I told one of the dirtier stories in my arsenal, never mind that it came from a Venetian sailor with a gutter for a mouth, and not from my own memory. Niccolo the guardsman guffawed, topping me with a story of his own that I found just as improbable, and we ordered another tankard of wine and the room grew smokier and noisier as the night grew darker outside, and our voices dropped to a confidential pitch.

“—and there was the girl who liked a rope,” I confided in a slushy whisper. I was emptying a third of my cup on the floor for the inn’s dogs every time Niccolo went for a piss, but I knew how to play the part of a drunk. “She liked tying down, she did; arms staked out wide like Christ on the cross. She said it reminded her of His infinite sufferings.” I demonstrated, holding my arms out not just in imitation of God’s only Son, but of Anna on her table . . . and Niccolo’s cup halted on its way to his mouth.

“Dio.” I shook my head, reminiscent. “That girl, I used to think she was a runaway nun. She used to weep after I was done, beg me to cut her throat and take her away from her sins. I always thought someday some bastard might take her up on it. Leave her with her throat opened and her arms still spread like a crucifix.”

Niccolo’s cup thudded back down to the table, untouched, and I felt a small savage thrill bloom in my chest. Yes, I thought, yes, yes . . .

“Holy Mother,” he said, trying to laugh. “That’s a girl worth staying clear of, little man. Things go wrong with girls like that, you know?”

“Maybe.” I gave a careless shrug, but the bloom in my chest was spreading. It takes a very cold man indeed to listen untouched when he hears some vivid reminder of his last crime—and Niccolo, I judged, was anything but a cold man. His mouth was plastered wide in a grin, but the grin twitched at the corners and his eyes had stretched to show the white all around.

Better yet, he was more than halfway to drunk. And drink combined with guilt is a powerful loosener of tongues.

“You have your pleasure with the girl first,” I said, “and who cares what happens after? Not your fault if something goes wrong.”

“Sometimes it is,” he said. “Sometimes things go bad, and they go bad so fast—”

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his neck. I watched it slide below his collar. “What went bad?” I murmured.