Leaning a little heavily upon his cane, he took his way across the Merceria, where all was life and bustle, where traders bawled their wares in the narrow streets and haggling buyers were scarcely less vociferous, yet all of them jocular and good-humoured under the clear spring sky. He made brisk progress notwithstanding a lingering weakness, an elegant figure that took the eye. But by the time he reached the Piazza he was conscious of fatigue, and his brow was damp under his three-cornered hat.
It was the hour when the great square was most crowded, and today the throng of loungers seemed to him more dense than usual, and also a great deal less joyous than he had ever seen it.
A file of Slavonian soldiers guarded the approaches of the Ducal Palace.
Already there had been one or two demonstrations against the Signory, and in the palace they were fearful of a conflagration in material which from being normally docile now gave signs of having become highly inflammable.
Officers from the various regiments quartered about the city, displaying the blue-and-gold cockade of Venice, were numerous among the saunterers. They mingled freely with the idle men and women, drawn to the open perhaps by the precocious geniality of the weather and the anxiety for news of which this was the great mart. It was a crowd sobered by suspense.
Conscious now of lassitude, and with his problem still unsolved, Marc-Antoine found himself a table at Florian's, in the open, and sat down to remove his hat and mop his heated brow. He ordered himself a bavaroise and he had begun to sip it when he was aware of a presence at his elbow. He looked up to find there a stocky figure in rusty black. A pair of beady eyes regarded him out of the yellow vulturine face of Cristofero Cristofoli, the confidente of the inquisitors of state.
The Venetian, smiling upon him with a certain grimness, greeted him in terms which showed him to be startlingly well-informed. 'I rejoice to see you in health and abroad again. My felicitations. We have been anxious for you. May I sit?' He drew up a chair, and sank to it without waiting for permission. 'Thus we shall be less conspicuous. I suffer from being too well known.'
'At present,' said Marc-Antoine, 'you suffer also from being uninvited. I am flattered by your concern for my health. But I do not think my reputation will profit by your presence.'
Cristofoli sighed. 'That is the common complaint against me. But you do me an injustice. Knowing how little my society is desired, I never inflict it unless I have business.'
Marc-Antoine veiled his annoyance. 'Can it be my misfortune that you have business with me?'
'Do not let us regard it as a misfortune—yet.'
'When I know the business I shall be able to judge.' He sipped his bavaroise.
Cristofoli's beady eyes watched him stolidly. 'You keep to your native drinks even here in Venice,' he observed. 'Habit is hard to repress.'
Marc-Antoine set down his glass. 'You are mistaken. The bavaroise is not an English drink.'
'Oh, I am aware of that. But not that you are English. And that brings me to my business with you.' He leaned across the little table, and lowered his voice, an unnecessary and merely instinctive precaution, for there was no one in their immediate neighbourhood. 'Messer, the inquisitors of state desire to resolve a doubt upon this very question of your nationality.'
Marc-Antoine's annoyance deepened. This was a silly, vexatious waste of time and effort. It was of a piece with everything that he had seen of this Venetian Government, which spent itself in futilities whilst doing nothing to guard against the forces that were sapping the foundations of the State. But he preserved his calm on the surface.
'I shall be happy to assist them whenever they desire it.'
The apparitor's smile approved him. 'No time like the present. If you will accompany me, I shall have the honour of conducting you.'
Marc-Antoine looked at him sternly. Cristofoli grinned again.
'There are three of my men over there, and if they were to employ force it would create a scene. I am sure you would wish to avoid that.' He got up. 'Shall we be going, sir?'
Marc-Antoine did not even hesitate. He beckoned the waiter, paid for his bavaroise, and with an impeccably calm demeanour over a raging spirit, sauntered off with the tipstaff.
Past the soldiers guarding the Porta della Carta, they came into the Ducal courtyard, where a half-battalion of Slavonians bivouacked about the great bronze well-heads. They ascended the staircase over which Sansovino's giants presided, and then, by the noble external gallery, came to another staircase at the foot of which there was a guard. They ascended again, and continued to ascend until Marc-Antoine, out of breath, found himself on the top-most floor of the Ducal Palace, where the Prison of the Leads was situated.
