"I'll have your liver on a plate!" Balda.s.sarre hissed through clenched teeth. He pulled his sword from its scabbard. His friends cleared a s.p.a.ce for the fight, pushing back the other patrons and knocking benches away to form a rough circle. The noise in the tavern dimmed slightly, then rose again to its previous level. Fights were nothing if not frequent in Venice.

Galileo stood slowly, tankard clenched in his hand. He'd been in situations like this too often not to know what the best course of action was. "Did your mother never wean you from her milk?' he said. 'You don't appear to be able to handle your drink like a man."

The tip of Balda.s.sarre's sword waved back and forth in front of Galileo's nose. "I can handle any drink you throw at me," he sneered.

"Then let's put that to the test." Galileo suddenly threw the contents of his tankard at Balda.s.sarre. The crimson liquid caught the youth full in the face. Spluttering, he tried to wipe his eyes with his sleeve, almost skewering one of his companions with his sword as he did so. The rest of the youths rushed forward to help.

Galileo took advantage of the distraction to take a couple of steps backwards, out of the nominal circle of the fight. Time to make his excuses and leave. He turned towards the door, but a choking noise from behind stopped him.

Balda.s.sarre's body was twitching like a man in the grip of St Virus's Dance. Foam frothed from his lips and splattered the floor around his contused head. His eyes were starting from their sockets. One hand rose up, clenched as if to grasp something that only he could see, and then he slumped back lifelessly to the floor.

It was all over in a handful of seconds.

Instinct took over, and Galileo was out of the door and halfway down the alley before anybody thought to turn around and look for him.

"Keep going. Only a few moments more," the Doctor encouraged.

"Perhaps those people on the embankment are waiting to meet us." As Steven turned to glance at the approaching fire-lit scene he noticed the way the flames emphasized the cruel smile on the Doctor's face.

There was a sudden jar as the dinghy hit wood, and the Doctor and Vicki were scrambling past him and onto the nearest jetty.

"Don't mention it," he muttered as he levered himself up on paralysed arms. "Glad I could help."

Stone steps led up the side of the embankment to the promenade on top. Even Steven, tired as he was, felt something stir in his chest at the scene that greeted him. The travellers were standing between two stone pillars. Before them, the light from the flaming torches illuminated a square that was halfway between a market and a carnival. Women in long dresses and men in elaborately brocaded costumes paraded between stalls that sold food, clothes, animals, statues and all manner of other objects. The smells of wood smoke, cooked meat, overripe fruit and rotting vegetables made Steven's stomach rumble. The people and the stalls were set against a backdrop of elaborately arched and colonnaded stone buildings, each a masterpiece of architecture jostling with its neighbours for attention. To their left was a small building attached to a tall tower of red brick. Shouts and laughter echoed back and forth between the buildings, the individual words blending together to form a mlange mlange of sound. of sound.

"St Mark's Square," the Doctor proclaimed. "Birthplace of my old friend Marco Polo, and the gateway for trade and travel between Europe and the mysterious Orient."

Vicki nudged Steven's arm. "Somebody's seen us," she whispered, pointing towards a knot of men who were approaching them.

"Don't worry," the Doctor said, "I'm sure they mean us no harm."

He stepped forward as the men approached. "I am the Doctor," he proclaimed. "Perhaps you are expecting me."

One of the men stepped forward. He was small but broad-shouldered, and he was bald. His face held a cynical expression.

"By the power invested in me by the Doge of Venice and by the Council of Ten," he growled, "I arrest you as Turkish spies."

"Wait!" the Doctor cried imperiously. He raised one hand in admonition. Behind his back he was making urgent gestures to his companions. "Is this how you treat visitors to this great city? Well, is it? I mean, what's the world coming to when travellers cannot come and go freely, as and when they wish?"

What did those gesticulations mean? Steven wondered. Run?

Hide? Attack the guards? Perhaps the Doctor's earlier companions, Ian and Barbara, would have understood instantly, but Steven hadn't known the Doctor for long enough to be able to interpret him.

The bald guard frowned. "Step forward," he said, "into the light."

The Doctor did as he was instructed, and the frown on the guard's face was replaced by an expression of confusion, and embarra.s.sment.

"Cardinal Bellarmine!" he cried, kneeling on the stone esplanade.

