Текст книги "Venice"

Автор книги: Christian Cameron

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‘Here?’ asked Swan. Giannis had taught him to play piquet, but he’d never yet played for money.

‘No!’ Cesare said. ‘Tell your story.’

Swan rocked his head back and forth. There, for good or ill, were his friends. He was tired of trying to be mysterious. ‘My mother owned – owns – a tavern in London.’ He shrugged. ‘Shall I tell you the truth?’ Neither of them looked appalled – indeed, Giannis looked . . . relieved. As if low birth made him more of a man, and not less. ‘I think she was a whore.’

Giannis looked shocked.

Cesare laughed. ‘Mine too!’ he said.

‘What a terrible thing to say of your mother!’ Giannis said.

Swan laughed. ‘No, no. Listen. When she was young, my mother had me. My father . . . is someone very important. I think he bought her the inn. I think she surprised everyone by running it well.’

‘Any other family?’ Cesare asked. ‘Some thieves? A Pope?’

‘My uncles,’ Swan said. ‘Both archers. Mother got them posts in the king’s bodyguard. They retired to the inn and drank and kept order.’ He smiled. ‘Jack and Dick. They taught me . . . everything.’

‘Interesting,’ Cesare said. ‘How did you get to be a royal page?’

Swan drank more wine. ‘Every year or so, my father would remember I existed. He’d buy me something, or send me something – a tutor, an invitation to a school. I . . . got in some trouble, when I was fourteen.’ He shrugged. ‘But I was, at least technically, a clerk, and so I couldn’t be tried.’

Cesare shook his head. ‘You killed someone.’

Swan nodded.

Cesare shook his head. ‘Why do I like you? You are a murderous barbarian.’

‘He was trying to rob me. And maybe more. His hands . . . anyway, I took his knife as my Uncle Jack taught me, and used it.’ For a moment he was there, with blood all over him and the other man lying under him gurgling. He shivered. ‘Anyway, my father collected me from my mother and I lived in one of his palaces for a year, and had tutors. It was—’ He couldn’t decide what word to use.

‘Not what you were used to?’ Cesare asked.

‘Exactly,’ Swan said, and drank more wine. ‘Sometimes they treated me like a servant, and sometimes as if I was a lord. Nothing belonged to me. Except the tutors, and their learning.’ He shrugged again. ‘I’m not telling this well.’ He looked into his empty wine cup. ‘So he sent me to court. It wasn’t bad – it was like the tavern, except everyone was richer. I didn’t have nice clothes. I got tired of being treated like a servant.’ He left a lot out, and skipped to, ‘and then I ran away back to the tavern.’

Cesare nodded. ‘It’s us against them,’ he said. ‘Even when they treat us decently, we’re never allies.’

‘You like Alessandro,’ Swan said.

Cesare shrugged. ‘He’s a rebel, too,’ he said. ‘He . . . isn’t one of them. Let’s play cards.’

They took a boat to another tavern, where the tables were larger. Cesare paid a small fee, and was provided with a pitcher of dark red wine, and a table and two decks of the new block-printed cards.

An hour later, Swan raised his hands. ‘I surrender,’ he said. There were six men playing, and he tossed in his cards at the end of the last piquet.

‘You weren’t doubled,’ said Cesare.

‘I’m losing a ducat every game and sometimes two,’ Swan said.

‘Don’t be a Jew,’ Cesare said.

‘Do Jews play cards badly, or do they just want new clothes? Jews aren’t so bad, when you get to know Italians.’ The hit went home, and he grinned. ‘Either way, I’m out.’ Swan counted his tally on the abacus. ‘Thirteen ducats. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’ He clambered over the bench.

‘Jews are cheap,’ Cesare said.

‘Not in my experience,’ Swan said. ‘They’re thrifty and exacting and good at maths. But not cheap. Now, excuse me, gentlemen.’

‘It’s fun!’ Cesare called. ‘Sit and drink, at least!’

Swan went back to his inn, lit a candle and did some Arabic.

