Chapter One

All night the hot wind had swept up the Adriatic, and from the crowded docks down by the arsenale to the Isola di San Chiara at the western mouth of the Grand Canal, the old city creaked on its pilings like a vast, weary ship; and clouds as ragged as tatters of sailcloth scudded across the face of the full moon, tangling with the silhouettes of a hundred fantastic spires and domes.

In the narrow Rio de San Lorenzo, though, the smoky oil lamp at the bow of the gondola cast more reflections in the water than the moon did, and Brian Duffy reached over the gunwale to stir the black water with his fingers and multiply the points of yellow light. He shifted uneasily on the seat, embarrassed, for he was travelling at someone else's expense.

'I'll walk to my boat from here.'

'Pull in to the fondamenta,' he growled finally.

The gondolier obediently dug his long pole into the canal bottom, and the tiny craft heeled, paused, and then surged up to the embankment, its prow grating on a submerged step. 'Thank you.' Duffy ducked under the awning of the felze and took a long step to a dry stair while the boatman held the gondola steady.

Up on the sidewalk the Irishman turned. 'Marozzo paid you to take me all the way to the Riva degli Schiavoni. Bring him back the change.'

The gondolier shrugged. 'Perhaps.' He pushed away from the stair, turned his craft gracefully about, and began poling his way back up the glittering watercourse, softly calling, Stali!" to draw any possible fares. Duffy stared after him for a moment, then turned on his heel and strode south along the embankment calle toward the Ponte dei Greci, the bridge of the Greeks.

He was reeling just a little because of the quantities of valpolicella he'd consumed that evening, and a sleepy footpad huddled under the bridge roused when he heard the Irishman's uneven tread. The thief eyed the approaching figure critically, noting the long, worn cloak, evidence of frequent outdoor sleeping; the kneehigh boots, down at the heels, and twenty years out of fashion; and the rapier and dagger which looked to be the man's only valuable possessions. Edging silently back into the shadows, he let Duffy go by unaccosted.

The Irishman hadn't even been aware of the thief's scrutiny; he was staring moodily ahead at the tall bulk of the church of San Zaccaria, its gothic design undisguised by the Renaissance adornments that had recently been added to it, and he was wondering just how much he would miss this city when he left. Only a matter of time,' Marozzo had said over dinner. 'Venice is more than half a Turkish possession right now, what with that grovelling treaty they signed eight years ago. Mark me now, Brian before our hair is completely white, you and I will be teaching the uses of the scimitar instead of the honest straight sword, and our students will be wearing turbans.' Duffy had replied that he'd shave his head and run naked with the jungle pygmies before he'd teach a Turk even how to blow his nose, and the conversation had moved on to other matters - but Marozzo had been right. The days of Venice's power were fifty years gone.

Duffy kicked a stray pebble away into the darkness and heard it plop into the canal after bouncing twice along the pavement. Time to move on, he told himself morosely. Venice has done its recuperative job, and these days I have to look closely to see the scars I got at Mohács two and a half years ago. And God knows I've already done my share of Turk-killing - let this city bow to the Crescent if it wants to, while I go somewhere else. I may even take ship back to Ireland.

I wonder, he thought, if anyone back in Dingle would remember Brian Duffy, the bright Young lad who was sent off to Dublin to study for Holy Orders. They all hoped I'd eventually take the Archbisbopric of Connaught, as so many of my forefathers did.

Duffy chuckled ruefully. There I disappointed them. As he clumped Past the San Zaccaria convent he heard muted giggles and whispering from a recessed doorway. Some pretty nun, he imagined, entertaining one of the Young moneghini that are always loitering around the grounds. That's what comes of Pushing your unwilling daughters into a nunnery to save the expense of a dowry -they wind up a good deal wilder than if you'd simply let them hang around the house.

