“I thought you was working for the Casa Ventuccio. Real work, I mean, not make-work.”
“I was.”
“That don’t sound much like being a burden t’ me.”
“I—” He hadn’t thought of it quite that way. Sure, he and Benito had been living on Aldanto’s bounty lately, but they’d been keeping watch over him while he was sick. And helping to get him out of the tangle that illness had put him in. And it had been his savings and Maria’s that had bought part of the medicine that had kept Caesare alive. He’d bankrupted himself for Caesare’s sake, and hadn’t grudged it. He’d lost several more weeks’ salary too, staying with Caesare to watch him and watch out for him, and hadn’t grudged that either. Maybe he had been pulling his own weight.
“And who’s a-going take care of them sick canaler kids if ye’re hiding out here?”
That was one thing he hadn’t thought of. Not likely Tonio would take them to some strange Strega—Marco was risk enough.
“Don’ ye go slamming no doors behind ye,” Sophia admonished him gently. “Now, getting out of sight ’til that aristo girl can forget your face, that’s no bad notion. But staying here? No, Marco-lad; ye don’t belong out here. Stay just long enough to get your head straight—then ye go back, an’ take yer licks from that Caesare fellow. Ye learned before, ye can’t run from trouble.”
Sophia was right. That was exactly what he’d been trying to do—he’d been trying to run from all his troubles, and rationalizing the running.
“Yes, milady,” Marco said humbly, feeling lower than a swan’s tail.
She shoved his shoulder; but not in an unkindly fashion, “Get along with ye! Milady! Huh!” She snickered, then turned businesslike. “Where ye going park your raft?”
“I figured at the edge of Gianni’s old territory, right by the path near that big hummock with the patch of thatch-rush growing out of it.”
“Good enough. Get on with it. We’ll keep an eye out for ye.”
* * *
Chiano waited until Marco was off down the trail and into the reeds; out of sight and hearing. Then he slipped off the raft onto one of the “secret paths” of firm ground that wound all through the swamp. He generally moored both his raft and Sophia’s up against one of these strips of “solid” earth—they weren’t really visible since most of them were usually covered in water about a handspan deep.
“Where ye goin’?” Sophia asked sharply.
“Going see to our guest,” Chiano replied. She shut up at that; shut up and just watched him with caution. Chiano had changed in the past months.
Yes, indeed, he had. Or rather, begun acting more like the person he really was—ever since the news of Gino Despini’s death. The more news that trickled out of Venice, the more he was allowing the cloak of deception to slip. From his mind even more than from the minds of others.
He balanced his way along the narrow, water-covered trails, so used to following them he did it unconsciously, so used to the cold water he never noticed his numb feet. Yes, Chiano had been changing.
For the first time in years he was himself—Luciano Marina. Dottore Marina. Strega Grand Master. Grimas.
Fool Grand Master! Beaten, nearly dead. Fleeing for his life. Wounded and damaged. Even his mind confused, abused and lost . . . in that conflict. He still didn’t know who had done it, or why—was afraid to know, in truth.
He’d ended up in the marshes and he’d survived. Barely. Perhaps his magical skills had helped. Perhaps the Goddess had held her hand over him, despite his pride and foolishness, as he wandered amnesiac for months among the other loco in the Jesolo. That had been—long ago. It had taken time for the Strega master to begin to return; humbled but alive.
And when he had, then he’d cursed the fate that left him so stripped of all position, possessions, and contacts as to have to stay here. He’d joined up with Sophia some time before Marco had come to them; how much time, he wasn’t sure. His memory of that period was . . . vague.