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 canal-side 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 pommel 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, white-haired 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 ember-headed 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.”