I Wonder, he thought with a grin, what sort of priest I would have made. Picture yourself pale and softvoiced, Duffy my lad, rustling hither and yon in a cassock that smells of incense. Ho ho. I never even came near it. Why, he reflected, within a week of my arrival at the seminary I'd begun to be plagued by the odd occurrences that led, before long, to my dismissal - blasphemous footnotes, in a handwriting I certainly didn't recognize, were discovered on nearly every page of my breviary; oh yes, and once, during a twilight stroll with an elderly priest, seven young oak trees, one after another, twisted themselves to the ground as I passed; and of course worst of all, there was the time I threw a fit in church during the midnight Easter mass, shouting, they later told me, for the need-fires to be lit on the hilltops and the old king to be brought forth and killed.

Duffy shook his head, recalling that there had even been talk of fetching in an exorcist. He had scribbled a quick, vague letter to his family and fled to England. And you've fled quite a number of places in the years since, he told himself. Maybe it's time you fled back to where you started. It sounds nicely symmetrical, at any rate.

The narrow calle came to an end at the Riva degli Schiavoni, the street that ran along the edge of the wide San Marco Canal, and Duffy now stood on the crumbled brick lip, several feet above the lapping water, and looked uncertainly up and down the quiet shallows. What in the name of the devil, he thought irritably, scratching the gray stubble on his chin. Have I been robbed, or am I lost?

After a moment three well-dressed young men emerged from an arched doorway to his right. He turned on his heel when he heard their steps, and then relaxed when he saw that they weren't a gang of canalside murderers. These are cultured lads, clearly, he reflected, with their oiled hair and their fancy-hilted swords, and one of them wrinkling his nose at the salty, stagnant smell of the nearby Greci canal.

'Good evening to you, gentlemen,' Duffy said in his barbarously accented Italian. 'Have you seen, by any chance, a boat I think I moored here earlier in the evening?'

The tallest of the young men stepped forward and bowed slightly. 'Indeed, sir, we have seen this boat. We have taken the liberty, if you please, of sinking it.'

Duffy raised his thick eyebrows, and then stepped to the canal edge and peered down into the dark water, where, sure enough, the moonlight dimly gleamed on the gunwales of a holed and rock-filled boat.

'You will want to know why we have done this.'

'Yes,' Duffy agreed, his gloved hand resting now on the pommel of his sword.

'We are the sons of Ludovico Gritti.'

Duffy Shook his head. 'So? Who's he, the local ferrier?

The Young man pursed his lips impatiently 'Ludovico Gritti,' he snapped 'The son of the Doge. The wealthiest merchant in Constantinople To whom you did refer, this evening, as "the bastard Pimp of Suleiman"

'Ah!' said Duffy, nodding a little ruefully. 'Now I see what quarter the Wind's in. Well, look, boys, I was drinking, and kind of condemning anyone I could think of. I've got nothing against Your father. You've sunk my boat now, so let's call it a night. There's no -

The tallest Gritti drew his sword, followed a moment later by his brothers. 'It's a question of honor,' he explained.

Duffy breathed an impatient curse as he drew his rapier with his left hand and his shell-hilted dagger with his right, and Crouched on guard with the weapons held crossed in front of him. I'll Probably be arrested for this, he thought; engaging in a duello alla mazza with the grandsons of the Doge. Of all the damned nonsense.

The tallest Gritti made a run at the burly Irishman his Jewelled rapier drawn back for a cut and his dagger held at the hip for Parrying. Duffy easily ducked the wide Swing and, blocking the dagger-thrust with the quillons of his rapier, stepped aside and gave the Young man a forceful boot in his satin-clothed backside that lifted him from the pavement and Pitched him with an echoing splash into the canal.

Whirling around to face his other two assailants Duffy knocked aside a sword-point that was rushing at his face, While another struck him in the belly and flexed against his shirt of chain mail.

Duffy punched one of the Young men in the face with his rapier pome1 and then hopped toward the other with a quick feint-and-slash of his dagger that slit the lad's cheek from nose to ear.

