“I owe you nothing, orrichioni,” said Caesare dismissively. “The job’s not done. That means I don’t get paid and you don’t either.”
“And if you don’t stop pointing that thing at Caesare,” said Benito from the stair-landing, “I’m going to have to blow you bastardos in half.” He had Caesare’s arquebus resting on the handrail, pointed straight at Stephano’s swelling belly. The slowmatch, far more reliable than a spell scroll, smoked and fizzed. “I’m giving you to the count of five. One.” His voice cracked. But the muzzle of the arquebus was rock steady.
Luciano’s grip on Maria must have slackened with the sudden intrusion of firepower. Maria bit savagely and broke away. She didn’t go far. Just far enough to pull her knife and hiss like an angry cat at Luciano.
“And if you pull that trigger, Stephano,” said Marco, producing the knife, “your surviving brother might have to explain to Brunelli just what you were doing. I think the Schiopettieri would be glad to hang him this time.” Luciano looked uneasy at the mention of the Casa Brunelli. Distinctly uneasy.
Stephano sized the situation up. “All right. We’re going. But we want money, Aldanto. We want money or we’ll go straight to . . . Aleri.”
Aleri. Marco pricked his ears. He knew that name well from his mother’s Montagnard days. Francesco Aleri. The Milanese controller. Duke Visconti’s spymaster in Venice.
Caesare laughed easily, unpleasantly. “You do that. He won’t pay you either. Now get out. Keep out of trouble and there may be work for you again. Open those mouths of yours and you can join Alberto. Now go. Get. Don’t ever come back here. I don’t know you.”
They backed out like whipped curs.
Marco felt the tension drain out of his shoulders.
“You can put that knife away,” said Caesare.
Startled, Marco dropped it back into the bag. “Sorry.” Then he realized that Caesare had actually been addressing Maria.
Looking at her stormy face, Marco realized that maybe he’d been too hasty about relaxing. The Matteonis had been a minor danger, comparatively. “How could you, Caesare? Matteoni? Figlio di una puttana! They’re filth! Slavers. They sell . . . and make castrati to the east. And they broke my cousin Tonio’s fingers! You know how a caulker with broken fingers finds work?”
“Put the knife away, Maria. I work with what I have to work with.”
Her response was to put the knife down on the table, snatch a platter off it and fling it at his head. It shattered against the wall behind him. “Testa di cazzo! If my cousins hear you work with the Matteoni, they don’t never work for you again!”
Caesare picked a pottery fragment out of his hair. His eyes blazed angrily in his pale face. He snapped right back at her. “They’ll damn well do what they’re told and you’ll keep your damned mouth shut to everyone about it, bitch!”
“Damn you to hell, Aldanto!” she snarled. “I’ll talk to who I want to talk to, when I damn well want to!”
Benito, up on the landing, put the arquebus down carefully. He’d already snuffed the slowmatch. He gestured to Marco with his eyes and head. Marco nodded, wide-eyed, and ducked as the next piece of crockery hit the wall. With a quiet that was quite unnecessary above the shouting, he headed to join Benito moving for the door. Even the risk of lurking Matteonis seemed less dangerous than staying.
* * *
In the relative quiet of Barducci’s, Marco turned to Benito. “Does that sort of thing happen often?”
“What? The fights?”
“Yes.”
Benito shrugged. “It’s happened a couple of times that I know of. Maria’s pretty quick to flare up. They always patch it up, after. Caesare needs her and she’s crazy about him.”
Marco looked across the room. Angelina Dorma and her Case Vecchie friends hadn’t come in this evening. Barducci’s was only one of the taverns they frequented. Quite frankly that crowd of hers worried him.
“I thought Caesare was too independent to feel like that about Maria.”
Benito snorted into his wine. “He plays the field. But carefully. He needs Maria’s cousins is rather what I meant.”