"I thought you were in favour of these trade negotiations."
"I am. You mean to stop them?"
"I… No. Those were not my orders. Only to find out what I could, so that we can be prepared."
Cinquedea scanned his face. "I believe you. And we too wish to know, so that we can prepare."
"Don't you have sources inside the Great Council?"
Cinquedea muttered something obscene-sounding in the local dialect. "This Grimani has disrupted our entire operation with his pulling of strings. I need a truer source of information."
Mal smiled. With Bragadin dead those strings had been cut, but he wasn't about to tell Cinquedea that. Such valuable intelligence was better kept in reserve.
"You want me to share what I learn," he said, "in return for help in getting into the skrayling palace."
"Yes."
He considered for a moment. Walsingham had recommended the man, and surely it could do no harm to the English cause?
"Done."
Cinquedea rapped on the roof of the cabin, and Pessotelo turned the gondola back towards Rio Tera degli Assassini.
It felt like only a few moments later that they arrived at the street's end. Mal eased his cramped limbs out of the cabin and stepped ashore gratefully.
"Well?" Ned asked softly.
Mal simply grinned.
They were halfway down the street when a man stepped out of the shadows. A man in a red doublet and breeches, carrying a short pike.
"Sbirri!" Cinquedea hissed. "You betrayed us!"
"Not I," Mal said, drawing his rapier.
A squad of the red-clad constables appeared at the end of the street, cutting off their escape. Mal turned back to the gondola, but Pessotelo was already plying the oar. Cinquedea leapt aboard the departing vessel with enviable grace. Mal eyed the distance, but the moment's hesitation cost him. He turned to face the advancing constables. One of them uncovered a lantern.
"Put up your sword," a voice called from the darkness. "I have men with crossbows trained on you and your companion."
By sunset most of the sewing was done, but Coby feared she would have no time for her own business if she helped Valentina to finish it. She therefore went to find Gabriel and told him her plan.
"Why do I have to stay here and keep the girl amused?" He folded his arms like a petulant child. "I am just as anxious to see Ned as you are to see Mal. Let Sandy read to her, and we will go to the embassy together."
"Valentina doesn't like Sandy; I think she's afraid of him. No, she will tell Zancani I left her to finish my work, unless she is kept sweet."
"I hope you don't expect me to make love to her," he said with a sniff.
"Just tell her a story, or sing, or something. Anything."
She shooed him out of the room and began changing into her boy's clothes. Not only would it be safer, alone in a strange city, but the less connection between Zancani's players and the English ambassador the better, at least until she knew Mal's plans.
She slipped a purse containing the few coins Zancani had paid them into her pocket, and made her way out through the early evening crowds. It was a relief to be back in her familiar garb and free to move around without attracting unwelcome notice. Now there was just the small problem of finding her way to the English ambassador's house in a strange city where she did not speak the language. She decided the first thing to do was to get some distance from the inn before asking directions, so she set off in what she hoped was a southwards direction, towards the Grand Canal.
Half an hour later she was footsore and hopelessly lost. The Venetian streets appeared incapable of going in one direction for more than a hundred yards before turning a corner, opening into a square whose only streets led off in entirely the wrong direction, or ending abruptly at the edge of a canal, with no bank or bridge by which to continue. She tried asking for directions, but the few Venetians she could find who spoke English or French only smiled and nodded and said "straight on". There was nothing for it but to spend a little of her precious silver on a gondola.
She found her way to a busy canal-side and hailed a gondolier. He rattled off a price, and she only hoped that he had understood her directions. She scrambled aboard and entered the little cabin with a whispered prayer for God's protection. He had not failed her yet.
The bells were tolling the first hour after sunset as they navigated yet another small canal. This one described a dog-leg path under a bridge and around a red and white house, but the gondolier steered his craft to a set of weedgrown steps.
"We're here?" she asked.
The man gestured to the red-and-white house. "Inglese."
She handed over the money, praying he was telling the truth, and realised with a sinking heart that she did not have enough left to pay for a gondola back to the inn. Taking a deep breath to quell her panic, she walked up to the house and knocked on the door.
After a few moments, the door opened and a gaunt old man looked out.
"Si?"
"I'm looking for Master Catlyn. Is he here?" she asked in English.
The man paled. "N… no. I mean yes."
Coby's heart leapt in expectation.
"That is, he was," the servant added. "But he left about an hour ago."
"Did he say when he'd be back?"
The man looked away. He was hiding something, Coby was sure of it.
"Who is that, Jameson?"
The door opened wide to reveal the last person she wanted to see.
"Sir Walter."
Raleigh's wind-burned face was redder than usual, as if he had been drinking.
"The same," he said. "And who might you be?"
Coby sketched a bow.
"J… Jacob Hendricks. Master Catlyn's valet."
Raleigh frowned. "I thought Faulkner was his manservant."
"Yes, he is. In London. I served Master Catlyn in France."