The Gritti in the canal was splashing about, cursing furiously and trying to find a ladder or a set of steps. Of the two on the pavement, one lay unconscious on the cobblestones, bleeding from a broken nose; the other stood pressing a bloody hand to his cut face.

'Northern barbarian,' this one said, almost sadly, 'you should weep with shame, to wear a concealed hauberk.'

'Well for God's sake,' returned Duffy in exasperation, 'in a state where the nobility attack three-on-one, I think I'm a fool to step outside in less than a full suit of plate.'

The young Gritti shook his head unhappily and stepped to the canal edge. 'Giacomo,' he said, 'stop swearing and give me your hand.' In a moment he had hoisted his brother out of the water.

'My sword and dagger are both at the bottom of the canal,' snarled Giacomo, as water ran from his ruined clothes and puddled around his feet, 'and there were more jewels set in their hilts than I can bear to think of.'

Duffy nodded sympathetically. 'Those pantaloons have about had it, too, I believe.'

Giacomo didn't answer this, but helped his younger brother lift the unconscious one. 'We will now leave,' he' told Duffy.

The Irishman watched as the two of them shuffled awkwardly away, bearing their brother like a piece of 'broken furniture between them. When they had disappeared among the farther shadows of the calle, Duffy sheathed his weapons, lurched away from the water's edge and leaned wearily against the nearest wall. It's good to see the last of them, he thought, but how am I to get back to my room? It's true that I have, on occasion, swum. this quarter mile of chilly brine - once, to impress a girl, even holding a torch clear of the water all the way across! - but I'm tired tonight. I'm not feeling all that well, either.

Heavy exertion on top of a full night of eating and drinking always disagrees with me. What a way to end the evening - 'by the waters of the San Marco Canal I sat down and puked.' He shut his eyes and breathed deeply.

'Pardon me, sir,' came German words in a man's voice, 'would you happen to speak the tongue of the Hapsburgs?'

Duffy looked up, startled, and saw a thin, whitehaired old man leaning from a window two stories above; diaphanous curtains, dimly lit from behind, flapped around his shoulders like pale fire.

'Yes, old timer,' Duffy replied. 'More readily than this intricate Italian.'

'Thank God. I can for the moment stop relying on charades. Here.' A white hand flicked, and two seconds later a brass key clinked on the pavement. 'Come up.'

Duffy thoughtfully bent down and picked up the key. He flipped it spinning into the air, caught it, and grinned. 'All right,' he said.

The stairway was dark and cold, and Smelled of mildewed cabbages, but the door at the top, when unlocked and swung open, revealed a scene of shadowy, candle-lit opulence. The gold-stamped spines of leather- and vellum-bound tomes lined a high bookcase along one wall, and ornate tables, shellacked boxes, glittering robes and dim, disturbing paintings filled the rest of the room. The old man who'd hailed Duffy stood by the window, smiling nervously. He was dressed in a heavy black gown with red and gold embroidery at the neck, and wore a slim stiletto at his belt, but no sword.

'Sit down, please,' he said, waving at a chair.

'I don't mind standing,' Duffy told him.

'Whatever you prefer.' He opened a box and took from it a narrow black cylinder. 'My name is Aurelianus.' Duffy peered closely at the cylinder, and was surprised to see that it was a tiny snake, straightened and dried, with the little jaws open wide and the end of the tail clipped off.

'And what is Yours?'

Duffy blinked. 'What?'

I just told you my name - Aurelianus - and asked you for Yours.'

'Oh! I'm Brian Duffy.'

Aurelianus nodded and put the tail end of the snake into his mouth, then leaned forward so that the head was in the long flame of one of the candles. it began Popping and smoldering, and Aurelianus puffed smoke from the tail end.

'What in God's name are YOU doing?' Duffy gasped, half drawing his dagger.

