“That will be done surely enough,” she told him.
“And Otello?” the captain asked. “What of him?”
“The Moor,” she said, unable to say his name, “was arrested after the ensign accused him of murdering Disdemona, and claiming it was an accident. He was tortured to gain a confession, but he would not utter a single word.”
“He is a very brave man,” the captain said.
“Perhaps,” Signora Montecchi said. “But he withstood all the tortures that could be applied to him, although they broke his bones and defaced his body. He will never be a soldier again.”
“I am sad to hear it,” said the captain. “He was a most gallant general.”
“He killed my daughter,” Signora Montecchi said softly.
“But did you not say the ensign poisoned his mind?”
“It is not enough for me to forgive him.”
“Then I should not talk of him any more in your company,” the captain said.
She smiled. “It is you who are the gallant one, I think.”
He tried to protest, but she shushed him. “There are other things you should know,” she said.
“Yes?” he asked.
“They say the torture cleared the Moor’s mind for he wept for the loss of Disdemona and raged and screamed her name. But only when alone in his cell. When confronted by the torturers he remained silent. As if he wanted them to kill him in trying to wring a confession from him.”
The captain looked grieved to hear this.
“It was only at their exasperation with getting his confession that they brought the ensign in for questioning and his stories started conflicting. He accused you of being in cahoots with the Moor in murdering Disdemona in the same breath he accused the Moor of murdering her because she was your lover. Then they decided to put him to torture to exact the truth.”
The captain nodded his head. “Yes?”
“They say he cried like a child as the first hot irons were applied to his skin and he told them everything. And while he said it was a falsehood that you had been familiar with my daughter, he said that it was true that you loved her. Is that so?”
The captain tried to hide his eyes, looking all around the room, but eventually had to return them to her. “I do not know how best to answer you,” he said.
“It is all right,” she said. “There are many, many futures that only play out in our heads. No harm was done by it. My daughter chose her own path in life. The one I would have chosen for her would not have pleased her at all. I knew how it would end when she first declared she was going to wed the Moor. I would have stopped it if I could, but it was always going to end this way, no matter what I did.”
The captain lay there and watched the elderly lady dab at her eyes with a small kerchief.
“Why do you tell me this?” he asked softly.
“I just sometimes like to think we might have taken a different path, and she had chosen to marry a man like you, rather than the Moor,” she said. Then she stood up, pressed a hand to his shoulder and left the room as quietly as she had come.
LXXXIII
THE STORY OF ISABELLA
“Clear the room of these,” the doctor said, indicating the many objects Ansaldo had brought back from his foreign travels that decorated his bedchamber. “They may have foreign contaminants on them.”
“Nonsense,” said Isabella. “If that were true he would have long ago succumbed to them.” When she had heard how sick Ansaldo had become, she sent for the family doctor at once. He was a stout middle-aged man, who had seen the best of fifty years, but still liked to dress as if he had only seen thirty of them. He grunted and turned to examine Ansaldo. “How long has he been like this?” he asked Giannetto, as if Ansaldo might be too incapable of answering for himself.
“Since the night he was kept in the cells before his court case,” Giannetto said.
“Ah yes,” said the doctor, “a wondrous legal battle that was. I have heard all about it. Is the young man still in the city? I would like to engage his services on a legal matter I need some advice on.”
“Perhaps I could find him,” said Isabella, but Giannetto cut in quickly, “He has moved on, I am sorry to say.” He pressed his hand upon Isabella’s buttocks and pinched her. She opened her eyes wide, but said nothing.
“A pity,” said the doctor. “I heard he was quite brilliant.”
“Yes,” said Isabella. “Quite brilliant!”
“But our patient?” said Giannetto.
“Of course,” said the doctor, turning his attention back to Ansaldo. “Now let me see.” He laid his hand on Ansaldo’s forehead and then pulled his eyes open wide to look at them in more detail. “Hmmm,” he said, as if reading an interesting text. “It could just be the effects of his ordeal,” said the doctor.
“He has pains under his arms,” said Giannetto.
Ansaldo lifted up his left arm. “Under here,” he said.
“Hmmm,” said the doctor again. “Open his nightshirt.”
Giannetto leant forward and fiddled with the strings at the neck and then opened it wide. The doctor put his hand in and prodded around.
“Lift it off him,” he said. “I cannot see well enough.”
Giannetto worked at the garment, Ansaldo trying to help, until Isabella came over and deftly took hold of it and drew it over his head. Ansaldo’s arms were still up, as the nightshirt was not quite free of his hands, when the doctor exclaimed in surprise and jumped back from the bed. “Everybody get back from him,” he said.
“What is it?” Giannetto asked.
“Plague,” said the doctor.
“Nonsense,” said Isabella. And she leaned in closer to look at the dark ugly welts under Ansaldo’s arms. “Oh dear.”
“What is it?” asked Giannetto again.
“It is the plague,” she said.
Everyone in the room now took a few steps away from the bed while the doctor fussed around in his bag for his long-beaked mask.