"We didn't... I mean, we weren't... "

The Doctor's face froze for a moment. "Expecting us?" he said finally, smiling. "No, that is perfectly apparent, isn't it? Well, the journey from... the journey went quicker than we had expected.

And this is how you greet us!"

"Who's Cardinal Bellarmine?" Vicki hissed from beside Steven.

"I've got no idea," he whispered. "And I don't think the Doctor has either. I just hope he knows what he's doing."

"And do you know why I'm here?" the Doctor continued, waving the guard to his feet. "What is your name, by the way?"

"Speroni, your eminence. Speroni Speroni. I am the Lord of the Night watch for St Mark's Square and the local area."

"Of course you are, of course you are." The Doctor turned and waved Steven and Vicki closer. At least, Steven reflected, that gesture was unambiguous. "And these are my travelling companions, Steven Taylor and Vicki... ah, yes... Vicki. Now, you were about to tell me what you were told about my mission."

"Indeed." Speroni looked dazed, like a man who had been suddenly overtaken by events and couldn't catch up. "I was informed that you would be arriving as representative of the Vatican to question Galileo Galilei on the invention he claims to have made, but I wasn't... I mean, I a.s.sumed - we all did - that you would be travelling in your robes and accompanied by a full retinue of guards -"

The Doctor gazed questioningly at him. "Galileo's invention?"

"The spygla.s.s," Speroni prompted, frowning. "The device with which distant objects might be made closer."

"Vatican? Galileo? Spygla.s.s?" A smile crossed his face, and he turned briefly to Steven and Vicki. "Ah, then this must be the year of our Lord, 1609," he said for their benefit, nodding as if he had known this all the time. He turned back to Speroni. "Perhaps you could escort us to our rooms. I presume that they are ready?"

Speroni caught the eye of one of his men, and jerked his head.

The man ran off, his boots clattering on the stone. "They are," he confirmed, flushing slightly. "Perhaps we could aid you with your baggage, your eminence?"

"My... Oh. Ah, yes. We don't have any baggage. Lost at sea, dear chap, along with my robes and the rest of my retinue. Lost at sea."

He smiled paternally at Speroni, who was scratching his head in puzzlement at these strangers and their antics.

"Aren't we all," Steven muttered.

Carlo Zeno tottered out of the Tavern of St Theodore and of the Crocodile and into the narrow alleyway. Turning left, he staggered towards his house. What an evening! Young Balda.s.sarre, struck down in front of his eyes. Poison, they were saying. Judging by the way his eyeb.a.l.l.s had protruded and the colour of his tongue, Zeno wasn't about to contradict them.

The alley was bisected after a few feet by a narrow ca.n.a.l. A stone bridge arced across to the other side, where the alley carried on.

Zeno staggered up the steps to the top of the bridge, trying not to lose his balance and fall into the silted, foul-smelling liquid that flowed sluggishly beneath. Too often before he had arrived back at his lodgings soaking wet and covered in excrement. He couldn't afford to ruin any more clothes.

He paused for a moment at the top of the bridge, thinking. They were saying in the tavern that it was Galileo Galilei who had thrown the poisoned wine into Balda.s.sarre's face. Zeno wasn't so sure. He didn't like his lodger, that much was certain, but Galileo's burly form was more suited to a bludgeon than to poison. And he wasn't Venetian, either. Poison came naturally to Venetians. When the Pope's agents had struck down Friar Sarpi and left a dagger sticking out of his cheekbone, the doctors had plunged it into a dog to test what type of poison had been used. So surprised were they when the dog showed no sign of poisoning that they plunged it into a chicken as well. When the chicken didn't die, they knew it couldn't have been a Venetian that carried out the attack. And what about that writer - the one who was fed a poisoned communion wafer by the priest of the church of the Misericordia?

Poison was a Venetian weapon, for sure.

A sudden, urgent pressure in his bladder interrupted his thoughts.

d.a.m.n that Grimani: his wine went through a man's guts faster than a stream down a hill, and probably didn't taste much worse going out than it had done going in. He wasn't sure that he could wait until he got home.

Taking a quick look either way along the ca.n.a.l for moving boats, he quickly tugged at the lacing on his breeches and began to urinate over the edge of the bridge and into the ca.n.a.l beneath.

Within seconds a feeling of blessed relief spread through his body.

