Venice

by Christian Cameron

  They walked down to the Grand Canal, caught a boat on the steps by St Mark’s, and were rowed across the lagoon, past Murano, to a small island with a monastery.

  As they approached, Alessandro began to fidget.

  ‘Care to tell me what happened?’ Swan asked.

  Alessandro shook his head. ‘A matter of honour. But I fear my enemy has brought too many men, and intends a murder.’

  As the boat edged up on the island, Swan could see six men standing by the monastery wall.

  Swan felt his pulse increase. ‘Three each,’ he said.

  Alessandro looked at him. ‘You cannot kill any of these men,’ he said. ‘You would be imprisoned or killed. Their fathers are very important men.’

  ‘So is your father,’ Swan said.

  ‘My father is going to disown me,’ Alessandro said, and the keel of the boat touched the muddy shore.

  He jumped ashore, and looked back. ‘Perhaps you should go back to your inn,’ he said, and pushed the boat off the strand. The six men were coming. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t think it would be this bad.’

  Swan ran down the gunwale, as he’d learned to do on London wherries, and leapt ashore. He grinned. ‘What did you do?’ he asked.

  Alessandro shook his head. ‘It is difficult to explain. It is an old matter.’

  The six men were approaching.

  ‘Let me get this right. They outnumber us three to one, but I’m not to kill any of them.’

  ‘Yes. Do not draw your sword. They must make the first move.’ Alessandro was calmer now.

  ‘We wouldn’t want to have any advantages, would we?’ Swan said. He unrolled his sword belt and buckled his sword on. He swung his hips to make sure of the hang of the scabbard.

  When the six men were ten yards away, they stopped.

  ‘Is this your butt-boy?’ shouted one.

  All of them were younger than Alessandro. They were eighteen or nineteen. They were well dressed in loud colours, and they all had swords of extraordinary length, with complex hilts – curved knuckle-bows and finger rings in the latest fashion.

  Alessandro seemed unable to speak. So Swan swaggered forward. ‘Each of us will fight one of you at a time. Who’s first?’

  ‘No—’ said Alessandro.

  One of the young men shook his head. ‘I don’t—’

  Swan drew his sword. ‘Coward,’ he said. This to the man who’d called him a butt-boy in his odd Venetian accent. ‘Poltroon, liar, fool, cuckold. Draw.’

  Alessandro was stepping up behind him. ‘You are supposed to—’

  Swan took another step forward. His sword was out, his buckler was on his hand, and he was in his favourite stance – sword under the buckler, pointed up at his opponent’s throat.

  The Venetian seemed confounded by his advance. ‘What are the rest of you doing!’ he yelled at his friends. He didn’t draw, and Swan feinted and smacked him in the side with the flat of his sword and then stepped with one leg past him and threw him to the ground with his buckler arm while the young man felt his side to see if he was cut.

  The other five were stepping back, and Swan put his sword-point on the fallen man’s sternum. ‘Why, exactly, can’t I kill him?’

  ‘He hasn’t drawn his sword yet!’ Alessandro said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Swan. He grinned down at the Venetian youth. ‘My apologies, messire. Please get up.’ He stepped back and saluted.

  Alessandro turned as the young man scrambled to his friends. ‘You have rattled them. That was . . . well done.’

  ‘Bembo!’ shouted another. His voice rose too much. ‘Bembo, don’t hide behind your foreign assassin. You are here to fight me.’

  Alessandro bowed.

  ‘Oh, it’s a duel?’ Swan said. He walked forward again, and had the pleasure of seeing the whole crowd of them take a step back. ‘It looked to me as if the six of you planned to murder him. Which one of you is the injured party?’

  Alessandro sniggered. ‘He is the challenger.’

  ‘Is this the ground?’ Swan said, trying to remember everything he’d ever heard about duelling. It wasn’t very common in London. Street fights and tavern brawls, yes. Formal duels . . .

  But he’d read a book . . .

  ‘Right here is good enough for me,’ said Alessandro. The seagrass was short and thick. The ground was flat, if a little damp.

  ‘Very well. You others, stand over here with me. Alessandro, this is your ground. Messire – I don’t know your name.’

  ‘What? How can you not know my name. Don’t you know who I am?’ the young duellist asked.

  ‘If you have to ask that . . .’ Swan said. ‘Never mind. Stand here.’

  ‘Jacopo Foscari!’

