"I didn't
want
her!" snapped the beauty.
Petro Dorma smiled wryly. "We do. So we will keep her. Good-bye, Angelina." He stepped out from behind his desk, his arms beginning to reach for her.
She evaded them. "I hate you."
Marco stepped forward too. "Angelina . . ."
"And you too! You're so boring!" She turned on her heel and stormed out.
Marco turned to follow, but Benito grabbed his sleeve. Petro took the other. "I'm sorry, Marco," said the head of
Casa
Dorma, with more sympathy than Benito had expected. He had to wonder if Petro wished he'd had Marco as a brother rather than Angelina as a sister. "Stay. There are still things I need to say, and I need your signature on that document before Angelina can go to that convent."
"I don't think I should sign," said Marco, seriously. "I made my promises."
Petro shook his head. Benito noticed that there was a tear trickling down the man's face. "I love her very much, Marco. She'll always be my little sister. We spoiled her after Papa's death, Mother and I, and perhaps that is why things turned out this way. But there are two reasons, both compelling, why this is the best thing for her. First, she has been experimenting with black lotos herself. She's been spending time over at the estate of a sister of Count Badoero. The Council of Ten have spies watching it. The Badoero house suffered what should have been punitive financial losses when their attack on Venice failed, yet there is money and lavish entertainment at Contessa Mirafioro's estate again. Badoero himself is dead, but the trade he set up in that narcotic continues, and my sister is in the thick of it."
Marco's mouth opened, then closed again. He looked as if he'd like to deny it; he also looked as though he knew that he couldn't.
Petro rubbed his eyes with a weary hand. "Angelina was drawn into the wild set the contessa cultivates. She is implicated in bringing some of the drug here, to Venice. We both know how addictive lotos is; the sisters are healers, and specifically are skilled in the rehabilitation of addicts. It really is the best thing we can do for her. Besides, there is a large force of Schiopettieri going to raid the Mirafioro estate soon. I really don't want her taken, or possibly injured. There's only so much that even I can keep quiet."
Marco bit his lip. "I can't believe she'd use the stuff—after your mother, and the difficulty we've had weaning her off it. I should think anyone with two eyes in her head would know better."
Petro shook his head. "It does seem insane, doesn't it? But Angelina always believed she was special, different from other people. Superior, maybe, and immune to their problems—despite her pregnancy proving that there was one thing she wasn't immune to. Besides, it is a popular myth among those who buy and sell the stuff that the addictiveness is totally exaggerated, and she was always readier to believe the people she wished to emulate than she was to believe people who love her."
He turned to his desk again and picked up another document. "There is another reason. Angelina has her ear to the network of gossips and rumor. I wanted her away in isolation before news of this one reached her ears."
The document bore the seal of Ferrara. "Word from your grandfather. Caesare Aldanto has been seen in Constantinople."
Benito went cold, and quite sober.
Trust the devil to save his own.
"I'm going to Constantinople, then," said Benito. "I've got unfinished business there."
Petro shook his head, and once again, it was in that implacable manner that warned of dire and inescapable consequences if his will was ignored.
"You are not, and for two reasons. First, after Caesare had seen the Emperor Alexius, he reembarked on a ship. Bound, most likely, for Odessa. So he is no longer in Constantinople for you to find. And for a second reason, both the Council of Ten and your grandfather have placed considerable prices on his head. We have more competent assassins in our pay than you would be. And in this case we will not hesitate to use them."
Benito looked mulish. "I know his ways. How he operates. They don't."
"That may be true," said Petro calmly. "But he is not where you can find him now, and what is more, even if you could, there is no reason to believe that he is not . . . contaminated.
Think
, Benito. There are only two sorts of power that could have saved him from his fate—and of the two, it was not likely the angels. Furthermore, where he has gone to, you are at a huge disadvantage. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania would eat you alive, Benito."
"What has this got to do with Angelina?" asked Marco.
