by Mary Gentle
47
Berenguer pulled at my elbow, striding forward onto the drawbridge
itself. ‘Come on, you!’
The planks did not shift underfoot, but I could see the green waters of
the Grand Canal between them.
Only Berenguer and Tottola came forward. The dozen others
remained on that side of the Rialto Bridge; I supposed by prior
agreement. The urge to break out laughing almost overwhelmed me. If I
could not manage fear or recalcitrance, I contrived to look exasperated –
by way of thinking of my silverpoint drawing of Onorata back at the
embassy, which I had spent three days on, and ruined with four unwise
strokes just before the midday meal.
I looked across the short distance at Federico, and greeted him with a
glare of hate. He will expect me to have deduced himself behind this: who else is there in Venice now who can act on Videric’s behalf?
It may not be true in a week or two’s time – but for now, there is only
my foster father.
‘Lord Federico.’ I spoke before either he or Berenguer could, and
heard my voice shake. With excitement, but I hoped he did not recognise
that. ‘You were never a father to me. But I didn’t think even you could
hand me over to be butchered like a hog!’
Tottola’s immense arm wrapped around my upper chest, squeezing
my tender breasts painfully if (I thought) accidentally. His other hand
clapped over my mouth.
It was less violent than it looked, by far, but the sensation that he need
only move the upper edge of his hand to stifle me made it easy to
struggle. The German soldier’s grip locked solidly around me.
Federico pulled off his brimless hat, ran his hands through disordered
wispy hair, and pulled the hat on again. His skin was pale, dotted with
sweat across his wide brow. He hissed, ‘You will not be butchered! I have
a promise of that! It is no more than giving you up to the life of a devout
religious!’
Imprisoned in some cold stone nunnery or monastery, woken every
three hours through the night to pray, and fed only on what we might
grow – nothing of this appeals to me, whether in God’s name or man’s.
But no need to argue the matter.
I took a long look at Federico, wondering if it could be marked on his
face: this man that raised me, sold me, benefited by me – is he also
willing to help murder me? Or does he genuinely force himself into a
belief that this is no more than kidnapping?
In the dialect of Taraconensis – which I thought he might suppose
these mercenaries not to speak – I asked, ‘What hold is it that Videric has
over you?’
Federico laughed.
He spoke in the same local variant of Iberian Latin, while he fondly
shook his head. ‘He has no hold over me! On the contrary, he values me.
48
He has for many years taken my advice on investing his gold – I have a
nose for where the trade will go, and what items are best bought and
sold, and when. The Aldra Videric would hardly be half so wealthy if not
for my aid—’
‘Why not make yourself rich?’ I cut in, holding his gaze. ‘Foster father,
you forget. I know what the estate is really like. I know that Valdamerca
keeps hens and sells the eggs for pennies when she’s at home. I know
how long it took you to save up Matasuntha’s dowry.’
Federico waved an impatient hand. ‘It will come – gold clings to gold!
Do you think me rich enough to invest on my own? At least at first?
Ridiculous! But Aldra Videric has the funds to invest, and I benefit, also.’
I wondered what tiny percentage Videric doled out to him –
remembered I must seem to be scared of abduction – and decided I
could risk no more questions.
He and Berenguer spoke rapidly in one of the Frankish tongues. I
turned my head so that my hood drooped concealingly over my face.
More quietly than I had ever heard him speak, Tottola murmured,
‘Not long now . . . ’
Federico snapped his fingers briskly, and folded his arms where he
stood. The serving man staggered out onto the Rialto drawbridge, iron-
bound chest clasped in both arms. Berenguer stepped forward, taking a
key from Federico’s hand, and thrust it in the lock and twisted.
I caught the merest glimmer.
The reflection of light from true gold is unmistakable.
‘Looks about right.’ Berenguer slammed the lid down and turned the
key again, and hitched the chest over onto his hip as if it weighed no
more than Onorata.
Federico, turning away, reached out and grasped my arm just below
the shoulder. ‘Ilario, come with me.’
‘’Fraid not.’ Berenguer pulled sword and scabbard together out of the
straps of his belt, and lay the still-undrawn weapon flat across Federico’s
chest.
With one hand to the sword-hilt and the other gripping the mouth of
the scabbard, he could have edged steel free in a moment. But because
he did not, because no sword was actually drawn, no man looked at us or
interfered.
Federico stared down at the red leather of the scabbard in pure
astonishment. ‘You have your first half of the gold! Three thousand
ducats! You get no more until you set foot on the Veneto!’
‘She’s – he’s—’ Berenguer stumbled. ‘Ilario’s not going anywhere with
you.’
‘We have a contract!’
Berenguer showed his teeth. ‘Yeah. We did. Sorry about that – we
changed our minds.’
