“I mean that asking forgiveness is not in my experience. What did you do when you wronged your Jewess?”

“First, she’s not my Jewess, she’s a Jewess, and I did not, strictly speaking, wrong her, although she is angry at me for delaying telling her about Lorenzo.”

“And yet you were merely trying to spare her pain.”

“Exactly! And she’s still somewhat unhappy that I spent all of her father’s gold.”

“For which the Genoans freed an important prisoner.”

“Which apparently does not hold the weight for her it does for you and me. Speaking of such. Let me fetch the Venetian I rescued.” I went to the wide double doors.

“Forgiveness?” the Moor insisted.

“It’s best to blame it on your monkey, if possible. Now, let me get the Venetian.”

“Aren’t you going to put on some trousers first?” asked the Moor.

“He’s just outside, waiting on a bench with Drool.”

“All this time he has been waiting?”

“Well, he’s been in prison with Drool for three months, a few minutes on a bench isn’t going to send him round the bend.” I peeked out the door and called, “You two, come in. The general needs to see you.”

Marco Polo came in first, followed by Drool, both rudely ignoring the presence of the high general of Venice, distracted, it seems, by the fact that I was naked. “Oh fuckstockings. Fine, I’ll put on some trousers. I’m wearing my daggers, aren’t I?” (I was. Little point having my fool suit fitted if I couldn’t conceal my daggers underneath.) “A gentleman can’t even discuss fucking philosophy without you puritanical twats casting judgmental glances at his tackle d’amore.”

“ ’At’s fuckin’ French, innit?” Drool explained to Othello. Then as if seeing the Moor for the first time, he said, “The dragon Pocket shagged were black, too.”

The Moor lifted his head from the table. “What?” He stood to receive the explorer.

“Ignore him, he has rabies. Othello, Marco Polo. Marco Polo, Othello,” I said, hastily, as I pulled on the sailcloth trousers I’d removed for the benefit of the tailor.

The explorer and the general exchanged pleasantries, and acknowledged the reputation of each, then, before they began to trade stories of all the places they’d been and the people they’d seen, I said, “Polo, give me that lacquer box out of your rucksack. Othello, you must see this. I thought of the trebuchets you wanted to put on your ships.”