'Mr Goodlet,' he said, 'is a historian. In fact, he's with the History Warden's Office. Something to do with the fiscal division, aren't you, Guy?'

Some last vestige of native wit prompted Guy to sit still, say nothing and try and look very much indeed like a souvenir from Mount Rushmore.

'I see,' Giovanni said. 'No doubt he's got some means of identification.'

'Indeed I do,' Guy said. 'Would you like to see it?'

'If you don't mind.'

Guy nodded. 'I'll just get it,' he said. 'It's in that blanket over there, so if you'll just excuse me ...' He leaned across Marco, fumbled in the blanket, found his revolver and pressed it into Marco's side, discreetly below table level. Blondel thought for a moment, and then put his hat on

Marco's head. Marco didn't move.

'Believe me,' Blondel said, 'you're much safer that way.'

After a long and slightly uncomfortable silence, Giovanni sighed and said, 'That's all very clever and impressive, but it doesn't really get us anywhere, does it?'

Blondel shrugged.

'I take it,' Giovanni went on, 'that your friend isn't actually a historian?'

'Correct,' Blondel smiled. 'Nor is he a top-notch marksman. At this range, however -'

'Yes, all right, I think you've made that point,' Giovanni scowled. 'Violence really isn't our way, you know,' he said. 'The last resort of the incompetent, and all that.'

'In which case, gentlemen,' Blondel replied, 'I think you probably qualify. Good Lord, is that the time?'

'All right,' Giovanni said, 'point taken. We have an offer.'

'I know all about your offers,' Blondel replied. 'Please don't try and stop us. I'm very fond of that hat, and another hole in it will leave it fit only for the dustbin. Thanks for the drink.'

He stood up and took hold of the blanket. Giovanni shook his head.

'We can help you find what you're looking for,' he said. 'That is, provided you're prepared to help us.'

Blondel raised one eyebrow. Then he sat down again, the blanket across his knees. To a certain limited extent, he looked like Whistler's Mother.

'The last time I listened to you gentlemen,' he said, 'I ended up with my face all over thirty thousand imitation satin surcoats.' He frowned. 'It's taken me eight hundred years to get over that,' he said.

Giovanni shrugged. 'So maybe we overdid the merchandising,' he said. 'You're an artist. Deep down, you need to perform. You need to communicate to vast audiences. You have a duty to your public.'

'I haven't got a public,' Blondel replied. 'And I am decidedly not an artist. Artists wear berets and smocks and cut their ears off. Messire Galeazzo, you are talking through your hat, and that is a very risky thing to do while Mr Goodlet's anywhere in the vicinity. Good day to you.'

Giovanni shrugged. 'It's up to you,' he said. 'But if you do actually want to find the King...'

Blondel closed his eyes for a moment and then sighed deeply.

'All right, then,' he said. 'Let's hear it.'

'Well -'

Before Giovanni was able to say anything else, however, the side door of the pub flew open and three men burst in. They were wearing dark green anoraks and holding big wooden clubs. Having entered, they stopped still and looked around them. n.o.body seemed particularly bothered by their presence.

'Oh, how tiresome,' Blondel said. 'You just wait there.'

He got up, pulled his sword out from under the blankets, rushed at the three men and cut their heads off. A head rolled across the floor, was deflected off the leg of a chair, and ended up with its nose against Guy's foot. He looked down, feeling sick, terrified and, above all, horribly conspicuous. He needn't have worried, however; n.o.body was looking at him, particularly.

Someone behind the bar started to scream. Blondel frowned.

'Right,' he said, 'I think we ought to be getting along.'

There is a wide dichotomy between actual truth and perceived truth; and if the actual truth about the history of the world is that it was just one of those things, that is not necessarily important or even relevant to the people responsible for making sure that it doesn't happen again. Of this latter group, a considerable number have offices at the Chastel des Larmes Chaudes; and one of them in particular, having just had a report from his senior operations manager, was not happy at all.

'Idiot,' he said.

Mountjoy King of Arms was far too spiritual, in the widest sense of the term, to be upset by vulgar abuse. He flickered for an instant, like a table lamp in a thunderstorm, and carried on with what he'd been saying.

'After that,' he said, 'they gathered up the bits and came back.'

Julian II snarled and stabbed the arm of his chair with a pencil, snapping it.

'Sack the lot of them,' he said. 'I ask you, what is this world coming to? You send out your top men - supposedly your top men - and what do you get? Unseemly brawls in public houses. I want them all back in the filing department by this time tomorrow, do you hear?'

Mountjoy nodded. His Unholiness' outbursts of temper rarely lasted long, and he never remembered what he'd said afterwards.

'And meanwhile?' he asked.

'Good question.' Julian's face calmed down slightly - the act of thinking always had that effect on him - and he stroked his beard gently. Small flashes of blue fire crackled away into the air.

'So where are they headed now, do you think?'

'We don't know,' Mountjoy replied. 'However, we have at last got some information on the men who were with him.'

Julian lifted his head and nodded approvingly. 'That's rather more like it,' he said. 'What have you got?'

Mountjoy took out his notebook. 'One of them,' he said, 'is a British citizen by the name of Guy Goodlet.'

'Yes?'

'From the mid-twentieth century,' Mountjoy went on. 'Some sort of professional warrior. His family held land in Norfolk at the time of the Domesday Book, but they've always been what you might call small to middling yeomen. No particular antecedents.'

'That doesn't sound very promising.'

'No indeed. The other three men are in fact the Beaumont Street Syndicate.

Julian looked up. 'Are they indeed?'

Mountjoy nodded. He had decided that there was no point in trying to cover it up. After all, he really had nothing to hide. When he'd invested his small savings in the Beaumont Street Renaissance Income Fund, he'd had no idea that they were mixed up in anything untoward.