by S. D. Sykes
This was not enough of a distraction, for then I heard something behind me. It sounded like the scampering of feet—and yet I dared not look, for I knew what it was. I need only have turned around to see its face.
I stared at my hands and waited until it was gone, then I looked up and opened the letter again. As I read along the lines, I knew that Enrico was right. I did need to take care with my disposition, for my mind was ill. It was, indeed committing treason against my body.
So I refolded the letter and placed it safely away in my chest. I wanted to trust Enrico. I wanted to believe that he could save me.
Chapter Three
So, de Lacy. You’ve never spent the night with a nun? Is that what you’re saying?” Enrico turned to Vittore, and the two of them laughed.
“No,” I said, urging my stomach to be still. “And I don’t want to.” I looked up from my feet and saw that our boat was approaching a small island somewhere out on the lagoon. “Tell the oarsman to turn the boat around,” I said, but instead we carried on in the very same direction. Cutting silently through the water, under the light of a full moon. The boat was long and thin, with seats draped in fine silks and cushions of fur, and the air about us was cool and salted, but it was not cold. Not truly cold. As I leaned over the side of the boat and was sick into the glossy water, the oarsman cursed me, so it was lucky that he didn’t notice that some of my vomit had dripped onto the silk of the seating.
Enrico took my hand and whispered, “Come on, de Lacy. A night with some women will cheer your mood.”
“Is this your idea of helping me?” I said. “Plying me with wine and then throwing me into bed with a nun?”
“The sisters of Santa Lucia are very generous, de Lacy.” He laughed. “Why not give their charity a try?”
“I’m not going to a brothel that masquerades as a convent.”
Enrico drew even closer and whispered into my ear. “What could be the harm? The sisters are charming. And if you don’t like the look of what’s on offer, then just imagine that she’s Filomena.”
I flinched at this. “What are you talking about?”
He laughed. “Don’t be shy. I’ve seen how you look at my grandfather’s wife.”
“That’s not true!”
“But Monna Filomena is a beautiful woman. Plenty of men like to look at her.”
“That’s an outrageous suggestion,” I said. “I’m not the least bit interested in Monna Filomena, or some nun, or any other woman for that matter.”
He gave a small, mischievous laugh. “Would you like me to introduce you to some men then?”
I called to the oarsman. “Turn this boat around!”
As I leaned over the side of the boat to be sick again, Vittore gestured to Enrico. His yellow hair appeared silver in this moonlight, and his large nostrils cut into his face like caverns. “Just give the fool some more wine and tell him to stop shouting,” he said. “I prefer it when this Englishman is silent.”
At Vittore’s command, Enrico lifted the bottle to my lips and attempted to pour another mouthful down my throat, only causing me to throw up again as soon as the wine met my stomach.
“You’re not my friend,” I said pathetically.
Enrico nudged me playfully before he wrapped his cloak about my shoulders. “Of course I’m your friend, de Lacy. Perhaps the best one you ever had. Who else would take you to the finest taverns in Venice, and then entertain you in a convent?” He nudged me again. “Not your friends in England, that’s for sure.”
I cursed Enrico and called him some obscenity or other. It was no matter, for my insult only amused him.
“Ask for Sister Donata,” he told me. “They say she’s the best.”
“Ask for her yourself. I want nothing to do with this.” I heaved again, this time causing the oarsman to shout at me and to throw his hands briefly from the oar. Enrico shouted a rebuke, and we carried on, as I left a trail of spittle in the water. The world revolved, and I could have dropped overboard so easily. Part of me wanted to.
Eventually the boat slowed as we reached the landing stage of the island, where we stopped beside a decaying platform. Two figures waited for us in the dark. The smaller of the two held a lantern aloft.
Vittore grabbed hold of the first stake and hauled himself onto this platform, before offering his hand to Enrico. As they both embraced our welcoming party I sat resolutely in the boat. The oarsman flicked his head to indicate that I should also leave, but I refused to move.
