The noise was louder now. So was—the stench.
Benito almost gagged. Maria had told him how badly Casa Dandelo reeked of the effluvia of slave trading. But he hadn’t quite believed her. Breathing through his mouth, and trying to breathe as little as possible, Benito pranced down the stairs. For all the speed with which he negotiated the steps and the landing, he made almost no noise at all.
There was no one on the landing, either. But then Benito got careless. The noise coming up from the fracas below was very loud, now. Men shouting at each other. Benito was suddenly terrified that he would miss everything. So, abandoning what little caution he still retained, he raced from the landing down the stairs. As he neared the bottom of the steeply inclined staircase, he could see that it ended in a balcony overlooking a large room. He covered the last three steps in a single bound, landing on the balcony in a crouch and then eagerly leaning over the stone railing.
Below, in the large entrance hall of Casa Dandelo, he could see Petro Dorma, backed by all of the knights, almost face-to-face with Angelo Dandelo, the head of the House. Dandelo was backed in turn by more than a dozen of his own retainers, all of them armed. Most with cudgels and knives, but at least two with halberds and another two with arquebuses.
The two men seemed to have finished shouting at each other. Dorma was turning his head, clearly on the verge of issuing orders which—just as clearly, from the tension of the knights and the arquebus-armed Schiopettieri standing behind them—no! spreading to the sides, ready to fire—was going to cause all hell to break loose!
Benito was ecstatic. Sure enough! He had a grandstand view!
* * *
Unfortunately . . . so did the four Dandelo retainers who were also perched on the balcony, not more than ten feet away from him. All of them large, angry looking—and armed with cudgels.
* * *
The moment was . . . tense. Benito stared at the Dandelo goons. They stared at him.
What to do? What to do? Two of the Dandelos were starting to move toward him.
Fortunately for Benito, his abrupt arrival had also been noticed by one of the knights standing next to Dorma. The very large one, with a very large voice.
“Hold!” came the bass bellow. Wide-eyed, Benito stared down at him. The very large knight had taken a step toward the balcony, pointing a very large (and armored) finger at the advancing Dandelo goons. “Hold right there! You men are under arrest!”
The very large and armored finger now pointed imperiously at Benito. “You have your orders, Knight-Squire Crazykid!” The finger swept back—as imperiously as ever—to the Dandelo goons on the balcony. “Arrest them! Don’t let them escape!”
One of the Dandelo retainers standing not far from the very large knight began to shout some sort of protest. The knight—moving way faster than Benito would have believed he could—slammed a very large and armored fist into the man’s face. The Dandelo was flattened instantly. Blood everywhere. Benito wasn’t sure, but . . . he thought the blow had broken the man’s neck as well as crushed his head.
Knight-Squire Crazykid? Arrest them? Don’t let them go?
Fortunately, Benito was no stranger to brazening his way out of jams. He drew his little knife and brandished it like a sword. What the hell. “Knight-Squire Crazykid”—slurred in that terrible accent—did sound a bit German.
“Stop!” he shouted at the goons on the balcony. “I’ll kill any man who tries to escape!” He took two steps toward them. “God and the Right!”
Before he got out the last words, an arquebus went off with a roar on the floor below. Then, two more. The four Dandelos on the balcony took off like antelopes. In an instant, they had disappeared up another set of stairs.
Benito looked over the balcony. Both of the Dandelos holding arquebuses were down. One of them clearly dead, his chest a bloody ruin; the other, groaning and holding his side. Blood was pouring through his fingers.
Benito hadn’t seen it, but he was sure that the Dandelos had made some threatening move with the firearms and the Schiopettieri had cut loose with their own. Now, with the Dandelos armed with nothing beyond cudgels and edged weapons . . .