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almost like a pinnacle, crowded with people, laden with little stalls and shops. There was a constant stream of pedestrians walking up the stairs on one side and down the other, pausing to shop, stopping to buy, leaning on the high parapet to watch the ships go underneath, arguing the prices, changing their money. The whole bridge was a shimmer of colour and noise.
    The square of San Giacomo, just beside the bridge, was lined with the tall houses of the merchants. All the nations of Christendom, and many of the infidel, were shown by their own flag and the national costume of the men doing business at the windows and doorway. Next to them stood the great houses of the Venetian banking families, the front doors standing open for business, absurdly costumed people coming and going, trading and buying in all seriousness, though dressed as if they were strolling players, with great plumed hats on their heads and bright jewelled masks on their faces.
    In the square itself the bankers and gold merchants had their tables laid out all around the colonnade, one to every arch, and were trading in coin, promises and precious metals. When money was changing hands the masks were laid aside, as each client wanted to look his banker in the eye. Among them were Ottoman traders, their brightly coloured turbans and gorgeous robes as beautiful as any costume. Venice had all but captured the trade of the Ottoman Empire and the wealth of the East flowed into Europe across the Venice traders’ tables. There was no other route to the East, there was no easy navigable way to Russia. Venice was at the very centre of world trade and the riches of east and west, north and south poured into it from every side.
    ‘The Rialto,’ Luca reminded Freize. ‘This is where that infidel, Radu Bey, said that there was a priest, Father Pietro, who ransoms Christian slaves from the galleys of the Ottomans. This is it, this is the bridge, this is where he said. Perhaps Father Pietro is here now, perhaps I will be able to ransom my father and mother.’
    ‘We’ll come out as soon as we are settled in our house,’ Freize promised him. ‘But Sparrow, you will remember that the Ottoman gentleman, Radu Bey, seems to be the sworn enemy of the lord who commands your Order, and he, himself, did not exactly inspire me with trust.’
    Luca laughed. ‘I know. You do right to warn me. But Freize, you know I would take advice from the devil himself if I thought I could get my father and mother back home. Just to see them again! Just to know they were alive.’
    Freize put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And they will have missed you too – they have missed your growing up. If we can find them and buy them out of slavery it will be a great thing. I am just saying – don’t get your hopes up too high. They were captured by the Ottoman slavers and it was an Ottoman general who told us that we might buy them back. Just because he was well-read and spoke fair to you does not make him a friend.’
    ‘Ishraq liked him too, and she’s a good judge of character,’ Luca objected.
    A shadow crossed Freize’s honest face. ‘Ishraq liked him better than she liked the lord of your Order,’ he told Luca. ‘I wouldn’t trust her judgement with the foreign lord myself. I don’t know what game he was playing with her when he spoke to her in Arabic that only she could understand. Come to that, I don’t know what game she was playing when she swore to me that he said nothing.’
    ‘And here is your palazzo,’ the boatman remarked. ‘Ca’ de Longhi, just west of the Piazza San Marco, very nice.’
    ‘A palace?’ Isolde exclaimed. ‘We have hired a palace?’
    ‘All the grand houses on the canal are palaces, though they are all called Casa – only the Doge’s house is called a palace,’ the boatman explained. ‘And the reason for that, is that they are each and every one of them, the most beautiful palaces ever built in the