'Is that of this man here, Messer Petroc' She glanced at me, and her eyes danced like the blue butterflies of an English summer. I found myself smiling.
'That is so. She knows Querini's habits. And you can trust her – I give you my personal guarantee.'
The look on Zeno's granite face told me that he valued my guarantee as highly as that of a spoiled oyster, but to my amazement he gave a curt nod and a grunt of assent. And thus I came to be huddled against Letice in the cabin of the gondola while the two oarsmen rowed like fury across the basin of Saint Mark towards the Abbey of San Giorgio, standing beneath its campanile on its own island at the tip of that quarter of Venice called Dorsoduro. Zeno was hunched opposite us. He was not the most voluble travelling companion, indeed he was silently terrifying. But having seen him ordered about by Mother Zaneta, I found I could bear his inquisitorial stares, and even managed an airy smile in reply.
When we were drawing near to the island, Letice leaned across to him.
'Only the three of us will go ashore,' she said. 'The boatmen are in livery and will frighten the monks. I will take you to Nicholas' quarters. Keep your weapons out of sight. If we are stopped, do not say a word. I am known here, and I will talk. Agreed?' Zeno looked at me. '‘agree,' I told him. 'Letice, if Nicholas thought he was to be arrested for treason, would he fight?' She gave an affirming snort in reply.
'Very well’ said Zeno. 'But if it comes to blows, and I find you have betrayed me, you will pay for it.' 'I am sure that I shall’ I said.
We tied up at the landing place between the usual bristle of mooring poles and made our way towards the church. The island itself was small, and the abbey and its church took up most of it, sprawling in every direction over the flat, reedy earth with barns and well-ordered fields and orchards. I felt a stab inside at the sight of the monks, who were going about their chores and paid us no mind, but then I saw that they were oblivious, and cared not one whit for three laymen come to say their prayers.
Letice led us past the church and into the cloister. I found myself treading quietly, as had been my duty years ago. It was a calm, lovely place, with a garden of clipped box-wood surrounding a pond; and there were orange trees, in which finches sang and squabbled. We came to the end of the colonnade, and passed through a gate of worked iron, that was unlocked, into a long stone hallway. I guessed it led to the refectory and the monks' cells. We made our way along it for a few paces, and then Letice paused and pointed to her right, where a doorway led to a flight of stairs leading steeply up out of sight. Zeno gave her a look, and she pointed again. I realised that none of us had spoken since we had landed. 'Shall I go first?' I whispered.
'Let the woman go first’ said Zeno. 'Then you. I would not have either of you at my back’ he added darkly. Letice gave a tiny curtsey and began to climb. I followed, and Zeno took up the rear. The way was steep and narrow, and I could feel the soldier behind me, blocking the way down. We were halfway up when Letice stopped suddenly and I bumped into the small of her back with my face. Peering around her waist I saw a pair of bare legs and feet in monks' sandals, and the hem of a black robe. 'My dear Abbot!' sang Letice.
What means this?' said a loud but courtly voice. The owner was indignant, but more surprised.
'Is Nicholas here?' she asked sweetly. 'I am just back from the East, and he summoned me. I thought…'
The feet began to climb backwards. I did not know what to do, but I knew that this man, if he was indeed the abbot, was also Querini's brother, and must be prevented from sounding the alarm. So quickly and roughly I pushed past Letice, scraping along the plastered stone of the stairwell, and – before the man had time to turn himself around – past the abbot as well. I planted myself two steps above him and looked down at the top of his tonsured pate. He twisted round and stared up, red-faced and indignant. Young man, I…'
'Lord Abbot,' said Zeno, peering in his turn past Letice's hips, pushing past her as he spoke. We have come to find your brother, Nicholas, on the Republic's urgent business. You will bring us to him.'
'I will do no such thing,' said the abbot, haughtily. You have no business here, Giustiniano Zeno, and no jurisdiction. Does Doge Tiepolo think himself above the Church?' He made to push past me, but I put out my arm and barred his way.
'It seems that at this moment I am above you, I said. I could see that in one more heartbeat he would scream for the monks and they would swarm to us, armed with staves and sickles. Zeno had had the same thought, for I saw that he had freed his sword from the folds of his cloak and was grasping the hilt. So before the abbot could make a sound I pulled out the pope's letter and thrust the seal into his face. His mouth had already opened, but all he could muster was a half-strangled croak.
