Ascension

by Gregory Dowling

  “Well, after you’d gone, I decided it would be rather pleasant to go for another ride with your gondolier friend, just up and down the river, you know…”

  “It’s the Grand Canal,” I corrected him automatically.

  “Whatever you say. And when I got back there was Shackleford leaping around and tearing his hair out.”

  I glanced at Shackleford. It was difficult to picture this.

  “I was certainly perturbed,” he said, with a touch of reproach in his voice. I could also hear a note of definite nervousness. “When I returned from our expedition with the good lady, who was most helpful, by the way…”

  “I think Shackleford is quite smitten,” said Boscombe, and he gave his sudden noisy laugh.

  Shackleford continued, determinedly ignoring this sally. “When I returned I went straight to our room. The moment I opened the door I could see something had happened.”

  “What?” I said.

  “My trunk had been opened and tampered with. Clothes and other items were strewn over the floor.”

  “Was much taken?”

  The two men looked at each other. I got the impression that they both wished they had agreed on an answer to this question.

  Then they spoke together. I think Shackleford said “Nothing significant” and Boscombe “Just a few trinkets”, and then they looked at each other again and opened their mouths, as if about to qualify their statements, but no words emerged.

  “Well, shall we go and check?” I said.

  We set off towards the staircase to the upper floor, with Sior Scarpa behind us continuing to reassure us about the respectability of the establishment.

  It was the first time I had seen the guests’ rooms and I could see that the praise for the establishment was merited. It struck me that my whole apartment could fit into the room where Boscombe and Shackleford were accommodated, and there would still be space left over – perhaps inside the wardrobe with its decorated doors – for my local tavern; some of the clients might even find it airier, if the doors were left ajar.

  The size and splendour of the room, with its blazing chandelier and the large windows giving on to the Grand Canal, meant that the disorder mentioned by Shackleford made little immediate impact on the eyes. The travelling trunk lay open on the floor before the bed, and one might at first have mistaken the scattered sprawl of garments all around it for a careless attempt at Carnival decoration. But another glance made it clear that these things had been pulled out and cast around in great haste. There had been both urgency and speed in the search. And from Boscombe’s and Shackleford’s earlier reactions it sounded as if whatever it was that had been sought had been found, but they were unwilling to reveal what it was.

  Sior Scarpa repeated: “This has never happened before. Never before. A respectable establishment.”

  I went over to the window. I was remembering the view of the palace as we had approached it by gondola. I leaned out of the left-hand window, peering out on to the canal. The view was attractive enough: gondolas with flickering lanterns bobbed below me, and on the other side of the canal lamps flared above the doorways of the taverns around the Rialto market area. However, this was not what I was interested in. I gazed to the left and could made out the dark fretwork of the wooden scaffolding on the adjacent palace. There was about a four-foot gap between my windowsill and the nearest wooden planks.

  “You left this window open?” I asked Boscombe.

  “Yes, certainly,” he said. “It was damned stuffy. You think the villain got in through there?” He joined me at the window. “He’d have to be pretty damn nimble.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And of course anyone could see him from the canal,” he added.

  “I suspect no one would pay too much attention,” I said. “It’s dark up here, after all.”

  “Some sneak thief,” he said. “Does this happen a lot?”

  “Not according to our host,” I said, gesturing to Sior Scarpa, who was once again urging upon us the unprecedented nature of this event. “The scaffolding might have made it a special temptation. And if you were known to have something especially valuable…” I left the sentence dangling.

  He clearly felt no need to retrieve this conversational loose end. “Just the usual stuff for travellers,” he said. “Anyway, there’s no need to make a fuss over it.”

  “You don’t want to report your loss?”

  “No. Least said and all that.”

  “Sior Scarpa will be very relieved,” I said. I turned back to face the room and translated Boscombe’s decision for the benefit of the host, who immediately switched from profuse declarations of sorrow to ones of gratitude. I glanced at Shackleford, who also seemed relieved. It was clear that they had no wish for any assistance from the authorities in recovering their lost property, whatever it was.

