The Merchant of Dreams

by Anne Lyle

  Berowne took the letter and peered at the seal, then turned away as if he had quite forgotten their presence and headed back towards the stairs. Raleigh gestured for Mal to follow.

  The stairs opened out into an antechamber hung with English tapestries. The one bare section of wall bore a portrait of the young Queen Elizabeth in a scarlet gown trimmed with gold, and below it stood a high-backed chair of dark wood. There was no other furniture.

  “This is what they call the piano nobile, the noble floor,” Berowne said, seeming to remember his guests at last. “No Venetian lives on the ground floor of his house. No cellars, you see, because of the canals, so the street level chambers serve as store-rooms and shops.”

  He ushered them through a door into a smaller, more intimate chamber, more like an English parlour. A chair and footstool, both upholstered in tapestry-work, waited by a small fireplace, though most of the space was occupied by a dining table of polished marquetry with an enormous gilt-and-glass candelabrum in the centre. Berowne went over to the window and cracked the seal of the letter.

  They waited in silence until the ambassador had finished reading.

  “Well,” Berowne said, and put it down on the table top. “Well, well.”

  “Sir Geoffrey?” Mal took a step towards the ambassador. “Can I be of assistance?”

  “I take it you are here to spy on the skraylings.”

  Mal inclined his head in acknowledgement.

  “Well,” the ambassador said, “I fear you have come all this way for naught.”

  “What? Have they left already? But we saw one of their ships–”

  “Oh no, they are still here. But how you are to spy on them, I cannot fathom. No one may speak to them without the permission of the Ten, not even the Doge. I doubt they will extend that privilege to a visiting Englishman.”

  “Even one who is a personal friend of the skrayling ambassador?”

  “Especially one who is a personal friend of the skrayling ambassador.”

  “I see. That does present a difficulty. However Sir Francis has put his trust in me, and I must do what I can.”

  Berowne squinted at him. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Catlyn, sir. Maliverny Catlyn.”

  “Catlyn… Catlyn.” Berowne went over to a bureau that Mal had not noticed before, hidden as it was in a shadowy corner. “I know that name from somewhere.”

  Mal exchanged glances with Ned.

  “Mayhap you received news from England, sir,” Mal said, “of how I saved the ambassador of Vinland’s life the summer before last.”

  Berowne unlocked the bureau and sifted through some papers.

  “No, no, that was not it. There was something in dispatches, about a fire in Southwark and the death of Sir Anthony Grey, but no mention of a Catlyn. What was it now? Ah, here it is.” He held up a sheet of paper. “A census of Englishmen living in the city. Another damn fool imposition, if you ask me, but it doesn’t do to question the Ten.”

  Mal took it from him and scanned down the list. His heart lurched as he read the name: Catalin, Carlo.

  “Charles.” He bit back a curse.

  “You know him, then?”

  “If it’s the same man, yes. He’s my older brother. I knew he had fled abroad, but had no idea of his whereabouts. In truth I thought him dead.”

  Wished him dead, more like. What in God’s name was that base, shameless villain doing in Venice? He turned away, pretending to re-read the list. He tried to tell himself it was mere chance, that Charles had naturally been drawn to a city infamous for its whores and gambling dens, but he couldn’t shake off a feeling of unease. The bonds between the Catlyns and the skraylings ran far too deep for this to be a coincidence.

  Next morning, Mal and Ned accompanied Raleigh to the Mercerie, the mercantile district of Venice. A series of narrow thoroughfares leading from St Mark’s Square to the Rialto Bridge, it was lined with shops selling every luxury the Serene Republic could provide. The upper stories of its buildings were draped with tapestries and lengths of silk and cloth of gold, so that the Mercerie looked more like a royal presence chamber than a city street. Cages of nightingales hung from shop fronts, adding their piercing notes to the clamour of voices, and the scent of ginger, cloves and attar of roses vied with the stink of the crowds. Ned stared about him, dazed by the assault on his senses. Now he knew how countryfolk felt upon arriving in London.

  “Come on, snail!”

