“But he evaded us. He is very good. I believe he is still here in Venice.” Petro looked down at his desk. “I believe he may be sitting tight in the Casa Dandelo. We are watching it. But like news of Condottiere Frescata’s success against the Scaligers of Verona . . . There is nothing coming out. Not that we know of.”
Marco thought a while. “But the Capi di Contrada go in once a week to make sure there are no Venetian prisoners. And they happen to be . . .”
“Capuletti. Supposedly loyalists of Ricardo Brunelli.” Petro sighed. “Leave me to it, Marco. Off you go.”
So Marco went.
But he didn’t go very far.
Just down two floors and over a few corridors, to another office—one not nearly so opulent as Petro’s, but possibly more important to Dorma prosperity.
* * *
“—Francesco Aleri’s cousin,” Marco concluded; he sat back on the hard wooden chair, then continued with his own speculation. “Not enough to convict anyone, but maybe enough evidence to be embarrassing?”
“Could be.” Caesare Aldanto leaned back in his own plain wooden chair and interlaced his fingers behind his blond head, looking deceptively lazy and indolent. Marco knew that pose. He also knew what it meant. Aldanto was thinking. Hard. “So why bring this news to me, Marco?”
“Because I still owe you,” Marco said bluntly. “Because you may be playing Milord Petro’s game, but that doesn’t mean his coat’ll cover you if things get real sticky. Because I don’t know if Milord Petro will bother to tell you or not. He didn’t tell me not to tell you, and my debt to you comes first.”
Aldanto smiled, very slightly, and pointed a long index finger at him. “You’re learning.”
“I’m trying, Caesare,” Marco replied earnestly. ” ‘Tisn’t like the Jesolo, and it is. There are still snakes, only they don’t look like snakes. There are still gangs, only they don’t act like gangs.”
“How are you doing?” There seemed to be real warmth in Aldanto’s murky blue eyes, real concern.
Of course, that could just be concern over the Inquisition taking up one of Caesare Aldanto’s best informers, and one of the few folk who knew who and what he really was—but Marco didn’t think so. As much as Aldanto could—and more than was safe or politic—he cared for Marco’s welfare.
“All right, I think,” Marco gave him the same answer he’d given Petro Dorma.
Aldanto laughed at that, a deep-throated chuckle. The past few months had been good to Aldanto. And he and Angelina were, if not on friendly terms, less at odds. Thanks to Marco’s work, she no longer blamed him for her mother’s perilous addiction to black lotos. There was still tension in the air whenever they met, but Marco wasn’t certain what the cause was.
Could be just because it’s really Caesare she wishes she had married.
That might be what kept setting her off into hysteria, seeing as she and Caesare could meet easily since Aldanto had moved into quarters on Dorma at Petro’s urging.
This just brought the confusing issue of Maria . . . and Benito to mind. Marco had tried . . . four times so far in the last two days to corner his little brother on this one. The last time Benito had straight out told Marco to keep off. Caesare had not mentioned Maria.
Marco wasn’t sure how Aldanto and she were doing. The fact that she hadn’t moved with him to Dorma . . . He must go back to the apartment and visit her. But, at least to Marco’s eyes, the suite of rooms that the new head of the Dorma-ordered militia occupied looked more secure than Caesare’s old apartment. Marco could only hope that it was.
What Aldanto made of the situation, he couldn’t tell; he could read the man a little better these days, but—well, Aldanto was Aldanto, and when he chose not to be read, there was no catching him out.
Chapter 81
The first trickle of refugees came long before the official news from Fruili. Then a flood of folk with their scanty belongings and terror in their eyes.