  “All right then, Benson,” said Boscombe to the valet, who had been hovering in the doorway. “You might as well tidy up this mess now.”

  Sior Scarpa had already barked orders to two of his servants, who had started picking up some of the garments. Benson snatched them from their hands, an expression of outrage on his face. Seeing the risk of an international incident I addressed the two local helpers in Venetian: “Better leave it to Milord’s man.” They shrugged and made for the door.

  “Milord,” said Sior Scarpa, “I would like to offer you dinner this evening. Please, you will be my guest.”

  When I had translated this Boscombe said, “Oh, very generous. Thank you.” Then he turned to me. “Afterwards how about a trip to the Piazza? And perhaps a little gaming, if you know of anywhere?”

  “Oh, sir,” protested Shackleford, but this was clearly part of a well-rehearsed routine. He must raise his token objections but Boscombe would go ahead and do just as he pleased.

  “Certainly,” I said. “I could return in a couple of hours or so, when you have had time to rest and dine.”

  And so it was agreed. I went downstairs and informed Bepi of the plan. He was sitting in the draughty entranceway, playing dice with another gondolier and Andrea. Bepi nodded. “So we’re hired,” he said.

  “Yes. By the way, just how upset were they when they discovered the theft?”

  “Well, I came back with Milord and the tutor was standing here waiting for us, and he started gabbling away. He seemed in a fair state.”

  “Yelling? Screaming? Crying?”

  Bepi shrugged. “Gabbling.”

  As that was Bepi’s word for all foreigners’ conversation this was not much help. But then he added: “He kept pointing upstairs and saying something like takeeneet, over and over.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I don’t suppose you saw anyone on the scaffolding next door?”

  Another shrug. “I wasn’t looking. At that time of day you have to keep your eye on the other boats. Some of these young gondoliers…”

  I said, “I know, I know.” The deplorable lack of skill of the new generation of gondoliers is one of the few topics Bepi is loquacious about. He is, of course, referring to rowers about ten years younger than he is, at most.

  “And you didn’t get the idea that any of our friends from Fusina had turned up again?”

  That caught his attention. He looked up from the dice. “You think it was one of them?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t help wondering.”

  “Well, maybe they’ve got what they want now and they’ll leave us alone,” he said. His eyes went back to the dice.

  “Let’s hope so,” I said. “But I still wonder.”

  “Well, keep wondering,” he said, making it clear he had no intention of wasting his time in such a fashion. Speculation for speculation’s sake is never going to be one of his weaknesses. He had now turned all his attention to the demanding activity of shaking the dice.

  “All right. I’ll see you later,” I said. Probably our good working relationship depends on the fact that we know better than to share our leisure hours.

>   I set out towards the Rialto again. With so much time in hand I could actually have gone home; my small apartment is in the parish of San Giovanni in Bragora, about twenty minutes’ walk away, but there was nothing to eat there and I was hungry. One of the things that had taken me longest to learn in my adult Venetian life were the complicated rules that regulated the various kinds of eating and drinking establishments in the city. A furatola could not serve any food reserved to the luganegheri (sausage-makers), nor could they add cheese, oil or any kind of fat to their foods. If they were caught selling wine, they would be fined heavily and banished from the city for a year. The magazeni could serve wine, but no food – or at least no cooked food. The malvasie, the most refined of these establishments, sometimes frequented even by noblemen, served fine wines (including the wine that gave them their name, malvasia or malmsey) and biscuits. In the end, of course, it was my pocket that dictated which I could go to; I usually took whatever basic dish was on offer at the nearest furatola and then endeavoured to get rid of the taste with a glass of Cyprus wine from a malvasia. There was always local gossip to make up for any culinary deficiencies.

  The topic that accompanied my bowl of sguazzetto – boiled pig trotters and veal – in Corte dell’Orso that evening was the rather unusual one of a local murder. A gnaga had been found stuffed down a well.