'I beg your pardon. How rude of me. But it has been a day of.. .dire gambits, and I need the relaxation' He sat down and took a long puff at the emberheaded thing, letting aromatic smoke hiss out through his teeth a moment later. 'Don't be alarmed. It's only a kind of water-snake which, when cured with the proper - ahh -herbs and spices, produces fumes of a most.., beneficial Sort.'

'Huh!' The Irishman Shook his head and slid his dagger-back into its sheath. 'Have you got any more mundane refreshments to offer a guest?'

'I am remiss You must excuse me. Extraordinary circumstances ..but yes, there is a fair selection of Wines in the cabinet by your right hand. Cups behind you.'

Duffy Opened the cabinet and chose a bottle of sauternes, and deftly twisted the plug out of it.

'You know Your wines,' Aurelianus said, as Duffy poured the golden Wine into a cup.

The Irishman shrugged 'You don't happen to own a. boat, do you? I've got to get to San Giorgio and three clowns sank the boat I had.'

'Yes, so I heard. What's in San Giorgio?'

'My room. My things, it's where I'm currently living.

Ah. No, I don't have a boat. I have, though, a proposal'

Duffy regarded Aurelianus skeptically. 'Oh? Of what?'

'Of employment.' He smiled. 'You are not, I imagine, as wealthy as you have been at times in the past.'

'Well, no,' Duffy admitted, 'but these things come in waves. I've been rich and poor, and will doubtless be both again. But what did you have in mind?'

Aurelianus too a long puff on the popping, sizzling snake, and held the smoke in his lings for a good ten seconds before letting it out. 'Well - whoosh - by your accent I'd judge you've a good deal of time in Austria.'

The Irishman looked annoyed, then shrugged and had another sip of wine. 'That's true. I was living in Vienna until three years ago.'

'Why did you leave?'

'Why do you ask?'

'I beg your pardon; I don't mean to pry. I don't know why I have such difficulty in coming to the point.' He ran the thin fingers of one hand through his hair, and Duffy noticed he was trembling. 'Let me explain: I have become the owner of the Zimmermann Inn.'

Duffy raised his eyebrows politely. 'Where's that?'

Aurelianus looked surprised. 'In Vienna,' He said. 'Don't you - oh. Of course. You've been away for three years. Before I took over it was called the St Joseph Monastery.'

'Oh yes. Where the Herzwesten beer comes from. You haven't shut down the brewery I trust?'

Aurelianus laughed softly. 'Oh no.'

'Well, thank God for that.' Duffy Drained his glass.

'How in hell did you get the Church to sell the place?'

'Actually, I inherited it. A prior claim on the land. Very complicated. But let me continue - I'm now running the place as an inn, and not doing a bad business. Vienna is a good location, and the Herzwesten brewery has as good a reputation as the Weihenstepan in Bavaria. My problem, though, you see, is that I haven't got -'

There was a hesitant rap-rap-rap at the door, and Aurelianus jumped. 'Who is it?' he called in an agitated voice.

The answer came in a Greek dialect. 'It's Bella. Let me in, little lover.'

Aurelianus clenched his fists. 'Come back later, Bella. I've a guest.'

I don't mind guests. I like guests.' The latch rattled.

The old man pressed a hand to his reddening forehead. 'Go away, Bella,' he whispered, so quietly that Duffy barely heard it.

'Yoo hoo, guest!' came the raucous, liquor-blunted voice from beyond the door. 'Tell the old juggler to let me in.

Good Lord, Duffy thought; domestic embarrassments. Pretend not to notice. He crossed to the bookcase and began squinting at the Latin titles.

'I've got news,' Bella whined ingratiatingly. 'Worth a ducat or two, I think you'll agree.'

'News about what?' rasped Aurelianus.

'El Kanuni, as my dark-skinned friends say.'

'You're a worthless trollop, Bella,' the old man sighed unhappily, 'but come in.' He unlocked the door.