It will not be so easy, I thought. And caught the moment that the skin 49
folded and creased at the corners of Federico’s eyes. In his narrowed
gaze I saw anger and fear. The latter is far more dangerous!
Berenguer jerked his head, the polished finished of his helmet blazing
back the sun. The dozen and more cloaked men strode forward onto the
bridge itself, surrounding us.
Something nudged my shoulder.
I glanced back – just sufficiently less tall that I could glimpse
Honorius’s features, under the drooping edge of his hood.
‘Contemptible!’ Federico’s jaw came up: he glared at Berenguer. ‘You
may attempt to cheat me. But what of when I go to your master Licinus
Honorius, and say how you were willing to betray him for money?’
A cloaked figure brushed past my shoulder. Lifting his hands, putting
his hood back, my father remarked cheerfully, ‘Licinus Honorius already
knows.’
With another company, it might have been possible to deceive
Federico into thinking that the Captain-General had merely discovered
the betrayal, and averted it.
These men have fought too long together: there’s no mistaking their
comradeship.
Which means my foster father is aware he has been taken, lock, stock, and arquebus-barrel.
Federico drew himself up, remarkably unafraid for a man with one
servant at his back.
‘How unfortunate to find you engaged in something so dishonest,
Captain Honorius. But all the same, I believe you won’t stop me taking
my foster child away from here.’
‘You think?’ Honorius cocked a brow,
and nodded towards the railing
of the drawbridge. ‘Think again.’
Honorius had clearly not left all twenty of his remaining men at the
Alexandrine embassy. Ten of them, I saw, occupied two boats moored to
slanting posts just at the side of the Rialto Bridge.
Seated in the bottom of the wide-bottomed boats, hands manacled
behind them, were twice their number of men – a mixture of household
servants without their livery badges, hired bravos, and that kind of man
who is a petty criminal or a mercenary soldier according to the season of
the year. More than half had ears cropped, or ‘T’ for ‘thief’ branded on
their foreheads.
Honorius called an order. The men-at-arms rowed back into the side
canal from which I deduced they must have come.
I turned to Federico. He seemed self-possessed – except for the colour
of his complexion. A man might have blown plaster-dust across his skin
and got that same aghast white.
All the rage is gone out of him.
He might have been furious at the trick, as well as a raid of
50
consequences – Honorius’s men-at-arms being unnerving en masse – but
there was no anger to be drawn from his expression.
Federico looked about – for his servant, I realised. When I too looked,
I couldn’t see the man. Honorius’s soldiers must have permitted him to
run. He could go nowhere that would harm us.
‘Keep the money.’ Federico spoke abruptly. ‘I’m done.’
There was more than satisfaction in Honorius’s smile.
Of course, I thought. Now Honorius has three thousand ducats: he
need not betray his location by going to any banker in any city.
Except that he must go back to Taraco! I made a grim note to bring this to my father’s attention, yet again. Before Videric robs him of all he has!
Federico moved almost unconsciously back, feet shifting on the heavy
planks.
I stepped forward and caught the velvet of his doublet sleeve. ‘You
may give Videric a message from me—’
‘Videric? No!’ Federico laughed harshly. He looked down at my hand,
not pulling out of my grip, and then back at me. A scarlet flush covered
the pallor of his cheeks: he looked unhealthy, and feverish. ‘That’s it: I’m
done. I have Valdamerca and my girls with me – Matasuntha’s husband
will have to take care of her. Let the King confiscate that pitiable shack of
an estate! I’m not returning to Taraconensis now.’
I found my hand holding the fabric tighter, as if I could keep him from
escape. ‘What do you mean, not going back to Taraco now? When will
you go back?’
Federico laughed.
I heard bitterness in it, but a surprising amount of relief, too.
‘Not ever.’ He spoke almost gently, and stiffened his shoulders as he
looked around at our mercenary soldiers. ‘Never. This is what comes of
trying to improve on my orders. Aldra Videric suggested I bribe your
soldiers merely to desert, and then permit the men he will send to deal
with you. I thought, if I had you in my hands to bring to him . . . ’
His gaze was directed at the green water below, stippled and criss-
crossed with gold light where wavelets caught the sun. I thought he saw
none of that.
His tight, controlled voice quivered. ‘And he will expect me to pay it
back out of my own pocket! He will call me a fool for failing, and ask me
for three thousand ducats. Dear Lord!’
Federico shook his head, and took a kerchief from his doublet sleeve to
wipe across his forehead.
Things will not have changed so much in the eight months I have been
gone, I thought, and said, ‘You don’t have three thousand ducats in
gold.’
‘Nor if I sold the estate!’ Federico wiped his forehead again, and
opened his hand. The white cloth spiralled down, spreading on the canal
51
water below as it landed, and gradually sinking. He stared until the
whiteness entirely vanished.
