The Four Horsemen

by Gregory Dowling

  Well, that was something. Of course, I would have felt more reassured if he had told me that all three of them were going to be exiled permanently to a remote Greek island, but that was an unreasonable expectation. I guessed that Sior Molin must have powerful friends, but I was sensible enough not to mention this intuition.

  “By the way,” said the Missier Grande, “you can thank Piero there for this outcome.” He gestured towards the hairy sbirro standing behind me.

  I turned in surprise. It was never easy to read this man’s expression, since so few of his features were visible; however, I thought I could detect a faint smirk somewhere behind the hair. I murmured a few words of suitable gratitude and he gave a quick nod and then relapsed into his customary hirsute inscrutability.

  “He sent word to me that you were involved in this disturbance, and so I decided to intervene directly. It so happened I was working late in the palace, as was Sior Massaro.”

  “Thank you, Illustrissimo,” I said, feeling unexpectedly touched by this.

  “Your particular gifts can still be useful to the Republic, I feel, so it seemed wasteful to allow them to be dissipated.”

  “It is good of you to say so,” I said, just a shade uncomfortably, imagining that he had chosen that last word with his usual deliberation.

  “In fact, I have a specific task that I wish you to carry out. It is one for which your gifts seem highly suitable.”

  “I see,” I said. He was presumably not referring to my drinking habits but rather to my linguistic skills and my talent for theatrical improvisation. Those were certainly the qualities that had led to my first being hired as an agent.

  “You can consider it a last chance to prove your worth,” he said.

  “I see,” I said.

  The Missier Grande looked towards the two sbirri. “You may leave us,” he said.

  They both gave quick bows and turned and left the room. The Missier Grande made a beckoning motion to me. “Come closer. What I am about to say is highly confidential.” He glanced at Sior Massaro. “In fact, I will ask you not to make any record of this part of our proceedings.”

  Sior Massaro looked startled. Such a thing was clearly unprecedented. He looked at the quill in his hand for a second and then carefully laid it down, as if afraid of offending it. He then put both hands on the desk nervously, apparently wondering what to do with them now.

  The Missier Grande went on in a lower voice: “It might have been better in some ways to conduct this conversation in my own private office outside the palace, but perhaps talking about it here will serve to allay suspicions.”

  Sior Massaro’s face was almost comical to watch, in its mixture of perplexity and dismay.

  “First of all,” the Missier Grande went on, “can I assume you are sober enough to follow what I am saying and to remember it?”

  I presumed he was now talking to me. “Yes, Illustrissimo.” I resisted the impulse to prove it with a particularly tasking tongue-twister.

  “Very well. I must take your word for it. I am also assuming you are able to take in the full seriousness of what I am telling you.”

  I nodded.

  “You may be aware, Sior Marangon,” said the Missier Grande, “of the extremely delicate position I occupy in the matter of the security of the Republic. I am, of course, subordinate to the Council of Ten and more specifically to the three Inquisitors.”

  Sior Massaro’s face now took on an almost sardonic expression, but he knew better than to say anything. I just nodded.

  “My area of competence concerns matters of everyday criminality. If I come across anything that concerns larger questions of security, such as internal sedition or threats from external forces, I have to forward the matter to the Inquisitors, who then use their own agents to investigate.”

  And here Sior Massaro seemed on the point of snorting contemptuously. I knew what he thought of these people: the Inquisitors, who in theory had vast powers (they were even allowed to order secret executions of people considered a threat to the Republic), were, as far he was concerned, little more than bumbling amateurs. Since they only held power for a year at a time, they had little chance to grasp the intricate workings of the machinery of the state before they were replaced by the new set of appointees. Sior Massaro clearly considered the real reins of power to lie with his master, even if he would never declare such seditious opinions explicitly.

  “That, for example,” the Missier Grande went on, “is what I have done with the reports of attacks on Turkish citizens over the last few weeks.”

  I vaguely knew what he was talking about. There had been a succession of not especially violent but humiliating assaults against Turkish merchants and visitors: one or two had had rotten eggs thrown at them in public places; another had had his turban snatched off his head as he stepped into a gondola. Crude slogans had been daubed on walls near their warehouse on the Grand Canal, proclaiming revenge for Cyprus and Crete . . .

  “They are certainly acts of common criminality,” he said, “but as the target appears to be a foreign community, the Inquisitors feel it is within their area of investigation.” His dry tone left hanging in the air the suggestion that their investigation had not been especially fruitful so far.

  “However,” he went on, “I now find myself in something of a quandary in quite a different matter. I have come across evidence of a crime that seems to have larger implications; I have reported my suspicions to the three Inquisitors and have been told to leave it in their hands. But I have become aware that they are proceeding no further in the matter.”

  I was listening with growing curiosity and perturbation. Things must be seriously awry for the Missier Grande to express openly such subversive opinions on the highest authorities in the Republic. I glanced around, nervously checking there were no nooks or crannies where a spy might be lurking; of course, it was foolish to think that the Missier Grande would not have foreseen this possibility himself, but it is an occupational hazard of a confidential agent to be permanently wary.