“What will we do?” asked Giannetto. “Have we all become infected too?”
“It is too early to know,” said the doctor, fitting his mask. “But I think not. This is an early sign only. I have been told it is only infectious when these welts fill with pus and burst.”
“Then why do you need your mask?” Isabella asked him.
“Just a precaution,” he said.
“Is there anything you can do?” Ansaldo asked.
“There is one treatment for early-stage plague that I have read of,” said the doctor.
“Then do it,” said Ansaldo, sitting up in the bed a little. “Act while you can.”
The doctor looked at him squarely and said, “It is drastic.”
“I will pay whatever is needed,” said Giannetto. “I will fetch whatever herbs are needed. I am at your service to do whatever is required to cure him.”
The doctor said nothing for a long time and turned his stare between Ansaldo and Giannetto. Then he exhaled slowly.
“Yes?” asked Ansaldo.
“You must cut the infected flesh from him,” said the doctor flatly.
Ansaldo’s head fell back onto his pillow and Giannetto pulled Isabella to him and put his head into her shoulder. And wept.
LXXXIV
ELSEWHERE IN THE FLOATING CITY
Vincenzo paused over the blank parchment in front of him and blinked his eyes, as if he had just written a story there and now found it fading away before his eyes. He had been trying to save his city, trying to avoid writing the images that kept playing through his mind. Trying not to write that he had been standing on the streets of his beloved city, his sword red with blood and the city sinking around him. Not wishing to say he could feel it rocking and moving as it slipped slowly beneath the waters.
He was trying not to write that he was then in the water. It was thick and warm and he was struggling to rise above it. Clawing back to the surface to emerge and look around at the vast empty lagoon. As if the city had never been t
here. Even the tallest towers had sunk beneath the waters.
He had no desire to write that he turned to the closest shore and began swimming, the waters holding him back like they were thick with seaweed. He reached the beach ahead of him slowly, and drew himself up onto it. The wide stretch of sand was as blank as a white sheet of parchment. He began walking and looked down to see his footprints like dark words there, being written across a page.
He stopped and looked ahead of him. The Shadow Master stood there. Waiting for him. And just for the briefest of moments he was struck with a spark of clarity. Knew what the marks of his footprints would say as he strode across to him. Knew what it all meant. Knew everything. Knew who had to die and why, and knew who he could save and who he could not. Knew what things would cease to exist and what would remain. And knew his own role in it all.
And he just had to write it all to make it turn out right. Place a single word on the page and then another one. And another.
He had written five pages, knitting all the pieces together and saving his city from ruin, when the voice disturbed him. “Come,” he said. “We must hurry. It is time for the final act.”
LXXXV
ELSEWHERE IN THE FLOATING CITY
The boats drew into the canal’s edge silently, bringing a hundred forms of death.
On a map, the Floating City looked much like a large heart, and because of the canals there were so many passages where one could penetrate that heart with deadly intent. The men in the boats were Janissaries – elite Othmen warriors who were trained from young children to withstand pain, endure privation and kill ruthlessly. One hundred of them inside the Floating City would be like a whole army.
The Othmen envoy stood at the canal’s edge where the boats pulled up and the Janissaries awaited her commands. Behind her stood six men wearing the white grinning masks of the mysterious assassins.
“So, the end has come,” the Othmen envoy said to the figure next to her.
“I’d rather we think of it as a new beginning,” the figure said.
“About that,” the Othmen envoy said, without even turning to look at him. “I may have misled you somewhat in your expectations.”
“You promised I would become the new Duca,” the figure hissed.
“And you shall,” she said. “I think we can consider the old Duca as good as dead already. Ten of these men will seek him out and kill him. They have the maps of his palazzo that you provided and will cut their way through his guards to take him in his sleep.”
“Then we can consider me the new Duca already as well,” he said.
“If you wish,” she said. “And in that case, our promise is fulfilled.” Then, at a hand signal, the Janissaries climbed from their boats and assembled in ranks in front of the Othmen envoy. She smiled at the look of them. Their dark muscled bodies glistened with oil. Their faces showed no expressions. They stood completely still, awaiting her command.
“It will be a glorious alliance,” the figure said. “The merchant might of the Floating City and the military might of the Othmen. We will conquer the known world together.”
“Ah,” she said. “That is where I think I might have misled you.”
“What do you mean?” the figure asked.
“It is not our intention to form an alliance with the Floating City. It is our intention to sink it.” As she said this her hand flashed out with a short curved blade that drove deep into the figure’s chest, cracking ribs and puncturing his heart. She pulled the blade back, and he sank to his knees. He gurgled something incomprehensible and fell to the stones, his mask coming loose.
“No,” he said, his words bleeding out in gasps. “No. This is not how I have dreamed it.” She looked down at his face, watching the disbelief mix with the fading dreams of grandeur as he sank into the arms of death. The madness finally going out of him.
“It was a drug-addled dream,” she said. “A dream that dooms you to be the shortest-reigning Duca of the Floating City.” She wiped the bloodied knife on her tunic. “You should have stayed a friar, and not dreamed of a world where you could govern the destinies and beliefs of all men.”