'This man is sent by the Doge, but I have the authority of Pope Gregory’ I said. Will you leave us be?'
What do you want with Nicholas?' he asked, face quite pallid now. He knows, I thought; of course he knows. I cannot tell you’ I said.
'Then I cannot help you’ he replied, and I saw his indignation begin to spark again. I opened the letter and held it for him to read, my finger pointing out the relevant passage.
'Et cetera, et cetera’ I said. 'Read this. The word "simony" and the words after it. Do you understand? Let us pass, go to your church and say your prayers. If you do this, I give you my word that the abbey shall have, from my hand, a precious relic that will bring even more glory to this glorious and holy place – my word on it, and the pope's authority. We will not harm your brother, and we will not disturb the good monks. What say you?'
Pietro Querini stared at the paper, mouth working, pride and avarice striving in the muscles of his face. Avarice won, as I suspected it might. He crossed himself.
'Nicholas is in his chambers’ he said. 'The door is locked.'
'And you have one of the keys’ I prompted him, for I knew he must. He drew out a great ring and selected a slender key from the many that hung there, detached it and held it out to me.
‘I had no part in any of this’ he muttered. 'Do you hear me, Zeno?' he demanded, louder now, and I shushed him. 'I would not have any stain upon this abbey’ he cried and, with an oath not often found upon the lips of abbots, he thrust himself down the stairs past Letice and the soldier, and was gone in a clattering of leather soles.
We climbed the rest of the stairs in silence, but when we reached the top, Zeno stopped me.
What did you do to him?' he demanded under his breath.
'My dear sir, I am afraid I bribed him’ I replied. 'But do not worry. I have the pope's blessing.'
'This way’ Letice interrupted, perhaps fearing that I was about to be throttled. She set off down a plain whitewashed corridor with doors lining one side, windows the other. At the end was a narrower passageway, and at the end of that, a door. My two companions paused and looked at me. I held up the key, and Zeno nodded. He loosened his sword in its scabbard, and let his cloak fall lightly over it. I slid the key into the lock, thanking the Lord of Thieves that it had been newly greased, and turned it. As soon as the hasp clicked I lifted the latch and put my weight against the door.
Nicholas Querini was standing by the window. He turned towards us, an indignant question starting from his mouth, which turned into a snarl when he saw who had burst in upon him. It was a meaty, bestial sound, and I saw then what I had not remembered: that Querini was a meaty and powerful man, a brawler. I fumbled for my knife, but as I did so, Giustiniano Zeno strode past me, sword straight out at the end of his arm, and in two strides the tip of the blade was resting upon Querini's breastbone.
'Nicholas Querini, by authority of the Republic of Venice, I am…'
'Jean de Sol?' came a voice from the other side of the room. 'Monsieur de Sol?'
I looked around. Querini's chambers were hardly monastic. There were two glass-paned windows, a Moorish rug, chairs, and a large and comfortable bed. A table was covered in dirty silver platters and the remains of a fine luncheon, and dice and chess-pieces
were scattered about. In the-corner of the room, next to a large black chest, a young man sat upon a stool. He was just getting to his feet, and I saw, with enormous relief and a pang of disdain, the smooth, slack visage of Baldwin de Courtenay, Emperor of Romania. He looked angry.
'No’ I said gently. 'I am not Jean de Sol. Your Majesty, I am Petroc of Auneford, and I bring you news of Constantinople, and the loving words of your subjects’
'How… how dare you? I remember you now: de Sol's associate! Did you kill Fulk? Or Gautier? Nicholas, they have come for me! You said they would, and they have…'
'It was Querini who killed your men, Your Majesty’ I told him. And he abducted your royal person.'
Abducted, you say?' cried the emperor with as much disdain as he could. 'I am here as a guest of Venice. Or rather…' He looked confused. As surety for a loan?' I enquired.
Yes, that is right! I… I offered to stay here while Nicholas settled my Regent's debts to the Republic. And the Serenissima has been most kind.'
'Sire, you are a prisoner. Nicholas Querini intends you and your empire nothing but harm. And your Regent is a scoundrel, but… but Querini can tell you of that.'
