'How do you know? I can hardly see you.'

'I can see in the dark. I'm like a cat, Annarella says.'

'Who is Annarella?'

'My big sister. She's like a spider. She makes lace. The finest lace in all Venice!'

Marianne laughed. 'Well, if you're hoping for a customer, you're wrong, my lad! I haven't a bean. But you sound like an odd family, I must say! The cat and the spider. It's like a fairy story.'

With the child leading, they ran together to the entrance of another building a few seconds' away, to the right of the church. A brief flash revealed an elegant Renaissance front with curved pediments, on one of which was the lion of St Mark. As the boy had said, the broad pillared portal guarded by a pair of couching beasts was very much more comfortable than the church porch.

Marianne had room to shake out her dress and wring the water out of her streaming hair. In any case, the rain was beginning to ease off. The child had not spoken again but for the sake of hearing his voice, which was pure and clear as crystal, she started to question him.

'Surely it's very late? What are you doing out at this hour? You ought to be in bed.'

'I had something to do for a friend,' the boy said vaguely, 'and I got caught in the rain, like you… Where have you come from?'

'I don't know,' Marianne answered with a pang. 'I was locked up in a house and I escaped. I was trying to get into the church for shelter.'

There was silence. She could feel the child looking at her. He was probably thinking she was a lunatic and had escaped from some institution. She must look like it. But he only said, in the same matter-of-fact tone:

'The sacristan always locks San Zanipolo. In case of thieves. On account of the treasure. Lots of our doges are buried there – and he's there to keep guard over them,' he added, pointing to the bronze horseman who, seen from the side, seemed to be riding ahead of the church.

Lowering his voice suddenly, the boy whispered: 'Was it your lover who locked you up – or the police?'

Something told Marianne that her young friend would be more impressed by the latter. In any case, she could scarcely tell him the truth.

'The police! If they catch me, it's all up with me! Tell me, now – by the way, what's your name?'

'I'm called Zani – same as the church.'

'Well, Zani, can you tell me what day this is?'

'Don't you know?'

'No. I have been in a room with no light and no windows. It makes you lose count of time.'

'Peccato! You were lucky to get out! They're a bad lot, the police, and they've been worse than ever since Bonaparte's people came. Each trying to go one better than the other!'

'Very true, but please, please tell me what day…' She clutched at his arm.

'Oh, yes, I was forgetting. It was the twenty-ninth of June when I set out. It must be the thirtieth now. It's not far off dawn.'

Marianne leaned weakly against the wall. Five days! For five days now Jason must have been waiting in the lagoon! He was so near, was probably spending his nights peering into the darkness looking for her, while she had been submitting in passive despair to Damiani's hateful caresses!

When she had left that dreadful house she had believed that she still had some time left to sort out her feelings, to think things over and try and wipe out the memory of the foul and shadowy time that lay behind her. She felt that she needed a breathing space before she faced Jason's penetrating eyes. She knew his perspicacity too well, and the unerring, almost animal instinct which made him invariably put his finger on the weakest spot. He would know at a glance that she was not the same woman he had said good-bye to aboard the Saint-Guénolé six months before. The blood which had been shed might avenge her shame but it could not do away with the living evidence that might remain inside her, although at this moment she could not bear to believe or even think of the possibility. Yet now, already, he was waiting for her!

In a few minutes, an hour perhaps, she might be with him. It was agony to think that the moment she had looked forward to so passionately for so long now held nothing but terror for her. She did not know now what awaited her beyond these watery streets and streaming domes, across this rain-drenched city which lay between her and the sea.

When she saw Jason, would it be as a happy lover, full of the joys of being reunited, or would he also be an inquisitor, nursing dark suspicions? He was expecting a happy woman, coming to him in the sunshine and in all the dazzle of beauty fulfilled, and he would see a hunted creature, as fearful and uneasy in herself as in her draggled clothes. What would he think?

'It's stopped raining, you know.'