  I was mildly relieved to find I was not the only one who had no idea what a gnaga was. The host expressed puzzlement and the group of gondoliers who had brought the subject up roared with laughter at his ignorance.

  “Gnagaaaaa,” said one of them, imitating the sound of a cat on heat.

  “They killed a cat?” said the host. This did not seem to warrant the excited tones with which they had been discussing the event.

  “Come on now, Martin,” said the loudest gondolier. “Don’t play the innocent. You must have seen these types at Carnival.” The whole group now joined in the caterwauling, one of them adding to the performance by strolling around the courtyard in an exaggeratedly feminine fashion, one hand on his hip and the other wafting kisses to the upper windows. I remembered having seen a group of men in women’s clothes and cat masks miaowing coquettishly at the crowds during Carnival. I had thought it was just one of those one-day jests, but apparently it had lasted long enough to earn the performers a new name. And a watery death for one of them.

  “Where was it?” said the host.

  “Over at Santa Maria Mater Domini,” said the performer.

  “Well, I won’t drink any water there for a while,” said the host.

  6

  As we waited for Boscombe and his tutor to descend from their meal I asked Bepi if he knew anything about the murder. He gave a grimace and said, “Nasty business.”

  “Who was he?” I said.

  “Young man from the Friuli. He was selling himself.”

  “And they’ve no idea who did it?”

  He gave his all-purpose shrug. “I don’t think they’re looking very hard.”

  “I expect his family would like to know,” I said.

  “His mother came here from the country,” was all he said. Bepi comes from a large family and his tightened mouth and eyes told me he was making the painful comparisons.

  There was the sound of footsteps on the grand staircase and Boscombe and Shackleford appeared. The young man had put on a splendid light-blue jacket and cream-coloured shirt with frothy frills at the neck and cuffs. His wig was freshly powdered and he was carrying a stick with a gold handle. Shackleford was his usual shabby self, with a dark cloak over one arm. Their shining cheeks and benevolent expressions suggested they had dined well. As I gazed at them I felt my sguazzetto rising to my throat; I obviously had not drowned it in sufficient wine.

  “Tomorrow we have to call on the Resident,” said Boscombe. “You know who that is?”

  “Of course, sir. Mr Murray is very well known. He always receives in the morning, but not too early.”

  “I imagine not. Shouldn’t imagine most visitors here are dawn-lovers, hey?” He gave his barking laugh. “Unless they haven’t been to bed yet. So let’s go and see this Piazza I’ve heard so much about. And then a little gaming…”

  Shackleford was too mellowed by wine even to make his token protest.

  We boarded the gondola and made our way down the Grand Canal. It would, of course, have been far quicker to walk, the curve in the canal adding an extra twenty minutes to our journey, but speed was hardly the point, and no gentleman of any standing was going to make his entrance into the Piazza by jostling through the crowds down the Merceria.

  I confined myself to pointing out one or two of the more notable palaces – Palazzo Grimani, Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Ca’ Foscari, the magnificent Ca’ Rezzonico, which was finally being completed, the beautiful Ca’ Dario and, of course, the great church of Santa Maria della Salute – and Boscombe smiled at them, while Shackleford did his best to remain awake. We emerged into the great open stretch before the Piazzetta, amid a host of other gondolas, bobbing towards the landing stage. There was a good moon shining down on us, and the classical façade of San Giorgio Maggiore shimmered across the water.

  Bepi steered us in gently to the landing stage, where a busy ganzer stood ready to offer his hand to those passengers whose clothes warranted his attention. That category did not include me, so I leapt ashore unaided, while the ganzer fawned over Boscombe. A coin or two exchanged hands.

  “Why couldn’t we stop there?” asked Boscombe, pointing towards the pillars of San Marco and San Todaro. “That would seem the obvious place.”