Rabbi Aaron seemed to know everyone in Venice. Perhaps more importantly, he seemed to know everyone in Constantinople. He began to draw little charts for Swan – this street had the goldsmiths, this street had moneylenders. ‘The Genoese used to hold Galata,’ he said. ‘But they tried to help save the empire and they lost everything.’ He drew a small map in the corner of a text. ‘Galata is a city of its own, across the Horn from Constantinople. My brother Simon has a house there.’

Gradually Swan began to understand the layout of the Holy City, girded with ancient walls, with suburbs across the Hellespont. Galata was a walled city unto itself, now held by Venice. Aaron wrote him letters – to Simon, to a dozen other men and one woman. He hid them in his secret pocket.

Rabbi Aaron fingered his long, elegant beard. ‘My brother used to travel four times a year – bringing jewels, taking wools.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re old. You are a good listener, young man. I understand you are a ruffian.’

Swan’s head come up at that. He’d been copying Hebrew nouns. ‘What? Oh, yes. I’m a hardened killer.’

‘You . . . engaged – with the youngest Foscari.’ Rabbi Aaron smiled. It was a hard smile, and just for a moment, Swan wondered what it was like to be a Jew – to never fully speak your mind to a Christian. Yet in that half-smile, Swan read a very definite dislike of Foscari.

‘There was a duel, yes.’ Swan smiled.

‘Beware. He is unhappy. And very rich, and you can buy a man’s death in Venice for about the price of a hat.’ Rabbi Aaron’s eyes met his. ‘A good hat.’

Swan found it difficult to hold the rabbi’s eye. The man – his goodness rolled off him – seemed to look directly into his soul. ‘I understand from a friend,’ the rabbi said gently, ‘that there are men from Rome looking for you, as well.’

‘Rome?’ Venice had so captivated Swan that he’d forgotten Rome.

‘The Orsini are as much masters of Rome as the Foscari are of Venice.’ Rabbi Aaron nodded. He smiled. ‘You are young and hot blooded. But please accept a word of advice from an old Jew. If you must make enemies, make powerless enemies.’

Swan laughed. But it hit him in the gut. ‘Are the Orsini looking for me?’

The rabbi nodded. ‘That’s my understanding. Listen – you are doing me a favour, carrying my letters east. I shall do one for you in return and introduce you to a man. He is the one who told me about your . . . problem. Yes? He may ask you for a favour. I recommend you do it. He is powerful – in a different way to the Foscari.’

Swan had grown to manhood in an inn on the wharves of London. He thought he had a shrewd notion of the kind of man they were discussing. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘Now,’ the rabbi said. ‘Let’s go back to work.’

‘May I ask you one more thing?’ Swan asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m hoping to purchase books. Ancient Greek books. In Constantinople.’ He tried to frame his question. ‘Can your . . . people help me?’

‘Books? Greek books?’ Rabbi Aaron looked off into his study. ‘You should go and look at the monasteries on the mainland. Each of them has a fine collection. Now let’s look at how we say “thank you”.’ Rabbi Aaron nodded. ‘Because if you plan to deal with my people, you may find it a useful phrase.’

The next morning, as he left his lodging, Swan turned to flirt – somewhat automatically, it’s true – with Joanna, the slut of the place. She was washing the floor, but she managed to wash it with energy, grace and a remarkable length of bare leg that deserved a glance and a word.

She blew him a kiss. Swan didn’t particularly want her, but was as delighted as any young man would be by the invitation. But as he turned back to the street, he caught a glimpse of a man in an ill-fitting black doublet. The man had missed a lacing hole – so his too-small doublet was bunched to one side.

There was something about his glance that made Swan note him. Then he set off for the Rialto and then, in the afternoon, the Jewish quarter.

There was a small, dark man hovering by the gate to the ghetto. Conscious of the rabbi’s warning, Swan was wary of the man, but the man met his eye and bowed. ‘You are the English foreigner?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Swan said. He was late – he was falling in love with fencing, and in addition to lessons from Alessandro, he was talking lessons from Messire Viladi, whose fame was that he was a pupil of the great Fiore, and had, in his youth, fought a famous chivalric deed of arms with Galeazzo of Mantova. But all the time the sword was cutting into his time to do Arabic . . .

