‘And best of all, we can get a good dinner in Piccolo,’ Freize remarked cheerfully, looking at the setting sun. ‘And tomorrow morning will be time enough to worry about hiring a boat to sail across to Croatia.’

PICCOLO, ITALY, NOVEMBER 1453

The little fishing village was ringed on the landward side by high walls pierced by a single gate that was officially closed at sunset. Freize shouted up for the porter, who opened the shutter to stick his head out of the window and argue that travellers should show respect for the rules, and might not enter the village after the curfew bell had tolled and the village gates closed for the night.

‘The sun’s barely down!’ Freize complained. ‘The sky is still bright!’

‘It’s down,’ the gatekeeper replied. ‘How do I know who you are?’

‘Because, since it’s not darkest night, you can perfectly well see who we are,’ Freize replied. ‘Now let us in, or it will be the worse for you. My master is an inquirer for the Holy Father himself, we couldn’t be more important if we were all cardinals.’

Grumbling, the porter slammed the shutter on his window and came down to the gate. As the travellers waited outside, in the last golden light of the day, they could hear him, complaining bitterly as he heaved the creaking gate open, and they clattered in under the arch.

The village was no more than a few streets running down the hill to the quay. They dismounted once they were inside the walls and led the horses down the narrow way to the quayside, going carefully on the well-worn cobblestones. They had entered by the west gate of the perimeter wall which ran all round the village, pierced by a little bolted doorway on the high north side and a matching door to the south. As they picked their way down to the harbour they saw, facing the darkening sea, the only inn of the village with a welcoming door standing wide open, and bright windows twinkling with candlelight.

The five travellers led their horses to the stable yard, handed them over to the lad, and went into the hallway of the inn. They could hear, through the half-open windows, the slap of the waves against the walls of the quay, and could smell the haunting scent of salt water and the marshy stink of fishing nets. Piccolo was a busy port with nearly a dozen ships in the little harbour, either bobbing at anchor in the bay or tied up to rings set in the harbour wall. The village was noisy even though the autumn darkness was falling. The fishermen were making their way home to their cottages, and the last travellers were disembarking from the boats that plied their trade crossing and recrossing the darkening sea. Croatia was less than a hundred miles due east and people coming into the inn, blowing on their cold fingers, complained of a contrary wind which had prolonged their journey for nearly two days, and had chilled them to the bone. Soon it would be winter, and too late in the year for sea voyages for all but the most fearless.