not the morning that was hoped for, June 15, 1899
Sure enough, a metal gate smashed down to the floor behind them, locking them in.
Teo wailed, “He’s lured us in here, Renzo. Now he can finish us off in the privacy of his own home.”
“And another thing, Teo—we didn’t tell Lussa where we were going. If history repeats itself, which of course it will, our side shall soon be besieging this palace. They don’t know we’re in here. They’ll try to finish off Bajamonte Tiepolo and raze his house to the ground again—but this time with us inside.”
Renzo had barely finished speaking when the attack started. The arrows of Enrico Dandolo’s foot-soldiers pattered against the windows. An axe flew through an open window and embedded itself in a tapestry just inches from Teo’s ear. The children fled away from the windows and deeper into the palace. In the distance, over the thudding of their own footsteps, they heard the sound of someone crying.
“Maria!” shouted Teo, running towards the noise.
At the threshold of the room that shook with sobs, Renzo grabbed Teo’s shoulder. “Don’t rush in there. It could be another trap.”
Cautiously, they peered around the massive doorway.
Maria was standing in a room full of mirrors that was furnished with a vast array of frightful devices for torture. There was a stout chair carpeted with thousands of nails, with straps and weights to impale its victim for a slow death. The iron maiden was there—the wooden sarcophagus with long spikes in the lid. Hanging on the walls, like nightmarish sculptures, were helmets that would choke as they were fastened on. Thumbscrews were laid out in readiness on a table that was stained with what looked horribly like old blood. And in the fireplace, thrust into roaring flames, three branding irons were glowing white hot.
“One for me, one for Renzo and one for Maria,” counted Teo. “And look! Brustolons too! At least a dozen of them. Stinking of varnish.”
“All the tools of his trade,” hissed Renzo. “And with all these mirrors, he can have the pleasure of watching himself at work.”
“But Renzo, where did he get these atrocious things? Surely they were never used in Venice?”
Renzo hung his head, mumbling, “The Inquisition … important state secrets.”
“To justify cruelty like this?” Teo was outraged. For the second time in a few minutes she was full of anger against Venice. The beautiful city had secretly traded in slaves and tortured her citizens.
Renzo seemed to understand her thoughts. “Don’t be a baby, Teo. Nothing in this world is perfect. Only a spoilt child expects it to be.” But he squeezed her hand and said quietly, “You’re a Venetian now. You have to take the good with the bad. And there is more that could be perfect about Venice than there is about any other city. That is what I believe, and I hope you can believe it too.”
“Unless we can do something, you will have to rephrase that in the past tense,” Teo replied flatly. She did not think she would ever forget and possibly would not ever forgive the things she had seen today.
Maria still had not noticed Renzo and Teo. She appeared unaware of the hideous tools that surrounded her. Instead, she was staring in disbelief at her reflection in one of the mirrors. She was now the very picture of a classic hunchback dwarf, stooped over and bursting out of her human clothes. There were actual carbuncles on her nose. Where the teardrop emerald once hung from her earring, an ugly black chain tethered her to a hideous basalt fireplace big as a cottage. A pewter bowl at her feet contained dry bread and greenish cheese.
Finally Maria tore her gaze away from her own image in the mirror.
“Teo! Renzo!” she screamed, rushing to embrace Teo. But the chain tugged at her ear and she winced, drawing back. “You were right! Look what he’s done to me! He acted so nice but he’s horrible, and not young, like he pretended to be. I’ve seen his real face now. It’s awful. But Teo, what are you doing, wearin’ cosmetics? I thought you hated them? It don’t suit you, you look appallin’. But who’m I to talk?”
She started crying again. While Maria talked, Renzo had been using his ferro penknife to work at the little padlock that had chained her to the fireplace. It snapped apart. Renzo wound the chain neatly around his wrist and then dropped the coil in Maria’s pocket so that it would not drag on the floor. Renzo held out his hand. “Come, Maria, let’s get you out of here.”
Maria pushed him away. “How can I let anyone see me like this?” she moaned.
“This isn’t the time to be thinking about your precious looks!” shouted Teo.
Renzo said more gently, “Ordinary people won’t see the change in you.”