Something made a wet choking sound beneath the bridge. Zeno cursed to himself. Just his luck if a pair of lovers had parked their gondola beneath the bridge for privacy. "Your pardon!" he called out. "I didn't see you there!"

His hands fumbled with the laces of his breeches as he stumbled to the far side of the ca.n.a.l. He thought he could hear noises from the water line. Perhaps whoever had been on the receiving end of his emissions had taken offence, and wished to inflict punishment.

Turning, he saw a dark shape rising from the water and onto the side of the ca.n.a.l. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, extending his hands in supplication. "I didn't mean to give offence." His drink-befuddled brain wondered why the figure was so silent. And so thin. "Whatever is within my power to do to make amends, I will -"

The words died in his throat as the figure stepped forward into the pool of moonlight. As slender as a branch, its skin was blue and rough, and its head, no bigger than a knot of wood, tapered into a single horn that erupted from the centre of its forehead and swept up and back to a sharp point. It turned its k.n.o.b-like head and gazed at Zeno from a tiny red eye.

"What manner of demon are are you?' gasped Zeno. The demon said nothing. Zeno took a step backwards as its head lowered until the point of its horn was pointed directly at his chest. "Begone, sp.a.w.n of the Devil!" he shouted, more in desperation than in hope, but the demon sprang forward. Zeno tried to dive to one side, but he was too slow. The demon's twig-like claws were grasping his shoulders, pushing him back against the brickwork of the nearest house. you?' gasped Zeno. The demon said nothing. Zeno took a step backwards as its head lowered until the point of its horn was pointed directly at his chest. "Begone, sp.a.w.n of the Devil!" he shouted, more in desperation than in hope, but the demon sprang forward. Zeno tried to dive to one side, but he was too slow. The demon's twig-like claws were grasping his shoulders, pushing him back against the brickwork of the nearest house.

There was a terrible grinding, tearing sensation in his chest, and he felt the jar as its horn ground against the brick behind him. He was still trying to work out what had happened, where his life had suddenly turned off the path he thought it had been following and into the shadows, when he felt a pressure on his shoulders as the demon's claws pressed him back. The thin horn, slicked red with his blood, pulled free from his flesh, and the pain was sudden and terrible.

He fell to his knees, his life-blood splattering and steaming on the cobbles in front of him. As he looked up imploringly at the demon that stood before him, it shimmered for a moment, as if he was seeing it in a puddle of water, and then he was looking at a man, an ordinary man, of medium height and unremarkable appearance.

And he died happy, knowing that his soul had not been taken by a demon, and that he had somehow mistaken an ordinary murderer for a monster.

CHAPTER THREE.

"Well, I wish that we were always greeted like this," Steven said, gazing around the room at the ornate carpets, the life-sized frescoes of biblical scenes and the furniture with its carved legs and delicately embroidered upholstery.

Vicki dived onto a silk-cushioned sedan. "Isn't it wonderful!" she cried. "I could happily live on this thing forever."

"It's acceptable, I suppose," the Doctor sniffed. He crossed to a long wooden cabinet and opened a door at random. "But I've been to planets where furnishings this basic would be considered an insult." Reaching inside, he brought out a bottle of wine. "Then again, I suppose it does have its advantages."

"I'm not complaining," Steven said. He walked over to the window.

Beyond the leaded gla.s.s he could see the wooden jetty that they had landed beside, and the square across which they had been escorted. "What's this place called again, Doctor?"

"The city is called Venice, my boy, and this building is called the Doge's Palace. We have been mistaken for persons of high rank."

He reached into the cupboard again and retrieved a wine gla.s.s.

"So who is this Cardinal Bellarmine, then?"

Behind him, a soft snore could be heard. Steven and the Doctor both turned, to see Vicki curled up on the sedan, fast asleep.

"Poor dear," the Doctor said. "It's been a long day for her. She deserves her sleep." He turned his face back to Steven. "Now, where was I? Oh yes - Cardinal Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmine, general of the Jesuit Order, Consultor of the Holy Office and Master of Controversial Questions at the Vatican. I a.s.sume that is who I have been mistaken for. Although many believe him to have been behind Guy Fawkes's attempt to blow up the English Parliament, he will be made a Saint in, oh let me see, some three hundred years time." The Doctor frowned. "Hmm, I must admit to a slight worry. Being mistaken for an emissary of the Pope in Venice in 1609 is, perhaps, not the safest thing that could have happened."