Enrico pushed his two companions forward to speak to me, and now I could see their faces in the light of the lantern. The first was an older woman in the belted tunic of an abbess, with a white wimple covering her head and shoulders. She smiled at me, but I saw little of her face except a set of teeth. Her companion was a young man, of maybe twenty-five. His face was handsome, and his hair was as golden and curled as the angels in the stained-glass windows of my family chapel.
Enrico leaned down into the boat and held out his hand to me. “Come on, de Lacy. Just get out.”
“No.”
His good humor soured a little. “Come on. Don’t be rude.” Then he thrust his hand at me a second time. “You’ll have a good time.” He smiled sweetly. I liked Enrico’s smile. “What could be the harm?”
Vittore’s tone was harsher. “Just get off the boat, you fool!” he shouted.
Enrico ignored the pig-faced oaf, allowing his voice to remain kind and soft. “Come on, de Lacy. You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “You can sit in the cloister and remain silent. In fact, I will ensure that every beautiful young woman in the place ignores you. How does that sound?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the first twinges of surrender.
Enrico offered me his hand again, and this time I took it. “Well done,” he said. “You won’t regret this.”
I was getting to my feet when I noticed Vittore exchange a look with the abbess—a devious, knowing smile, and suddenly I knew that they were all lying to me. No doubt I would be fed more wine and then thrown into the bed of a sister, whether I was capable of making love to her or not.
“Take me back to Venice,” I said, pulling my hand away from Enrico and sitting back down with a thud. “Take me back now!”
My tone must have been convincing, as Enrico looked to Vittore and then gave a shrug of defeat, signifying that he would not force this any farther. The boat then turned back for the city, and Enrico put his hand on my shoulder and tried to make me laugh, whereas Vittore folded his arms and could not bring himself to look at me. As we glided away from the island, I looked up to see the abbess and her young companion watching our departure from their jetty. The lantern cast a soft light upon the man’s angelic features and picked out his halo of golden curls. I had rarely seen such a handsome face, and yet there was a taint to his beauty. A drop of bitterness, perhaps even spite.
I hoped to return to Ca’ Bearpark immediately—but it seemed my torment was not to end so quickly. If I could not be persuaded to get out of this boat at a brothel, then I would be dragged to yet another drinking hole. This time the establishment was located at the dead end of a dirty canal somewhere in a distant part of Venice. I didn’t recognize this sestiere, though I could tell immediately that it was an impoverished neighborhood, for the houses at each side of the canal seemed abandoned, with boarded windows and crumbling, moldering walls. I found it hard to believe that anybody lived in such a place, but when we reached the head of the canal and had maneuvered ourselves past the floating debris that always accumulates in such places, a small door opened and a large man squeezed himself out onto the wooden jetty. When he pulled me from the boat with a hand that was the size of a plate, I had no choice but to follow the others inside.
A sea of faces looked up briefly to observe our party enter, but these drinkers soon turned back to mind their own business. They were huddled around candles, deep in conversation, or they were staring into the bottoms of their empty bowls as if they might have
missed a final drop of wine. After my experience at the convent, I have to say that it came as a relief to see that there were no women in the place.
We were served sour wine and some stale bread, which seemed to poison Vittore’s mood farther. In fact, he seemed to be spoiling for a fight after our aborted visit to the convent and boomed sporadically, berating the assembled drinkers for being such a boring and ill-favored crowd. When this failed to elicit any particular response, he shouted, “Death to Hungary!” adding his opinion that Venice should sail every ship in her Arsenale out to sea and obliterate her enemy. When this assertion was once again met with only the most perfunctory of enthusiasm, Vittore demanded to know why the assembled throng did not agree with him? Were they not true Venetians? Were they traitors to the Republic?
An old man, with drooping eyelids and long hair straggling on either side of his bald pate, was the only person bold enough to answer Vittore’s call. “The Consiglio dei Dieci should negotiate a peace with Hungary,” he said calmly. “We need to be trading again. That is the only reason to sail our ships from the Arsenale.” A few souls about him nodded their assent, which served to embolden the old man. “I only get paid when I sail,” he said. “So, what good is a war to me? I need to reach Flanders by the spring.”
