Ascension

by Gregory Dowling

  Luca said to me: “Gaetano and Giorgio will find you something to eat.”

  We returned to the great hall and, on Luca’s instructions, the burly men were finally stirred from their seats. When they stood up it turned out that they were not in fact tall, just unnaturally broad; the breadth was all muscle. The red-haired man picked up a candle and we walked the full length of the hall to a door at the far end. The kitchen was surprisingly neat and clean at first glance: there was a general fishy smell, but that is standard in Venice.

  The two men still said nothing. The one with greasy hair opened a cupboard and made a grunting sound, which I took as an invitation to examine the contents. One quick look and sniff were enough to illuminate the methods of whoever was responsible for orderliness in this building: the practice was to shove all superfluous elements out of immediate sight and close the door on them. The cupboard was crammed with greasy pots, pans and plates, many containing half-eaten fish, fragments of cheese or mouldering fruit. The smell was suddenly overpowering, and it was not appealing. As the red-haired man waved his candle around I thought I detected scuttling movements at the back of the cupboard and hoped it was just the effect of the flickering light.

  I reached in and took the hardest-looking cheese and a slab of bread; I did not have the courage to use any of the plates so I took the food to the table in my bare hands; the table at least was spotless.

  I sat down and tore off a hunk of bread. “Are you going to eat as well?” I asked.

  The two men had returned to the doorway and taken up position there; they both gave slow shakes of their heads by way of answer. The expression on their faces was impossible to determine; it could have been anything from cunning wariness to bovine stupidity. I suspected the truth lay somewhere between: bovine wariness, perhaps.

  Footsteps approached and Luca entered the room. He stood next to Giorgio and Gaetano and observed me for a few seconds.

  “Is no one else going to eat?” I said eventually.

  Luca did not answer this. “What do you want here?” he said. There was a fussily clerical note even to his voice, as if he had some especially pedantic form to fill out.

  “I told your master,” I said. I tried to maintain an unprovocative tone.

  “We heard all that. We’ve heard the same stuff from the so-called count.”

  “You are not adepts of the mysteries?”

  “Just answer the question,” he snapped.

  “Do you begrudge me the support of nobleman Garzoni?” I said.

  “So you admit you’re here to sponge off him?”

  “I admit nothing of the sort. But if it were so, would I be the only one?” I said.

  “We are his Excellency’s loyal servants,” he said, almost spitting the words out in what seemed to be barely suppressed fury. “We had the privilege of working under him at the Arsenale and now that he has retired from public life we are honoured to continue in his service. We will not permit anyone to take base advantage of his generosity.”

  Everything about Luca suggested that he had held an administrative position of some importance in the Arsenale. He was clearly not one of the caulkers or carpenters. Gaetano and Giorgio, on the other hand, were the sort of people one immediately associated with the Arsenale: burly and probably uneducated with large calloused hands. Not good people to antagonise.

  I decided to try the soft approach. “I’ve no intention of staying here long. But you must understand that someone like me is naturally drawn to a man like your master. But now that I’ve seen him and spoken to him I have no need to stay long. You won’t begrudge me a night’s sleep, here surely?”

  “What was that drawing all about?”

  “I’ve told you, I’m merely the –”

  “Yes, the conduit. I heard. What do you know about the Arsenale?”

  “Only what a visitor to your city can learn from books. Why do you ask?”

  He did not answer immediately. My knowledge of the secret ritual had clearly unsettled him. I could not be dismissed as merely a charlatan. He too seemed to decide at this point that a softer approach would serve him better. He came and sat down at the table opposite me and some of the petulance left his voice. “Never mind why. You need to understand that we are here to serve his Excellency and naturally we wish to protect him from anyone whose only aim is to sponge off him. The nobleman is of a generous nature and he has esoteric interests that –”

  “You think the count is a frappatore?”

  The direct question took him by surprise. But after a second or two he said: “What I think is neither here nor there.”

  “Why don’t you throw him out?” I said. Maybe I could use his dislike of the count to my advantage.

  He frowned, and glanced quickly at the two men by the door. Then he stared back at me. “The opportunity has not yet arisen. But if we could prove to his Excellency that he is a fraud…”

  I was not yet sure I could take that “we” as including me. “He doesn’t seem the type the nobleman would willingly take to his heart,” I said. “Those silver clothes, the dog…”

  “Nobleman Garzoni is a man of unpredictable tastes,” Luca said. “As you seem to be aware, he is impressed by anyone of imposing presence. And he has his occult interests, which the count exploits skilfully.” There was a sour note in his voice as he paid this tribute to the count’s talents. “But when his Excellency realises he has been played upon he is ruthless.”

  “Ruthless?”

  “Yes. Always.” He stared hard at me; despite his sleek clerical appearance there was something very unsettling about him. I found myself strangely revolted by the way his pale cheeks glistened in the candlelight. “Remember that.”

  I swallowed a large piece of cheese and tried to appear nonchalant. “I will do so.” Then I changed the subject. “Tell me, in this whole palace are there just the four of you? Or five, including the count?”