  ‘Splendid, Messire Foscari. Please stand here.’

  ‘My father is Francesco Foscari! The Doge!’

  ‘If you insist, although, to be fair, I should tell you that your father probably doesn’t approve of duelling.’ Swan bowed. ‘I read a pamphlet about it. Messire Foscari, who is your secondo?’

  None of the other five volunteered.

  ‘I can fight him if he wants, or we can all watch from a safe distance.’

  No one moved.

  ‘Very well. Let me see the swords.’ He was acting – enjoying himself. The young men were all too scared to interfere, and he knew – in his heart – that as long as he could continue his patter, he’d rule them, the way the snake charmer rules the snake.

  Foscari’s sword was a handspan longer than Alessandro’s.

  ‘I am content,’ Alessandro said.

  Swan had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he shrugged. ‘Very well. On your guards, then.’

  Alessandro drew. He had a buckler, and he flipped a casual salute, and then cut at the face of his buckler, tapped it with his pommel and took up a guard.

  Foscari did almost the same, moving with dancing steps.

  The two men began to circle.

  Foscari took a long, gliding step and cut from a high guard at Alessandro’s buckler. Alessandro collected the heavy blow on his sword and drove it into the ground with a counter-cut, and he stepped forward with his left foot and cut with the back edge of his sword, and Foscari sprang back, dropping his sword and swearing. He had a long line of blood on his forearm.

  ‘Fuck you, cocksucker.’ Foscari turned to his friends. ‘Get him.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Swan had his sword in hand. He’d never put it away. He stood between the five men and the action. ‘Fair play and all that.’

  One of them – a blond man with a fuzzy blond mustache – reached for his sword.

  Swan’s buckler licked out and caught him in the arm with a sharp crack. He swore.

  Foscari realised that his friends weren’t coming to his aid, and he picked up the sword. ‘Your turn will come, Bembo.’

  Swan continued to smile at the five young men. ‘If any of you would like to fight me,’ he said, suggestively, ‘I am completely at your service – now, or at any hour you would prefer.’

  ‘You are scum,’ ventured the one he’d thrown to the ground.

  ‘Alessandro? Can I challenge him?’ Swan asked.

  ‘No,’ Alessandro laughed. ‘That would be foolish.’

  ‘So I’m scum,’ Swan agreed. ‘And you are a coward, a poltroon, a cuckold, a fool, and a . . . damn. What was the other? Liar. Can we agree on this?’

  The young man flushed bright red.

  ‘Bastard?’ Swan ventured.

  The red on the man’s cheeks grew brighter.

  ‘Stop!’ Alessandro said. He was suddenly at Swan’s shoulder. ‘I order you.’

  Swan smiled innocently at his victim. ‘Well,’ he said.

  ‘I will have you killed,’ the young man said.

  Swan nodded. ‘That only proves the coward part,’ he said. ‘The liar, the fool and the poltroon are yet unproven. The cuckold—’

  ‘Thomas!’ Alessandro said.

  Swan realised that he had enjoyed himself. He bowed. ‘At
your service, gentlemen,’ he said.

  He backed away, and walked to the boat.

  One of the youths threw a clod of mud. It missed, and Swan smiled. ‘Boys,’ he said.

  Alessandro shrugged. ‘We lived,’ he said. ‘They’re about a year younger than you.’

  ‘Care to tell me what that was about?’ Swan asked.

  Alessandro looked at him for a long minute. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I think I should teach you to fence.’

  The duel made him a three-day-wonder at the tavern. People knew about it before he got back. Joanna, the tavern slut, threw him admiring glances, and young men swaggered more when they were close to him.

  Cesare sat with him drinking wine, a few nights later. ‘You’ll get yourself killed,’ he said.

  Swan made a face. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  Cesare laughed, and so did Giannis. ‘You are young, and think you will live for ever,’ Giannis said.

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Swan.

  Cesare leaned forward. ‘You weren’t like this in France,’ he said.

  Swan sat back. ‘It is hard to explain,’ he said. ‘I see the fear in their eyes – and it makes me . . . an animal.’

  Giannis nodded. ‘I know it,’ he said.

  ‘And they were all rich boys. I grew up hating rich boys. When I was a royal page—’ He paused.

  Cesare shrugged. ‘Tell us how you became a royal page.’

