"It's not safe," Mal said. "At least let me try and get the skraylings out of Venice first. You would not want to risk them interfering."
She looked thoughtful. "You have a point. But you must proceed without me, and you must not come back here until they are gone. I have to take great care in the coming days. Much gossip will fly my way, and the less that sticks, the better."
"And you swear you will not take your own life in the meantime?"
"I cannot swear, amayi. But it will be my last resort, that I can promise you."
Her lips were hot and sweet, and sent a flush of desire through his veins. After far too short a time, he let her go.
"Fare well, my lady. I hope we may meet again soon."
The galley rowed west and north around the island city, until Coby began to wonder if they were heading for the mainland after all. However just as the city's furthest northern limit came into view, they turned back eastwards into the Grand Canal. Narrower than the Thames, it was nonetheless a great waterway, wide enough for two such galleys to pass without tangling their oars. Their own vessel slowed after a few hundred yards and manoeuvred towards the bank, coming to a graceful stop just beyond a cluster of wooden posts that jutted out of the water.
The captain whistled to one of the nearby gondoliers, and the sleek black craft slid between the ship and the bank. Zancani haggled with the gondolier and at last climbed down into the boat, waving for the rest of them to join him. Coby was obliged to stand to one side whilst the men passed all their baggage from hand to hand and down into the gondola, then she and Valentina were helped aboard. It was all very irksome, having to behave like a fragile female, as if she hadn't spent her youth hauling chests of costumes and heaving wagons out of potholes with the other apprentices.
There was not a lot of space on the gondola once everything was loaded on board, and the little craft sat so low in the water that Coby, perching on one of the narrow seats that ran along either side, could easily reach out and touch the emerald-green water if she had wanted to. She was squeezed in between Gabriel and Benetto; the juggler smiled shyly at her and opened his mouth as if to say something, but then changed his mind.
The gondola began to move slowly on its way, wallowing somewhat from its heavy load. Coby stared up at the strange buildings that drifted past; every one was painted a different colour and had a different number and shape of windows, and yet they formed a harmonious pattern. Most of all they reminded her of the galleried fa?ade of a tiringhouse at the back of a stage, as if the entire city were one enormous theatre, and its people merely actors.
The gondola turned left into a side canal, then right and left again before halting at a smaller canal bank, no more than a walkway in front of the row of more modest buildings that lined the lesser canals. Their destination appeared to be an inn, although apart from the sign above the open front door – three leaping fishes with bulging glass eyes and gilded scales – there was little to distinguish it from the houses on either side.
Coby and Valentina were helped ashore, and the men began unloading their belongings. Passers-by gave them many curious glances, and a small child watched wideeyed from the shadows of a doorway until its mother called it back inside.
"This reminds me of being on tour with Suffolk's Men," she said to Gabriel as he placed another bundle of canvas against the nearby wall. "People were always happy to see us arrive, but happy too to see us go."
"We brought spectacle and a glimpse of the outside world," he said, looking back down the canal. "And a disturbance of their quiet lives. Some people don't like that."
"Still, to see the same in a city like this, at the crossroads of the world." She shook her head. "It is… strange."
He shrugged and went back to work.
Zancani fussed around them until everything was unloaded from the gondola, then strode into the inn. Coby followed him, for want of anything better to do.
The inn was cool and shady after the heat of the afternoon, and at first Coby could make out little. As her eyes adjusted, she realised they were walking through a passageway with doors on either side. A moment later they emerged into a courtyard. The ground floor was colonnaded, with tables and benches laid out neatly, though unoccupied at this time of day; the floor above that was galleried like an English inn, with a staircase leading up from the back of the courtyard. The uppermost floor had many arched windows with shutters thrown back to let in the sunlight, and a roof of terracotta tiles. Somehow it looked far grander than the English inns that Suffolk's Men had stayed in, but it seemed even the humblest dwelling here was built of brick and stucco and tile, instead of the simple wood and thatch of England.
A stout, red-faced man hurried down the stairs, wiping his hands on his apron, and greeted Zancani warmly. A curly-haired lad of about twelve, the image of the innkeeper in skinny miniature, leaned over the balcony, gawping, until his father shouted up to him. Something about Zancani and "Mama".
