'Your time has run out.' Zorzi bent over him, staring into his ferocious half-glazed eyes. 'You no longer have Dexter Shaw to protect you. You're alone and naked in front of your judge.' He jerked on Rule's hair. 'I will now pronounce sentence and Alvise will act as executioner, a mantle he is all too eager to don in your honor.'
Zorzi's lips pulled back from his teeth. 'You are guilty, Rule, guilty on all counts. And now I have the satisfaction of informing you that the sentence of death will be carried out.'
Zorzi was aware of a blur of motion, and then Alvise was falling and there was blood spattering on him like rain. He jerked erect and looked at Bravo, who was pointing the SIG Sauer at him.
'What do you think you're doing?'
'Untie him,' Bravo said, gesturing at Rule.
'That would be most unwise. You have no idea what you're doing, what a grave mistake you're-'
'Shut up and do it!' Bravo said. He stood far enough away from Zorzi that the other had no chance to reach him.
'I won't.' Zorzi shrugged. 'Go ahead and shoot me while you have the chance. No? I see, you haven't the nerve or the fortitude. Coward! Of what use are you to the Order?'
He rushed Bravo, who pulled the trigger of the SIG Sauer. Nothing happened: the trigger was frozen in place. Zorzi was upon him, slamming him backward against the wall. He was grinning grotesquely, like some evil ogre out of a Grimm's fairy tale. 'The gun is useless, it won't fire, and now where are you, do you suppose?'
Bravo slammed the butt of the gun into the spot behind Zorzi's ear. Zorzi went down, just as Alvise had, and stayed down.
Quickly, Bravo untied Rule. 'Uncle Tony, can you hear me?'
Rule's lips moved slightly but no sound emerged. His eyes were clearer and more focused.
'What did they do to you?'
'Neurotoxin.' Rule's voice was thin and reedy, as if he hadn't used it for some time. 'Delivered with a blow-dart.'
'Can you stand up? Here, let me help you.' Bravo put his arm around Rule and lifted. He grunted with the drag of the dead weight, all the bruises and contusions he'd sustained in his hand-to-hand combat with Anzolo burning into him like tattoos.
Then Rule began to regain some motor control, and he took more and more of his own weight into his legs and hips.
'How did you find me?' he said.
'I came looking for Zorzi.'
Rule nodded, still groggy. He turned back toward Zorzi. 'Kill him, Bravo. It's the perfect time.'
'Uncle Tony, we have to get out of here now.'
Still Rule resisted. 'Do it, Bravo.'
'No, Uncle Tony, not in cold blood.'
'You'll regret it. The sonuvabitch will come after you.'
'I'm not a murderer.'
'This isn't murder, it's an execution.' Rule held out his hand. 'Give me the gun.'
'Uncle Tony, no.'
But Rule had grabbed the SIG Sauer and, aiming it at Zorzi, pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Taking advantage of Rule's surprise, Bravo wrested the gun away from him. For a frozen moment they stood staring at one another.
The next instant, they heard a noise in the corridor just outside the door, and the two of them froze. Rule put his forefinger across his lips, crossed silently to the door, and without a moment's hesitation, swung it quickly open.
A Guardian with his hand still on the doorknob stumbled in, and Rule drove a knee into his midsection with such ferocity that he broke several ribs.
'Come on!' Bravo whispered, taking the opportunity to get Rule out of the room and away from Paolo Zorzi. As much as he hated the traitor, he could not be a party to his cold-blooded murder. Did that make him weak, a coward? Would his father have made a different choice? This was the Voire Dei, after all-he was far away from the civil and criminal laws that governed other people. But what about the laws of morality? Did being a part of the Voire Dei give him the right to abrogate those? Even if it did, he still had a choice in the matter and, for better or worse, he had made his.
The corridor loomed, silent and deserted. Rule showed him the way and they retraced his steps back to the side door. By the time they passed through it, he had regained much of his strength and all his animal cunning.
'However many Guardians are remaining will be combing the island for us,' he said. And he was right, for as they approached the shingle where he had beached the topo they saw two Guardians keeping watch on it.
'How are we going to get off the island?' Bravo whispered.
'I have a plan,' Rule said.
Uncle Tony always had a plan. As far back as Bravo could remember, Uncle Tony had a plan for every contingency. If you needed to get from point A to point B, he knew the fastest route, the most circuitous, the most devious, as well as the most sensible.
They moved off, Rule leading the way. The long summer twilight had ended and it had grown dark, but out on the lagoon strings of pale yellow lights marked the perimeters of the deep water channel. A gull passed by overhead, calling in its plaintive voice, and then it swooped down, skimming the water, which picked up tiny phosphorescent lights like glimmering bangles on the double bracelet of the channel.
As they passed the pitch-black outlines of pine trees, Bravo could see more lights, pouring from a section of the Franciscan monastery. The air smelled resiny, and then a whiff of the lagoon reached them-bleached stone and clams, salty weeds that twined in the depths.
As they approached, they could make out the cluttered sound of many voices.
'The Franciscans have turned the island into a tourist destination,' Rule said. 'Once a week, they have an evening tour. We can mingle with the crowd and hitch a ride on the ferry.'
But when they arrived in the shadows cloaking the outskirts of the dock, they saw that passage on the ferry would be impossible. Three Guardians were patrolling the area, no doubt having given the Franciscans a plausible cover story as to why they needed to be there.
They crept around to their left in a rough semicircle and saw a motoscafo tied up on the other side of the large ferry. Moving from shadow to shadow, they circled toward it. A Franciscan monk was unloading the last of a pile of small barrels from the rear deck of the motoscafo. People continued to stream onto the ferry, which sounded its horn twice, as warning of its imminent departure.
As they watched, another monk appeared to help the other carry the barrels into the monastery. When they were both out of sight, Bravo and Rule ran to the motoscafo and jumped aboard. The two monks reappeared and picked up two more barrels. The last of the tourists had boarded the ferry, and now it gave another long hoot of its horn as its engines began to churn.
Rule climbed behind the wheel and fired the ignition. Bravo let go the lines holding the motoscafo at the dock. The monks had just disappeared into the monastery, and Rule took advantage of the moment to ease the boat forward. Their window of opportunity was short, the monks would reappear at any moment, but he resisted the urge to surge forward and instead matched his speed with that of the ferry. They moved out in tandem, the motoscafo hidden from the Guardians by the bulk of the ferry. A night heron crossed their path, silent as death, and as the land slipped away through the black, purling water they got one last bracing whiff of the pines on San Francesco del Deserto.
Then the yellow lights were upon them and they were in the channel, free.
After many hours the celebration of the new Knights-the Knights of Muhlmann, as Jordan privately thought of them-was still in full swing. A twelve-course dinner catered by Ostaria dell'Orso, one of Rome's finest restaurants, along with five cases of vintage Brunello di Montalcino had been consumed. The assembled had settled in for Cuban Montecristo Coronas, snifters of cognac and dark chocolate truffles, each one imprinted with a miniature of the Muhlmann shield, flown in that day from Belgium.
Jordan, his belly full, his head alight with his victory, was just finishing his second glass of the luscious Hine