Zeno had lowered his sword, but he had taken the liberty of disarming Querini, whose long, thin knife glinted in the soldier's belt. Querini, however, was not paying the slightest regard to Zeno. Rather, he had stepped back so that he leaned against the window frame, and his eyes were fixed upon Letice. 'Surprised to see me, Nicholas?' she asked. 'Thought I would be dashed to pieces by Dardi's love, I suppose?' 'Dardi?' said Querini, carefully. 'Dead, alas’ I said. 'He fell out of a window.' Querini turned to me. 'But you will be delighted to hear that Jean de Sol lives! Oh yes, he waits in Ravenna, waits to pick the last shreds of pride from your bones’ 'Petroc,' said Letice, warning me.
'My bones?' said Querini, scornfully. 'I doubt that! I have done nothing.'
You have…' My hand was on my knife and I was shuddering with rage. I had him, here, at my mercy: Anna's destroyer. But then I remembered Facio, and how he had gasped and kicked, as Anna had done, and my gorge rose. 'No,' I shouted, shaking the images from me. 'Done nothing? You have killed a princess, and kidnapped an emperor!' I pointed to Baldwin, who was standing, open-mouthed.
'He is my guest,' said Querini. 'Is it not so, Your Majesty?'
'I have been living here while Nicholas has been paying off my debts,' said Baldwin, happy to have lines to speak.
'Do you say that to Querini's friends, who come here masquerading as officials of the Republic?' I asked. 'Do not trouble yourself: we are not his friends; we are yours. You are free to leave, Your Majesty. You do not have to remain here, while this man, your friend, twines himself like a basilisk about your empire, sequestering its little treasures for himself.' 'Treasures?' asked Baldwin. What new trick is this?' 'Trick? Why should it be a trick?'
'Because people come here and ask me things! Ask me to sign things. I have not. I will not! I have been locked in this room for months! I have been here since the summer, I think – although I am not certain. Nicholas… this swine Querini, for I would have you, sir, place your blade upon his breast again, and the monks, the poxy, bloody monks of this place have made me a prisoner.'
You have been a captive since Rome’ I said. 'Now what is in that chest, Your Majesty?'
'I… I do not know. It is locked. I… good sir, do not be angry.'
'I would not presume to be angry with you, Your Majesty.' I paused. 'I am sorry about Fulk de Grez, and Gautier. They were good men.'
'My brave friends’ whispered Baldwin, and covered his eyes. 'I know, sir, by the way you look at me, that you think me a fool, and a boy, and a knave. I am no knave! And no fool neither, though I am young. If I am a fool, it is because I have gone mad stripping my empire, my birthright, of everything of worth, that I may save it from the Infidel and the Greek! Stripped it, as I have stripped, with my own hands, the wood from the buildings of my own city so that my people will have warmth! I…'
The Emperor was trembling, and tears were running freely down his face. I noticed what I had not seen at first, that he was very thin, and there were heavy shadows beneath his eyes.
'Have you been ill-treated, Your Majesty?' asked Zeno, gravely.
'Ill? What is ill? I have been a hostage, a hostage to my own fortune’ he answered, half-choked with tears. 'I have had the saving of Constantinople dangled before me, and my good behaviour as security for it.' 'How?' asked Letice, coming to my side.
'Fair lady, I have been promised that business was being conducted on my behalf, under the aegis of the Holy Father himself, to bring some great affair to a head’ said Baldwin. 'Sometimes it is a crusade, sometimes a fortune in loans, in gifts. There have been letters, from the pope, from my royal cousins…' he waved at a much crumpled, much reread heap of parchments and vellums under the table. They would all be bad forgeries, I knew at once. 'But nothing has been forthcoming. I mean, I have not been ill-treated, if you do not consider exile to a shitten little island all full of monks to be ill treatment.'
Your Majesty! Have I not kept you supplied with companions?' said Querini, with feigned hurt.
"Whores! Nicholas, they are whores! A whore is all very-well, but they are not capable of…' 'Of courtly behaviour?' asked Letice kindly. 'My lady, you have it exactly,' said Baldwin gratefully.
'I grow tired of this talk,' said Zeno, gruffly. ‘We have the emperor, and the…'
'Ah!' I cut in quickly. 'Messer Nicholas, will you tell your guest what is in yonder chest?'
Yes, what is it?' said Baldwin. 'Querini arrived not two days ago, and has left that thing to scowl at me and torment me, for I am under pain of death not to open it, and what else do I have to occupy me than thoughts of what it contains? You are a fiend, sirrah, a fiend!' he cried to Querini, dragging his fingers through his hair with a sudden mad fury, so that I began to wonder if he had, in truth, been deranged by his captivity. 'Tell him!' said Letice.
