The silence that follows is almost supernaturally thick. You hear the calls of gondoliers in canals well beyond; the shuffle of a pair of cats in the window behind you; the wheezing breath of Biagio beside you.

...But you also hear what you hoped you would - some sign that Signore Maso Cestié has heard you, and has stopped running. Your keen ears pick up the scuffing of brings against a leather vest, as he slides against a chimney down to a sitting position; and the same stoically clipped suppression of a grunt that comes from him when he overexerts himself peddling the flying machine too hard. He has stopped, up there; trapped between a situation he is unwilling to face and your invocation he cannot flee.

Biagio at this point has intuited from your words and character that you are his father's friend. Puffed as he is, you see in the man's eyes nothing like venom or scorn. He doesn't seem to you to want ill for his father, whatever his father fears.

He also recognizes you are much more young and fit, and more able to climb.

"Here..." He offers spontaneously, stepping back to the wall and knitting his fingers to give his hands and then shoulder to you as the first couple of steps, to make ascent a little easier. Without the panicked rush, knowing Maso is still there, you pick your way up more carefully, while Biagio waits in the street below. There you find Maso as you expected; sitting with his back to a chimney on the shingled rooftop, eyes wide with shock; one old hand, knuckles scratched from scrambling up the bricks, resting on his chest, over the heart. He is settling down, slowly; and as he does, and as he sees you come over the edge, the old timer's emotional defenses begin to crack apart and he tries to explain in a hoarse whisper:

"I didn't know! I didn't know, I didn't, I swear..."