‘I am Balthazar,’ said the little man. ‘I arrange loans.’ He raised his hands. ‘My apologies. Rabbi Aaron said I must approach you directly. I have a . . . package. For Constantinople.’ He smiled thinly. ‘And I believe Rabbi Aaron passed on my . . . warning.’

Swan shook his head. ‘I don’t have a ship or an itinerary,’ he said. He returned the man’s bow with a deeper bow. ‘But I appreciate the warning, messire.’

He paused. Balthazar smiled. ‘Pardon me, but you do have a ship. You will leave on the Venetian state galley Nike, at the end of next week. The papal ambassador will be the Bishop of Ostia.’ The man smiled shyly. ‘I collect such useless facts,’ he said, turning his head aside, as if ashamed.

But Swan stopped dead. ‘How do you know that?’

The man smiled slyly. ‘I have friends. Clients. Men who need a favour or a loan.’ He extended a hand.

Swan took it. ‘If you are correct, than I will do your favour.’

Balthazar smiled and bowed. ‘I have something you might like. To trade.’ He nodded. ‘I have heard you are a man of blood.’

Swan laughed, and two grandmothers across the street glared at him.

After he was done with Rabbi Aaron, one of the rabbi’s sons walked him to the pawnbroker’s. Balthazar greeted him and served him wine, and two servants brought in a wicker basket.

Swan wondered how important the package was, that this man with a house full of servants and a silver candlestick on every table should have come to meet him in person.

‘A man left this with me,’ Balthazar said. ‘He won’t ever be coming back.’

The wicker basket proved to hold a fine breast and backplate, a matching helmet – an armet in the new style – with plate arms and beautiful Milanese gauntlets.

‘It is very fine,’ said Swan, aware he was being bribed.

‘Try it on,’ said the Jew.

‘I’d need an arming doublet,’ Swan said, but it was a quibble.

When he left England to be a soldier, he’d had a breastplate, an old chain shirt that had belonged to Uncle Dick, and a pair of mitten gauntlets from a bygone age with a new sallet from Germany that his father had provided, albeit unwittingly. The French looters had all that.

Every item in the basket was better than any of the items he’d owned in England. There were marks on the gauntlets – they’d been worn. One deep dent atop the left pauldron. Not a mark on the breastplate.

‘But armour has to fit,’ he said.

The Jew steepled his hands – he looked exactly like Cardinal Bessarion for a moment. ‘So I understand,’ he said.

The arms were heavier than he had imagined and wearing them felt odd. The breast and backplate were too tight. It took one of Balthazar’s sons and both his daughters to get the breast and back closed on his waist.

On the other hand, once it was on, it felt fine.

The gauntlets were very fine. The helmet and attached gorget went on well, but helmets tended to fit from man to man.

Balthazar’s daughter Sarah clapped her hands. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘A knight!’

Balthazar glared at her, and she pulled her veil over her face and vanished up the stairs.

‘If there was somewhere to lace the arms,’ his son said. ‘I’ve seen it done,’ he went on. ‘I love to watch them arm the knights for jousting.’

Swan laughed. ‘If I ever joust, I’ll call for you,’ he said.

After he had it all off, he said, ‘That’s worth a fortune. What do you want me to carry?’

The Jew nodded. ‘Not to me, it isn’t. I want you to carry two letters, and a single packet, which I will provide on the day you sail. That’s all you need to know.’

‘The Rabbi Aaron knows of this?’ Swan asked.

‘No,’ Balthazar said. ‘This is between us.’

‘And I get the armour?’ Swan asked.

‘No,’ Balthazar said. ‘You get the armour regardless. I mean what I say, Englishman. It is useless to us here, and no Jew should have taken it in pawn. But I’m pleased it fits you. What you get from me is contact with my friends in the Golden Horn. The rabbi says you are a good student and a good friend to the Jews. Jews need friends.’

Swan sipped the wine, which was splendid. ‘And if I cut open your package and sell the contents?’ he said.

