"That's really unprecedented," Aretino said. "You're going to prove that luck and chance rule men's lives, rather than moral observances."

"That's what I intend," Azzie said. "That's the whole point of Evil: proving that the weaker case is best. What do you think of my moral, Aretino?"

Aretino shrugged. "Chance rules? It's the sort of reflection that weak men love."

"Good. It will win us a big audience."

"If that is what you want," Aretino said, "I have no objections to it. Whether I serve Bad or Good, everything I write is propaganda and special pleading. You are paying for this play, after all. I am merely the artist accepting the commission. If you want a play demonstrating that green gallstones bring May flowers, pay me and I'll write it for you. The big question is, do you like my idea?"

"I love it!" Azzie cried. "We must get started on it immediately."

Aretino said, "We'll need to consider what theater to use. That always makes a difference in the way I block out my scenes. Have you any particular actors and actresses in mind? If not, there are several I could recommend."

Azzie leaned back in his chair and laughed. Dancing flames from the nearby fireplace cast sharp shadows across his narrow fox face. He brushed back his orange hair and said, "I think I have not made my ideas clear to you, Pietro. What I plan is no ordinary play such as is put on in the porches of the churches or in places of public a.s.sembly. I'll have no hired actors mouth their lines and make a laughingstock of my conception. No! I really will pick ordinary men and women for the job, people whose own desires and fears will lend verisimilitude to the parts they play. And rather than a raised stage with painted scenery, I'll give them the world itself to work out their dramas on. My seven pilgrims will act out the story as though they were living it, which of course they will be. The stories will tell what befalls each pilgrim after he gets the golden candlestick, and each tale will be different. Like the Decameron, you see, or the Canterbury Tales, but finer since it will be the product of your pen, my dear maestro." Aretino executed a small bow. "Our actors will act as if they were in real life," Azzie went on, "and they will not know that there is an audience watching, namely ourselves."

"Be a.s.sured I'll not tell them," Aretino said. He clapped his hands and his servant came in sleepily with a tray of stale pet.i.t fours. Azzie took one to be polite to his host, although he rarely used human food. He preferred such traditional h.e.l.lish dishes as candied rats' heads and thorax stew, or a human haunch nicely browned and served up with plenty of crackling. But this was Venice, not h.e.l.l, and he took what he got.

After refreshment, Aretino yawned and stretched and went to a nearby room to wash his face in a basin of water. When he returned he took half a dozen new candles out of a cupboard and set them alight. Azzie's eyes glowed in the dancing light, and his fur seemed charged with electricity. Aretino sat down opposite him again and said, "If your stage is the world, who will be the real audience? Where on Earth can you seat them?"

"My play will be for all time," Azzie told him. "My main audience isn't even alive yet. I create, Pietro, for the future generations who will be edified by our play. It is for them we labor."

Aretino was trying to be practical - no small trick for an Italian gentleman of the Renaissance. He sat forward, this big rumpled bear of a man with a large nose and high coloring, and said, "So I would not actually write the play?"

"No," Azzie told him, "the players will have to contrive their own lines. But you will be privy to all the actions and conversations, you will see and hear all their reactions to events, and from that you will weave a play that can be performed for future generations. The first time through, however, will belong to the world of legend, for this is how myth is formed."

"It is a n.o.ble conception," Aretino said. "Please do not think me critical if I confess that I perceive a difficulty or two.

"Name them!"

"I am a.s.suming that our actors, no matter where they begin, will come at last to Venice bearing their candlesticks."

"That is how I visualize it," Azzie said. "First, I want to commission your tale of the seven candles as the basis for my tale." Azzie withdrew a small but heavy sack from his wallet and handed it to Aretino.

"I think you will find this sufficient for your start-up costs. There's more where this came from. All you have to do is write down the basic story line. You will not write the actual dialogue, remember. Our actors, whom I will choose, will do that for themselves. You will watch and listen to them, and be stage manager and coproducer with me. Later you will write your own play on this subject."

"I love the idea, my lord. But if you take a simulacrum of Venice and move it elsewhere in s.p.a.ce and time, how will I get around to do what is necessary in the staging of our drama?"

"To that end," Azzie said, "through charms and talismans I will grant you the ability to move around freely in s.p.a.ce and time for purposes of looking after our production."

"And what of Venice when we have finished?" Aretino asked.

"We will slip our sequestered Venice back into the time track of the real Venice, where it will fit as neatly as a shadow fits its object. From that point onward, our legend will cease to be merely a private affair, and will become a part of universal legendry, with its actions and consequences recorded in the annals of mankind."

