At Gaia's request, Erik put the watches he had stolen back together, and in the middle of the night left them outside the girl's room along with a list of the parts he would need for his project. When he woke the next morning, Erik was surprised to find a neat paper bag outside his door filled with all the parts he would need. At breakfast the next morning he had been about to thank her when Giovanni walked into the dining room and he thought better than risking revealing her secret.
Most of the day was spent with Giovanni either on a work site, or in the house drawing and redrawing architectural designs and planning out the stonework. Giovanni certainly made the boy work for his keep, and from sunup to sunset architecture was Erik's life. Even during the lunch hour Erik and Giovanni typically were discussing the finer points of some building or another while Gaia cooked and cleaned.
What the girl did during the day, neither Erik nor Giovanni knew what the girl did all day long, but she never seemed to leave the house; no matter what time of the day the men returned home, it seemed Gaia was there to greet them with food and drink. Erik heard more about Gaia at the work sites than he did in her own home. He was shocked at the amount of crude gossip that went on among the workers, whose mouths were sometime dirtier than those of the Gypsies.
Erik quickly learned the man at the door when he first arrived was the current head of the construction site from which Erik had fallen on the day he met Giovanni. The old man gave Marco Lupis full run of the site, and under his eye construction was now nearing completion almost as Erik had pictured it when he first arrived. It wasn't long before Erik grew a great dislike for the man; his talent was not natural but rather faked and forced, and his mannerisms were common and crude. Erik didn't know why, but the way he spoke about Gaia with the other workers made him furious.
"Didn't you call on Signorina Turri again yesterday, Marco?" One of the men asked, wiping sweat from his brow with a grin. "Tell us about it!"
"Yes Marco, tell us!" The other men chimed upon seeing Giovanni was out of earshot and half asleep besides. None of them seemed to notice Erik in his perch high above them, listening intently at the mention of Gaia.
The handsome dark-haired man didn't hesitate to answer. "I did visit My Love yesterday. She must have known I would visit, so beautiful we she! She was wearing a powder blue chiffon dress, as soft as the sky. It dipped down so low about her breasts I would have surely suffocated if I tried to kiss between them," Marco explained, gesturing his hands over his chest. The statement elicited catcalls from a handful of the men who urged him to continue. "She let me in, and promptly informed me her father wasn't in. I told her I hadn't come to see her father, but she knew that of course. She kissed me good and firm on the mouth with such gusto I fell back against the door and closed it. As soon as the door was closed she grabbed my belt and tore it off so eagerly she nearly tore the buckle clean off-"
"Lies!" Erik shouted from his perch, dropping down angrily. He was easily five years the man's junior but stood a solid half foot over Marco, who still did not seem the least bit intimidated.
"Well! What have we got here, boys?" Marco grinned maliciously. "A masked spy?"
"Gaia's never let you in, let alone touched you," Erik accused. "Your stories are all slanderous lies."
Marco raised a brow. "Well would you listen to this! Gaia's never let me in, has she? I think somebody's jealous."
Erik gaped some under the mask, suddenly appearing far less threatening. Marco laughed heartily. "It's true! Do you really think a girl like her would ever give a boy like you a chance to win her love? You are mad! But I have been curious, boy… what did you do to become Master Turri's apprentice?"
"I merely showed talent, something he clearly did not see in any of his former help," Erik sneered, and the group of men laughed.
"Why you little freak, I'll teach you to talk to me like that!" Marco snarled and threw himself upon the boy in a violent fit. The men cheered when Erik fell, but it was mere moments before their cheers turn savage as Erik leapt to his feet with the grace of a jungle cat, seeing only red as he attacked the older man ferociously. A sickening snap rang through the air quickly followed by a yelp from the older boy. In a whirl of movement several more the men from the site joined in on the fight, converging upon Erik like a pack of wolves.