  Swan held out his cup. ‘If this avatar of Aphrodite come to earth will refill my wine cup, I will tell everything.’

  ‘How’s your money holding out?’ asked Cesare in Latin.

  ‘Well enough. Why?’ Swan answered.

  ‘We’re here at least two more weeks. And I’d like to play cards.’ Cesare smiled at the serving girl, whose pockmarked face was not quite that of an avatar of Aphrodite. But she smiled well enough, and poured them wine from a pitcher.

  ‘Here?’ asked Swan. Giannis had taught him to play piquet, but he’d never yet played for money.

  ‘No!’ Cesare said. ‘Tell your story.’

  Swan rocked his head back and forth. There, for good or ill, were his friends. He was tired of trying to be mysterious. ‘My mother owned – owns – a tavern in London.’ He shrugged. ‘Shall I tell you the truth?’ Neither of them looked appalled – indeed, Giannis looked . . . relieved. As if low birth made him more of a man, and not less. ‘I think she was a whore.’

  Giannis looked shocked.

  Cesare laughed. ‘Mine too!’ he said.

  ‘What a terrible thing to say of your mother!’ Giannis said.

  Swan laughed. ‘No, no. Listen. When she was young, my mother had me. My father . . . is someone very important. I think he bought her the inn. I think she surprised everyone by running it well.’

  ‘Any other family?’ Cesare asked. ‘Some thieves? A Pope?’

  ‘My uncles,’ Swan said. ‘Both archers. Mother got them posts in the king’s bodyguard. They retired to the inn and drank and kept order.’ He smiled. ‘Jack and Dick. They taught me . . . everything.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Cesare said. ‘How did you get to be a royal page?’

  Swan drank more wine. ‘Every year or so, my father would remember I existed. He’d buy me something, or send me something – a tutor, an invitation to a school. I . . . got in some trouble, when I was fourteen.’ He shrugged. ‘But I was, at least technically, a clerk, and so I couldn’t be tried.’

  Cesare shook his head. ‘You killed someone.’

  Swan nodded.

  Cesare shook his head. ‘Why do I like you? You are a murderous barbarian.’

  ‘He was trying to rob me. And maybe more. His hands . . . anyway, I took his knife as my Uncle Jack taught me, and used it.’ For a moment he was there, with blood all over him and the other man lying under him gurgling. He shivered. ‘Anyway, my father collected me from my mother and I lived in one of his palaces for a year, and had tutors. It was—’ He couldn’t decide what word to use.

  ‘Not what you were used to?’ Cesare asked.

  ‘Exactly,’ Swan said, and drank more wine. ‘Sometimes they treated me like a servant, and sometimes as if I was a lord. Nothing belonged to me. Except the tutors, and their learning.’ He shrugged again. ‘I’m not telling this well.’ He looked into his empty wine cup. ‘So he sent me to court. It wasn’t bad – it was like the tavern, except everyone was richer. I didn’t have nice clothes. I got tired of being treated like a servant.’ He left a lot out, and skipped to, ‘and then I ran away back to the tavern.’

  Cesare nodded. ‘It’s us against them,’ he said. ‘Even when they treat us decently, we’re never allies.’

  ‘You like Alessandro,’ Swan said.

  Cesare shrugged. ‘He’s a rebel, too,’ he said. ‘He . . . isn’t one of them. Let’s play cards.’

  They took a boat to another tavern, where the tables were larger. Cesare paid a small fee, and was provided with a pitcher of dark red wine, and a table and two decks of the new block-printed cards.

  An hour later, Swan raised his hands. ‘I surrender,’ he said. There were six men playing, and he tossed in his cards at the end of the last piquet.

  ‘You weren’t doubled,’ said Cesare.

  ‘I’m losing a ducat every game and sometimes two,’ Swan said.

  ‘Don’t be a Jew,’ Cesare said.

  ‘Do Jews play cards badly, or do they just want new clothes? Jews aren’t so bad, when you get to know Italians.’ The hit went home, and he grinned. ‘Either way, I’m out.’ Swan counted his tally on the abacus. ‘Thirteen ducats. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’ He clambered over the bench.

  ‘Jews are cheap,’ Cesare said.

  ‘Not in my experience,’ Swan said. ‘They’re thrifty and exacting and good at maths. But not cheap. Now, excuse me, gentlemen.’

  ‘It’s fun!’ Cesare called. ‘Sit and drink, at least!’

