“And how long were you able to study with this mage?” Adair asked, breathless.

“A decade. He was very old by the time I met him, and it was a miracle that he lived as long as he did. As the man had no heirs, I inherited everything, including this house and the magnificent collection of books of secrets that you see here.” He gestured to the towering walls of shelves, burgeoning with books of all sizes and shapes. “I’ve added to it steadily whenever the opportunity arises, making my own contribution to his life’s work.” What remained unsaid, however, was what would happen to the collection on Cosimo’s death. Adair wondered if the old warrior had a family that stood to inherit everything.

Adair imagined that Cosimo had to know what burned in his heart, that he hoped the old man would take him under his wing, just as the mage had done with Cosimo. One thing bothered Adair, however, something he needed Cosimo to clarify.

“There is one thing I wish to know, sir, and perhaps you can explain this to me. . . . You call yourself a magician, while I study the art of alchemy, and yet here we are interested in the same book of secrets. How can that be? Do you consider yourself an alchemist, too?”

Cosimo smiled, although there was little comfort in his expression, as he had the cold, reptilian smile of a lizard. “I was wondering if you might ask me this. In truth, I know little about the world of alchemy. But I do know that there appear to be many similarities between the two practices. I’ve seen what great magicians are able to do by fire and cauldron, and I have been told that alchemists employ these same means. I know the ingredients witches use, and I have been told that alchemists use the same kind. And what of the ends that both magicians and alchemists seek to achieve? Some would say that the things a skilled alchemist can do are no different from witchcraft, no different at all.”

He came down from the lectern and clapped a hand to Adair’s shoulder. “So I don’t know the answer to your question, young squire. Perhaps this is what you are meant to discover on your journey.” His eyebrows shot up as he spoke, and paired with the reptilian smile, he was quite a daunting sight.

The formal invitation Adair hoped for was not to come for several more weeks, not until he’d sat by Cosimo’s cauldron on a couple occasions, watching silently as the old man measured and stirred and pointed to recipes in ancient books. And it would be another month of skipping Professore Scolari’s lectures in favor of long fireside talks in Cosimo’s palazzo before the old man would give Adair free reign among the books of secrets, allowing him to copy out whichever recipes he chose. Adair began to spend every possible minute at the palazzo, sometimes staying the entire evening and rushing through the alleys of Venice in the minutes before dawn to return to the doge’s house, so the servants wouldn’t see that he was missing from his bed.

* * *

Adair thought he had his double life under control. Granted, he barely spent any time in Professore Scolari’s lectures, but he had found a tutor whose teaching was more to his liking. If Zeno were to send a servant to Adair’s room in the middle of the night, the jig would be up, but Adair was pretty sure that the doge had ceased to concern himself with his ward’s comings and goings, if he ever had in the first place. As far as Adair was concerned, his exile to Venice was going far better than he’d ever expected.

So he was understandably surprised when he was summoned to the doge’s study one Sunday afternoon. It was one of those rare times that his host was alone: usually it was impossible to see the doge except with his horde of advisers, officials, nobles, and merchants, who were all petitioning him for some favor or consideration. This afternoon, however, Adair found Zeno by himself in his study, sitting behind a desk piled high with scrolls.

Adair bowed low before him, waiting in this excruciating position until the doge acknowledged him. Zeno wore a tight black velvet cap to warm his near-bald skull, but the cap made him look a little like an infant and spoiled his usually intimidating appearance. He looked down his large, hooked nose at his ward. “Stand up, boy, and take that chair. I need a word with you.”

Adair obeyed, his nerves dancing.

The doge fixed him with a dry stare. “How long have you been living in my household, cel Rau? Refresh my memory.”

“Nearly eight months, my liege.”

“Your father prevailed on me to take you in because, he claimed, you had a burning desire to become a physician.” Adair squirmed in his chair as Zeno rolled up the scroll he’d been looking at. “Professore Scolari tells me that you have been noticeably absent from his lectures. I wish that I could say ‘of late’ but he informs me that this has been the case for quite some time. Is this true, or is the professor mistaken?”

Adair hung his head. “No, my liege. The professor is not mistaken.”

“Well then, perhaps you can tell me what you’ve been up to, if you’re not attending your classes, so that I may answer your father’s missives and not commit the mortal sin of bearing falsehoods?” The doge studied Adair through his steepled fingers.

“I have found a tutor of my own liking. I have been attending his lectures,” Adair admitted.

Zeno raised his bushy eyebrows. “Is that so? And tell me, what is the name of this mysterious professor? Come, come, if there is a better physician to be found in the city of Venice, I should know his name. Out with it.”

Adair blushed. His only desire was to get out of the doge’s presence without giving up his secret studies. “Forgive me, your grace, for my attempt to deceive you. There is no other physician; the truth is that I find my interest in medicine has waned, to the point where I question whether I wish to pursue further study or not.”

Zeno smirked, as though he’d known he’d been right all along. “I could not care less about your interest in medicine, I only wish to know where you have been spending your time in the evenings, if not with Scolari. Out with it: Have you been out gambling away your father’s fortune, or idling your time away in a brothel somewhere?”

