I smiled up at him politely. “Who were they?”

“You tell me, Alfeo.”

“I don’t know who they were, Missier Grande.” Sometimes servility is the better part of valor.

“Why should anyone set an army on you? Six men?”

“I don’t know why, Missier Grande. I’m a good swordsman, but not quite that conceited. I was attacked without warning.” I was glad to hear Father Farsetti’s voice outside, and then see him walk into the atelier. His testimony of events would agree with mine and be accepted without argument.

“You were wearing your sword,” Missier Grande said. “You had your giant with you. You expected trouble.”

The Maestro intervened. “I foresaw it, Missier Grande. I ordered my apprentice to go armed today. I foresaw trouble.”

Quazza flashed him a look of disgust and me another. “So your defense is witchcraft?”

There he was speaking more to the audience than to me. Very early in my indenture, Quazza’s daughter was abducted. The child was recovered unharmed and the offender captured by a combination of the Maestro’s clairvoyance and some insanely brash juvenile derring-do by me. Unlike the doge, Missier Grande is no skeptic in occult matters.

“The attack was witchcraft,” I said. “How else did they find me? And how could six armed strangers assemble outside the church without attracting attention from the parish residents?”

Father Farsetti broke in angrily. “They had attracted attention, Alfeo. A dozen local men were loitering nearby, keeping an eye on them. It was Our Lady who saved you, not the Enemy.”

“Your lungs deserve credit also, Father.”

“But your neighbors deserve more, for noticing suspicious strangers and keeping watch on them. I will give you a chance to stand up and thank them in church on Sunday.”

“Thank you, Father.”

Quazza was still admiring my smile. I assumed that was what he was doing from the careful way he was studying me.

“Who knows where you will be on Sunday, Zeno? I have two dead men to explain to Their Excellencies. I have an apprentice wearing a sword and claiming he was forewarned by witchcraft. Perhaps I should call in the Holy Office?”

“Has not Bruno done the Republic a service today?” I asked. “Who were they?”

“Hired thugs,” Missier Grande admitted. “Common bravos.”

“From the Ponte degli Assassini, or the Calle della Bissa, I expect,” the Maestro remarked, sending me a smug look. Just east of the Rialto, the Bridge of Assassins and the Alley of the Serpent are the most sinister haunts in the city. Gold rains brighter than the eyes of the serpent. That was where one went to hire killers.

“Did they have gold in their pouches? How much was I worth?”

“Someone got to their pouches before I did.” Quazza glanced briefly in the direction of Torre and his band. “You may have been worth some silver to them, but not much while you are still alive, Alfeo Zeno. Dead, you would have brought them a second instalment. Dead or alive, it is not for you to hand out justice. A few days in the Leads will afford you protection against any second inexplicable attack and possibly refresh your memory of recent events.”

The sbirri in the background were leering. Father Farsetti was not. And neither was I, now. The threat was believable. Again I was saved by my master.

“You have two corpses, Missier Grande,” the Maestro said wearily, as if addressing a wilful child. “If you don’t know them personally, some of the sbirri will, or your own fanti. You can locate their associates and extract the name of the person who hired them. He is the one you want, yes? The problem is that they may not know his real name. No matter how much pain you inflict they may give you nothing more than a vague description.”

Missier Grande sensed an offer coming. He nodded. “Continue.”

“As it happens…You can walk, Alfeo?”

I carefully laid my left foot on the floor and pulled myself erect. I took a few steps. “The agony is indescribable, but I can hobble, master.”

“Good. As it happens, Alfeo was on his way to call on a certain person who may…Or may not.” The Maestro sighed. “We have our suspicions, but no evidence, you understand? No evidence I can lay before the Ten.” Meaningful glances were exchanged. “I dare not make an accusation yet. But the person we suspect may carry his own evidence on his person, and his face may be evidence enough when you have arrested the surviving bravos. Even his reaction when he sees Alfeo still alive may be revealing. Since one attempt has already been made on his life this morning, and since my servant Bruno is too upset to continue providing protection, may I ask that the Republic provide some staunch and trustworthy bodyguard to accompany my apprentice when he makes this visit?”

Quazza is not the sort of man to grab at a deal before he has walked around it a few times and counted its teeth. Especially a deal offered by Maestro Nostradamus. He chewed the nearer edges of his beard and stared hard. “What exactly do you mean about evidence on his person?”

The Maestro pulled back his lips out sideways. He is a superb actor-the justice system lost a great advocate in him. “He may be posing as a Christian and not be a Jew.”

That meant Turkish spy and raised the stakes a lot. It certainly took the matter out of the hands of the sbirri.

Missier Grande chewed for another moment and then accepted the offer. “I will send a man. An hour from now, Zeno?”

“I shall be at your service, Missier Grande.”

“And your memory will improve in the meantime?”

“I shall think very hard, Missier Grande.”

Quazza spun on his heel and marched out. Torre and the sbirri followed like sheep. No one argues with Missier Grande.

12

H aving attended to my penance and dressed in clean clothes and shoes, one of which was decidedly damp, I peglegged down the stairs with Giorgio hovering alongside. I was waylaid halfway by a mob of Marciana women and children and had to give an expurgated adumbration of my battle outside the church, which was the talk of the parish. I arrived at the watergate at the same time as a gondola glided in to the quay. The curtains on the felze were open and inside sat Filiberto Vasco in his red cloak.

I do not like Missier Grande Quazza, but I respect him; he is tough but honest. I cannot say as much for his vizio. Filiberto Vasco is about my age, which is too young for the high office he holds; his family has too much money and he has far too much ambition. Were I Missier Grande, I should wear plate mail on my back whenever Filiberto Vasco came within stabbing distance. He pays court to all the women, menaces all the men, fancies himself as a wit, and knows everything. His only admirable quality is that he dislikes me as much as I dislike him.

Giorgio’s services would obviously not be needed. The two men rowing Vasco’s boat wore ordinary gondolier clothes, but I should not have cared to wrestle with either of them. Nay, were I triplets, I should’st not. I limped down the steps and boarded, squirming into the felze with heartrending stoicism to seat myself alongside Vasco. We regarded each other with mutual distaste.

“Where do you want to go to, Zeno?”

I gave him Karagounis’s address in the Greek quarter just east of San Marco. He passed it on and we shot away from the quay. The gondoliers started to sing, because they are forbidden to listen to their superiors’ conversation, but they sang surprisingly well, one bass and one tenor. The vizio leaned back and smirked. I wondered if I could have learned to smirk like that if my great-great-grandfather had been a pirate like his. We cross swords almost every week at Captain Colleoni’s Monday fencing class. I am a better fencer than he is.

“I have orders to take you to the Leads, Alfeo, unless you tell me the truth and the whole truth.”