“Hey, kid,” drawled a smooth voice, rich with amusement. “How’s the trade?”
Benito looked up sharply from his afternoon perusal of the traffic and stared, his mouth full of bread. He knew that voice!
Wiry and thin, dark hair falling in a mass of curls to below his shoulders, Mercutio Laivetti leaned elegantly on the walkway rail beside him, grinning, looking very like a younger, darker, shorter version of Caesare Aldanto. Benito took in the slightly exotic cut of his clothing, the well-worn hilt of his rapier, the sun-darkened state of his complexion at a glance, before bursting out with his reply.
“Mercutio!” he exclaimed, scrabbling to his feet, and throwing his arms around the older boy—boy still, for Mercutio was only a year or two older than his brother, Marco. “Where’ve you been? I was thinkin’ the Dandelos got you!”
Mercutio laughed and ruffled Benito’s hair, but did not attempt to extract himself from the younger boy’s embrace. “Had to make a trip to the East, kid—for my health.” Benito let him go and backed up a step, looking up at him in perplexity. Mercutio tapped Benito’s nose with a playful fingertip. “Not to make a story out of it, laddie, but my dear father turned me in to the Schiopettieri. Hopped a ship one step ahead of ’em, and worked my way to Turkey and back. Didn’t have much time for goodbyes.”
Benito grinned in delight. “Truth.”
Mercutio turned his expression to one of unwonted seriousness, and placed his hand solemnly on his satin-covered chest in the general vicinity of his heart. “Truth.” Then he dropped the pose, put his arm around Benito’s shoulders, and returned the boy’s embrace. “So what you been up to, kid? Still roofwalking?”
Benito grinned. “Some. Mostly been running. Do an odd job for Claudia and Valentina, for—’nother fellow. Out-of-towner. Landsman but a good fellow. Some for a canaler too, but that’s been a special—”
He broke off, not wanting to talk about Maria to Mercutio, for some odd reason. He finished a bit lamely: “I’ve been helping, like. Mostly running for Ventuccio these days.”
“Ventuccio?” Mercutio pursed his lips in surprise. The sun struck red lights from his hair, green sparks from his hazel eyes. “Come up in the world, have we?”
Benito flushed with pleasure. “Hey, ain’t no big thing. And it’s mostly on account of that fellow, the one I do a bit of odd work for. He got me the job. I been staying with him.”
Mercutio grew silent, a silence punctuated by the distant clamor of voices on the canal below, the splashing of poles, the regular spat of wavelets on Ventuccio foundations. “Benito—” Mercutio’s expression darkened, and his grip on Benito’s shoulders tightened. “Benito, this feller—he isn’t messing with you, is he?”
Benito’s open-mouthed shock seemed to reassure the older boy, even before he spluttered out his reply. “Him? Hell no, not in a million years! He likes girls. Got him one, too. ‘Member Maria Garavelli?”
Mercutio’s eyebrows rose, and his tense expression relaxed. “Milady Hellcat herself? An out-of-town landsman? Lord and Saints, I don’t know whether to congratulate the man, or pity him! Who is this paragon?”
“Name of Aldanto,” Benito replied. “Caesare Aldanto.”
“That’s not a name I know.” The questions in Mercutio’s eyes gave Benito momentary qualms, and he belatedly began to pick his words with care.
“Aristo, Capuletti bastard, half German,” Benito said, sticking to the “official” story. “They pay him to keep himself quiet and do a job or two for ’em.”
“To not make an embarrassment of himself, and to do what Milord Capuletti doesn’t want to dirty his fingers with, hmm?” Mercutio mused. “I can see where a smart kid like you could be useful to him. Is he treating you all right?”
Benito nodded vigorously. “As good as you. ‘Cept he tries to keep me outa trouble.”
Mercutio laughed. “Then I’ve got no quarrel with him. And how are my old pair of nemeses, Miladies Valentina and Claudia?”
Benito hid another grin. Claudia did not approve of Mercutio Laivetti, and Valentina approved of him even less. She considered him far too reckless, far too careless; which, to Benito, seemed rather a case of pot calling kettle. She hadn’t liked it when Benito had taken to hanging around with the older boy—she’d liked it even less when Mercutio had included him in on some of his escapades.