Now a chorus of approval spread through the tavern, with more calls for a negotiated peace, and more complaints that a continued war would only farther harm trade. A drunkard raised his mug and announced that Hungary was welcome to Dalmatia, for the Dalmatians were no better than filthy dogs and he’d had nothing but trouble from them when docking at their second-rate ports.
Vittore banged his fist upon the table. “Cowards!” he shouted. “All of you. I’ll report you to the Consiglio.” The room became instantly silent. Then, as he scanned their faces, he noticed what I had seen immediately upon entering the tavern. “Or maybe I should bring the Signori di Notte here?” he said menacingly. “For I see no women.”
Fear spread through the room instantly. The drunkard stood slowly to his feet. “Death to Hungary,” he called, with little feeling. The men about him murmured the words and raised their bowls of wine to show their support.
Vittore smiled, for victory was his—but there was still a little more entertainment to be extracted from this episode. “Is that the best you can do?” he shouted.
The call came again. “Death to Hungary!” Now the words were delivered with more enthusiasm and vigor, apart from the old man with the drooping eyelids, for the change of heart in the room had not spread to his own chest. He folded his arms and turned his back to Vittore, making a surly comment that I did not catch.
Vittore had heard exactly what the man had said, however. Grabbing the fellow by the back of his tunic, he then ejected him with great force from the tavern, before slamming the door in his wake. When Vittore turned to ask if there were any other cowards in the house, his question was met with universal denial. Vittore then surveyed the room with all the menace of a hawk searching for prey, before the murmur of conversation finally returned and the incident was forgotten.
Now I wanted nothing more than to return to Ca’ Bearpark, and I might have taken my chances and walked home, had I known the way. But I could not tell if I was in San Polo, Dorsoduro, or even Cannaregio. And anyway, it was not easy to pass from one sestiere of Venice to another. Each of these districts had started life as a separate island—until wooden poles had been driven into the mud of the lagoon to form new land and the islands had merged together to form the city of Venice. Even so, each sestiere still felt like a separate parish. Each was a close, watchful community that knew its own people and distrusted strangers. All in all, it was better to stay where I was.
I sank against the wall and began to watch the three men at the next table, for no other reason than boredom. They were playing a game of dice—a game that I recognized as Hazard from the inns of England—with determination and concentration, as if nothing else in the world mattered to them, starting each game with their call, “Roll the bones! Roll the bones!” These “bones” were large, yellowing dice, carved from ivory.
The more they played, the more interested I became in their game, until they asked me to join them. At first I declined, but when I noticed that Enrico and Vittore were involved in a game of their own—a drinking challenge with a pair of sailors—I realized that there was little prospect of an imminent departure. I had a few spare coins in my pouch that I could afford to lose, so I accepted.
At first I was unlucky. I hadn’t properly understood the probabilities of winning, when predicting the throws of the caster’s dice. But I am a man with a fast mind, particularly when it comes to arithmetic. Soon I understood the best way to improve my chances, and which numbers to bet upon and which numbers to avoid. Also, when it was my turn to throw the dice, I employed a little showmanship to disrupt my opponents’ concentration. Such behavior is out of character, but I was bored, I was drunk, and I would never come to this inn again in my life. So what did I have to lose?
Each time I threw the dice, I held the warm cubes of ivory to my mouth and whispered into their stained grooves. At first my fellow gamblers were amused by my antics, but as the dice increasingly began to obey my commands, they no longer found me quite so entertaining. Soon my winning streak had drawn a crowd, and my few soldini had grown into a mound of shining coins. As my behavior became increasingly flamboyant, I felt something that I hadn’t felt for many, many months. It was the warm, intoxicating glow of joy, and its return was more welcome than I can say.
