He had looked at women with their children passing him in the street. They might be tired, worried, heartbroken for a hundred reasons, but they never took their eyes from their children. Every step was watched. A hand was ever ready to support or to chastise, but it was always there.

They might scold the child, slap it in temper, but let anyone else threaten it and they would learn what anger really was.

At midday he stood on the deck of the ship, heart pounding as they slid across the smooth, shining water of the Bosphorus and the great city grew closer and more detailed. His sailor’s eye was drawn to the lighthouse. It was magnificent, visible to approaching mariners at night from miles away.

The harbor was crowded, scores of fishing boats and ferries and cargo carriers scudding about the huge hulls of the triremes hailing from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. And across that narrow channel of water, Europe met Asia. This was the crossroads of the world.

“Captain?”

There was no more time for self-indulgence. He must turn his attention to making harbor, seeing the ship safely anchored and the cargo unloaded before turning over command to his first officer. They had already agreed that the ship would return for him at the beginning of July.

It was the following day before he stepped ashore with his chest packed-a few clothes and books, sufficient to last him for nearly two months. The doge had given him a generous allowance.

It was an alien feeling to stand on the cobbles of the street. Half Byzantine, he should have embraced this as a homecoming, yet all he felt was rejection. He came as a spy.

He turned and looked back at the harbor teeming with ships. He might know the men on some of them, even have sailed with them, faced the same storms and hardships, the same excitement. The light on the water had the same strange, luminous quality that it had in Venice, the sky, the familiar softness.

He spent three nights in lodgings and the intervening days walking around the city, gaining a feel for its nature, its customs, its geography, even the food, the jokes, and the taste of the air.

He sat in a restaurant having an excellent meal of savory goat meat with garlic and vegetables, then a glass of wine that he thought not nearly as good as Venetian. He watched the people in the street, overhearing snatches of conversation, much of which he did not understand. He studied faces and listened to the tones of voice. The Greek he spoke, and of course the Genoese he heard disturbingly often. He understood snatches from the Arabs and Persians whose dress was so easy to distinguish. The Albanians, Bulgars, and high-cheeked Mongols were alien, and he was reminded with a tingle of discomfort just how far east he was and how close to the lands of the Great Khan or the Muslims the red-bearded man had spoken of in Messina.

He would find a Venetian family down by the shore of the Golden Horn. He wondered idly where his mother had lived. She had been born during the exile, perhaps in Nicea or farther north? Then he was furious with himself for allowing in the pain that always came with thoughts of her. He couldn’t stop himself.

He closed his eyes hard against the sunlight and the busyness of the street, but nothing shut out the inner vision of his father, gray-haired, his face lined with sorrow, the locket open in his hand showing the tiny painting of a young woman with dark eyes and laughing face. How could she laugh and leave them? Giuliano had never once heard him speak ill of her. He had died still loving her.

He lurched to his feet. The wine would choke him now. He left it and strode out into the street. This was an alien city, full of people he would never be foolish enough to trust. Know your enemy, learn from them, understand them, but never, ever be seduced by their art, their skill, or their beauty; just judge whose side they would be on when it mattered.

The Venetian Quarter was just a few streets, and they made no great show of their origins. No one had forgotten whose fleet had brought the invaders who had burned the city and stolen the holy relics.

He found a family with the old, proud name of Mocenigo and immediately liked the man, Andrea. He had an ascetic face, bordering on plain until he smiled; then he was almost beautiful. And it was not until he moved that Giuliano noticed he had a slight limp. His wife, Teresa, was shy but offered to make Giuliano welcome, and his five children seemed happily unaware that he was a stranger. They asked him numerous questions as to where he was from and why he was here, until their parents told them that interest was friendly, but to be inquisitive was rude. They apologized and stood in a row, eyes downcast.

“You have not been the least bit rude,” Giuliano said quickly in Italian. “One day, when we have time, I will tell you about some of the other places I have been to, and what they were like. And if you will, you can tell me about Constantinople. This is the first time I have been here.”

That settled the issue immediately; this was the house in which he would lodge. He accepted with pleasure.

“I am Venetian,” Mocenigo explained with a smile. “But I have chosen to make my life here because my wife is Byzantine, and I find a certain freedom of the mind in the Orthodox faith.” His tone was half-apologetic because he assumed Giuliano would be of the Roman Church, but his eyes were unflinching. He would not choose an argument, but if one arose, he would be ready to defend his belief.

Giuliano held out his hand. “Then perhaps I shall learn something deeper of Byzantium than the merchants will tell me.”

Mocenigo clasped it, and the bargain was made. The financial agreement was far outweighed in importance by the promise of the future.

It was natural that they should ask Giuliano his business, and he was prepared with an answer.

“My family have been merchants for a long time,” he said easily. That, at least, was true, if he intended the term to include all those descended from the great doge Enrico Dandolo. “I’ve come to see more directly what is bought and sold here, and what more we could do to increase our trade. There must be needs unmet, new opportunities.” He wanted the freedom to ask as many questions as possible without raising suspicion. “The new union with the Church of Rome should make many things simpler.”

Mocenigo shrugged and pulled his face into an expression of doubt. “The paper is signed, but that’s a long way from a reality yet.”

Giuliano managed to look slightly surprised. “You think the agreement may not be kept? Surely Byzantium wants peace? Constantinople in particular cannot afford war again, and if they are not of one faith with Rome, war is what it will be, in fact, even if they don’t call it that.”

“Probably.” Mocenigo’s voice was soft and sad. “Most sane people don’t want war, but wars still happen. The only way you change people’s religion is by convincing them of something better, not by threatening to destroy them if they refuse.”

Giuliano stared at him. “Is that how they see it?”

“Don’t you?” Mocenigo countered.

Giuliano realized that Mocenigo identified with Constantinople, not with Rome. “Do you think other Venetians here feel the same?” he asked. Then instantly he wondered if it was too soon to have been so blunt.

Mocenigo shook his head. “I can’t answer for others. None of us knows yet what obedience to Rome will mean, apart from months of delay before we get answers to appeals, and money paid out of the country in tithes, instead of it staying here, where we desperately need it. Will our churches still be cared for, mended, filled with beauty? Will our priests still be paid well, and left their consciences and their dignity?”

“Well, there cannot be a crusade before ’78 or ’79 at the soonest,” Giuliano reasoned aloud. “By then we may have reached a more sensible understanding, earned a little latitude, perhaps.”