The movement and shouts from the site woke Giovanni from his slumber on the outskirts of the site, and the man immediately got to his feet and moved quickly as he could over to the fight. Before Giovanni could even reach the scene of the fight, the brawl ended abruptly with all of the workers stumbling back in stunned silence. Giovanni pushed his way to the center of the crowd and frowned deeply at the sight of his apprentice laying out on the ground, maskless and bruised in the dirt. He stirred, only semi-conscious and bleeding from his wreck of a face. Kneeling by the boy, Giovanni stroked his hideously misshapen face warmly. "Who did this?" He demanded, and when the old man glared at the group and still receive no answer he barked. "Who did this?"
Jumping some at the man's harshness, Marco nursed his broken arm. "He started it, Master Turri," the boy lied effortlessly. Looking to the other men, Giovanni frowned.
"Is this true?" Each and every man nodded his agreement with Marco, and Giovanni's frown deepened. "You, help me carry him home," the old man commanded of one of the less injured looking workers, who obeyed without hesitation. The young man had been putting on weight since he arrived in Italy, and while he wasn't too difficult to carry while he was emaciated he would certainly be too heavy for the arthritic old man now. Giovanni picked up the leather mask out of the dirt and brushed it off to carry it home.
Gaia came bustling downstairs as soon as the door was opened. "Papà, Erik, you're home early… Papà, what happened?" She demanded as one of the workers from the site laid Erik down on the sofa Giovanni had first deposited him on so many weeks ago. Quickly she moved to the kitchen and poured out the water she had put on for tea into a bowl with a clean cloth, bringing it to her father as he ushered the worker out the door and locked it behind him. Before he could stop her, Giovanni heard Gaia gasp and the bowl of hot water clatter to the floor and his heart sank in his chest. Erik stirred with a groan and Gaia nearly jumped out of her skin.
Giovanni stooped over to pick up the bowl, and placed it firmly in her hands. "More hot water, Gaia. Now, please," he added when she hesitated. Quietly she nodded and moved off into the kitchen to put on another pot of water to boil. In a few moments she brought it out again, and having composed her nerves she sat on the floor by the sofa and cleaned the dirt and blood of Erik's face gently with the hot water. The boy flinched as he came to wakefulness, as much from the hot water as from the nakedness of his face.
"Calm down, it's only water," she told him firmly, and Giovanni ran a hand over his daughter's hair to caution her to watch her tone.
"Gaia, I know it's a little early but if you would please start lunch I think it would be much appreciated," he smiled sadly to the girl, who nodded reluctantly and moved back into the kitchen to cook, looking back over her shoulder frequently.
Erik cowered into the sofa as far from the man as he could. "My mask, where is my mask?" Quietly Giovanni sat on the edge of the sofa and handed the boy the black leather mask. With greedy fingers Erik snatched the leather up and placed it on his face with surprising grace. Once his face was covered her relaxed some, but not much. His nerves were on edge, and his whole posture seemed to radiate with shame and disgrace. "I'll be gone in the morning, Master Turri…" he promised meekly, and Giovanni clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
"You had better not be young man," he scolded. "In this household, we do not run from our problems, we confront them and solve them. Tell me what happened."
Gingerly Erik sat up, eyes fixated on his knees as he spoke quietly, except for the occasional glance into the kitchen at Gaia. "Marco was saying he and Gaia… He was implying something happened between them yesterday, while you were showing me the Arch of Severus. I called him a liar, he accused me of being jealous and suggested that I might have done something inappropriate to become your apprentice. When I told him it was because I was more talented than him, he struck me. I don't remember what happened after that…" he frowned quietly, a gesture that was mirrored by Giovanni.
Gaia moved to the doorway and announced lunch was ready. Giovanni helped the boy to his feet and to a chair at the kitchen table with a comforting pat to his back. "Gaia, was Marco Lupis by here yesterday?"
"Yes, Papa. I told him you weren't here and when he tried to come in anyway I threatened to throw a pot of boiling water on his handsome face if he didn't leave. Why?" The old man trusted his daughter implicitly, far more than he trusted the gossip of a lowly stone mason.
"No reason," Giovanni promised, looking to Erik who lowered his eyes. The aging man squeezed the boy's shoulder comfortingly as Gaia piled food on their plates. He quietly hoped Erik would not make good on his word to be gone by tomorrow morning.