Ascension

by Gregory Dowling

  There was a cracking sound as the wood caught fire and then the flames settled down to a steady but undramatic crackling.

  “What is it?” I said to Luca. “Pepper? Sawdust?”

  He let out an enraged snarl in which no words were distinctly audible and suddenly snatched one of the pistols from the table and aimed it directly at me. I must have made some sound myself but the next noise I heard was a loud bang, which resounded as I fell backwards. By the time I lay sprawling on the ground I realised I had not in fact been hit. But the sudden movement had set my head throbbing and aching again, and it took me some seconds to scrabble to a sitting position.

  Then I saw that Luca was lying on the ground, with a dark pool widening around his head. Garzoni was holding a smoking pistol.

  I spoke in an uncertain voice: “Thank you.”

  “I did not do it for you,” he said. His voice was still strangely remote.

  “Perhaps we had better put the fire out,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “It’s better as it is.”

  There were footsteps on the platform outside and two men peered in. “Everything all right, Excellency?”

  “No. Your treacherous master is dead. You can go back to your –” I think he was on the point of saying “wives and children”, but I’m sure he did not want to repeat my exact words, and so after a pause he said, “your comfortable lives.”

  “Excellency?” said the nearer man, who had now seen the dead body, and was clearly alarmed.

  “It’s over! The whole farce is finished. Be off with you!” He waved the gun at them.

  That persuaded them and they ran off. Seconds later we heard a hubbub of alarmed voices and then the sounds of the boat pushing off and away.

  “Cowards. Traitors.” He did not yell the words, just uttered them as simple statements of fact. With one last remaining impulse of curiosity, he turned to me and asked: “How did you know about the barrels?”

  “Excellency, I saw Luca come in after Gaetano and Giorgio, holding the lantern right next to the barrel. I knew how unlikely it was that a man like Luca would be so careless with gunpowder.”

  “Very well.” He was reloading his gun as he spoke, which did not reassure me. Meanwhile the barrel had settled down into a steady blaze. A little tongue of flame set out across the wooden floor, following a trail of oil drops, and reached the table.

  “Gaetano, Giorgio,” he said.

  The two men lumbered forward. Their faces looked grim. Perhaps they had never liked Luca, but they had respected his orders. They probably respected any orders that were clear and simple.

  And now Garzoni gave such orders. “Prepare the gondola.”

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “We may not be able to blow the Bucintoro up but we can do some damage with these things.” He indicated his pistol and then bent down and picked up the one lying by Luca’s body. “Since it seems the end has come for me, I will make it a glorious one. I will kill the Doge.” He said this as mere matter of fact. He added: “I always had a contingency plan in reserve.”

  “Will you release me before you go?” I said. I was looking at the table, which was now ablaze.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. He called to the brothers, just before they passed out into the open air: “Gaetano, Giorgio, set fire to the submergible.” They paused, looking at each other uncertainly; clearly the arrival of a new order before the previous one had been carried out added unwelcome complications to their lives. However, after a moment of agonising mental struggle they turned round and headed towards the submergible.

  Garzoni looked straight at me. “You opened my eyes to the treachery of my lieutenant. That does not make me love you. I’m keeping my bullets for those on board the Bucintoro, otherwise you would share Luca’s fate. However, you will certainly now share the fate of his dead body – and that of his false invention. No doubt Luca often laughed to himself at my expense. I won’t allow anyone else to do so.”

  He looked around, as if to see whether there were any other weapons he could use. Then he continued: “Fire will accomplish that for me. I just wish I could apply it to the whole city.”

  I did not attempt to plead again. The only likely result, I thought, would be his instructing Gaetano or Giorgio to finish me off; they would have no trouble in doing so without the waste of a precious bullet.

  Gaetano, meanwhile, had carried a blazing stave from the barrel over to the submergible. Giorgio had torn Luca’s cape from his body and he dipped it into his brother’s flame. Then he reached up the side of the boat and launched the flaring object into the hatch. With this team effort the whole craft began to crackle. I could already feel the heat on my own body.