Zani was pulling at her sleeve. She opened her eyes with a shiver and looked about her. It was true. The storm had ceased as suddenly as it had started. The thunder was rumbling away into the distance and the din and drenching rain of a moment ago had given place to a great calm, hardly broken by the trickle of water from the eaves. The exhausted air seemed to have paused for breath.

'If you've nowhere to go,' the child went on, his eyes shining like stars in the darkness, 'you can come to us. You can shelter there from the rain and the carabinieri.'

'But what will your sister say?'

'Annarella? Nothing. She's used to it.'

'Used to what?'

But Zani did not answer and Marianne sensed that his silence was deliberate. He simply walked on with his head held high and that air of innocent self-importance which denotes the bearer of weighty secrets. Forbearing to question him further, his new friend followed. The thought of a roof over her head was an agreeable one. A few hours' rest would do her good and might help her to dredge up from somewhere some semblance of the woman Jason was expecting to meet.

They set off in the direction from which Marianne had come but in the street of the vegetable stalls they turned left and were swallowed up in an infinity of narrow alleys broken by canals which appeared to Marianne a perfect maze.

The way they took was so circuitous that she could have sworn they had doubled back on their tracks a hundred times, but Zani never hesitated for so much as an instant.

The sky lightened to grey and somewhere a cock crowed, hailing the dawn, the only sound in the whole empty labyrinth where all human life lay hidden behind thick wooden shutters and the cats reigned supreme. These had lain snugly in some dry corner while the storm lasted but now they appeared on all sides, slinking past dripping gutters and leaping over puddles as they made their way home. Now, slowly, the houses were becoming visible: whimsical rooftops, pinnacles, balconies and weird funnel-shaped chimneys silhouetted against the first light of day. Everywhere was perfect peace and the two night-walkers might have thought they had the street to themselves when suddenly they ran into ill-luck.

They had just turned into the Merceria, a thoroughfare a little wider than most, although twisting, and lined with shops on both sides, when they came upon a patrol of National Guardsmen. A bend in the street made it impossible to avoid them.

In a moment, Marianne and the child were surrounded by soldiers, two of them bearing lanterns.

'Stay right where you are!' their leader ordered, with more force than logic since it was impossible for them to do anything else. 'Where are you off to?'

Taken by surprise and struck dumb by the sight of the uniforms, Marianne could only stare at him. He was a young officer with an arrogant expression, evidently very well-pleased with his smart uniform and white leathers and sporting a moustache big enough for a small breastplate. He reminded her of Benielli.

But Zani, like a good Venetian, was already deep in a rapid stream of explanations. They poured from him at such a rate that his small, piping voice seemed to fill the street. He knew, of course, that this was no time for a boy of his age to be wandering round Venice but it wasn't their fault and the officer must please believe him because this was how it came about: he and his cousin had been called out last night to the bedside of Zia – that is, Aunt Lodovica who was sick with malaria. Cousin Paolo had sent for them before he went off fishing and of course they had gone at once because Zia Lodovica was old and so ill that her mind was wandering which was a terrible thing! She was such a clever woman, too, and the foster-sister and servant to Monsignior Lodovico Manin, the last doge. And, seeing her like that, himself and his cousin, they had not liked to leave her so they had stayed and watched by her and done what they could for her and so the time had gone by. And then, when the crisis was over and their aunt had gone to sleep it was very late. Since there was nothing more they could do and Cousin Paolo would be back in the morning, Zani and his cousin had set off home because his sister Annarella would be worrying about them. Then they had got caught in the rain and been obliged to take shelter until it was over. So now, if the noble soldiers would kindly let them go on their way…

Marianne had listened to this extempore speech with fascinated admiration, nor did the soldiers make any attempt to interrupt, being probably too dazed by the flow of words. But neither did they stand aside and their leader asked again:

'What's your name?'

'Zani, signor officers, Zani Mocchi, and this is my cousin Appolonia—'

'Mocchi? Any relation to the courier from Dalmatia who disappeared near Zara a few weeks ago?'