°°°
They were at the table of the wealthy and influential merchant Gherardino Figa, as his guests, idly watching the summer evening over the Venice Grand Canal by the open balcony. Unexpectedly, the host said to his brother, under a wide and insidious smile,
"Narses, I knew that you didn't do what I asked you to."
Hearing his brother's real name being said in a demeaning tone, Alexios took his eyes off the channel to look at his brother and the benefactor who had sheltered them after their escape from Constantinople. After the death of the other Dallassenos as heretics, the Lazarite Order was excommunicated and officially dissolved, and, its members, persecuted. Betrayed by a dissident faction inside the Order, the names of Alexios and Narses Dallassenos were widely known, and any news of their whereabouts was paid with a good amount of gold anywhere around the Bosphorus, Black and Adriatic Seas.