"I see." He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowing.
"Is he here?"
"Catlyn? No."
"Oh. But he was here?"
"Certainly."
Coby looked up and down the street. "May I come in a moment, sir?"
Raleigh raised an eyebrow, but stood aside for her to enter. Coby stepped into the darkened atrium. A lone candle glinted on gilded picture frames and a short flight of marble stairs, but little else was visible in the gloom.
"May I ask when he will be back?"
"I have no notion. Probably away with that Moorish whore; I doubt he'll be back before morning."
Coby felt sick. Mal, visiting a prostitute? Well, she supposed she could not blame him, since she had held him at arm's length for so long.
Behind Raleigh the old servant, Jameson, wrung his hands and would not meet her eye. Was that what he was concealing? But why would he be so embarrassed about it in front of another manservant?
"And Ned…?" she asked.
"Faulkner went with him," Raleigh replied.
Coby hesitated. She didn't want to confide in Raleigh, but neither was she willing to leave the embassy with so little achieved.
"Did he receive my letter?"
"There was a letter, just this morning," Jameson said, "though I do not know its contents."
"Could I have paper and pen?" she asked. "I would like to leave him another one, just in case."
Raleigh muttered something under his breath but sent Jameson for writing materials. These brought, Coby leant over the little table, composing the message in her head. She didn't want Raleigh to know the whole of her communication with Mal, but on the other hand asking for sealing wax would have made him suspicious. A cipher, on the other hand, might pass without notice if it were subtle enough.
"Make haste," Raleigh snapped. "I have no wish to stand here all night. Or can you not write?"
"One moment, sir. I am not practised in the art, and must get my thoughts in order first."
Raleigh made a contemptuous noise and began pacing the atrium. Trying to ignore him, Coby began to write.
If it please your good grace, your brother sends greeting. He is anxious to be here soon, and will come with all haste to take possession of three ells of fine gold brocade embroidered with fishes. Only the finest in any great city north of Rome suffices; Venice must provide. J H IV.
There, that would have to do. She blew on the ink to dry it, then folded the sheet and handed it to Raleigh.
"One last thing, if I may, sir?"
"Well?"
"I spent the last of my wages getting here. If I do not get back to my lodgings before curfew, I will be arrested. I would not wish to embarrass the ambassador or his guests."
"Is that a threat, boy?" Raleigh turned scarlet. "Get out, before I have you whipped all the way back to your lodgings."
"Yes, sir. My apologies, sir."
"Raleigh? What's all this about?" A stout man in a crumpled velvet doublet limped down the stair; the ambassador, she guessed. "Who is this boy?"
"A servant of Catlyn's. He was just leaving."
"I meant no offence, sir," Coby said. "I was so hoping to find my master here, I quite forgot myself."
"Stay a while," the man said. "Doubtless your master will return before curfew."
"Alas, I ought to pass on the news to my companions, who have come all the way from England to… to see him, with important news of their own. But as I was telling Sir Walter, I have not enough money to get back to my lodgings."
"Then you shall have the use of my gondola. Jameson!"
The servant reappeared.
"Roust out Giuseppe or one of those other ne'er-dowells, and have him take this young fellow wheresoever he wishes. But be swift about it."
Raleigh gave Coby one last contemptuous look, and stamped off up the stairs.
"Thank you, my lord," she said to the ambassador, loud enough for Raleigh to hear. "You are most generous."
Mal shielded his eyes with his free hand. An armoured constable stood silhouetted against the lantern's light, a crossbow pointed at Mal's chest. To his left stood a wiry man of about thirty with thinning hair, wearing a blued steel breastplate over a crimson doublet, a sword hanging at his hip. Four more constables armed with pikes formed a cordon at the end of the street.
"Put up your sword, Master Catlyn," the captain said again, in perfect English with only the trace of an accent. "Or shall I have you shot somewhere painful but not fatal?"
After a moment's pause Mal slid the blade into its scabbard.
"Since you know my name, sir," he said, "perhaps you would do me the courtesy of telling me whom I address?"
"I am Francesco Venier, son of Lorenzo Venier. You and your servant are under arrest for the murder of Giambattista Bragadin and Pietro Trevisan."
Mal stared at Venier. Betrayed – but by whom? No one knew he was meeting Cinquedea here, no one except… Jameson. He had been there when the urchin delivered Cinquedea's message. But the old man knew nothing about their connection to the murders, did he?
Venier gestured to Mal's sword. "Your weapons, please. Both of you."
Mal reluctantly unbuckled his belt and handed over rapier and dagger. After a moment, Ned contributed his own knife. Venier paused to admire the swept hilt of the rapier, holding it up to the torchlight.
"Very handsome," he murmured, and tucked the sword under his arm. "Against the wall, hands on your heads."
Out of the corner of his eye Mal saw the constable put down his crossbow. He briefly considered putting up a fight, but there were too many of them, most still armed.
