His voice was bleak. ‘It is a fight to the death,’ he said. ‘My death or his. And neither my death nor his death is as important as your mission. When I die, a new lord will take my place, you will still have work to do. For now, you go to Venice and trace the signs of the end of days. And I will keep myself as safe as I can.’

He looked at the peacock badge in Luca’s hand. ‘Get rid of that,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear to see it.’

Silently, Ishraq put out her hand and took it from him. Freize watched her as she tucked it into the pocket of her cape.

The three men and Isolde went up the hill to the church. Freize saw them go from the inn doorway, as Ishraq started up the stairs to pack their few things ready to leave.

‘You didn’t hear anything, in the night, I suppose?’ Freize asked her neutrally.

She turned on the stair, looked him straight in the face, and lied to him. ‘No. I slept through it all.’

‘Because he must have come up the stairs and stood on the landing floor just below your bedroom, and gone into the room beneath yours.’

‘Yes. But he went past the kitchen door too. Did you hear nothing?’

‘No. If he had killed the lord, it would have been most terrible. He is my lord’s commander. I am bound to defend him. Luca is bound to guard him.’

‘But whoever it was, didn’t kill him,’ she pointed out. ‘He never intended to kill him. He took him a message, he left the message, and went away again. It is Milord who speaks of death and threatens death. All I saw was a badge from a standard.’

‘A message from our enemy,’ Freize prompted her. ‘And not any old message. A death threat from our enemy.’

‘From your enemy,’ she said. ‘To the lord of your lord. But I don’t know that I like Luca’s commander very much. I don’t know that he is my friend. I don’t know if I am on his side. I don’t know that he is my lord. I don’t know if his enemy is my enemy. I don’t even know if he’s a very good lord to Luca. Perhaps you should think of that, before you ask me how I sleep?’

The four walked back from Prime and they all ate breakfast in the inn kitchen while Milord ate alone in the dining room. When they had finished eating, the two young women went up to their attic bedroom to prepare for the journey.

‘What will you do with that?’ Isolde asked, seeing Ishraq put the gloriously embroidered peacock eye standard in the bottom of her little bag.

‘Keep it, I don’t know,’ she said.