  Swan went back to his inn, lit a candle and did some Arabic.

  Rabbi Aaron seemed to know everyone in Venice. Perhaps more importantly, he seemed to know everyone in Constantinople. He began to draw little charts for Swan – this street had the goldsmiths, this street had moneylenders. ‘The Genoese used to hold Galata,’ he said. ‘But they tried to help save the empire and they lost everything.’ He drew a small map in the corner of a text. ‘Galata is a city of its own, across the Horn from Constantinople. My brother Simon has a house there.’

  Gradually Swan began to understand the layout of the Holy City, girded with ancient walls, with suburbs across the Hellespont. Galata was a walled city unto itself, now held by Venice. Aaron wrote him letters – to Simon, to a dozen other men and one woman. He hid them in his secret pocket.

  Rabbi Aaron fingered his long, elegant beard. ‘My brother used to travel four times a year – bringing jewels, taking wools.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re old. You are a good listener, young man. I understand you are a ruffian.’

  Swan’s head come up at that. He’d been copying Hebrew nouns. ‘What? Oh, yes. I’m a hardened killer.’

  ‘You . . . engaged – with the youngest Foscari.’ Rabbi Aaron smiled. It was a hard smile, and just for a moment, Swan wondered what it was like to be a Jew – to never fully speak your mind to a Christian. Yet in that half-smile, Swan read a very definite dislike of Foscari.

  ‘There was a duel, yes.’ Swan smiled.

  ‘Beware. He is unhappy. And very rich, and you can buy a man’s death in Venice for about the price of a hat.’ Rabbi Aaron’s eyes met his. ‘A good hat.’

  Swan found it difficult to hold the rabbi’s eye. The man – his goodness rolled off him – seemed to look directly into his soul. ‘I understand from a friend,’ the rabbi said gently, ‘that there are men from Rome looking for you, as well.’

  ‘Rome?’ Venice had so captivated Swan that he’d forgotten Rome.

  ‘The Orsini are as much masters of Rome as the Foscari are of Venice.’ Rabbi Aaron nodded. He smiled. ‘You are young and hot blooded. But please accept a word of advi
ce from an old Jew. If you must make enemies, make powerless enemies.’

  Swan laughed. But it hit him in the gut. ‘Are the Orsini looking for me?’

  The rabbi nodded. ‘That’s my understanding. Listen – you are doing me a favour, carrying my letters east. I shall do one for you in return and introduce you to a man. He is the one who told me about your . . . problem. Yes? He may ask you for a favour. I recommend you do it. He is powerful – in a different way to the Foscari.’

  Swan had grown to manhood in an inn on the wharves of London. He thought he had a shrewd notion of the kind of man they were discussing. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Now,’ the rabbi said. ‘Let’s go back to work.’

  ‘May I ask you one more thing?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m hoping to purchase books. Ancient Greek books. In Constantinople.’ He tried to frame his question. ‘Can your . . . people help me?’

  ‘Books? Greek books?’ Rabbi Aaron looked off into his study. ‘You should go and look at the monasteries on the mainland. Each of them has a fine collection. Now let’s look at how we say “thank you”.’ Rabbi Aaron nodded. ‘Because if you plan to deal with my people, you may find it a useful phrase.’

  The next morning, as he left his lodging, Swan turned to flirt – somewhat automatically, it’s true – with Joanna, the slut of the place. She was washing the floor, but she managed to wash it with energy, grace and a remarkable length of bare leg that deserved a glance and a word.

  She blew him a kiss. Swan didn’t particularly want her, but was as delighted as any young man would be by the invitation. But as he turned back to the street, he caught a glimpse of a man in an ill-fitting black doublet. The man had missed a lacing hole – so his too-small doublet was bunched to one side.

  There was something about his glance that made Swan note him. Then he set off for the Rialto and then, in the afternoon, the Jewish quarter.

  There was a small, dark man hovering by the gate to the ghetto. Conscious of the rabbi’s warning, Swan was wary of the man, but the man met his eye and bowed. ‘You are the English foreigner?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Swan said. He was late – he was falling in love with fencing, and in addition to lessons from Alessandro, he was talking lessons from Messire Viladi, whose fame was that he was a pupil of the great Fiore, and had, in his youth, fought a famous chivalric deed of arms with Galeazzo of Mantova. But all the time the sword was cutting into his time to do Arabic . . .