Alessandro seemed unable to speak. So Swan swaggered forward. ‘Each of us will fight one of you at a time. Who’s first?’

‘No—’ said Alessandro.

One of the young men shook his head. ‘I don’t—’

Swan drew his sword. ‘Coward,’ he said. This to the man who’d called him a butt-boy in his odd Venetian accent. ‘Poltroon, liar, fool, cuckold. Draw.’

Alessandro was stepping up behind him. ‘You are supposed to—’

Swan took another step forward. His sword was out, his buckler was on his hand, and he was in his favourite stance – sword under the buckler, pointed up at his opponent’s throat.

The Venetian seemed confounded by his advance. ‘What are the rest of you doing!’ he yelled at his friends. He didn’t draw, and Swan feinted and smacked him in the side with the flat of his sword and then stepped with one leg past him and threw him to the ground with his buckler arm while the young man felt his side to see if he was cut.

The other five were stepping back, and Swan put his sword-point on the fallen man’s sternum. ‘Why, exactly, can’t I kill him?’

‘He hasn’t drawn his sword yet!’ Alessandro said.

‘Oh,’ said Swan. He grinned down at the Venetian youth. ‘My apologies, messire. Please get up.’ He stepped back and saluted.

Alessandro turned as the young man scrambled to his friends. ‘You have rattled them. That was . . . well done.’

‘Bembo!’ shouted another. His voice rose too much. ‘Bembo, don’t hide behind your foreign assassin. You are here to fight me.’

Alessandro bowed.

‘Oh, it’s a duel?’ Swan said. He walked forward again, and had the pleasure of seeing the whole crowd of them take a step back. ‘It looked to me as if the six of you planned to murder him. Which one of you is the injured party?’

Alessandro sniggered. ‘He is the challenger.’

‘Is this the ground?’ Swan said, trying to remember everything he’d ever heard about duelling. It wasn’t very common in London. Street fights and tavern brawls, yes. Formal duels . . .

But he’d read a book . . .

‘Right here is good enough for me,’ said Alessandro. The seagrass was short and thick. The ground was flat, if a little damp.

‘Very well. You others, stand over here with me. Alessandro, this is your ground. Messire – I don’t know your name.’

‘What? How can you not know my name. Don’t you know who I am?’ the young duellist asked.

‘If you have to ask that . . .’ Swan said. ‘Never mind. Stand here.’

‘Jacopo Foscari!’

‘Splendid, Messire Foscari. Please stand here.’

‘My father is Francesco Foscari! The Doge!’

‘If you insist, although, to be fair, I should tell you that your father probably doesn’t approve of duelling.’ Swan bowed. ‘I read a pamphlet about it. Messire Foscari, who is your secondo?’

None of the other five volunteered.

‘I can fight him if he wants, or we can all watch from a safe distance.’

No one moved.

‘Very well. Let me see the swords.’ He was acting – enjoying himself. The young men were all too scared to interfere, and he knew – in his heart – that as long as he could continue his patter, he’d rule them, the way the snake charmer rules the snake.

Foscari’s sword was a handspan longer than Alessandro’s.

‘I am content,’ Alessandro said.

Swan had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he shrugged. ‘Very well. On your guards, then.’

Alessandro drew. He had a buckler, and he flipped a casual salute, and then cut at the face of his buckler, tapped it with his pommel and took up a guard.

Foscari did almost the same, moving with dancing steps.

The two men began to circle.

Foscari took a long, gliding step and cut from a high guard at Alessandro’s buckler. Alessandro collected the heavy blow on his sword and drove it into the ground with a counter-cut, and he stepped forward with his left foot and cut with the back edge of his sword, and Foscari sprang back, dropping his sword and swearing. He had a long line of blood on his forearm.

‘Fuck you, cocksucker.’ Foscari turned to his friends. ‘Get him.’

‘Uh-uh.’ Swan had his sword in hand. He’d never put it away. He stood between the five men and the action. ‘Fair play and all that.’

One of them – a blond man with a fuzzy blond mustache – reached for his sword.

Swan’s buckler licked out and caught him in the arm with a sharp crack. He swore.

Foscari realised that his friends weren’t coming to his aid, and he picked up the sword. ‘Your turn will come, Bembo.’

Swan continued to smile at the five young men. ‘If any of you would like to fight me,’ he said, suggestively, ‘I am completely at your service – now, or at any hour you would prefer.’

‘You are scum,’ ventured the one he’d thrown to the ground.

‘Alessandro? Can I challenge him?’ Swan asked.

‘No,’ Alessandro laughed. ‘That would be foolish.’

‘So I’m scum,’ Swan agreed. ‘And you are a coward, a poltroon, a cuckold, a fool, and a . . . damn. What was the other? Liar. Can we agree on this?’

The young man flushed bright red.

‘Bastard?’ Swan ventured.

The red on the man’s cheeks grew brighter.

‘Stop!’ Alessandro said. He was suddenly at Swan’s shoulder. ‘I order you.’

Swan smiled innocently at his victim. ‘Well,’ he said.

‘I will have you killed,’ the young man said.

Swan nodded. ‘That only proves the coward part,’ he said. ‘The liar, the fool and the poltroon are yet unproven. The cuckold—’

‘Thomas!’ Alessandro said.

Swan realised that he had enjoyed himself. He bowed. ‘At your service, gentlemen,’ he said.

He backed away, and walked to the boat.

One of the youths threw a clod of mud. It missed, and Swan smiled. ‘Boys,’ he said.

Alessandro shrugged. ‘We lived,’ he said. ‘They’re about a year younger than you.’

‘Care to tell me what that was about?’ Swan asked.

Alessandro looked at him for a long minute. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I think I should teach you to fence.’

The duel made him a three-day-wonder at the tavern. People knew about it before he got back. Joanna, the tavern slut, threw him admiring glances, and young men swaggered more when they were close to him.

Cesare sat with him drinking wine, a few nights later. ‘You’ll get yourself killed,’ he said.

Swan made a face. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

Cesare laughed, and so did Giannis. ‘You are young, and think you will live for ever,’ Giannis said.

‘Yes,’ admitted Swan.

Cesare leaned forward. ‘You weren’t like this in France,’ he said.

Swan sat back. ‘It is hard to explain,’ he said. ‘I see the fear in their eyes – and it makes me . . . an animal.’

Giannis nodded. ‘I know it,’ he said.

‘And they were all rich boys. I grew up hating rich boys. When I was a royal page—’ He paused.

Cesare shrugged. ‘Tell us how you became a royal page.’

Swan held out his cup. ‘If this avatar of Aphrodite come to earth will refill my wine cup, I will tell everything.’

‘How’s your money holding out?’ asked Cesare in Latin.

‘Well enough. Why?’ Swan answered.

‘We’re here at least two more weeks. And I’d like to play cards.’ Cesare smiled at the serving girl, whose pockmarked face was not quite that of an avatar of Aphrodite. But she smiled well enough, and poured them wine from a pitcher.

‘Here?’ asked Swan. Giannis had taught him to play piquet, but he’d never yet played for money.

‘No!’ Cesare said. ‘Tell your story.’

Swan rocked his head back and forth. There, for good or ill, were his friends. He was tired of trying to be mysterious. ‘My mother owned – owns – a tavern in London.’ He shrugged. ‘Shall I tell you the truth?’ Neither of them looked appalled – indeed, Giannis looked . . . relieved. As if low birth made him more of a man, and not less. ‘I think she was a whore.’

Giannis looked shocked.

Cesare laughed. ‘Mine too!’ he said.