An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears

  I told Williams, when I ran him to earth, that I was interested in putting some funds into the activities of an Italian house called Cola, and wondered whether this man was sound and trustworthy. He looked at me a little strangely, and replied cautiously that, as far as he knew, the house of Cola was funded entirely on its own resources. He would be very surprised indeed to discover that he was bringing in outsiders. I shrugged and said this was what I had been told.

  ‘Thank you for the intelligence, then,’ he said. ‘Your news confirms what I have suspected.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That the house of Cola must be in considerable trouble. Venice’s war against the Turks has devastated his business, which has always been in the Levant. He lost two ships last year with full cargoes, and Venice still cannot prise open markets controlled by the Spaniards and Portuguese. He is a fine trader; but he has fewer and fewer people with whom he can trade.’

  ‘Is this why he set up here?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. I believe that without the goods England takes from him, he would not float for long. What, exactly, is this venture?’

  I said I wasn’t sure, but had been assured it was of the greatest potential.

  ‘Probably to do with printed silks. Very profitable, if you know what you are doing, but a disaster if you do not. Sea water and silk do not mix very well.’

  ‘Does he have his own ships?’

  ‘Oh, yes. And very well-found vessels they are.’

  ‘He has an agent in London, I believe. Called di Pietro. What is he like?’

  ‘I know him only a little. He keeps himself to himself. He doesn’t mix much with others in the trading world, although he is well in with the Jews of Amsterdam. Again a warning for you, for if we go to war with the Dutch, that connection will be worse than useless. The house of Cola will have to choose which side it is on, and will inevitably lose yet more business.’

  ‘How old is di Pietro?’

  ‘Oh, old enough to know what he is doing. In his fifties, I believe. He talks occasionally of going back home and living an easier life, but says his employer has too many children who need to be provided for.’

  ‘How many children?’

  ‘Five, I believe, but three are daughters, poor man.’

  I grimaced in sympathy, even though the man might well turn out to be an enemy. I knew enough to be aware that for a trader, whose lifeblood depended on keeping his capital close by, three daughters could be a killing burden. Fortunately, even though my two sons were both fools, they were presentable enough to be married to women of fortune.

  ‘Indeed, a grave disappointment,’ Williams continued. ‘Especially as neither of the sons are minded to follow him. One is a priest and – begging your pardon, Doctor – useful only for consuming money rather than creating it. I believe the other plays the soldier; he did so, at least. I have not heard news of him for some time.’

  ‘A soldier?’ I said with astonishment, for this quite important fact had been entirely missed by the picture dealer, and I made a note to reprove him for his laxity.

  ‘So I understand. Perhaps he never showed any inclination to trade and the father was too wise to force him. That was why Cola married the eldest daughter to a cousin in the Levant business.’

  ‘Are you sure he’s a soldier? How do you know this?’ I said, returning to the question and, I could see, arousing William’s suspicions.

  ‘Doctor, I do not know any more,’ he replied patiently. ‘All I know is what I hear around the coffee shops.’

  ‘Tell me what you hear, then.’

  ‘Knowing about the son will reassure you about investing in his business?’

  ‘I am a cautious man, and believe in knowing everything I can. Wayward children, you must admit, can be a ferocious drain. What if the son is in debt and his creditors make a claim on the father while he has my money?’

  Williams grunted, not believing me but willing not to press.

  ‘I was told by a fellow merchant who tried to open trade in the Mediterranean,’ he explained eventually. ‘By the time the pirates and the Genoese had finished with him, he realised it was hardly worth the trouble. But he spent some time there four years back, cruising around, and once landed a cargo on Crete for the garrison at Candia.’

  I raised an eyebrow. It was a brave, or a very desperate, man indeed who would try to run a cargo through the Turks to supply that particular market.

  ‘As I say,’ Williams said, ‘he had taken losses and was desperate, so he took a chance. A successful throw, it seems, as he not only sold his entire cargo but was allowed to take a cargo of Venetian glass back to England by way of reward.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Anyway, there he met a man called Cola, who said his father was a merchant in the luxury trade of Venice. Now, perhaps there are two Colas who are merchants in Venice. I do not know.’

  ‘Go on.’

  He shook his head. ‘There you have my entire fund of knowledge on the subject. The doings of the merchants’ children are not my concern. I have more immediate matters to worry about. What is more, Doctor, so do you. So why don’t you tell me what it is?’

  I smiled and stood up. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Certainly I know nothing which might help you to a profit.’

  ‘In that case, I am not in the slightest bit interested. But if ever . . .’

  I nodded. A bargain is a bargain. I am pleased to say that I discharged my debt in due course as, through me, Mr Williams was one of the first to know about the plans to re-equip the fleet the following year. I gave him enough forewarning to allow him to buy up every mast pole in the country, so he could sell them to the navy at the price he named. Between us, we profited handsomely, God be praised.

  The merchant he mentioned, Andrew Bushrod, I tracked down in the Fleet Prison, where he had been for several months: his creditors had tired of him when a ship carrying most of his capital had gone down and his family had refused to come to his rescue. This, apparently, was his own fault: when prosperous, he had declined to contribute to a cousin’s marriage portion. Naturally, they felt no obligation to him when hard times came.