“Do not be too sure about that, Studious Son.” The words boomed out of a Tiepolo crest on the wall. Teo knew that voice, full of hatred, superiority and sarcasm.
Renzo whispered, “That’s …?”
She nodded. Bajamonte Tiepolo’s disembodied voice continued, “Soon every living being in Venice shall see everything in the way that I tell them. And you, young man, delighted to make your acquaintance. I hope to know you better very soon, and indeed your most special secrets too. All with the help of my little black toys here.”
Renzo’s and Teo’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to the white-hot branding irons in the fire. Maria, noticing them for the first time, squealed.
Il Traditore continued, “And you, Teodora Gasperin, piece of adder-spawn that you are, did you know that I had the acquaintance of your dear parents some years ago? Not so greatly to their advantage, I fear. And frankly, if I had known the trouble you would cause me, I’d have made sure of doing the deed properly. It was a foolish indulgence to leave your progenitors’ little heiress alive to trouble me. Except, of course, by an irony, you have in fact acted as my own true and faithful servant, Teodora Gasperin, in bringing me my indispensable Spell Almanac not just once but twice!”
He laughed long and heartily.
Teo flinched. It was true. She, who was supposed to be so clever, had foolishly wandered into a trap that would not have deceived a perfectly stupid child.
Bajamonte Tiepolo snarled, “The second time you’ve crossed my path shall be the last time.”
“He’s admitting that he drowned your mother and father and your grandparents and everyone!” whispered Renzo. “The monster! He’s actually gloating.”
“Your mother and father?” yelped Maria. “Are they dead? Are mine …?”
“Fine!” hissed Teo. “So long as he’s gloating, he’s not actually killing us. Or torturing us. Or taking the spells off me. We could get away. There are no guards, are there?”
Her answer was a loud groaning and creaking of wood. The sinews and muscles of the Brustolon statues strained and trembled, the rich dark wood glowing in the lamplight. One by one, the statues lurched into life, burst off their carved chains and surrounded the children. Their leeches, jolted by the strenuous shaking of their wooden joints, sent copious streams of blood splashing out of their thick lips. Maria’s mouth opened and closed again silently.
Teo whispered, “Renzo! At Sant’Elena he printed a Making Wood Alive spell from my body! There are Brustolon figures in all the palaces and houses and hotels in Venice. If these ones can do it, they’ll all be coming to life now!”
Renzo nodded wordlessly. Now no one in Venice was safe from the vengeful former slaves.
There was a scrabbling of claws against the window. The voice of Bajamonte Tiepolo was mercifully silenced for a moment. Teo and Renzo edged closer to the light and looked down to the banks of the Grand Canal below them. Gathered on the opposite bank, at the Naranzaria, they glimpsed the mermaids, the gondolier children, the lions, the English Melusine and the saints. Teo’s heart yearned to be with them.
At the next window the face of a lion appeared, his wings beating behind it.
“The mermaids have sent him to negotiate with Bajamonte Tiepolo,” guessed Renzo. “We’ve got to let them know that we are here.”
But the Brustolons moved to stand between t
he children and the window, blocking the sight of them. The lion fluttered at the window, attending to Bajamonte Tiepolo’s disembodied voice with an expression of deep distaste written all over his noble muzzle.
Il Traditore announced, “Tell your people I have a human girl, temporarily turned into a dwarf. It’s all the same to me whether she stays a dwarf or goes back to being a dull little girl. But unless your people deliver what I ask, she won’t be anything much anymore. Just a small, worthless heap of bones somewhere.”
Through the crest on the wall, Bajamonte Tiepolo’s tone changed from mirth to an icy determination. “I demand the word of the fishwives that I shall pass unhindered, and that I shall have my own bones back. My enemies were so rabbit-brained as to decently leave my corpse in one piece. And so, reunited with my bones, I shall become my old self, the one and only Bajamonte Tiepolo.” The old conspirator mused, “That’s where I was mistaken before, in the splitting of our forces. Badoer going his way, and Querini the other … Damn them.”
Renzo whispered fiercely, “No, it was because you were too greedy and insisted on looting before fighting. It was your fault the forces did not meet together.”
