But he saw nothing. His rescuer had vanished.
Why did he do that? Marco wondered. For what reason?
* * *
“My God, boy—” Chiano’s eyes glared out at Marco from the shelter of his basketlike hidey. He and Sophia had anchored their rafts and their hides, side-by-side, on a bit of old wood Chiano had driven into the muck of the bottom to use as a safe tie-up.
“Lemme in, Chiano,” Marco said, dully. His hand felt afire. He was shivering so hard that it was only because he was holding his jaw clenched that his teeth weren’t rattling. He swayed back and forth, drunk with exhaustion and pain. He could hardly use his arm, much less his wounded hand—it felt like a log of wood. He’d tied up his hand as best he could, but he hadn’t been able to do more than stop the bleeding. He knew he was probably falling into shock, but didn’t care any more.
“Wait a moment.” Chiano propped up the edge of the basket with a stick, reached out and shook Sophia’s hide. “Wake up, you old witch—it’s Marco and he’s hurt.”
“What? What?” The edge of Sophia’s basket came up and she peered out at Marco. For some reason the sight of her struck him as funny and he began to laugh hysterically—and couldn’t stop.
He was still laughing when they propped the baskets together, like two halves of a shell, and helped him up onto their combined rafts. Then, unaccountably, the laughter turned to sobs, and he cried himself nearly sick on Sophia’s shoulder.
Sophia held him, wrapping her tattered old shawl about his shoulders and keeping him warm against her. Rain pattered on the baskets and, for the moment, there was no place Marco would rather have been.
In the corner of his eye, he saw a strange expression come into Chiano’s face. The kind of expression a man gets when he suddenly, unexpectedly, remembers something long forgotten. Puzzled, despite the pain and weariness, Marco turned his head in time to see Chiano straighten his back and spread his arms wide.
“Luminescence spareze. A Mercurio!”
There was a commanding tone to Chiano’s voice; seeming to be as forceful, for the brief time it took to utter those peculiar words, as the storm itself. Maybe it was the pain, or the shock, but in the sudden flare of witchlight the lean, sinewy man seemed somehow taller, his weathered face outlined in stark, sharp shadows.
Marco, his Pauline training coming to the fore, flinched from the sight. An old half-suspicion was now confirmed. Chiano really was a Strega man-witch. His reputation, carefully cultivated in the marshes, was a double front. He really was a pagan—and a magician to boot.
Marco . . . wasn’t at all sure how he felt about that. Still, Sophia’s wrinkled face and Chiano’s weathered one were a heavenly sight. He decided not to worry about it, for the moment.
“Drink this, boy.” When the sobs diminished, and the shivering started again, Chiano thrust a bottle into his good hand. “Let the old girl see to your hand.”
He drank, not much caring what it was. It was harsh raw alcohol, and it burned his throat and brought more tears to his eyes. He put the bottle down, gasping; then gasped again as Sophia took it from him and poured its contents liberally over the wound. The clouds were clearing now, and the moon emerged; you could see it from under the edge of the basket. Sophia propped up one side of the basket and held his hand in its light, examining it critically.
He had occasion to stifle a cry and seize the bottle back from Chiano, more than once, before she was through with her probing.
“Should be stitched—but the grappa will stop the flesh-rot. I’ve a poultice against the swelling. You tied it off right well. I don’ reckon ye lost too much blood. What happened?”
“Gianni,” Marco coughed. His throat was still raw from screaming and crying. “He must’ve seen me; followed me in. Ambushed me.” Sophia was smearing something onto the wound that first burned, and then numbed the pain. Then she reached back into the darkness behind her, locating rags by feel, and bound his hand tightly.