"Why not?" Steven asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "Religion is never an easy thing to explain. Where do I start. Let me see... " He furrowed his brow, thinking, then raised a finger aloft. "Yes, I do believe that it began three years ago when two priests visiting Venice were charged with various things, including murder, by the Venetian authorities.

They were locked up in the dungeons in this very building -"

"Dungeons?" Steven asked, but the Doctor kept talking.

"- and the Doge of Venice threatened to have them put on trial in a secular court, rather than an ecclesiastical one. Tried by the people, not by the Church, if you like."

"And what happened?" Steven asked, more because he knew the Doctor wanted him to than because he wanted to know the answer.

"What happened? Why, the Vatican couldn't let its ecclesiastical authority go unchallenged, could it?"

"Couldn't it?" Steven couldn't see why not, but he a.s.sumed that the Doctor knew what he was talking about.

"Why no, of course not. The Pope had to have the final say on everything. So he excommunicated Venice: lock, stock and barrel."

The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Caused quite a furore, I believe. No baptisms or burials could be carried out, no ma.s.ses could be held, all marriages were dissolved and all children were declared illegitimate."

"And what happened then?" Steven was becoming interested in the story, despite himself.

"For a few months it looked as if war might break out. Spain allied itself with the Vatican and France allied itself with Venice. England, which had split away from the Catholic Church some seventy years before, made advances to Venice as well. The whole poisonous boil seemed about to erupt, but thanks to a little fancy diplomatic footwork, the two sides came to a face-saving arrangement. Honour was satisfied on both sides, and Venice was brought back into the fold."

"Oh," said Steven, disappointed. He'd been hoping for a good sc.r.a.p.

"But that is why Papal emissaries are not necessarily the most welcome visitors, even now," the Doctor continued. "Still, there are worse people to have been mistaken for. Cardinal Bellarmine is no religious fanatic, but a deeply philosophical thinker. He has a formidable mind, sharp as a pin, and he is an astronomer to boot.

I'm not surprised that he's interested in Galileo's spygla.s.s. It's right up his street, hmm?"

"And who's this Galileo that you're supposed to have come to see?" Steven said. He was getting a little lost amongst all the names and the history. "And what's a spygla.s.s?"

"Your education has been woefully neglected, my boy. We're fortunate to have arrived at such a time in your history." The Doctor frowned for a moment and patted the pocket in which he had placed the mysterious invitation. "Or perhaps luck had nothing to do with it," he added.

Irving Braxiatel stood in the centre of the room and gazed around with some pleasure at the books that lined the walls, their spines facing inward as was the custom. The collection was complete. In this room he had every single book that was on the Index of the Catholic Church. They were banned knowledge, books considered too dangerous to read, but such books were, in the end, the most precious. Censorship illuminated perfectly the directions in which any civilization would advance. And knowledge was power, of course.

He smiled to himself. Knowledge was his speciality. He collected it a.s.siduously. It was his most profound desire to have all of the knowledge in the Universe in one place at one time: a huge Library that any member of any intelligent race could consult without let or hindrance. A dream, of course, but an achievable one. His own race collected knowledge, but as an end in itself, and they never shared it, not even if by doing so they could avert catastrophe and save lives.

Braxiatel believed that perfect knowledge led to peace, and so he had left his people and travelled, seeking out obscure facts to add to his vast and comprehensive database. His presence on Earth, in Venice, was on other business, but he hoped to make a small start here by collecting together works of fact and fiction that would otherwise be burned. Perhaps, at some stage in the planet's future, he might return and see what had become of the Braxiatel Collection.

He took off his bifocal spectacles and polished them with a handkerchief. What was it that Friar Sarpi had called the Index earlier that evening, when he brought the last of the books along?

"The first secret device religion ever invented to make men stupid."

Sarpi didn't agree with the existence of the Index, but he was a Friar when all was said and done, and couldn't be seen to disagree with the Pope's edicts. That was why Sarpi obtained the books in secret and pa.s.sed them to Braxiatel. To preserve them. To keep their knowledge alive.

"Excuse me, sir."

Braxiatel turned. Cremonini, his manservant, was standing in the doorway. "Yes, what is it?"

"A visitor, sir."

"I'm not receiving anybody tonight. Send them away."