Ascension

by Gregory Dowling

  I gave him a quick nod, which he could choose to interpret as a bow if he were that desperate, and to the zany I said: “Don’t ever come near me again. Nor your big friend.”

  Zanotto asked one last question. “So you do have the book?”

  “I’ve only seen a copy of the English version,” I said. “I know nothing of the Italian original.”

  I did not look to see if this answer satisfied him. Bepi and I descended from the stage and walked out of the auditorium.

  As soon as we were in the foyer I said, “How did that go?” Even as I said it I realised how preening it sounded. But it seemed that Bepi too was pleased with himself.

  “We did all right, didn’t we?” he said.

  I gave him a smile. “It was pretty good, for a first time.”

  He shook his head. “There’s no denying it does something to you.”

  “What?”

  “Being up on that stage. Never thought I’d have that experience.”

  We walked out through the main door, to the consternation of the three boys, who were staring towards the side alley by which we had entered.

  “Did they catch you?”

  We smiled indulgently. “We sorted them out,” I said.

  “But that was the zany!” said the smallest boy. “He’s really something.”

  “So are we,” said Bepi.

  He flipped another coin at them and we made our way to our gondola. There was definitely an extra spring in Bepi’s step.

  I hoped he would get over this soon.

  13

  That evening I read the Account of the Life of Doge Marino Faliero. Or, at least, as much as I could bear. The writer had clearly read his Machiavelli and seemed to have taken the pages on Cesare Borgia as his main model. But there was none of Machiavelli’s cool detachment and cynical realism. This was simple power-worship. Or rather worship of what should have been power – real power – if only the Venetian system of government had not been so absurdly short-sighted as to cut down the only forceful ruler the city had ever had. Marin Falier, according to the book, had seen the dangers of weak government and had naturally desired the same kind of power that various despots were assuming for themselves in the numerous signorie arising in Italy in his time; the writer made comparisons with the Visconti, the D’Este, the Medici, all to the detriment of the outmoded Venetian system.

  The fact that the city for many centuries both before and after Marin Falier had not done too badly, in terms of commerce, influence, culture and general prosperity, under this feeble system of government did not seem to cross the writer’s mind. Maybe it would have done even better under a real ruler. Or maybe all that counted was that the right sort of people would have respected such a ruler.

  One thing was perfectly clear from the text: it had to be a translation. I wondered that anyone could ever have doubted that. Almost every sentence suggested an Italian original: “It was the year 1349 and so tragic in its effects was the pestilence that struck the entire peninsula that there seemed to be scarce possibilities of a future resurrection from this fatal condition of misery and despair…” Would any English writer, unless under the influence of drink, pen such a combination of words as “scarce possibilities”? But then I guessed that the book had actually found very few English readers. Why on earth would anyone willingly subject themselves to such excruciating prose?

  The ‘prefatory poem’ was an embarrassing paean to Falier in limping heroic couplets. I guessed that the artificiality of nearly all the rhymes could be ascribed to the fact that it too was a translation, but decided that even that consideration failed to justify so dire a couplet as:

  And tragic was the loss that fatal day

  On which so great a man they chose to slay.

  The afterword praised the courage of the author without entering into the merit of his argument. It read like a piece of dutiful hackwork, and it was difficult to imagine that the writer of the book could have been greatly thrilled by such desultory praise.

  For relief from this torture I read a canto of Pope’s Rape of the Lock and felt much better for it.

  * * *

  At Fusina the next day Bepi and I found an English clergyman travelling with his elderly mother and were promised a week of gainful employment. There were, I was relieved to see, no lasting signs of histrionic compulsions in Bepi. Possibly the highly respectable nature of the only audience we had (whose greatest pronouncements of approval or enthusiasm as we swung into the Grand Canal were “How very charming” and “Goodness me”) served to repress any temptations towards the flamboyant in my partner, who limited himself to an emphatic “Ecco” when we approached the Rialto Bridge.

  After we had delivered them to their inn with a promise to collect them at nine o’clock the next morning I made my way to Fabrizio’s shop to return the book on Marin Falier. He and Lucia were interested to hear my reaction.

  “If you’re thinking of ordering bulk copies of the Italian version, should it turn up,” I said, “I would advise caution.”

  “Not compulsive reading?” said Fabrizio.

  “Tedious in the extreme,” I said. “I think nobody need worry about its possibly subversive effects on the populace.”

  “I don’t think anyone ever was worried about that,” said Fabrizio. “But they did want to know who had written it.”

  “Well, I’ve identified one name,” I said. “Nobleman Zanotto: deceased brother of the man who owns a share in the Santa Giustina theatre company.”

  “How did you find that out?” said Lucia, looking sharply at me.

  “I asked the brother. Or rather, he told me.”

  “You have been investigating, then,” she said.

  “I had to find out who kidnapped me,” I said. “Nobody else was going to do it.”

  “And how did you do it?”

  “Well, I didn’t hang around San Barnaba,” I said. “I promised not to, remember?”

  “That wasn’t the point –”

  “I first identified the place I had been taken to, with the help of Bepi.”

  “Your gondolier? Did you warn him…?”