  So, he was not only in the Fleet, he was also at my mercy as I had sufficient influence to have him released if he did not co-operate; then his sanctuary would be lost, and his creditors would pounce. It took some effort to sift out the dross from what he told me and his accuracy in point of detail was dubious: it is enough merely to contrast his description of Cola with the plump, perfumed dandy that the Italian actually was to see that, even though the circumstances then perhaps affected his appearance. Briefly stated, his account was that in 1658 he had taken a ship into the Mediterranean and to Leghorn to sell a cargo of woollen goods there. The price he gained – he was no businessman – just about paid the cost of the voyage, and he was casting around for goods to bring back to England. At this point he chanced upon a Venetian, who told of a hugely profitable voyage he had just made to Crete, running food and weapons into Candia harbour under the noses of the Turks.

  The town and its defenders were so short of everything they would pay virtually any price. For his part, however, he would not go back again. Why not? asked Bushrod. Because he wanted to live into his old age, the man replied. Although the Turkish fleet was incompetent, the pirates were much more effective. Too many of his friends had been caught and a lifetime in the galleys was the best you could expect if you were. The man then pointed out a beggar in the street outside, whom he said was once a sailor in a Candia ship. He had no hands, no eyes, no ears and no tongue.

  Bushrod was not brave, and was little interested in saving Crete for Christendom or for Venice. But he was out of funds, his crew had not been paid and his creditors would be waiting for him when he returned home. So he contacted the Venetian consul in Leghorn, who told him what sort of goods would be required, and then took a fat contract to bring out any wounded who were fit to travel – four ducats for a gentleman, one for a soldier, half for a woman.

&
nbsp; They hugged the Italian coast as far as Messina, where they offloaded some pottery, then headed as quickly and directly as possible for Crete. Candia, he said, was the worst experience of his life. To be in a town of several thousand people all of whom expected to die shortly, abandoned by all Christendom, aware that their mother country was tiring of them, and persecuted tirelessly by foes on sea and land, was almost too much to bear. Everything was coarsened and brutal after the longest siege in the history of the world. There was an air of desperation and violence which terrified him into lowering his prices, afraid that the townspeople would otherwise set on him and take everything he had for nothing. He still made a big enough profit to make the voyage more than worthwhile, and then set about preparing for the return journey by advertising for passengers. One of the people who took up his offer was named Cola.

  ‘Name?’ I said. ‘Be more precise, man. What was his name?’

  Marco, he said. That was it. Marco. Anyway, this Cola was in a bad way, gaunt and thin, gloomy of attitude, dirty and unkempt, and half-delirious from pain and the huge amounts of alcohol he took as his only medicine. It was difficult to believe that he could ever have been much of an advantage to the Venetian defences, but Bushrod soon learned that he was wrong. The young man was treated with respect by officers many years his senior and held almost in awe by the common foot soldiers. Cola was, it seemed, the best scout in Candia, adept at slipping past Ottoman outposts, carrying messages to outlying fortifications, and causing all sorts of light disruption. On many occasions he had deliberately and successfully set traps for high-ranking Turks and killed them, gaining a reputation for blood-curdling ferocity and ruthlessness. He was skilled at striking in silence and escaping undetected and was, it seemed, something of a zealot for the Christian cause, despite all appearances to the contrary.

  Curious about his passenger, Bushrod tried to engage him in conversation on several occasions during the voyage back to Venice – which this time passed without incident. But Cola was reticent, hiding behind a gruff and melancholy silence. Only on one occasion did he reveal himself, and that was when Bushrod asked if he was married. Cola’s face darkened and he said that his fiancée had been taken into slavery by the Turks. He had been sent out to Crete to examine the girl, who came from a good family, and had agreed the match. She had been dispatched ahead of him to Venice, and the ship was captured. Not a word had ever been heard of her again, and he very much hoped she was dead. Against his father’s wishes, the young man had stayed in Candia to exact such revenge as he could.

  And now?

  And now he no longer cared. He was badly injured and he knew that Candia would soon fall. There was neither the determination nor the money nor the faith to defend it. He was undecided whether to return or not; perhaps his skills could be better employed elsewhere.

  Then Marco da Cola had reached for a bottle, and spent nearly the entire voyage sitting on deck, uttering not another word, drunk or sober, until the ship docked in Venice.

  So much for that; zeal against the heathen was hardly something of which I could disapprove, and yet it was curious. We had a soldier (or ex-soldier) consorting with republicans in the Low Countries; the father’s agent, a Venetian observer, sending regular messages to his masters abroad and transporting messages from malcontents in England. Lots of little pieces, none of which added up. Yet there was something which needed to be unravelled, and the obvious starting point was that package which, despite Mr Bennet’s strictures, I decided was within my competence.

