It was the old man’s turn to look dumbfounded. “Yes. But—did they not send you here?”
Benito shook his head. “No. I . . . I thought they’d be here. At least I hoped . . .”
Worry must have colored his voice. Lodovico took him by the shoulder, gently. “They are fine, boy. They’ve gone to look for you at Dorma. Your brother as well, to attend to her.” He pointed at the shallow-bubbly-breathing woman in the bed. “They’ve gone with a stout boatman and a pistol apiece.”
Benito nodded. Caesare was out, organizing the new militia. Maria should be fine, going to Dorma. “My brother went across to collect his things from the Accademia. They’ll be sent on to there. I’ll go and see if I can find them.”
The old man nodded. “Yes. But, before you go, there is something I must say to you. It makes it harder for me that you have not seen them. But . . . I must tell you that your mentor Caesare Aldanto . . .”
“I’m going to kill him,” interrupted Benito, without heat, but with a grim certitude. “Or send him to face the headsman’s axe.”
For the first time since Benito had come in, Lodovico Montescue smiled. It was a grim sight. Grimmer than his worried frown. “Spoken like a true Valdosta! Boy—Benito, I should say, for you are clearly a boy no longer—between us we will crush him like an adder beneath a stout boot heel.”
The old man seemed almost gay at the thought. “Montescue and Valdosta, together again! Ha! In the old days, nothing caused greater fear—”
He broke off, coughing a little. The cough seemed a compound of suppressed pride and rueful regret. But when he continued, his voice was calm and even. “I suppose that as we were the heart of the opposition to the Montagnards—and we’d given them good cause to fear our blades—it was inevitable that they should have sent their womanizing charmer to target my house’s weakest point. I could forgive that, and the insult to my grandson—but not the deaths that she caused in my house.”
He sighed. “And I suppose, given my pride, that it was inevitable that I would suspect everyone else. I just hope she doesn’t die before she gives her evidence.”
“What’s wrong with her, milord?” asked Benito.
Lodovico pulled a wry face. “An old family servant—on hearing Alessandra’s ‘confession’—went for her with a fruit knife. I wouldn’t have thought you could stab someone with a fruit knife, but old Madelena managed. She was like a dervish. Alessandra managed to flee to the stairs, but she was already stabbed in the chest, and the shoulder. She fell down the stairs. She hasn’t regained consciousness since. Are you a doctor like your brother? Perhaps you should have a look?”
Benito laughed. “No. Marco is the only one. The healer. Me, I’m nothing much but trouble.”
At last a genuine smile came to Lodovico’s troubled, wrinkled countenance. “Yes. You sound like me, when I was your age. Then Luciano—your Valdosta grandfather—used to come and get me out of it.”
“Well, I seem to spend my time getting Marco out of scrapes,” said Benito ruefully. “And sometimes I mess that up too. I’d better get along, milord.”
“Call me Lodovico. I’d like to stand in for the Valdosta grandfather you never had. And I think we will leave Alessandra to live or die. We’ve done what we can for her. I’m coming with you to the Accademia. The more I think about it, the more determined I am not just to wait here.”
He must have seen Benito’s doubtful look. He smiled. “We can take a boat, can’t we? It’s faster than running, young Valdosta.”
* * *
Marco looked at Luciano’s transformation of his small lounge. It didn’t look pleasant. It didn’t feel pleasant, either. In fact, it made his scalp crawl.
He wasn’t the only one. Rafael also looked uneasy. “He shouldn’t be doing this,” the artist muttered. “He’s taking far too much risk. This is dangerous, Marco. Really dangerous, and it’s gray-magic even with the best of intentions.”
Maria, too, looked as if she was ready to run hastily for the nearest chapel, if not engage in a bit of impromptu witch-burning. She had all the ingrained superstition about the Strega that was part of the Christianity of the commons. Most of the ordinary priests tended to regard the Strega as direct competition for their flock, no matter what the Metropolitan said about tolerance and allowing heathens to come to God rather than dragging them to Him kicking and screaming, and as for the canalers—well. When things were going fine, the Strega were the people you went to for love-charms and luck-talismans, but when they weren’t . . . the Strega just might be the people causing the problems.