And--Jesu!--they'd want to know what it was about, all right. Because it was a love poem. The first love poem Marco had ever written.
Anonymous, of course, so Angelina would be able to protest honestly that she had no idea where it had come from, and why. And Marco's identity was safe. He'd written and erased it twenty or thirty times before it seemed right. Then with a carefully new-cut quill and some of the fine ink from Master Ambrosino Ventuccio's desk, he had copied it out on the best vellum. And the only reason he'd found the courage to deliver it was because today he'd finally found out who she was.
Milady Angelina of Dorma. The daughter of the house. Not above Marco Valdosta, even though she was at least two years older than he--but definitely above the touch of Marco Felluci. If Casa Dorma discovered some ragamuffin like Felluci had dared to send a love poem to Milady Angelina . . .
The best he could hope for was a beating at the hands of Dorma retainers. If young noblemen of the family got involved, "Marco Felluci" might very well find himself run through by a rapier--and these great old families usually had a baker's dozen of brawling young cousins lounging around, all of them ready at an instant to defend their family's honor.
Marco sighed. He had buried Marco Valdosta quite thoroughly, and not even for the sweet eyes of Angelina Dorma was he going to resurrect the name he'd been born to. "Marco Felluci" he was, and Marco Felluci he would remain--even though it meant abandoning all hope of ever winning the girl he was quite certain was the love of his life. But even if he couldn't touch, he could dream--and, perversely, even if she were never to learn who her unknown admirer was, he wanted her to know how he felt. So he'd spent three hours struggling over that poem.
Just two weeks ago it was, that he'd first seen her. At Giaccomo's, with a couple of companions. Until then his daydreams had been confined to something just as impossible, but hardly romantic.
The Accademia! Lord and Saints, what he wouldn't give to get in there to study medicine! But--he had no money, and no sponsor, and the wrong political history. Not that he gave a fat damn about the Montagnards anymore, and their fanatical determination to bring northern Italy into the Holy Roman Empire. But there was no way he was ever going to pass for one of the young nobles of Venice or even a son of one of the Casa curti.
Still . . . Marco was young enough that sometimes, sometimes when the day had really gone well, it almost seemed possible. Because a long-buried dream had surfaced with this new life.
Marco wanted to be a healer. A doctor.
He'd had that ambition as far back as he could remember. Mama had owned a drug-shop for a while, which she'd set up with what money she had after her family cut her off. Marco had been just old enough to help her with it, and he'd found the work fascinating. The patrons of the shop had teased him about it--but right along with the teasing, they'd asked his advice, and had taken it too. That perfect memory of his, again. He remembered symptoms, treatments, alternatives, everything. He'd helped old Sophia out in the marshes, later, with her herbs and "weeds," dispensing what passed for medicine among the marsh-folk and locos.
Of course, since seeing Angelina for the first time, she'd crowded out that particular daydream more often than not. But it was still there, rooted so deeply he knew it would never go away.
And so, as he made his way from Casa Dorma, Marco's thoughts were brooding and melancholy. Two heartbreaks at the same time seemed a bit much, at the age of sixteen! He consoled himself by beginning to compose, in his mind, another love poem. A brooding and melancholy one, of course.
His feet were chilled as he padded along the damp wooden walkways. He couldn't get used to shoes again after two years without them in the marshes, so he generally went as bare of foot as a bargee. The temperature was dropping; fog was coming off the water. The lines of the railings near him blurred; farther on, they were reduced to silhouettes. Farther than that, across the canal, there was nothing to see but vague, hulking shapes. Without the clatter of boot soles or clogs, he moved as silently in the fog as a spirit--silent out of habit. If the marsh-gangs didn't hear you, they couldn't harass you. Breathing the fog was like breathing wet, smoky wool; it was tainted with any number of strange smells. It held them all: fishy smell of canal, smell of rotting wood, woodsmoke, stink of nameless somethings poured into the dark, cold waters below him. He hardly noticed. His thoughts were elsewhere--back with the inspiration for his poem.
Oh, Angelina . . .
He wondered if he'd see her tonight at Giaccomo's. Half-hoping; half-dreading. She tended to show up at Giaccomo's pretty frequently. Marco was under no illusions as to why. Caesare Aldanto, of course--the most handsome and glamorous man there. Hell, Caesare even had Claudia and Valentina exchanging jokes and comments about him. Marco wondered hopelessly if he'd ever have--whatever it was that Caesare had. Probably not.
* * *
His feet had taken him all unaware down the cobbled walkways and the long, black sotoportego through to his own alleyway, to his very own door, almost before he realized it. He started to use his key, but Benito had beaten him home, and must have heard the rattle in the lock.
"About time!" he caroled in Marco's face, pulling the door open while Marco stood there stupidly, key still held out. "You fall in the canal?"
"They kept us late," Marco said, trying not to feel irritated that his daydream had been cut short. "There any supper? It was your turn."
"There will be. Got eggs, and a bit of pancetta. Frittata do?" He returned to the fireside, and the long-handled blackened, battered pan. He began frying garlic, a chopped onion, a handful of parsley--stolen, no doubt, from someone's rooftop garden--and the cubes of pancetta. Marco sniffed appreciatively. Benito was a fairly appalling cook, but always got the best of ingredients. And, as long as he didn't burn it, there wasn't much he could do wrong with frittata.
Benito tossed the fried mixture into the beaten egg in the cracked copper bowl. Then, after giving it a swirl, and putting in a lump of lard, he tossed the whole mixture back in the pan and back on the heat. "They gave me tomorrow off too, like you--something about a merchant ship all the way from the Black Sea. You got anything you want to do? After chores, I mean."
"Not really," Marco replied absently, going straight over to the wall and trying to get a good look at himself in the little bit of cracked mirror that hung there. Benito noticed, cocking a quizzical eye at him as he brought over an elderly wooden platter holding Marco's half of the omelet and a slice of bread.
"Something doing?"
"I just don't see any reason to show up at Giaccomo's looking like a drowned rat," Marco replied waspishly, accepting the plate and beginning to eat.
"Huh." Benito took the hint and combed his hair with his fingers, then inhaled his own dinner.