On that particular Sunday my chaplain wouldn't shut up and I was getting hungry. On and on he droned about how we shouldn't fear death but welcome the joys of heaven, so I picked up my two horse pistols and gave the sod both barrels. You can still see the holes on either side of the pulpit. Well, I laughed myself silly. The chaplain went white as snow and fainted straight out of the pulpit. I didn't intend to kill him. I just wanted to see if he practised what he preached. Instead I concluded he was about as frightened of death as I am so why, in the good Lord's name, did he get up and bore us stiff telling us different?

He didn't know I always carry pistols under my cloak, and he may well ask why. For the same reason I dictate my memoirs in the centre of a maze. You see, old Shallot has many enemies and memories die hard. The secret order of the Templars still has a price on my life. The Luciferi of France (I'll come to those bastards later) would like to see my head on a pole. The Council of Ten in Venice have sent three assassins against me just because I borrowed some of their gold and forgot to repay it. The silly idiots came nowhere near me. The great Irish wolf hounds who roam my estate tore them to pieces. Marvellous animals! They lounge round my chair now, staring at the chaplain and licking their lips.

Of course, other assassins might come. Do you know, I once played a game of human chess against the Ottoman Emperor, Suleiman the Magnificent? Instead of pieces we played with human beings on a great white and black piazza. When we lost a 'piece', the 'gardeners', the Ottoman's mute executioners, immediately strangled the poor victim. Now I won that game, losing just two 'pieces', but only after I left with the comeliest 'piece' of all, a wench from the imperial harem, did Suleiman discover that I had cheated and publicly marked me down for death. Perhaps his 'gardeners' will come but I am not frightened. I have my maze, I have my secret chamber, my own silent guards, my wolf hounds and my beloved pistols. Moreover, I have seen it all. The knife, the sword, the rope, the garrotte – they don't chill my heart.