ello_, Daoud thought. _He comes out of nowhere
wanting to work for me. He kills in haste and boasts about it._

The young man with the silver badge on his cap knelt by the fallen
bravo and felt under his cape. "Morte," he said harshly, and stood
again.

"Well, Messeres," said Lorenzo, "we are now six to five. We did not
choose to quarrel. We still do not wish to fight. In fact, we ourselves
are at odds with the Monaldeschi."

"How might that be?" said the young man.

"Are we done fighting? I wish to make a proposal to you."

The Filippeschi spokesman glanced at his fellows. "What say you?"

"Alfredo was my cousin," said a tall bravo in a rust-colored cape. "But
I cannot avenge him alone."

"Alfredo was impetuous," said the young man. "He acted before I gave an
order."

"You are no leader, Marco, if you will not undertake the vendetta for
one of your men."

_The vendetta. These Italians are like the desert tribesmen. Kill one of
them, and you have his family to deal with._

"I will show you what kind of a leader I am if you speak that way to me
again," said Marco.

"Enough, enough," said one of the other bravos, and the man in the
rust-colored cape shrugged.

It was now almost daylight, and Daoud studied the face of the young man
called Marco. He could not be more than seventeen, Daoud thought,
looking at his smooth cheeks and downy black mustache.

_Marco!_ He had heard that the head of the Filippeschi family was a
young Conte Marco di Filippeschi.

"What do you propose, Messere?" said Marco.

"Meet me in front of the Church of Sant' Agnes," Lorenzo said. "This
evening at Compline. Come alone, as I will. There are things we can
discuss, I think, to our mutual profit."

Marco bowed to Lorenzo. "I shall expect you, Messere." He gestured, and
the man in the reddish cape and one other picked up the body of Alfredo.

"Momento, Messeres," said Sordello, moving to the body in three quick
strides. He bent down, reached under the body, and with a jerk of his
hand pulled free a long, thin throwing knife, which he wiped on his
cape.

"I can ill afford to lose so well-balanced a knife as this."

Alfredo's cousin, holding the body by the shoulders, said, "I know your
name, Andrea Sordello, and your face. You will not need that knife much
longer."

Sordello made a mock bow. "Be assured, Messere, this knife will not miss
_you_, if we should meet again."

A moment later the Filippeschi and their burden had d