The Wolves of Venice

by Alex Connor

  “But I know only of your reputation, Baptista, not of any examples. They say you’re a cheat, a thief, and a killer – but it might all be hearsay. Perhaps Aretino started the rumours to make you seem some kind of demon, employing your reputation to scare his victims. But as to the truth, who knows?” Der Witt shrugged. “I heard that you visited Gabriella Russo in the morgue. Why would you do that if you weren’t involved in her death? Or were you making sure the body was hers? Tintoretto identified her, did you know that?”

  “Il Furioso has many talents.” Baptista replied phlegmatically.

  “Indeed, even with all the mutilation he recognised her. He had painted Gabriella, you see, he knew all the secrets of her face, even when someone had tried so hard to destroy it.”

  “So, what of it?”

  “‘What of it?’ If Tintoretto hadn’t recognised Gabriella she might have gone to her grave without anyone knowing what had happened to her.”

  Der Witt paused, his hand clasped around the pistol in his pocket. The fog was building again, along with the rain, the bridge becoming slippery underfoot. He could see the Florentine’s face, but it was expressionless and terrifying because of it. In that instant der Witt realised that he could not anticipate Baptista’s next move; that even armed with a pistol he felt unexpectedly helpless.

  “Dutchman?”

  “Yes?”

  “I know you have a pistol. And I have a knife. Do you think you could fire that pistol – let alone hit me – before I could ram this blade into your throat?” Baptista asked calmly. “You would bleed out within minutes. The fog is against you, Dutchman. It would aid my escape, and prevent your rescue.”

  “But you have admitted nothing that could incriminate you, so why would you need to kill me?”

  “Do not play games!”

  “I am not playing games,” der Witt replied, confused. “I am asking you in all honesty, why am I a threat? What do I know now that I did not know ten minutes ago?”

  “The answer.” Baptista replied. “And your safety is in your not being able to see it.”

  Chapter Forty One

  Distraught, Ira and Tintoretto carried Rosella home to the ghetto, where she remained unconscious and unmoving, in an eerie shadow of her late mother. As soon as the blow had landed, the painter had pushed Ira to one side, Ferriti leading a desperate Marco away. He was struggling, his clothes torn, blood pouring down his face, as he tried to shake off the lawyer’s grip.

  “Let me be! Rosella! Rosella!” he shouted, then calling over to Ira. “You hit her, you bastard, you hit her!” His face was swollen from the beating, the words muffled as he kept struggling to free himself, his panic audible. “You hit her! Jesus Christ, is she alright?”

  But Ira ignored him. With the help of Tintoretto he carried Rosella back to the ghetto, a small group already formed and watching as they passed, Angelo Fasculo running into the street. When he saw Rosella, he ran over to her, his hand grasping hers.

  “What happened? Someone tell me, what happened?”

  “Ira and Marco Gianetti fought” Tintoretto explained “and Rosella got in the way.”

  “They fought?” Angelo repeated dumbly, “Why were they fighting?”

  His mother had already joined him in the street, Gilda turning to her son.

  “Why do you think? Ira swore he’d go after Marco Gianetti and now he has.” She beckoned to the two men, “Bring Rosella in here, in my house. No, Ira, not in yours, your sister needs care and you can’t give her that.”

  “Rosella should be —”

  “Oh, damn you!” Gilda hurled back, interrupting him. “Haven’t you done enough to this girl?”

  She stood back to let them enter her house, watching as they laid Rosella on a palette bed in the sitting room. In silence, Gilda got a bowl of water and a cloth and wiped the blood off the girl’s mouth. When she had finished she wrung out the cloth and laid it over the side of the bowl.

  “Rosella’s lip is badly cut, and she’s unconscious, but she’ll be alright.” She glanced over to Ira, “Before you say it, I know I’m not a doctor, but you’re in no fit state to deal with this.” She looked him up and down. “What happened?”

