by S. D. Sykes
“When I die, you must take the child from me.”
“What do you mean?”
Again the anger came. She squeezed my hand. “Don’t be foolish, Oswald! You know what I mean. Immediately after I’ve taken my last breath, you must cut the child from my womb.”
I dropped her hand. “No. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”
She rose from her bolster. “You won’t do it! You would let our child die, because you won’t do it!” She fell back against the bed. Tears flowed from her eyes. “I married a coward. Get away from me!”
I quickly grasped her hand again. “I’m sorry, Mary. I . . .”
“Don’t say you’re sorry, Oswald. Words are nothing in this world.” She closed her eyes. The argument had exhausted her. “I don’t care what you say. I only care about what you do. Don’t let my life mean nothing.”
“It doesn’t mean nothing. I love you.”
“I want our child to live. Don’t let them take him with me to the grave.”
“Then I’ll do it,” I said, though the feeling was draining from my legs, and the sway of nausea was rising in my stomach.
She smiled. “Don’t take too long,” she whispered. “The child is weakening. But he still lives.”
They say, in life, that there will come a time when you have to confront your worst fears. You will enter into the darkest, foulest cave, and in this place, the only enemy you meet will be yourself.As I held on to Mary’s hand and watched the life retreat from her body, there could be no doubt that I was in that very cave. My life would never be at a lower ebb.
When she ceased to breathe, I wanted to run from the chamber and hide in the deep forest. Even throw myself from the tower or tie a noose about a beam and let myself hang to death. Then we could all be buried together in the churchyard. Mother, father, and child. The end of our short-lived family.
Instead, I called the midwife into the room and asked her to pass me a knife. She knew what awaited. Perhaps she had done the same thing herself. I might even have asked her to undertake the task, but that was the coward’s option. And, for all my faults, Mary had not married a coward.
I cut her belly from top to bottom, and though Mary’s heart was no longer pumping, blood seemed to rush at speed from her body. Steadfastly I ignored the wanton flow of it, and I then reached my hands inside the cavity of her abdomen to pull a gray and slimy thing from her midst. It reminded me of the sea bass that I saw in baskets at Rye. I cared for it as much.
The midwife took the thing and rubbed the air into its lungs. And then it screamed for its mother. I screamed for its mother. I went to my chamber for many days and mourned.
Mother told me that I had a son, but I could not bear to look upon him.
Chapter Thirty
I sent Giovanni ahead to Ca’ Bearpark and promised to follow. The man was reluctant to leave the Fondaco without me, but we could hardly both stroll out of the inn together, passing the two soldiers who were still guarding the main door. He had to trust me.
When I was certain that Giovanni had gone, I told Mother to stay in the room and keep the doors locked until my return. While I was pleading for Filomena’s release, she should pack as much as was sensible for the journey. I then went in search of Sandro, finding the boy where I had left him, at the top of the servants’ stairwell. At first I couldn’t see his face, as this shaft was devoid of natural light. But, as my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I found him slouched in a corner, gnawing at the cheese rind he had been given earlier by the cook.
He jumped to his feet. “Yes, Master Oswald?”
His words caused me to smile. “So. I’m your master now, am I?”
He gave a low and extravagant bow in response.
“I need you to lead me to Ca’ Bearpark through the side alleys,” I said. “Do you know the way from here?”
Now he laughed. “Of course I do, master. I live in that street.”
When we reached Ca’ Bearpark, I told Sandro to wait for me in the Calle Nuova, and to stay out of sight. The house was quieter than usual, lacking the thud of servants’ footsteps, or even the scent of a cooking meal. Giovanni himself had opened the door to me. Bowing deeply, his face was anxious and sweating. His hair was still ruffled and sticking out untidily from his head. “Oswald. Thank you. I didn’t think you were coming.”
I removed my cloak. “Is Monna Filomena still locked in her bedchamber?”
Giovanni shook his head glumly. “No. They’ve taken her to one of the storerooms now.”