  Lest anyone think that I could call on an army of assistants in the fashion of Thurloe, I must hasten to state the true facts. Although I had a number of people who passed me information, I had precisely five in the entire country who could be relied on to act for me and two of these, I must confess, frightened even me. Nor was this matter my only, or even my main, occupation. I have mentioned the rising which I knew was being planned, and that naturally was my greatest concern. But there were also countless other irritations, most nonsensical although each with dangerous potential. The garrison at Abingdon had been purged, but was still less than satisfactorily quiescent. Sectaries and conventicles grew up like so many mushrooms across the landscape, giving scope for malcontents to meet and draw courage from each other. There were persistent reports that (yet again) the Messiah had returned to usher in the millennium, and was travelling the country in some guise, preaching and teaching and sowing sedition. How many of these characters had there been in the past few years? Dozens at least, and I had hoped that quieter times had put an end to them, but it was not apparently the case. Finally, in the middle of the affair I intend to relate, a drunken Irish magus called Greatorex turned up in Oxford and held court at the Mitre inn to milk the gullible of their coins, so I had to divert much time to persuading him to move on his way. I had enough on my plate, in other words, and though I worked without stint I must say that neither then nor later were my efforts ever fully recognised or rewarded.

  For the particular task of getting hold of these letters, I had to call on the services of one John Cooth, whose loyalty to the king was due solely to my having intervened when he nearly killed his wife in a drunken frenzy, then slit a man’s throat for (he said) trying to put a pair of horns on him. He was in no wise intelligent but was skilled at housebreaking and was thoroughly in my debt. I thought he would serve, especially as I gave him a strict lecture about what he was to do and how he was to do it. In particular I told him there was to be absolutely no violence, and I laboured the point so much even a man of his diminished wits must understand.

  Or so I thought. When Matthew told me that the package had been delivered to di Pietro’s house and was to go aboard one of his ships the next morning, I told Cooth to bring it to me as rapidly as possible. Cooth dutifully returned a few hours later and gave me a package which contained all the mail being sent, including the letters delivered by Matthew. I copied them, and he took it back. And the next morning Matthew came with the news that Signor di Pietro had been murdered.

  I was appalled by this, and prayed to the Lord for forgiveness for my foolishness. It was fairly obvious to me, despite Cooth’s denials, what had happened: he had gone into the house and, instead of just taking the package, had decided to help himself to the contents of the treasury as well. Di Pietro was roused, came to investigate and Cooth had cold-bloodedly cut open his throat so badly the head was almost severed from the body.

  Eventually I wrung a confession out of him: what was it to me, he said, whether he’d killed the man or not? I’d wanted the package, I’d got the package. I lost patience, and cut him off. He was going back to gaol, I said, and if he so much as breathed a word of this, he’d hang. Even he understood my seriousness and the matter went no further; moreover, I soon learned that Cola had an English partner who wanted the entire business, and was unconcerned about discovering the author of a deed which had served him so profitably. It took many days but, after much effort, I felt I could relax, relatively certain that Mr Bennet would not hear of the affair.

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  THIS UNFORTUNATE BUSINESS at least provided me with di Pietro’s mailbag, which turned out to be far more interesting than even I had hoped. For not only did it include the letters being sent to the radicals, it also contained another, unmarked in any way, which came from a different and unknown source. I only looked at it because I remembered the habits that Thurloe had inculcated into his office, one of which was that when examining a mailbag for suspicious correspondence, check everything else it contains as well. There were twelve letters in all, one from the radicals, ten entirely innocuous and concerned only with trading matters, and this one. Its lack of address alone would have alerted my attention, the fact that the seal on the back was entirely blank merely added to my determination. I only wished that little Samuel Morland had been there by my side, for no man was ever swifter at removing a seal, nor better at putting it back unnoticed. My own efforts were more laborious,
and I cursed mightily as I wrestled with that most delicate task. But I did it, and did a fine job, so that once it was battered a little by transporting, I felt sure no one would see my handiwork.

  And it was worth the effort. Inside was as fine a piece of coding as I had ever seen – a very long letter of about 12,000 characters, in the complicated random cipher I described earlier. I felt a tingling of excitement as I contemplated it, for I knew it to be a challenge worthy of my skill. But at the back of my mind was a more worrying thought, for ciphers are like music and have their own rhythms and cadences. This one, as I scanned it, sounded in my mind as being familiar, like a tune heard once before. But I could not yet place the melody.

  Many times have men asked me why I took up the art of decipherment, for it seems to them to be a vulgar occupation, not in keeping with my position and dignity. I have many reasons, and the fact that I enjoy it is but the least of them. Men like Boyle are absorbed by teasing out the secrets of nature, in which I also take the greatest pleasure. But how wonderful it is also to penetrate the secrets of men’s minds, to turn the chaos of human endeavour into order and bring the darkest deeds from night into daylight. A cipher is only a collection of letters on a page; this I grant. But to take that confusion and turn it into meaning through the exercise of pure reason provides a satisfaction which I have never managed to communicate to others. I can only say that it is not unlike prayer. Not vulgar prayer, in which men chant words while their minds are elsewhere, but true prayer, so complete and profound that you feel the touch of God’s grace on your spirit. And I have often thought that my success shows His favour, a sign that what I do is pleasing to Him.