  Ned turned to see Mal beckoning to him through the crowd. Raleigh was standing outside a haberdasher’s shop admiring a display of lace. Ned caught them up just as Raleigh went inside.

  The interior of the shop was dim and cedar-scented, its walls lined with shelves on which a king’s ransom in fine fabrics lay neatly folded: cloth of gold and silver; silks of every colour imaginable, satin-smooth or cut velvet; rolls of ribbon, braid and of course Venetian lace. Some of the latter was made up into ruffs and collars, arranged on wooden half-dummies to display them to advantage. The black-clad proprietor stepped forward, like a shadow come to life.

  “Good day, sirs!” he said in perfect English. “Welcome to my humble establishment. What is your desire?”

  “How did he know we were English?” Ned whispered to Mal.

  “Does Raleigh look Italian? Or French?”

  Ned had to admit that the captain looked like neither, any more than the haberdasher looked like an Englishman. It was an odd sensation, finding himself the foreigner in town, and he decided he didn’t like it.

  Raleigh pointed out a roll of lace, and the haberdasher gestured to an assistant to take it down and unroll it. Mal stood at ease nearby, the very picture of a discreet retainer waiting to attend on his master. Ned wandered around the shop, ignoring the venomous glances the haberdasher’s assistant threw his way. Gabriel would love this place; a pity Ned couldn’t afford so much as a handkerchief to take back as a gift. He reached out to touch one of the ruffs, but froze at a hiss of disapproval from the assistant and shoved his hand back in his pocket. Today was going to be about as pleasant as escorting his mother on a visit to the parish priest.

  Behind him he could hear the haberdasher singing the praises of various samples, and naming prices that would have made the Queen herself turn pale. Raleigh made noncommittal noises, and eventually bowed and made his excuses, leaving the haberdasher and his assistant to tidy up the mess of unrolled finery. Ned hurried after Mal and emerged blinking into the street.

  They repeated the process in half-a-dozen shops along the Mercerie, until Ned was yawning with boredom. Even Mal was looking rather less at ease, a slight frown creasing his brow in that way Ned always found so charming. Tonight he would convince Mal to stay in, share a couple of bottles of wine, and then… perhaps his friend could be persuaded to enjoy himself for once.

  “Have you seen any skraylings yet?” Mal asked him as they followed Raleigh towards yet another shop. This one had a glazed window made up of rectangular panes as big as the pages of a book, so clean and clear they were almost invisible. Just beyond the glass was an elaborate silver-cased clock on a display table.

  “Not a one,” Ned replied.

  “I suppose it’s not surprising,” Mal said, “if no one is permitted to speak to them. Hardly any point wandering the city being shunned like lepers.”

  “Perhaps we should scout out this lodging-place of theirs, see if there’s a secret way in–” He yelped as Mal clipped him round the ear.

  “I thought I told you to mind your tongue?”

  Ned hung his head.

  “We can discuss strategy in the safety of Sir Geoffrey’s house,” Mal went on. “In public, pray restrict yourself to the most inoffensive of observations, or keep your mouth shut.”

  Mal peered in through the shop window as if admiring the clock and Ned leant against the nearby wall, hands in pockets, chewing the lower edge of his moustache. A trip to the barber’s was in order and soon, unless he wanted to look like a beggar. Or a sailor on shor
e-leave. Much as he longed to go home, he wasn’t looking forward to another month at sea.

  To distracted himself from his ill humour he turned his attention to the passing crowds. Most of the men were dressed in sombre black, and practically all the women were of the lower sort: suntanned peasant women in brightly coloured skirts, or whores with bare breasts and painted faces, their yellow hair piled high on their heads. He had heard Berowne say that the Venetian nobles kept their womenfolk locked up like virgins in a brothel, but had discounted it as exaggeration. Perhaps the bumbling old maltworm was not entirely ignorant after all.

  Raleigh appeared at the shop doorway.

  “Ah, Catlyn! I shall be dining with Signore Quirin today, so you are free to go about your own business.”

  Mal bowed and thanked him, then beckoned to Ned.