  “The story began with the death of one of my agents,” said the Missier Grande. Then he put his fingers together and said, “Or rather, that is when my suspicions began. The story, of course, began earlier than that. This man had come to me with a tale about a mysterious secret society, which he referred to as the Four Horsemen. It seemed just like one of so many such stories. Venetians, as you know, have a fondness for creating small societies for the most varied purposes: gambling, literary discussion, scientific exploration, whoring . . .” He spoke as if these activities were all equally pointless, if not actually reprehensible. “Usually we just infiltrate an agent into the group to check that nothing seditious or criminal is going on and then let them get on with things. My agent had not been able to find out the purpose of this particular group, only that it was highly secret and met on regular occasions. He also mentioned that he thought that some of the members belonged to noble families, but did not specify which.

  “Because of this circumstance I passed the information on to the Inquisitors, who told me I need trouble myself no further about it. They also told me that the agent himself was unreliable and should be dismissed from my service. I had little choice but to do so.”

  I gave another nod but also felt a twinge of anxiety. That was how simply things could happen. I could certainly not expect any strenuous defence of my role by the Missier Grande.

  “Just a few days later, word was brought to me that the man had died, falling from the roof of his house. Apparently he had been hanging out the washing on an altana and the railing had given way. However, I am convinced his death was not an accident.”

  “You mean . . .” I said, and then did not know how to complete the sentence.

  “I mean no more than what I say. His death was not an accident. I want you to find out how it happened.”

  “I see,” I said. I thought of adding, “That’s all?” but realised it would sound flippant.

  “However, this inv
estigation must remain absolutely secret. No one must know what you are doing. Above all, no one must know on whose behalf you are doing it.”

  “I see,” I said again.

  “And if you are caught and questioned I will deny all knowledge of your proceedings.”

  “I see,” I said for the third time. After a moment’s pause I said, “Thank you.”

  He narrowed his eyes and was probably about to issue a sharp rebuke for insubordination when I added, “For being so clear.”

  “I think we understand one another,” he said. “I am giving you one final chance to prove yourself as a confidential agent.”

  “What further information can you give me about the man who died?” I asked.

  “Sior Massaro will fill you in on all essential details. His name was Paolo Padoan and he lived near Sant’Isepo. I’m afraid we no longer have his report on the Four Horsemen, since we forwarded it to the Inquisitors; they insisted on taking the copy we had made of it as well. Unfortunately, nobody had read it all the way through by the time my suspicions were aroused by his death. All I can tell you is that there may be connections with a literary salotto; I have no further information than that. This was simply one passing reference that caught my attention when I first glanced at the report.”

  “A literary salotto?” I said with some curiosity.

  “Exactly. That is another reason why I thought you might be suitable for this job. Few of my other agents would have the intellectual qualities required to investigate a salotto of this kind.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured. For once it did seem like a genuine compliment. On the other hand, there was the fact that most people with such qualities would never have dreamed of becoming a confidential agent.

  “It is not clear whether the Four Horsemen were part of the salotto, but it does seem that he acquired his first information about the society while attending it.”

  “I see,” I said. I was beginning to lose track.

  “I will now leave Sior Massaro to fill you in on all technical details. Oh, and one last point I should perhaps make.”

  “Yes, Illustrissimo?”

  “Agent Padoan was clearly terrified of the Four Horsemen, whoever they were.”

  There was little I could say to that, other than a final “I see”. Certainly another “Thank you” would have been out of place.

  4

  “Well, now,” said Sior Massaro, after a few seconds of silence. “Well, now.”

  His tone combined sheer surprise with a certain gratification. The surprise was presumably at the wholly unorthodox notion of an encounter without any written record, while the gratification came from the fact that he had been privileged to be part of this novel event. I imagine there must have also been disapproval there somewhere, but he had clearly managed to push it well down below the other feelings.

  “Well, now,” I said. “So it’s just you, me and the Missier Grande against the world.”

  He looked a little disconcerted. “We are not against anyone,” he said. “We are working in the interests of the Republic.”

  “Only we mustn’t let the authorities of the Republic know,” I said.

  He waved a hand. “Discretion is always an essential feature of our work. In this case we are just going to have to be a little more discreet than usual.” His voice hushed even as he spoke so I had to lean forward to hear him. If anyone had opened the door at that moment we would have looked like sinister conspirators in a bad opera.

  “Perhaps we could talk at the other office,” I suggested. It would certainly save me from getting a crick in my neck. “Tomorrow morning?”

  He looked brighter at this suggestion. I could imagine he was finding it a little difficult to cope under the stress of knowing that in this building we were surrounded by people who would be shocked at what we were up to. “A good idea,” he said. “And I have Padoan’s files over there as well. At least all his files up to this particular case. And it is getting late now.”

