“We could wait for the Moor to leave the house and then try knocking on the door again,” the scribe said.
“A splendid plan,” said the Shadow Master, clapping him heavily on the back. “We’ll make something of you yet. Now where do you suggest we wait?”
“Perhaps down the street a bit,” Vincenzo said. “In one of the taverns there. We could keep an eye on the door without being seen.”
“Brilliant,” said the Shadow Master and clapped him on the back again. “Why didn’t I think of that? Lead on.” The two men walked down the slick cobbled street and the Shadow Master looked briefly back over his shoulder as a spy hole in the wall of Otello’s house snicked closed.
“And the game is in play,” he said with a smile, as Vincenzo led him into the tavern.
XXVII
THE STORY OF ISABELLA
Isabella Montecchi was feeling very pleased with herself. She had been looking over the ledgers that her accountants had made up for her, detailing the profits she had gained from the Othmen envoy’s ship and cargo. The challenge for her now was whether she would make an offer to sell it back to him so that when his Othmen masters demanded to know if it was true that he had been tricked by a woman, he could deny it.
She would dearly like to see him on the receiving end of some Othmen cruelty, but suspected that they would pay him with exceedingly brutal wages. His humiliation might be payment enough for now. She lifted out a single sheet of paper and began writing a note to him, inviting him to come to her house to negotiate the purchase of a ship with cargo that had come into her possession.
She was trying hard to keep a sarcastic tone out of her finely formed letters when her handmaiden knocked lightly on the door. “Yes?” she asked, looking up.
“There is a man come to see you,” the handmaiden reported.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“A sea captain,” she said.
“What does he want?”
“He said he has a business offer for you.”
“Where is he from?”
“He is a native of the Floating City and says any other sea captain will vouch for his name, and is considered a lucky man.” Then she added, as it was needed to be said, “He is aged.”
Isabella knew that a sea captain’s life was such that any who was old enough to be considered aged was a lucky man.
She sighed. “All right. Show him in then.”
She turned back to the letter and added a line, describing how fine the ship was and that she had hardly had the opportunity to use it, when there was a tap at the door again. The handmaiden stood there and indicated to the sea captain that he could enter her rooms.
He came in slowly, and the handmaiden followed and stood just inside the doorway behind him. She watched the way he stopped and admired her mistress, clearly impressed with her beauty. She had seen that reaction on many men’s faces who had come expecting to find a widow confused by business matters and instead found a lady of considerable bearing and beauty who had a sharp eye and sharper mind.
“Can I offer you refreshment?” she asked the man and the handmaiden couldn’t help smirking a little as the captain became a little tongue-tied.
He recovered a little and said, “Captain Domenico Selvo at your service.” And he bowed formally.
“Please have a seat,” Isabella said and watched as the man sat down. He had grey streaks in his dark beard and hair, and could be considered a little short and stout, but seemed to have an honest face.
She could see he was ill at ease and said, “Perhaps we should get right to the point?”
“Yes,” he said, fidgeting with a gold chain he had tied to his jacket. “I have a ship.”
She waited for him to go on, but he did not. “Are you in need of employment?” she asked. “Are you seeking a contract?”
“Ah, yes. A contract,” he said.
“Tell me about your ship.”
“She’s a fine vessel. The Windchaser. Do you know her?”
“I’m sorry, I do not, though undoubtedly my late husband would have known her.”
“Yes,” the captain said. “He would have known her. And me.”
Mention of her husband seemed to make him feel awkward and he fiddled with the chain again for a moment.
“Where have you sailed?” Isabella asked him, to put him a little more at ease.
“Ah – where haven’t I sailed?” he said. “I’ve travelled all the shores of the inland seas and have crossed to the desert lands and all the Graecian islands.
“And the lands of the Othmen?” she asked him.
“Once,” he said. “Many, many years ago. And I’ve no strong desire to return there, I don’t mind saying.”
She nodded her head. So he was brave but clearly not foolhardy, and did not rely overly on his luck. He could be a useful man to employ. And it would please her other captains to think they might be able to share some of his luck.
“Do you have a proposal for me, or are you waiting for an offer from me?” she asked.
Now he looked even more awkward. “Perhaps…” he said, then trailed off.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I think I should make the proposal,” he said.
“Then go ahead,” she stated, spreading her hands wide.
He cleared his throat and said once more, “I have a ship.”
She nodded her head once and then suddenly understood what he meant.
“What have you heard?” she asked him.
“Your offer,” he said, looking down at his feet.
She closed her eyes. “Tell me what you have heard,” she said softly.
“That – um – that a man might win your hand if he puts up a ship of cargo as bounty and can – um – spend a night with you and – um…”
She held up her hand and then opened her eyes. “You don’t need to go on,” she said. “And who has said this of me?”
“The Othmen envoy. He has said you are keen to be wed again, and miss the company of a husband. He is telling all the sea captains around the city.”
Isabella wanted to put her head into her hands, but kept her head straight, looking coldly at the aged captain.
“My hand and my fortune for a night of pleasure, yes?”
He fiddled with the gold chain again. “Yes.” He looked up with a hopeful smile.