  “It was an accident…”

  Distracted, he trailed off, Tintoretto finishing the sentence for him. “They were fighting and Rosella came between them. Ira was going to punch Marco and he hit her instead. It was an accident.”

  Gilda’s expression was incredulous. “Why do men always think fighting solves a problem, when all it does it make everything worse?” she glanced over to Ira. “What in God’s name did you want to do? Kill Marco Gianetti? To what end? You’d be executed – and for what? Why throw away your life and your career for a worthless man.”

  “He knew what to expect if he came back to Venice.”

  “And do you feel better, Ira? Now you’ve drawn blood -Marco’s and Rosella’s – do you feel revenged?” her tone was brusque. “I have no love for Marco Gianetti, but if you had wanted to kill the person who had disgraced Rosella, you should have gone after Adamo Baptista —”

  “It’s not his child she’s carrying,” Ira said bitterly, “it’s Marco’s.”

  Gilda shrugged. “You think you’re telling me something I don’t know? The whole ghetto knows who fathered that baby. We thought it was Baptista’s child at first, but Rosella told us the truth.” She studied Ira curiously. “Would you have preferred it to have been Baptista’s?”

  “Of course not!”

  “You’re a liar!” she retorted, “it’s not the disgrace that matters so much to you, Ira, it’s that Marco betrayed you.” She nodded. “And yes, he did. But you could have stomached it more if Rosella had been seduced by a creature like Baptista. You could have forgiven her that. Rape is pardonable in your eyes, but not this. Not that she chose to go with Marco —”

  “You have nothing to do with this!”

  “Don’t raise your voice to me!” she retorted hotly. “It was us, your neighbours, who comforted your sister when you stayed away, and when you could hardly bear to look at her. You have no inkling of what Rosella has suffered. At first people thought she was going with Baptista willingly – oh, we all gossiped about that - I certainly did. But then she confided in me and I found out the truth.”

  “The truth is no less shameful.” Ira replied, “Make excuses for my sister, say that she was tricked, all that is true, but she still chose to lie with Marco Gianetti —”

  “For comfort!” Gilda snapped. “You don’t know the meaning of the word, do you? She did it for comfort, because she knew there would be precious little from you.”

  “So this is my fault?”

  “No! It’s Pietro Aretino’s fault, and Adamo Baptista’s. It’s Marco Gianetti’s fault because he was weak, duped, flattered into obeying his infamous friend. It was my fault too that I once suspected Rosella, and your fault that you couldn’t forgive her.” She sighed. “But if you ask me who is most to blame I would say Aretino.”

  His voice was sour. “What do you know?”

  “More than you think, Ira. That fat pig has been blackmailing me, he has driven me into a corner from which I have no escape – but I will find one. And I will have my revenge on his henchman, Baptista.” Her expression was resolute. “I chose my battles with care, because that is the only way to survive in this world. Don’t put your whole focus on Marco Gianetti, but on the puppet masters behind him. Why fight a monkey when you are being stalked by wolves?”

  Giving one last glance to his sister, Ira left. They could hear his feet pound on the paving outside and the slam of the neighbouring door.

  “Are you?”

  She turned to Tintoretto. “Am I what?”

  “Being blackmailed by Aretino?”

  “Yes,” she replied curtly. “Like many others in this city... You know him, I believe.”

  “He has commissioned paintings from me. But he is no friend.” Tintoretto replied, “His loyalty is to Titian, and as all o
f Venice knows, Titian dismissed me from his studio when I was his apprentice. For years I have weathered their petty slights, their determination to exclude me from their circle,” he laughed, shaking his head. “without their once realising how grateful I was for the exile. I am no courtier.”

  She smiled. “It is easier when you are not proud.”

  “But I can be proud” Tintoretto teased her, “it was merely that in the past I could not afford pride. It demands a high cost on the character. So much is lost through pride, through fearing humility or rejection, through believing yourself better when we all are little more than a fleck of paint.”

  “You are a philosopher.”

  “No, I am a simple man, not as rigid as Ira, nor as foolish as Marco.”