  He gathered the papers on the desk together, looking with a slightly pained expression at the virgin blankness of the top sheet. “I suppose I don’t need to file it,” he muttered.

  I didn’t say anything. This was a personal crisis he would have to face on his own. In the end he shoved them all into the large leather bag he always carried.

  I spoke up. “I don’t suppose I could have back the book that was taken from me?”

  “Ah, well, we will have to speak to the sbirri. I don’t know if they have a regular procedure with confiscated objects.”

  “I think that’s very unlikely,” I said. “Mind you, it’s not going to be much use to them: it’s in English.”

  “Well, we can hope they will have filed and docketed it,” he said. “And then you need simply submit a written application for its restitution.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. What a comfortingly well-regulated world Sior Massaro lived in. I would keep an eye out for the book in the nearest pawn shops.

  The next morning I arrived early at the Missier Grande’s offices at the north-western corner of Saint Mark’s Square. I pronounced the current password to the young man in the outer room and was admitted to Sior Massaro’s office, with its view over the square. I did my best to look bright and cheerful, so as to dispel any suspicion that I might be suffering any effects from the previous night’s dissipation.

  Sior Massaro welcomed me with an extra touch of conspiratorial furtiveness, glancing around before inviting me to follow him into the next room, where he had already laid out the necessary files.

  I gave my usual nod to the array of saints in dark craggy landscapes that bedecked the walls and then sat down to read Agent Padoan’s reports. Sior Massaro left me to it, clearly finding it hard to restrain himself from putting an admonitory finger to his lips before closing the door.

  It was not the first time I had immersed myself in the reports of another agent, and as always the effect was both intriguing and dispiriting. The intriguing part lay in the insight it gave me into the mind of a fellow human being (not to say fellow worker), inducing me to make guesses about what motivated this person to observe and report what he did. The dispiriting part lay in the revealed narrowness of vision – and, more particularly, in the worrying comparisons with my own way of life.

  Paolo Padoan, I learned from the information sheet that accompanied his reports, had died at the age of sixty-five, leaving a sister two years younger than him and no other family members. The report on his death said simply that he had fallen from the altana (a wooden platform on the roof of the house) where he had been hanging clothes to dry; there seemed to be no evidence of anyone else’s being involved. His sister, with whom he lived, confirmed that it was always his job to hang out the washing, as she was very unsteady on her feet now. The wooden railing around the platform had given way and he had plunged fifty feet to the street below and died instantly.

  He had worked as a schoolteacher, having failed to win a permanent position at the university in Padua as a lecturer in classical studies. I could sense a certain seething resentment running through his reports, particularly those that concerned people in academic positions, who were invariably shown up as cheats and hypocrites. Padoan’s prose was precise, sometimes to the point of pedantry; there was sometimes a distinct note of sour sarcasm as he commented on the unsavoury actions of his fellow citizens. His reports were certainly far more literate than most of those I had seen, but they did not make for comfortable reading.

  Alongside the usual animadversions on noblemen who wore tabarri instead of the obligatory nobleman’s cloaks, on priests who seemed blithely unaware of their vows of chastity, and on foreign ambassadors who entertained too lavishly, he was especially observant (and critical) of people’s reading habits, noting those noblemen (particularly the impoverished barnabotti) who seemed too fond of French freethinkers like Voltaire or English natural philosophers like Newton. I imagined he must have kept a close eye on bookshops and literary cir
cles and wondered if my friend Fabrizio had known him. I got the impression that Padoan did not really approve of any writers who had not the decency to have been dead for at least a millennium and a half. Newton was possibly less offensive than Voltaire because at least he had the good taste not only to be dead but also to write in a dead language.

  His classical learning was on rather ostentatious display, as he frequently dropped in little Latin mottoes (Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges, Docendo discimus, Ignorantia legis neminem excusat, Publica fama non semper vana) and even the occasional Greek one, which I couldn’t read. I had the feeling that the behaviour of the people he was observing was always being compared to that of some mythical time in the early days of the Roman Republic.

  His last report bore a date of three months earlier. It mentioned, in a tone of detached distaste, as if he were reporting the misbehaviour of a class of schoolboys in a classroom adjacent to his own, the new fashion for artistic and literary salotti, “where all matters are discussed freely, sometimes by women as well as men, by noblemen as well as citizens and ordinary people”. I had the feeling that he had only just refrained from adding “and other animals”. He noted, in a curious parenthesis: “Further observations in my diary.”

  I went through to Sior Massaro, who, as usual when I opened the door on him unexpectedly, gave a nervous start and immediately started writing busily. “Excuse me,” I said, “do we have Padoan’s diary?”

  He raised his eyes from his work and looked at me as if trying to tear his mind away from a thousand other matters. Then he suddenly remembered the need for conspiratorial secrecy and looked all around the office before answering in a hushed voice, “No diary was found. The sbirri looked everywhere, and interrogated his sister.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Not very much. It seems she is not entirely right in the head and was hardly any help at all.”