  “Venetians never walk between the pillars, Sir,” I said. I knew this was one of the anecdotes visitors enjoyed – far more than the date of the Palazzo Ducale or the architect of the Marciana library – so I immediately transformed myself into the professional cicerone. “It’s supposed to bring bad luck. The pillars were brought to Venice from Acre in the twelfth century, and a reward was offered to anyone who could work out a way to raise them. The man who succeeded asked for the right to set up gaming tables between them and the state agreed, but then also made it the place for public executions.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought that would put people off,” said Boscombe, “knowing what gamblers are like, eh?”

  “You’re right,” I said, “as you can see.” I gestured towards the tables where a cluster of cloaked figures was hovering around a small table on which dice were being rattled. “Mind you, they usually stop while an execution is carried out. But even so, Venetians still prefer not to pass between them.”

  “Ah,” said Shackleford, “wasn’t there a doge who walked through them?”

  “Yes,” I said, a little surprised. The tutor had clearly done his preparatory studies. “Doge Marin Falier. He landed in Venice on a foggy evening and couldn’t see where he was going and passed through them unawares. And it proved a bad augury as he ended up being executed himself. Beheaded.”

  “Oh, really? Between the pillars?” asked Boscombe.

  “No, that was not thought suitable. In the courtyard of the Doge’s palace.” And I gestured towards the great Gothic building facing the waterfront.

  “He’s still remembered, is he?” asked Shackleford. The story of the treacherous doge seemed to have woken him up.

  “Well, among those interested in history,” I said. “And you could say they ensured he would be remembered by doing their best to stamp out his memory. They covered up his portrait in the room of the Great Council in the palace with a painted black drape, and so of course it’s the only one everyone notices.”

  “Wasn’t he an alchemist?” Boscombe asked.

  “I’ve never heard that.”

  “Isn’t he the one in –” he said, turning to Shackleford.

  “Yes,” Shackleford cut in quickly, “that’s the one. But it’s not important.”

  “So he walked between these pillars,” said Boscombe. “Well, well.”

  I was surprised by this sudden manifestation of interest
in medieval history. For some reason Shackleford, with equal suddenness, now seemed desirous of changing the subject. “Well, shall we see the square?” he said abruptly.

  Boscombe accepted the diversion equably enough. He gazed at the crowds of people, all heading towards the Liston. “So that’s the Piazza, is it?”

  “That is the Piazzetta,” I said. “We are looking on to the side of the church of Saint Mark. The Piazza lies in front of the church, a much larger open space, as you’ll see.”

  “Well, let’s go and join the merry throng, eh? And if there’s anyone of note you can present us to, all the better. Especially if they’re female, eh? Ha?”

  “Certainly, sir. Shall we ask our gondolier to wait for us?”

  Boscombe waved a hand rather vaguely; clearly the journey home was the last thing on his mind.

  I turned to Bepi and said we would follow the usual rules; if we were not back by two he could consider himself free to go home. He nodded; he had already pulled his dice from his pocket. A gondolier needs inner resources for the slack moments.

  We strolled towards the Piazza. Both Boscombe and Shackleford were looking with interest at the crowds. At this time in the evening all sorts of people can be found parading between the waterfront and the clock tower: finely dressed noblemen and their retinues, cittadini with stiff clothes and stiff wives, working men and women come to stretch their tired limbs and enjoy the spectacle of splendour laid on freely by the city, prostitutes, artists, performers, gamesters and torch-bearing children offering their various services. Near the great bell tower lounged a group of burly arsenalotti; they have the specific job of keeping order when the Great Council is in session, but even when there is no session a group of them can often be found there, just reminding the city that they exist. There is little enough for them to do at the Arsenale itself nowadays.

  I glanced towards the coffee shop where I had earlier seen the nobleman and the wiry ganzer, and then looked around to see if there was any sign of Walnut Face. I caught no glimpse of any of them; several hours had passed, after all.

  “This is the Liston, is it?” asked Shackleford.