  “Of course. He was even more eager than I was.” And I went on to give a full account of the previous day’s events.

  “So Zanotto is a blackmailer,” said Fabrizio. “Well, it’s no great surprise to anyone who has observed the family’s fortunes.”

  “What happened exactly?”

  “The usual story: he dissipated the family’s remaining fortune for the most part at the gaming tables. He hangs around the Broglio hoping for – well, let’s put it charitably and say hoping that his vote can be of service to those who need it.”

  “Hoping for bribes, you mean.”

  Fabrizio lifted his hands defensively. “I did not say that.”

  It would perhaps be unfair to say that Lucia snorted; however, the derisive intention was clear enough. Her father winced: “My dear, I know you have had no female examples to learn from…”

  She put her arm around him. “Yes, Father, I know. Decorum and duty. I will retire to a dark corner of the room and resume my needlework and you will not hear another peep from me.”

  I managed to resist snorting myself. Her father merely gave a wry smile and went on: “For the last year or so he has had some kind of official post in the customs office, which probably helps him pay some of his bills. It’s apparently a renewable position.”

  “And his brother?” I asked.

  “I seem to remember that he was in England for a while, in some ambassadorial capacity. I had no idea he was a writer or interested in history. But then perhaps he only wrote the poem. Or the afterword.”

  “So now you can identify your kidnapper,” said Lucia. “Will you go to the Missier Grande with the information?”

  “What do you advise?” I said, meaning it. I really had not taken a decision.

  She frowned. “It seems Zanotto had nothing to do with the murder. If his interest was just to get hold of th
e book for blackmailing purposes, why would he kill the man who had it? Especially since it sounds as though he still hasn’t managed to get his hands on it.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I have no interest in protecting Zanotto, but…”

  “No point in creating unnecessary trouble,” she said. Her voice was neutral; as usual I could not tell whether she approved or disapproved.

  “And the other name,” I said, addressing Fabrizio. “Piero Garzoni. Can you tell me anything about him? All I know is that he’s something of a recluse.”

  “Well, yes, I can. He’s a client.”

  “Oh yes? What sort of books is he interested in?”

  “Well, Venetian history for a start.”

  “Aha,” I said.

  “Obviously guilty,” said Lucia. “What more evidence do we need?”

  “And books on occult matters. The Rosicrucian mysteries. The Knights Templar. The Cabal. All that sort of stuff.” He sounded weary.

  “I see,” I said. “And did he have, does he have, any English connection?”

  “I’m scarcely an expert on his family history but it’s possible he travelled there. Perhaps he visited Zanotto. I don’t recall ever hearing of his having any diplomatic or ambassadorial function. He was mainly connected with the Arsenale.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. He held various roles there: member of the Collegio alla Milizia, provveditore, sopraprovveditore…”

  “Sopra-sopraprovveditore,” I suggested.

  “There probably is such a role,” said Fabrizio, “only they don’t give it an official name. His first title, I believe, was Provveditore alli Biscotti.”

  “Supervisor of the biscuits?” Was Fabrizio gulling me?

  “Very important role. Essential to have someone reliable guaranteeing the supply and the quality of the basic diet of our sailors. Remember, we invented the biscuit.”

  One of many Venetian claims to creative priority. I did not attempt to question it.

  Fabrizio went on: “But he was dismissed from his last post at the Arsenale a few years ago. There was some scandal connected with the treatment of workers there. I think it was under his aegis that it was decided to extend certain punishments accepted on our ships to the workers who make those ships – flogging, for example – and a worker died after being beaten.”

  Lucia winced. “Such things are barbarous wherever they are done,” she said.

  “They say he still has arsenalotti servants,” I said. “Faithful ones.”

  “Oh, there were some there who loved him,” said Fabrizio.

  “Probably those who administered the floggings rather than those who received them,” said Lucia.

  “Probably so, my dear. In any case, they seem to be the only people with whom he has any dealings. He lives alone in his palace on the Grand Canal; other family members have either died or abandoned him.”

  “He sounds exactly the kind of person who could have written that dire book,” I said.

  “Yes,” agreed Fabrizio.

  “Except…” began Lucia, and then paused.

  “Except?”

  “Except that he doesn’t sound the sort of person who would be ashamed to have written it.”

  “Good point,” I said.

  “But Sior Alvise…”

  “Yes?” I always knew that she was going to say something serious when she addressed me in this formal fashion.

  “Please don’t persist in these inquiries. It would not be safe for you.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve found out what I needed to know. I’ll stay clear from now on.”

  And I thought I was telling the truth.

  The first indications to the contrary came a week later when Bepi and I were at Fusina again waiting for new arrivals from Padua.

  Our clergyman and his mother had paid us well and thanked us copiously. They had not asked me any questions I could not answer, or for which I could not invent plausible answers (“How deep is the Grand Canal?”), and they had professed themselves satisfied with the sights they had seen and the acquaintances they had made; both of them had nodded with a kind of strange personal satisfaction as they said this and I wondered whether each had had some clandestine encounter of a kind that would for ever remain a secret from the other. Well, I would never know. I waved them off with a certain affection as I jingled the unfamiliar plurality of coins in my pocket.

