“Why would he help you? A cutthroat like him?”

Her whole face lit up, as she leaned forward to whisper to him. “He’s sweet on me.”

“Lord!” he moaned. “There’s no safety in that!”

“I have to take the chance on it,” she said, her eyes still bright. “He’s the only chance I’ve got.”

“Look,” he said. “If you go in there, with or without him, sweet or not, I won’t be able to get you out. I’ll have to sail without you. Don’t think I’ll be any help because I won’t be, I can’t be. Your uncle is almost certainly dead already, God rest his soul. And I can’t take that news back to your mother and tell her you’re gone too.”

She gritted her teeth. “I’m doing it,” she said. “I’m going in there.”

The fight went out of him in a muttered curse and he turned back to the Italian who was waiting at the head of the gangplank, watching the quay below where a load of carpets was being noisily valued and crated for export.

“I hear you’re a reformed character,” the Captain said bluntly to him. “Transformed by love. Sweet on her?”

“Is that what you think?” Felipe asked Sarah, a laugh in his voice.

She met his gaze. “Yes, I do. Is it not true?”

“Sweet?” he confirmed the English word. “You mean to tell him that I am in love with you?”

She shot him a flirtatious glance. “Not yet,” she said carefully. “It’s as if you’re disposed to fall in love with me.”

He nodded. “That’s quite right. I am disposed to it, Miss Jolie. And you? Are you sweet on me?”

“If you could do this some other time,” the Captain interrupted. “I could get on with loading my ship.”

Sarah dragged her gaze from Felipe and giggled. “I’m sorry. Of course. I’ll just take my papers and we’ll change my passport.”

“I’ll follow behind you,” Captain Shore promised her. “I’ll see you in. I’ll wait outside. If you’re not out within the hour, I’ll go to the English ambassador.”

“What can he do?” Signor Russo asked with interest.

“Nothing,” Captain Shore said miserably. “As you very well know. But he’s the only man in the whole of this city who ought to take an interest in this woman—young enough to be my daughter—walking into that circle of hell. And you taking her. What’s to say you’re not arresting her and getting the bounty for her innocent neck?”

“This innocent neck was certainly born to be hanged,” Felipe told him. “And besides, we are all agreed I am sweet on her. Have you got her false papers?”

Captain Shore opened the ship’s log and handed Sarah’s papers over.

“First we’ll correct them at the Custom House and then we’ll go up to the palace.”

“Aye,” the Captain said. “And pray God you come strolling back again. I’ll come to the gate, and watch for her to come out, God spare her. And to watch you.” Sarah and Felipe went down the gangplank, and as the Captain followed he muttered under his breath. “And I’m not the only one that hopes they arrest you and fling you down somewhere very deep.”

* * *

Correcting the papers was easy with Felipe Russo’s fluent explanation about Sarah concealing her name until she could claim his help. “A friend of the family,” he murmured as the papers were stamped and sealed with wax.

The three of them took a traghetto across the canal, and then walked, with Captain Shore trailing behind, to the entrance to the Doge’s Palace. Sarah gave a little shudder as the shadow of the great gateway fell on her, and Felipe took her elbow and guided her in.

“Here to see His Excellency Giordano,” he said pleasantly. “Signor Russo and a guest.”

The clerk at the gatehouse entered their names in a register and stamped a pass. “You know where to go?” he asked.

“Of course, we are old friends,” Felipe said, and guided Sarah across the courtyard, through the double doors, and up a marble staircase.

“Are all these rooms prisons?” she whispered.

He laughed, his voice echoing on the quiet stair. “Oh! No! These are all offices. A thousand clerks work here like maggots in cheese, reporting on everything: trade, plague, religion, inventions, people, gold, Ottomans (we keep a watch on the Ottomans for the rest of the world), silks, sea currents, heresies. Whatever there is in the Republic we watch it and note it and report on it. The Council of Ten know everything there is to be known, and their advice to the Doge guides his decision, which is never wrong.”

“It was wrong when they arrested my uncle,” Sarah said stoutly, though she was unsteady on her feet with fear.

“The advice was wrong then,” Signor Russo agreed. “My advice, actually. But the Doge cannot be wrong. Remember that. It’s illegal to say he is.”

Sarah paused and looked at him incredulously.

“Remember it,” was all he said.

“What will they do to you?” Sarah asked nervously as they climbed up and up the stairs. “For bad advice?”

“Oh, they’ll make me rewrite my report,” he said casually. “And set me to capture the real murderer.”

“I hadn’t thought of that!” She suddenly paused. “The Nobildonna’s husband was truly murdered? So there is a real murderer out there?”

“Almost certainly,” he said nonchalantly. “Come on now. They know how long it takes to get from the gate to the office, we can’t be late.”

“They’re watching us now?”

His face was completely serious as he nodded to the darkened internal windows all along the corridor. “Oh yes. They are watching us now.”

DECEMBER 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

Ned set off early up the road of snow to the minister’s house, with only some dried fruit in a little box in his basket. He did not want to stop on the way for trade or conversation, he was haunted by what Wussausmon had told him, that the English had been guided to their New World by men who named themselves devils. He was desperate to talk to the minister, to confirm that it was God’s will that the English came to the New World, that it was their destiny, Ned’s own destiny, to conquer the land and to show the rest of the world what a divinely inspired nation could be.

He timed his visit for the morning prayer meeting in the minister’s home. He wanted to hear the simple clarity of the prayers, he wanted to hear the long sermon. Since it was winter and everyone had work to do, John Russell kept to the point: these were the hardest days in a hard year, the darkest of nights in uncertain times, God was guiding them, they must never doubt but that God was with them.

“Amen,” John concluded the prayers, and said good-bye to his congregation as they went out into the cold.

Ned paused in the hall. “Minister, I have doubts,” he said very quietly.

“God be with you, Ned. Doubts come from the devil,” John Russell replied simply. “Do you doubt that you are elect, one of God’s chosen?”

“No,” Ned said uncertainly. “I am doubting our mission here, my work in the world.”