Balthazar made a face. ‘No Jew in the world will ever do business with you,’ he said. He laughed. ‘Eh – listen to me! What a lie. There’s always a Jew to eat another Jew. But no Jew in Venice will do business with you. And – it wouldn’t do you any good.’ He laughed. ‘And don’t you have enough enemies?’

Swan nodded. ‘I will need to ship some things out of Constantinople,’ he said.

Balthazar nodded.

‘I think I would like very much to be your friend,’ Swan said. ‘If only for your magnificent present and your splendid wine, and your very pretty daughter, I would value you.’

‘Our family was exiled from England two hundred years ago, after our women were humiliated in public, the men beaten, and all our property seized,’ Balthazar said. ‘Why are you . . . a friend? Of Jews?’

Swan shrugged. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

Balthazar shrugged back. ‘Perhaps for the best.’

At the door, Balthazar’s son Solomon stopped him. ‘What would you charge to teach me to fence?’ he asked.

Swan had some idea that this might be illegal. But so was gambling. And prostitution. And smuggling.

‘Do you have a pair of swords? Safed swords?’ Swan asked.

Solomon shook his head.

‘We’d need a pair. They would have to be kept somewhere, yes? Illegal for you to own, I think?’ He looked around. ‘Or for me to bring to the ghetto.’

Solomon put a hand on his shoulder. ‘But you . . . would.’

Swan shrugged. ‘Yes. I’m not that good – I’m taking lessons myself.’

Solomon smiled. They were the same age. Solomon looked so different he might have been an alien – different clothes, different face, different manner. But there was something – a piratical gleam – that made Swan take to him instantly.

‘We need a place – somewhere we can both get to. With the equipment, and no nosy neighbours.’

‘In Venice?’ Solomon shook his head. ‘Let me see. It is a foolish thing. I have always wanted to do this. I saw you – you aren’t like my father’s bravos.’ He shrugged. ‘And the rabbi said you were a good man, for a Christian.’

Swan bowed deeply. ‘Your servant. Send me a message.’ He frowned. ‘I leave in a week.’

Solomon’s face fell.

Swan smiled. ‘Listen – your father must have a way of moving things in and out of the ghetto. Get a pair of swords, and I’ll give you a first lesson in the garden.’

Solomon smiled. ‘Thanks. My father may see this as a Christian’s attempt to entrap him.’

Swan shrugged. ‘Your servant,’ he said.

Walking along the wharf, looking for a boat, he couldn’t quite see why he’d liked the young Jew so much. It was like seeing a girl – he didn’t want to follow that thought too closely.

A boatman waved, and poled in. As Swan stepped into his boat, he saw the ill-laced doublet standing behind a pile of barrels. He saw the man only for a second, but it was enough.

He forced himself to smile and make a remark to his boatman.

He sat in the cupola at the back of the boat, and managed – without too much effort – to sneak a look behind him.

Another boat was leaving the pier. Was the black doublet in it? He wasn’t on the wharf.

Swan wasn’t armed beyond an eating knife. Venice had laws about such things.

Alessandro, despite his murmurings about being ‘disinherited’, was living at his father’s palazzo on the Grand Canal. Swan didn’t know exactly how to approach him. He got out of his boat on the Rialto and walked along the waterfront, enjoying the great cogs, the nefs and the galleys that stretched away like an aquatic forest to the south.

He walked into an alley after the first bridge, and walked up the street quickly to a small bakery that Cesare liked. He turned in the door. The whole shop was the size of a lady’s wardrobe. There was just room for a customer or two to stand – then the counter, piled high with bread, and behind it, the ovens. It was hot.

He bought a sweet roll. The very pretty girl behind the counter called them Hungarian. The girl almost distracted him from his intention, but he managed to be in the doorway lingering and munching when the black doublet went past him. Swan glanced back at the girl – Cesare’s interest revealed, although the Hungarian roll was miraculous – but she didn’t spare him so much as a look, and he stepped out into the alley, leaped over the very narrow canal, and ran along the walkway behind St Mark’s into the square.

Black Doublet walked into the square and then began to search. He stopped and cursed.