  “We are the only servants who have remained faithful to his Excellency. He does not wish for other servants. He has no other family.”

  “A lot of cleaning,” I said.

  He did not bother to answer this. “If you are going to stay here you must remain in the room that is assigned to you until his Excellency summons you. You do not go wandering about the palace.”

  “I understand,” I said. Wandering about, of course, was my duty as confidential agent. I glanced at the two hulking figures by the door and wondered whether I would have the courage to perform it.

  “Gaetano and Giorgio will take you to your room now,” he said. “Take your bread and cheese with you.”

  I followed Gaetano and Giorgio up the stairs to the next floor. The two men, for all their hulking shapes, moved lithely; they also seemed to move in natural harmony with one another – not exactly in step but with a sort of shared smoothness of stride. I was reminded of Walnut Face and the zany. Perhaps these men too had a background of athletic stage shows. During Carnival the arsenalotti would put on performances, like the famous Feats of Hercules, in which they created human pyramids; perhaps they had been part of the team: I imagined they would have been at the bottom of the pyramid.

  The second floor had a large hall only slightly less impressive than the lower one. There were gaps on the walls where paintings had hung. Someone was selling off the palace’s treasures, it seemed. But I guessed there were still enough valuables to keep this small group of residents in the style to which they had clearly grown accustomed for some time yet. To the left, at the end of the hall, a door was ajar and candlelight could be seen coming from the room. A single yelped bark told me that it was the count’s chamber.

  The red-haired man (I still did not know which was Gaetano and which Giorgio – but then perhaps they did not have a separate existence) pointed at the room on the opposite side of the hall and gave me a candle. I nodded and they turned round and went back down the stairs.

  20

  The room had a single bed, a couple of stiff chairs, a chest of drawers
and a wardrobe, all with heavily frivolous decorations. There was a single window; I looked outside and saw far below the black surface of the side canal of Sant’Angelo. The rain was no longer falling torrentially but with a steady persistence which made me grateful to be inside.

  But it was a limited gratitude. There were plenty of other buildings whose interiors I would have preferred: I could even look back on the prison cell in the Doge’s palace with nostalgia. At least the company had been less menacing.

  I took off my wig with some relief: not only was it tight-fitting but I was not too sure that I was the only living thing inhabiting it. I gave my head a vigorous scratching and realised that the prickling had at least taken my mind off the dampness of my clothes, which now returned to bother me.

  I tried the bed. It had a rigid mattress and a single rough blanket. Luca did not need to worry that I was going to take up residence here.

  I went to the doorway and looked across the hallway to the strip of flickering light from the doorway opposite. Well, what could I lose? I picked up my candle, strolled across and tapped at the door.

  “Who is it?” came the count’s nervous voice, together with a single yap from Zosimos.

  “Umbriel,” I said softly; I did not want to bring the two brothers up again.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just a word or two.”

  There was a rustling and bustling, a hissed “Shh”, presumably to the dog, and then the door opened. The count stood there, his wig hastily placed on his head, and the dog in his arms. “We have nothing to say to one another, I think,” he said, this time in his very good, breathy English.

  “Now don’t be so hasty,” I said, injecting a slight Scottish tang into my voice. “There is no need for us to be enemies.”

  “I, sir, am a genuine adept of the mysteries. I do not –” And then he stopped and stared at me. “I do know you,” he said.

  I cursed myself for having taken off the wig.

  “You’re the guide. The h-onest guide.” He had even remembered his laboured joke.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So perhaps not quite so h-onest after all.”

  “Well, perhaps I’m not only a guide.”

  “So what are you then, sir? Pray enlighten me.” He had recovered some of his swaggering confidence.

  “Well, I consider myself a friend of Mr Boscombe,” I said. “And I’m eager to know what happened to him.”

  “What are you suggesting?” he said. He was suddenly wary again; even Zosimos sensed the change and whimpered in his arms. The count dropped him to the floor and the dog ran back into the room.

  “Nothing. But I thought it worth talking to you.”

  “I have been questioned by the sbirri. Fortunately, his Excellency was able to testify that I was here in the palace that evening.”

  “Very good to have a nobleman on your side. Especially one you are currently gulling.” I had decided to go for the straightforward attack.

  “How dare you,” he said angrily. The effect was slightly spoiled by the fact that he was evidently uncertain whether to pull himself up to his full height in outraged hauteur or lean towards me in aggressive confrontation; the result was an absurd bobbing movement, like a strutting pigeon.

  “Listen, Count whoever you say you are, there’s no point in either of us keeping up this pretence. You know I’m not a visionary, I know you’re not a Georgian count.”

  “You know nothing of the sort,” he said. “I won’t listen to any more of this. In fact, I will denounce you immediately to his Excellency.”

  “He’ll only put it down to envy,” I said. “And remember, if you tell him about me I can tell him about your habit of fleecing tourists at the gambling tables.”

  This seemed to shake him for a moment. Then he said, “his Excellency knows better of me,” and pushed past me on his way to the stairs. Seconds later Zosimos nosed the door ajar and went scuttling after him.