‘I’m done!’ he repeated. Straightening up off the drawbridge’s railing,
he snorted – a sardonic sound, that might have been a laugh – and looked
at me. ‘No need for concern. I have a nose for business, and I’ve made
enough business contacts while making my lord Videric rich. I won’t
starve. The Alpine passes in northern Italy will be open by the time I
reach the mainland. I think that Flanders and all of north Burgundy have
it in them to be even richer than they are now . . . And I’m done with playing lapdog for my Lord Pirro Videric Galindo!’
Federico rolled out Videric’s given name and matronymic with relish.
More than taken aback, I could only say, ‘I thought you were his man.’
‘And what is the use of supporting a man permanently out of power?
Yes, he has wealth; he can buy men to do his bidding. But he’s not a
power in the land now, and he never will be – Videric becoming King
Rodrigo’s First Minister again: what are the chances of that?’
The scorn in his voice was hard, dry, and, I judged, perfectly genuine.
It left me blinking at him in shock.
Federico patted my hand, where my fingers were still clenched in his
sleeve. ‘ You may give Aldra Videric a message from me, Ilario, since I hope devoutly never to see the man again.’
‘I’m hardly so keen myself!’
Federico surprised me by laughing out loud.
‘Nevertheless, if you do, convey him my regards. Tell him, I hope his
miserly testicles wither and drop off. That, when he dies, I shall dance on
his grave. And that, if I had known a quarter – an eighth part! – of the trouble waiting for me when he sent me after you, I would have thrown
myself down on the Via Augusta and let the mule-train trample me to
death!’
The soldiers chuckled, behind me. I heard Berenguer choke back an
outright guffaw.
Federico clasped my hand in his and turned it over. I did not resist
him. His thumb brushed the scribe’s calluses, and those left by sword-
use, still not gone after months without training. He regarded the smear
of black charcoal that came off on his skin with seeming amusement.
‘Aldra Videric knows you well enough to know you won’t abandon the
New Art. Just a word of warning.’
He patted my fingers with his other hand, and released me.
Looking up at the hooded figure of Honorius at my side, he said,
‘Satisfy my curiosity, Aldra. Is she your son-and-daughter? Or did some
son of yours father him? Or is it coincidence?’
Honorius took the iron-bound chest as Berenguer passed it to him and
patted the lid. ‘It would take more than three thousand ducats to buy
those answers.’
‘Indeed – I suspect them not for sale.’ My foster father regarded my
52
father for a long moment, looking almost jaunty. ‘I also suspect you
aren’t a man to shoot someone in the back. Do let me know if I’m
incorrect.’
Federico nodded politely, caught my eye as he turned away, and shot
me a look so complex I could not unravel in it all the old loyalty, old grudges, despair, joy, and risk. His boots rang on the planks of the
drawbridge, and
then were muffled on the stone of the Rialto steps.
His back would not stop prickling until he reached his own palazzo, I
guessed.
Perhaps not until he’s out of Venice and across the Alps.
And it is not we who he fears.
The men he will send to deal with you. I heard Federico’s voice in memory as he shoved his way into the Rialto crowds.
‘He won’t be the only man watching his back, now,’ I said.
And it is not only here we face danger.
I looked at Honorius as we turned to retreat under the covered steps of
the Rialto. It is weeks, if not more than a month, since my father received
his letter from King Rodrigo. And, apart from the likelihood that
Rodrigo’s men have eaten Honorius’s estate bare, now, and raided the
others nearest to it . . . it is never wise to have a ruling king as an enemy.
53
8
Winter has not ever been my favourite season – at Federico’s old estate,
it meant feet continually numb in freezing mud; at Rodrigo’s court, if
fires burned in great brick hearths big enough to stable a horse, and I had
boots, still, there was more venomous gossip around the Yule fireside
than at any of her time.
Now I watched for spring’s signs with terror.
If they come for me, and this family I have here, who will look after my
child?
Even if she survives, she’ll become a foundling in turn.
Trees, such as they are in Venezia, remained reassuringly bare of
branch. But close inspection showed buds on every twig of the hazel
beside S. Barnaba, thick and swelling, even if with no green at the tips yet. Travellers crossing the S. Marco square wore the clothes of Greece,
Turkish Tyre and Sidon, Malta, and every other port from
which further ships daily arrived. The Merceria was piled high with
goods of all kinds, the scarcities and excuses of past weeks forgotten as if
unspoken. People walked with heads up, their backs not stooped over
into biting winds, although the sea-cold still drove into our bones.
Rekhmire’ was out every day, rowed up and down this canal and that,
trying for news on whether seas to Constantinople were traversible yet.
Or whether any man had seen a Herr Mainz, late of the Germanies.
Attila taught him a phrase or two to speak to the few northern men in