  Gilda bridled at the name. “Gianetti is hated in the ghetto for what he has done.”

  Tintoretto clicked his tongue. “Which is understandable - but it was not an act of malice, but of manipulation. Aretino is a very wicked man. People are fooled by his wit ‘the best thing for a man to do is to be born and, being born, to die at once.’ They are mesmerised by his clever conversation and his lavish way of life, but he is wicked in the way that godless people are, without conscience or remorse.”

  “And Adamo Baptista?”

  Tintoretto blew out his cheeks.

  “That is a man I fear… When I was a child my mother told me an old fable about a water devil that lived under Venice. She said that the sprite would come to the quayside and call to the children and when they were close enough, grab at their heels and pull them under. Down under the city, she would tell me, into cages made of coral and old bones, where they were imprisoned forever.” He paused, remembering. “The story goes that at night, when Venice was silent, you could hear the children crying and rattling their cages, weeping to be let out.”

  “You see Baptista as the water devil?”

  “Yes, and in all the little cages he keeps his victims. People who are childlike, trusting, foolish —”

  “Like Marco Gianetti?”

  “Like Marco,” Tintoretto agreed.

  “You care for him.”

  “How could I not? His mother committed suicide after his birth and his father blamed him, Marco never knew affection. He knew beauty, abundance, he was promised a legacy and reminded of his importance, but no one protected him, he was first in no one’s heart. That was why he enjoyed his friendship with Ira and Rosella, they welcomed him, the ghetto welcomed him —”

  “And look how he repaid us.” Gilda said scornfully.

  “But now he is free from Aretino —”

  “You think so?”

  Tintoretto shrugged. “I hope so. Marco was ashamed of what he did, bitterly remorseful. I believe he finally realises what kind of man Aretino is and will want no more to do with him...” He leaned towards her. “Give Marco time to prove himself. Give Rosella and Ira time to forgive, let the water settle - and then judge.”

  “If a man can betray his friends once, he could do so again.”

  “Yes, he could, but Marco does not want to hurt people. He would never have planned to injure Rosella or her brother. Believe me, Gilda, I understand why everyone in the ghetto hates Marco Gianetti, but there are people more worthy of that hatred...” Tintoretto held her gaze. “… people who have dedicated their lives to earning it.”

  Chapter Forty Two

  Unable to kneel because of the pain, Lavinia was leaning forwards in her pew with her head in her hands, her lips moving silently, a black veil covering the white crown of her hair. In her own private chapel she was giving thanks to a God she did not believe in, for the return of a grandson in whom she had no faith. Ever the realist, long ago Lavinia had decided that it was foolish to prematurely dismiss anything in life. Whether that be a god or a grandson.

  Crossing herself, Lavinia rose to her feet and made her way out of the chapel and along the private corridor to her apartment. A message had been sent half an hour earlier that Marco was waiting to see her and it was with some trepidation that she approached the door leading to her rooms. Her hand shook as she reached for the door handle and she took in a long, protracted breath to compose herself before entering.

  Evidence of the fight with Ira was obvious, his left eye almost closed, bruises along his chin and forehead, his hair matted with blood. If she had expected him to return to the palazzo first, she had been disappointed and yet inwardly proud that at least her foolish and disgraced grandson had not evaded a fight.

  “I will call for a servant to prepare your bath,” Lavinia said, examining Marco as he stood before her. Silent, battered, and much changed from how he had been before his flight. “Do you need a doctor to tend to your wounds?”

  “They are nothing,” Marco replied, his head bowed.

  “Where are your possessions?”

  “I sent someone to collect them from the quayside,” Marco answered, looking at his grandmother. “I… I am sorry…so sorry.”

  And Lavinia felt his needing her; aware that he craved for her to extend her arms, or at least a hand, in comfort. She could sense the pleading from inside him, the call for affection, and yet she could not respond. Her own emotions had been extinguished by time and neglect, the language forgotten from negligence.