The constable proceeded to search both prisoners for hidden weapons, turning out pockets and feeling down the sides of Mal's boots.
"Nothing?" Venier said, waving the man away. "Dear me, I expected better of Walsingham's men."
Mal kept a straight face. The barb about Walsingham was no doubt a lucky guess, or at least a fair assumption. Venier murmured instructions to his man, who motioned for Mal and Ned to precede him along the street. Mal hesitated, raising his left hand behind his back in a signal he hoped Ned could see in this light. Prepare to run.
"Might I ask where we are going?"
"The Doge's Palace," Venier said with a smile. "And do not think of trying to escape. There are sbirri in the surrounding streets also, with orders to shoot you on sight."
The streets were half-empty this close to curfew, but that only made their little procession more conspicuous. Passers-by stared at the two Englishmen, muttering curses or making obscene gestures. Mal ignored them; a few taunts were the least of his worries. He should have fought his way out of the ambush, damn it, even at the risk of death. But then what would happen to Coby, and his brother? They must surely be here soon, if that letter was to be believed. But even his resourceful young companion could surely not rescue them from the Doge's prisons. Nor could he count on Olivia, not after what had happened with Bragadin. This time they were on their own.
All too soon the palace came into view, its marble fa?ade shining silver in the moonlight, its rows of arched windows dark as empty eye-sockets. They were escorted through the ground floor colonnade and into the palace itself. As they passed an inner doorway, a dreadful smell, worse than any canal, wafted out into the night air. Mal swallowed against the nausea roiling in his stomach.
"Ah yes, the Wells. I'm afraid the stench starts to get worse in the warm spring weather."
"Wells? That's your drinking water?"
Venier laughed. "No. It is what we call our lowest cells. You would know them as oubliettes." When Mal did not respond, he added: "Do not fear, signore. You and your… accomplice are not destined for the Wells. Not yet, anyway."
Venier led them towards a stair leading up into the palace.
"After you, gentlemen."
They were escorted across an echoing courtyard, into another marble-columned cloister and up a magnificent staircase lined with gilded bas-reliefs. They emerged into an antechamber, dark and empty at this time of night, and paused whilst the captain unlocked a small side-door opposite the entrance to the palace's grand apartments. Mal was pushed through into the darkness, scraping his scalp on the low lintel.
The rooms in this part of the palace were low and narrow, as if two floors had been fitted into the height of one palace storey and made to accommodate as many offices as possible. Walls of planking attached with parallel rows of wooden nails divided up the space, so that it looked more like the interior of a ship than a building. The captain led them into a cramped office that was barely large enough for his prisoners and the four guards restraining them. An elderly man sat at a desk at the far end, candlelight gilding his silver hair as he bent over a stack of papers. He looked up after a moment.
"Captain."
"Chancellor Surian." Venier gestured to Mal. "Our intelligence was correct."
"Good," the chancellor replied, looking Mal up and down with disinterest. "Put them in the lower cells. I will deal with them later."
"I don't know what you've been told, Your Excellency," Mal said, "but it's all lies."
"Then I look forward to hearing the truth. Later."
He went back to his documents, and the prisoners were hustled out of the tiny office, along a corridor and through another heavy studded door.
The room beyond was larger than any he had seen so far, a good twenty feet across and with a ceiling that rose to the full height of this storey. Near at hand stood a long desk with three high-backed chairs behind it, like a magistrate's bench. What drew the eye, however, was the massive rope, as thick as a child's arm, hanging over a pulley at the centre of the ceiling, its two ends stopping just short of a set of wooden steps like a mounting block. Two doors faced one another across the steps, and two more in a gallery that ran around three sides of the chamber, cutting its height in two. All four doors had large grilles at head height, giving them a good view of the rope and pulley. His guts tightened in terror.
One of the guards sneered and said something in the thick local dialect as he pushed Mal through the nearest door. The interior was barer than a monk's cell, scrubbed clean but with a lingering smell of soap, piss and vomit that was almost worse than the honest filth of an English prison. The door slammed shut and a key clicked smoothly in first one lock and then a second. The Venetians were taking no chances with their prisoners.
When their captors had gone, Mal peered out through the door grille. Fat candles had been left burning in cressets, carefully positioned to illuminate the rope but throw the rest of the chamber into shadows. He could just make out the pale circle of Ned's face at the grille in the opposite wall.
"That whoreson cur betrayed us." Ned's voice rose to a shout. "Just wait till I get my hands on him, I'll–"
"Quiet, Ned! We don't know who's listening."
"I don't care who's listening–"
"Ned, for the love of all the saints–" Mal drew a deep breath. "We are prisoners of the Doge. And this is his torture chamber."
In the appalled silence that followed, Mal knelt on the bare boards and began to pray. To Our Lady, the Archangel Michael, and every saint whose name he could remember.