“And your ship will be forfeit if not?”
“Yes,” he said, with a tone in his voice that suggested he knew that would never happen. She reached out one hand and scrunched the letter she had been writing up into a small ball as hard as the sudden chill stone in her heart. She smiled to the captain and said to her handmaiden, “Captain Selvo will be staying the night. Please bring us some wine.”
XXVIII
ELSEWHERE IN THE FLOATING CITY
The Shadow Master had insisted they sit at the back of the tavern, in the darkened corners, which Vincenzo said made no sense. How would they see Otello leaving his house if they could not see its door?
“But neither can its door see us,” the Shadow Master said enigmatically and asked his companion to sit beside him and order them two cups of cheap wine.
“Wouldn’t you prefer a more enjoyable wine?” Vincenzo asked.
“This is better,” he said. “We won’t be tempted to drink it and no one will think anything of it when we leave the two cups untouched.
“Why should we leave them untouched?” asked Vincenzo.
“Just a sip then,” said the Shadow Master as a waitress came by and Vincenzo ordered the wine. She brought it back in two battered metal cups. Vincenzo looked to the Shadow Master, but he made no effort to pay the girl, and so he reached into his pouch and grudgingly gave her two copper coins.
“Cheers,” said the Shadow Master and lifted his cup to his lips. He took a sip and pulled a face. “Splendid,” he said. “It tastes like goat’s piss.”
Vincenzo took a sip of his own cup and didn’t seem as bothered by it. “So that implies you know
what goat’s piss tastes like,” he told his new companion. The Shadow Master rewarded him with a rare smile. “Yes. I do. It tastes just like this.” He set his cup on the table and looked at Vincenzo carefully. “Tell me about yourself,” he said.
“What is there to tell?” Vincenzo said.
“Everybody has a story worth telling,” said the Shadow Master. “And often an untold story that nobody has ever heard. What’s yours?”
“I still contend that there’s not much to tell,” Vincenzo protested.
“Where were you born?” the Shadow Master asked him.
“Padua,” he said. “On the mainland.”
The Shadow Master nodded. “Tell me about it.”
“I can’t remember it. I was orphaned when I was young. Plague.”
“Let me guess,” said the Shadow Master. “Orphanage. Religious education. Turned out at twelve when you elected not to take vows. Itinerant scribe. Got an apprenticeship somewhere and finally citizenship on the floating island.”
Vincenzo paused for a moment. Remembering this, but also remembering the vision of having been brought to the city by a hooded stranger as a very young boy. He closed his eyes briefly until the memory of the vision had passed. “Mostly,” he said. “But I did take the vows. Or attempted it. I found it wasn’t for me though.”
“A lack of belief or not convinced of the dogma?” the Shadow Master asked.
Vincenzo looked pained, as if his companion were opening wounds he’d rather not have exposed. “More a feeling, or a belief, that there was something bigger in the world.”
“Bigger than religion?” the Shadow Master asked.
“Yes,” said Vincenzo eventually. Then, “But you make me sound like a heretic. It’s not that I reject religion, it’s just that I have this undeniable feeling that there is a lot more to the world around us.”
The Shadow Master raised his cup again. “I’ll drink to that,” he said. “Even this goat’s piss.” He took a small sip and grimaced again.
“And what about your story?” Vincenzo asked, feeling a little bolder, having shared his story and consumed half the cup of wine.
“Another time,” said the Shadow Master. “It’s time to go. And quietly.”
Vincenzo turned his head to look to where the Shadow Master was watching. Six men had just stepped into the tavern. All Otello’s men. And they were clearly looking for somebody.
“Come,” he said, taking Vincenzo by the arm. “We will slip away into the darkness like belief itself slips away.”
But Vincenzo was clumsy getting up from the table and knocked over his chair. Then he stopped to pick it up. One of the guardsmen looked up at the movement and spotted him. “Uh-oh,” said Vincenzo.
“Quickly,” said the Shadow Master and half led, half pushed him out the back door of the tavern, past rows of hanging fowls and the putrid over-filled privy. The path led to a canal’s edge though, and without a boat there was nowhere to go.
“Uh-oh,” said Vincenzo again.
The Shadow Master looked left and right and then grabbed Vincenzo tightly around the neck and spun him into the lower corner of the stone wall beside them, crouching low and drawing his cloak around them. Vincenzo tried to protest that the guardsmen would see them, but the Shadow Master now had his palm tightly over the scribe’s mouth and hissed into his ear, “Not a sound and not a movement or you will likely be run through with a sword. Close your eyes and think you are stone. Believe you are stone!”
Vincenzo tried to protest again, but the Shadow Master hissed again, “Your life depends on it.”
Vincenzo did as he was bidden and closed his eyes tight and tried to imagine that he was stone. The cloak was incredibly dark, and he could almost imagine they were safe in the darkness except for the sound of approaching feet.
Two guardsmen stepped out onto the worn stone pavers right beside them and one said, “You sure you saw someone?”
“I’m certain,” he said. “Two men, just as they were described to us. They fled out the back this way.”
“Hmmm,” said the other. “They must have had a boat waiting here and made a very quick getaway.”