It was as good as anything the travelling mimes could produce. The man was truly angry, and he walked around the square, and then back along the wharf. Swan followed him warily. This was something he’d done often enough in London, as a youth. For various purposes.

The man walked up an alley and came back down and almost caught Swan flat footed, but a stack of cloth bales saved him, and the man had no notion of being followed himself.

He went up the next alley, saw the bakery, and stopped. Ran a hand through his thinning hair and stepped on to the portal. He said something. Nodded, and smiled – a terrible grin.

When he emerged, he was moving quickly. Swan assumed he’d realised that Swan had stopped, and was now giving up. He walked west, through St Mark’s Square, over the bridges. It would have been faster for him to take a boat, but he didn’t – he was cheap.

As darkness began to fall, he went into a maze of alleys behind the Grand Canal palazzi. After one turn and an ill look from a man who seemed as dangerous as Swan’s quarry, Swan gave up and walked back to the canal, catching a boat in the last rays of the sun.

There was a magnificent palazzo dominating the canal just there. On a hunch, Swan pointed at it. ‘Who’s is that?’

The boatman looked at him as if sorry for his provincial ways. ‘Where are you from? Naples?’ he asked, as if this was the worst insult a man could be offered.

Swan laughed. ‘Yes, Naples,’ he said.

The boatman smiled, seeing that his passenger wasn’t a complete fool. ‘That’s the Palazzo Foscari,’ he said.

The next morning, Swan met Alessandro for a lesson. They were swaggering swords in a dry alley behind the inn. The watch had come and gone.

‘We’re to travel on a state galley,’ Swan said.

Alessandro had taught him six positions. The positions were called ‘gardes’. His feet had to go . . . just so. His arms and his head also.

It was very different from standing in the inn yard of the Swan with one uncle swinging at him while the other drank and made comments.

‘Look – if he covers his head, what can you hit? His legs, boyo! Cut at his legs. High, low. Left, right.’

In fact the instructions often ended in the same place, but approached the subject from different angles. It was remarkably like learning a language from a new instructor. One started with verbs, another with nouns. Swordsmanship had a grammar, and Alessandro insisted that he learn it properly.

‘Do not just cut at my buckler!’ Alessandro said. ‘Have I not told you ten times to make a provocazione!’

‘Cutting at your buckler is my provocazione.’ Swan stepped back.

‘No! No, it is not! If you make such a move, it is an attack. It uses your effort, and now I will get to respond. Look!’ The Venetian came on garde – not, in fact, a garde that he’d taught to Swan yet.

Swan got his sword and his buckler up, and the swords crossed at the tips.

‘Look!’ Alessandro said, and he stepped forward powerfully, his sword now crossed almost to the hilt with Swan’s. Swan pushed the sword away, and as he pushed, Alessandro’s weapon vanished under his and was at his throat, instead.

‘I provoked you by walking into your measure. I forced you to act. You acted as I expected, with pressure to my blade. I left your blade to have a picnic by itself, and I kill you, thus.’ Alessandro nodded. ‘That was a proper provocazione.’ He nodded. ‘Now you.’ He paused. ‘State galley?’

Swan smiled, but he kept his sword up. He’d seen all this before. Alessandro insisted that he be on his garde all lesson. He reinforced the point by cutting suddenly at his pupil while they talked.

‘I have a source who says we’ll sail on Nike. And that the Bishop of Ostia is our patron.’ He adjusted his point until he was in the garde that Maestro Viladi called ‘Porta di Ferro’ while Alessandro called it ‘Coda Lunga Larga’. So many names.

A language of its own.

Alessandro stepped back with a flourish. ‘You are already much better. Maestro Viladi is very old fashioned, but he has improved your stance.’

‘He knows how to wrestle, the old maestro,’ said Swan. He still had a sore hip where he – all cocky – had attempted to throw the maestro.

Alessandro laughed. Then he became serious. ‘We need to find you some armour that is presentable,’ he said.

‘I have it. At least, half-armour.’ He smiled.

Alessandro shook his head in mock wonderment. ‘You work miracles. Have you had any trouble from Foscari?’

‘None,’ Swan said. Then he shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ He told the story of Black Doublet.