  The two large men hurried away from the fire and joined their master at the door to the room. Before they passed through it Garzoni paused. “We might as well make sure of things. Gaetano and Giorgio, put him into the submergible.”

  27

  I think I screamed. The next few seconds were a confused and painful blur of sights and sensations. Gaetano came over and simply wrenched from the wall the hook to which the chain was attached while Giorgio picked me up. I did my best to resist but my best was definitely inadequate. Within ten seconds I had been hoisted up, carried like a sack of coal and dropped feet first into the hatch of the blazing boat. If I had not been in a weakened condition perhaps it would have taken them as many as fifteen seconds.

  I landed on top of the fiery remnants of Luca’s cape. My shoes, still water-logged, proved effective in stamping out the final sparks, which fortunately had not succeeded yet in setting fire to any of the interior fittings of the craft. But I could already see flames in the forward section of the boat and the noise and heat were tremendous.

  I remembered the bladders filled with water along the sides of the boat and attempted to burst the nearest one, using the end of my chain. I managed to penetrate its skin and the water spurted out but at once dribbled away ineffectually into the floor. It was clearly going to be inadequate against the flames that had gripped the upper portions of the boat.

  I reached up and gripped the edges of the hatch and tried to hoist myself out. But my arms refused to do my bidding; it was as if my muscles had simply been replaced with jelly. The very effort caused my mind to swim. I did the only thing I could and screamed for help.

  The flames were now surging towards me and as I opened my mouth again for another last scream smoke filled my lungs. I was about to drop to the floor, in the hope that the smoke would smother me before the flames reached me, when I thought I heard a voice.

  “Alvise?” it seemed to say.

  Somehow I found the lung power and the energy for another scream. “Here!”

  A familiar and very welcome face appeared in the hatch above me, shining in the flamelight.

  “Bepi!” I reached up to him.

  Somehow, with the combined forces of a final desperate effort on my part and a vigorous tug on Bepi’s, I found myself hoisted from the blazing pit. Bepi then leaped down to the ground while I simply rolled down the side of the boat, through the flames.

  I lay on the floor for a second or two until Bepi jerked me to my feet.

  “Quickly,” he said. “The whole place is going to collapse.”

  There were more flames than walls now, and the cracking sounds of beams giving way behind and ahead of us indicated that he was not exaggerating. I staggered after him, curiously aware of the clanking sound of the chain dragging behind me at my ankle.

  We plunged through the doorway and I gasped with a mixture of relief and awe and disbelief as I saw the blue sky above me and felt the cool morning air around me.

  “This way,” said Bepi, pulling me to the right, where I saw his gondola bobbing innocently alongside the platform.

  I grew gradually aware of other sights and sounds. The lagoon was thronged with colourful vessels, of all shapes and sizes. To the west of us, in the direction of the Piazza, the Bucintoro took pride of
place, its golden decorations glittering in the sunlight, its countless red oars moving in perfect synchrony like stiff but graceful wings. The great red and gold banner of the republic streamed in the wind above it. The sound of triumphal trumpets became audible over the crackling of the flames behind us.

  “My God,” said Bepi, “you look terrible.” We were standing beside the gondola and he at last had the time to take a good look at me.

  “But better than I would have done if you…” I could not finish the sentence; it was the wrong moment to have embarked upon such a complex grammatical structure. I concluded with a simple “Thank you”.

  “My pleasure,” he said. “What have you been doing? What have they been doing?”

  “Bepi,” I said with sudden urgency, “there’s no time. We have to get after them.”

  “Who? The old man and the two bravi?”

  “Yes, them. Did you see where they went?”

  He pointed to the other side of the platform. “They had a boat over there.”

  There was no sign of them. They had disappeared amid the bobbing masses of other gondolas, barges, sandolos and sailboats; everywhere we looked were fluttering pennants, gilded statues, and liveried oarsmen. To the right I saw a large boat with about thirty men in uniform heading back towards the Arsenale. Everyone else, as far as I could see, was moving in the direction of the Lido.