  “Come,” he said in a loud voice, “let us stroll around this magnificent city a while and enjoy its sights.”

  Ned detached himself from the wall and trotted after him.

  “So where are we going?”

  “I thought we might take in the Rialto Bridge and buy dinner at the fish market.” Mal replied with a wink.

  Ned grinned. According to Berowne, the skraylings’ lodgings were along the Grand Canal from the fish market. Time for a bit of intelligence work after all.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Like the Thames, Venice’s main waterway had only one bridge, lined with shops on either side to catch the ever-flowing foot traffic. But whereas London Bridge was a long level street supported on massive piers, the Rialto Bridge leapt the Grand Canal in a single arch of dazzling white stone.

  “Is it not splendid?” Mal said, as they climbed the broad, shallow steps to its summit. “Berowne says it was only completed a handful of years ago.”

  Ned had to admit that it was very grand. After the oppressive narrowness of the Venetian streets it felt good not to be hemmed in by strangers, if only for a short while.

  “I thought Raleigh wanted to buy lace for the Queen,” he said. They paused to take in the view of the Grand Canal, glittering in the mid-morning sun. “He seemed a lot more interested in those clocks, though.”

  “I think it is not only Her Majesty he plans a gift for,” Mal replied with a smile.

  “No?”

  “There is much in Venice to interest a man of scholarship, and a gift like that astronomical clock would be well received by Northumberland, I think.”

  Ned shrugged. He cared little for the doings of the high and mighty, although somehow he always managed to get entangled in them anyway. Another hazard of keeping company with Mal.

  It wasn’t hard to find the fish market. Not because it stank like Billingsgate; on the contrary, the cobbles were as clean as any in Venice and the fish looked fresh-caught that morning, their scales glinting in the sun and their eyes plump and clear. Rather it was the cooking smells that alerted the nose; the scent of fish fried over charcoal with onions and spices. Ned’s mouth began to water.

  “Dinner?” Mal said, grinned down at him.

  “Dinner.”

  Mal bought two plates of fried sardines and they ate them standing a short distance from the stall.

  “We could always send a letter,” Ned said after a while.

  He inclined his head towards a large red-brick building across a side canal from the market, which had a sign bearing the word “Poste” hung over the door. When Berowne had told them about the city’s public postal service over supper the night before, Ned’s first thought had been to send a letter to Gabriel back in London.

  Mal gave him a sarcastic look.

  “All right,” Ned muttered. “It was just an idea.”

  “And not a very good one.” Mal’s eyes narrowed as he stared across the Grand Canal. “And yet it is not wholly without merit…”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Later. I need to mull it over. Let us continue with our tour of the city for now.”

  Ned finished off the last of his fish and licked his fingers clean, then took Mal’s plate and his own back to the stall-holder.

  “We should take a gondola,” Mal said. “We’ll get a much better view of the palaces from the water.”

  For an extra lira, the gondolier was happy to give them a tour of the Grand Canal and point out all the places of interest.

  “And there, signori,” he said, gesturing somewhat dismissively to a marble-fronted palazzo on the lefthand bank, “is the Fondaco dei Sanuti, residence of the ambassador from the New World.”

  Mal made no reply. The swaying of the gondola was making him feel seasick again. However it was a far less conspicuous way of reconnoitring the skraylings’ residence than on foot, and there was no chance of getting lost either.

  He fixed his eyes on the palazzo façade in the hope that it would quell his nausea a little. The prospects for getting into the fondaco unseen were not good. Like most grand buildings in Venice its main entrance opened onto the canal bank, where a short flight of steps led up from the water to its colonnaded porch. A smaller canal ran down the lefthand side of the building, and a broad street along the right. As they passed the latter, Mal caught a glimpse of another, narrower street running directly behind the fondaco. No chance of getting in over the roofs, then.

  As soon as they were far enough away to allay suspicion, Mal ordered the gondolier to let them ashore. It was not difficult to convince the man that he felt too water-sick to continue. Even Ned looked a little worried as they disembarked.

  “Where to now?”