Preceded by an overpowering reek of stale perfume and grappa, a middle-aged woman in a somewhat sprung-at-the-seams skirt flounced into the room. 'Give me some wine, for the Virgin's sake!' she exclaimed, 'lest I catch my death of the vapors.'

'For whose sake?' Aurelianus inquired savagely. 'Forget the wine. Vapors would be a blessing, considering what you've got already.'

'Envy will rot your pale liver, little monk.' The woman grinned. Duffy, having at least rudimentary manners, made a show of being absorbed by the books to the exclusion of all else.

Aurelianus turned to him apologetically. 'Will you, sir, be so good as to excuse us for a moment?' He was all but Wringing his hands with embarrassment

'Of course,' Duffy assured him with an airy wave. 'I'll divert myself with your excellent library.'

'Fine.' The robed man took the woman roughly by the arm and led her to the far corner of the room, where they proceeded to converse in heated whispers.

Duffy buried his nose in a book, but, being a cautious man, strained his ears to catch as much as he could. He heard Bella's hoarse voice say, 'The word is they've begun assembling the akinji in Constantinople...' Aurelianus asked a question about supplies and the Janissaries, but Duffy couldn't follow the woman's answer.

News of the Turks, the Irishman thought. It's all you hear these days. I wonder why this old bird's so interested.

'All right, all right,' Aurelianus said finally, flapping his hands at the woman. 'Your personal speculations don't interest me. Here.. .here's some money. Now get out. But first put that dagger back.'

Bella sighed sadly and took a jewelled dagger out of the prodigious bosom of her dress. 'I was only thinking a woman needs to be able to protect herself.'

'Hah!' The old man chuckled mirthlessly. 'It's the Turk sailors that need protection, you old vampire. Out!'

She left, slamming the door, and Aurelianus immediately lit several incense sticks in the candle flame and set them in little brass trays around the room. 'I'd open a Window,' he said, 'but in very old towns you never know what might be flying past in the darkness.'

Duffy nodded uncertainly, and then held up the book he'd been leafing through. 'I see you're a student of swordplay.'

'What have you got there? Oh yes, Pietro Moncio's book. Have you read it?'

'Yes. As a matter of fact, it was Moncio and Achille Marozzo I was dining with this evening.'

The old man blinked. 'Oh. Well, I haven't used a sword myself for a number of years, but I do try to keep up with developments in the art. That copy of della Torre there, in the dark vellum, is very rare.'

'It is?' remarked the Irishman, walking back to the table and refilling his glass. 'I'll have to sell my copy, then. Might make some money. I wasn't real impressed with the text.'

Long cobwebs of aromatic smoke were strung across the room, and Duffy fanned the air with a little portfolio of prints. 'It's getting murky in here,' he complained.

'You're right,' the old man said. 'I'm a damnable host. Perhaps if I open it a crack...' He walked to the window, stared out of it for a moment, and then turned back to Duffy with an apologetic smile. 'No, I won't open it. Let me explain quickly why I called you in, and then you can be on your way before the fumes begin seriously to annoy you. I've mentioned the Zimmermann Inn, of which I am the owner; it's a popular establishment, but I travel constantly and, to be frank, there is often trouble with the customers that I can't control even when I'm there. You know - a wandering friar will get into an argument with some follower of this Luther, a bundschuh leftover from the Peasants' War will knife the Lutheran, and in no time at all the dining room's a shambles and the serving girls are in tears. And these things cut into the profits in a big way -damages, nice customers scared off, tapsters harder to hire. I need a man who can be there all the time, who can speak to most customers in their native languages, and who can break up a deadly fight without killing anybody - as you did just now, with the Gritti boys by the canal.'

Duffy smiled. 'You want me to be your bouncer.'

'Exactly,' agreed Aurelianus, rubbing his hands together.

'Hm.' Duffy drummed his fingers on the table top. 'You know, if you'd asked me two days ago, I'd have told you to forget it. But.. .just in the last couple of days Venice has grown a little tiresome. I admit I've even found myself missing old Vienna. Just last night I had a dream - Aurelianus raised his eyebrows innocently. 'Oh?'