  “They’re heading for the Bucintoro,” I said. “He has a gun – no, several guns – and he intends to shoot the Doge.”

  Bepi did not seem over-surprised. However, he demurred. “I don’t think so. They set off the opposite way, towards the Lido.”

  I turned and stared in that direction. There were fewer boats in that stretch of water but still enough for a single gondola to be difficult to spot.

  “Maybe,” I said, and then paused.

  “Maybe what?”

  “Well, clearly, attacking the Bucintoro in a single gondola would be a rather hopeless venture. He’s mad but he’s not stupid – and he certainly doesn’t want to look stupid. Presumably he’s going to make his attempt when the Doge disembarks on the Lido. Let’s go in that direction.”

  Bepi asked no further questions. He bade me get in, loosened the mooring rope, swung himself into position at the stern, snatched up his oar and pushed off. Seconds later we had joined the thick of the nautical throng making eastwards. Few people paid any attention to us; their eyes were all on the roaring fire behind us.

  Once we were far enough from the flames to talk more coolly I said: “How did you come to be there?”

  “I was worried when you didn’t turn up at our meeting point last night. I tried to tell myself it was nothing but I couldn’t put it out of my mind, so early this morning I went to your house. And the woman in the tavern said she was a little worried too, since she’d seen you go off with two men and she wasn’t sure you had really wanted to.”

  “Oh, she spotted that, did she?”

  “So I wondered if it had anything to do with the platform and I thought I’d investigate. But when I got here it was swarming with arsenalotti and they weren’t too friendly. I wasn’t sure what to do but I hung around, and soon enough they all left and then the place went up in flames. I was thinking, well, that’s that, but then I thought I’d better check…”

  “Thank God for second thoughts, Bepi. And thank you.”

  “Yes, well.” He did not exactly shrug; that is not easy to do while you are rowing, but he intimated clearly enough that he had no wish for further effusive displays of gratitude.

  I was still peering into the mass of boats ahead of us but could not make out the distinctive squat shapes of Giorgio and Gaetano, nor of Garzoni; he, of course, would probably be concealed within the felze, busily loading and cocking his pistols.

  “Can we get there before the Bucintoro?” I asked.

  “Me against sixty-eight arsenalotti?” said Bepi. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Well, I suppose the Bucintoro isn’t built for speed,” I said with some anxiety. “But it’s still coming on at quite a rate.”

  We were now passing the marshy area between the end of Castello and the island of Sant’Elena, with its Gothic church and Benedictine monastery. Alongside the landing stage was another large boat with gilded decorations and a splendid golden banner. Just beyond it lay a slightly lower boat, no less splendidly decorated.

  “Of course!” I said. “The Bucintoro stops at Sant’Elena first.”

  “That’s right,” said Bepi. “The Patriarch meets him there and blesses the ring.”

  I peered towards the two large boats. Presumably the larger belonged to the Patriarch. It was already full of people, probably all clerical; I could see dark vestments mingled with dazzling white cassocks and the purple of the Patriarch himself. The other boat had fewer people, and there seemed to a mixture of lay and religious people aboard.

  “What’s that banner?” I asked, pointing to the one flying from the smaller boat.

  “It’s the Worshipful Company of Santa Giustina, protector of the guild of customs officials.” He said it with a rather dismissive note, as if he felt the saint was wasting her protective powers. I could now see the symbol of the martyr’s palm on the banner.

  “Why are they there?”

  “It’s their special privilege on the day of the Sensa, to be alongside the Patriarch when he blesses the Bucintoro. I guess they have a boring enough job, so it makes a nice day out for them.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I said, putting my hand up. I was thinking hard. “Bepi, let’s head for Sant’Elena. Aim for the customs boat – I mean the Santa Giustina boat.”

  “You sure?”

  “No, not sure, but I have an idea.”