Il Traditore pondered on, unhearing, “And what would have happened if the three of us had won our victory? It would have been another bloody war of succession then. This time there is only me and only one conclusion. When I marry the sea with my emerald ring, there shall be no more disputes about who is the ruler of Venice.”
“Marry the sea?” asked Teo. “What does he mean?”
“It was something the Doge used to do every year, on Ascension Day: row out into the lagoon and drop a gold ring into the water. He would then say, ‘Desponsamus te, Mare,’ which means, ‘We marry you, Sea.’ ”
“But isn’t that good?” theorized Teo desperately. “That Bajamonte Tiepolo wants to keep the old tradition going? He must not want to destroy Venice, then.”
Il Traditore had been listening to them after all, for his voice boomed out now. “My little fools, I plan a rather different manner of wedding. This wedding shall be of the style of 1866. That was a mere rehearsal of my great Nuptial Feast.
“Now, once again, I plan a wedding party to which all the waves in the sea are invited, one after another. Yes, the very tides shall do my bidding once I have my bones. And when my celebrations are over, Venetians shall have no more streets to walk upon. This time the waters shall not recede. Ah, proud Venice shall eat mud! And choke on black water. One ton of mud for every Venetian.”
Renzo hissed, “What about the people who live on the ground floors? The poor people, the people in hospitals, the people who haven’t been able to get away?”
Il Traditore’s voice rose joyfully. “They shall no longer be living, on ground floors or anywhere. They shall be corpses floating out to sea, while Venice, my Venice, is shipwrecked in her own slime.”
Teo remembered the maps of Venice that were printed by the Ca’ Dario Press. Bajamonte Tiepolo had always planned to hurt and humiliate Venice by half drowning her. The rest of the city, chastened by the dreadful punishment, decimated by the plague, would be obedient to him ever after.
“Now, I shall be ready in one hour, and I shall leave this palace in a gondola, for the lagoon. Such a lovely day for a wedding, do you not think? My bride, Venice, awaits me.”
Between the massive shoulders of the Brustolons, Teo glimpsed her comrades down by the Grand Canal. A collective shiver went through the mermaids and the gondolier children as they took in the faceless words of Bajamonte Tiepolo, which boomed out through the air like the ranting of an angry and wicked god.
Il Traditore continued smoothly, “In thirty minutes I desire to see my own bones waiting in the gondola below this palace. The girl Maria shall accompany me. Should my enemies make trouble, then my private retinue of sharks shall make a light supper of her. I presume there is someone here who’d prefer for that not to happen?”
Maria’s parents? Teo thought of their cold faces. Maria, tears rolling down her cheeks, was clearly remembering the same thing.
“And in case you think the girl Maria a necessary sacrifice, I have other hostages too. My dear fishwives, when was the last time you laid your pretty green eyes upon your Undrowned Child, eh? Or your Studious Son? Yes, they too are currently enjoying my famous hospitality, and their lives will be the price you pay if you fail to cooperate.”
Teo heard a howl of “Lackaday!” go up among the mermaids across the water.
“Yes indeed, your Teodora Gasperin, your Lettrice-delcuore, your Vedeparole, came all the way here to my humble home to give me back my Almanac,” gloated the voice of Bajamonte Tiepolo. “Sweet of her, no? There shall be time enough for me to print the contents of her body when I return in triumph from my wedding. I fear, good people, that her release may not be a part of the bargain. I have a fancy to disprove her title, the Undrowned Child.”
He added, “You may have your Studious Son back in the end, though I cannot be sure how gentle my Brustolons shall be with him. I’m delighted to offer them some sport, after so many years of suppression. And they do most comprehensively hate a good Venetian, which I understand he is.”
Renzo flinched. Teo reached for his hand. She felt a constriction in her chest and a wave of hateful sickness all over her body.
“What a coward!” she whispered fiercely, as if that might make her feel better. “Always someone else to do his dirty work.”
The Brustolons surrounded them. Droplets of varnish fell down their black shoulders and their arms opened wide.
a moment of optimism, June 15, 1899
“Don’t worry,” whispered Renzo to Teo.