"My lord, I love the opportunity this gives me as an artist. Not even Dante was granted such an opportunity."

"Then get to work," Azzie said, rising. "Write me out the legend of the golden candlesticks in a fair hand. I'll see you again soon. Meanwhile I've work to do."

And he disappeared.

Aretino blinked and pa.s.sed his hand through the s.p.a.ce where Azzie had been. There was nothing there but insubstantial air. But the bag of gold Azzie had paid him was solid and comforting.

PART FOUR.

Chapter 1.

Azzie was well content when he left Aretino's house, the memory of Adam's story still tingling in his mind, but he had become aware, with that fine demon's sense that he possessed, that something was curiously amiss.

The weather had continued fine. Little feathery clouds sailed across a sky of purest azure, like galleons of snow molded by children. All around him, Venice went on with its pleasures and its labors. Heavy-laden barges filled with clothing and foodstuffs sailed slowly across the Grand Ca.n.a.l, their bluff, gaily painted bows thrusting through the low chop. A funeral barge, all glossy black and silver, slipped silently past, its varnished coffin strapped to the bow, black-clad mourners standing silently together on the afterdeck. Church bells sounded out. Crowds hurried to and fro on the promenades, and nearby a fellow came past in motley, with c.o.xcomb swaying and bells jingling, a comedian bound for an engagement at some theater, no doubt. A group of five nuns hurried by, the great white wings of their headdresses looking ready to loft them into flight. On a bollard near a line of tied-up gondolas, a large fellow dressed in white satin and wearing a broad hat sat with a sketchbook and colored chalks, trying to capture a likeness of the Ca.n.a.l.

Azzie walked over to him. "It seems we meet again."

Babriel looked up. His jaw dropped.

Azzie came around to study Babriel's sketch.

"Is it the view here that you're drawing?" he asked.

"Yes. Can't you tell?"

"I was having a little difficulty," Azzie admitted. "These lines here - "

Babriel nodded. "I know, I've gotten them wrong. This perspective matter is difficult to capture, but I thought I'd have a go at it."

Azzie squinted at it again. "It's really not bad for an amateur. I'm surprised to see you here. I thought you were going back to Heaven."

"And so I did. But Michael sent me back here to do some sketching and thus improve my understanding of European art. He sends his regards, by the way. And also inquired after the health of your friend, Aretino."

"How did you know about Aretino?"

"I saw you come out of his house. He's quite famous, of course, though most of his verses are scarcely fit for Heaven. He's notorious, too, isn't he? He was one of the Top Ten Sinners of 1523."

"Huh!" Azzie sneered. "Moralists are always prejudiced against writers who show life as it is rather than as they feel it ought to be. It happens I am a fan of Aretino. I merely went by to pay my compliments, nothing more."

Babriel stared at him. It had never occurred to him to inquire what Azzie was doing coming out of Aretino's house. But now that Azzie had called attention to it himself, the angel began to wonder. Although Michael had hinted that something untoward might be afoot, Babriel hadn't really given it much thought. Azzie was his friend, and, although he served Bad, Babriel couldn't really consider him bad.

It occurred to him for the first time that his friend probably was up to something, and that it was up to him, Babriel, to discover what it was.

They parted with expressions of mutual esteem and a promise on both their parts to do lunch again soon. Then Azzie went off down the street. Babriel stared thoughtfully after him for a while, then returned to his drawing.

Babriel returned to his hotel in the early afternoon. The four-story building sagged down on itself and seemed squeezed in by the larger buildings on either side. Half a dozen angels were staying there because Signor Amazzi, the grim and reverent owner, made a special price for those a.s.sociated with religion. Some said he knew that the quiet, well-mannered, regular-featured young people who came from some unspecified northern country to stay with him from time to time were angels. Others said he thought they were angles, repeating Pope Gregory's joke. Amazzi sat at his little desk when Babriel came in, and said to him, "There's someone waiting for you in the sitting room."

"A visitor! How nice!" said Babriel. He hurried in to see who it was.

The sitting room was cozy and small, a few feet below street level but illuminated by sunlight streaming through high narrow windows, giving it a churchly effect that the G.o.dly found pleasing. Michael the Archangel sat on a high- backed straw-seated chair off to one side, leafing through a papyrus travel brochure extolling the pleasures of upper Egypt. He closed it hastily and said, "Ah, there, Babriel! I just stopped by to see how you were getting on!"

"Oh, very well indeed, sir," Babriel said. He showed Michael his sketchbook, remarking, "I still haven't gotten on to this perspective trick, sir."