. Keep him from going out when he isn't ready to.'
The last two sentences came out a little uncertainly. Keeping Caesare from doing whatever he felt like doing was an improbable scenario--sick or not.
'And you get?' asked Maria.
'Food and a hot bath. I know damn sure Caesare can afford to eat better than we can.' He grinned wearily, his bruised facial muscles aching. 'You'll have to talk him into covering the pay we'll lose, though. Hell, Maria, you know we can't afford to lose pay any more than you can.'
'I know he trusts you.' She looked back at the hand she was holding and finished pinning the new bandage with the broach. 'I expect after tonight ye've proved it out. We got weapons enough here, between the two of us. And if I don't show up for too long, it's gonna look funny. We don't dare let anybody guess he ain't well enough to fight. All right; you do that.' She sniffed, her mouth quirking a little contemptuously. 'Hell, the way he throws his