The other stepped right to the edge of the canal. “No boat is that quick.”
“Then where are they?”
“Well perhaps… No. I don’t know.”
“Well I know one thing. The Moor won’t be happy that you let them escape.”
“You know,” said the other guard. “Perhaps I was mistaken after all.”
“So you didn’t see anyone?”
“Well perhaps I only saw them because I wanted to see them.”
The other fellow sniffed in a big noisy gob and spat into the canal’s water. “Well I didn’t see them. And I only believe in what I can see.”
“I’ll join you in a minute,” said the first guardsman and Vincenzo heard him shuffling his feet and then start pissing into the canal.
Then the Shadow Master slowly unwound his cloak and just briefly Vincenzo could have sworn that its material was made of small ceramic bricks like the wall beside them, but then it was suddenly a black cloak again. He blinked his eyes and reached out one hand to touch it, but the Shadow Master stepped away and soundlessly struck the guardsman from behind. He barely seemed to touch him and the man slumped to the ground. The Shadow Master reached into his own garments and pulled out one of the white masks of the men who had attacked them earlier. He laid it on the ground beside the unconscious man and trod on it so that it split.
“What are you doing?” Vincenzo asked.
“Creating a belief,” the Shadow Master said. “Come. We still have much to do.”
“And much explaining I am still owed,” Vincenzo said.
XXIX
THE STORY OF GIULIETTA
Romeo may have passed for a smuggler, dressed in black, with a black cloak and black hood, if not for the expensive black ornate mask he wore. He stood at the prow of a small black-painted gondola – the type that were commonly used by smugglers – and guided it stealthily along the dark sides of the canal. His own secret cargo was his lust and desire for Giulietta Cappalletti, which would only be apparent if any customs man or guardsman chose to search inside his trousers.
He was pleased to find the canals near deserted of other craft, and mocked the masses for their ignorance and superstitions. As far as he was concerned, monsters in the canals were about as likely as the stories that he had heard about the Mongol princess who could piss diamonds or the elixir of youth that could reverse a man’s ageing.
He would have added the story of the talking Moorish cat – but you could never tell with cats.
He made his way, not a little awkwardly and with more splashing than he’d prefer, along the canal, and now that he could see the Cappalletti palazzo he slowed down and brought the gondola closer to the canal’s edge. He was starting to find a grudging admiration for the smugglers he often dealt with, and the way they made their small boats move so silently and rapidly.
He approached the palazzo close in the shadows where the moonlight did not fall and brought his boat to a stop under one of the balconies. Now, he thought, as young men with wealth have always thought, good fortune would reward him for being – well – just for being himself. He sat down and waited a full five minutes before becoming impatient and wondering if he should risk climbing up and looking through one of the windows to find Giulietta’s chamber.
And then, as improbable as it might seem to anybody not young and wealthy, a balcony door opened above him and he heard a person step out onto the balcony and look up at the moon. He grasped the slippery stone walls and pushed the gondola back a little way, bumping on the stones.
The person above leaned over the balcony to see what the sound was and he was surprised to see it was Giulietta’s mother, her face illuminated by the light behind her. She peered into the blackness, but obviously saw nothing as she soon disappeared. Then he heard her call to her daughter, “Giulietta, come and see the moon.
”
“Why should I care for the moon?” he heard her reply from inside the building.
“It is beautiful,” her mother said.
“More beautiful than me?”
“Of course not. It is different.”
“I’m busy,” Giulietta protested. “I’ve seen the moon before and I’ve no doubt I’ll see it again.”
“Then just come and talk to me,” her mother said.
“What is there to talk about?”
“So much.”
“We can talk tomorrow.”
He heard her mother sigh wearily and then step in from the balcony. Giulietta and her mother continued talking, but now that their voices were not raised he could not make out the words so clearly. He pondered a moment and decided to risk it and, tying the gondola to a vine on the stonework, he lifted another rope out of the vessel and threw it up onto the balcony’s edge. The anchor struck the ironwork there with a clang, but nobody seemed to notice. He waited a moment longer and then drew himself up the rope.
It was harder work than he imagined, getting over the balcony’s edge, and he scraped the skin on his leg and swore softly, hoping it was not bleeding. He found the glass-paned balcony doors had been closed and inside the room beyond them he could see Giulietta and her mother. It was a sitting room or some such and his love had her arms crossed and was stomping her foot, clearly in disagreement with her mother over something. It made him smile to watch her.
Now was the moment he knew that her mother would leave the chamber and then he could knock on the glass to attract Giulietta. But, surprisingly, Signora Cappalletti did not. She remained seated while Giulietta stormed out of the room.
Romeo stood there, locked out on the balcony, waiting for Giulietta to come back. But, inexplicably, she did not. Finally her mother rose and blew out the candles and left, closing the door to the room.
Romeo was perplexed. This wasn’t how it should have happened. He was just readying himself to descend back down the rope, without grazing his other leg on the ironwork of the balcony, when he heard the door on the next balcony along opening. He knelt down quickly, peeping between the metal bars of the railings to see who it was. This was it, he knew. It would be Giulietta. That would be her chamber and now she was coming out for some fresh air.
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