Kat didn’t know what to say. Her thoughts were fixed entirely on a parcel at the bottom of a canal. Hoping desperately that it was still there; and hoping, just as desperately, that a street urchin named Benito could be relied upon to save the fortune of one of Venice’s four oldest and—once—wealthiest and most powerful families.
Chapter 5
When Marco returned, there was no Benito at the dock—just a scrap of dirty paper wedged beneath it. Got a job. Come tamarra. Which left Marco to go back to his hide again, wondering if the “job” was a real task, or something Benito made up so he could enjoy another night of the festival.
Or . . . a ruse to lure Benito into the clutches of Them. Surely not. Surely They wouldn’t go to all that trouble. Surely Benito would smell a rat if they tried.
By this time, Marco felt faint with hunger, and on his way back to shelter spotted a lone marsh-mallow just at the edge of what he knew to be dangerous mire. He took a chance, and worked his way out to it—but he had to stop just out of reach, when the hungry mud beneath the water sucked at his foot and nearly pulled him down. He stared at it in despair. He hadn’t eaten in two days now. . . .
There was no way to reach it.
Choking on tears of frustration, he turned his back on the tantalizing plant, and headed for the hide again.
He crawled inside, too cold to shiver, wrapped a scrap of blanket around himself, and waited for the sun to warm the hide a little. There was just enough room under the lumpy dome for him and a few precious belongings. Sunlight filtered through the mass of enmeshed weeds at the entrance as he got feeling back into his toes and feet. Finally, for lack of anything else to do, he picked through his packets of herbs and oddments to see if he might have left a scrap of food in there.
Nothing. Except a single fishhook and a bit of line, left from the times he had something to bait the hook with.
He paused, with his hand over the packet.
It wouldn’t be much of a sin. Maybe not any sin. Even in Milan—
Even in Pauline-dominated Milan, fishermen got blessings on their nets to increase their catch.
But he wasn’t a priest, to give such a blessing.
On the other hand, if he passed out from hunger, he wouldn’t be able to warn Benito.
Saint Peter—you were a fisherman! Blessed Saint Peter, send me a sign!
There was an angry squawk and a commotion just outside and above his hide—a thump, a splash—
He shoved his head and arm outside, just in time to wave frantically at the gull about to recapture its dinner from the water at his door—lost in a fight with the other two gulls circling overhead. He snatched the hand-sized gray mullet out of the water and withdrew back into his protection as the gull stabbed at him with its beak.
Thank you, Saint Peter!
He took his knife and worried slivers of flesh from the bony fish, eating them raw, and thankful that once again he had been saved from committing a sin.
* * *
He spent a terrible, anxious, miserable day in the hide, not even prepared to go and share his fear with Chiano and Sophia. With the dusk he was off to wait again.
* * *
This time he was rewarded. There was a pad of bare feet overhead—then tiny sounds that marked someone who knew what he was doing and where he was going, climbing down among the crossbeams.
“Hi, brother?” Benito’s whisper.
“Right here.”
“Be right with you.” A bit of scratching, a rasp of wood on cloth and skin, and someone slipped in beside him with a quick hug, and then pulled away.
“Riot out there tonight. Sorry about yesterday. I couldn’t get here in time. I tried but I got held up.”
“Benito—I’ve got to go under cover again. One of Them nearly got me yesterday. Assassin. He was waiting for me, Benito. He knew who I was and where I was going. It has to be Them.”