  “I think,” Mal said, looking around, “we should try to find our way to Berowne’s house on foot.”

  The walk took them a lot longer than he expected. The city was a network of alleys, bridges and canal banks punctuated by small tree-lined squares, each with its church. It was not that they looked the same – indeed every square was different, some paved, some cobbled, some with market stalls, some empty – but there was no pattern to the layout of the city. In London the river flowed straight east-west from the Tower to Lambeth Palace, and most of the main streets ran parallel to the river or down towards it. In Venice, the Grand Canal curved through the city in the shape of a letter S, and the streets and lesser canals filled in the spaces like scrollwork on an illuminated manuscript. It made him dizzy just trying to remember the way they had come.

  Late in the afternoon they finally emerged into a familiar-looking square where workmen were laying the foundations of a new church, and took the correct turn along the canal bank to Salizada San Pantalon.

  They were greeted at the door by Jameson, Berowne’s ancient steward, who conducted them up to the parlour. Berowne was not there, only Raleigh, pacing before the hearth.

  “About time, Catlyn. I have an invitation from Quirin to accompany him to a supper party, and I want you to come with me.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “It doesn’t do for a gentleman of my station to go abroad without a retinue.” Raleigh said, adjusting the drape of his half-cloak. “Even a retinue of one.”

  Ned pulled a face behind Raleigh’s back. Mal managed to keep his own expression respectful, though only with great effort.

  “I trust you have suitable apparel, Catlyn,” Raleigh went on. “I am told many of the city’s eminent men will be present.”

  “I packed my best suit, sir,” Mal replied, “in expectation of just such an opportunity. I wore it at the French court on several occasions.”

  “I dare say it will suffice,” Raleigh sniffed, and wandered back out into the antechamber, muttering under his breath.

  “No point me coming along anyway,” Ned said when Raleigh had left the room, “seeing as how I can’t speak the language. Still, it must be a grand do if Raleigh wants to act the English lord.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll bring you back some sweetmeats,” Mal said, punching him playfully on the arm. “Just don’t get into trouble whilst we’re out, all right?”

  As they made their way downstairs, Raleigh h
anded Mal a white half-mask.

  “I am to wear this?”

  “Apparently everyone else will be wearing them,” Raleigh said, settling his own in place and tying the ribbons behind his head. It covered his face from his temples down to his upper lip. “You’ll have to leave your rapier behind, though. Venetian law.”

  Mal gazed down at the smooth white visage before him. It ought to have been a reassurance, to be able to hide behind this expressionless shell, but instead it brought back memories of the Huntsmen in their black leather hoods with slits for eyes. Death walked in a mask like this. He shook off the grim thought and followed Raleigh through a heavy door at the foot of the stairs.

  He found himself in a vaulted storeroom like a cellar, and recalled Berowne’s words. Ripples of light, reflections from the canal outside, played over the walls, so that it felt more like a sea-cave than a man-made structure. At the far end, steps led down to a small dock in which sat a plain black gondola. Wooden gates, descending into iron grilles underwater, closed the dock off from the canal.

  “How very cunning,” he muttered, wishing the ambassador kept horses rather than boats in his undercroft.

  The gondola took them out onto the Grand Canal, across that great artery of the city, and into another maze of waterways. Eventually they arrived at a house far grander than Berowne’s, though not as large as the skrayling residence.

  “This is the clockmaker’s house?” Mal asked in surprise as they disembarked.

  Raleigh smiled. “Nay, Quirin is merely our passport. This is Ca’ Ostreghe, the palazzo of Olivia dalle Boccole.”

  “A woman?”

  “The most beautiful woman in Venice, by some accounts. They call her an ‘honest courtesan’.”

  Before Mal had a chance to ask what that meant, they were ushered into the palazzo under the watchful eye of a tall black servant in scarlet livery. Judging by the man’s soft, hairless face he was a eunuch, and therefore a slave, though no less fearsome for that. Mal had faced Turkish officers, some of them eunuchs, during his service in Italy and had a cautious respect for their skills.