Palewski watched as Maria licked a trace of ice cream from her upper lip.
A slow procession of barges with rust-colored sails was making its way along the Giudecca. Foreign, seagoing ships were rare; Palewski thought of the great three-masted schooners and the frigates that often crowded the Bosphorus at home. Here, the shipping was strictly local: flatboats from the lagoon, island ferries rowed by four men with long sweeps, a huge, covered burchiello, or passenger barge, and a shoal of smaller craft-wherries, skiffs, and the occasional gondola-dotted the smooth blue water, sparkling breezily in the late afternoon light.
On the Zattere, the passeggiata had already begun. Couples strolled along arm in arm, their children zigzagging around them through the crowd; old men tapped their canes over the cobblestones, stopping now and then to admire the view or to hail a friend; knots of young men, with toppers tilted at rakish angles, lounged on the bridges; the ubiquitous gray uniforms of Austrian officers; a matron sailing by with two young women in tow, casting furtive glances at the loafers.
Palewski shifted his glance from Maria’s lips and observed a ragged girl with a tray of matches working her way through the tables. He felt in his pocket for a small coin.
Then he froze.
“Maria!” he whispered urgently. “Kiss me!”
Maria turned her head and smiled coquettishly. “Not here, silly.”
Palewski bent his head. It had been the most fleeting glimpse-he could not be sure. Compston in Venice? But why ever not? The young Byronist-it was exactly where one would expect to find him, with the British embassy in Istanbul in summer recess. At least-if it were Compston-he’d not been spotted. He hadn’t even met his eye.
Yet Palewski’s glance, however light, must have somehow left an impress, for seconds later a meaty hand descended on Palewski’s shoulder.
“I say, Excellency! This is too fantastic!”
Looking up with a grim smile, Palewski saw a shock of yellow hair crammed under a top hat, and beneath it the open, ruddy face of the third secretary to Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to the Sublime Porte.
“Compston,” he snapped, in low tones. “I am not here. You didn’t see me.”
The young man blinked.
And then, to Palewski’s horror, there were three of them.
“Found a friend, George?” Another Englishman, also fair, slightly older than Compston: Ben Fizerly. Fizerly registered Maria’s appearance and goggled. “Er, friends, I should say-why, it’s Palewski!”
They shook hands.
The third member of the group was not an Englishman. He was tall and very good-looking, with sallow skin and the faint line of a mustache across his upper lip. His eyes, like his hair, were black.
“This is Count Palewski, Tibor,” Compston said. “Count, Tibor Karolyi. He’s with the Imperial embassy in Istanbul. Um.”
Tibor’s heels clicked together, and he bowed rapidly. Compston looked embarrassed. An inkling of the situation had finally penetrated his mind.
Palewski, for his part, was thinking fast. Curse his damned fond memories, he should never have walked down the Zattere at this hour! And curse his bad luck, too. Compston on his own he could have managed; even Fizerly too. But Karolyi? Karolyi was a Hungarian. He might sympathize-but he might not. The fact that he was at the embassy, working for the Habsburg monarchy, linked him straight to the people Palewski most wanted to avoid.
“Won’t you join us, my dear fellows? Maria will be delighted to meet someone of her own age.” He gestured to the chairs, playing for time. “On his lordship’s trail, Compston?”
Compston blushed. “Venice, you know. La Serenissima and all that,” he murmured, “and, well, ahem.” He glanced over at Maria, who was sitting with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She had finished her ice cream.
Compston’s blush deepened.
“I know a man in Venice who claims he swam with Byron,” Palewski said. “Perhaps you’d like to meet him?”
Before Compston could reply, Fizerly leaned forward. “To be honest, sir, I’ve had about as much Byron as a man can take. Tibor too, I’m sure. Anyway, we’re leaving tomorrow, nine o’clock.”
“For Istanbul?”
“That’s right.”
“What a pity. Your last evening in Venice.” Palewski cocked his head. “But this is an occasion, gentlemen! Perhaps-if you’re not engaged-you will allow me to entertain you all? I have an apartment on the Grand Canal and some very good champagne.”
“I say, sir! But really, we can’t intrude-”
“No intrusion, Compston. It would be my pleasure. Waiter, hi! Grappa, if you please. Now, gentlemen, I propose a toast.” He paused, holding up one finger like a bandmaster, while the waiter set the bottle and five small glasses on the table. “For you, my dear, and for you fellows… and so: Stambouliots together!”
They drank. Palewski refilled the glasses and gave them La Serenissima, then Byron’s swim, and finally a toast to the evening that lay ahead, before the bottle was empty.
“To the gondolas, my friends!”
They walked to the landing stage, the young Englishmen flushed and animated; even Karolyi’s eyes were bright, as he cast them at Palewski’s escort.
“Maria,” Palewski said, when the two of them were settled in the leading boat. Venice, he realized, had one advantage over Istanbul, at least. “Maria, I will drop you at the Rialto.”
She gave a disappointed pout.
“But I want you to come along in an hour or so.”
“I see.”
“With a couple of your friends.”
“My friends?” She looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“Maria, my dear. I am asking you to arrange a simple, traditional Venetian orgy.”