  And now Bepi and I watched a new carriage draw up and disgorge another oddly assorted pair of English travellers: a middle-aged gentleman in dark breeches and jacket and a young fair-haired lady in a frothy confection of pink and yellow silk. It was a warm evening and both were clearly relieved to be stepping out of the carriage. The man was bare-headed and was mopping his brow, while the young lady was waving an elegant silk fan. Their servants, a short stocky man with a shaven head and a pink-cheeked girl, stood nearby gazing around with the usual air of Anglo-Saxon wariness.

  I approached, doffing my hat. “Good evening, sir; good evening, madam. May I offer my assistance? I have a gondola…”

  “Non preoccupatevi, signore,” said the man, in atrociously accented Italian. “Possiamo fare da soli.”

  I bowed and said, “As you wish, sir.”

  “Oh, Father,” said the girl. “There’s no need to make things difficult for ourselves. If the young man has a gondola let’s use it, for goodness’ sake.”

  She was busily smoothing out the creases and kinks in her dress, and at this point she was adjusting the lacy frills around her décolletage, apparently unaware of the fact that this delicate operation had captured the eyes of every gondolier, porter and errand boy within a hundred yards. Even the customs officer’s dog seemed transfixed.

  She turned to me and I guiltily jerked my eyes up to meet hers, which were large and blue. She was decidedly pretty, with delicately rouged cheeks and her hair in a pile of carefully cultivated curls.

  “Per favore,” she said, “vogliamo andare all’albergo del Leon Bianco.” Her accent was no less atrocious than her father’s but was somehow infinitely more charming. Maybe it was due to the fact that she made her request sound like a heroic enterprise that only I could carry out for her.

  “Sì, signorina,” I said, wondering how much longer we would keep up the pointless exercise of speaking in Italian, but judging that it was not up to me to stop.

  “Lo sapete?” she said.

  I guessed that she meant lo conoscete? and replied that I did know it.

  “Mio cugino,” she began.

  And I broke in: “You’re Mr Boscombe’s cousin.”

  She was startled but recovered her equipoise a second later. “That is correct. And you…?”

  I introduced myself, and Bepi as well, who seemed even more transfixed than the dog by her adjustments to her décolletage but managed to pull himself together sufficiently to effect a stiff bow, and then gestured towards his gondola.

  “We accompanied your cousin to the Leon Bianco, just as we are doing with you now,” I said.

  “And do you know what happened to him?”

  “I do, signorina,” I said gravely. “Probably better than most.”

  “Father, you hear this? This gentleman knows all about poor Freddy.”

  “Does he indeed?” He seemed unimpressed. I guessed that he had doubts about the appropriateness of describing me as a gentleman. He reached inside the carriage and pulled out a wig, which he thrust on his head with little regard for symmetry. His daughter immediately reached up and carefully adjusted it, an action he scarcely seemed to notice, presumably because it was so routine.

  I made the necessary transport arrangements, directing their servants, along with the baggage, towards Tonin’s gondola. A few minutes were occupied with the delicate operation of introducing Miss Boscombe’s hooped skirts into the cabin of Bepi’s gondola; once this operation had been successfully concluded they re-expanded miraculously and further rearrangement of her décolletage was required. I realised that th
e only way to impose discipline on my wandering eyes was to engage in conversation with Bepi outside the cabin until these final amendments had been effected. It gave me the chance to fill Bepi in on the identity of our new clients. He nodded thoughtfully but made no comment.

  When a reasonable amount of time had passed I re-entered the cabin and gave a brief account of the time I had spent with their relative, up to the last fateful encounter. For the moment I omitted the book about Marin Falier from the story, just telling them that Boscombe had decided to follow Shackleford, because he suspected him of being engaged in some shady dealings with someone he had met in the city.

  “And so the letter we received came from your friend the bookseller?” Miss Boscombe asked. She had a way of looking at you directly with her large blue eyes which seemed to suggest that you were her only means of salvation.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “And he is now languishing in prison.”

  “Well, yes,” I said, “although I’m sure that as an Englishman of gentle birth he is being treated with all due –”

  “Have you been to see him?” Mr Boscombe interrupted bluntly.

  “I am not allowed to.”

  He snorted, as if that was just the sort of excuse he had expected.

  “The Missier Grande – that is, the … er, the chief magistrate – specifically told me –”

  “But Mr Marangon,” said Miss Boscombe, her blue eyes brimming with reproachful moisture, “how can you say that he is being well treated if you haven’t seen him?”

  “The Venetian state has no desire to provoke the hostility of his majesty’s government,” I said. “And I am sure that the English Resident in Venice –”

  “We were told in Florence that Mr Murray is a well-known drunkard,” said Miss Boscombe.

  I found it difficult to deny this with convincing force. “Mr Murray takes his duties very seriously, even if –”

  “It’s because my nephew ain’t a lord,” stated Mr Boscombe. “That’s all they understand here. If you haven’t got a title, as far as they’re concerned you’re no better than dirt. Even if you belong to one of the oldest families in the land.”