Adair’s throat tightened. There was no lie that the doge would not be able to verify. Zeno had spies everywhere. He was left with only one option: Rossi. “The truth, then, my grace: I have been keeping company with Bishop Rossi. He made me see that my religious education has been lacking—so heavily influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church, as it has been.” That was his trump card; he knew the doge would consider it a personal victory if he could turn the near-heathen Hungarian nobleman into a proper Roman Catholic.

Zeno leaned forward in his chair. “So—been spending time with Rossi, have you? I find that surprising, cel Rau, given what your father told me about your attitude toward the church.”

“His church, the orthodox church.” Adair was surprised at how nimbly the lie sprang to his lips. “I knew almost nothing about the Roman church before coming here. There is a Roman Catholic priest in our court, but he is kept to the fringes, treated as a heretic by the other clerics, as you might imagine. I never spoke to him, and so I had no understanding of the Roman church at all. Whereas Bishop Rossi—”

“Rossi makes the Roman church seem fascinating, does he?” Zeno asked, his tone skeptical. He studied Adair shrewdly. “Well, well, well . . . as I have said, this is all very surprising. But if this is what you say has transpired, I must take you at your word. As for the matter of your medical studies, well, if you do not wish to pursue them, it makes no difference to me. However, young men are known to be changeable. Your fascination with Rossi’s company may fade. For the time being, I will say nothing to your father, in case you change your mind.”

Adair bowed low in acknowledgment of Zeno’s consent, anxious to retreat from the room.

“Not so fast, my boy. Not so fast.” Zeno sniffed. “Do not forget: it is your father I am beholden to, not you. You need to stop fooling around and get on with the serious business of life. You’re just about out of second chances. Your father’s patience will not last forever, you know.” He tugged at his cap, which had come askew, so that he ended up looking a bit ridiculous at the end of his reproachful speech, like an old woman getting ready for bed.

Adair further prostrated himself before the doge. “I welcome the opportunity to please your grace.”

“Please me? This has nothing to do with pleasing me, my boy. But if you truly wish to please me, you will do as your father asks. You will give up these childish distractions and apply yourself to the rank with which God has seen fit to grant you. You have been blessed with rank and title, you know. Do not make God regret he has favored you. Do not affront his beneficence.” Zeno tugged the sleeves of his robe over his knuckles for warmth, signifying that the audience was over. Adair bowed so deeply that his head almost touched the stone floor before turning and stalking out of the room.

* * *

The next evening, Adair was at Cosimo’s door. It wasn’t one of their prearranged sessions and so the mage wasn’t expecting him, but he received Adair warmly all the same.

“What is it, my boy? You seem agitated,” Cosimo said once he’d closed the doors to the study behind them.

“I’m afraid I will not be able to visit you for a while,” Adair said, and then laid out the situation for the old knight. To avoid Zeno’s wrath, Adair would need to resume his visits with Rossi, perhaps even go so far as to return to Scolari’s lecture hall again—whatever it would take to appease the doge. “The bishop is even holding a dinner in my honor in a few nights’ time. I swear this is all a grand scheme: the doge is plotting with the bishop to get me engaged to the goddaughter.”

“Is that all? So marry the girl,” Cosimo said, and laughed.

“I’m glad you can speak so lightly about my future,” Adair said glumly.

The mage clapped him on the back. “You’re far too serious for so young a man. I swear, you are like an old man stuffed into a young man’s body. Listen to someone approaching the end of his life: it would not be the worst thing in the world to take a wife. She will make your life interesting.”

Adair snorted. “You haven’t met Elena. I fear she would make my life too interesting.”

“All the better,” Cosimo responded. “Listen to an old man: life is short. There is no dishonor in enjoying it a little along the way.”

Bishop Rossi’s party turned out to be not an overly large affair, though Adair couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, he wasn’t being forced to repeat the same banalities over and over as he made the acquaintance of the Venetians who had come to gawk at a heathen nobleman from the wilds of Hungary. On the other, there was no getting away from Elena, whom the bishop had assigned to act as his social guide. She stood by Adair’s side almost from the moment he walked through the door. She was especially pretty that night, with pearls set like stars in her dark hair, and a long strand of them circling her slender neck. Every time he looked at her, she had a simper on her face as though she were auditioning for the role of his wife. Don’t try so hard, he wanted to tell her. Even if he were looking for a spouse, it wouldn’t be the woman she was trying to be tonight. He longed for a girl with a little grit.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that the dinner party was merely an excuse to make him spend time with Elena. The bishop and the doge clearly thought that taking on a wife was the cure for his alleged problems. Granted, Elena was lovely and the longer he sat next to her, the more he appreciated her charms, even if they were primarily of the decorative variety. His mind began to wander as the meal progressed, and by the time the roasts were served, he wondered what her body looked like unclothed. He pictured them rutting in a bedchamber somewhere upstairs, cupping his hands over her small breasts as he took her from behind, her white derriere jiggling as he drove into her—and broke such thoughts off, red-faced, before he created an obvious problem for himself.

Too late. Luckily, his clothing hid the evidence of his distress to a degree, but he was going to have to excuse himself to take care of the matter before it became unbearable. He headed for the pissing station outside the great hall and ducked behind the privacy of a screen. Once he was sure there were no servants nearby who might stumble across him, he unlimbered his member and, eyes closed, began to stroke himself. He was businesslike, his intention to get off and get back to the dinner party as quickly as possible. He had just gotten off to a promising start when he felt a small hand alight on his manhood. He opened his eyes in shock.