Petro raised his eyebrows. "We know how Aldanto works. How he uses women and . . ." he looked pointedly at the two boys, "intermediaries. Angelina still claims he was wrongfully accused, and refuses to accept he was in any way responsible for the attack on the Republic. Just by being part of
Casa
Dorma, she is privy to a great deal of information that the enemies of Venice would appreciate. I love my sister, and no matter what she is and has become, I will continue to love her, but I know her weaknesses now. And I love and have a duty to the People and the Republic of Venice, too. What I am doing here is the best for both of them."
Marco bit his lip. And then he stepped up to the desk, took up the quill, dabbed it in the ink and signed. "I'll go up and try to see her now. I still feel she's getting a very poor choice in all of this," he said, sadness tingeing his voice.
Benito raised his eyes to heaven again. He loved Marco dearly, but . . . Here Marco had just received the freedom to marry the girl of his dreams, had his mistakes corrected, and he was worrying about the cause of those troubles. No doubt he'd be worrying about Aldanto next.
Well, if Caesare Aldanto ever came within Benito's reach, Benito would make sure his former idol was very dead. They'd been used, and the worst was they'd been grateful to be used by the traitor and murderer. And he owed Aldanto for Maria's account too. He turned to follow his brother.
Petro put a heavy hand on his shoulder. "I want to talk to you, too, Benito. Seeing as you're here."
He led Benito to the mullioned windows of his study. They could see out along the quays, busy with canal boats and lighters, to the forest of masts of the ships at anchor in the Bacino San Marco. Benito knew it was the merchant-prince's favorite view. But instead Petro pointed to the quay-side, to a solitary man lying in squalor against a bollard. "I know that man. He used to be good boatswain. Made a pretty penny or two out of various
Colleganzas
. He should be comfortable, well-off and happy."
"So?" Benito replied, though he had a good idea what was coming. "Sir," he added belatedly.
Petro sighed. "He can't find a job, even when ships are desperate for crew. If he doesn't drink, he shakes and hallucinates. He'll do absolutely anything for another glass of wine. He doesn't care how bad the wine is. Just so long as it is wine. We don't like to admit it, but too much wine can be as bad as black lotos. It just takes a bit longer. Are you going to turn out like that old soak? Because it can happen to you too. Like my sister, you are not immune. You're behaving just like her at the moment."
Nothing Petro could have chosen to say would have made more of an impression than that last line. For the second time that day, Benito felt something hit him with a distinct sense of shock, hit him in a way that made him grow very cold for a moment. Finally Benito shook his head.
Petro patted the shoulder. "Good. Because I don't think you'd fit into a monastery any better than Angelina is going to enjoy that convent."
"I'd drive 'em all mad. Sir."
Dorma managed a smile. "I'm far more inclined to send you out to factor in one of Dorma's trading posts Outremer, now that spring is coming, than keep you here or send you to a monastery. I've told mother that I'm wasting my time trying to make you into a
Case Vecchie
gentleman. Besides, I think the Valdosta and the
Casa
Dorma would lose something of value if they tried to cut and polish you. It's like trying to make a stiletto out of a perfectly good battleaxe."
"More like a rapier out of a cabbage," said Benito gloomily. "But the truth to tell, Petro, I really want to get out of here. I don't care where to, but out of Venice. And out of this 'education.' It doesn't suit me and I don't suit it."
Petro sat himself down again. "Very well. After your brother's wedding. And only if you learn to pull in your horns a bit. I've no objection to some wild oats, but it was only your status as my ward, and something of a hero in the last attack on Venice, that kept you out of jail last night. And you know Venice; there's only so long that you can trade on that before they start treating you exactly as you deserve."
Benito nodded. He really had to find out just what he'd done last night. "I've always had a fancy for Negroponte."
Petro gave a snort of laughter. "Benito, you are to subtle maneuvering what a randy stallion is to subtle seduction. If you asked for Golden Horn, Petro might smell a rat, eh? But Negroponte . . . is close enough to Constantinople? Not a chance, Benito. Not a chance."
