V.

What sort of mistress, then, would Venus be? What outlying worlds would he conquer in their headlong, three-in-the-morning excursions away from the cities of sleep? What of her God, her voice, her dreams? She was already a goddess. She had no voice he could ever hear. And she herself (perhaps even her native demesne?) was only . . .

A gaudy dream, a dream of annihilation. Was that what Godolphin had meant? Yet she was no less Rafael Mantissa's entire love.

"Aspetti," he shouted, leaping forward to grab Cesare's hand.

"Sei pazzo?" Cesare snarled.

"Guards coming this way," the Gaucho announced from the entrance to the gallery. "An army of them. For God's sake, hurry."

"You have come all this way," Cesare protested, "and now you will leave her?"

"Yes."

The Gaucho raised his head, suddenly alert. The rattle of gunfire came to him faintly. With an angry motion he flung the grenade down the corridor; the approaching guards scattered and it went off with a roar in the "Ritratti diversi." Signor Mantissa and Cesare, empty-handed, were at his back. "We must run for our lives," the Gaucho said. "Have you got your lady with you?"

"No," Cesare said, disgusted. "Not even the damned tree."

They dashed down a corridor smelling of burnt cordite. Signor Mantissa noticed that paintings in the "Ritratti diversi" had all been taken down for the redecorating. The grenade had harmed nothing except the walls and a few guards. It was a mad, all-out sprint, with the Gaucho taking pot-shots at guards, Cesare waving his knife, Signor Mantissa flapping his arms wildly. Miraculously they reached the entrance and half-ran, half tumbled down 126 steps to the Piazza della Signoria. Evan and Godolphin joined them.

"I must return to the battle," the Gaucho said, breathless. He stood for a moment watching the carnage. "But don't they look like apes, now, fighting over a female? Even if the female is named Liberty." He drew a long pistol, checked the action. "There are nights," he mused, "nights, alone, when I think we are apes in a circus, mocking the ways of men. Perhaps it is all a mockery, and the only condition we can ever bring to men a mockery of liberty, of dignity. But that cannot be. Or else I have lived . . ."

Signor Mantissa grasped his hand. "Thank you," he said.

The Gaucho shook his head. "Per niente," he muttered, then abruptly turned and made his way toward the riot in the square. Signor Mantissa watched him briefly. "Come," he said at last.

Evan looked over to where Victoria was standing enchanted. He seemed about to move, or call to her. Then he shrugged and turned away to follow the others. Perhaps he didn't want to disturb her.

Moffit, knocked sprawling by a not-so-rotten turnip, saw them. "They're getting away," he said. He got to his feet and began clawing his way through the rioters expecting to be shot at any minute. "In the name of the Queen," he cried. "Halt." Someone careened into him.

"I say," said Moffit, "it's Sidney."

"I've been looking all over for you," Stencil said.

"Not a mo too soon. They're getting away."

"Forget it."

"Down that alley. Hurry." He tugged at Stencil's sleeve. "Forget it, Moffit. It's off. The whole show."

"Why?

"Don't ask why. It's over."

"But."

"There was just a communique from London. From the Chief. He knows more than I do. He called it off. How should I know? No one ever tells me anything."

"Oh, my God."

They edged into a doorway. Stencil pulled out his pipe and lit it. The sounds of firing rose in a crescendo which it seemed would never stop. "Moffit," Stencil said after a while, puffing meditatively, "if there is ever a plot to assassinate the Foreign Minister, I pray I never get assigned to the job of preventing it. Conflict of interest, you know."

They scurried down a narrow street to the Lungarno. There, after Cesare had removed two middle-aged ladies and a cab driver, they took possession of a fiacre and clattered off pell-mell for the Ponte San Trinita. The barge was waiting for them, dim amid the river's shadows. The captain jumped to the quay. "Three of you," he bellowed. "Our bargain included only one." Signor Mantissa flew into a rage, leaped from the carriage, picked up the captain bodily and before anyone had time to register amazement, flung him into the Arno. "On board!" he cried. Evan and Godolphin jumped onto a cargo of crated Chianti flasks. Cesare moaned, thinking of how that trip would be.

"Can anyone pilot a barge," Signor Mantissa wondered. "It is like a man-o'-war," Godolphin smiled, "only smaller and no sails. Son, would you cast off."

"Aye, aye, sir." In a moment they were free of the quay. Soon the barge was drifting off into the current which flows strong and steady toward Pisa and the sea. "Cesare," they called, in what were already ghosts' voices, "addio. A rivederla."