'Yes, about a girl I used to know there. I Wouldn't really mind seeing her - seeing what she's doing now. And if I hang around here those three Gritti lads will be challenging me to a real combat in the official champ clos, and I'm too old for that kind of thing.'

'They probably would,' Aurelianus agreed. 'They're hot-headed young men.'

'You know them?'

'No. I know about them.' Aurelianus picked up his half-consumed snake and re-lit it. 'I know about quite a number of people,' he added, almost to himself, 'without actually knowing them. I prefer it that way. You'll take the job, then?'

Oh, what the hell, Duffy thought. I would never have fit in back in Dingle anyway, realistically speaking. He shrugged. 'Yes. Why not?'

'Ah. I was hoping you would. You're more suited for it than anyone I've met.'

He knotted his hands behind his back and paced about the cluttered room. 'I've got business in the south, but I'd appreciate it if you could start for Vienna tout de suite. I'll give you some travelling money and a letter of introduction to the Zimmermann brewmaster, an old fellow named Gambrinus. I'll instruct him to give you another lump sum when you arrive there. How soon do you think that can be?'

Duffy scratched his gray head. 'Oh, I don't know. What's today?'

'The twenty-fourth of February. Ash Wednesday.' 'That's right. Monico had a gray cross on his forehead. Let's see - I'd take a boat to Trieste, buy a horse and cross the tail end of the Alps just east of there. Then maybe I'd hitch a ride north with some Hungarian lumber merchant; there's usually no lack of them in those parts. Cross the Sava and the Drava, and then follow the old Danube west to Vienna. Say roughly a month.'

'Before Easter, without a doubt?' Aurelianus asked anxiously.

'Oh, certainly.'

'Good. That's when we open the casks of bock, and I don't want a riot in the place.'

'Yes, I'll have been there a good two weeks by then.'

'I'm glad to hear it.' Aurelianus poured himself a cup of the sauternes and refilled Duffy's. 'You seem familiar with western Hungary,' he observed cautiously.

The Irishman frowned into his wine for a moment, then relaxed and nodded. 'I am,' he said quietly. 'I fought with King Louis and Archbishop Tomori at Mohács in August of 'twenty-six. I shouldn't have been there; as an Austrian at the time, Hungary was nothing to me. I guess I figured Vienna was next on the Turk's list.' No sense telling him about Epiphany, Duffy thought.

The wine was unlocking Duffy's memories. The sky had been overcast, he recalled, and both sides had simply milled about on opposite sides of the Mohács plain until well after noon. Then the Hungarian cavalry had charged; the Turkish center gave way, and Duffy's troop of German infantry had followed the Hungarians into the trap. That was as hellish a maelstrom as I ever hope to find myself in, he thought now, sipping his wine - when those damned Turks suddenly stopped retreating, and turned on the pursuing troops.

His mouth curled down at the corners as he remembered the sharp thudding of the Turkish guns and the hiss of grapeshot whipping across the plain to rip into the Christian ranks, the whirling scimitars of the weirdly-wailing Janissaries blocking any advance, and the despairing cry that went up from the defenders of the West when it became evident that the Turks had out-flanked them.

You obviously have luck,' Aurelianus said, after a pause. 'Not many men got clear of that.'

'That's true,' Duffy said. 'I hid among the riverside thickets afterward, until John Zapolya and his troops arrived, the day after the battle. I had to explain to him that the idiot Tomori had attacked Without waiting for him and Frangipani and the other reinforcements; that nearly everyone on the Hungarian side - Louis, Tomori, thousands more - was dead, and that Suleiman and his Turks had won. Zapolya cleared out then, ran west. I ran south.'

The old man stubbed his smoking snake out in an incense bowl and reluctantly exhaled the last of the smoke. 'You've heard, I suppose, that Zapolya has gone over to the Turkish side flow?'

