Father Farsetti is a small, birdlike man with a warm smile and an enormous laugh. He isn’t quite up to Isaia Modestus at chess-I can beat him sometimes-but he is incredible at chess without boards, able to take on the Maestro and me at the same time and usually win both games.
“You must come and dine with us again soon, Father,” I said. “Arguing with you gives my master an appetite, which he sorely needs.”
He lit his smile. “That is a worthy justification for a personal pleasure. Before you go, though, I have a book on the role of political assassination in Islamic history that I think might interest you.”
Without asking whatever had given him that idea, I assured him that I would enjoy reading it. And so we crossed to the side door of the church and went out that way, emerging into a small courtyard between the church nave on one side, the priest’s house on the other, with the transept closing off the end. I followed Father Farsetti out.
“That’s him!”
There were six of them. One of them had been keeping watch at the corner to alert the others when I came out of the main door. The other five had just been waiting. I couldn’t dive back into the church, because the way was blocked by Bruno, doubled over as he followed me out. Fortunately the bravos needed an instant to react because I had appeared behind them. Had Bruno and I emerged where they expected, they could have come after us and made short work of us in the open. In the courtyard they were going to be hampered by lack of space.
My rapier flashed out. They produced stilettos, but those blades looked as long as swords to me, and bravos know how to use swords. Luckily I had left my cloak just draped on my shoulders, unfastened. I swirled it loose and leaped into the corner to have my back protected. Father Farsetti was hurled aside, his yells ignored.
I parried a slash from the man on my right and enveloped the one on my left in my cloak. My riposte took the first man in the face, but by that time numbers three and four had arrived, number two had shaken off my cloak, and Father Farsetti was bellowing for help at the top of his well-trained lungs. I did not expect to be there to welcome it. I had my dagger out and was parrying with both hands, much too busy just staying alive to attempt to injure my opponents. In theory a rapier should keep a stiletto out of range, and even two stilettos should not be an impossible match in daylight. Five most certainly were.
Fortunately Bruno was in the fight, too. He did not appear to be armed, but he was too big to ignore and when the others closed in on me, one man dallied to deal with him. Bruno swung his weighted bag overhead and smashed the man’s arm before he even got within range-that was probably how it happened, because we found his stiletto and the spectators described one of our assailants supporting an arm as he ran away. Father Farsetti was doing as much as he could to get between the others and me, for even a gutter bravo will not knowingly injure a priest. They shoved him aside with their free hands.
That still left four young toughs jostling in at me, faces full of hate, steel gleaming, and I should have died, had not San Remo and Our Lady heard my prayers. Bruno must have delivered a backhand sideways swipe at one of the men engaging me, who was later found with the back of his head crushed. He fell against his companions, diverting their attack, and I am fairly sure I wounded another. Then Bruno’s victim toppled face-first into me, smearing blood on my doublet and knocking all the wind out of me. I went down with him, found myself among the boots and was certain I was done for- Eyes and legs a-bleeding on the campo.
That I survived was again due to Bruno, who felled the third of my attackers with a punch to the back of the neck, dropping him on top of me as a human shield. Father Farsetti witnessed that, and thereafter I was protected by two bodies so that the others could not get at me. Armed with staves and hammers and even cook pots, men and boys were running in from all directions, answering the priest’s continuing yells. The remaining thugs took to their heels to avoid being trapped in the courtyard. They escaped because other spectators out in the campo were unarmed and naturally did not tackle daggers with bare hands.
Two bodies were left behind, a flattened skull and a broken neck respectively. So Bruno killed two and wounded one, while I, the celebrated swordsman, merely wounded two. My excuse for such a sorry and unheroic showing is that I was the target and the bravos had not at first registered Bruno as anything but a bystander. He survived only because they did not have time to react to his unorthodox and fearless assault. Had the fight lasted a moment longer, they would have made a sieve of him.
Fortunately Father Farsetti keeps the ground by the church clear of ordure and garbage. I decided I was alive. Had I been alone and unarmed, the Maestro’s prediction would have been fulfilled exactly-it had certainly come close enough. Although my bruised knee had not hampered me at all in the battle, it was hurting a lot more than it had earlier. I reached down to rub it and discovered the vision had been closer to the fulfilment than I had realized. Fresh blood is always shockingly red, especially when it is one’s own. I had no memory of being wounded in the calf and no idea how it had happened. One of the men falling on top of me must have still been holding his knife when he landed.
Several voices were asking, “Alfeo?” and “You all right?”
The two closest were Pio and Nino Marciana from the casa, who had hauled the bodies off me and were now regarding me with worried expressions. Behind them Bruno was having silent hysterics because he had hurt people. Before I could answer, he saw that I was bleeding and uttered a wordless animal cry, one of the very few noises he makes. He swept everyone else aside, scooped me up in his arms, and charged into the jabbering, yelling crowd. Bodies flew in all directions. He crossed the campo like a runaway horse, into the Ca’ Barbolano and all the way upstairs to the Maestro, where he laid me on the desk. There is an examination couch in the corner, but he ignored that. Giorgio and a mob of descendants followed him in to see.
The Maestro laid his book out of harm’s way and examined my wound.
“Your calf is cut,” he said. “It’s not deep. Needs a few stitches, but no need to send for the barber. Giorgio, fetch my bag. Roll over, Alfeo.”
I sympathize with embroidery; being stitched hurts. I kept my mind off the pain and my undignified posture by trying to answer all the questions and explain what had happened without saying everything I was thinking. Who had reason to want me dead? The poisoner. Why? Because I knew his face. How did he know he had reason to want me dead? Because his demon had told him so. How had his bravos known I was in the church? Same answer.
Soon I was stitched and bandaged and set on a chair with my leg propped up on another. A fortifying glass of wine was thrust into my hand and the Maestro dispensed a spoonful of laudanum to soothe Bruno, for every attempt to hail him as a hero just upset him more. Mama herself washed my blood off the desk. My best hose were in rags and my shoe needed washing also.
The Maestro hates having more people in his atelier than he can keep an eye on. He ordered everybody out and I knew he wanted to have a serious talk with me, but the Republic does not approve of dead bodies lying around. The sbirri arrived, the local constabulary, four of them, led by Sergeant Torre the Unthinking. I find it very hard to keep my temper around Torre. He was quite capable of marching me off to jail for questioning, as if I were the culprit and not the victim.
Fortunately Torre had barely opened his mouth before another man appeared and took over- Missier Grande himself, the chief of police, whose red and blue cloak is the most feared sight in the Republic. Gasparo Quazza is a tall man with the solidity of a Palladio facade, and has been known to break up a riot with his mere presence. It is Missier Grande who carries out the orders of the Ten. He has the integrity and hardness of a diamond, a man of poor background raised to one of the highest offices in the Republic, which he serves without scruple or question. He will be the next Grand Chancellor when the present one dies or retires. He has never racked me yet. He would hate to rack me, I’m sure, but he will rack me if he has to; I’m sure of that also. He came close so he could stare down at me. He has a gray-flecked beard and wears the standard flat, circular biretta of any civic official.