By the time the players had finished carrying all the baggage up to their lodgings, the lady of the house had appeared, along with baskets of bread, bowls of olives and jugs of wine. The men settled down to talk business, whilst the innkeeper's wife ushered the two girls upstairs to their lodgings. Coby looked back wistfully over her shoulder; in the old days she would have been down there with them, not shuffled off to one side like a child.
"You are Inglese?" the innkeeper's wife asked in heavily accented English.
"Dutch," Coby replied. "But I lived in England for a while."
"Si, Inghilterra. I am Magdalena."
"Jacomina."
Magdalena grinned, gap-toothed. "Giacomina. Is very pretty name. I have the cousin named Giacomina."
She showed the girls into a small room on the top floor, not much more than an attic but neat and clean, with two cot beds and a shared nightstand. Coby thanked her and put down her knapsack. How she was going to get away from under Zancani's nose and visit Mal, she did not know, but she was determined to do it tonight. Otherwise she would never sleep, she was sure of it.
Valentina spoke neither French nor English, which rather limited their conversation. However this did not seem to deter the girl unduly. By dint of pantomime and a few words, she declared herself fascinated with Coby's blond hair and insisted on combing it. Coby sat dutifully and allowed herself to be fussed over like a doll, though she could not for the life of her see the point. She was quite capable of combing her own hair, after all.
She was spared any further feminine amusement by a knock on the door. Valentina leapt up and opened the door a crack to reveal the long face of Benetto the juggler. The two players chattered away to one another in Italian for several minutes, then Benetto went away.
"What was all that about?" Coby asked.
Valentina looked glum. She pointed to herself and then Coby, and mimed sewing. Ah, the costumes. That had always been Coby's first task when returning to London from a tour of the country. So much got damaged in use and would need mending before they could perform again. She followed Valentina down to the men's quarters, where all their equipment had been stored.
Mal took down his rapier from its peg, cinched the belt around his hips and threw the hooded cloak around his shoulders, adjusting its folds to conceal the weapon. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
"Expecting trouble?" Ned asked.
Mal closed the attic door.
"One can never be too careful around men like Cinquedea," he said quietly.
"You think he might betray us to the Ten."
"I don't know. I'd like to think not; after all, Walsingham surely wouldn't have led us astray on purpose."
"Walsingham's an old man, and hasn't been outside England in years. Things change."
"Exactly. Which is why we need to be on our guard."
They padded down the marble staircase and let themselves out into the street. There were few people about at this hour, since the Venetians preferred to eat supper late. The scent of garlic and hot oil drifted on the air. Ned's stomach rumbled loudly.
"I thought you already ate?" Mal said, leading the way towards the traghetto at San Toma.
"I did. And now I'm hungry again."
"Gabriel won't like it if you grow a paunch."
"I'll just lose it again in England, unless we have a better harvest this year."
By the time they reached Campo San Toma the sun was sinking behind the church, bathing the city in amber light. Several barefoot children were running around the stone wellhead, shrieking with laughter, but Mal looked about as cheerful as a man going to his own funeral.
"Strange, isn't it?" Ned said, trying to lighten the mood.
"What's strange?"
"Finding out Charles has been here all this time, alive and well. I remember you once saying you'd gladly slit his throat and dump his body on a midden for what he did to Sandy."
"I have more important things to think about than petty revenge."
"Still, when this is all over–"
"Never look beyond the next battle."
"Is that how you see this meeting with Lord Kiiren? As a battle?"
Mal halted in the blackness under a sottoportego. "Kiiren–"
He paused as two passing women broke off their gossip to eye them suspiciously. Ned slipped his arms around Mal's waist and pulled him closer, treating the women to his best salacious grin. The elder of the two muttered in disgust to her companion and turned pointedly away.
"Was that entirely necessary?" Mal asked when the women were out of earshot.
"It gave them something else to fix their suspicions on, didn't it? Anyway, what were you saying?"
"What I think I was going to say, before I was so…" He grimaced, extracted himself from Ned's embrace and set off again "…is: Kiiren is a foreign ambassador and puts his own people first, never forget that."
"But he will help us, right?"
"I certainly hope so."
The gondola ferry was waiting at its jetty, a lamp hanging from its stern. They paid the ferryman and climbed in. Mal hunched down, feeling horribly exposed out on the water. In the distance he could see a blaze of moving lights that indicated one of the barche longhe, the slender armed galleys in which the sbirri patrolled the canals. It was a relief to step ashore in San Marco before the galley reached them.