Duffy frowned. 'Yes. He just wants to be governor of Hungary, I guess, and will kiss the hand of whoever seems to own it. I can still hardly believe it, though; I've known him since 1515, and he was making raids against the Turks even then. Of all the things I would have sworn were impossible'

Aurelianus nodded sympathetically. 'If we could rely on impossibilities we'd all be better off.' He crossed the room and sat down at a cluttered desk. 'But excuse me -I did not mean to stir up your past. Here,' he said, lifting

a cloth bag from an opened drawer, 'is five hundred ducats.' Duffy caught the toss and slid the bag into a pocket. 'And here,' Aurelianus went On, flourishing a sheet of paper, 'I will write a letter of introduction' He dipped a pen in an- inkpot and began Scribbling.

Duffy had long ago found it handy to be able to read upside-down and now casually glanced across the writing table at Aurelianus' precise script.

'My dear Gambrinus,' Duffy read, 'the bearer of this note, Brian Duffy,' (here Aurelianus paused to draw deftly a quick, accurate sketch of the Irishman) 'is the man we've been looking for - the guardian of the house of Herzwesten See that he is paid five hundred ducats when he arrives, and subsequently whatever monthly salary you and he shall agree upon. I will be joining you soon; mid-April, probably, certainly by Easter. I trust the beer is behaving properly, and that there is no acidity this Season - Kindest regards, AURELIANUS.'

The black-robed old man folded the letter, poured a glob of thick red wax onto it from a little candle-heated pot, and pressed a seal into it. 'There you go,' he said, lifting away the seal and waving the letter in the air to cool the wax. 'Just hand this to the brewmaster'

Duffy took the letter. The seal, he noticed, was a representation of two dragons locked in combat. 'What are my duties to be?' he asked. 'Tell me again.'

Aurelianus smiled. 'Just as you said Yourself: the bouncer. Keep the riffraff out. Keep the peace.'

The big Irishman nodded dubiously. 'Seems odd that you'd have to come to Venice to find somebody to work in an Austrian tavern.'

'Well I didn't come here to do that. I'm here for entirely different reasons Entirely. But when I saw the way you dealt with those boys out front I knew you were the man this job called for.'

'Ah. Well, all right. It's your money.' The wind must be up, Duffy thought. Listen to that window rattle!

Aurelianus stood up. 'Thank you for helping me out in this matter,' he said quickly, shaking Duffy's hand and practically pulling him to the door. 'I'll see you in a month or so.'

'Right,' agreed Duffy, and found himself a moment later standing on the dark landing while the door clicked shut behind him. Now there's an odd fellow, he thought as he groped his way down the stairs. I'll be very curious to see if there actually are five hundred ducats in this bag.

A stale liquor scent lingered at the foot of the stairs, and Bella sidled out of the shadows when he reached the bottom. 'The little eunuch gave you some money, didn't he?'

'I beg your pardon, lady,' Duffy said. 'Nothing of the sort.'

'Why don't you and me go drink some wine somewhere?' she suggested 'There's lots I could tell you about him.'

'I'm not interested in him. Excuse me.' Duffy slid past her to the pavement outside.

'Maybe you'd be interested in a little feminine companionship.'

'Why would that concern you?' he asked over his shoulder as he strode away. She shouted something after him in a rude tone of voice, though he missed the words. Poor old woman, he reflected. Gone mad from cheap Italian liquor. Shouting harsh words at strangers and harrying poor weird old men.

He glanced at the sky - an hour or so after midnight. No sense now, he thought, in going back to San Giorgio; the only thing worth mentioning that waits for me there is a landlord justly angry about my failure to pay rent. I'd better find some kind of rooming house to spend the night in, and then get an early start tomorrow. A few hours sleep in a moderately clean bed is what I need right now. It's been a tiring night.

'Stand aside, grandfather, we're trying to unload cargo here.'

