The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(91)

"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.