But joy is as ephemeral as luck, and soon it was time for both to run out. My fellow gamblers had become irritated by my success. At first it showed itself as some grumbling and peevish complaints behind a hand. As my pile of coins grew taller, however, and the applause for my good fortune became louder from the crowd about us, my fellow players began to accuse me of cheating—of using tricks, or even sorcery, to bend the dice to my will. Enrico came over and tapped me on the shoulder, telling me it was time to leave, but I was having such a good time that I told him to wait. That I wasn’t finished yet with this dark, smoke-filled tavern in the back end of Venice. I wanted to stay longer.
When I had rolled my last pair of winning dice, the man opposite me could contain himself no longer. He reached over and grasped me by the neck. The move took me by surprise, but, before I was able to fight back, Enrico and Vittore had pulled him away and thrown him to the floor, where he scuttled quickly away on all fours and hid beneath a table.
Enrico then looked about the room. The candlelight was dim and highlighted the wearied lines in the faces that looked back at us. “Is there anybody else who wants to call Lord Somershill a cheat?” Enrico asked.
They shook their heads and quickly returned to their drinking and their quietly grumbled conversations. Nobody wanted a fight.
Enrico put his hand on my shoulder. “Come on, de Lacy,” he said. “Time to go home.” So I gathered up my winnings and filled my leather pouch, until the small bag was loaded with coins and I could hardly tie the drawstring.
As we left the tavern and stepped out into our boat, Vittore crept up behind me and whispered into my ear. “You were lucky tonight, Silent Englishman,” he said slyly, “but luck never lasts.”
I ignored his words, for I was exhilarated after my wins, and his menace would not press its finger into my skin and leave a mark—but, just as I was about to tell him as much, we heard a man shouting to us from the canal. Looking into the darkness, I could just about make out that the man was clinging to the slimy pole of a landing stage a few yards away—unable to drag himself out of the water.
“Are you going to get me out then?” he called, with some desperation. As my eyes adjusted, I realized that it was the old man whom Vittore had thrown out of the tavern. He must have been launched straight into the canal.
Vittore laughed. “No. You can stay there,” he shouted.
Enrico nudged his friend. “Come on, Vittore. He might drown.”<
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“I don’t care if he does,” said Vittore. “Venice doesn’t need cowards like him.”
Enrico sighed, and it seemed he would give up on the fellow, but I could not leave an old man to die in this polluted canal—so I jumped from the boat and climbed back onto the landing stage, telling the oarsman to wait for my return. Vittore shouted after me as I clambered across the rotten boards, but I ignored his calls and offered my hand to this stranded stranger. The old man clasped it with relief and thanked me profusely, but his gratitude was premature, for he was heavier than I had expected, and I was unable to lift him and his sodden clothes from the water by myself.
I was about to call for some assistance when I felt another person at my side. It was Enrico. I smiled at my friend, and together we pulled the old man to safety, but as I noticed the look upon Vittore’s face, the joy of the evening dissipated. Once he had disliked me. Now he hated me.
Chapter Four
It was four months later—the last Thursday before Lent of 1358, Giovedì Grasso—and the carnival would go ahead, no matter that the war with Hungary continued to rage. There were still no ships either leaving or entering the lagoon, and now the Venetian stronghold of Treviso had fallen. With Treviso being less than twenty miles from Venice, rumors were circulating that King Louis’s army would soon be at the very shores of La Serenissima.
There was much despondency and talk of invasion over breakfast that morning. Bernard, flushed with a panic, informed us that he and Margery had sewn every one of their pilgrim’s badges to their nightgowns the previous evening, in the event they needed to flee Venice at a moment’s notice, while Mother asked for a pike to be placed beneath my bed, should I need to defend the two of us against the reported monstrousness of the Hungarian soldiers.
The conversation was becoming hysterical, when Bearpark announced, with something of a flourish, that we must not give in to despair—for Venice would find a practical solution to her problems, just as she always did. He then went off into a story we had not heard before. It concerned the Plague, and how he had donated his cog ship to the Republic, so that she might bury a great many of the dead at sea. The story seemed unlikely, but then again, I had often heard it said that Venice had quickly run out of places to bury her dead during those terrible years, so perhaps the story was true. And it would explain why Bearpark no longer seemed to own the cog ship that he had once used for his annual trips to Southampton.
