Marco bobbed his head awkwardly and scooted back to the room he shared with Benito. The kid wasn’t back from his mysterious errand with Maria—but Marco wasn’t overly worried about him. This wasn’t the first time he’d been out on a night-run with Maria. It was no doubt dangerous—but less so than roof-walking with his old mentor Claudia, the singer-thief. And possibly even less dangerous than what Marco was going to attempt.
So Marco undressed and climbed into bed—and for the first time in months, the dreams he dreamed were bright.
He thought out a plan of action the next morning on the way to work, grateful beyond words for the presence of Harrow on his backtrail so that he was able to spare a bit of his mind to make plans. The very first thing to do was to try to find out if this was an overall scam, or limited to one particular ship—which was what he thought likeliest, given the frequency.
He waved to Tonio on the canal below, who waved back; the man was much friendlier now that Marco was accepting “payment” for his doctoring. There was, thank God, less of that, now that the killing season of cold was over. Marco hadn’t needed his cotte for weeks; the only bad part about the weather warming was that the canals were beginning to smell. Then would come summer; plague-time.
Well—that was to come; now was for bare feet on the walkways, and heads bared to the spring breeze, and a general feeling of cheer all around that another winter had been lived through. And the laxness that came with spring-born laziness just might make it possible for Marco to find out his information undetected.
He was early to work; scooting in through the peeling wooden doorway literally as soon as Niccolo Ventuccio unlocked it. The early morning sun wasn’t yet high enough to penetrate into the lower levels, so he had to trot around the dusty, cluttered outer office, lighting all the clerk’s lamps. That was usually Niccolo’s job—but the Ventuccio cousin didn’t look at all displeased at the junior clerk’s enthusiasm. He gave Marco an approving nod and left the outer office, to take up his position at the runner’s desk in the next office over.
Marco had reason for being so early; he was early enough to make an undisturbed, though hasty, check through the import lists by ship. He soon discovered that only one, the caique Jaila, a regular on the Black Sea run, ever carried the spice shipments that had the discrepancies. And only one captain, Alessandro Montello, had been at her helm since the discrepancies started.
This was quickly and quietly done. By the time anyone else came in, Marco was at his desk, copying the inventories from the galliot Albiona into the appropriate books. One or two of his fellow clerks jibed at him for working so hard; Marco looked up from his copying and grinned slightly. “What do you expect,” he countered, “when a fellow is so ugly no girl will look at him? A fellow’s got to do something to take his mind off—what he ain’t getting.”
Matteo Feruzzi rolled his dark eyes expressively as he settled onto his tall stool behind his slanted desk. “Father and Saints, Marco—if you ain’t getting nothing it’s because you ain’t looking! Half them canaler girls is makin’ big eyes at you—and the only reason the rest of them ain’t is because their fathers would beat them black and blue if they did.” Matteo snorted, scratching his curly head. “Ugly! Hell, I wisht I was as ‘ugly’ as you! Maybe Rosa wouldn’t be giving me such a hard time!”
Marco blushed and ducked his head. He knew why the canaler girls were giving him the eye—not because he was desirable; because he was notorious. The boat-folk had been alerted when he’d gone “missing”—and all of them knew the outcome. He was just grateful that his fellow-workers didn’t; they were landers, and canalers didn’t spill canal-gossip to landers. And it seemed Marco was semi-adopted now—because the boat-folk hadn’t told the landers about what a fool he’d been.
And for all of that, he still hadn’t seen THE GIRL since that awful day. He’d looked—oh, how he’d looked!—but he’d not seen her once. His only possible aid, Maria, had been unable—or unwilling—to identify her. Marco sighed, recollecting the peculiar jolting his heart had taken when he’d seen her—she’d shaken Angelina Dorma clean out of his head, and herself in.