  “It’ll do you no good,” I called out. But I was not feeling quite as confident as I tried to sound. Well, I could at least take the opportunity to have a look at his room. I pushed the door wide and shone my candle around.

  The first impression was of great, almost excessive neatness. There were no loose items of clothing or bedding anywhere but in the proper places. A trunk was neatly aligned against the wall beside a round low basket, presumably Zosimos’s place of repose. On the desk by the window were a few books of astrological lore and similar topics, all in a neat row and arranged in order of size, which irritated me to a perhaps unreasonable extent. He had been writing a letter; I walked over and looked down at the opening words: Dearest Susan, you will know with what sorrow. It ended there. He had been writing in English. I looked at his seal and the handwriting. I was trying to remember the letter Shackleford had picked up at the Queen of Hungary inn, but it was too long ago and I had only had a glimpse of it.

  There was also a sheet of writing in an alphabet I could not begin to recognise, presumably Georgian. It was not enough to convince me of his nationality. In fact, a glance at the two sheets revealed that the Latin alphabet was written with the casual ease of a native, while the passage in the foreign alphabet testified to the laborious effort of a new learner, shaping each letter with painstaking care.

  I decided I had seen enough. By now I felt that the count was the person I understood best in this household and whom I therefore least needed to investigate. I cast a perfunctory eye around the rest of the room and left, pulling the door to behind me. Soon I heard his footsteps clattering importantly back up the stairs, together with the clickety pattering of Zosimos’s paws. I put my head out of my room. “Well?” I said.

  “His Excellency was unprepared to receive me as he is about to go out but I will inform him as soon as he returns.”

  “Where is he going?”

  “They frequently go out at night,” he said. “It might be better if you are not here when he returns.”

  “You mean we’re alone in the palace?”

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking of but of course we’re not alone. Gaetano remains here.”

  “Ah. Which one is he? The one with red hair?”

  “Yes. So there is no point you thinking you can roam freely around the place.” There was something rather pathetic in his self-satisfaction.

  “You know sneaks never come to a good end,” I said, perhaps rather childishly.

  “Sneaks?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t understand. You’re no more Georgian than I am. I’d guess you’re from somewhere in the Midlands. Perhaps Birmingham.”

  “I see no point in continuing this conversation,” he said, absurdly exaggerating his foreign accent and thus confirming that I had guessed correctly. He flounced into his room, followed by Zosimos, who raised his tail in clear imitation of his master’s disdain.

  I moved quietly towards the staircase and listened hard. I could hear voices from the floor below. There were also sounds of movement, with a downward tendency, I thought. I walked to the far end of the hall, where large windows gave on to the Grand Canal. The central one opened with only a minor scraping noise; a few windblown raindrops spattered me, but without too much conviction. I leaned out. I could see a gondola prow emerging from the water entrance below. A minute or so later the gondola set off down the Grand Canal in the direction of Saint Mark’s Square. There was no way of telling who was inside the cabin. The gondolier was presumably Giorgio, but as he was swathed in a black cape and it was dark and wet it was impossible to be sure; if it had been Gaetano there might have been a gingery gleam amid the gloom to make identification easier

  “U-u-u!” This was more less the utterance that came from the top of the stairs. I swivelled and saw red-haired Gaetano standing there, pointing at me accusingly.

  “Just having a look at the view,” I said soothingly. “Where are they going at this time of night?”

  He did not answer, just came striding towards me. I closed
the window and raised my hands appeasingly. “Don’t worry, I’m going to bed.”

  He did not actually lay hands on me. He simply marched me to my room and waited till I had closed the door. Then I heard him move away. I did not hear his footsteps on the stairs again so presumably he was still in the hall. I wondered if he and his brother were actually mute. There was no indication that they were deaf; maybe they just did not have much to say.

  I waited about half an hour, during which time I pondered on the question of what I was doing in this palace, and came up with no satisfactory answers. Then I picked up my chamber pot, which I had urinated in, and opened my door the slightest crack. I could see Gaetano sitting on a chair by the staircase. He was motionless. However, his eyes flickered towards my door. I put the chamber pot outside the door with an apologetic wave and closed the door again.

  I decided it was worth exploring my own room, to see what opportunities it offered – for flight, if nothing else. I noticed that there was a trapdoor in the ceiling. The wardrobe was almost directly beneath it; the problem was to reach the top of the wardrobe, and that could be done, I thought, by sliding the chest of drawers towards it. I first checked the contents of the chest of drawers; it was fortunately almost empty, with the exception of some moth-eaten undergarments which I decided not to inspect too closely. Given its relative lightness, I was able to slide it along the floor without making too much noise by doing it as slowly as I could. Once it was in position I used a chair to climb on to it and scrambled from there to the top of the wardrobe. Not surprisingly the latter was covered with a thick mat of furry dust; my arrival on these unexplored heights created a good deal of resentment among the local spider population.

  I reached up to the trapdoor, which was held closed by a simple bolt. When I pulled this the door swung down and I was able, with the assistance of my candle, to peer into the shadowy recesses of the loft. I could make out a dormer window about twenty feet away, which presumably gave access to the roof.