Page 125 of Dark Tides
“Towards the ghetto, your ladyship.”
“What is that?”
“The old iron foundries… where the people of the Book have to live, all together. Locked in at night.”
She was going to ask more, when the boy looked up, and said with evident relief: “There is Mordecai now,” and she saw the man walking towards them, the deep canal on one side of him, the dark wall on the other, with his young apprentice following his footsteps, carrying the chest of money.
“Signor Mordecai?”
The boy shot an imploring look of apology to the older man. “I am sorry, signor,” he said in Italian. “She insisted, and I could not refuse.” He vanished into the shadows of the lane.
“Your ladyship,” Mordecai said in English, showing no surprise.
“You knew me for English, yesterday?”
He bowed. “I did.”
“You said I looked like the Milord doctor.”
He bowed in acknowledgment. “You understood me when I spoke Italian?”
“I did; I was not mistaken.”
“I meant no harm, signora.”
“I know that you didn’t. I have come to you—because I think you are an honest man.”
“I should not be speaking with you.”
“We can say I am changing money. Did you mean Roberto Reekie? The English doctor?”
“I knew him,” he said reluctantly. “But I knew nothing of him. I told them.”
“You told who?”
“The men who inquired.”
“Who inquired?” Sarah asked.
He frowned a little. “The authorities,” was all he said.
“Signor Mordecai, may I trust you with a secret?”
“No,” he said firmly. “It is not safe for me to know secrets. And you should trust no one.”
He turned to walk away, shaking his head; but Sarah ran after him and stepped in front of him to bar the way. “I have to trust you,” she said. “I have no one else to ask but you. The Signor Roberto was my uncle. That’s why I look like him. As you say. You knew at once. He was my uncle, my grandmother grieves for him, she wants him home. I have to ask after him!”
He turned. “You are under the protection of Signor Russo. Of all men in Venice, he knows all the secrets. You ask him.”
“I don’t know him,” Sarah gabbled. “And I am not under his protection. I have told him a false name and a pretend reason for being here. I have no friends in Venice, and I don’t know where to begin. My grandmother has sent me to find Robert Reekie. She is a woman of wisdom—she knows things—and she says that she knows, without doubt, that he is still alive.”
His face was graven with lines of sorrow. “Then she is blessed,” he said. “To know that your son is alive is a blessing for any mother. Many mothers do not have that confidence.”
“If you care for them, then care for my grandmother too. Let me tell her that her son is alive?”
He sighed and paused to allow her to speak.
“When did you last see him?” Sarah pressed him.