I thought of that network of damp and dark chambers that lay beneath the house. In this weather, they would be no better than drains. “Just release her, Giovanni,” I said, pointing to the large ring of iron keys that he still kept hanging from his belt. “You’re able to open all of the other doors in this place.”
“The room is guarded,” he told me. “They are . . .” He was struggling to find the right word, and then cursed himself when the vocabulary escaped him. “The guards are tall men, Oswald. My master has employed them specially for the task.”
“Where did he find these men?”
He frowned and wiped a hand across his mouth. “I don’t know. I refused to help him Oswald. The imprisonment is . . .” Once again he failed to find the word he was looking for. This was unlike him. “It is not right,” he said in the end.
“Where is Monna Filomena’s child?” I asked.
Giovanni frowned. “She’s been taken to Burano. To the house of her grandparents.”
This was sad news. “So Bearpark has disowned the child?”
Giovanni nodded.
“Where is your master now?”
“In his bed.”
“And he still believes that you’re fetching guards from the palace?”
Giovanni dropped his voice to a whisper. “Yes. He does.” He took the cloak from me and clasped it to his chest. “Please, Oswald. Go to him. Tell him that he’s wrong.”
Bearpark’s bedchamber reminded me of the crypt at the monastery, where I had laid out the dead for burial. This dark hall had been built without windows, so that the blowflies might not easily find their way through the cloisters and passageways of the monastery, and then lay their eggs upon the dead. As I prepared the bodies for burial, my work was always illuminated by the smoking flame of a tallow candle. It had an unpleasant smell, though nothing like the perfume of decay. Despite years of such work, I never became hardened to the fleshy, sour smell of death.
Bearpark’s room was also lit by candles, though these were made of beeswax, rather than being sticks of rendered beef suet. The shutters were closed, and Bearpark’s sheets were tucked under his chin, so that he looked like an infant who had been swaddled by his wet-nurse. As I entered, he looked up at me with a face so grim that I thought I might be staring at the Angel of Death himself. The only other soul in this airless prison was the old female servant who was pouring wine from a pitcher into a small bowl.
As I neared the bed, Bearpark focused his eyes upon my face and grimaced. “De lacy? So, you’ve come back have you?” He started to laugh, but the sound disintegrated into a hacking cough. “My great investigator has returned.” Then he pulled an arm from beneath the sheet and waved it limply in my direction. “We don’t need you any more. We’ve found the murderer ourselves. Giovanni has gone to fetch the guards at the palace.”
“No he hasn’t.”
The man fixed me with cold-blooded eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Your wife is innocent, Bearpark. Giovanni knows this, as well as you do, so he came to find me instead.”
Bearpark attempted to sit up, assisted by the old servant, who hastily pushed another bolster behind his back, though she was roundly cursed for her efforts to help. “Where is Giovanni?” he tried to shout, before his voice broke down into a cough. “Get him in here, where I can see him. I know the wretch is hiding out there somewhere.” This shouting prompted another coughing fit.
Giovanni crept around the door and s
tepped into the room, hugging the wall with the stealth of a mouse trying to avoid the attentions of the kitchen cat. I was surprised to see his face at all in this room, as I had supposed he might hide somewhere in the recesses of the house and let me make all the speeches and entreaties on behalf of Filomena.
“Is that you, Judas!” boomed Bearpark.
Giovanni stepped forward into the candlelight. A little bolder now. “I’m no Judas, master.” I had never heard Giovanni speak to Bearpark in such tones.
“I told you to fetch the guards, not this fool. Why have you disobeyed me?” Giovanni cowered at these words, losing his nerve almost as soon as he had found it.
“How could Giovanni report such a story?” I said. “You have no evidence against your wife.”
“I have plenty of evidence,” said Bearpark. “She’s been a false wife to me. A betrayer. That child is not mine for a start,” he said. “It looks nothing like me.”
“She’s just a newborn infant, Bearpark. Babies rarely look human, let alone resemble their parents.”