She kicked Friar Lorenzo da San Francesco’s corpse and turned to the other men behind him, who included the friar’s acolytes, Signors de Abbacio and Hermino, hiding behind their absurdly grinning masks. He had come to them in secret, and had dangled promises of power to turn them, making them addicted to its madness in turn. And now all their desperate dreams were bleeding away across the cold stone at their feet.
They started taking steps away from her. Away from the friar. Away from the blood. Until she called, “Stop. Nobody move.” They stopped.
She looked at them carefully and then said, “Show yourself!”
None of them moved. “Is this how you killed my brother?” she asked. “Sneaking up behind him in disguise like a coward.” Still, none of the figures moved.
“I know you are there,” she said. “There were five of you behind your master a moment ago, and now there are six.” Still nobody moved. “Archers!” she called and the front row of Janissaries raised small strong bows, each with an arrow ready and pointed at the six masked men. “Kill them all!” she said and almost as fast as thought the men fell under a torrent of arrows. Except for one. He had pulled a short sword from beneath his cloak as the archers fired and had cut the two arrows out of the air that were intended for him.
“There you are,” she said, unsheathing two swords slowly, letting the sound of metal withdrawing from sheath whisper menacingly into the night around her.
The figure reached up and pulled off his mask. “Your brother?” he said. “I never saw the family resemblance. But I guess that makes me the Djinn-slayer now.”
Her features moved from beautiful to hideous in anger, and she pointed one of her swords at him. “Is this a sword I see before me?” he asked.
“I will gut you and make you eat your intestines.”
“Only if you say please,” he said.
“Mine will be the last face you see before you die,” she spat at him. “You know I am faster than you.”
“Ah,” he said. “I may have misled you somewhat in that.”
She spat at him and then her body started growing, her arms stretching and long talons emerging from her fingers and her legs turning to a long smoky tail.
“Uh-oh,” said the Shadow Master. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
LXXXVI
THE STORY OF GIULIETTA
Romeo felt Giulietta stirring beneath him as the life flowed out of him. He felt lights and fire dancing about them. Felt the earth beneath his feet moving like it was alive. Felt the air around him grow warmer. He saw his tears were winding their way through Giulietta’s body, intermingled with his blood, chasing out the too-large dose of poison that she had taken. Felt his body slip to the floor as if now lifeless. And still he saw.
He saw Giulietta’s eyes open and stare about her, amazed at the dancing lights, like a host of fireflies but larger and each that touched her filled her with warmth. She shook her head a little as if it was clouded by a dream and then put her hand to her lips, as if she had felt something there and wanted to know what it was. She took her hand away and looked at it. There was blood on it. And yet she felt no pain.
She looked about as if she was waking up in heaven and only slowly did she realize where she was – in the tomb. She should be waking up to her betrothed’s embrace. But where was he? The friar had promised he would be here. She sat up and looked about. Saw her sister’s dead body on the far side of the crypt and put her hand to her mouth again. How could that be? She climbed out of the coffin to go to her, but then saw Romeo collapsed on the floor beneath her coffin.
She put her hands to her head and tried to scream. Wanted to shut her eyes and block out this dream that had become a nightmare. Wanted to go back to sleep and awaken in her own bed with her mother comforting her. She opened her eyes and nothing had changed. The lights still danced about her
head and she knelt down beside her beloved. Taking his head in her hands. She tilted it up and saw the eyes were vacant.
But he could see her. He tried to talk to her. Tried to lift his arms and put them around her. Tried to stand. Tried to say her name.
“Romeo,” she gasped. “Romeo.” Then she saw the dagger still thrust into his chest. Saw it and knew everything that had happened. She wept with a fierce resolve and said, “I am coming to join you.” She pulled the dagger out, spilling blood across her white dress and then placed the point over her heart.
She leant down to kiss him and felt his hand encircle the dagger’s handle alongside hers. Giving her the strength she needed to push it firmly. It pierced her body and drove deep into her heart. She gasped and fell onto her beloved, wrapping her arms around him as she lay dying. And she too saw the brightness drifting out of their bodies. Saw it entwining and circling about the chamber, saw it fill the whole tomb with the brightest and purest of white lights. Felt it spread out into the night and seep into the ground at her feet. Felt it shoot up high into the night like a comet. Felt it spread out over the island and flow into the canal, filling the water with a glow like phosphorescence. Saw how powerful their love was.
Together they saw the Djinn in the canals thrash about in their death throes, like eels being boiled alive in water. Saw the plague people look at their hands in amazement as a light spread across their bodies, reducing their welts. Felt the earth deep beneath the Floating City rise up from the bed of the lagoon to form solid columns under each of the islands of the city, holding them there in place. Saw the last of the female Seers spit blood as if a sword had been thrust through her guts, and topple forward dead, followed by her husband. And finally she saw Disdemona sit up in her coffin, gasping for breath like she had just emerged from the ocean’s depths, out-swimming death.
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