The Pope's Assassin [antikvár]

Chapter One I Rome - Feast of St Mark, 23 April, ad 799 'J- ' The cut-throats lurking in the alley were typical of Rome's gutter class. Lank, greasy hair, sallow complexions and a sour smell of /' sweat-soaked clothes marked them as inhabitants of the grimy slums near the bend in the Tiber. Cheap to hire, they were notori- I ously unreliable. Their employer, standing with them, was taller I. by a head. His bulky fur hat was more suitable for a cold winter's day than a bright spring morning in the Eternal City and he had knotted the laces of the ear flaps painfully tight under his chin. The intention was to make his face less easy to recognize. It gave him a pinched and resentful look. 'Reminds me of a hedgepig with gut ache,' whispered one of his hirelings to a companion. The tall man was listening to the sound of a choir on the steps of the church of San Lorenzo a couple of streets away to his left. It was a last-minute rehearsal of their psalms for that morning's solemn procession. Now, very faintly, he heard the sound of horses' hooves approaching from the opposite direction. 'Get ready. Here he comes,' he warned. The men edged further back into the dark shadow cast by the high side wall of the monastery church dedicated to Saints Stephen and Sylvester. Gradually, the sound of hooves grew louder. A sparse crowd of spectators lined the Via Lata, the ruler-straight main thoroughfare ; I