‘That’s lucky,’ Alessandro said. Then he sighed. ‘Foscari can’t have me killed. But he can have you killed.’

‘One of my new friends says the Orsini are looking for me here,’ Swan said.

‘Christ crucified!’ Alessandro laughed. ‘You may be the only man in Venice for whom a trip to Constantinople is the safest option.’

Alessandro suggested a few options to him. One was to spend a little money among the streetwalkers and derelicts around his lodging. He put this plan into effect immediately, paying a few centimes to each of a dozen vagabonds, and paying Joanna half a ducat to collect their information at the inn door.

On Wednesday, he saw Black Doublet in the square of St Mark’s. But they were fifty paces apart, and he didn’t think the man was following him.

He went to his lesson with Rabbi Aaron, and then took a boat across to one of the small islands – mostly to see if anyone would follow him. No one did.

On Thursday, after mass, a boy approached Swan and handed him a note.

‘Have a sword,’ it said in Hebrew.

Swan smiled. He went to his room and picked up his sword, wrapped the sword belt around it as Alessandro had taught him, and walked to the door. He flourished the sword at his landlord.

‘Messire Niccolo – may I walk abroad like this?’ he said.

‘Why?’ Niccolo asked. ‘Arsenali will ask you.’

‘I’m going to pawn it,’ he said.

Messire Niccolo belched a great laugh. ‘You lie. But it is a good lie, and nothing the Arsenali can disprove. Go with God, my young friend. Don’t kill anyone I like.’

In fact, no one gave his sword a second glance.

At the gate of the ghetto, Solomon was ‘on duty’. He grinned when he saw Swan’s sword. ‘I have to take that from you,’ he said. ‘No Christian may walk armed here.’

Swan handed it over. Another young man came to the gate, and Solomon escorted Swan to his father’s gate.

‘My father has sent the servants away,’ he said. ‘Just in case. This is my birthday present.’

Swan went into the garden, where Solomon’s sisters watched from windows as the Englishman taught the Jew everything he knew about fighting with a sword in three hours.

Solomon was an excellent student. Immediately, Swan discovered that the other young man knew a great deal about boxing and wrestling.

‘The laws only require that we not carry weapons,’ Solomon said. ‘There is a book by a Jew of Warsaw on wrestling. I have read it. My grandfather was a famous wrestler and boxer.’ He made a head motion – something not Italian. ‘My father is more of a fighter than some of the men who work for him think.’

The sun began to run down the sky. Swan was learning – as all swordsmen learn – that teaching another man to fence is the very best way of learning yourself. Teaching Solomon, just for one afternoon, had caused him to question a hundred things Alessandro and Maestro Viladi had taught him. Solomon couldn’t stop asking why and Swan found he had almost no answers.

‘Now let me exchange a few cuts,’ Solomon begged when Sarah, his sister, brought them watered wine.

Swan shook his head. ‘Too dangerous. You have no control. No – stop – I have something just as good. Let me see your blade.’ He took the sword. It was the newest type – a strong, stout blade, but with the new hilt that Swan himself wanted, a backward-curving knuckle-bow to protect the hand from cuts, a finger ring so that the wielder could more accurately grip the sword for a thrust. The new hilts were all the rage in Venice.

He tried the edge on his thumb, especially up near the point.

‘Is it a good sword?’ Solomon asked.

Swan nodded. ‘Excellent. The latest-style hilt on a good German blade.’ He laid it on a blanket next to his own, which was an inch longer and had more of a taper to the blade, smaller finger rings, and no knuckle-bow. ‘Mine is Milanese, from about – eh – twenty years ago. A fine sword.’ He flexed it between his hands. ‘Heavy, but beautifully balanced for the weight. Yours is . . . lighter and quicker. When we come to fighting, I’ll show you how each has its advantages.’ He smiled, unrolled his cloak, and took out two bucklers – his own and Cesare’s. ‘Now we’ll have a little duel. But all you want to do is strike my buckler. This is how we practise in England,’ he said.

