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elbow.
    Conrad collected himself, halting at the coach door. “What about Spinelli, and my man?”
    The Chief of Police rocked back on a heel, one of his now-stained fingersgrasping the scroll. He didn’t look over his shoulder, but a flick of his eyes directed Conrad’s gaze.
    Two of the attending police officers stood either side of JohnJack Spinelli, and—as he looked—another two arrived either side of Tullio Rossi.
    â€œI don’t believe there’s cause to worry.” Luigi held the coach door open, waiting until Conrad gave way and climbed in.
    â€œI hope you’re right— uff!”
    Conrad sat down abruptly on the forward-facing seat, having enough trouble balancing himself and an armful of chains without the dip of the carriage’s springs.
    Luigi Esposito stared at the growing crowd in the chilly Spring morning. The group of Dominicans began to break up. Esposito swung himself into the opposite seat and called up to the coachman, “Move off!”
    Conrad peered out through the cramped window, raising his voice over hollow hoof-beats and the creak of tack. “It looks as if they’ve let them go?”
    â€œI may—” The Police Chief had a fine air of innocence. “— may have heard some rumour of the Church being involved this morning. And if I had heard that, I would surely have brought the on-duty shift with me, even if you don’t presently see them all. They might be waiting by the friars’ coach, to relieve them of any prisoners for which they don’t have specific written authorisation…”
    Conrad took the stained paper Luigi held out, and scanned it hastily. “This is their official Order of Arrest? No one’s mentioned here by name except me.”
    â€œEr—exactly.”
    The Chief of Police wedged his shoulder into one padded corner of the coach, and crossed his legs, enabling himself to take on an attitude of careless aristocratic inefficiency. Viscardo would only be the latest in a long line to be fooled by it.
    â€œBy the time they come back with a revised warrant, I believe your man and your friend will know enough to be elsewhere…”
    Conrad sat back on the carriage seat, relief unstringing him. “I think you can trust Tullio and JohnJack for that.”
    He rested his chains down in his lap, wrenching his badly-tied cravat loose enough that he could breathe. In the sunlight as they drove across the city, he could see that his knee-breeches were dusty, and one wool stocking was badly laddered.
    â€œI can’t attend a court occasion looking like this!”
    â€œNo time to sort you out, unfortunately.” Luigi winced and offered another clean silk handkerchief. “You’re still in knee-britches from the opera last night, and it’s before noon… But never mind the social niceties. It’s an informal audience, not a full court presentation.”
    Dabbing at his clothes didn’t make them look any less like he’d been rolling around on the floor in them, Conrad decided.
    Luigi demonstrated an apparent expertise at reading the physical signs of tension. “His Majesty was anxious enough to get hold of you this morning that I don’t think he’d notice if you turned up stark bollock naked…”
    Conrad snorted. He held himself back from too-relieved laughter with an effort. The wind brought the scents and sounds of Naples as they rattled down a hill: a great conglomeration of breakfast cooking on street-sellers’ booths, and beasts of burden being loaded for the day, and the citizens—as usual—loudly conducting all their business in the street, no matter that the morning had no more than a touch of spring in it.
    â€œI thought your Parigi went off particularly well last night, Conrad.”
    Approbation for his opera made Conrad breathless with happiness. All the same…
    Luigi’s fishing .
    Predictably. Nine-tenths of