The servant who peered into the room was not as dull-witted as he seemed. He backed away from the door, looked around the narrow space, and then thrust his light into the shadows where I hid. Instinct bade me to turn and fight, but I stayed silent, frozen, holding even my breath until the candle retreated. I dared let out a slow, trembling whisper then, but then the cold point of a sword pressed my chest, and a voice in my ear said, “Hold, villain, or die.”

I was caught.

After all this time, the Prince of Shadows was caught.

•   •   •

I was bound at the hands, and the crowd of murmuring servants placed a rope around my neck that was meant to be a halter but felt uncomfortably like a noose, and I was led upstairs, then pushed down on my knees while the hastily roused monsignor donned robes and slippers to come see this intruder. They had not yet unmasked me when he finally arrived, red faced and furious.

“Call the watch,” he told a servant, who ran off with alacrity. I saw the monsignor’s mistress peeping over the banister from upstairs, clearly eager to see the coming events. More eager than I, by far. I calculated my chances; they were not so bad as they appeared, because the servants had been inept at knots, and I had already worked my wrists looser within their bonds. Still, their stoutest man held the rope halter that had been fitted around my neck, and I would need to rise quickly from the ground to deal with him before he could tug me off balance and turn halter to noose, in truth.

The monsignor paced back and forth, staring at my masked face. “Are you the thief known as the Prince of Shadows?” he demanded. I said nothing. “Come, lout, speak, or have you no tongue? Has Veronese justice already stripped you of it?”

“Shall we unmask him, Monsignor?” the servant holding the rope asked.

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, and gestured vaguely toward me as he paced. “When the watch arrives we will denounce him and turn him to the prince’s justice. This villain will hang by the morning! You dare, you cur, you dare to rob God?”

I had two choices, neither attractive . . . first, wait silently to be unmasked, or second, take action—however unpleasant—to ensure I would not be immediately recognized.

I chose the latter, and said, “I robbed no one, sir. I carry no gold, nor silver, nor precious jewels. You, though . . . you have taken such things from the poor, and hidden them away for yourself in the name of Christ. Is that theft, or blasphemy?”