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Fiore knew not how Enzo would react to the demand for ransom. Perhaps he would ignore it, thinking the price too dear for a mere courtesan, when hundreds or thousands of others remained in the city for him to peruse. Or perhaps, the more desperate and romantic corners of Fiore’s mind supplied, Enzo might demand to have Fiore brought to the drop-site in the flesh to prove he lived and hand over gold-for-courtesan all in the same transaction. Though, his more practical side argued, he didn’t know if that would make matters better or worse for him.
Particularly given how well he knew his captor’s faces.
The mustachioed fellow, who’d gone to deliver the demand to Ca’ Scaevola, gave no hint upon his return of how Enzo had taken it. Fiore supposed he hadn’t met with Enzo face to face. Otherwise he’d never have come back alive.
Broken-nose and the brute had hardly spoken a word between them in all the uncounted minutes Fiore spent alone with them in the dark. With the trio together again, however, conversation sprouted. It seemed the mustachioed fellow couldn’t bear a silence. Instead, he bore a pack of tarot cards, to which his cohorts readily assented.
The game began and ran on for what felt like days or hours. His captors drank, ate, laughed, and muttered together in apparent conviviality with little concern for their captive’s thirst or hunger. The game ended. Coins passed back and forth. The mustachioed fellow shuffled and dealt again. And again. And again.
Then, as another game ended, the conversation took a turn.
At first Fiore knew not what they said, for they kept their voices far too low for him to discern individual words. He assumed they argued over the game. More than a few duels in the city had been fought over money lost or won at cards. A cleverer or more dexterous hostage might have used their discord to his advantage. Fiore couldn’t think of anything clever to say over the constant ache throbbing through his bones, and no matter how he twisted his wrist, he couldn’t get even his bloodied hand free of the ropes.
But as his captors’ discussion grew more heated, the volume increased, until the mustachioed fellow arose above the rest to deliver a blistering solo.
“Of course I’m going to pick up the money!” he hissed, incensed. “I’m the one who knows the territory, I’m the one who knows the duke—”
“I think,” said broken-nose, “you know too much.”
Dripping water sounded loud as any downpour in the resulting silence.
After taking a moment to recover himself, the mustachioed fellow seemed to find his courage. He crossed his arms and lifted his chin so far that he almost looked down his nose at his taller cohort. “You think I shouldn’t be the one to go, then?”
“Oh, you’re still going,” said broken-nose. He jerked his head at the brute. “And he’s going with you to keep you honest.”
The mustachioed fellow stared at him. In a voice flat with disbelief, he echoed, “Honest.”
“You know the duke so well,” broken-nose explained, as calm and collected as ever. “Who’s to say you won’t offer to sell him the criminal scum who stole his musico?”
The mustachioed fellow continued staring.
“Even if you just run off with the bag yourself alone,” broken-nose continued, “you’ve already tripled your pay by not giving us our fair share.”
The mustachioed fellow’s stare did not abate. Fiore noted how, in saying nothing, he also declined to deny that he would ever do such things. He wondered if this was the sort of honor one might expect amongst thieves. No surprise they’d got themselves in this mess.
“Fine,” the mustachioed fellow spat at last. “Let’s be off, then.”
However long they dithered, once decided, his captors worked quick. Fiore supposed they ought to be commended for it as they swiftly and silently gathered their effects. The brute sank into the water—just barely visible from Fiore’s sideways and floor-level perspective—and swam off out of sight, returning within moments towing a black-lacquered sandolo.
As the brute and the mustachioed fellow piled into the sandolo and sailed off into the darkness, Fiore knew he ought to count himself lucky. After all, being left alone with just the one captor was surely better than being left with two.
Yet as his own nervous glance met broken-nose’s cold stare, he wondered how honest his solitary captor would remain, with no one there to keep him so.
~
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Enzo supposed the kidnappers had chosen a moonless night because they believed darkness conferred an advantage.
In that, they had erred.
Perhaps they knew not what he wore. But his typical costume of black upon black upon black, with his black bauta mask, sank into the shadows the moment he went out into the evening. All the moreso tonight, for beneath his tabarro cloak he’d garbed himself in the same woolen uniform as the three household guards he’d chosen to accompany him on this particular mission. Neither he, Zanetta, Ferruzzi, or Canello wore mail or carried swords. The clinking of armor or even the ringing note of a rapier sliding from its sheath would give them away. Arrows and thrown daggers, however, made almost no noise at all. Even a crossbow, though it would make a sound when at last it released its bolt, could be held in total silence for hours. Particularly if loaded well beforehand. As Enzo had, of course, instructed Canello to do. And so while Enzo himself bore nothing save cloak and dagger, he had all ‘round him more than enough weaponry to deal with whatever Fiore’s kidnappers chose to throw at him.
Furthermore, he had Vittorio—equally dark and equally silent—by his side, hackles raised whilst he waited for his master’s command.
They set out at dusk. Enzo left the bulk of the strategy to Zanetta, Ferruzzi, and Canello. They knew best how to conduct their own business; if they weren’t experts in their respective fields, then Lucrezia would never have hired them. Enzo had merely told them his goal. The rest they settled amongst themselves and returned to him with a plan. At their direction, upon arriving at the piazza, Enzo insinuated himself into a particular shadow cast by the arched doorway of one of the surrounding houses.
Carlotta had contrived to persuade the owners of the house to let Zanetta sit atop their roof for the night. Enzo knew not what admixture of talk and coin she’d used to produce this result; enough to buy silence without giving cause to wag their tongues at the strange request.