Duffy glared fiercely at the lean young dockworker, but moved obediently away. The morning sunlight was glittering like a handful of new-minted gold coins on the water, and Duffy was squinting and knuckling his eyes. He'd been told to look for a Cyprian galley called the Morphou, which was scheduled to make a stop at Trieste on its way home; 'Look for a triangular sail with three sad eyes on it,' a helpful little Egyptian had said. 'That'll be the Morphou.'

Well, he thought irritably, I don't see any damned three eyes. Half these ships have their sails reefed anyway.

He sat down on a bale of cotton and watched disapprovingly the activity of all these loud, wide-awake people around him. Dark-skinned children, screaming to each other in a tangle of Mediterranean languages, ran past, flinging bits of cabbage at an indignant, bearded merchant; tanned sailors swaggered up from the docks, looking forward to impressing the Venetian girls with their foreign coins and fine silk doublets; and old, granite-faced women stood vigilantly over their racks of smoked fish, ready to smile at a customer or deliver a fist in the ear to a shoplifter.

Duffy had awakened at dawn in a malodorous hostel, feeling poisoned by the liquor he'd drunk the night before but cheered by his memory of opening the cloth bag beneath a flickering street lamp to discover that it did indeed contain five hundred ducats. And there are five hundred more waiting for me in Vienna, he thought, if I can just find this filthy Cyprian Morphou.

The gray-haired Irishman struggled to his feet - and a man on a porticoed balcony a hundred feet behind him crouched and squinted along the barrel of a wheel-lock harquebus; he pulled the trigger, the wheel spun and sprayed sparks into the pan and a moment later the gun kicked against the man's shoulder as its charge went off.

A ceramic jar beside Duffy's ear exploded, stinging his face with harsh wine and bits of pottery. He leaped back in astonishment and pitched over the bale of cotton, cursing sulphurously and wrenching at his entangled rapier.

The gunman leaned out over the balcony rail and shrugged. On the pavement below, two men frowned impatiently, loosened the daggers in their sheaths, and began elbowing their way through the crowd.

On his feet now, Duffy clutched his bared sword and glared about fiercely. It's probably one of those furioso Grittis, he thought. Or all three. And after I was so patient with them last night! Well I won't be this morning.

A tall, feather-hatted man, whose moustache appeared to be oiled, strode up to the Irishman and smiled. 'The one who fired at you is escaping in that boat,' he said, pointing. Duffy turned, and the man leaped on him, driving a dagger with vicious force at the Irishman's chest. The hauberk under his much-abused doublet saved Duffy from the first stab; he caught the assassin's wrist with his right hand before another blow could be delivered, and then, stepping back to get the proper distance, ran his rapier through the 'man's thigh. Feather-hat sank to his knees, pale with shock.

I'm leaving Venice none too soon, Duffy reflected dazedly. He noticed with annoyance that his hands were trembling.

The frightened merchants and dockworkers were hurrying away, so he noticed immediately the two figures that were sprinting toward him - one was a stranger, one was young Giacomo Gritti, and both carried drawn knives.

'Fetch the guardia, for God's sake!' Duffy yelled shrilly at the crowd, but he knew it was too late for that. Sick with tension, he drew his own dagger and crouched behind his crossed weapons.

The stranger leaped ahead of Gritti, his arm drawn in for a solid stab - and then his eyes widened in pained astonishment, and he pitched heavily forward on his face, Gritti' s dagger-hilt standing up between his shoulder blades.

Separated by ten feet, Gritti and Duffy stared at each other for a moment. 'There are men waiting to kill you on the Morphou,' Gritti panted, 'but the old Greek merchant• man anchored three docks south is also bound for Trieste. Hurry,' he said, pointing, they re casting off the lines right now.'

Duffy paused only long enough to slap both weapons back into their sheaths, and nod a curt and puzzled thanks before trotting energetically away south, toward the third dock.

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