He glanced up, trying fruitlessly to guess his direction by the few stars visible between the buildings. All that he could make out was that he seemed to be standing in a space where two alleys crossed. Listening, he could hear the music of fiddles and flutes somewhere near at hand.
A fête, he knew, was going on in a near-by palace and he had promised himself a sight of it. It was exasperating to hear the sound of the festivity and still be unable to reach it. Michael laughed, realizing that he had lost his way completely.
There had been no lack of offers of a guide. For only that day Michael had received a gold chain and a key of the same precious metal from the Consoli di Mercanti—the Maritime Council—as reward for his services in bringing back a galley with the survivors of the army of the Count of Nevers from the ill-fated field of Nicopolis. It had been a stormy passage, beset by Turkish pirates in the Levant, and Bearn, thanks to his skill as mariner and his knack of handling men, had been one of the few captains to return without loss.
But in spite of this honor Michael’s purse was light and he could not afford to pay a retainer, or even to take up his quarters at a good inn.
“Faith,” he thought, “ ’twould have availed more if the worthy council had given gold ducats instead of this chain, and as for the freedom of the city that they said went with the key—I can not find my way to yonder music.”
He had heard mention of the fête at the council, and also of a renowned voyager who was to be present. Two things had drawn Michael to the festivity; the hope of good meat and wine—he had not wanted to confess to the ceremonious members of the great council that he was penniless—and curiosity. Voyagers from the East were few in that age and Michael wondered whether he would find at the palace Fra Odoric, the priest who had built a church in Tatary or Carlo Zeno, the sea-captain.
Either one would have information that would serve Michael in his plans.
His reflections were interrupted by a light rounding the corner of a building and gliding toward him under his feet. He was surprized to see that he was standing on a wooden bridge. The light was in a gondola passing beneath him.
“Ho, my friends,” he called cheerfully, “in what quarter lies the palazzo or whatever it is called of my lord Contarini? I can find it not.”
If Michael had dwelt longer in Venice he would not have hailed an occupied gondola in the dark. His shout only caused the rower at the stern to glance up warily and thrust the long craft forward at greater speed. A shutter in the hooded seat was lowered briefly and a face looked out of the aperture.
Then the gondola passed under the bridge.
Michael grimaced, bowed, and was passing on when he hesitated. The light on the gondola had been put out.
This was not altogether strange, if the people on the vessel had believed that footpads, as personified by Michael, were on the bridge. But the keen eyes of the seaman caught a white swirl in the water. He fancied that the gondolier had checked his craft sharply and that it had halted a short distance beyond the bridge.
If the occupants of the gondola had been alarmed by his hail, they would not have chosen to remain in the vicinity. So Michael thought and was ready to smile at his own suspicion, when he heard a footfall and the clink of steel upon stones. From the direction in which he imagined the gondola had halted a man was coming toward him, feeling his way with drawn sword.
Michael planted his feet wide, with his back against a blank wall. Presently he could discern the grayish blur of a face moving toward him over the bridge. There was no sound and Michael knew that the newcomer was taking pains to be silent. This quietude and the rapidity of the other’s approach from the canal were ominous.
Then Michael stepped aside. He had heard rather than seen a swift movement toward him in the gloom.
Steel clashed against the wall beside him and sparks flew. An oath came to his ears as he snatched out his own sword, hung by its baldric on his right side. Long practice had accustomed Michael to the use of his left arm—had given to that limb the unusual strength possessed by one-armed men.
In the darkness he sought the other’s blade, found it, thrust and when the thrust was parried, lunged again.
“By the Pope’s head!” snarled the stranger.
“Amen,” said Michael, drawing back alertly. His weapon had bent against mail on the other’s chest and Michael, who wore no such protection, was fain to risk a leap and come to hand-grips.
But even as he tensed his muscles for the spring he heard footsteps and the darkness was dissipated by the light of a lanthorn which rounded a corner behind him.
For the first time he saw his antagonist, a tall man, very fashionable in the short mantle and wide velvet sleeves and cloth-of-gold cap that were the fashion of the day in Venice. The man’s olive face was handsome and composed, his eyes restless, his beard smartly curled.
His right hand held the broken half of a sword, his left a long poniard. Michael was rather glad that, after all, he had not made that leap.
Whereupon Michael frowned, for the other’s face, although not his bearing, had a familiar aspect. Sheathing his own sword, the Breton smiled and took his dagger in his left hand.
“Good morrow, signor,” he said from hard lips. “The light is better now than when you traitorously set upon me. Shall we resume with our poniards?”
The other hesitated, measuring Michael, noting the width of shoulder and length of arm of the Breton, whose featherless cap was thrust well back, disclosing black curls a little gray about the brows. Under the curls gray eyes, alight and whimsical, met the stranger’s stare.
“You ponder, signor,” prompted Michael politely. “Perhaps it surprises you that I who bore no weapon on shipboard have now mastered the use of blade and poniard with my one hand. Or perchance your sense of honor and the high courage you display in a crisis prompt you to refrain from matching daggers with a man in a leathern shirt when you wear a mail jerkin.”
At this an exclamation sounded behind him. Michael had not failed to glance over his shoulder at the first appearance of the light and had seen only a fox-faced merchant in a long ermine cloak and attended by a brace of servitors who looked as if they would have liked to flee at sight of bare steel.
Now he perceived that the merchant was staring at him round-eyed as if Michael had uttered blasphemy or madness.
“By the rood!” swore the tall stranger.
“By whatever you wish,” assented Michael, “so long as you fight like a man. Come, the sight of a coward spoils my appetite for dinner.”
HE WAITED for the other’s rush. Michael had recognized in his assailant the Italian captain of mercenaries who had struck down his wounded countrymen in the effort to force himself aboard Michael’s galley at Nicopolis. The other must have recognized him from the gondola and had sought the revenge he had sworn for Michael’s blow.
Instead of resuming the duel, the Italian smiled coldly and stepped back, pointing to his chest where the doublet was slashed over the mail.
“I do not fight with cutthroats, Messer Soranzi,” the Italian said to the merchant, who was staring at them, excusing his action. “This sailor beset me on the bridge after hailing my gondola under pretext