  “Arrangements will soon be made for the legal handing over of the Gianetti estates to you as sole heir, Signor Ferriti will organise such matters, and also your marriage to Rosella Tabat —”

  “My marriage to Rosella?” Marco repeated blankly. “She is hurt —”

  “I know and I have been assured that it is not serious. My own medico has visited her at the ghetto – how strange that it should be that way round, but life is, in itself, stranger ever day. Apparently Rosella was knocked unconscious by her brother’s strike —”

  “Accidental strike.”

  “ – and although her lip was cut, she is otherwise in perfect health. There is no concern for the baby, but I imagine she is more than a little upset by what took place.”

  Marco stared at his grandmother, bewildered. “You want me to marry Rosella Tabat?”

  “The girl is pregnant and I am too old to consider the judgment of society. If there is a scandal, so be it. There are scandals all the time, but life continues. You will marry her – you are the master of the Gianetti house and free to wed whom you please. And you please to marry a Jewess.” Lavinia paused, shrugged. “Perhaps this new blood will be a valuable contribution to our unfortunate line. Your grandfather and father were troubled in the mind, as was your poor mother. This girl seems stable. Even in her unenviable position she was not hysterical when we spoke.”

  “You spoke with her?”

  “Naturally. I needed to meet the mother of my grandchild and see that she was provided for – whether you returned to Venice or not.”

  “When you spoke... what did she say about the marriage you were proposing?”

  “Rosella said nothing. Her brother speaks for her most of the time.” Lavinia retorted, “A very proud man, very rigid. We were all due to discuss the matter again when – or if - you finally returned to Venice. Unfortunately you met with Ira Tabat first and so the meeting will no doubt be delayed.” She gestured to the fire with her walking stick. “Call the servant, the flames are dying.”

  Immediately Marco stepped forward and added more wood to the fire, his grandmother watching him.

  “You have had to fend for yourself, I see. No servants?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you will have a great many servants now.” Lavinia replied. “Far more than when you were a child. You will have people to run your house and your bath, but you – only you – will be responsible for the Gianetti legacy.”

  “I have to try and explain what I did.” Marco said helplessly, “About Aretino —”

  “Not another word!” Lavinia snapped, putting up her hands. “We can only pray that devil slips on the Doge’s stairs and breaks his abominable head on the marble floor below. Surely his gree
d will finish him off before too much longer. But then again, the devil looks after his own.”

  “I was stupid —”

  “Marco, you are stupid. But I blame your parents and myself for that. Which is why, when you inherit this fortune – and it is a great fortune – I would like to attend your discussions with Ferriti. He is a good lawyer and a decent man, but I am your grandmother and I know far more about our wealth than he can ever guess. Jacopo and I were not close, but often he asked for my opinion on financial matters.” She leaned forwards, stretching out her hand towards the warmth of the fire. “The fog has gone at last, but the cold remains...”

  Marco looked like a dog after taking a whipping. Beaten, still in his bloodied clothes.

  “…I will see you for dinner at eight. Please do not be late, Marco, I cannot eat after that time.” With an effort Lavinia struggled to her feet and was about to walk past him when she paused. “I am relieved that you returned to your home and your inheritance. But from now on do not confide in fools and sleep with whores, and do not receive any visits or messages from Pietro Aretino. He has brought much grief to this house, as to many others, and must be avoided at all costs.” She gripped her grandson’s arm tightly. “Let him back in – and you destroy us all.”

  Chapter Forty Three

  He had hoped that the fog would last until evening, but as dusk settled over St Marks the mist melted, the turbulent sea becoming still as a mirror. Weaving in between the crowd of merchants, bankers and nobles idling around the square, Lauret pulled the hat down over his forehead and avoided the gaze of passersby. He was soon out of breath, his lungs straining as intensely as his leg muscles as he hurried towards the quayside. A boat was offloading slaves, a young African woman holding a child and five men, all standing on a plank which had been arranged between the ship and the dock. Frightened, the woman comforted the baby, the men silent, manacled together at the wrists and ankles.