He huffed at this. “And it’s a girl. I never sire girls. Every one of my previous children has been a son.”
“So you’re accusing your wife of murder, because of the gender of your child?” I laughed. “I doubt that the palace will be so impressed by that argument. Particularly as your wife is Venetian, and you are English.”
Bearpark pointed a finger at me. “Stop twisting the argument,” he hissed. “I know what you’re up to. You want me to free Filomena so you can take her for yourself.”
I had the sudden urge to press my fingers around the old man’s throat and then squeeze my hands together until he was dead, but I uncurled my fists and let the madness pass. “Your wife is innocent, Bearpark. You know it.”
He shook his head, causing the jowls of his cheeks to flap like fishtails. “No, no. It was her and her brother, Adolpho. And now she will hang for the crime.” The old man fell back against his pillow, then licked at his dry lips, indicating to the old maid that he wanted his bowl of wine. Then he let out a laugh. A dry cackle. “Oswald de Lacy. The great investigator.”
I took a deep breath. “Let Filomena go and I will bring you the true murderer.”
He cackled again. “You promised me that last time. So why should I believe you now?”
“Because I know how to find him.”
He uttered a curse and tried to wave me away.
“Go ahead then, Bearpark,” I said. “Send your innocent wife to the gallows. Think of that stain upon your soul. Think of the years you will spend in Purgatory, as you descend into Hell. Nobody on earth will pray for the remission of your sins.” Bearpark muttered an obscenity at this suggestion, but I could tell my words affected him. “And then think of the shame to the name of Bearpark,” I said. “Your wife will be hung in the Piazzetta, for all of Venice to see. And people will laugh at you for ever more. John Bearpark, the foolish old Englishman who married a murderer.”
Bearpark lifted his shaking hand to his cheek and began to scratch nervously.
“But think of the prestige,” I said, “the honor to the Bearpark name, if you could present the true killer to the palace? Think how this could silence your rivals.”
He made a long and low rumble, as if we could hear the cogs and wheels of his mind turning slowly in their cavern. After a long pause he addressed me. “You know where to find this killer then, do you?”
“I do.”
“Or so you say.” He sank back into the bolster. “But you said that before, didn’t you? And then you just kept me waiting.”
“This time I won’t.”
He took a long gulp of wine, and then exhaled as if he were taking his last breath. “You have one day, de Lacy.”
“And you will release Filomena immediately?” I said.
He slipped slowly beneath the sheets. “No.”
“But—”
“Bring me this killer.” He coughed. “Then you’re welcome to her.”
I followed Giovanni down the stairs to the piano nobile. “I want to see Filomena,” I said.
“You can’t, Oswald,” said my glum companion. “The two guards won’t let anybody past the door.”
“Not even her lady’s maid?”
“The maid has left, along with most of the servants.” He sighed. “In fact, there are only a few men and that old woman left.”
“Is Monna Filomena allowed food and water?”
Giovanni nodded awkwardly. “Only water.”
“Then I must be quick.” I tied my cloak. “And you need to give me some money,” I said, pretending this was an afterthought.
Giovanni tensed at this request. “Don’t you have any of your own?”
“No. I left my purse at the Fondaco,” I lied.
“What do you need money for?”
“Legitimate expenses,” I said. “You can write them down in your ledger, under my name.” The man still hesitated. “Look! Do you want me to save Filomena’s life, or not?”
He trembled a little. “Of course I do,” he said, as he began to fumble around in his purse, before handing me the whole bag of coins with an air of finality. “Here, have them all,” he said. “Just save her life.”
I took the purse and then looked at his face—seeing a much-changed man. “Why did you come to find me at the inn, Giovanni?” I asked.
“I’m concerned about justice for my mistress,” he told me.
“But I always thought that you didn’t care for Filomena. Yet, now you are her champion?”
“I may not care for Monna Filomena,” he said. “But I am a man of Christ, Oswald. I care about the truth.”
