The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(86)

"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.