For as long as it took for the shadows to reach across the garden, they were at it, swash and buckle. The sisters applauded from the windows, and Solomon grew bolder. And at last, when Solomon tried a great leap forward, and Swan had to drop his sword to avoid spitting his student, there was the sound of one pair of hands applauding from the end of the garden.

Balthazar stood there dressed, not as a Jew, but as a gentleman, in a short cloak. And wearing a sword. He bowed, gloves on heart. ‘My thanks for sparing my son,’ he said.

That marked the end of the afternoon. Solomon embraced him. ‘I told Father you’d do it,’ he said. ‘That was . . . amazing. Promise me we’ll do it again?’

Swan smiled. ‘I wish all my friends were so easily satisfied.’

In the gateway, Balthazar held out a purse. ‘I hope that this is enough,’ he said.

Swan shook his head. ‘You must be . . . messire, I did that for friendship.’

The Jew looked as if he’d been struck. He stepped back.

Swan shook his head. ‘Damn it, I mean no offence!’

There was a long pause – too long. Then the other man stepped forward again. ‘My package is at your lodging,’ he said. ‘I hope that all goes well for you in Constantinople. Your Orsini problem is – hmmm. Very close to you.’ He bowed. ‘I am . . . honoured that you have chosen to befriend my son.’ He turned in a swirl of his cloak and vanished into the ghetto.

Swan walked carefully down to the wharf, but he didn’t see Black Doublet or anyone else he recognised. It was dark by the time his boat left him at the entrance to the canal nearest his lodging.

He knew the old whore who stood under the overhang of the last warehouse by the water. It was her turf – possibly her home. She had hennaed red hair and white face paint two days old, and was possibly as old as forty. He bowed.

She nodded. ‘There’s a man,’ she whispered.

His shoulders tensed, and ice ran down his back. Your Orsini are very close, Balthazar had said.

‘Ah, Madonna, not tonight,’ he said with a bow, and put a silver coin in her hand.

‘By the church,’ she said. ‘Joanna said to tell you.’

He walked on. He felt as if he was being watched – felt naked. And the darkness seemed to hide a legion of enemies.

At the next cross-alley, he turned and walked north, jumping over a dead dog and a steaming pile of fresh human excrement just dropped from a chamber pot. The alley was so narrow that his hips brushed buildings on both sides, and he was completely blind for seconds at a time. If they took him here . . .

He emerged in the tiny square behind the church – the nearest building had a triangular floor plan because of the limitations of the two alleys, merging, and the square itself was only six paces across – the width of the small church of St Peter, the neighbourhood shrine. He stayed in the shadows by the triangular building. He could hear voices.

Men on the edge of violence have a sound to them. The sound alerted him. He stood listening, indecisive. Make for the inn where he lodged? But if they were assassins, they might come in and kill him – and Niccolo and Joanna.

Here in the darkness, he had an element of surprise.

And a sword. And room to use it.

He drew his sword and laid the scabbard carefully on a garden wall where he could reclaim it if he lived. Then he moved cautiously. Because he’d gone out to give a fencing lesson, he had on light leather shoes, like dance shoes, and he blessed them. He was silent.

He moved to the corner.

He could see one man at the church corner. That man was leaning forward to talk quietly to another, whose voice came back hollowly, echoed by the next alley.

He stood at the corner and listened.

The man closest to him said something.

The voice floated back.

‘I said, maybe he stayed with his Jews. Do you think he’s one of them? Some sort of sorcerer?’

The disembodied voice came back.

‘Fuck your mother!’ said the man closest to him, and Swan started across the square. He had to be sure, so he caught his sword with his left hand at the midpoint – mezza spada – and ran light footed in on his opponent, who had leaned into the alley.

‘What?’ he said.

Swan used his sword the way a workman might use a pick. His sword-point rammed right thought the back of his skull, killing the man instantly. He fell, and his fall seemed very loud to Swan, who froze.

It must have actually been loud, because he saw a shadow move at the far end of the alley.

And then the man was on him.

Swan retreated in a single leap – to get more light and more room to swing a sword. He was shocked at the man charging him, but only as shocked as the assassin was himself, to find himself facing a sword an ell long with a dagger.