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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