“Don’t worry? You’re crazy. We’re done for.”
“No!” said Renzo. “If we can only get you out of here, I’ve come up with a way to dispose of Bajamonte Tiepolo forever.”
“Simple, then. Why didn’t I think of that? Of course we have nothing to worry about.”
“I mean it … listen to me.”
“No, listen to them. The winged lions are roaring outside the window.”
The children held their breath and listened. The lions flew back and forth between the mermaids and Bajamonte Tiepolo. Graphic threats and insults were exchanged between the two sides. Thirty tense and silent minutes passed, and there was a shout below. The bones had appeared in a gondola moored right in front of the palace. They were still wrapped in chains.
“To save our lives, they’re giving in to him,” moaned Teo.
Bajamonte Tiepolo himself strode into the torture chamber. Even after hearing his voice, it was a bodily shock for Teo to see him again. He was wrapped in his white-furred cloak, for he still had no real skin, except for the hand. It was only an almost visible, almost touchable fury that held his bones together in that unformed mass. He pushed back the hood of his cloak and looked around. His tongue flickered like a lizard’s. His blank white eyes were rimmed with fire. Renzo, who had not seen Il Traditore’s face before, took a step backwards, swallowing hard.
Their captor threw open a window, focusing an ornate telescope on the skeleton in the boat below. He bellowed, “You are not above trickery, fishwives, though you pretend to be so honorable. Let us make certain that you have brought my rightful remains.”
Then he howled, “Why do you present my bones in ignominious chains! And to show them to me in such a position, with the legs crossed like a woman!”
Bajamonte Tiepolo examined every inch of his bones with the telescope. He recognized all the scars of his murder back in 1310. Indignantly, he counted off each item of damage, the old splinter of a sword in his left leg, the little corner of his right elbow damaged by a stiletto dagger, and the broken bones in his neck where the state assassin had strangled him. A scream rose out of him, a scream of outrage and self-pity. “Look! This is what Venice has done to me. I shall avenge every single way that Venetians hurt me! Venice shall be made to feel my every abasement!”
Bajamonte Tiepolo threw
down the telescope and turned away from the window. Maria whimpered, which was a mistake, for it drew Il Traditore’s attention to her. Terrified at his poisonous glance, she started to hobble away, but the chain fell out of her pocket and Bajamonte Tiepolo stamped his foot down on the trailing end. Tethered to the spot, Maria turned back to look at him and promptly fainted away. Two glaring Brustolons placed themselves between the unconscious girl and Renzo and Teo.
“Well, that makes it easier for me,” remarked Il Traditore, scooping Maria up. “But first, a little treasure hunt, I think.”
With the limp Maria tucked under his arm, Bajamonte Tiepolo made a circuit of the room, pulling gold and jewels out of secret crevices in the wall. Trapdoors opened in what seemed like smooth mirrors. Secret hinges swung apart to reveal stashes of silver. At the sound of a low whistle, a suit of armor in the corner of the room creaked to life. It followed its master stiffly, holding open a decorated coffer into which Bajamonte Tiepolo threw the treasure. When the mirrored chamber was stripped, Il Traditore could be heard moving through nearby rooms. He shouted gleefully, “Doge Gradenigo’s men were not such skillful looters as my own!”
A few minutes later he returned, the suit of armor staggering under the weight of treasure. Bajamonte Tiepolo laughed. “There’s more gold to be found in the lower regions of the palace. Don’t want it getting drowned.”
He raised his single hand to the Brustolon statues and pointed to the children. Then he shook his head and pointed to the door, making the sign of a throat being cut. A dozen pairs of white eyeballs rolled fiercely under brows like hairy caterpillars. Bajamonte Tiepolo swept out of the room.
Renzo shouted at the top of his voice, “Thank goodness for that!”
“Shhhh! Not that much to be grateful for, if you ask me,” Teo murmured, looking at the Brustolons.
Renzo cried, “The statues are deaf! I suppose Brustolon never carved inside their ears. Didn’t you notice? Il Traditore spoke to them with gestures. They can’t hear us now.”
The Undrowned Child Page 29