Benito grinned, in spite of feeling somewhere in the bottom of his stomach that his world was not right, and probably never would be again. "It works on other people, Petro."
The head of the
Casa
Dorma smiled back. He looked younger. Nicer. Less like the Doge.
"But not on me. Now go and try to stay out of trouble. And pretend to be learning to be a good young
Case Vecchie
for my mother's sake. She has enough to bear with Angelina being taken away. You can speak like a gentleman when you wish to. Do so."
The forests of Istria were dripping and bleak. The mists seemed to hang heavy and cold around the trees. That matched Maria's mood fairly well. She was big bellied and uncomfortable. What she really wanted was someone to have a good fight with. A good fling-plates-and-break-things fight. In that respect her husband Umberto was hopeless. For starters he was always off marking trees or accompanying the foresters. The life out here didn't suit him, but he was a fiercely conscientious man. He'd far rather have been in the dockyards in the Arsenal back in Venice. This however, was where he had been sent. And after the affair with the previous chief forester he did his best to keep going out with the tree patrols.
At least he had listened to her—or if he hadn't done so consciously, some of her insistence that he look into the peccadilloes of those under him had unearthed the culprits still running the timber-scam.
She tried not to be too irritated with him, even so. He insisted on thinking of it purely in terms of "timber being sent away from Venice" rather than "timber being sold to
the enemies of Venice." Sometimes, his focus was so narrow, so parochial, it made her want to scream. And never mind that not all that long ago, her focus had been entirely on running her cargoes and not enquiring too closely about where they were from, or where they were going, on being dazzled by a pair of blue eyes and not asking what was going on in the head that housed them.
Well, that had changed. If only Umberto had learned the same lesson.
At least he was on to the cheaters now, and he was off every day, trying to match his city strides with the long paces that the foresters took, and sneezing a lot.
She envied him, envied his long hikes through the forest, envied that
he
got out of the house every day, into the open, beyond the four confining walls. To her surprise she'd found that the openness, space and silences felt welcoming. Umberto complained of missing the people and the sounds of the city. She enjoyed their absence.
In the first day here, she had learned all that, despite the fact that things had been quite chaotic. To get out, under those old, quiet trees, had been a pleasure she would never have anticipated. So far as
she
was concerned, all that had happened was that she'd had a lovely walk and solved half the timber problems—and, yes, gotten a little lost and gotten home a little late, but that was hardly anything to worry about.
Umberto'd almost had the baby for her, to judge by the performance he had given when she came back at last. And unfortunately, she was no longer the sole arbiter of what she did; she was a wife now, and half of a couple, and it behooved her not to send her husband into a state of panic.
The result—with her "delicate condition" in mind, was being confined to the house and yard with an elderly forester's widow as a combination between house-servant and guard.
Not that she was in any real sense a prisoner. No, she was just confined by chains of care and Umberto's ideas of how it all should be, and the proper arrangement of the universe. Women had their place. It was a pampered and protected one—well, as pampered as a caulker's wife ever got, anyway. It didn't include being out on the canals at midnight, running gray-cargo, nor traipsing about the woods like a forester.
It all chafed at Maria's soul. She was used to her independence. She was used to defining for herself what she would and wouldn't do. And if her mother had plied her own boat until the very day of Maria's own birth, why should she now be stuck within four walls, tending to the housework as if she hadn't a care except that the floor be clean enough?
For that matter, her world was
so
much wider now! The last year—no one who had lived through what she had could be unchanged. She'd come up against challenges she would never have dreamed of, and beaten them, and if she'd chosen to marry rather than try to raise a baby on her own, well, it was for the baby's sake.
She certainly wouldn't have done it for her own. So she'd taken the husband that she thought would best love her baby, no matter who the father was. And now, she found herself powerless to fight the trammels of Umberto's gentle care. She didn't even know how to start dealing with his hurt expressions when she didn't fit in with his expectations.
How did you fight this? She really could use a good screaming fight.