“Alberto!” he cried. “We’ve got to—”
Erik heard the snarling voice of the blond swordsman roll down the hallway. “He’s dead, you fool! Come on!” A moment later all three men were gone. The door slammed shut behind them.
Manfred hauled Erik to his feet.
Erik shook his head. “I should have guessed you’d come here. How am I going to explain your presence here to Abbot Sachs?”
Manfred smiled grimly. “You won’t have to. Those are Schiopettieri, not Knights. Since when do Knights sound rattles?”
Erik’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know any other way out of here?” He looked at the side door from which one of thugs had emerged to toss the liquor over him, but saw at once that it led only to a closet.
Manfred shook his head. “Get thrown out or leave after paying your shot. Either here or by the water-door.”
Erik grimaced. “Let’s get out of this room, anyway. The Schiopettieri might want us to explain why we’re sharing this salon with a dead body.”
“That way.” Manfred pointed to the door at the end of the hallway the ambushers had used for their escape. “Leads upstairs. Maybe we can find a balcony or something to jump from.”
The staircase began just behind the door, to the left. They began running up it three steps at a time, Erik in the lead. He still had the hatchet in his hand, his eyes scanning ahead to watch for another ambush. He didn’t expect one, though, since he was almost certain the blond swordsman and his two surviving companions had no further purpose beyond making their own escape.
They had just made the second landing in the winding staircase when they heard the street door burst open. Erik grabbed Manfred’s arm and stopped him, gesturing for silence.
From below came a voice of authority. “—wearing a white surcoat with three red crosses on it. He must be taken. Kill him if you must.”
Manfred pulled a wry face. “Some goddamned ambush!” he muttered. “It looks like you were the target.”
“He went up the stairs!” cried another voice from below.
“Must be the bouncer,” whispered Erik.
Manfred shook his head. “I put the bastard to sleep first. Come on. Give me a hand with this couch.”
The couch was a venerable piece of furniture. Either it had been intended for some unusual antics in a higher bedroom, before its carriers had been defeated either by its weight or the angle of the stairs, or it was for elderly patrons who needed to lie down before going on to visit the delights on higher floors. It was solid and heavy, and made of some exotic black wood that Erik did not recognize. This was Venice. Strange things found their way here, even wood. The couch was about six cubits long and must have weighed at least four hundredweight.
Even with Manfred’s oxlike strength, lifting it was not easy. They struggled to raise it above the banisters. On the other hand, the bunch of arquebus-armed men who came running up the stairs were unable to resist it as it came hurtling down at them. Neither was the wooden staircase up to this sort of treatment. It splintered. Amid the thunder of gunfire, the shouting—and screaming—of men, and the partial collapse of the staircase, Erik and Manfred fled upwards again.
“There are other stairs,” panted Manfred. “Stone ones. They’ll cut us off up those.”
Erik pointed. “Take that next passage, any room and a window. If need be we’ll break our way into the next house.”
“Corner room. Give us two sides.”
They legged it down the passage. Ripped open the door. And Erik suddenly remembered just where he was: in a notorious Venetian brothel.
The woman on the bed languorously raised herself up. Her very voluptuous self. She tilted her head and twitched full, red, red lips into an easy, provocative smile. “Two of you?” She had an ornately arranged head of auburn-red hair, and pale olive skin. She wore a string of gold-netted millefiori beads. That was all she wore, so the skin was very obvious.
Despite the circumstances, Erik found himself staring at the almond-skin color of the broad areolar rings around her nipples, like a snake-hypnotized rabbit. His eyes were drawn down instinctively until he wrenched them upward and away with a tremendous force of will.