  There was a cluster of smaller boats bobbing around the two larger ones, most of them gondolas. I could not identify Garzoni’s gondola but neither could I say, at this distance, that none of them was his.

  “Does the Doge disembark?” I asked.

  “No, the Patriarch’s boat comes out and meets him and the Patriarch blesses him from his own boat.”

  “And what about the Santa Giustina boat?”

  “That will go to the other side of the Bucintoro, and then all three will head towards the Lido side by side.”

  In fact, even as we approached Sant’Elena I saw the boat with the great banner of Santa Giustina move out into the lagoon, so as to be on the right of the Bucintoro when the latter arrived. It had a high castle-like structure towards the stern, where were clustered the dignitaries of the Worshipful Company: a group of men in splendid light-blue coats and large wigs, together with a number of priests in dark vestments. There were ten oarsmen per side, all clad in dark clothes with light-blue sashes, all standing in the usual Venetian rowing position. It was impossible to recognise anyone at this distance. The one thing I could see was that the people on the high bridge of the boat would be more or less on a level with the Doge’s throne on the Bucintoro.

  “Bepi, we’ve got to get aboard that boat,” I said.

  “Oh yes?” he said. “Sure you’re dressed for it?”

  “Never mind,” I said, “somehow we’ve got to manage it.”

  “I’ll get us alongside,” he said, “and then you see what you can do.”

  He veered to the right, away from Sant’Elena, squeezing between a boat rowed by men in strange orange and yellow liveries (the guild of citrus-fruit sellers?) and a gondola bearing a squabbling family. The large Santa Giustina boat had come more or less to a halt, with all its oars resting in the water.

  I turned to look behind us. The Bucintoro was approaching in stately fashion, the dazzling red oars steadily and gracefully rising and falling. We could hear the trumpets and drums now, which mingled with the harmonious voices of the choir on the shore of the island of Sant’Elena. It was a pity we could not just sit back and enjoy the visual and aural feast.

  I turned back again and stared at the Santa Giustina. The most obvious point of approach would
be the stern, but here both the lower and the upper deck (the upper deck being the castle-like structure) were crowded with people gazing either at the fire or at the approaching Bucintoro. It was not likely they would fail to see a gondola sneaking up from the same direction.

  “Let’s go on to the front of the boat,” I said to Bepi.

  He had already come to the same conclusion and we now skirted the row of oars, which were barely stirring in the water along the starboard side. None of the oarsmen paid us any attention and we reached the prow, with its gilded carvings; in pride of place was a protruding recumbent lion, looking rather inappropriately soporific. I hoped the members of the crew would be equally slow to react. I moved to the front of the gondola and prepared myself; I picked up the chain dangling from my ankle and wound it round my waist; there was enough to go round twice and I tucked the loose end in between the two circles. It might even become fashionable.

  Bepi swung us until the lion was just above me. Still no one seemed to be watching. I reached up and gripped the front paws. From somewhere strength was returning to me and I managed to hoist myself up until I was astride the lion, which took things philosophically. I slid forward and dropped onto the deck.

  “What the devil…?” came a voice from halfway down the deck. A sailor strode forward and gazed at me in perplexity.

  “Inspection for the Missier Grande,” I said haughtily. “Out of my way.”

  One thing I had learned in the past few days was that people used to taking orders will go on taking them if they are issued in an authoritative enough tone, no matter what the circumstances. It did not matter that I was dressed in filthy charred rags and had no wig, blood-caked hair and a chain round my ankle, so long as my voice remained that of a man used to command; it did not need to be loud, just firm. Once again I thanked my days watching actors play Coriolanus and Henry V.

  He stepped back nervously and I strode past him.

  Once he had given way the oarsmen and other sailors did the same and I made my way to the staircase that led to the upper deck; there were two flights, one on each side of the boat. The people up there still had their backs to me but I now recognised the red hair of Gaetano. He was wearing the long clerical gown of a priest. The clerical garb must have been waiting in the gondola. Presumably this was all part of Garzoni’s contingency plan. I could not see him yet but I knew he must be up there.