I tied the purse onto my belt and went to leave.
“Should I come with you?” asked Giovanni, as I reached the door.
“No,” I said. “Stay here and make sure that Monna Filomena is cared for. I will return as soon as possible.”
I crept into the Calle Nuova, and looked up and down the alley for Sandro. The sky was overcast, and at first I could not see the boy. I will admit to panicking, when a small stone hit the back of my head and I turned around to find him leaping down from a high wall with the athleticism of a cat.
It was time to get away from this place, so I grasped his small hand and we made our way toward the Canal Grande. Here we would take the traghetto ferry to Dorsoduro, and while there was still light, we would hire a boat and seek out Marco.
I knew exactly where he was hiding. In truth, I always had.
Chapter Thirty-One
When I told Sandro where I was planning to go, he laughed in disbelief, calling me a madman. “I’ll hire a sàndolo and row there myself,” I told him. “It can’t be so difficult, can it? It’s just a boat with an oar.”
This caused him to laugh even more. “You won’t be able to do it,” he told me. “You’re English.”
“You’ll see,” I said.
As we reached the small quay at the tip of Dorsoduro, I told the boathand that I needed to rent a vessel in order to visit a lover on the island of Giudecca, no doubt paying twice the going rate for this small sàndolo, and more again for the privilege of a lantern. I was English, and this was Venice, so an inflated price for foreigners was entirely usual. And, as is also typical in Venice, the boathand protested that he had no interest in knowing my reason for wanting the boat, but then found a stool from which he might watch my progress across the lagoon. He would soon know that I was not heading for Giudecca.
Sandro stood on the wooden jetty and watched me attempt to maneuver the boat into the canal with a look of bemusement upon his face. I ignored his scorn and tried to wield the long and awkward oar through the water while standing upright on the boards. The oar was much heavier than I had supposed, and I succeeded only in creating a great splash as the blade sped out of the sea, causing me to fall forward and nearly lose hold of the disobedient oar.
As Sandro had anticipated, I was not an able oarsman, so when the boy leaped into the boat and gra
bbed the end of the oar before it sank into the sea, I did not object. I had already told Sandro where we were going, so it was his choice to join me—and as long as he stayed in the boat when we reached our destination, he would be safe enough.
By now there was a mist descending in thin swaths across the lagoon, and there were only two hours of daylight left, at most. A light rain blew into our faces, and the occasional wave slapped against the side of our small boat, but otherwise we moved quickly enough through the water without meeting any other vessels. As he propelled the oar, Sandro sang a song that was both melancholic and dreary, as if we might be sailing toward a burial, but I knew that something worse than death waited for me.
As our destination loomed like a black ridge upon the horizon, I felt its eyes searching for me across the water. I caught a glimpse of its low form as it skulked along the shoreline with its hands to the ground, patrolling the narrow beach like a sentry guard. I could almost smell the reek of its matted, dirty fur. Oh yes, it was no wonder that I had kept away from this place.
“I will not look at you,” I hissed to the wind. “Stay away from me.”
Sandro glanced up at my words—his face portraying surprise and then concern at my outburst.
I laughed, in an attempt to appease the boy. “I was just cursing the rain,” I said. “I hate this weather.”
Sandro frowned and then turned back toward the island, pushing the oar through the water with perfect grace until we hit the sandy shore. It took all of my determination to then swing a foot from the boat and step out onto the land, chanting to myself that I must not be afraid. The creature was nothing but a figment of my imagination. An illusion. I needed only to ignore its presence and hold fast to my plan—because somewhere in the midst of this island, there was a man who knew the truth. A man who could help me save Filomena.
At first I struggled through the marshy reeds, not immediately able to find a path from this far side of the island to the buildings of the Lazaretto. Sandro had insisted that we sail around to this distant shore, to avoid our progress being spotted from the few boats that were passing along these same waters. Craft were not allowed to land on the Lazaretto, so we needed to keep our visit secret.