Yes, do tell us all, and be done with it,' said Zeno, 'for I would fain have your head on a spike right now than listen to this drivel.' He scraped the tip of his sword impatiently across the floorboards.
'The chest contains the Crown of Thorns,' said Nicholas Querini, with a fine simulacrum of boredom. 'I have it as surety of a loan I made to Anseau de Cayeux. You see, you doubted me, but I have been working on your behalf.' Baldwin fell to his knees and clutched his face with his hands. When he looked up, I saw a new purpose in his face.
You think me so starved and confused that I have gone mad’ he said, Tor a madman would suit your purpose. Sir’ he said, turning to me, you spoke to me of my subjects’ There was a light in his eyes, unsteady, to be sure, but more than I had seen there before. What do my subjects say of me?'
'They would have you with them’ I said. 'Sire, some are disloyal, like the Regent and his faction. But many more are loyal. They love you, and want only that you come back to them. They need your hand to lead them. Do you know a man called Aimery de Lille Charpigny?'
'De Lille Charpigny… no’ said Baldwin, shaking his head distractedly.
'He saved me from this man's plots, sire’ I told him, pointing to Querini. 'He is but one of your loyal men, who would risk their lives to have you back. There are others.'
'And what of your debts?' sneered Querini. 'They are real enough. Thirteen thousand pounds of gold, mark you well. Men die every day in the prisons of the Doge for owing one-hundredth of that sum. The Republic deserves your gratitude, Majesty. Not only do we strive to save your honour and your reputation, but your rotting Constantinople as well.'
'Silence!' screamed Baldwin. He tottered, and I grabbed him around the waist so he would not fall. 'Sirs’ he said, when he had mastered himself, and my lady, I know not if you be another masquerade designed to undo my mind yet further, but if you are, what I say shall make no difference. Please, arrest this man, and you shall have the gratitude of the Latin Empire, for what little that may be worth.' 'Zeno?' I said. H
e shook his head in disgust.
'Nicholas Querini, it is the council's pleasure that you surrender the Crown of Thorns, which you removed from its rightful home without licence. And it is their suggestion that you leave Venice and limit yourself to your realms in Greece from this moment on’
And if I say no?' said Querini, folding his arms across his chest.
'The pope shall hear that you kidnapped the only hope of the Church of Rome in the East’ said Zeno.
'And perhaps were planning an alliance with Frederick Hohenstaufen, who is a friend of John Vatatzes’ I said. 'Although, since you murdered the Vassileia Anna Doukaina Komnena, who was Vatatzes' niece, I wonder how that plan would have fared. Further, King Louis of France shall be told that you seized his cousin, and planned to extort money from the French patrimony’ I said. ‘I do not think that the Doge or the council would be best pleased by that’
'So! I will go to Stampalia’ snapped Querini. With pleasure. But what of my thirteen thousand pounds, eh? Eh, Baldwin? Who will give me satisfaction? You worm. My grandsire climbed the walls of Constantinople and took it from the Greeks! You dishonour his memory!'
'All well and good, Messer Nicholas, but the loan you made to Anseau de Cayeux was funded by a consortium’ I said, 'of which you happen to be a minor stakeholder. Giacomo Tiepolo has bought up the debt. You are owed nothing’
'Lies!' snarled Querini. He seemed to be growing more bold. At that moment he could have walked past us and through the door, and perhaps we would not have stopped him. And then Letice moved. She left her place in the doorway and came slowly over to me.
'Andrew's letter, Petroc’ she said. Wordlessly I gave it to her. She walked across the room, daintily, carefully, choosing every footfall, and went up to Querini, so close that their knees were brushing together. She handed him the letter, and, laying a long white hand against his ruddy cheek, she reached up on tiptoe and breathed something in his ear.
It was as if she had run him through. Worse, for if you have ever seen an ox brought to slaughter you will remember that the great beast stood, indifferent, secure in his bulk and power, until the very instant when the butcher's axe cleaved through his backbone. Then everything is done: the solid legs turn to water, the massive body plummets to the ground with a dismal crash, the hooves churn the beast's own excrement into gory mud. Thus was Nicholas Querini felled, for as he listened to the girl's whispered words his eyes scanned the letter, and the blood left his face quicker than if she had cut his throat. He leaned heavily against the wall, groped for a chair and dropped into it. His jaw went loose, and I thought that he had suffered an apoplexy.
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