The Bellini Card

101

Yashim found himself at the mouth of a narrow alley, barred by a few planks to stop pedestrians from falling into the dredged canal.

He climbed over the barrier and peered into the gloom. The usual weak light burned at the farther end of the alley. Yashim squatted and thought he could just make out the outline of muddy footprints.

At the corner he paused to scan the ground, but the footprints were by now invisible. There were at least three directions the Tatar could have taken.

Yashim leaned against the wall and tried to think.

Somewhere in this city the assassin had a safe place. Somewhere he could sleep, and eat, and leave at will, sure of attracting no attention.

He would have gone there now. Wounded and disarmed, he needed somewhere to change his clothes, wash his wounds. The Tatars were not punctilious about washing, unlike the Turks, but they would clean a bleeding cut.

Yet Venice was a poor city: and the poor are many, and have eyes.

They would see a stranger, even a careful one. Yashim had spent time in the Crimea, the Tatars’ homeland. He knew how they lived in the saddle on a handful of dried meat, but the Tatar would have to draw his water from a well, out in the campo. That was the way Venice was built. Some cities clustered around a citadel, but Venice shaped itself around its wells.

Unless…

The Tatar could have found one place to draw water, unseen.

Somewhere with its own supply.

Somewhere people had lived almost isolated lives-secure, secluded, and magnificent, too.

Yashim turned to the right, and began loping back toward the Grand Canal.