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."
Swift intake of breath. "God--no! Not after all this time! How'd you get away?"
"I just--outran him." Don't let him know what really happened. He'll think he has to share the danger. Marco had been careful never to let his brother even guess that he'd had to kill--and more than once.
"All right." The voice in the dark took on a new firmness. "That's it. You're not gonna run any more, big brother. Running don't cut it. You need a protector, somebody with weight."
"Get serious!" Marco answered bitterly. "Where am I going to find somebody willing to stand up for me?"
Benito chuckled. "Been thinking about that. New man in town--got contacts, got weight--everywhere, seems like. Been watching him."
"Big fat deal--what reason is he going to have to help me?"
"Name's Aldanto. Caesare Aldanto. Familiar?"
Marco sucked in his breath. "Lord and Saints . . ."
"Thought I 'membered," Benito replied with satisfaction.