poetry,” he said dryly. “I wish he’d told me about it earlier.” He shifted his weight to one foot. “But what is the point of telling me something I know?”
“It’s this, m’lord—Marco, he’s good, ye know? I’m not good—I’m trouble. I don’t know how, but the Dell’este—my ­grandfather—always knew that, even when I was a kid. ‘You take care of Marco,’ he told me. ‘The good ones need us bad ones to keep them safe.’ ”
Aldanto’s right eyebrow rose markedly. “I’m not exactly popular with the Duke of Ferrara, boy. How do you think he’d feel about the company you’re keeping now?”
Benito shrugged. “That’s not my problem. He just told me I was to take care of Marco.”
Aldanto looked pensive, but he said nothing. Benito continued, nervously, but determined. “M’lord, I—” he waved his hands helplessly “—I guess what I want to say is this. You got into this mess because of us. It cost you. You didn’t have to do it. Well I’m guessing. But I figure you might need help. Well, from now on, you say, and I’ll do. Whatever. However. For as long as you like. And there’s some things I’m not too shabby at.”
The eyebrow stayed up. Caesare made no pretence that he didn’t understand what Benito was talking about. “And if I say—no noise?”
Benito remembered a certain window, and a certain escapade that no longer seemed so clever, and the shadowy men on the canalside walkways—and shuddered. “Then it’ll be quiet, m’lord. Real quiet. Babies wouldn’t wake up.”
“And how long can I expect this sudden